Drawing from Amy Morin's influential "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," this episode helps those striving to achieve emotional balance while navigating the high-stakes world of real estate.
We dissect:
Drawing from Amy Morin's influential "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," this episode helps those striving to achieve emotional balance while navigating the high-stakes world of real estate.
We dissect:
Tom Panos, john McGrath, troy, malcolm, the crew is back together. We haven't spoke to you guys for a few weeks. We're back together. Good to see you, troy, good to see you John. Firstly, you've been keeping well.
Speaker 2:Very good, tommy. Thank you, good to see you guys too.
Speaker 1:Good to see you. Good to see you. We won't talk about NRL. We're all three Now. South's got a win. They had a bye this week, which is great news for South Sydney and Troy. The Roosters continue losing games and having press conferences where their coach is unhappy with the refereeing that's become stock standard lately and the West Tigers went on a two-win roll and we're back to baseline again, which is zero points every week.
Speaker 1:13 things mentally strong people don't do. Today's topic is all inspired by a book that I suggest a lot of real estate people read, and I say that because a lot of the times real estate people don't need the technical stuff as much as the inside job stuff, the mental stuff, the stuff between their ears and Troy and John. A great book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do by Amy Morin. Her talk at TED has got 26 million views.
Speaker 1:She's a PhD in psychology that used this own content for her own life when she had a bit of a tragedy happen her husband or her partner died in front of her eyes in their mid-20s. She went into a bit of a slump and then she thought I've got to get myself out of it and she started studying the literature on what strong people that have got a resilience have, and I want to touch on these five or six things, but I do want to inspire everyone to actually either listen to the audio book or watch the 20-minute TED Talk. So, john, I know that as we looked at these qualities the 13, you said these are good five that we can touch on. What was the first one that got your attention?
Speaker 2:I think there's a couple. One is you know, the wording was roughly words effective. They're not people pleasers, they don't try and please everyone all the time. I mean, this is one of the challenges in our industry as to why people can't be straight about price and situations and so forth. I think in the industry you can do everything you can to create raving fans and still not have to try and please everyone all of the time, because sometimes the truth is not what people want to hear, whether you're a vendor or a buyer, but it's really the only way going forward. Otherwise you waste time.
Speaker 2:I just had a situation today. I was talking with a vendor and they're looking at bringing the property across to us to list. And they said oh, I've had Mr and Mrs XYZ interested in the property. And I said well, I know them pretty well. Anyway, long story short, he said well, they've made an offer of let's call the number 5.4. And he wanted let's call the number 7. So it was a fair way. There was quite a bit of way. Anyway, long story short, I said look, I don't want to interfere in the negotiation, but I said it's a long way. He said oh, I'm not going to sell that money.
Speaker 2:I rang up, mr and Mrs X, and I just said you know, would you consider the property at around seven? And they said, oh no, no, five, four. That's reason they didn't want to disappoint the owner. I'm not sure what it was, but this is. The problem in our industry is we're sort of trying to duck and weave the truth, troy, and please everyone all the time. And the reality is the best way you can please people is be straight and honest and direct with them. So I think people pleasing is a bit of a disease in general and in sales and certainly in real estate. Troy, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I couldn't agree more, John. One of the things we talk about is radical transparency, and there's a way of delivering the message with care and guidance, where you are the trusted advisor as opposed to just kind of slapping them with hey, this is the reality, so it's something that it can be coached and it can be trained. That's the great thing for everyone listening to this episode. You can actually train yourself to deliver the message with care, but also with authority, and I think you know that's one thing that you know mentally strong people do do is they know the difference between telling the truth and making sure that they do it in a caring, guiding way, as opposed to just slapping people in the face.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, I understand that no one loves delivering bad news, whether it's medical news, financial news or any news. That's not going to make people happy, but that's the world we live in and if you're in business and you choose to be in sales and in real estate sales, you're going to have to be able to actually just tell people the scenario where it's at and give them a recommendation. So stop trying to people, please, and be as direct as you can. But, as you say, troy a great point you can do it with care and empathy. We're not talking about bruising people, we're just talking about giving people the truth.
Speaker 2:So that was the first one, tommy. The second one that I thought of was around the concept of not dwelling on the past. Now, for some people, that's a divorce five years ago. For other people it's they lost money in the GFC. For some people it's they lost a listing last night at six o'clock. Whatever it is, you've got to learn in this industry, because real estate, as we've said before, it's 99% failure to reach the 1% success. You have to be able to set aside any non-desired results that happened this morning, last night, a year ago or whatever. And I think it's really key because a lot of people say, oh, you know I've set it down, but I can see energetically they haven't. So I think not dwelling on the past and not letting any of yesterday's disappointments impact your day-to-day is really critical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so many real estate agents that ruminate and what actually happens? They end up making a bad morning, a bad day. And I always say to agents the cost of ruminating is that you'll probably end up going to less appraisals because you're so caught up going it over in your head. And obviously one of the big disappointments, john and Troy, in real estate is when you've got to the stage where you have got a listing presentation and you've gone in there and you may have spent two or three meetings and all the nurturing that would have taken to get to that level and then you miss out on it. And then often, if it's a good listing, you can sort of ruminate on it for a long time. But always remember don't worry so much about the listing you've lost, worry about the five you didn't get called into. But John, what was the third one that you had?
Speaker 2:Third one was around being prepared to take calculated risks. I was coaching someone fairly recently taking being prepared to take calculated risks. You know, I was coaching someone fairly recently and they didn't want to put on an assistant. Now, from my perspective, looking at this individual, the assistant, the hiring of an assistant could double their business in the next 12 months and make a material uplift you know, five, six, seven times their current GCI by hiring sorry, not 5, 6, 7, 5 times the investment in assistance. So if an assistance can cost you $80,000, you have the opportunity to uplift by $400,000 to $500,000 this particular individual. And that is a calculated risk and I get it. And there are some people where they actually just can't go close to affording it. But there's a lot of other people that can afford it but they see it as a risk and they're not able to take the risk. So they end up writing $400,000 for the rest of their life because they never give themselves a chance, by investing ahead of the curve, to write $800,000 or $1.5 million.
Speaker 2:So I think that this is a business where you have to look at the risks associated with certain decisions and be prepared to calculate them. And you know, look, success leaves clues, let's face it. You know Alex Jordan's got five assistants and he's writing a million a month. So go figure at the end when I say assistants, associates and assistants but no disrespect to his team, because they're agents in their own right. But I think you've just got to be prepared to invest in your business, whether it's invest in social media, letterbox cards, hiring an assistant, doing a movie night for past clients, whatever it is, you know you have to take calculated risks to invest in your customer experience. Tracey, what do you?
Speaker 3:think Again, john, I kind of agree a lot with you because the points are so valid right now. Out there in the agent world, we need to make sure that the things we're doing are efficient but also very effective for the client's use of time. So couldn't agree more with what you've said. The other thing that I always think about, john, is making sure that we're task orientated, so we don't we don't necessarily feel as if we're going to not succeed, and so moving away from that failure point of view or dwelling on the failure, and moving to if we get this right, how good can it be? So using that enthusiasm and insight to actually drive to the next level, I think, is something that really successful people do, and I guess those that aren't seem to dwell.
Speaker 2:A good example, tommy. Sorry I'll just jump in if a calculated risk is moving to commission only. I've had this discussion with agents. Ninety-nine out of 100 agents I've seen go from a debit credit salary plus commission debit credit to commission only. Their business just explodes overnight. It's a mental thing. It's a security blanket and it's all of a sudden, if I waste time today I'm going to earn zero. And it's all of a sudden, if I waste time today I'm going to earn zero. And even though a lot of debit credits are a fairly modest amount could be $60,000, which is not going to make you rich. But it's a security blanket that pays a lot of people's bills or is part of them. So you know again, that's a calculated risk.
Speaker 2:Is back yourself and say to your principal what commission split? What benefits would there be for me if I went to commission only? And for a lot of people it's tax effective. You might get a better commission split. Who knows, there might be some other perks available to you. But it's a calculated risk. But if 99 out of 100, and that's my roughly, that's my sort of number of, I can't recall anyone going commission only that hasn't benefited from the mindset change. So I think you know that'd be one, tommy from the mindset change.
Speaker 1:So I think you know that would be one, tommy. So when we were talking about calculated risk and putting on a team member, I automatically thought of Peter Diamantidis who said to me I have to keep drumming into my team. If they don't have a PA, they are the PA and they need to understand that. And I said to him listen, peter, you know you're making 250 sales a year. You've got an incredible Rolls-Royce effective business unit team working out of St Mary's. Would you be kind enough at ARIC this year to run through divisions of labour, who's doing what, how you start your day with your team, how you keep your team accountable, how you remunerate them? He said absolutely. And it made me realise we're six weeks away from Eric. He's going to have on stage his team and he's going to run through how they run and attack each day, who does what and making sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's gold. I mean Pete's just. But Tom and I know you're a part of his you know sort of team and have done some coaching over the years with him to help him. He's exploded the last two or three years. He's gone from a good agent to like a world best superstar agent. So can't wait to hear what he's going to share.
Speaker 1:He's in that category. He was working as a, so let's think about this. Five years ago he was what we're talking about the guy or girl who was scared to go off and take the risk and put someone on. The guy or girl that was too scared to let go of a salary. And he said to me in many ways I realised it was a bribe that kept me there, right.
Speaker 1:So just quick, infomercial, this is not a sell job. But it's 26 and the 27th, sorry, 26 and 27th of May, eric, yeah, so pleasantly informed that last week, even though we went out about a month behind that we had the previous year. We're up about 700, 800 tickets same time last year. It will sell out. There's six weeks to go. If you haven't got your ticket for ARIC, get it now. Lock your airfare in. You're only going to pay wherever you fly from Australia. I don't know what it is about the Gold Coast, but for some reason the ticket always return is not much more than a few hundred bucks to the Gold Coast. There's lots of flights there, guys, it's only six weeks away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can't wait, and so many people have said, which is why I think the numbers are up. You're right, Tommy. We're about 700 or 800 up. On same time last year and we sold last four days 100 a day and last year we were selling about 40 a day. So the volume continues. Also Kiwis, by the way. I know we've got a lot of listeners who are Kiwis. The flights, I think, are pretty plentiful, coming directly, certainly, I would imagine, from Auckland.
Speaker 1:We've got the two best female agents that I think can share information with our audience, coming from Auckland. One's coming from Auckland, one's coming from actually, one's coming from Christchurch, I think, one's coming from Auckland. We've got them and we've got another 15 or so amazing real estate agents and I'm so pumped about seeing your franchisee and your mate and my very good mate, one of my longest you know, matt Steinway. I was thinking about it 33 years. He's been a mate of mine, right, and he has not spoken at ARIC for many years. He's going to be there early on and kick it off. Everyone's talking about Ryan Serhant and please, team, I get at least five messages a week. Is it virtual? No, he's going to be there both days in person, in our room there, skin to skin, right there with us. So pumped, get your tickets.
Speaker 2:Ryan Serhant in the house. I mean, look, I didn't know about Ryan Reynolds.
Speaker 1:John, ryan Reynolds, I mean we've never had anyone of the calibre speak at ARIC like that before. I mean this guy's next level, john.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I sent you that thing. I saw on Twitter or X the other day. He's going to be phenomenal. Look, yeah, everyone, as I said, look, we're going to sell out. So this is sort of much of a plea to everyone to get there, because we love the people listening to this podcast and we're going to sell out anyway, but we'd love you to be there. I hate it when people ring me or text me a day or two before. Is there any chance I missed out? Please save yourself insurance against remorse. Get in now, before, because we're about 65 sold already with, uh, another bit over a month to go. Yeah, can't wait, tommy.
Speaker 2:One thing I just thought today, if I can just finish off, because I know we're sort of getting to the end of today's podcast. As I was just thinking about today, for some reason our dear friend of all three of us, phil Harris, came to mind. I remember something interestingly he said at ARIC. So many times I just take quotes from ARIC. One of the quotes from AR Eric Gavin Rubenstein the bridge between where you are and where you want to get is discipline. I remember Gav saying that Walking across the stage.
Speaker 2:Discipline is the bridge between where you are and where you want to get. But the other one is Phil Harris said words to the effect and I'm sorry, I apologise to Phil in advance, but he said basically all you need to do to be successful in this business is number one prospect for an hour a day. Number two have an eight out of 10 listing presentation. Number three a listing presentation. The third one was have a sales and marketing plan that gets your listing sold in 28 days. He said if you've got those three things and when you think about it, all those are pretty achievable.
Speaker 2:There's no one listening to this can't prospect for an hour a day. There's no one. If you're prepared to put in a little bit of work, can't polish their listing presentation up to an eight out of 10. And again, with the sales and launch plan, I mean you need to work out. You know, do you auction, do you not? Are you using social media? Are you on REA? Have you got the right subscription? Are you using price guides? Are you doing open homes? Just make sure you've got a 10-step plan or something like that that is going to get your listing sold in 28 days. So yeah, that just came to mind. Just as I was thinking about Eric, I just thought two of the greats of the industry, gavin and Phil Harris, just two things that came to mind, off the stage of Eric, like it was yesterday Troisy.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir.
Speaker 3:There's so many tips and it was only funny. On the weekend I was going through some of the notes from previous Erics and I'm excited about this year's one as well, because I just know that every year we walk away and we've got a notebook full of great insights and a success plan that, if implemented, can radically change your business within the next 12 months, and that's why everyone should invest the money and the time to get to ARIC over two days, yeah.
Speaker 1:Rubenstein's gone next level with this talk because I rang him up the other day to see how he's going, if he needs any help, and he told me. He said listen, mate, he says the amount of time, preparation and external help. I'm getting in delivering a 20-minute talk. That is going to be next level. I've never done it before. He talks to that other guy on that show, josh Altman, and Josh Altman said to him don't waste the opportunity to deliver something that's going to change people's lives. Do it, spend the time and energy and some of the content he's talking about already.
Speaker 1:He told me about the importance of closing every door of excuse for a vendor, because often a vendor may blame something minuscule as to why the property doesn't get sold, and the importance about locking every door of excuse and not allowing them to be able to complain about a single thing that they just blown away with it. That when you look them in the eyes and you say this is the issue we need to confront, they listen to you because they've got 100% trust. John, I am mindful of your time and I'm just going to finish off and say the last one that I want to touch on is on that talk that Amy Morin gave. So, firstly, yes, ericconferencecomau is the URL. The last point your view, troy and John, on Amy Morin saying people that are mentally tough don't waste their energy on things that they can't control. They let them go waste their energy on things that they can't control.
Speaker 2:They let them go. Well, look, that's a classic stoic philosophy, and we had Ryan Reynolds a few years ago, not?
Speaker 1:Ryan.
Speaker 2:Reynolds.
Speaker 3:Ryan Holiday.
Speaker 2:Ryan Holiday. I mean it is pointless and it's logical that it's pointless wasting time and effort on something you can't control, because the things that you can control is really where all the juice is going forward the conversations you can have. You can't control everything, which is why when Maddy Stiver, when COVID hit, maddy just said let's just work out which vendors still want to sell, let's not waste time and energy if people don't want to sell. And then 50% wanted to sell. So he sold them. And I think that's the key thing is there are certain things in life that you can control, and they generally all are things that you can do and say, and there are other things you can't control, and that's where all the excuses that you know Gav's probably going to talk about by the sound of it come from is things that you can't control. So you know, do the stuff you can control. Reread you know what Ryan Holiday talks about in his books around stoicism.
Speaker 3:Troisy. Nothing to add on that one. It's just you've got to make sure that what you're doing today is going to get you to the next level. I think it makes sense and it's nothing that we shouldn't be focused on on a daily system. And I'm actually really excited, tom. I've just been thinking about what Gav spoke about last time, only a couple of years ago, and how impactful that was on not only my career, but I know the many people that have watched that. So I'm super excited that he's uh he's going to revolutionize what he's done and even make it better this year round at ari quick one.
Speaker 2:Quick one, I know we didn't. We did a little bit on nrl up front, just quick quiz for you guys. It's not a quiz, it's an opinion who is the best rising star coach that's taken over a team last few years? Who's the number one Warriors coach? Yeah, exactly, spot on, tommy, as usual. Andrew Webster. I did the stats last night. We didn't collaborate, by the way, on this before, but I just thought, yeah, he'd be the best. I did the stats Before he took over.
Speaker 2:Warriors were winning 34% of their games. Now they're winning 58%. So number one is that's a pretty quantum leap and it's incredible that he's done that. But number two is they only just win over 50% of their games and yet they're now posing as a threat, a serious threat, at winning the premiership or certainly being one of those that could challenge teams like Storm, broncos and Penrith. But it just reminded me of the Djokovic quote that you know when he went from winning you know, 48% of his games to points to 54% similar sort of stat.
Speaker 2:So again for agents out there listening for you to go to the next level, you just have to win a few more percent of each of your listings and you're probably only missing them by a few percent as it is. So just take the initiative, take the time, go to the next level Again, come to Eric if you want to, and if you don't, just find how to do it another way and just polish up your skills, because you may well be only inches and a few percentage points away from tipping point. So we'll end on that, but can't wait. We'll have a few more chats before Eric. But yeah, that was a good one, tommy.
Speaker 1:All right, troy John, to our wonderful audience. We will talk to you next week and we will definitely be seeing you at Eric Signing off. Thank you so much.