Brant Phillips Show 7: Just Begin

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Welcome everybody to The Brant Phillips Show. Today, we’re going to talk about beginning. We’re going to talk about the beginning. One thing that you’ve probably heard many times in your life is to begin with the end in mind. Begin with the end in mind. That was a concept that I first heard whenever I read Stephen Covey’s work Seven Habits of Highly Effective People many, many years ago, to begin with the end in mind. This is a powerful principle. It is something that will help you to reverse engineer your business. Whenever you’re starting out a new business venture or a new component of your business, what do you want that to look like in the end? Then you work backwards.

However, I’m going to take a different approach and a different view of the statement about beginning with the end in mind. You see, because sometimes if we get too hang up on the end meaning that end looks overwhelming, scary, painful, risky, looking too much at that end is sometimes going to be a devastating blow meaning you’re not going to begin because now you’re so focused on the end and all of the work that’s in between the beginning and the end that you fail to launch. You don’t even start.

A little story, the other day I went to work out with a friend of mine. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Jim Jones thing. He goes to a gym and the lead trainer is a Jim Jones’ dude. This is one of my coaching students, the friend of mine that invited me to come to his gym. He’s been building me up for a while to this guy. He’s like, “Hey, my buddy Brant went to Breakthrough at the Beach and he has fought in MMA and we do some boxing stuff. He’s done Arrowmen. He’s been to SealFit blah, blah, blah. He’s building me up to this guy, not just over a few days. Supposedly over the last year, he’s been telling this guy about me. He’s like, “I’m going to get Brant to come in.”

I finally show up to the gym at 5:30 in the morning. Since I went through SealFit a couple of months ago, I’ve been taking a little downtime. I’m still working out pretty much every day but I don’t have the capacity I had a couple of months ago. I’m just taking a little time to let the body heal and recuperate. We get there and talking to the guy, seems like a nice enough guy. He starts writing the workout on the board. He starts writing the workout on the board. He stops writing and I’m like, “Oh, it’s not that bad.” I’m like, “This is not that bad.” Then he starts writing some more. I’m like, “Okay, I get it. I’m good. I’m good.” Then he stops writing. I’m like, “All right, it’s not so bad.” Then he starts writing again. I’m just like, “Damn.” I start having these thoughts about like, “Damn, this is going to suck. I’m not in shape for this. I’m not ready. It’s 5:30 in the morning. I haven’t had my coffee. I’m usually a work out in the afternoon kind of guy, and blah, blah, blah.” Here come the stories, blah, blah, blah.

My friends, welcome to life. That workout with him continuing to write and add things on, and he may have just been playing off what he was picking up from me, I don’t know but he kept writing stuff. Look, if you’re waiting to know where the finish line is going to be exactly or if you need to know every single little minute detail and every aspect of the journey and the undertaking that you are about to take on, then you will get so overwhelmed and bogged down by these thoughts and being overwhelmed that you will never get started. Yes, it is incredibly powerful to begin with the end in mind but sometimes, you just need to begin. You just need to begin.

With my coaching students, I talk a lot especially with newbies, I talk a lot about the rule of one. I call it the rule of one because just a recurring theme that I see with my new students that are just getting into real estate investing. Let’s say that they’re getting into real estate. They may possibly never done a deal before and they feel the need to do like 10 of everything. It’s like, “All right. What are you going to do?” Like, “I’m going to do 10 deals this year.” “All right, cool. How are you going to finance it?” “Well, I’m going to get 10 private lenders and I’m going to do-” It’s like, “Look. Look, I want you to do 10 deals this year. I did 10 deals my first year so that’s, I want you to do that. I want you to have 10 private money lenders. We’ve got a lot more than that but I want you to have 10.”

Before you can ever have 10 of anything in business, like 10 deals, before you can do 10 deals, you need to do one deal. Before you get 10 private lenders, you just need to have one private lender.

Hey, this is Brant. I hope you’re enjoying today’s show. If you’re in a place in your life or your business, or your real estate investing where you just feel stuck, maybe you don’t know what actions to take next to get you unstuck or just on that path of creating the results that you really desire, please take a few minutes and go to my website at brantphillips.com. There are some really valuable resources and information that may be able to help you out. If you’re interested in really speeding up results with the help of a coach or mentor and adding true accountability and guidance to your life and business, please reach out to me from my website. You’ll see a link at the top or by going to brantphillips.com/coaching. Now, let’s get back to the show.

I coach them, teach them, train them, encourage them to focus on one. Focus on the here and now. Focus on the present because if you go in thinking I need 10, there’s immediately this feeling of, generally, there’s this feeling of being overwhelmed. There’s this tendency to be a, you’ll become spread too thin. You will essentially be like a jack of all trades. You will fail to focus on finding the most ideal one. Finding the very best deal to get started, finding the best private lender and then with a private lender’s, when we’re talking about cultivating a relationship, when you find a private lender, the very most important thing is you take care of that private lender. You are here to guard their asset, to protect it, to secure it, secure their investment so that they earn their return and you return their capital back to them.

If you’re distracted, going all over the place, you’re not really going to give any of these 10 that you’re looking for now the service, the time and attention that they need, because what I found by utilizing the rule of one, by focusing on one thing, one aspect, I do it great. When I do it great, I’m able to repeat that. More referrals come, more leads come because I’m better. I’m focusing on one piece of marketing, focusing on one aspect of real estate etcetera, etcetera rather than all these things.

Now, I am not taking away at all, whatsoever in preparing for battle. Dwight Eisenhower said, “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.” If you could look into my office right now, on my big whiteboard, I’ve got things drawn out for next year all over the board including, which has taken up 80% of a ginormous whiteboard, our org chart and everybody’s roles and responsibilities and some new hirers that we have coming in to the year.

We’ve all heard that, “The war is won in the General’s tent.” Even the best plans only last until the boots hit the ground. Planning, planning is indispensable. If you don’t begin because you get focused on only the planning or only looking at the end in mind and you get bogged down and you get overwhelmed and you’re looking at the trainer as he’s writing the workout on the board and you’re thinking, “Oh my God, Oh my God.” Look, look. A marathon is just a series of single steps for 26.2 miles. It’s just a concession of single steps.

My friends, simply begin. Simply begin. Focus on that first rep, focus on that first call, focus on that first step of whatever it is that you are trying to create in your life and your business. When you complete that first rep, when you complete that first step, whenever you complete that first call, whenever you complete that first page of your book, whatever it is that you’re working on, then take the next step and the next step and simply begin. Simply begin. I love and appreciate each and every one of you, my friends. I thank you for listening to the show. Until next time, I look forward to helping you create results in your life and in your business.