Building An Epic 2017

Turn on my camera here. We are going to get locked and loaded. What is on my screen? Bada boom, bada bing. All right. Welcome everybody to Building An Epic 2017. Sometimes the word epic bothers me a little bit. We hear that a lot, epic. It’s going to be epic. The reality is that you are the creator of your life. Everything that you have built, done in the past, everything that you … Your beliefs, your mindsets, everything that you have chosen to believe and chosen to take action upon in your past have created your reality today.

Let’s take this statement of, “Building An Epic 2017.” Let me start by saying like, “First off, if you don’t really believe that that’s possible, if you don’t even think that it’s really possible to create an epic 2017, or an epic business, or an epic life, or anything like that, if you don’t even think it’s possible, guess what? You are 100% correct that it’s not going to be possible.”

Let me just start by saying that in order for you to build an epic business and an epic life, an epic investing real estate business or relationship, whatever it is that you want, it first starts here; with your beliefs and your thoughts. That’s the first lesson for today. I would encourage everyone here, take some notes. I’m going to share some really good things. Some of these things I’m going to be sharing with you today are things I’ve put together from some coaching programs that I’ve been involved in that I’ve spent a considerable amount of money in. I’m giving it today to you for free.

One of the first things I want to bring to your attention is your immortality, your own death. I’ve got a hanging on my wall, a little picture of this same quote by Steve Jobs, just talking about we’re all going to die. We are all going to die at some point in time. Yes you, all of us are going to die. That is a … It’s fact of life. Now, you can look at that as a sad fact, and like, “Oh no, I’m going to die.” Or you can look at it as, “All right, time to roll up my sleeves and get to work here because I’m going to die and I need to get some things done.”

I talk a lot about, in my coaching programs, and even with my staff. We had a big team meeting yesterday, a three or four hour meeting, because we’re laying out our plans for our business for 2017. You can see on my whiteboard behind me of our org chart and everybody’s roles and responsibilities.

The word legacy came up. As I’m thinking about things that are pushing me, there’s got to be a message and there’s got to be a motivation behind the numbers or under the numbers. Numbers are important. Numbers are important for this upcoming year, for 2017. For you to have the financial success and business success that you want and create the results that you want, you want to hit your numbers. Numbers are important. Money is important. Just consider that that alone, being motivated just by money is never going to satisfy. Look for some things underneath that is like the fuel. We’re going to get into this a little bit later but really what is the fuel that’s motivating you?

For me, this thought about that I’m going to die and I look at Steve Jobs’ picture every day and this little quote, just a reminder to me that I want to create a legacy. I want to create a business legacy. More importantly, what motivates me are some things that I want to accomplish on a personal level. Keep this in mind now and for the next few days as you build your plan and on and on and on that we’re immortal. We’re going to die so that’s cool.

Let’s just recognize that right now. Let’s recognize it. Let us take a look at this chart here which shows that … Oops, sorry. The screen went away. Let’s just look at our immortality in a picture like this. You can see here that, let’s just say for example that you’re going to live to be 90 years old. I’m going to go on a tangent real quick though because I had a conversation with one of my mentors at a Mastermind in Chicago I was at a couple of weeks ago. This conversation was basically, it started out was the question posed to me and my group was, “How old are you going to be when you die? How old are you going to be when you die?”

I thought, “That’s an interesting question. I’ve never been asked that before. I don’t know.” After putting some thought to it and talking to other people and what not, the average age of people believing they were going to die was, it started in the 80s to 90s range was on average a couple of people on 100. Then one of the coaches just really started dropping some science and knowledge on everybody about some people that his doctors and just other people in the medical field, the Silicon Valley dudes are like, they’re going to start printing organs probably in the next five to 10 years. You can print a heart, or a bladder, or a spleen, or whatever it is that you want. Just something to think about is we don’t really know how old we’re going to be when we die of course. We don’t know what medical technology is going to be like either. It should be theoretically much more advanced than it is now so we could live a lot older. We could all die tomorrow. I don’t know.

The second part of the question was whatever age you picked that you were going to live to be, the second part of the question was, “What do you see yourself being? Who do you see yourself being the last portion of your life?”

The second part of the question was, “Who do you see yourself being in that last year of your life? What types of things will you be doing with your time? What activities will you take part in etcetera, etcetera?” Some of the things that I journal about was that I want to still have an active mind. I want to have a growth type of mindset. Be thinking about new ideas and things that inspire me, and encourage me, and hopefully inspire and encourage others. Of course, I want to spend a lot of time with my wife and my children, most likely my grandchildren, maybe even my great grandchildren. I have five kids now. As of two weeks ago, we adopted a child and that made number five. I’m just assuming I’m going to have a lot of grandkids and great grandkids and who knows what else? I want to spend a lot of time with them. I also noted that I want to be exercising. I even put boxing on a bag and just staying active and having that fighting mentality and mindset.

Another thing was that I want to be teaching, motivating, and educating others. That was the main thing from a business perspective was that I want to be like in a mentor role. Maybe with my kids and their businesses and maybe working with some of you guys, who knows? Just other people and students. Just hopefully sharing some wisdom and insights and things that motivate, inspire, educate and equip others. Hopefully be doing those things.

Then the next layer of this question about how old are you going to be when you die? Then the question was posed, “If you were doing all those things, you’re investing quality time with your loved ones and friends which is one of the key indicators, is really big. It’s one of the key indicators of when people die. People who are surrounded by close friends and family members as they get older, live longer. That was one of the keys. Those who exercise and physically, the two keys to growing older is muscle mass retaining and even growing some muscle mass but just maintaining and retaining muscle mass is critical. Then obesity. Staying thing and fit and retaining muscle mass, those are two of the biggest indicators along with friends. Of course, if you don’t have like a cancer, an incurable type disease, a major illness.

Back to my response about, I want to be spending quality time with the family and loved ones, have a growth mindset, just being active mentally, exercising, doing things I love, teaching people and inspiring. They said, “If you’re doing all these things in the last year that you’re alive, what are the odds that you’re going to live longer?” I’m like, “Yeah, there’s probably a pretty good chance if I’m” … My age was 97 but I said, “If I’m 96 and I’m doing those things, there’s probably a good chance I’ll live longer.” They said, “How much longer?” I said, “Maybe 10-15 years, I don’t know.”

The last part of this question was basic. It’s like, “Why aren’t you doing those things now?” Because that’s what I desire to do when I’m ninety something or the things I desire to do now. I’m blessed. Knock on laptop, that I do a lot of those things now but I would like to do them more. I still do some of the things I dislike to do. That’s why I have an org chart and a team, and slowly but surely, this is my first year. I’ve been in business 10 years. I can honestly say that this year going into this year, I have someone in every single position, every single role and I’m business owner so it’s really cool. There’s a much deeper lesson I’m going to get into with this.

Going back to the slide now. Recognize your own mortality. That’s birth, that’s turning 90 and what not. This is another graphic of someone who’s around my age. I turned 42 two days ago. This is about a halfway shaded in chart of someone who is about 45 years old. All of the dark, greyed areas, it’s not coming back. It’s just gone. It’s done. There’s no way to get that time back. For those of you who are my age, that’s what you’re looking at. There are some of you who are watching this that are younger and you got more time theoretically and there’s some of you that are older that have less time theoretically. We really don’t know. We only know of the here, now, and the present. We don’t know what the future holds, not even five seconds from now. That’s where we’re at.

Another thing that’s pretty eye-opening to me is if you look at the average time of seasons in our life, we go through seasons in our life. Some of these are labeled as good seasons, some are labeled bad seasons, some are mediocre average seasons, whatever it may be. The question is what type of season are you living in your life right now? If it is a bad season or just an average season, how can you get it to be an epic season? If it is an incredible, awesome season you’re going through right now, how can you get it to be even more awesome? How can you prevent the drift or the downward spiral or the crash? Because that is something that happens a lot is whenever you attain and achieve success, that a lot of times people get lazier, they get complacent and they cease doing the things that got them to that level.

I’m in a really, really good season of my life. Like I said, we just adopted a baby. She’s two and a half weeks old. She’s awesome. She’s incredible, she’s amazing. It’s just a really cool vibe at the house on a personal level. In my business, it is a time of expansion and growth. I’ve got a really, really good team that I have around me. We have a lot of fun. We make a lot of money. Sometimes we make mistakes but we learn from them and we grow. It’s really good. I’m not going to get satisfied with that because I know it can be better. It can always be better.

Also, just consider that everyone watching this webinar along with everyone else in the world, we all are seeking the same thing. We all are seeking the same thing, which is just to be better. Just to feel better. Maybe not to be better. Some people aren’t really seeking that but at the same time, we all want to feel better. Just think about that. We’re all seeking just to feel better. Whether we eat like crap. We go through a drive-through, it’s like that’s what we’re desiring right now and we’re hungry. We don’t care, and that would make us feel better. Even though in the long run it may not right now, it feels better. Or if we eat healthy, it feels better. If we go to the gym and exercise, we’re doing it even though it may be painful or difficult or hard, temporarily, it will make us feel better. If we choose not to go to the gym. We’re like, “I want to avoid that pain so I’m going to avoid it and that’s going to make me feel better.” If you hit the snooze alarm, you feel better. If you wake up early to get work done, it’s because you’re doing it to feel better. We all want the same thing. No matter what season in life or what the atmospheres of this season you’re in, consider you want it to be better. We all want it to be better.

In order to make it better, let’s not become this person. Or if you are this person right now, let’s just consider some things here because I used to be this person, which I’ll talk about in the next slide but don’t become this person. The person who’s constantly working their butt off and not getting any closer to goals. You’re doing this. You’re spinning. You’re spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning the wheel and you’re staying in the same exact spot. Busy, busy, busy, talk, talk, talk, no money, money, money. That’s it. Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, you’re in the same place. Don’t be that person.

Maybe you’re the person who you set goals for the year and a couple of months later, you’ve already forgot about them, either from really a lack of progress or just you set goals and there’s big obstacles and you can’t overcome them, or you’re distracted, or you’re not staying focused. You don’t have a really good tracking system, you’re really … The bottom line is you probably weren’t actually really committed to those goals because each and every one of you watching this have achieved things in your life.

I guarantee you the things that you will achieve, that were achieved, that you achieve were simply because you were truly committed to them. You were truly committed to them or they were just like your plans more than they were really easy goals but you’ve probably accomplished something pretty big in your life. Most people I know have graduated high school. They probably went to college, whatever, that you’ve accomplished some goal. Consider that the only reason you accomplished that goal is because you were truly committed to it. Most times people who at least take the time to set a goal generally don’t achieve the goal typically just because they’re truly not committed to it. They’re playing halfway in.

Let’s go to the next one. Maybe you’ve become a yes person and you say yes to almost any opportunity. This is a big pitfall for entrepreneurs that they fall into all the time. The yes person. They see an opportunity and there’s an opportunity to make money. There’s some experience or money-making venture. However, what they don’t realize is that with every opportunity there is an opportunity cost associated with that opportunity. There is the cost of time. There is a cost of your focus. There may be a financial cost. Whatever it is, there is an opportunity there but it may not be the right opportunity for you. It most likely is going to pull you away from other opportunities or where your focus needs to be. Don’t become this person. Just get really, really clear and committed to what your results are. Stay focused on those and as you get more clear, it’s easier to say no. A lot of the yes people are saying yes because they’re not really clear on what it is that they want. They’re chasing shiny objects. Don’t do that.

All right. Maybe you’re starting most days feeling overwhelmed and pressured with the things you have to do and you feel as if there is a lack of time to do it. That may be true in some instances. Also, consider that a lot of times, the feeling of a lack of time to do it is simply that you are lacking the capacity to properly organize and structure your time and your priorities. I was talking to a friend who was doing some work for me earlier this year. There were issues like, “Man, I can’t commit to this anymore.” What he was doing for me. He’s like, “I can’t commit. I just don’t have the time.” He called me back the other day and said, “Hey man, I miss working with you. I want to get back in and do what I was doing before, maybe some other things.” I’m like, “Tell me what’s changed?” He’s like, “What’s changed is where I was playing at in life and business when we had that conversation.” He’s like, “I wasn’t at the capacity to handle everything that I had going on.” He was like, “I really don’t have anything less going on now but I’ve organized and structured my life and my responsibilities in the way that I process work etcetera, etcetera that I 100% have the capacity.”

I thought that was a great answer, a great response. That’s often times the case because you can look at a person who is a small business owner or maybe just an employee. They’re up to their eyeballs in work every single day and always running behind. Then you look at a person like Steve Jobs because I’m looking at his face right here on my wall or someone else that runs like a massive major company and they all have the same amount of time but one person organizes their time better and delegates and builds teams etcetera, etcetera. All things for you to consider.

The last one which is absolutely the most critical. If you find yourself in this spot right now, you’re redlining. That that last bullet point is you’re on the verge of giving up on your dreams forever. Man, if that’s you or you’re in that situation or a similar situation, it’s time to fight. It’s time to fight. It’s time to roll up your sleeves. It’s time to start punching because the stories that you’re most likely telling yourself right now, they’re completely not true. They’re completely not true. I get it, life and business can be tough. We can get beat up but don’t give up on your dreams. Don’t give up on your dreams. If you can have just that mustard seed of faith and belief that you can do it, guess what? You can do it. Just like I told you at the start of this webinar, your thoughts, the thoughts that you have will become things. If you’re having the thought and holding on to the thought about giving up forever: Don’t do that. It’s time to fight so let’s start putting this thing back together.

Everything I said on the previous slide is not like this because that was really me. I went through long periods of time and still do go through periods of time where I can be unfocused, maybe I get a little grouch or unhappy, but really I spend a lot of my time just meandering, wondering what I should do. I’m just stuck in this job that I did not like. I’m like, “Man, what should I do? This sucks, blah, blah, blah.”

Spend a lot of time being busy. I’ve done this a lot as a business owner more so when I was starting out but now I’m pretty focused for the most part. I spent a lot of time just being busy and unproductive, really focused on the wrong things because I hadn’t spent enough time getting clear on the right things and on a path to status quo. That’s scary for me because I want more, I desire more. I want to leave a legacy. I want to teach my children through my examples of what I do and how I live my life.

The path to status quo of average, to me is really scary. To me, it’s really scary. It would almost be better to be like rock bottom in a ditch than to just be in this a lukewarm state of status quo. I don't want that. I don't know if you do or not. I would assume that you do not or else you wouldn’t be attending an epic 2017 webinar.

I’m going to bust out some Stephen Covey time quadrants here. A lot of times when we look at some of these characteristics, if you’re experiencing these characteristics here or something similar, most likely it doesn’t mean that you’re a grumpy, unproductive just average person or whatever. It just means most likely what it boils down to or if we look for the root of the problem, it really boils down to how you’re spending time, because I see so many times and I don’t know if you’re familiar with Stephen Covey’s work and with his time quadrants but I’d highly recommend that you recommend that you read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s one of the first business/personal development books that I ever read. It had a tremendous, tremendous impact on my life when I read that. It was like in 2006 when I read that book. I think it was 2006. Whenever you look at how you spend your time, it basically boils down to one of these quadrants. Of course, we want to go for quality too, quality time. That’s where I call it, a zone of genius or a zone of greatness. These other four zones, I’m writing a new book now. It’s all about the real estate mindset as for an entrepreneur. I talk about four zones. It’s very similar to this but a little bit different. One of the zones is basically called the zone of suck. It boils down to are you spending a lot of time doing something that you either suck at or do you just feel like this sucks why am I doing it and you’re spending a lot of time there? Life’s not going to be too enjoyable if you’re living in the zone of suck.

For me, if I am doing a lot of paperwork stuff, if I am managing properties and if I had to go show properties or deal with tenant stuff etcetera, etcetera, that would be like a zone of suck for me. That’s not something that I’m necessarily good at and not something that I enjoy. It’s not going to be too good for me. Sure, I can have a positive mindset, make the best out of everything, but it’s not what’s in my heart. It’s not what I feel called to do. The more time I operate in that zone, the more I’m going to experience displeasure, unhappiness, etcetera, etcetera.

I know I need to move to my zone of greatness which is doing what I’m doing with you right now, teaching, motivating, educating, spending time in thought, in writing, just trying to be a visionary, lead my team, my family, do things like that and just motivate, inspire, educate, equip others is really where my zone of greatness is where I experience the most joy and satisfaction, and hopefully I have the biggest impact in the world.

There’s also a zone of the average. There’s a zone of the average. This is where people spend most of their time where you are just living this average life and you’re really playing small in all areas of your life. You’re not really pushing yourself but you’re not completely lazy. You’re just like whatever. It’s the status quo zone.

There’s a zone of good where a lot of people are at where a zone of good is like you went to college and you got a degree, and you’re maybe in the upper middle class. You’ve got an okay marriage and maybe you go to the gym, once or twice a week. It’s pretty good. You’re not on Food Stamps or anything like that but it’s really good. You know that you’re playing small. You know that you’re not living in the zone of greatness.

How do we get in the zone of the greatness? One of the ways that we get in the zone of greatness besides getting really clear and becoming really committed, we have to organize and structure our time better. Forget about spending time in time four, in the quadrant number four if you’re committed to building an epic 2017 because I can assure you that building an epic 2017 does not involve spending a lot of time in quadrant four.

Moving on to quadrant number three with distractions, you really have to be careful there too. Even with these guys here, for the most part, this represents quadrant number three and quadrant number four. Quadrant number three and quadrant number four. Also quadrant number one. Firefighting, this is crisis pressing problems blah, blah, blah, deadline-driven projects, I get it. I get it. I have multiple businesses. I got a lot of people that work underneath me. There’s a lot of firefighting that goes on. Every day we are putting out some virus so I get that.

Consider, every time that you’re looking at your phone, you’re not in quadrant two. You’re just not. You’re just not. Maybe if you’re planning something productive I guess. Quadrant number two is not where you spend your time. I’m looking at my phone here. I only have two right now. I don’t have text notifications. I don’t get notified when I have new text. I don’t get notified for Facebook updates, ho-ho- ho-ho. All that kind of stuff, my life, my employees, my coaching students, they have my phone number, they can call me. I don’t even answer a lot. When I’m in my quadrant two type things, I don’t answer this. I have a certain amount of time for this but I’m moving more and more and more of my time to quadrant two because that’s where I’m in my zone of greatness.

Just look into this and read Stephen Covey. Just consider how you’re organizing your time because how you’re organizing and spending your time will impact how you feel and what your production is for 2017. This just reinforces this point is that realize that everything that you spend your time on is either useful or non-useful to helping you create a life and business that you desire.

Like I mentioned earlier, this is just an illustration about that when you’re spending your time on non-useful things and projects that are simply put just not exciting and something that is in your zone of greatness, then your energy is going to dissipate. Your energy is going to dissipate. There is a reason that if you are that person that is feeling unhappy or giving up on your dreams and just status quo, lethargic, not waking up inspired, just dreading to get out of bed and just not wanting to attack the day, it’s because the energy that you have is dissipating. It’s like you’re a balloon, and like you have a little pinhole, and like all of your air and your healing and what not is being sucked out of you. It’s just dripping out.

For some of you, it’s not just dripping, it’s just like, you’re about to land on the floor and just be a popped balloon because your energy is just it’s leaving you, it’s gone. Really think hard and long about 2017 and how you’re spending your energy because when you are investing your time and energy into the things, the activities, the goals, the relationships, the business deals, things that truly, truly excite you, this is how we get to the next level my friends. This is how we build an epic 2017. Think about the conversation, the things that I would be doing when I’m 96 years old. Screw that. I want to do those things right now. I want to have that energy right now.

Whenever I’m working on projects that I’m excited about, it creates new energy. It creates new excitement. It happens over and over and over again. Yes, we need the proper rest. We need to refuel properly with the right food and nutrition, rest. Exercise is incredibly important, all these things work together, all these things work together to create renewable energy. That’s one of the reasons that I run the event breakthrough at the beach is because real estate strategy and everything is great and I love and enjoy real estate. If you’re just running a business model and that is your sole driving purpose, it’s not going to create renewable and sustainable energy. The more that we can really tap in to integrating all these core areas of our life, our spirituality, our family and love relationships, our health and fitness and we combine those with purpose, with things that excite us and drive us and push us, and we combine that with our business, it’s renewable. It keeps going and going and going and going.

If there are setbacks and challenges, or I should say when there are setbacks and challenges, those become so much more minute and small because you’re focused on this really big goal. It’s just like, “All right, man. We tripped on a stone but we’re going up this mountain. That we’re going to get to the top so that was just a little thing that happened. We keep moving.” You continue moving because you’re invigorated everyday by what you’re doing.

I have a plan to put out, create, write and publish seven books in 2017. Seven books in 2017. It’s one of my new passions and I enjoy it. I’ve got two that are almost done for 2017. I’ve got a model and a process for doing it that’s pretty freaking sweet. If you’re interested in writing a book, let me know. That’s something that’s creating renewable energy. Not only is it something that I enjoy doing, but when I have books and just education, resources out there that help and educate and help others, equip others, and I get messages and feedback from that, that inspires me and it keeps that renewable energy fan going, and going, and going. This is really big. I hope you’re getting this. I hope you’re getting a lot from this. Feel free to shoot me some comments if you are getting some good input from this. For those of you who are live, I know some of you are going to be watching this on video replay, but feel free to send me a message too, below on the comments.

Let’s turn to the man. Let’s turn to Albert. He says, “We are most productive when we focus on a very small number of projects on which we can devote a large amount of attention.” We live in the generation, the ADDH, which guilty as charged. We live in this time and era of where we are distracted. We’re very distracted. It’s very easy to go, “Tch-tch- tch-tch.” Like, “Oh squirl and just go.” Man, that is me. For sure, that is me.

We got to be careful because it turns out that Albert knew a few things. They call this The Einstein Principle. It talks about our focus and being distracted on these things. Whenever Albert Einstein was working on the theory of relativity and all these other findings, that was pretty much all he was focusing on. That’s one of the reasons he was going through marital problem or it was marriage issues I guess. I think it was around that time that his hair almost all turned white. I don’t want your hair to turn white. He was like 10x in his focus. Just grasp what you can from this and consider that one of the ways to build an epic 2017 is just say no to some things. Say no to some projects so that you can focus on a few things.

As a business owner and entrepreneur with multiple businesses, what I found is there is a way to have multiple businesses and multiple things going on but you have to have people in place that you can trust that can get things done. That’s why we started a property management company last year not because I love property management, it’s because I wanted a system, and a person and a go-to that could take care of all that for me, for myself and our clients for who we manage their properties.

We elected to go with their franchise because we have their support, their time and their energy. That was a way for me to focus on the stuff I was going and improve our property management systems and add another ancillary item and service on for our clients without me having to get in the thick of things so to speak. Just to look at it as an entrepreneur CEO type of role. That’s how we’re starting a marketing company this year, using the systems that we already use in our existing business. I have a person that I brought on that I’m partnering with to do that because really my focus this year business wise is just acting and operating as a CEO. Just educating, and motivating, and training my staff, and supporting them. That’s where my focus is and my coaching clients of course.

Just consider that 2017, for it to be epic, it cannot be epic if you have like 10 different business things you’re working on unless they’re related to the same type of business and project. You can’t be trying to have a full-time job as a realtor and then you’re running around doing wholesaling. Then on the side, you’re selling freaking stream energy or all this other stuff. You’re in some multilevel marketing thing. I have nothing against stream energy. I really don’t know anything about it. It just popped in my mind but you’re doing all this little stuff and wheels are turning but you’re not going anywhere. Shut some stuff down and just focus on what excites you the most.

What do you focus on and how do you organize it? This is what I’ve seen the masses do and this is what I’ve done before as well in the past. You choose a big yearly goal that sounds good but really feeling like that sounds good but you know that isn’t going to happen. A lot of times, furthermore the goal or focus is very vague and it lacks specificity. It’s a hard word to say. You have to get really clear on what your goals are, specifically what do you want? What do you want? When are you going to accomplish? How are you going to do it? What are you going to do and get after it?

Goal setting is not a once a year thing by the way. You need to continually be reviewing your goals. You can do it daily. Some of the most successful people that I know are reviewing goals like daily, some in the morning and night. If you read, what’s his name? 10x dude. I’m forgetting his name right now. It’s like day and night, day and night, day and night, constantly, rewriting his goals. That’s pretty cool.

A lot of people give up on their goals, right away by the first quarter if not sooner. That’s what the masses do. Let’s look at what the 1% do. You create a focus for the year. What is your focus for the year? I’ll share with you, our business focus is expansion. We’re expanding this year. We have all the people in place. Everyone has specific roles, responsibilities. We’ve got a good synergy going on. We’ve got the systems have been built. It’s taken a really long time to build all the systems out. This year it’s epic expansion. Try to theme your year, like “What is the theme going to be?” Set outcomes in all areas of your life. Don’t just be that one dimensional player where you’re just focused on money. Set goals in all areas of your life in order to have a better life but in order to create renewable energy. Remember what we talked about.

To have an epic 2017, you need to do more than just make money. You need to make the money. Don’t get me wrong. Results are what matters. If you don’t have the money, those other areas of your life are going to be a little bit thrown off as well because what is … To me, and this is me. Money is freedom. Money is in certain aspects it creates opportunity. It creates power in my life because it gives me the opportunity to do things. One of the reasons that I make money is to have some of the nice things, to go on trips, to have a nice house and things like that. That’s part of it. I mentioned my wife and I just adopted a child. It’s not cheap. It’s not cheap at all. Just to have another kid is not cheap. That’s to me is what money is all about. Quite frankly, that’s what drives me more to make money is some of that bigger higher purpose things that we can do with money and the aspect of money too.

The funny thing I made a post about this a few days ago was seeing my students make money is actually much more exciting than me making money myself. Anyways, set these outcomes in all areas of your life. You need to create some real accountability. You need to create a real plan to achieve 10x. One of my coaches told me that. It’s like, “Let me see your 10x plan.” I’m like, “I don’t have a 10x plan. Quite frankly, a 10x plan, that scares me.” 10x plan is like, “You’re going to multiply your results 10 times. Let’s say you made $100,000 this year, my question to you would be, “What is your plan to make a million dollars?” If you made a million dollars this year, what is your plan to make $10 million? If you’re running a business that your revenue is in the $5 million range, how do you 10x that to $50 million? That thought made my head hurt. I’m like, “I don’t know.”

I’ve heard Grant Cardone, I mentioned, I couldn’t remember his name earlier, it’s Grant Cardone. He wrote a book about the 10x. My conception around that term though was like it has to be done in one year. I’m like, “Really like with the capacity of where I’m at that’s not really possible.” I’ll just say that and I’ll show him my honesty and say, “It’s not possible.” My coach said, “I didn’t say it had to be a year. It could be five years or 10 years but what is your plan to grow your business by 10x?” Because that’s one of the things I’m involved in the program and you have to have an active 10x plan.

After you hit 10x you got to build another plan. That, holy crap, really that’s going to stretch me. The purpose is and I would love for each and every one of you to work a 10x plan. It can be a one page. Mine right now is just a one page, it’s not getting into details because as we build, we level up in our business, we don’t know what the next, we don’t know what the next horizon is. We have 90-day goals and year goals etcetera, etcetera but we don’t really know everything that’s going to unfold. We just really have to ask ourselves this question when we’re building a 10x plan which is one of the most powerful questions we can ask ourselves. “How? How is it possible?”

The 10x plan is critical because it’s going to challenge you and it’s going to stretch you to ask the question, “How would it be possible for me to go 10x?” Because you’re not going to go 10x, you’re not even going to go 2x if you’re continuing to operate with the way that you’ve been operating in the past. You don’t know what you don’t know. Having a 10x plan is going to stretch you like up here, to think in a new way. It’s already opened up some new ideas for me. This isn’t even something I’ve really unveiled but we’re opening up an office in two months in the Philippines, a back office, support office for our support teams to help facilitate and grow our staff here that’s out in the field. That’s something I wouldn’t have even thought about at the beginning of the year, this year whenever I laid out my plans for this year. We’ve executed on our plans for this year. In order to support what we’ve built and what we’re doing, we have to open up a whole entire new back office.

Just step into this space and set some time aside and create a 10x plan. Just allow yourself to ask those questions of how could it be possible. When you begin to execute, allow yourself to fail, but also view failure as just feedback and an opportunity to come back stronger, having gained a powerful lesson. That’s why one of the most powerful lessons that you can ever receive as an entrepreneur and as a real estate investor is a deal that goes bad. It’s an incredibly valuable lesson. Unfortunately most people don’t extract the lesson and learn and grow from it. They receive the lesson and hold on to that lesson as if the book is completely shut forever. Like, “No dude. That was just a chapter man. Dude, that was just a chapter.”

The next chapter is so much better. It’s so much better if you’ll just get off your ass, stop making excuses and stories and just crying like a baby because something went wrong and open up the book. You are the author of your book. You have the opportunity to write the next chapter. Nobody else. If your life sucks, your business sucks, whatever sucks in your life, guess what? You did that. You did that. You did that. If your life, your business, your sex life, everything is amazing, it’s incredible, it’s freaking awesome, guess what? You did that. You did that. No matter where you’re at, good or bad, you get to write the next chapter. You get to choose what the next chapter brings.

Consider right here and right now, start working on your plan. Create a 90-day challenge and goal, assess what’s working in your business and what’s not and you do this every single quarter, moving forward, refocus, daily, quarterly, do it. These are the things that creates results. It’s not that difficult. Just start with that yearly goal. What is it really like? Or by the time we’re recording this, we’re getting down to the end of the year. What do you want your life to look like? Who do you want to be a year from now? What do you want your bank accounts to look like? Your relationship to look like? Your health and fitness to look like? Your spirituality to look like? What does that look like? What does that feel like?

Reverse engineering, start a year out from now and work backwards. All right, if you want to make whatever, $100,000, maybe it’s just a $100,000. All right, cool. Let’s reverse engineer that. We’re going to break that down into 90-day. We’re going to start with a 90-day challenge. I like to call it a challenge because it’s going to challenge you. You have to work your butt off. Break into like this quarterly mission. The 90-day challenge, plan it, plan it, plan it. Spend a lot of time planning because it’s so incredible important and then just execute. You execute and you assess.

You execute to take action and then you assess, “Is this working or is it not?” Cool. If it’s working, great. Pour gas on it, light it up, 10x it. Go if it’s working for you. Assess it, it’s not working. Cool, you either shut it down, you either modify it and improve it or say, “You know what, this thing here, I’m just going to set it off to the side right now because it’s not working but it’s not really in my zone of greatness. I think it’s going to help me get results but right now I’m going to focus on what’s working.” Pour gas on that and you focus on that. You shut down other things that aren’t working and you just go out and you take action.

I’m going to close with this. This is some of the very, very strategic planning specifics. These are things that are on my calendar. These are things that I do with my team, etcetera, etcetera. A half-day each month, this is not a half day of playing on Facebook and playing like you’re doing something. I’m talking about you shut down the phones, you shut everything down and you assess your objectives. I’ll tell you that most of the free world was at home on the day after Christmas, not working and what not. I came to the office. I’m like, “This is my planning day. This is my planning day. It’s quiet. I’m not getting bothered. It wouldn’t matter. Maybe I’ll just turn my phone off.” That’s the day I blocked out, this is my planning day because I have my staff team meeting on Wednesday. That was a Monday. That’s my planning day.

You need to do this too. Create at least a half-day each month, we’ll call half-day four hours to assess progress, get on the whiteboard, whatever it is that you use and go over your objectives, assess what was working and what wasn’t, unexpected things that happened. Then at least a one full-day each quarter to go over like really a quarterly review and to set your next 90-day challenge. Assess, “Hey, we picked up a lot of speed, momentum we’re doing really well or we’re falling a bit behind. That’s okay. This happened, that happened.” That happens in business sometimes. You assess. Maybe this is getting away. Maybe this is getting away in my life and I go to this river house a friend of mine has. We used to go our beach house a lot, get babysitters, leave the kids, stay all night and just I’ll work and I’ll just think big. I’ll ask myself that question, “How?” Then two full days each year to create annual priorities. I would also say for those of you that have employees and team members, I have a weekly one-on- one with each of them. It’s only 30 minutes but it’s a weekly one-on- one just face time me and you, “What’s working? What’s not working? What do you need from me to support you?” Then we go over a review of three goals. My team members have specifically three goals that they achieve each week. Now, these are the same goals. These are the same goals that are reversed engineered from their one-year plan to a 90-day challenge and reduce the 90-day challenge to a weekly big three. It could be something, your sales goals, sales calls etcetera, etcetera, construction manager, how many jobs did you close out this week, etcetera, etcetera, things that push them. It’s basically reverse engineered from their 90-day targets. Those are really, really important.

Hey, I wanted to keep this to an hour. We are at an hour now. I know some of you are going to go back to work and do other things, but hey, I hope you receive value from this. More importantly, I hope you’re going to take action on some of the things that you learned to build an epic 2017. Remember it starts here, your thoughts will become your things. Just hold on to that thought that you have the power and the ability, and the capacity to create and build an epic 2017. With that, I’m logging off. I love, honor, and appreciate each and every one of you. You’ll have an incredible 2017.