3 Things You Can Learn from Millionaire Real Estate Agent--Josh Roy

Josh Roy is a dear friend of mine and is also in the top 1% of real estate agents in the United States.  He will probably kill me for posting this because he is one of the most humble people I know.  Over the years I have learned a ton from Josh and thought that you deserve to hear the top lessons I have picked up from such a successful guy.

1. Family First Always-Josh is a busy guy.  You don't sell 195 homes in a single year without being busy.  However unlike many of the real estate agents I know who are willing to sacrifice everything in their lives for the good of their careers he won't.  If you aren't in the real estate profession then you may not know that the work in this industry never stops.  Most agents work 10 to 12 hour days 6 to 7 days a week which doesn't leave much time for family and recreation.  Josh doesn't miss his kids' baseball  or basketball games.  He very rarely works a weekend.  Nothing takes the place of his family on his schedule, nothing.  Yeah yeah Josh can probably sell more homes if he would meet people at 8:00 on a Saturday night but he doesn't care.  His wife and kids come first and that's the bottom line. I admire him for this because while I have seen many real estate agents and career driven people look back on their lives and realize they have missed huge events in their family's lives.  These can't be relived.  Josh won't do that.  When his kids are grown they will say "Yeah my dad was always there." That my friend is priceless.

2. Be Learning and Coaching Based-When I first met Josh he approached me after a class I had just taught in his office.  I was teaching about how to generate new business off the telephone.  He asked me if I would like to practice the techniques I taught over the phone with him.  Honestly I attempted to blow him off because I have people come up to me after every class I teach wanting to practice and when the rubber meets the road they don't follow through thus wasting my time.  Josh persisted he was not going to take no for an answer. Persistence pays.  For the next two to three months we practiced almost every work day.  He took what I taught him and implemented it and had great results.  It proved to me that when you look at truly successful people it is not the chosen few but instead the few who chose.  Remember the saying when the student is ready the teacher will appear?  Josh was ready.  He was learning based and coachable.  Coachable to me means that he is willing to do things with out dissecting and questioning it to death.  He just trusts and does what he is told which is why he gets great results.  I have attended thousands of hours of training with Josh and every time we go to seminars he is bright eyed bushy tailed absorbing as much as he can. In fact travelling to these events with Josh is one of my favorite things to do.  If you want to be successful in any endeavor then be learning based and coachable.

3. Connecting is Everything-Are you a sales person?  Do you know why that is a loaded question?  Everyone is in sales.  Now I know you're probably saying "whoa slow down there tiger I'm an accountant or a teacher. I'm no slimy sales person."  Well that's not entirely true.  If you are an accountant you still have to sell your clients or boss on why they should use/hire you.  If you are a teacher you had to sell the district on hiring you and your classroom on why they should listen to you.  You see sales is communication and communication is connecting. Connecting is important. Write this down "the quality of your life is the quality of your communication." When Josh first meets someone who wants to sell their home he understands that he must connect with them first.  What I mean is he must earn their trust and respect.  Ever heard the saying "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care?"  Well Josh is a master at this.  I have seen him do it countless times with strangers, home sellers, and his team.  He genuinely connects with people so they feel he has their best interests at heart.  Want to know how he is able to do this?  He does genuinely like people and does have their best interests at heart!  People these days have a super sensitive bs detector.  I believe one of the reasons Josh has been able to consistently grow his business 40% year over year in the worst real estate climate many of us have ever seen is because he has the ability to connect.  I encourage you to become a life long learner on the best practices of connecting/communicating.  If you need a role model start with Josh Roy.

Josh will probably kill me for writing this because he is his least favorite subject.  I just felt there are some great lessons to be learned from him that may help someone along their way.  Please feel free to share with anyone you feel can benefit from this message.

Success Rituals!!!

What are success rituals?  These are the things you do regularly to program your mind and body for success.  Over the past 10 years I have listened to and read hundreds of self improvement books and programs.  After investing that much time you start to pick up patterns or as Jim Rohn used to say "Success leaves clues."  One thing I've noticed is that most of the people who I consider to be highly successful have success rituals they go through every day.  This is called success conditioning.  Keep in mind these have to be done consistenlty to be effective.  Obviously going to the gym once won't give you the results you deserve and these rituals follow the same principle.   I encourage you to do one or all of them and track your results.  Remember what you track changes.

1. Your Hour of Power-I picked this up from Tony Robbins and his Get the Edge Program (which I highly recommend for everyone).  For best results you wake up in the morning and immediately put on your shoes and start walking.  Now the first five minutes are what's called breathwalking which really puts your body into a peak state.  During this time you are also saying incantations or affirmations to yourself such as "every day in every way I'm feeling stronger and stronger" as you do this you will start to feel really powerful.  The next step is 3 minutes of gratitude where you start to thank God for everything and everyone in your life.  As Tony says "when you're grateful you're rich!"  Basically you are thinking or saying to yourself all the people, feelings, and things you are most grateful for.  When I first heard this I thought this sounds too hokey for me but after suspending my need to understand and just doing it I found it has profound results on my life.  Next is visualization where you begin to visualize the things you want to happen most in your life.  Whatever your goals may be see and feel yourself as if it has already happened.  The reason for this is your mind does not know what is real and what isn't.  So if you can get yourself to associate that a goal has already happened your mind and body will instantly start to move towards it.  Last part of this is incantations and some sort of exercise.  You should come up with some phrases that really get your blood pumping.  My favorite is a "I am a peak performance mobile millionaire."  Another one that I heard from Joseph Mcclendon III "God's love is flowing through in avalanches of abundance."  Again I know this sounds crazy but it works.  Successful people will do what failures won't---Just try it.

2. Gratefulness Journals-Gratefulness journals have been around forever.  It works several ways but the overall premise is to write down 5 to 10 things you are truly grateful for every morning and every night.  Now I hear all the time "I don't have anything to be grateful for"  Bull.  There are a lot of things you are taking for granted if you have nothing to be grateful for.  How about the fact you didn't have to live three years in a Nazi Concentration Camp like Viktor Frankly illustrates in his book Man's Search for Meaning?  Or that you have running water which almost 1% of the planet doesn't have.  How about you have the eyes to read this post.  If you look you will find something to be grateful for.  If you are really struggling watch this video by Peter Diamandus titled "Abundance is our Future."  You can also pick up his book "Abundance."  We all know people who have every resource they could possibly need for success and yet they are miserable.   The reason is they aren't grateful for what they already have so they get caught up in the never ending cycle of getting more and more without fulfillment.  Being grateful is also a fantastic way to get out of fear and worry.  Did you know that worrying is simply praying for what you don't want?  So instead look around and say thank you for what you have and I'll bet you start getting more of what you want.

3. Journalling-If your life is worth living it is worth recording.  At first I didn't care for journalling because I didn't see the long term results that many had talked about.  Probably because I didn't ever commit to doing it regularly.  Now I understand it is vital.  Not only is this a written progression of your life it also gives you the opportunity to record your great ideas.  If you aren't regularly writing down your strokes of genius you will never remember them let alone act on them.  We are bombarded with so much information these days that having something to record and prioritize your thoughts is very helpful.  There are all kinds of different journals from handwritten tablets to apps on the iPad.  The very best one is the one you will use so figure out which one works best for you and follow through.  Some people like the idea of simply answering a few set questions in their journals such as "What did I learn today?" or "What did I do right today?"  Other simply like to recollect and write down their thoughts from the day.  I recently heard from a great leadership trainer that she hopes to pass all of her journals (30 years worth) to her children and grandchildren when she dies.  Imagine how priceless of a gift that would be to your loved ones. 

4. Affirmations-Affirmations work if you put some feeling behind the words you use.  The goal with affirmations is to bypass your conscious mind and influence your subconscious mind for success.  What this really does is train a portion of your brain called you Recticular Activating System or the RAS.  This component of your brain tells your mind what to focus on and what you focus on expands.  Think about all the stimulae sitting around you right now.  You probably didn't even notice your breathing until I just told you to right?  You see without the RAS our brains would become instantly overloaded and shut down.  It tells our focus what is important and which direction to go.  The best example of the RAS in action is to imagine yourself standing in the concession area of a movie theater.  A movie has just been let out and all the people who are coming out are walking right towards you.  There are hundreds of people and as you scan their faces you instantly spot your mom walking inside the crowd.  How did you do that?  Your brain looked through hundreds of pieces of data and instantly found the one thing you were looking for or are familiar with.  Same thing with success affirmations.  The proper affirmations tell your brain what to focus on thus showing you the path to attaining your desired result.  After awhile you don't even have to think about it.  It is just automatic  Pretty cool huh? 

These are just a sample of some of the success rituals I have found.  One of the best books you can read about how to influence your mind for success was written by Napoleon Hill called "Think and Grow Rich".  It is a classic I have read many times.  I hope you found this post helpful and please feel free to share with anyone you think can use this message.

.333

Do you know what these numbers represent?  They represent a hall of fame baseball player.  Surprised? Confused?  What this means is a hall of fame baseball player, someone who is considered one of the best in the world at their trade, fails 667 times out of a 1000 at bats.  So here is the question, are you failing enough?  Are you failing hard enough?  You see we are taught by failures that we should avoid failing. However when you look at really successful people they will most often tell you they failed far more than they ever succeeded. In fact that embracing failure is the only reason they are where they are today.  The point is no one remembers your failures except you.  The world loves a winner and has no time for a loser.  I read this quote from Michael Jordan and thought this is a perfect example of the message I am attempting to convey.

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career, I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over in my life. And that's why I succeed!" - Michael Jordan

Now depending on who you talk to most people agree that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player who ever lived.  Obviously if you want to become the best in the world at something then you have to learn to fail and fail hard.  You see real failure never occurs until you decide to quit. When you intensely focus on something and persist until you know what works and what doesn’t magical things happen. As Henry Ford says “Failure is simply another opportunity to start again more intelligently.”

Have you ever heard the saying “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.”  That is true but I believe a better way to put it is “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” Dare to suck at something. Think about a baby.  Do babies begin walking perfectly? Most don’t. Instead they fall down, get back up, and continue that pattern until they have it down.  Would you ever tell a baby they only have a finite number of attempts to learn to walk? Treat your life as if you are a baby attempting to walk.  Cut yourself some slack and allow yourself to learn something new that is in line with your purpose and strengths.  Do it over and over until you become a master at it.  In his book The Ultimate Sales Machine Chet Holmes says mastery isn’t about doing 12,000 things 4 times.  Instead it is about doing 4 things 12,000 times.  I urge you do adopt the same philosophy.

Lastly understand the 4 levels of learning.  They are:

Unconscious Incompetence---We don’t know what we don’t know
Conscious Incompetence----We now know what we don’t know
Conscious Competence---Now we know
Unconscious Competence---Now we just do it without even thinking about it

The goal is to get you to unconscious competence.  To do that you are going to fail so fail hard. Really go out there and screw things up.  Fail with a smile on your face and understand that God is less concerned with your comfort as he is with your character. Now along the road of success you will come across a lot of naysayers including people who are close to you.  If your friends and family member aren’t laughing at your goal it isn’t big enough. Ignore them and allow their criticisms to fuel your fire. Also remember, no one ever built a statue in honor of a critic.  It is easy to criticize the people who are following their dreams.  Purposeful driven people make people who are stuck in neutral uncomfortable.  That’s ok. It’s your life. Success is the ultimate revenge and the people who believe it is impossible should not stand in the way those who are already doing it.   So fail, fail really really hard!

Jordan Freed-Author and Creator of You Need Freed Technologies

If you found this useful please feel free to share. 

Next Time: Are you Febreezing your Life?

5 Life Lessons You Can Learn From Angry Birds

Ever played Angry Birds? Dumb question right? Angry Birds is the mostly widely downloaded game across all smart phones and tablets in the world. Throughout the past few years Angry Birds has proved to be a worthy alliance against the boredom caused by doctor appointments, late clients, and long road trips. After awhile a big question emerged from my countless hours in front of Angry Birds. What if we approached life like we do this game? Here are the five life lessons I think everyone can learn from Angry Birds.

1. Get Crystal Clear on What YOU Want. When you start up a good game of Angry Birds what is the objective? To destroy the pigs right? You are crystal clear on your goal. The same must be true with your life. You must get clear on what your purpose is in this world. If destroying the pigs deems you a winner in Angry Birds, how do you know you are winning in life? It is impossible to hit a target or pig you can’t see. The first step is to figure out what you are really passionate about. What gets you going? To discover this you must be more concerned with designing a life than earning a living. It helps to write the answers to questions like these. “I am most excited when….? I feel successful when…. If I knew I could not fail I would be doing….?” Answer these questions and have the discipline to look/modify your answers every day until you find the one that gets your blood pumping. Another strategy that helps some people is to write their own eulogy. What do you want people to remember about your life? Seems a little dreary but it works. Lack of clear direction usually means one thing....inner civil war. Get out of the trap and get clear on what you want.

2. Take Action. What would happen if you opened up the app on your iPhone, clicked the level you wanted to play, and then just stared at the screen? Nothing right? In order for you to destroy the pigs you have to let those birds fly. You may not know the best way to do it but you just start. The reason most people don’t take action is they are waiting for all the lights to be green to start. You don’t do that in Angry Birds. Don’t do that in your life. There is no such thing as a perfect start. Ever heard the story about the pottery class? The professor split the class in two parts. The first half was supposed to create the perfect vase in 10 days. Perfect in shape and construction. The second half was instructed to just whip out as many vases as they possibly could in 10 days. Bad or good just as many as possible. Which one do you think created a better vase? While the first half was paralyzed in trying to be perfect. The second half quickly figured out what worked what didn’t and made the best vase. It isn’t about where you start its about where you finish. Just start! Do something!

3. Try Until. Do you pass every level in Angry Birds on your first attempt? I know I don’t. So do you throw up your hands scream it’s impossible and move onto an easier game? Odds are probably not. You try again, and again and again and again. You keep trying every possibility until you pass that level right? Same thing in life. This formula is exactly how Thomas Edison invented the modern light bulb. He was rumored to have 10,000 attempts before he finally got the result he was after. When asked how he kept on after so many failures he said “I simply ran out of things that wouldn’t work.” Now you may say “it’s not that simple!” It is that simple, it isn’t easy, but it is simple.

4. Pay Attention & Be Flexible. Pay attention to your results. Are you achieving your goal? Are your birds flying confidently through the air and giving those pigs hell? One of the reasons that we love Angry Birds is how itty bitty changes can create massive results. If you notice something is not working then change it. If you keep doing the same things over and over you will probably get the same results. In fact Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result.” In life and Angry Birds you will make adjustments and be flexible in your approach until you reach your desired goal.

5. Possibility. We put a man on the moon for god’s sakes. If you don’t believe anything is possible then you must be hiding under a rock. What I love about Angry Birds and the other products like it are the possibility they represent. It is not business as usual. You can literally develop a product and have it in front of 60 million people across the world in a matter of days. The playing fields have been leveled. We are more connected now than ever and our ideas are worth their weight in gold. There is nothing stopping you from developing your passion and distributing it out to the world. As Napoleon Hill wrote in his famouse book Think and Grow Rich “the only limitations of the mind are the ones we acknowledge.”

My hope in writing this is that you see how simple success in life really is. No matter what endeavor you are attempting to tackle these steps work . They are a sure fire way to get you to your goal. If you would like to read a great book about success please click the banner below. Thank you for reading and check out next week for another simple lesson in life.

Jordan Freed, Author-Creator of You Need Freed Technologies