What Did I Not See?

Nugget For The Noggin
By Jim "Gymbeaux" Brown, Apri 20, 2009

Did you ever think of an old movie that you enjoyed and then suddenly see it on television within days or hours of thinking about it? Did you ever see a car you liked only to see dozens of them?

I remember vividly when my boss bought a new Volvo sedan; it was beautiful. The unique aspect about Volvos at the time was that you did not see many of them on the road so he felt special when driving his new car. He would take his turn car pooling every fourth day. It was on his first day of car pooling with his new car that we all began to notice Volvos every where we looked; they were not so unique after all.

The movie was always there as were the Volvos or where they? The Law of Attraction suggests that we attract into our lives that which we think of most. Remember the words from the Sermon on the Mount:

“Ask, and it shall be given you,
seek, and ye shall find;
knock and it shall be opened unto you.
For everyone that asketh receiveth;
and he that seeketh findeth;
and to him that knocketh
it shall be opened!”

Think about what Earl Nightingale said decades ago, “You will become what you think about!” Therefore think about success. However, success unto itself is insufficient. You first must define what success means to you.

Who amongst us does not want a better life, happiness, more money, or a more productive career? It has been my experience that most people, certainly not you, are caught up in finding the “easy way” to success. As a result, we fail to see the opportunities presented to us everyday; what did I not see? Job for job, there is no more lucrative career than a career in sales. Your income is only limited by your imagination or lack thereof. If you don’t believe me I want you to think of an hourly wage that would knock your socks off. For you-know-who, that means you would be absolutely amazed. What would it be? $50 an hour? $100 an hour? $200 an hour? Only you know what would truly knock your socks off.

Work with me on this. Would you say that an annual income of $100,000, (in our area) would be a good income? To most Americans it would be outstanding considering that the average income is in the mid $30,000 range. So if you earned $100,000 and worked a 40 hour week, what would that be as an hourly rate? $48.07 an hour! $48.00 an hour!

Now consider this: You have a real estate license; a “license to sell” and make a lot of money if you work smart at it. You tell me, how many hours do you REALLY work at it? The emphasis is REALLY. I dare say it is not as many as you might first suggest. Some people, like you, REALLY work at it, they engage in dollar-productive activities during the hours they say they are working. Others like you-know-who put their time in PLAYING at work. Those hours do not count! Only dollar-productive hours count. Do you REALLY work 4 hours a day? 5 hours? Or do you REALLY put in 2 or 3 hours if that? Only you know how many hours you REALLY work at dollar-productive activities.

Let’s for argument sake you earned $50,000 in gross commissions this past year. You “say” you REALLY worked on average only 4 hours a day. Your hourly rate is $48.07. How can that be? The poor fellow or gal who is working 8 hours a day (2080 hours a year) and earning $100,000 a year is also working for $48.07 an hour. Now compare that to a real estate agent who makes $250,000 a year in gross commissions. How many hours a day does that agent work; REALLY work? 4 hours; 8 hours; 10 hours; 12 hours? Here is how that works out:

4 hours a day, (1040 hours a year), equals $240.00 per hour
8 hours a day, (2080 hours a year), equals $120.20 per hour
10 hours a day, (2600 hours a year), equals $96.15 per hour
12 hours a day, (3120 hours a year), equals $80.12 per hour

(The lesson within those numbers is you don’t have to put in a lot of hours to make a reasonable living. If you are putting in more than 60 hours a week, it is time to hire help and leverage your time and efforts. You can make more by hiring a team and working fewer hours when you hire the right team members.)

The person who earned $100,000 typically has to rely upon the good graces of his or her employer to increase their earnings. A salesperson only needs to make another sale to increase theirs. The $100,000 worker typically is “employed” by someone; the salesperson is typically self-employed and therefore is not dependent upon someone else for their work.

You are where you are because of the actions and decisions you made earlier in life. Here is the rub: you are in a career that if you apply yourself and I mean truly apply yourself, there is no limit where your future will take you. Life is NOT all about money but it is about what the money you earn can do for you. It has been said that money will only exaggerate those personal qualities that already exist within each of us. If you are tight with your money, you will be even tighter with more money. If you are generous with money, you will be even more generous with the more money.

Most people go through life and do just that – go through live. Here is a spinoff of a question Michael Gerber asks business people to contemplate in his book The E-Myth Revisited. Gerber asks, “What will your business look like when it’s finished?” I would ask, “What will your life look like when it’s finished?” More importantly, “What legacy will you leave for others to emulate and/or admire?”

Think about the following again but this time; think about it in terms of what you want your life to look like when it’s finished:

“Ask, and it shall be given you,
seek, and ye shall find;
knock and it shall be opened unto you.
For everyone that asketh receiveth;
and he that seeketh findeth;
and to him that knocketh
it shall be opened!”

Yes we are experiencing a down turn in the economy. Yet if there is one thing I am certain of, people will still buy and sell real estate; maybe not as many sales but nonetheless sales are being made. When the economy is booming sales literally fall into our laps – anyone can make the sales, even you-know-who. But when the economy shifts, only those people who remain focused on their basic dollar productive activities and who have a clear mental image of what their life will look like when it is finished, will continue to thrive as they always have in any market at any time in our history. Gary Keller author of The Millionaire Real Estate Agent has said that “the only time you can grow your business is during a down market.” What he means is that the smart agents know they have to work smarter to maintain their business levels. The uneducated agents still wait for the business to come to them; trust me, it ain’t coming! Waiting for the ship to come in when the tide is going out doesn’t work very well. The tide is out; what are you doing right now to help those ships trying to reach port do so?

What have you not seen? Everything is there in front of you. Training, education, seminars, Family Reunion, book study groups, books, CDs, DVDs and fellow agents. Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. What is it that you haven’t seen? It’s all there! If there is truly a “SECRET” it is more of a question than a secret:

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

IT'S RIGHT THERE FOR EVERYONE TO SEE!

The true “SECRET” is in your answer; I’ll wait…….