Transcript

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Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Faithful Agent podcast.
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It's my pleasure today to talk through pieces of the book that I have coming out for anybody that might follow me on social media, the five of you, uh that I've got a book coming out this fall called The Balance Breakthrough, Winning at Work Without Losing at Life.
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And truthfully, I'm excited about it.
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I worked really hard, spent over a year writing this book, and now it's going to be a year of the editing process.
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getting it out, the publishing process, all of those pieces.
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It's out for pre-sale now.
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There'll be a link in the show notes, but also it will be officially out November 25th.
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You can buy it on Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Target, Amazon, all those places.
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It'll be out there.
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So super excited for that.
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And I hope that the book is a blessing to many, agents, not just Christian agents.
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It certainly has the gospel and uh biblical truth.
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associated with it and written throughout the pages, but it's not specifically to Christians.
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And my hope is that agents like us, faithful agents, can use this book as a way to help our friends maybe reset and redefine what winning looks like in their life and get them to ask questions.
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And hopefully those questions lead to eternal questions as well.
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And so just excited for this book to come out and I want to share a little bit and some thoughts with you about it today.
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But before I do, as always, let me start with a good christian dad joke uh...
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adam wakes up in fines eve counting his ribs and asks what are you doing he says i want to make sure i want to make sure there's no other woman in your life that's fantastic that's actually really funny okay i wish i had come up with that okay so anyways this source of the conversation we're have today is that called the balance breakthrough winning at work without losing at life and how do we use the time between our birth and our death that the dash writing i'm gonna read you an excerpt of this beginning of this book and we're gonna talk about multiple pieces here it's going to be relatively quick right but the story of the dash a culture of hustle verse intentional life a hope for a better way reflection exercise and then giving you an encouragement to build your own scoreboard of them call you to uh...
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action and encouragement so that's where we're going today i hope again that this is going to be a blessing to you let me read a brief excerpt of the very beginning of the book not too long ago i was standing in christiansburg virginia at the graveside of my grandmother she was an incredible woman who had finally succumbed to parkinson's after a long and arduous journey she was being buried next to papa my grandfather a world war two veteran and successful businessman Buried next to him was his father, my great grandfather, Harvey Ridinger.
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As I read his fated name in the dates, 1885 to 1957, I remember thinking, this is my great grandfather, but all I know about him is what's on his headstone the year he was born and the year he died.
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I had no emotions associated with his passing.
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I did not know if he had fought in World War I, if he had been successful in a vocation, or if he had struggled his whole life.
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I didn't know his thoughts, his hopes, his dreams, his life.
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He had only died 37 years before I was born and yet I did not know him and felt no impact at all looking at his headstone.
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Now I do not write this to be morbid or to cast this down quite the opposite.
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As I looked again at his headstone all I could think was that dash between his birth year and death year was his whole life.
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Whether it was lived well, poorly or somewhere in between that dash was his life.
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Did he spend it on fading pursuits like more money, more fame, more recognition?
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Or did he spend it on lasting pursuits like loving his wife, shaping his son, and giving more than he took?
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I don't know.
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In fact, it's possible no one knows anymore.
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No matter how hard he may have strived after things in his life, he's now just a name, some dates, and a dash.
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One day, that's all that'll be left of me too.
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The same goes for you, for all of us.
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So the question is, what did he do with his dash?
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And more importantly, what will each of us do with ours?
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Will we spend it in vain pursuit of personal glory, more money, more success, bigger businesses, nicer cars, higher sales rankings, more stuff, or will we choose to spend it on what we truly hold important?
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I want to start off this book by putting our lives and businesses into perspective.
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This excerpt from Linda Ellis's poem, The Dash does an excellent job framing it for us.
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I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend.
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He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning.
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to the end.
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He noted that first came the date of birth and spoke the following date with tears, but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.
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For that dash represents all the time that they spent alive on earth, and now only those who loved them know what that little line is worth.
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For it matters not how much we own, the cars, the house, the cash.
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What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.
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So think about this long and hard.
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Are there things you'd like to change?
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for you never know how much time is left that can still be rearranged.
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So when your eulogy is being read with your life's actions to rehash, would you be proud of the things they say about how you spent your dash?
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That's the powerful question.
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The dash is your life, brothers and sisters.
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And the question is, what are we going to do with ours?
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I don't know how long it's going to be, neither do you.
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The Lord has granted us this day and this day alone, and hopefully the next day and maybe the next day.
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We don't know how long, but the question is, what are we going to do with our dash?
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Because the reality is just like my great grandfather, one day we will just be a name and dates.
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So how do we stay present?
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and love the people the Lord has put right in front of our faces.
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That's the challenge.
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That's the question.
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As we talk about a culture of hustle versus intentional life, the reality is, and I acknowledge this, there are sacrifices for this industry.
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Skipped dinners, vacations where we're working, always being on, feeling like we need to be 24-7.
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You know, I remember early on in my career, it's probably my first, maybe my second year, honestly, don't quite...
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recall but early on in my career i remember having a uh...
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in a job was working with one of the top agents and we had gotten this termite moisture report or we got the termite moisture uh...
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inspection done well this agent calls me on sunday even early on my career i'd made it clear i'm not gonna work on sundays unless we're actively negotiating something and it's super urgent to sunday's is for the lord and for my family and so i don't answer the call he leaves a voicemail why don't listen to monday morning because it's my it's my sabbath right it's my sabbath rest and it wasn't an urgent thing and so i get his voicemail and it's garrett you better call me back right away and so i clearly don't because i was on sunday i call him back monday morning and he just starts cussing me out because garrett you gotta if you're an agent you gotta be available 24 7 i don't care what day it is you gotta blah blah blah blah and he was so upset and i just really didn't acknowledge it quite honestly I just said, hey, I totally understand where you're coming from.
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That's not how I'm going to operate.
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What did you need from me?
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And he said, the term I moisture came in and I just wanted you to know that all was clear.
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I'm thinking, why did I need to skip my Sunday with my family to get on a phone call for you to tell me all was clear?
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That doesn't make sense, but we'd live in this hustle culture.
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Like overworking is a badge of honor.
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The reality of saying, well, I'm on vacation, so let's take a selfie and show that I'm working, right?
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Or I'm on vacation with my family and I'm sitting out on the boat, but I'm writing a contract.
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I saw that the other day and I get it, right?
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I'm an agent too.
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So I get the sacrifices that this takes.
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Some of those are unavoidable.
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The others, we just fall in line with what the world told us we must do.
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And it's not true.
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The mindset.
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Right?
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That we must be available 24-7, that we live in this hustle culture, that if I don't get up from dinner and answer the phone call that I'm somehow not serving my people well, that's not true.
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The question is, are you living the life that you wanted or the one the world told you to chase?
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When you stop and you think about how you spend your time, when you stop and you think about the dinner that you missed, was it really necessary?
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Did you have to pick up the phone right then and there?
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When you're on vacation and you're supposed to be spending time with your family, but all you're doing is responding to emails and texts.
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And then when you aren't working, you're posting video or...
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Stories on Instagram of you with your kids and guess what?
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You're actually always behind the phone.
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Is that really the life that you believe you want and that your family wants?
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Or are you just doing what the world told you to do?
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It's hard, but we've got to ask that question.
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I remember my wife asking me that question.
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I answered the phone one night at dinner.
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is years ago.
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Answer the phone one night at dinner, jumped up, was talking to a client, right?
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I get it again.
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I'm in that life.
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I understand that life.
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talking to a client I come back and she asked me an amazing question.
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Hey, just curious, because she was totally on board.
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Just curious, was it necessary for you to answer that call?
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Or could you have called them back later tomorrow?
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And I just remember thinking, I used to think everything was necessary.
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I had to get to it right away.
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But when she asked me that question, the answer was, you're right, it wasn't necessary.
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I could absolutely have waited.
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Forgive me.
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Next time when that call comes in, I'm going to ask the question.
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Do I need to get this right away or is it going to be okay?
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You can ask yourself that question too.
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Agent, are you living the life you wanted or the one the world told you to chase?
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Well, here's the hope.
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Hope for a better way.
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Not only following the Lord's way, but recognizing that you can reclaim your life and still succeed at work.
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The whole point of the book that I wrote is written from a place of care about your life, your relationships, your purpose.
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That the reality is for me is I sought to redefine the win and I want you to do the same thing to redefine the win, redefine and reframe what success looks like.
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That it's not about more money or sales.
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It's about living in line with your true priorities, which for us as believers, it's understanding who are we specifically called to serve.
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So when we think about it from an attention perspective, from a hierarchy perspective, let's say you are similar to me and you're married with kids.
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your first most important relationship of any in this entire world is the lord your relationship and walk with him second is your spouse third is your children or if your grandparent your grandchildren or your child your children then your grandchildren excuse me and then it's work that's what the actual structure is from a biblical worldview that's how we structure who gets the most and best of our attention.
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doesn't mean that I'm not gonna be working more hours than I am sitting there playing with my kids.
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That's not what I mean, but from the quality of the attention, it's not about more money and sales.
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It's about living in line with your true priorities, with the calling that the Lord has given you.
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And here's the beauty of it.
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When we just decide to shift and say, I'm no longer going to decide whether I won or lost the game, based on did i sell more homes in the other agent in my office or was i the number one agent did i win a gold award at realtor prom at the end of the year i'm no longer going to let that define whether i had success but instead i'm going to recognize that yes i used to think success was a hundred sales per year but now i know it's stopping in being able to take my kids to a movie on wednesday morning which i did last week that is success and here's the beauty you can actually do both when i started to prioritize my family and making choices that serves them well now here's the caveat here's where we fall short and i do too agents when you are at work be there be intentional work hard work purposeful be focused so that when you're off work and you should have hours When you're no longer working that day, you can be fully present with wherever your feet are.
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The challenge that we often have and the reason that we don't think it's possible to really set boundaries but still succeed at a really high level in this industry is because if we're honest, we're not as excellent as we should be in the hours that we set out to work.
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We're distracted, we're scrolling on social media, we're doing things that don't matter in our business, and so we feel like there's so much to be done.
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or we end up spending an hour and a half two hours at lunch with our friends from the office because that's fine and we claim that it's working i'm not saying there's not space for that but then we come home and say man i have so much work we ignore our kids because we're still doing that work because we should have done it sooner and guess what happens the people in our life that were called specifically to love and care for first get left behind because we're less than excellent in our work that's just the reality but here's what's true We can reclaim that.
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We can reclaim that.
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It's about living in line with what matters most.
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And when we understand what matters most, we make different decisions.
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So here's what I want you to do.
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Genuinely.
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Get still.
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Take a deep breath and ask, how am I doing?
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Really?
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How am I doing?
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Really?
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You know, the pastor that I was visiting my dad this past weekend and went to his church.
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took my kids, all four kiddos and gave my wife a break for the weekend.
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The pastor was talking about the practice of silence and solitude and how difficult that is in our world.
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We like sound, we like noise because it distracts us from maybe what we're really thinking or have to stop and ask deeper questions or listen to the Lord, whatever it is.
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And so he challenged us to get still and seek solitude.
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So I'm going to ask you to get still for just a minute.
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take a breath and say, how am I doing really?
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Maybe you journal that out.
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Maybe you talk to someone that you trust.
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And my encouragement ultimately is authenticity over appearance.
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Be true to who you are.
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Be real with someone in your life.
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You all, if you've been listening, know that at the beginning of 2024, I had a very bad anxiety attack, which I'd never had one before.
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I had a small one that December before.
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but in January it was a very very bad one, was terrifying.
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And for those who know what I'm talking about, I pray for you.
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For those who don't know what I'm talking about, I hope you never experience what that was like, but it was hard.
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It was the first time in my life that I texted friends and said, I'm struggling and I need help.
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Well one of the things that I realized in that season, what brought that on is I never really stopped to ask how am I doing.
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I never was really authentic with those close friends around me to say, is...
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I'm caring a lot.
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This is hard.
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I wanted to show up well to everybody around me to maintain the appearance that I was this business guy, had it all together.
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I'm writing a book, I'm doing X, Y, and Z.
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I wanted to keep it together.
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It just wasn't true though.
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No, I'm not saying you go around and tell everybody all the deep starts secrets, but I am telling you that we gotta be authentic and get real with somebody.
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So how are you doing?
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Really?
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Finally, I want you to think about how do you build your own scoreboard.
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Now, we're not gonna have time to go into this about dot podcast episodes on this before but it's recognizing this idea that you could redefine success using personal metrics not industry standards so the industry's gonna say here's what success looks like money deals gc i right how many transactions did you do how big was your team what award did you win the volume right all of those pieces what was your average sale price only by ourselves all of those things and i'm not saying don't track those numbers are good that's what a business owner does we need to act like business owners not just agent however i am saying the industry would look at us and say hey you sold a hundred homes okay you lost your marriage but we're still going to celebrate you and let you win an award that the industry would say okay your team is huge you sold a thousand houses but you've missed your family for two years while you're building a bit so k because they understand now they would throw you up there and say look at this success but the world is wrong What the Lord says is, you shepherd?
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What I called you to shepherd well.
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And that might mean stay at home mom, that you do five transactions a year because you're homeschooling and your priority as it should be is your children.
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That could be if you're a young dad, that you are selling 20 homes a year, doing your best.
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You're providing for your family and you're doing it in the cons in the construct of the hours that you've allowed because you want to be home for dinner every night.
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Praise God for your heart.
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That could be that you are a team leader selling a ton of homes, hundreds of homes a year, but you are doing it in a way where you are honoring the spouses of the agents on your team by telling them to go home and shut it off and not requiring them to answer the phone at 10 o'clock at night for that lead that just came in.
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We can redefine success using personal metrics.
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You all might've heard me talk about it, but I have a profit goal now.
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Yes, I have a wife goal.
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I have a kid goal.
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Right?
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Maybe yours is simply prioritize family dinner.
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over email reply.
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And it's measurable.
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And you say, have dinner with the family three nights a week.
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Maybe that for you is your scoreboard.
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And you continue to improve on that.
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Maybe for you, your scoreboard is one date night a month.
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Maybe for you, you're in a different phase of life.
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And so you say that your scoreboard, maybe you're single and you're trying to figure this out, right?
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Maybe your scoreboard is serving one other family who has young kids who could use a date night.
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Right?
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We can't forget that, yes, we're in this industry, but first and foremost, we're called to the local church.
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So how do we serve first our family, then our local church, and then how do we serve faithfully in our work?
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Finally, listeners, I encourage you to reflect on your dash.
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Choose one change that you're going to make this week.
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Something that you could put into practice.
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Maybe it's solitude.
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Maybe it's silence.
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Maybe it's writing out one thing for your scoreboard and pursuing that.
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Maybe it's telling your wife that, hey, let's schedule a date night.
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Maybe it's telling your kids that you want to have time with them with your phone somewhere else.
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Maybe it's recognizing that this week you could try office hours and see how that goes.
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That's my hope for us, that we would have this breakthrough in our own lives.
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I love you, faithful agents.
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I hope you know that.
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That's why I show up to do this, because I deeply...
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care about you in your life and your family and all the things that the Lord has called you to.
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I wrote this book with you in mind, hoping that this would be a blessing to you and to this industry.
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So I hope that when it comes out, you'll be excited about it like I am.
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You'll tell your friends and it will be a gift and a blessing to those in our industry.
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Genuinely, at the end of the day, more than buying the book, more than listening to this podcast, more than subscribing leaving review five stars all those things that yes please do that listeners because that helps get the word out more than that if someone reached out to me and said you know i don't listen to your podcast anymore because instead i use that time to just sit in quiet or i use that time to have breakfast with my wife i would genuinely be thrilled it's about you it's about your life it's not about me The Lord is good and kind.
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He has given you the people in your life to care for and shepherd.
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Don't always look for the next big thing.
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Don't always wish for something different.
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Know that the Lord has granted you exactly what he wanted to.
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And seek to shepherd and pursue that well.
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I love you, faithful agents.
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I will see you next week.