What Worries You, Masters You

Thank you for joining us for another episode of Brilliant Talks, our free weekly coaching program for real estate agents. Mark, Jacob, and I pick up where we left off last week—talking about the different worries that affect our personal and professional lives.

What worries us masters us—only if we let it. But when we take the time to acknowledge these fears and anxieties that have a hold on us and impact how we show up for ourselves, our loved ones, and our businesses, we are able to act in ways that free us from the negative cycle that we used to get stuck in.

Here’s the second half of the list of common fears and mindsets we have that might be holding us back from thriving in our businesses and reaching our goals. 

Financial stress

This is probably one of the biggest worries we have, but we don’t talk about it as much. The reason we commit to real estate or any other business is for financial freedom. But it can also open up a whole batch of financial worries or money problems that can affect our daily lives. 

We all need money to survive. We need it to buy food and secure other basic necessities such as shelter and clothing, but we also need money to afford things that bring us joy, whether that be a hobby, passion, or business. Anxiety over financial matters—unpaid or overdue taxes, making the quota for the next cycle, where to get our next dollar, or whether we have enough to pay our financial obligations—are real sources of stress. 

The challenge, aside from actually making money, is about dealing with our mindset surrounding our finances. The making-money part is actually easy, as long as we apply ourselves to our job enough. But how we manage our cash flow and are smart with our spending is a huge part of getting a handle on this worry.

Have a clear budget that you can work with, detailing:

• How much money you currently have
• How much money you are expecting to come in
• Your fixed expenses and financial obligations
• Your savings

A savings plan is especially important in an industry like real estate where ups and downs in sales are common even on a monthly basis. Learning how to save on months when you earn more than average helps you have a buffer during the months that you make less. 

When we see how our money flows in and out, we can make more objective decisions and adjustments. We could also look for opportunities to get resourceful with our finances. As Mark said, “It’s not about your resources. It’s about your resourcefulness.” 

Stress over money matters is unavoidable and very real. But it shouldn’t be the main driving force in doing what we do, especially when we show up for our potential clients. 

When we get so focused on wanting to make money because we need it and we forget that in this business, our main job is to help others, our clients feel that vibe. They feel that we are only in it to make money off of them, and it turns a lot of clients off of trusting us, feeding the vicious cycle of worrying about whether we will make enough money.  

But when we apply ourselves to be genuine, be smart with how we handle money, and focus on providing value to others and building trusting relationships, we attract the right people and the right opportunities our way.

Social Anxiety

Talking to people, hosting events, and putting yourself in uncomfortable situations is inevitable in any type of business, particularly in real estate. However, not everyone is capable of sustaining social interactions on a large scale. 

Introverts, in particular, can suffer from social anxiety, and we need to guard ourselves against that. Everything we are told to do coming into real estate, goes right into social anxiety for introverts: door knocking, cold calling, open houses.

It can be tough, and it can be draining for some of us. But it isn’t impossible to succeed in this industry if you are the type who finds social interactions draining.  

Find what works for you. You can center events around things that you love and bring your energy, or you can deal with inevitable socializations in a size, cadence, and environment that you find more manageable. 

For example, I find social media the perfect platform for me to reach many people without feeling drained despite my introversion. 

It is a lot easier for me, psychologically, to take control of my social anxiety by doing it through social media. It has allowed me to be able to grow in what feels like a one-to-one, but with how the internet works, it is really a one-to-many. I am able to attract a wider audience based on the conversations and content I am putting out there, without having it take too much of a toll on me socially.

There are so many different avenues in this industry where you can socialize and form connections without suffering from too much social anxiety.

Find what you like that works for you and brings energy to your life.

Lack of sleep

Rest, reset, restoration, and recovery—these are things that we know are crucial in sustainable success, but it is often the last thing on our minds when we talk about how to grow our business and succeed in our industry. 

Sleep is the most integral piece in protecting our physical, mental, and overall well-being. Lack of sleep is the cause of a lot of issues that we have. We know that hustling is part of growing any business. 

But when we hustle too hard for too long that we forgo rest and run ourselves to the ground, we are unable to show up and think at our best. 

That is why we feel more anxious, stressed, cranky, or unproductive when we are tired. How do we improve the quality and amount of our sleep?

There are tons of sleep studies out there at your disposal, and tech to help you track your sleep patterns. Awareness of your current sleep habits and how it affects the quality of rest you get at the end of the day is a good place to start. 

Sleep deprivation not only impedes clarity of thinking, it also causes health problems and other challenges. This is especially relevant in industries such as real estate, where it is hard to know when to stop and end our day.

Having practices and routines in place that help you wind down in the evening and embrace the night can help improve your quality of sleep.

Another thing you can do is hire someone to help you get things done when you are able. As our business grows, we will never run out of things to get done. 

Sometimes, the urgency we feel when we leave things undone at the end of the day disrupts the quality of our sleep. 

Hiring others to help with the workload that you are (1) not good at, (2) taking you longer to do yourself, and (3) taking your energy helps you with that. If you want sustainable growth and success, taking care of your (and your people’s) well-being should be your number one priority.

Technology overuse

Spending too much time on technology leads to more stress and anxiety. Today’s available technologies are very convenient tools, but they also tend to make us go off on so many tangents—we get too distracted by our notifications. Focus is important to lessen stress. 

There are apps and software available that can minimize distractions while we work. The rest comes with clarity about your priorities and discipline over your schedule.

The past

The human tendency to hold on to past events only keeps us in a state of continuous stress over things that have already happened and over which we no longer have control. 

What we do have control over is letting go, accepting what has been done and the repercussions it brought about, and taking action toward where we want to go from there. Focusing on what happened in the past instead of trying to overcome the situation will only keep you stuck and weigh you down. Focus on your plan for now and the future. 

The action steps you can take help to bring clarity and direction, which eliminates some of the worry and stress from the things that happened in the past.

“There’s a reason why your front windshield is so much bigger than your rearview mirror.”—Mark Rader

Relationships

I think relationships are probably the key to your success—or lack thereof. And it can really make or break you in this business. We often talk about the business relationships we build, but our personal relationships also affect how well (or badly) our business does. 

The personal relationships you have can sometimes bring you down. When we are worried about something that happened at home or a conflict with our friends or partner, it can bleed through to our work. And the people you interact with can feel it. 

Understanding the relationship and what it brings to your life can help you decide whether it is worth fixing the relationship or letting it go. Because in some relationships, you benefit more by cutting them off. But for those that matter, getting to the root of the problem and fixing it now is key.

The problem won’t fix itself if you just leave it be. You need to face it head-on. You also need to understand that problems don’t get fixed overnight—it took a long time to get broken, and it will also take time to heal. 

Figure out what relationships are worth keeping and taking care of. Lastly, take care of yourself first and make sure that you are okay physically, mentally, and emotionally to make sure that you can show up as your best self to the people that you love the most. Because if you're not, that’s when things start going south.

Cognitive distortion

Sometimes, what we believe to be real isn’t the truth. We all have distorted thinking—cognitive dissonance, biases, and thinking patterns that distort the way we see things. And it can be a challenge because the way we think affects how we live our lives and how we interpret everything that is happening to us and around us. 

You see it often on social media. We get jealous of other people’s lives as we look at their social media profiles, forgetting that what we are looking at is a curated feed of their highlights—what we see online isn’t the whole story. Resentful comparisons like that or perceiving situations as more stressful and scary than they actually are are some common examples of cognitive distortions. 

Awareness of our thinking patterns helps us realize when our worries are really worth stressing about or when we are just looking at things through a wonky lens.

Sometimes, knowing that we are worrying, understanding or identifying what the real reason is, accepting it, and having an action plan are all it takes. Our worries start going away the moment we feel that we have actual control of something, and the only true control we have is over our actions—what we think, how we feel, and what we do about it. 

Control might be an illusion, but so is our perceived helplessness in the face of our anxieties. Sometimes all we need is that illusion of control to take us out of the spiral brought about by our worries. 

Remember that the people you meet can feel the energy you bring to every conversation and interaction. Whether your business succeeds or not depends on that energy. You have the power to choose whether you want that energy to be controlled by the things you are worried about or whether you want to show up with clarity and direction by having a handle on those fears and anxieties.

If you are interested in diving deeper into ways you can grow your real estate business, check out our one-on-one and group coaching services. 

We go in-depth into topics such as leadership, social media, prospecting, marketing, and other things that can help real estate agents thrive in this industry. 

Feel free to message me with any questions or concerns.

Have an awesome day!