What do all of the TOP performers in real estate have in common?
What are the habits of successful real estate agents that have allowed them to become the best of the best?
Believe it or not, a lot of it comes down to mindset.
A solid mindset can be the difference between a run-of-the-mill business that grosses 6 figures (or less) and one that reaches seven figures.
Your mindset quite literally determines your reality.
If you hold the belief that you must suffer to be successful…then you’ll build a business that makes you suffer.
If you tell yourself the market is slow, if you constantly complain about your lack of clients…you’ll keep yourself trapped in a negative cycle where you struggle to get clients.
Justine Faerman at the Flow Consciousness Institute calls this the BETDAR Framework. The simplified version of this notion is that what you believe is the first step to everything that you create.
Beliefs trigger emotions.
Emotions lead to thoughts.
Thoughts create decisions.
Decisions trigger actions.
Actions lead to…
Results.
So if you want to change your results, you must prioritize building these mindset habits of successful real estate agents.
They Fill Their Bank Account – Not Their Ego Account
If you want to be a successful real estate agent, you have a choice.
Either you fill your bank account or your ego account.
Let me explain.
When I went through my period of emotional burnout, I was focused on the lack of time, energy, and space that I had.
But the truth was, I had the “champagne problem” of too much business.
Rather than admit I was struggling, my ego ran the show.
I told myself I had to do it all – because there’s no way anyone would be able to do it like me.
You could say I had some pretty massive mindset blocks when it came to building a real estate team.
Soon, it got to the point where I was the bottleneck in my own business. All because I was trying to prove that I was better and stronger and that I could suffer more.
All this was doing was filling my ego account. Even though my business was burning me out instead of fulfilling me, it filled my ego account to know all these people wanted to work with me.
But the truth is that you can only fill one account. You have to choose. So, which one is it going to be?
Filling your ego account means creating more stress and anxiety—and it’s just not worth it. Until you let it go, you can’t fill your bank account. To do so, you’re going to have to give up some control. You cannot do it all.
Don’t be fooled. The ego mindset isn’t just about thinking you’re the only person that can run the business. It also comes in the form of thoughts you tell yourself.
- “I’m bad with technology.”
- “I hate Facebook and Instagram.”
- “I’m not a good writer.”
- “I’m scared of making videos.”
- “I’m lazy and inconsistent.”
To a certain extent, all of this self-talk keeps you safe. Your ego is there to safeguard your current reality. Every time you’re hit with the possibility of leveling up or changing where you are today, your ego steps in, whether in the form of fear or just discomfort.
Don’t let your ego sabotage your success.
They Refuse To Get Caught Up In Perfectionism
Confidence is the reward, not the requirement.
So many people spend time thinking and planning but never taking action. They want everything to be 100% perfect before they implement anything—but implementation is what gives you the confidence you’re looking for.
Waiting for something to be “ready” is just your brain’s way of protecting you from failure, disappointment, and risk—but those things are unavoidable. No one is ever fully ready for change. We have to make peace with that fact and get comfortable with the concept of launching and learning.
You don’t get to be great without failure—without launching, learning, and then iterating. Business is all about problem-solving. If you’re constantly waiting for the perfect answer, you never get to learn what the right solution is. If you go about everything in your business (and your life) from a place of fear of failure, nothing will ever happen to or for you, good or bad.
Their Clear On Their Long-Term Vision
Successful real estate agents aren’t just chasing the next deal.
They have a clear, long-term vision of what it is they’re working toward.
If you don’t develop one, you’ll quickly end up with a business you didn’t want. It’s that simple.
You’ll get stuck trying to figure out how to get to the business you want, day after day, with no real roadmap to get there.
I was guilty of this in my early days. I was always working to get the next deal done, and then the next deal, and then the deal after that, without any intentionality or clarity in terms of what I actually wanted my life to look like.
Too many agents, when asked about their goals, will say something like, “I want to double my business.”
But when asked how, they have no idea. They’ll go through goal-setting exercises (often recommended by their brokerage) every single quarter, and yet the next year, they find themselves at the exact same place they started.
Often, it’s because they did nothing to change their trajectory for one of two reasons:
- They lacked clarity about how to reach their goals
- Or their goals were too vague to be achievable.
A better approach is to ask yourself what you want.
- What does your perfect day look like?
- What does it look like five years from now?
- How do you work backwards to create a business that’s going to create that perfect day?
Going through the motions versus having a plan is like the difference between a suffocating business and one that lights you up.
They Develop A Morning Routine
So what does the morning routine of a successful real estate agent look like?
Everyone might have certain things they like to do upon waking up, but I’m impartial to intention setting.
Setting an intention every day can be an incredibly powerful habit.
When I was still selling real estate and had a lot of anxiety, I started journaling every day.
Every morning, before I ever looked at my phone, I sat down and wrote. Before that, I was the typical agent who woke up every morning, rolled over, and immediately started checking my emails.
I set the intention that I was going to take care of myself first. I had to set boundaries, particularly when it came to my phone. I’m willing to bet you’re nodding your head yet again right now because you know you need to do the same.
Once I started with that habit, I took the idea even further—and the change that resulted was massive.
I set a rule for myself that my phone stayed on “do not disturb” until I had taken care of three things—my body, mind, and spirit.
That meant I had to work out, journal, and either listen to a podcast or read a chapter or two of a book. Once those three things were done, the world got access to me – because I’d taken care of myself first.
Not everyone’s morning routine has to look like mine, but I do believe that you need to adopt some sort of routine that gets you in the right headspace, the right mindset, to start your day.
We live in a world where people are constantly pulling at you. This is especially true in real estate. Everybody wants something from you, whether it’s your team, your family, or your clients. This also doesn’t have to mean that you’re getting up at 5 am and doing a three-hour routine. Make what you do work for your life.
If you start every day answering calls for your attention, you’ll feel very empty very quickly.
They Go All In
The average real estate agent receives income from seven different sources outside of real estate. Seven!
How can you focus on being the best in the industry when you’re working six other side hustles?
So many real estate agents make the mistake of starting a second (or third!) business BEFORE they’ve got their real estate business running like a well-oiled machine.
Here’s what happens: You start to build momentum in your real estate business, and it feels good. You finally know what you’re doing. Your confidence goes up, you have some money to spare. Suddenly, there are opportunities everywhere. Everyone has a business idea. Everybody wants you to invest in something. You put on your super-optimistic pants and ask yourself, “How hard could it be?”
Then you spend a little bit of time on the new venture—a few days here, a few days there—and before you know it, you realize you’re not actually focusing on any of your businesses. Instead, you’ve split your time and resources before you had them available to split. A bit more time passes, and the new business takes up even more of your time; your real estate business begins to suffer as a result.
This is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Your confidence is high, but your competence is low. Too many agents move on to the next thing before becoming truly competent—as agents, as leaders, as visionaries.
You have to focus on your main real estate business until you have established a finely tuned machine. Focus has a compound effect, and you need all of that focus in one area to cash out on that effect.
When you convince yourself that you can do more than what’s possible, you end up losing not only your focus, but also leverage, and ultimately money. If you have to hustle to make a new opportunity work, the chances of it working alongside your real estate business are very low, if not non-existent.
Successful real estate agents are experts in focus.
Not only do they focus on their sole venture, but they also prioritize only the most needle-moving tasks.
Redesigning your website, launching a podcast, creating a YouTube channel—if any of these things aren’t directly contributing to solving the number-one problem in your business, then you’re procrastinating. You’re simply chasing the next shiny object.
This is just another form of procrastination, another protection mechanism because you’re afraid to focus on one thing and fail at it.
So tell me…are you ready to go all in on building a multi-6 or 7-figure real estate business?
If you think you have what it takes, I encourage you to join us in The Listings Lab.
Apply now to build a marketing machine for your real estate business and get qualified leads on autopilot.
