Hacking Real Estate Success with Happiness
Success in Real Estate Through Happiness Training
In real estate, we are all chasing after the next deal, lead, or agent to hire. It's human nature to have the mindset that having more success in real estate will lead to more happiness. However, what if this is a broken equation and happiness will actually lead to more success?
Shawn Achor demonstrated this with his research at Harvard. As a real estate agent, regardless of where your production is, we need to be finding joy in our careers. Not only will this lead to a more enjoyable life, but studies suggest that we can increase our sales by 37% by changing the way we look at the world.
In this real estate agent training podcast, you will learn how you can hack success with happiness.
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School 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. I'm your host Michael Montgomery. Today we're talking about how you can use happiness to increase your sales in real estate. Now a lot of times when we're thinking about what it is that we want out of real estate why do we want the next sale. Why do we want to increase our commission? If we really start to distill it all down it very likely comes down to happiness. We want happiness. We want freedom. We do not want to have to worry about our next commission check these sorts of things. Now, what this creates though of course is this stress that everyone feels in real estate. Now there's no getting away from it whether you're in real estate or whether you're in a corporate job or anything. There's going to be a level of stress and that's not necessarily the worst thing. But how can we go about improving the way that we look at the world and especially as a real estate agent how can we look at challenging circumstances in order to increase our sales through happiness?
[00:01:11] Now I've read and researched and looked at a whole bunch of stuff when it comes to happiness and a lot of it always just seemed like fluff to me. I didn't really think too much of it because of course, we want to be happy. But of course, we also want to be successful. It wasn't necessarily that this hit me until I realized that the goal post is always changing. When I first got into real estate I just wanted to do one deal a month and then after a while, you want to do two deals and then three deals for deals five deals. And that goalpost continues to change your lens continues to change as to what you think success will be and then success will then lead to happiness. Now it's common to have the mindset work hard equals more success equals more happiness.
[00:01:54] So we just think that if we're distilling it down to working hard we will eventually have more happiness. Now, this is a broken equation and a lot of this comes from Shawn Achor. If you haven't seen his TED Talk It is absolutely amazing. And it's about reversing this equation and how happiness will lead to success and not success leading to happiness. We can really really understand this. I think as a concept but in our own lives do we truly live our lives like this. Do we truly live our lives that if we were in more of a happy state we would be more successful? I think most of us probably just revert back to wanting to become more successful in order to be more happy if we can learn to enjoy our jobs as real estate agents and we can learn to enjoy the stressful circumstances that we all have to deal and do matter whether you're brand new in your stressful circumstances getting a few deals done or whether you're extremely experienced in the stressful part is hiring the right team agents or something along those lines.
[00:02:54] If we can find joy in these circumstances then not only will we just be enjoying our life on a day to day basis but we will also see more success. So Shawn Achor research says that you'll be 37 percent better at sales if you're in a happy state. Not to mention more productive and just enjoy your day to day life. But as a real estate agent let's look at how we can do this and I'm not perfect at this.
[00:03:20] One of my biggest issues that I tend to have is you want to get the listing and then when I get the listing I don't like the listing because it's a pain in the butt to try and sell it. But I think hey when I get that listing it's going to be great. It's a really awesome listing. I'm really looking forward to getting it and then I get the listing and then it becomes a challenge for me to try and sell it. It becomes a burden. And this isn't the right mindset and no matter where you're at. Like we said earlier in your career there's going to be challenged and there's going to be joys. And how can we look at those challenges and reframe them and how can we experience more of the joys.
[00:03:52] Let's talk about that in relation to real estate. First off we need to reframe stress so when we think of stress we think of a challenging painful circumstance. Instead, let's start thinking of stress as just a challenge that we have to overcome. So if we're stressed out about getting the next deal done about calling our database and not having anybody else to call. This is a challenge that we need to overcome. This isn't stress that's going to be the end of the world and we have to catastrophes it. It's simply just a challenge that we have to overcome.
[00:04:24] We also have to really focus on scanning our world as real estate agents for the positive for the enjoyment that we can have in this career. And don't fall into the trap that when you hit a certain number of deals everything will go away. I know a ton of real estate agents that are very high producers and I've been here too where you're doing a lot of business your GCI number is amazing. But at the end of the day are you truly happy are you enjoying your life. And I know a lot of agents that are at very high levels that do not enjoy their life. And at the end of the day when we're finished our real estate career and we're retired. Do we when I look back on a painful career that we just had to squeak by even though we did make the income that we want it came at the expense of our health and our happiness? So we need to be coming back to the fact that the next sale and the next year of increased income won't actually lead to a better life for us. Our goal post will change so if we're not enjoying life where we're at right now whether that means that you're just trying to get your first deal or whether you're working on your hundredth deal this year. If we're not enjoying that process at this period in time when we get to the next level whether that be more deals whether that be another team agent or whatever that looks like you will not enjoy that anymore either because it comes back to our baseline.
[00:05:41] We all have a baseline happiness level and regardless of some if something really great happens or if something really negative happens we will come back to our baseline. So as real estate agents we just want to start increasing our baseline. So let's look for more positives within our career and let's look at a few of those things right now. So number one is you do get to create your own schedule. You have autonomy. Now this is something that a lot of people with a corporate job do not get. They do not get the autonomy to actually set the schedule and do the things when they want to do them. Now that doesn't mean that you can kick your feet up of course but that does mean that you have the power to kick your feet up. If you wanted to.
[00:06:23] Next as you get to do a lot of cool stuff in real estate you get to connect with people you get to go through homes you get to learn marketing contract law all sorts of things. No, not that every single one of these things is going to be super enjoyable for you but it probably beats sitting at a desk all day.
[00:06:39] The next awesome perk is that you can build your business by getting to know people in the way that you like to do it. So if you like working out you can meet people at the gym if you like going out for dinner you can meet people that enjoy food however you enjoy your life you can meet people there that need to buy and sell real estate.
[00:06:58] These are just some small ways that you can start looking at your career in the best light. Now we're always going to be striving for more and that's not necessarily a bad thing but if we're striving for more and we're unhappy with where we're at it's going to be more difficult to get to where we want to go if instead we're happy and we're enjoying the journey that we're on then success will come more freely and Sean acre demonstrated this.
[00:07:24] So finally let's talk about his five steps to train your brain to be more positive and to enjoy life and work. Number one is three acts of gratitude every day writing down three things you're grateful for. Number two is journal one positive experience. So every single day you're writing and in detail something good that happened. This helps train your mind to look for the good. Number three is exercise. We all know this. We have to exercise. We have to stay active in order to feel good. Next number four is to breathe. So stop what you're doing at times when you're feeling that stress just stops. Take a five minute break breathe go for a walk. Number five he says Express kindness through text or email so every single day just send a nice text or a nice email whether it be to a client whether that be to an age that you just did a deal with but that be to somebody in your life that you just want to express some gratitude towards. Those are the five things that he recommends and then always keeping in mind that happiness leads to success and success does not lead to happiness.
[00:08:30] Thank you very much for listening to this episode. Remember you can reach out to me anytime I'm @the.michael.montgomery on Instagram or just head over to revrealestateschool.com. Thanks very much and we'll see you in the next lesson.
[00:08:41] This episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you back here for the next lesson.
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