by Dirk Zeller
Success is an elusive concept to many people. It has as many different definitions as there are people on earth. To truly achieve success you have to create your own vision of exactly what it is you want and desire. Too often you buy into someone else’s success plan. You look at someone who has the outward appearance of success, but the truth is you never know the real facts. You see the money, power, big house, fancy car, etc., without looking at the path he traveled. You do not look at the other areas of that person’s life to really determine his true level of success. The vision of the perceived monetary success clouds our evaluation process. That person’s monetary success may be built on sinking sand rather than bedrock. The sinking sand could be a great lack in any of these areas of his life: mental, physical, spiritual, and family. Matthew 7:26 in the bible clearly states: “But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat up against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” The truth is the wind, rain, and rising rivers in life will come. You cannot prevent their coming. You can only be prepared for their coming. A successful person understands this truth clearly. He works diligently to create a successful life in all areas. You will not be able to avoid life’s tragedies. You will lose a loved one, friend, child, or parent. You will have financial struggles. You will experience health problems of some kind. What matters is not how you avoid these tragedies, it is how you prepare for them and deal with the curve balls of life. Is success achieved by trading your family for money? Is success achieved by trading your health for dollars? True and lasting success is accomplished by creating balance in all areas of life and adding wealth to all these accounts on a daily basis. You must add wealth to each and every area of life daily, not transfer success to some far off goal in the future when you get to a particular place in your life or acquire something. The truth is when you get to that particular place or acquire that item, success will have moved on. Success is living today with all the zeal, gusto, and zest that you can pack into a 24 hour period of life we have today. Success is clearly not a destination but a daily journey we undertake every day. Success is found through focusing on the value of each day we are blessed with and to soaking all that life has to offer today.
If you had a bank account that was credited each morning with $86,000, that carried over no balance from day to day, and in which you were allowed to keep no cash and every evening canceled whatever part of the amount you failed to use during the day, what would you do? Draw out every cent, of course! Well, you do have such an account, its name is “time.” Every morning it credits you with 86,000 seconds. Every night it rules off as lost whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purposes. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdrafts. Each day your account is new. If you fail to use the day’s deposit, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against tomorrow. You must live in the present on today’s deposit.
Using up your whole day will lead you to success in life. Wringing every moment of passion, happiness, sadness, success, failure, and love out of your every day will create a beautiful tapestry of life. Do not waste today for anyone or anything. The truth is that we do not really know if we will be here tomorrow. If you had only six months to live, how would you live today? You or I may only have that long to live and we just do not know it yet.
Let me share with you the seven steps to success.
Step one: You must first decide what you want. We can have anything we desire in life. Earl Nightingale said that if man only knew that he could have anything he wanted, he would set more goals. If you set more goals you would achieve more things in life. If your vision is clear, you are assured that you will get there. Take the time to create the vision and set enough goals. Step two: Your goals must be written. Success begins when you grab the pen and paper and think and work to craft your ideal life. Successful people think on paper before they act. You must take the time to write your success plan on paper and your goals down on paper. Only 3% of our population does so. Guess what those 3% have, live in, drive, wear, and eat? It is not by accident what they achieve. It is by design.
If you cannot write your vision with clarity on paper, you certainly will not be clear mentally to achieve it. By writing your vision clearly, you will pull your mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional powers in alignment to achieve your vision and goals. Your mind, your body, and your subconscious mind will all work like a tug-of-war team pulling on the rope of life. With those three powerful forces pulling in concert, it does not matter how many or how strong the opposing team is on the other end of the rope. It will most assuredly be pulled across the center line for your victory.
Step three: Create a time frame for your goal or vision. Set a target for when you will accomplish it. You have to get your mind in motion to achieve it by a certain time. Without a deadline, you have no goal; you only have a wish. Wishes will only cause frustration. You cannot control or exert force on a wish to create reality. If you do not achieve the goal or vision in the time frame, just set another one to shoot for. There are no unrealistic goals; there are only unrealistic time frames.
Step four: Achieving your vision or goal will take a series of activities. Create a list of the series of activities you must do for you to achieve your vision or your goal. As your motivation increases, the better you can clearly write out this series of activities. You may not want to take the time to create the list; however not doing so can dramatically reduce the speed at which you achieve your vision or goal. Planning a vision or goal completely through to create small bite-sized pieces makes it easier to digest. If you cooked a 20-pound turkey dinner with potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, rolls, and gravy; you could not eat it whole or at one time. You could eat it over time and by breaking it up into bite-sized pieces. Now if you invited a “team of friends” to help you, you could polish off the whole turkey dinner in one sitting by each of you taking bite-sized pieces. Successful people evaluate the situation, solicit help and create a plan to lighten the load on all. Then they have everyone dive in and begin accomplishing things in bite-sized pieces.
Step five: Re-check the series of activities to insure they are in the proper order. Develop a comprehensive step-by-step plan to achieve the vision or the goal. You need to start with the important and move to the least important. Do not delay, begin the most important item today. Do not move on to another item until you complete the most important item first. There is an order to all activities and tasks. Spend the time planning to create it.
Step six: Do not allow procrastination to set in. You can always find an excuse to put anything off until later. Do not fall to that temptation. The key is to start the momentum today. A primary law of physics is that a body in motion will tend to stay in motion. Do not delay getting your body in motion.
Step seven: Keep the body in motion daily. Do not neglect to do something daily that moves you closer to your vision or your goal. Constantly ask yourself, “Is this activity I am doing now moving me closer to or further away from my goal?”
Once you are moving forward, your vision or goal can stay in motion with a smaller amount of effort. The greatest exertion of force comes at the beginning in trying to get the vision or goal moving. Do not stop and start. Keep constant pressure applied to your direction.
If you apply these seven steps to your real estate business, you can accomplish any amount of sales you choose to do. The truth in life is you are the one who does the choosing. The market, competition, and interest rates do not affect your choice or outcome. You are the one who does the choosing, so choose wisely.
©Copyright 1998 by Dirk Zeller. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Dirk Zeller has acquired a tremendous amount of sales and real estate sales knowledge with his many years in real estate sales. He is an accomplished sales and success coach, trainer, and author. Dirk is the President and Head Coach of Real Estate Champions. Real Estate Champions provides one-on-one coaching to some of the top and up and coming producers in the real estate industry.
You can reach Dirk at:
Real Estate Champions
11325 S.E. Lenore Street
Clackamas, Oregon 97015
Phone: (877) RECHMPN (732-4676)
E-Mail: [email protected]