Back in January, I attended a conference with my broker, seen in the photo above, called Agent 2021, hosted by VaynerMedia. There were a ton of fantastic keynote speakers including Gary Vaynerchuk, Ryan Serhant and Tom Ferry. Aside from witnessing Gary Vaynerchuk record an episode of his podcast, one of my biggest takeaways from the conference was a call to action by Tom Ferry. He proposed these 5 Questions during the last keynote speech of the conference:
- What is your purpose/Why are you on this planet?
- What are your super powers? (“AKA: your God-given talents.”)
- What are your values? (“If you aren’t clear about your purpose and your values, you say yes to the wrong sh*t.”)
- 20 years from now, how is the world experiencing you?
- Who would you be if you were already there?
Don’t feel bad if you don’t know the answers yet because it took me months to answer these questions. (Literally, months!) I’m someone who does my best to live life intentionally, so not immediately knowing the answers to these questions, threw me off. The hardest question for me to answer was number 1: What is your purpose/Why are you on this planet? Theoretically this should have been the easiest, but this question took me the longest to answer.
The easiest question for me was number 2: What are your super powers? (AKA: Your God-given talents). I knew from a young age that my biggest super power is my natural instinct to build relationships with people. I care deeply about other people’s feelings, and I empathize easily with those who are struggling. This is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to my job. Building relationships with clients shows they can trust me. On the opposite side of the coin, I can allow myself to care so much about a situation, that it absorbs me and I’m consumed by it.
What especially struck me was Question 3 regarding values: “When you aren’t clear on your purpose and your values, you say yes to the wrong things!” Early on in my business, I found it very difficult to say no. Invitation for an event? “Sure!” Look at 9 houses in one evening with one set of clients? “No problem.” Have coffee with someone who I already know I won’t do business with? I don’t want to say yes, but I feel bad saying no, so: “OK, can’t wait!” I clearly didn’t have a handle on my values.
Sound familiar? Maybe not the same scenarios, but I’m sure you can relate.
I needed to get a grip on my core values as an entrepreneur or my business would not continue to grow- or worse it would fail. My company’s general manager Brian, taught me something early on when I first joined. It’s something that always resonated with me but took me a long time to grasp. He said: “If you don’t plan your day, others will do it for you.” It took me over 2 years to fully understand the meaning of this. After this conference, I realized my word for 2018 was simply “No” or to put it nicely, “Sorry, I’m not able to do that.” What a difference that has made in my business! Saying no to certain things, has allowed me to say yes to other things my time is better spent on.
20 years from now, how is the world experiencing you?
This one was hard too. It made me think about how people are experiencing me now. Was I the type of professional that I wanted to do business with? Where did I want to be in 20 years? Will I even be in the same business in 20 years, or will I evolve? Truthfully, I know that my career in real estate isn’t going to stop at buying and selling houses. In 20 years, I want to see an impact of the fruits of my labor. What does that look like? We shall see.
Finally, Question 5: “Where would I be if I was already there?” In order for me to know that, I needed to know my purpose and why I was on this planet. Answering these questions was becoming overwhelming, but I was determined. I somehow knew in my core that knowing these answers would be the start of a breakthrough I needed. Figuring out my purpose came to me in a way I least expected. It wasn’t until the middle of April that I finally figured it out. (Remember, the conference was in January!)
At the conference, something I kept thinking about over and over was this blog. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, at it’s current state, my blog did not bring me joy. It felt like more of a chore. I needed to make a change in order for me to move forward. After interviewing with a few local social media companies and advice from a college friend in PR, I made the decision to hire a consultant. This was probably the best decision I have ever made for my blog. By no means, I’m not saying that you should do this too. But for me, I knew I needed the consistency and accountability of another person to guide me.
After our first meeting, one of my “assignments” from her was to come to our next appointment with a mission statement, 6 month, 1 year and 5 year goals. This forced me to think really long and hard about my message. Also, I didn’t realize this at the time, but this assignment finally forced me to write down my purpose and the reason I am on this planet. Here it is: “Honestly Maggie is a career and lifestyle blog that fosters a community of strong women in real estate who support and empower each other while providing raving customer service to their clients.” Obviously, this is a fluid statement that will evolve over time, but I think it’s a darn good start!
“The things that make us anxious will most likely lead to our success.”
Lastly, I will leave you with this. At the conference, I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed about all the information and content that I was consuming. A broker and friend of my broker, Danny Griffin pulled me aside and gave me some solid advice. Along with that advice, he challenged me to record a video of myself about what I was feeling and what my goals were. I debated sharing this because it’s uncut and so personal, but I am hoping it will challenge and help you too.
