The Best Book For New Real Estate Agents
When starting in real estate, there is a lot to learn and many books to read. With all the options out there, where do you start when you are selecting your first reads as a new real estate agent? When selecting your first read, understand that most of your success in real estate can all be traced back to one thing, mindset. Mindset will determine if you get back up after a rejection, if you keep working late when you need to learn a new concept, and if you ultimately succeed in real estate.
The best book to read as a new real estate agent is not a book focused on skills in the business, numbers, or social media. The best book for new real estate agents is Mindset by Carol Dweck.
This quick read has an easy to grasp concept and one that we can all relate to. However, easy to understand and put into practice are two different things.
Carol Dwek is a Stanford Professor and social psychologist. In her book, the contrasts between to mindsets: fixed mindset and growth mindset.
Fixed Mindset:
Those with a Fixed Mindset believe that talent is predetermined and not subject to change. Your creativity, intelligence, and future success are fixed.
When thinking with a Fixed Mindset, you want to avoid looking stupid and doing things were you possibly mind fail.
In real estate, perhaps you are avoiding making the calls you need to make, or you don’t want to get started with door knocking because you are concerned you will fail.
Those thinking from a Fixed Mindset will usually document their past achievements and it’s common to say such things as “well [name] is just successful because of _______.” The Fixed Mindset is grounded in black or white thinking, rationalization, and comparison.
Doesn’t sound too fun!
Growth Mindset
Those with a Growth Mindset are different. They believe they can improve through effort. Those with a Growth Mindset do not believe that everyone can grow, improve and change.
When thinking with a Growth Mindset, you welcome failure because it is an opportunity to learn and grow.
In real estate, perhaps you are motivated to start cold calling even though you don’t have your scripts fully memorized. Or you when you don’t get the listing, you think of ways you can improve next time.
Those with a Growth Mindset will look a hurdles as opportunities to learn from. Oftentimes they are happy for others when they achieve because they are abundant thinkers. When they compliment someone else, they are praising their effort to get the result.
This sounds like much more fun!
Mindset in Real Estate
We all want to have Growth Mindsets and most think they do have this mindset. We tend to look at ourselves and think that we do not have any Fixed Mindset thinking in us. Do you want to know what is crazy about this thought? It is a Fixed Mindset thought. We are saying “we are all set” and “I am already to Growth Mindset thinker.”
In reality, most of us are on a spectrum. There are certain situations where we use both mindsets.
Maybe we are always striving to improve with our scripts but we have given up on trying to help buyers because “we are just not good at it.”
Instead of labeling yourself as someone who has one or the other, ask yourself where there is room for improvement. Catch yourself as you move through your day. The more you think about it, the more you will see opportunity to improve.
How To Build a Growth Mindset
Here are some quick tips to help you build a growth mindset as a real estate agent.
1) Praise effort not the result.
2) Use the word “yet.” I’m not a top producer, yet.
3) Take risks and act with courage.
4) Stop looking for approval from others.
5) View challenges as opportunities.
6) Celebrate other successes.
7) Never stop learning and growing
Conclusion:
As a new real estate agent there are a lot of books to choose from, but if you are looking for a book that will form the base of everything moving forward, pick up Mindset by Carol Dweck. In this book, you will learn to be a real estate agent with a Growth Mindset.
You will cultivate a focus on consent and never-ending improvement. You will continue to praise the effort you put in and always look for ways to growth and learn. Know that you may get caught in Fixed Mindset thinking from time to time, but that is normal. When you catch yourself thinking with a Fixed Mindset, just make the shift in your mind and you will be on your way to success!
Sources:
Saga Briggs – InformED, Four Minute Books, Alex Vermeer
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School.The podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:11] Hello and welcome back to Rev Real Estate School. My name is Michael Montgomery. Today we are talking about the best book that you need to read if you are a new real estate agent.
[00:00:22] There are some required reading books out there for real estate agents do a quick google search you will find them: Millionaire Real Estate Agent, Ninja Selling, Selling with Soul. These are all great great reads. You should definitely read them if you are in real estate. There are some other ones that are great non real estate reads that make a big difference to your career: How to Win Friends Influence People, Grit by Angela Duckworth, Fanatical Prospect. These are great great books.
[00:00:51] Today we're going to talk about one that is a non real estate book that every new real estate agent should definitely read without a doubt. This book is Mindset by Carol Dweck. Now Carol Dweck is a Stanford professor that coined the term mindset. And if you've heard of this before what she's differentiating between is a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. These are two different concepts and all of us have a little bit of each. Now if you have heard of these terms before we're going to put it into real estate terms and some things that come up in real estate that could be considered more of a fixed mindset and maybe more of a growth mindset.
[00:01:30] So what are these two things. Growth versus Fixed. If you have a fixed mindset then you think that your abilities are predetermined that they are set. So you as a real estate agent you are set to be either a good or bad or mediocre real estate agent. If you have a growth mindset in real estate then you know that when you see a challenge you can overcome it. You can learn and you can grow. So if you start out real estate and you have a lot to learn you can potentially get up into that top producer world with growth so you'll quickly see the differences here and of course we want to be more on the growth side.
[00:02:09] Fixed is when you see a challenge, you almost want to avoid it in real estate when there are certain things that we know that might be outside of our comfort zones and these sort of things. So whether that be if you're shooting a video if you're meeting a client that you're not super comfortable with if you have to go meet a builder. Sometimes we somewhat shy away and we shy away and that is coming into more of a fixed mindset because we think that our success and our abilities are predetermined. If we're on the growth side then we see this as an opportunity. We see challenges as opportunities to grow to learn to expand ourselves. So as a new real estate agent why this book is so important is because oftentimes we jump into this industry and there's so much to learn there's so much to take in. We have to learn the whole industry we have to start meeting new people. We have to add people into our pipeline. It becomes a little bit overwhelming.
[00:03:03] If we approach it with a fixed mindset then we can be whooped before we even get started because we're not thinking about how we can improve and looking at the world in a way that we can learn and grow from each and every situation. If you have a fixed mindset you'll oftentimes want to document achievements from the past or achievements that you've had in the past and I'm sure we've talked to people about this or we've been the same type of person where we're like Oh well a few years ago I used to sell X number of homes. This is more of a fixed mindset sort of thinking there's nothing necessarily wrong with having that thought.
[00:03:38] It's about what we do with it when we do have it. So we're all going to have a little bit of each both fixed and growth mindsets. But when we see this stuff boiling up when we see ourselves talking about our past achievements and not being as focused on the future and how we can grow and learn. Also if you don't want to do certain things because you think you might look stupid. So that being open houses cold calling door knocking that's a sign of fixed mindset coming up. And then if you want to flip the script there and turn that into more of a growth mindset that instead of worrying about how you would look potentially say quote ask how you can learn from that open house how you can grow from cold calling and how doorknocking is going to make you into a better real estate agent.
[00:04:31] Now in fact this might come back to a concept that you've heard on the show a few times before and it's all about praising the effort. So it's not about being perfect. That is where the fixed mindset comes in. Either you're great at an open house you're great at cold calling your great door knocking and you're going to sell a whole bunch of homes or you're not right. That's fixed growth mindset. You see those as opportunities and you have to praise the effort. The result doesn't matter because in doing the task you grow from that.
[00:05:11] It's not about again the result. It's about praising the effort that you're putting in and growing changing learning from these opportunities. Samuel Beckett he's a poet and he had said that you just want to "fail over and over again". But when failing just fail better and that's the whole concept of a growth mindset is you're thinking you know what. I might not be perfect at this open house because this is my fifth open house or this is my first open house so this is my one hundredth open house but I'm just going to get a little bit better each time. There's this whole concept of being 1 percent better. And this really comes into the growth mindset. You just want to be a little bit better every time. And that is all about learning and becoming a better real estate agent with time.
[00:05:54] Now the thing that I love about using a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset is that it's freeing. It takes so much of the pressure off you as a real estate agent to be thinking in a sense that you are predetermined to have a certain level of success. It's freeing to know that you can grow and that you can make mistakes and that it's not about selling that home. The first time it's about the effort it's about growing and it's about learning that frees you from these chains I find of just having to produce at a certain level. And that's very much visible in our industry.
[00:06:28] Oftentimes people will walk around and are very vocal about what they're doing as far as production. Now a lot of times that might be a little bit inflated and it's not necessarily the truth. However. It's true that in this industry we do tend to speak a lot about these sort of things. So it's so freeing to understand that you do not need to have a certain result. Instead it's about the growth. So if you have not read mindset to go pick it up Carol Dweck's Mindset I will link it up in the show notes as well. And when you catch yourself thinking with that fixed mindset and you will. It will happen. Just catch yourself and think "How can I switch this back over to a growth mindset and learn grow and improve?" Thank you very much for listening to this episode.
[00:07:14] We will catch you on the next lesson this episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in and we will see you back at the next lesson.
Follow Up Reading:
24 Must Read Books for REALTORs
Overcoming Perfectionism in Real Estate
7 Open House Tips for Real Estate Agents
Question: Have you read the book Mindset? Let me know in the comments below!
-Michael Montgomery