The Single Most Important Thing That Will Change Your Business...and Your Life

I coach real estate agents on how to organize their businesses and their lives to be successful. Plan, execute, and evaluate are some of my mantras. I also encourage them to dream big, not for possessions but dream big for living the life that you want to live, be the person that you want to be, and have the experiences that you want to have. In my opinion, that is success.

But there is always one thing that holds people back. It not only holds them back from reaching their dreams, it holds them back from reaching small steps that will eventually lead to living the life they want to live. By now, I’m sure you know that I’m talking about fear. Fear is a trait that we all have, and there is a reason for that, it keeps us from doing things that will harm us in some way. It’s why most people don’t jump out of a perfectly good airplane, it’s why most people don’t swim in an ocean full of sharks, and it’s why some people don’t drive 200mph. We all have the fear of hurting ourselves, or someone else, or the fear of getting caught and dealing with the circumstances. Fear is necessary for our society to work and to protect ourselves from self-destruction. Fear is not a bad thing.

But most of us take this fear thing too far. We use it as a crutch, an excuse to not do things that will ultimately change our lives. We use it to stay in our safe space and that leads to not reaching our dreams. Some folks won’t step out of their comfort zone to expand their business, or lives, into areas that they are not comfortable with. When I started my coaching business, I didn’t consider public speaking as part of the business plan. It wasn’t intentional, but I do believe it was subliminal. I hadn’t spoken in public for at least a decade and frankly, I was afraid of embarrassing myself in front of my peers. I'm sure this was a mental callback to when I first started another career. Back then I was asked to present to my peers and I was so overwhelmed with fear that I would physically start to twitch while speaking. It was embarrassing. So when I started my coaching business, I'm sure that I mentally blocked any form of public speaking from my planning process. Then I was asked to speak to a group of agents for my local association and BAM, there it was, right there, fear blocked me from doing something that would not only help my career but help other agents. Of course, I declined.

One day I was talking to my wife about the coaching business and how I enjoyed helping agents discover what they CAN do, rather than what they can’t do. It opened my eyes to my own shortcomings, like negativity and fear, and how it has ruled parts of my life. Then I realized that to really take my coaching business to the level that I want it to be, I must overcome that fear of speaking. She reminded me that I used to speak in groups regularly when I was part of a local non-profit organization, and I wasn’t nervous at all. Of course, I immediately rejected that by letting the fear tell me that those were friends, so it was different, back to my comfort zone.  The next day I was thinking about our conversation, and I realized that I MUST overcome that fear of speaking in public. How can I tell my clients to overcome their fears and negativity if I’m not willing to do it myself?

Within the next week, I put together a plan to become a public speaker. Since all fear roots in a lack of confidence, I knew that I had to be extremely confident in what I was speaking about. So, I put together a presentation on my Plan Your Pivot Program, designed to help agents get through a changing market. It is based on my experiences from the great recession and how I expanded my business in those tough times. I was very confident that this would help agents, and that gave me the confidence to do the presentation. But I didn’t stop there, I hired a speaking coach. Someone who knew how to help me overcome my fears, not dismiss them, because fears are there for a reason. But put them in the back seat and focus on what was in front of me, my goal of helping agents by utilizing my experience and telling my story. My coach, Debra Driscoll with Fearless Communicators, was superb at coaching me through all of the emotions, fears, and stumbling blocks that we put ourselves through when we are not confident in our abilities, or in my case, hypercritical of ourselves.

After working with Debra for several weeks, and working endlessly on my presentation, I was ready. I was tired of rehearsing, tired of trying to make it perfect, tired of watching myself on video and critiquing every little mistake. What is amazing is that on the morning of the presentation, I wasn’t nervous at all. I was excited, I wanted to get up there and kill this! I couldn’t wait!

Did it go perfectly? Nope. But I was ecstatic at the response from the crowd. When I was up there, I felt like I was meant to be there, that this is what I wanted to do, it was electrifying! I wanted more! I felt all of the emotions and feelings that you get when you overcome your fear successfully. It was really amazing.

I talk and write about overcoming fear a lot, and the reason is that I believe that this is the single most important thing you can do in your business and life. It may be the fear of taking tests, so you don’t go for that promotion. It may be that fear of failing, so you don’t take advantage of new opportunities. It may be the fear of ridicule amongst your peers, your family, or your friends, that keeps you from going after that dream career. It may be that fear of letting your family down, so you keep your current job to keep the paychecks keep coming in. It could be anything that is holding you back, but let me tell you, once you overcome that fear, and you feel the pride, excitement, and emotions on the other side of fear, it will change your life.