No urgency

here we are smack dab in the middle of the summer - how's it going?

I've posed that question a lot this past week.  What is the most common response I heard from real estate agents?

“No urgency”, they said.

Do you know who has no urgency?

YOU! Well, most real estate agents.

What I see and hear is no commitment to being in action.

• I’ll wait until after summer...
• I’ll wait until the market picks up...
• I’ll wait until...tomorrow.

Open up your calendar - THERE IS NO TOMORROW! There is only Sunday, Monday, Tuesday...

Time is not on any of our sides!!! It is August, and when you blink again, the pumpkins will be coming out. (That means late October and the holidays.)

I won’t share any names, but again, in talking to agents, I hear hesitation. Uncertainty. A lack of going for it. A lack of belief that they are in control of their destiny.

Go on your MLS. Homes are selling! The market is not dead. There are plenty of agents who are continuing to produce consistently. If you are not one of those agents, I strongly invite you to consider that the problem is you.

Producing agents are in action. Producing agents believe (like, really believe) that the market makes no difference when it comes to their results. What about you?

If you’re complaining - you’re losing.
If you’re checked out - you’re losing.
If you’re indecisive - you’re losing.

What are you losing? The opportunity to have a great 12 months of income, and most importantly, to be operating at your best. As a result, you are losing the opportunity for fulfillment. Satisfaction.

I can’t think of a time in my life where being hesitant has helped me. I can’t think of a time when “not going for it” has helped me. And look, I am a hesitant, risk-averse guy! I am not a super-driven, A-type, pedal-to-the-metal kind of person. But I also know the feeling of what it’s like when I am not getting the results I want. I know leaning in is where it’s at. In my conversations this week, I see a lot of people pulling back.

Whether they are scared (fear), or they don’t believe it’s possible for them - who's to say? In fact, I am not sure that the answer makes any difference.

Prior to real estate, I was the CTO of a medical startup. At the end of 2005, we were out of money and out of options, so our company was rolled into a much bigger, established company.

There were many reasons why that startup didn’t succeed. One reason: lack of capital. We were raising money right after the dot-com crash. There were only so many places at the time where you could raise $20mm - and after we went to 300 of them and only raised a fraction of what we needed, our future was somewhat sealed.

Hence, there I was, in late 2005, figuring out what to do next. What I knew for sure was that whatever I did, I wanted to be in a position where I could bet on myself. I didn’t want to be beholden to “300 options,” and then that was it. And to be honest, while we had an extremely seasoned management team (I was the youngest by over two decades), no one was investing in the company because of the CTO, so my ability to impact the results was somewhat limited.

Real estate is blue sky. Yet very, very few ever live the dream they created when they set out to become a real estate agent.

Even when I began pursuing my speaking and coaching business, I could have gone to work for another coach or company. I remember my coach, Steve, telling me, “Go partner with so and so, and it will be easier.” Nope - I wanted to bet on myself. I wanted to be in full control of my results.

Maybe what is missing for people is betting on themselves. Taking the action, making the commitment, investing the money and time so that they can be the person they know they can be, and have the business they always dreamed about.

No satisfaction without action.

What's the action for you to take right now?