There are 5 pillars to success in this current day and age and the chances are, you’re just missing an element from one of those pillars.
- Attitude
- Knowledge
- Belief
- Focus
- Determination
That may be different than what you’ve heard in the past, and you may be thinking… but what about “money”.
“You see, Heather, it takes money to make money in real estate…”
Well, in just a moment, you’ll see why the money will take care of itself when you have the rest of the pieces in place.
Let’s look at each of these (and we’ll explore each in more detail over the next few weeks).
1. Attitude
I’m not going to sugarcoat things and tell you that you’ve got to get up every morning and yell at the top of your lungs that today’s going to be the best day of your life. (Don’t get me wrong… I’m not criticizing those who do. If that’s your thing, go for it! It’s certainly not going to hurt matters.)
But I also realize that most people simply won’t do it. But there are other things you can do to change your attitude. You’ve got to understand that it is something you’ve got to work on EVERY DAY of your life because things are going to get in the way and there are going to be days where things just come up and you have to deal with lots of fires. It’s called life!
I’ve not told a lot of people this, but years ago I was on the fence of a mild depression. I had some life things going on and didn’t have a job and it was real easy to get up in the morning, move to the couch and watch soap operas all day.
One day, I just got sick and tired of it. I got myself up off the couch. I folded up the blanket, took a shower and went to the bookstore to pick up a few books on attitude, mindset, etc. And I read and I read and I read… Within a week, I was back to normal and my attitude had fully turned around.
There was no more “poor me”. There was no more “why is everyone else doing, having, [you fill in the blank]”
I LITERALLY made the decision to turn off the pity party faucet and that was that! You can do the same thing and I encourage you to do whatever it takes to make that mental shift in your head.
Just remember, it’s a PERSONAL commitment. You can tell 1001 people whatever you want, but you won’t see real change until you have a heart to heart talk with yourself and decide that enough is enough.
2. Knowledge
Next we have “knowledge”. This is a tough one because we almost ALWAYS feel that there’s more to learn.
I’ll keep this point brief here because I’ve got quite a bit more to say about this in future articles.
But there’s a pretty good chance you’ve got all the “knowledge” you need OR you have the access to it at a moment’s notice. You will NEVER know all there is to know about anything.
PLUS, I was recently talking to a very successful “guru” who makes over $20,000,000 per year and we talked about how the information overload is just too much! By the time you get through everything, you’re back to where you started. You’ve just wasted time and confused yourself a time or two.
You need to focus on the FUNDAMENTALS. The basics NEVER change…
Oh and one more thing… you don’t need to buy $1997 courses over and over again! Stick with one thing and work that. It’s not worth the mental energy you exhaust trying to keep up with everything.
Trust me… I know this from experience. I’ve got 10s of $1000s of dollars of “programs” I’ve never gotten around to.
Here’s what my mantra was when I started: Do not buy another product, course or seminar until you’ve implemented the meat of the last one.
3. Belief
It’s easy to second-guess yourself or to think you just ought to give up, but belief is CORE to your success. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.
This is where the “money” takes care of itself. If you’re passionate and have the belief, everything else comes into play where it needs to.
4. Focus
This is another challenge for a lot of people nowadays. We pride ourselves in being able to do 5 things at once and by how much we can get done.
Here’s the dirty ugly secret about multi-tasking: It doesn’t work!
You can only do one thing well at any given time. Your brain can only focus on one thing at a time. So, if you’re watching a webinar, for instance, and checking your email, you might as well turn one off because neither is getting the attention it deserves.
You’ve got to focus and focus hard for anything to be successful.
I suspect a lot of us lack focus because as entrepreneurs, we’ve got to do SO much in the very beginning that it’s sort of a way for us to avoid the things we don’t want to do. I call it productive procrastination.
But, it just doesn’t work. If there’s something you don’t want to do, can’t do, or won’t do, figure out how to offload it. It’s going to keep you from focusing on what you really DO well.
5. Determination
This might sting a little!
Most people are not successful because they lack determination. Determination is not simply, “I’d like to be rich and I just hope that one of these days I’ll find the right info-product that has the magic button”.
There is NO magic button.
Nobody is going to literally do all the work for you and then deposit millions of dollars into your bank account. I hate to break it to you, but that’s just life.
You’ve got to put in effort, a lot of effort.
You have to do things that you don’t want to do sometimes – at least until you can afford to hire someone else to do those things for you.
You’ve got to get your goals out in front of you and not let anyone get in your way. You’ve got to find solutions when problems arise, not excuses. You’ve got to work through the challenges when they arise in order to get results.