Why is Mindset so Important?
Welcome and good morning to Mike Ferry TV the week of August 16th. I had a person send me an email about 10 days ago and they said, why do you spend so much time talking to Real Estate people about the importance of mindset? And I said, well, because it’s an important topic. You know, mindset really controls not only what we say and what we do, but our productivity and our income. You know, if we think we can, we do. If we think we can’t, we don’t. And it’s not a very complicated topic, but it’s a difficult topic. So, you know, as I often do when I’m looking at words that I think have meaning for people like ourselves, you and I in the Real Estate business, I go right to Webster’s Dictionary. You know, I I’m the first to admit that I’m not educated through the school system, the university system. Personally, my education came from self-knowledge, reading, studying, talking to people, you know, experiencing life or as they say, life on the streets. I don’t have a formal education, but my education comes from looking at things like the dictionary. I looked up the word mindset in the dictionary and here’s what it said. A particular way of thinking, a person’s attitude or set of opinions they have about somebody or something. And I give that a lot of thought, OK, because I’m going to ask you a series of questions in a minute regarding mindset.
And if I was sitting with you, all I would be doing was watching your response, your face, your eyes, because we often don’t have to say anything to give away the mindset that we feel. I went back to Mike Ferry’s definition of mindset. What’s going on in your mind, in your head at a particular moment regarding a person, a situation or a thing? I wrote down, what is your mindset regarding the economy? Because the economy in North America has been going like this since about June of 2020 through today. What is your mindset regarding interest rates going up a little bit or down a little bit? Or up a lot or down a lot? I remember back in 1970,1971,1972 two when interest rates were seventeen, eighteen, nineteen twenty, twenty one percent on a 30-year fixed loan. We didn’t think about it because that was the interest rates. You sold houses and you had a 19% FHA or VA transaction that was just part of life. But today interest rates go up a quarter of a point and oh my goodness, we hear all sorts of crazy feedback. What is your mindset towards the market that you work in? Because every market is either trending up, down or flat. And we need to know that if we’re going to be an authority in the market talking to buyers and sellers. What is your mindset towards inventory shortage? And of course, if you’re representing buyers, it probably is hard to remain real positive.
But the inventory shortage for those of you that represent sellers, boy, you list them, they’re sold and that, of course, is an exciting mindset. What is your mindset about multiple offers? Now, if you’re the listing agent and you’re getting three, five, seven, ten type of offers, you’re pretty happy. It’s tough. You have to be very careful. You have to do a good job in presenting those to the seller. But what is your mindset on multiple offers? If you represent the buyer and you call the listing agent, say, I’ve got a wonderful offer, I think is something you yourself will accept and say, well, good, you’re number 16. What is your mindset towards using scripts and dialogs every day when you’re talking to buyers and sellers? I mean, really getting into using scripts. You know, the way other professional people use scripts for everything that they do. What is your mindset towards your Listing Presentation skills? What is your mindset towards using a canned or scripted presentation? I do it each Monday that we talk. I have a script. I’m following the script. What is your mindset towards building a team, managing a team, being the leader of a team? Because everybody has got to have a team, got to have a team until we look at the mindset of building, managing, maintaining and leading a team.
What is your mindset towards the word delegation, which, of course, is what our business is all about? If you look at the Real Estate business, we are the heart of the business here. A listing take on a listing sold. All of these affiliates are designed around assisting us in making that transaction work. That is the delegation part. I wrote everybody has a thought, everybody has an opinion on everything today. But let’s take a look at these words we just mentioned in these phrases. Is your mindset positive? I can accomplish. I can do. I can participate. I can win. I can do a great job for my buyers and sellers or is it negative? And you really have to give that some serious thought. Every day when you start the day, you should be saying, do I want this to be a positive experience for the buyers, the sellers, the prospects I talk to and for myself? Or do I expect another day where everybody rejects what I try to do? Earl Nightingale, as you know, was one of my mentors and he built his career on the word attitude. So again, I looked at Webster’s Dictionary regarding attitude because Earl Nightingale called it the magic word. It’s the word that can quickly change your life, both in a positive and negative manner. So, Webster’s Dictionary says attitude is a feeling or a way of thinking that affects a person’s behavior. Remaining positive can obviously affect your behavior in a very positive manner.
The smile on your face, the questions you ask, the responses you give to people, you know, the attitude that you have as you pick up the phone to call a lead to set an appointment. You know, the results are always positive or negative. So I wrote down a couple of thoughts for your consideration. And they just really have a chance to affect in a positive manner the mindset you have about the last four or five months of 2021. So the first thought I wrote down, we must keep foremost in our mind that it’s never too late. Because it’s never too late to build something, to make something happen, to grow your business, to become more productive than you have been in the past, it’s never too late. So think about starting today and building your mindset towards a more productive day. Think about right now as you watch this short video on this Monday about how you’re going to make this day a better day. It’s never too late to start a production cycle to pick up the phone and call your past clients. It’s never too late to have a conversation with one of the leads about doing something more productive. But then I also wrote down strong agents, and you are one of them and you’re becoming one of them or, you know, some of the ones that are very strong.
Their business is not controlled by the size of the market, is not controlled by the market conditions, is not controlled by the economy or the competition. Their mindset is 100% controlled by what goes on in their head, what they’re going to accomplish, what they’re going to do, the steps they’re going to take, the schedule they’re going to follow, the plans they have the business plan that they have because they said in most cases daily, weekly, monthly plans for what they’re going to accomplish. I wrote their mindset is on their day-to-day activities and achieving the goals they’ve set. Is your mindset on those kinds of activities and what you can accomplish? But then I think one of the hardest parts about mindset, and this is something that I see a lot with top producing agents, they understand fully and maintain the mindset that it is OK to walk away from a transaction. Some transactions are simply not worth the commission check that you would receive. You have to focus on the fact that there’s always another deal out there waiting. We don’t have to let a buyer or seller abuse us, get mad at us, treat us poorly. We don’t have to put up with that kind of stuff because there’s an abundance of buyers and sellers in the market, our job is to find them. As you’ve heard me say in the past, people want to buy, people want to sell,
our job is to get in the way. But probably one of the more important thoughts and mindset that I’ll bring up in today’s message with you, came from Mike Vance, who really talked to me about this particular thought a lot. And it really is a mindset message. So, I’ll read you this thought. Mike Vance said this to me so many times that he burned it into my head. “If you sanction incompetence, you’re going to end up with more incompetence in your business and your personal life by sanctioning incompetence, you’re approving it. And it’s very difficult to maintain a powerful, productive attitude or mindset when your life is surrounded by incompetence”. Not sanctioning incompetence within yourself from the people around you is both a level of personal accountability and confrontation, but it’s what makes people strong. You know, putting up with poor behavior on your own, the behavior or the behavior of others and allowing that to take place is sanctioning incompetence. So, I want you to think about your mindset. I want you to think about what’s going on in your head. I want you to think that here we are now halfway through the month of August, September, October, November, December, we have four strong months left to produce at a high level. I know you can do it, you know, in your heart you want to do it, so let’s do it starting today. Talk to you next Monday.