We each have to decide how to spend 24 hours every day. Many agents have a tendency to waste time on relatively mundane activities such as checking email, whiling away their time on social media websites or gabbing with friends during extended lunches. Many mistakenly believe they’re working toward their goals, but are wasting a lot of time on daily minutiae. Not you? Keep a daily activity log for awhile and you’ll see what I mean.
Is your work fun for you? If you’re not enjoying your business, then maybe you’re in the wrong business. You don’t have enough time to do all this stuff? How about hauling your butt out of bed an hour earlier each morning? An hour of extra work time for every day of a five-day work-week results in six extra 40-hour business weeks annually. What do you think you could accomplish with an extra six weeks?
[quote_center]“Waste your money and you’re only out of money, but waste your time and you’ve lost a part of your life.” – Michael LeBoeuf[/quote_center]
Before participating in an unscheduled social event, ask yourself if it will contribute in a constructive way to the attainment of your goal. Your old employee time-killing self might leap at it, but your new entrepreneurial self, the one who’ll make your business plans a reality, might decide otherwise. Which self you listen to will determine your path. Either way, your strength of conviction regarding the achievability of your goals will determine the priority of that activity.
As an agent, you’re no longer trading time for money. In this context, time is money! When you’re scheduled to work, don’t waste it; leverage it. If a social opportunity arises, that’s fine, go for it. But do this too often and you’ll jeopardize your business, unless it’s an opportunity to generate leads.
Financial wealth is normally created and accumulated by anyone whose disposable income permits them to increase their assets well beyond their personal liabilities. Aside from inheritors and lottery winners, entrepreneurs, successful business people, professionals, investors and upper-echelon bankers fit into this group.
Salaried employees rarely accumulate any significant wealth, not only due to limited incomes, but because of limiting beliefs and a dependant – sometimes victim – mentality. They often can’t even imagine being unemployed. If you still hold the irresponsible employee mentality of trading time for money from when you were a drone in the labour force, or you habitually goof off, you’ll never accumulate any significant wealth and will likely remain a debt slave for life.
Where do you fit in? Obviously, to be successful, you must be an entrepreneur. By assuming responsibility for your own success, by choosing calculated risks, by skilfully selling yourself with empathy and by having and respecting your own priorities, you’ll undoubtedly create wealth. And the choice to diligently apply yourself to this endeavour by serving a growing clientele, means future business will be lining up for you. Now that’s leverage.
[quote_center]“Lost time is never found again.” – Benjamin Franklin[/quote_center]
Time is undeniably valuable. Do you consider your time to be more valuable in a monetary sense than that of someone who cleans houses, pools or mows lawns for a living? I’m not saying the people who perform those important tasks are inferior, for they require special skills too. And if they’re happy, that’s great.
Here’s my point, though. If you’re earning, say, an average of $100 per hour, why invest time into labouring on the more mundane aspects of life when you could hire someone else to do it at an hourly rate of $20? Why do your own repairs – and poorly – when you can hire an expert to do it well at $35? Don’t waste your time during your peak earning years trying to be an expert at everything and doing it all yourself. If you really enjoy an activity as a hobby, save it for your personal days or retirement years when you have ample puttering time and are enjoying multiple income streams from numerous capital investments.
If you’re thinking you can’t afford to hire help, then you’re right. It’s certainly smart to live within your financial means. But you should also realistically consider the element of calculated risk. Just don’t get crazy about it. You’ll never be able to afford to hire help with an attitude of scarcity.
Ask yourself what’s the highest and best use of your time; cleaning your own house or prospecting for new clients? Hmm? If you think you’d better wait until you can afford it, you probably won’t. But if you do it now, you’ll have dramatically increased the odds of achieving fantastic wealth and more importantly, becoming the type of person who possesses the ability to not only create, maintain and enjoy it, but also to sustain the business necessary to continue building it.
[quote_center]“Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.” – John Lennon[/quote_center]
Ross Wilson is a retired real estate broker with extensive experience as a brokerage owner, manager, trainer and mentor over a highly successful 44-year career. His book, The Happy Agent – Finding Harmony with a Thriving Realty Career and an Enriched Personal Life is available where print and e-books are sold, including the TREB, MREB, RAHB and OMDREB stores. Visit Realty-Voice.com.
