We always set goals, but oftentimes, finding the best way to achieve them can be the most difficult part. Today, Scott Carson reminds us of the SMART system of setting goals. What is it? How can it help us in our real estate endeavors? Know more about this familiar system as Scott breaks down each of them along with examples that can help guide you to start your 2020 with an organized path.
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How To Set SMART Goals For The Coming 2020
Our topic in this episode is about setting smart goals in 2020. I’m excited to be here. For those of you who are joining us, this is Note Night in America. I’m excited to have everybody here who is a part of us. For those of you that have not attended our Note Night in America that are brand new, we’ve got a variety of note and real estate investors that join us because we have a variety of topics that we cover on these webinars. If people are interested in learning more about notes and if you’re wanting to catch the replays, we throw these up on YouTube. Our YouTube channel is We Close Notes. It’s pretty easy to remember. If you go to WeCloseNotes.tv, it should take you directly to our YouTube channel. Go to the YouTube channel and subscribe there and be able to watch the replays there.
I’d love it if you are ever watching that or listening to that when you’re traveling. Leave us a review. Let us know. It is a small list. You could say downloaded podcast out of the three that we have with Note CAMP being number two, the Note Closers Show being the number one with 50,000-megawatt blow torch. Between the three, were over 500,000 downloads and we surpassed the ten million download mark this last month on our radio stations. We’ve got over 530 episodes. I highly encourage you all, if you are listening to the podcast, check out the Note Closers Show podcast. We’d love to have you guys leave a review. We do that 3 to 5 times a week. We have over twelve million listeners across AM/FM radio stations across the country. I’d love it if you review and subscribe. We have lots of great content, interviews, guests and vendors. Thank you to all that listens to that. Thanks for everybody that shares it. I’m excited about what’s going on with that and what it holds for the next decade with the note business.
We’re doing a big push on assets this time around and I’m getting stuff in too. That’s the thing of being weeks before the end of the year. We’ve gotten several banks and hedge funds that we have sent some lists that we’ll be working through. I’m excited that we’ve got our mastermind in Orlando to have some people that are looking at some really nice assets. We’re also doing a big push on asset managers and some of the things that you want to do to systematize your approach into finding, funding and flipping. We’ll talk about closing deals and then we’ll also talk about 2020 goals because the market is going to change some. It already is. We’re already starting to see a change in a variety of ways on days on market, on market softening, on increase from our foreclosure in default. We’ve got some great stuff that’d be a part of that. If you’re part of the WCN Membership, you get a ticket to that. It’s included. Just drop me a message. If you’re part of that and if you’re not, you can always get signed up for that as well. The biggest best nuts and bolts partnering industry and all the content is all mine, not somebody else’s too out there. It’s a great way to wrap up your ear and kick things off. You’re wanting to roll into 2020 with buff guns blazing.
In our Virtual Workshop, we talk about learn how to evaluate deals, what and what not to say to get inside with the banks. Probably make a few banker phone calls on Friday. We’ll talk about how to raise the private money for your deals. We’ll talk about protecting your assets with asset protection. We’ll talk about how to use your self-directed IRA to fund your deals. Breaking it and do a lot of them due diligence. We’ll talk about some of the hotter markets across the country and we’ll talk about finding financing for your pool deals that we see from stuff happening up. We’ll talk about building your nationwide team and then also have marketing to attract buyers and marketing sellers for your deals and a lot of other things in there besides marketing, buying and selling, funding, flipping and all the great stuff. When it comes to multiple S and when it comes to nonperforming notes. I’d love to have you.
SMART Goals
You guys and gals are here to dive into goals. We all have goals that we want to accomplish and I’m not a big believer in setting goals in the last week of December. You’re way behind the eight ball when you’re waiting until that or first a year when you can start doing stuff now. The best way to plant a tree is 30 years ago and now. The best day to start towards working through a goal is now, not tomorrow. Not waiting off until you’re like, “I want to lose weight.
Specific Goals
I’m going to wait until January 1st before I start eating less and working out more.” That doesn’t make any sense. Start now. Some things that we’re going to go through is the SMART system of setting goals. What are SMART goals? SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. That’s what makes up the SMART aspect of goals is those five characters.
I was talking to somebody in Atlanta. He was talking about, “I want to close on 100 deals in my first year in the note business.” I’m like, “It’s not going to happen.” He got all upset with me. I’m like, “No offense, if you’ve not closed on a deal or 10 deals or 20 deals, you’re sure as heck not going to close to 50. You’ve got that learning curve. I’d say it’s 0 to 20 deals that you learn a lot about your business and your time and your schedule to get to that point.” You want to grab a piece of paper and pencil. Hopefully, you’ve thought about this a little bit beforehand because I’m going to leave it up at the end to talk about and share with some of your goals and help you break those down if you are struggling.
Goals that are specific have a significantly greater chance of being accomplished. To make a goal specific, the five “W” questions must be considered. By that, we mean who is involved in these goals. Hopefully, you are involved in your own goal, but you also have to think about others if you’re involving other people in or other things and how to reach out to them as well. What exactly do you want to accomplish? I know that sounds where, where will this goal be achieved? Are you going to be traveling? Are you going to be here locally at your house or your office? When do I want to achieve this goal? Do I want to do this by the 1st of February, the 1st of June, the 1st of December and why? Why do I want to achieve this goal? That’s different from what do I want to accomplish. We all want to do something, but why do I want to achieve this goal? This is the big thing behind and that’s why I believe the fifth W, the why is the most important. Why do you want achieve a goal? If you want to lose weight, why do you want to do it?
It’s because I don’t want to have a freaking heart attack or I want to live longer or I want to get my groove back on or whatever it might be. Everybody’s a little different. You need to know those five things about your goals. For example, a general goal will be, I want to get back in shape. A more specific goal would be, I want to obtain gym membership at my local community center and work out four days a week to be healthier. You don’t want to say get the first part of that, “I’m going to get gym membership that I’m not going to go use.” Another example, I have a gym membership across the street at 24 Hour Fitness, but we also have a nice little gym here in my office down in the basement.
The thing is, when people say they want to get into shape, it’s all about being specific. Why did you want to do that? You need to have a little bit of a vision board to share these things especially those fives, who, what, where, when and why. Why do you want to do that? I won’t be around because I want to spend time with my wife or my spouse. If you dislike your spouse, it’s not part of your why there. I want to travel more. When I go on vacation, I don’t want to be the old man, the old woman dragging up the line or wheezing. There’s a whole variety of things. Be as specific as possible when you think about your goals that you want to accomplish. Having 50 million goals isn’t good. You need to narrow it down very specifically to just a couple of goals for you. That way you’d be happier.
Measurable Goals
Measurable goals are important. It’s important to have your goals be measurable because the fact is if you can’t measure them, there’s no way to know how close you are to them. A SMART goal must have criteria for measuring progress. If there are no criteria, you will not be able to determine your progress if you are on track to reach your goal. To make it goal measurable, ask yourself these things, “How many? How much? How do I know if I have reached my goal? What is my indicator of progress?” A great example of putting these three together is building on the specific goal above that we talked about, “I want to obtain a gym membership at my local community center and work out four days a week to be healthier.” “Every week I will aim to lose one pound of body fat.”
That’s not so bad. A pound a week, that’s 50 pounds in a year. That’s very feasible. If you figure in that you’ve got 3,500 calories and a pound means you need to come in. If you’re going to work out four days a week. It means you need to be able to burn out about 850 calories each time you come in or have a deficit of 3,500 calories a week compared to what you eat. You guys have some questions and we’ll get to those later on but let me get through this stuff here for you. I have Wayne Snell popping up. If you don’t know Wayne Snell, he’s been one of our students for a couple of years now and I remember him coming to one of our mastermind events in San Diego a few years back.
Him and Natalie closed about 100, 125 deals that year. We are in December and I said, “What are your goals for the end of the year?” They may have done 60 goals that year, 60 to 80 notes for the second year. I was like, “That’s great, but why are you going to put down the same goal you accomplished like last one? You should challenge yourself.” They’re like, “What do you mean by challenge?” “You did what you did this year pretty easily, why don’t you challenge yourself to go to a whole other level?” They challenged themselves to close on 125 deals that year. They were able to measure that because they look at last year’s numbers. They look at what they had to do on a monthly basis, a weekly basis and their actions. They did good. How do I know if I reached my goal? They know by closing some deals themselves.
Smart 2020 Goals: The best day to start toward working for goal is now, not tomorrow.
Their progress, they could see literally close these things. They kept track of it in the dry erase board how to get to that. I’m doing 150 that year. The whole point is I’m a big advocate of putting things on a dry erase board. Put something where you can see it and that allows you to measure it. One of the things that we’ve done before, “Do you want to close 50 deals? I had one time 50 pieces of paper stapled together. You have sticky notes. You can do this very easily with three on notes, 50, 49 and peel it off as you’re closing on deals. It’s a simple thing to have it somewhere where you can see it.
Achievable Goals
Let’s talk about achievable goals. A SMART goal must be achievable and attainable. This will help you figure out ways you can realize that goal and work towards it. The achievability of the goal should be stretched to make you feel challenged and to find whether or not you can achieve it. Ask yourself these things. Do I have the resources and capabilities to achieve the goal? If not, what am I missing? Do you need help? Do you need coaching? Do you need some training? Have others done it successfully before? These are the important things.
My high school geometry teacher, Mrs. Crawford, I could not stand. We were like oil and water. We did not get along at all. It’s the only class I ever failed a semester in that class because we did not get along. I still graduated. I still passed the class in the long-term. Geometry is not something that you’re struggling with for the most part. She used to say that a goal should be something you would never be able to achieve. I really and strongly disregard that. I hate that because if it’s unattainable or unachievable to dream, the impossible dream, it works against you. It’s got to be achievable. I’m not saying you can’t do some big amazing things, but immediate goal needs to be something that’s achievable. You need to have that success aspect of things. By success, it’s been successfully done by others and is there a path or a way to help you get there?
We talked about before getting the point where you’re losing weight. There are people who’ve done that, coaches and trainers. I’ve got, he is Thomas my trainer, who does this all the time. Going back to the goals, Riaz Lakhani and Haitham Elbedawy are a couple of students. They partnered up and their goal in their first year was to close 50 deals. I was like, “Great.” They closed 4 or 5 each and then they decided, “Let’s partner up. We’ve come from the same background.” Although one was in Houston, the other one lives in San Francisco. “Let’s partner up and create a company and that way we can divide and conquer.” This way, they did hit their goals of closing on 50 deals in the first year.
Realistic Goals
That’s why I say, “If you want to do some big things, it’s hard to do it by yourself.” You’ve got to have somebody there to help you achieve your goal especially sometimes that needs to be done. Maybe it’s something you’ve never done before and you’re going to need some help to help you get there. That’s one of the big things that we love about the virtual workshops. We go through a lot of stuff to help you understand where you’re going because the note business, that we can all agree is a little bit different from everything else. Let’s talk about the R in it, realistic goals. A SMART goal must be realistic in that the goal can be realistically achieved given the available resources and time. A SMART goal is like real estate. If you believe that, it can be accomplished.
Ask yourself this, is a goal realistic and within reach? Is the goal reachable given the time and resources? Are you able to commit to achieving the goal? Is it within reach? I’ve got to use a big thing. People come in, “I want to make $500,000 this year.” If you’ve never made $100,000, you’re not going to make $500,000. If you want to make $100,000, but you’ve never made more than $50,000, it’s going to be a tough year for you. You have to grow into that. Reach for one branch, then reach for another. That’s the thing that most people struck out. They write these big goals and I want to make $100,000 in cashflow. “You made $1,000 in cashflows?” “No.” “Let’s set something that’s a little more realistic.”
The biggest thing about this though, I’m not saying you can’t reach those bigger ones, they are not realistic, is are you able to commit to achieving the goal? I was at an event, the New Media Summit and we’ve got a friend who’s a podcaster and she’s like, “I want to make $100,000 with my podcast.” I’m like,” Okay.” She has a class that she teaches and I’m like,” Is it an online class?” “It’s an online class. It’s really well done.” I’m like, “How many of those have you sold?” She goes, “Zero.” I’m like, “Are you even offering it? Are you committed to offering it?” She goes, “I’m afraid to offer.” I’m like, “If you want to make $100,000 and you’re selling something that’s $1,000. You need to sell 100 of them. That’s two a week roughly. You have to offer this up. If you’re not offering up, you’re not taking the actions. That means by committing to achieving a goal. Do you want to close on 60 deals? You’ve got to commit then to making 600 offers.”
Timely Goals
If you want to commit to losing 50 pounds, it means you’ve got to work out 3 to 4 times a week or reduce your calories to give up Cokes or sugars or other things like that. If you want to run a marathon, you’ve got to get off the couch and start walking at 5k first. Those are the realistic things we want to talk about here. If you’ve never done it, it doesn’t mean it can’t happen. You could be like puff daddy, “I’m going to run a marathon with six weeks of training and almost break my feet.” Extreme things can happen, but let’s be realistic about things. If you can do it, it’s within your reach and then the next thing is within your reach and it’s climbing that ladder up of your ultimate goals of long-term given the time and resources. Now, as we’re getting to T, Timely goals. A SMART goal must be time-bound and then it has a start and finish date. If the goal is not time-constraint, there will be no sense of urgency and motivation to achieve the goal. You want to ask yourself this, “Does my goal have a deadline? I want to lose 50 pounds by December 1st, 2020. I want to close on twenty deals by December 25th of next year. I’m going to start now.” By when do you want to achieve your goal? “I want to make $100,000 and wholesale deals this next year.”
What did you do this year? You had 50? That’s a realistic goal then. You can double it, you have to double the actions there though. For example, building on the goal above, on August 1st, I will obtain a gym membership at my local community center in order to be healthier for about four days a week. Every week I’ll aim to lose one pound of body fat. By the end of August, I realize my goal, if I lose four pounds of fat over the course of the month. Those are things that you can check off. You weigh yourself at the beginning a month and then weigh yourself the end of the month. As long as you’ve done that four times a week thing, you should be rocking and rolling.
What Happens When You Drift From Your Goals?
There are other items here that are important with your goals. You have to realize it takes 21 days to start a habit and 66 days to truly create a habit. Some people are like, “I want to read more of this year.” What do you mean by reading more? “I want to read one book a week. I want to read 50 books this year.” What does that mean? You’re going to spend three hours a night reading and go through that. That’s a great thing to start, but you have to focus on it. It means turning off the TV, turning off the movies, being quiet. You’ve got to have the three hours to do things if you need to. I always say, “What happens when you drift because we’re all going to drift?”
If you’ve never read out Outwitting The Devil and you have a goal to read more books this year, I would start with that book. We all drift, we all get sidetracked from things. The devil in his success, that’s what he’s trying to do to get us to drift, to get us to avoid our goals. The question is, we’re all going to have times that we trip over that hurdle. We fall flat, smack dab on our face. We eat some dirt, eat some pavement, and you have to brush yourself off. Get back up and tackle it back again. Do yourself a favor. Try to set those quarterly goals and you’ve got to enjoy. When you reach one goal, enjoy it. It doesn’t mean go out and let’s have a cheat day if you’re working out with just 5,000 calories.
What I’m trying to get at is when you do drift, when you get sidetracked, when you didn’t work out four times this week or you didn’t make offers this week, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Jump back into it the following week. Hold yourself accountable. Write them down. Having a SMART goal is a great thing, but it’s not nearly as effective if you write it down. By writing it down, not on your phone, not on a computer. I’m talking about writing it down where you can post it somewhere. By posting them, put it in some place you can see it every day, next to your bed, on the fridge, on the TV. Put it in the places you’re going to see it, in the mirror. Write them down.
Smart 2020 Goals: It’s important to have your goals be measurable because if you can’t measure them, there’s no way to know how close you are to them.
Harvard did a study that for those that wanted to achieve their goals, they were 50% more likely if they wrote it down. Another 25% more likely to add that 50% if they shared them with people, shared them with their warm audience. Me sharing a goal of losing weight with you, isn’t effective. I would need to want to share it with the people that I’m around the most. My trainer, Stephanie, anybody else around here that I see on a regular basis, my best friends. I’d want them to help hold me accountable to doing better. Are you going to post them where you can see them? There’s something that you want to be able to post every day. Some people post their goals in the odometer in their vehicle or on their computer, which is not a bad idea where you can see it every day.
Here’s the big thing, are you going to buy into them? You’re going to take the actions that will be done. I always laugh because the gym is packed on January 3rd not January 2nd for the most part. It’s packed on January 1st for those that didn’t go party, but January 2nd, it’s packed because those that party on New Year’s Eve, they didn’t want to get up January 1st to go do it. This year, January 1st is a Wednesday. You get a day off in the middle of the week. What I’m trying to get at is buy into it. If you’re going to set habits, don’t wait until then. Go and start and do it now. Start doing the things that you need to do. Set them. Write them down. Maybe you need a little launch pad, “I’m going to look to lose four pounds by Christmas or five pounds by Christmas.”
We’ll look to get some offers but don’t wait until next year. Don’t fall on a delay, but no sense of urgency. Start doing things now, everybody. Realize what if you don’t accomplish them? You shoot a big goal but you miss them. You still had success. You’re still better off. I shot for 200 deals this year and I ended up coming short about 100. What did you do the year before? Twenty? You’re still up 500%. That’s awesome. What if you don’t accomplish? Don’t get so bad because I see this happen over and over again. “I’m so fat. I’m not going to go work out,” and then something happens that motivates you. Let me give you an example. Here’s a good thing. If you want to close on a deal or have a number, why don’t you book a vacation? Book something big to celebrate.
The best thing to get your butt motivated especially if you’re looking to lose weight or something that is book a vacation. Book someplace tropical, where you’re going to be in a bathing suit or bikini. Men, I know you’re going to be in the mankinis. I get that especially for some of you that are on here. The thing I want you to get at is book something out. As you hit milestones, celebrate like you did. If you lose your first ten pounds, celebrate it. If you lose your first 25 pounds, celebrate it. If you hit your goal before time frame, don’t stop, keep going. That’s what I’m trying to get at. If you don’t accomplish them, keep rock and rolling. Keep knocking it out.
If something happens, you get injured or you’ve got a job that you’re working on, it takes over full-time because of things. I get it. Try to adjust those numbers and go from there. Don’t beat yourself up too bad. Reach out to others for help. The thing that I talk about here is if you can, find yourself an accountability partner. Find somebody who’s at the same level you are or the same goals and hold yourself accountable. Check in, “How’s it going this week?” You’ll see a lot of those biggest loser things happen this time of the year. The first of the year is where people are measuring themselves and holding themselves accountable.
We should be the biggest winner on the accountability thing and how many deals have you closed in this year, this month? It’s a cool thing you should do. If you have some goals that you’re struggling with, what you’d like to accomplish, let’s work through some of them. What are some of your goals for 2020? I don’t care what it is. Avoid having a goal for everything. I don’t think that’s feasible. I don’t think it’s a good thing. If you’re having one major goal in three major areas. What I mean by that, maybe one in business. It could be the number of deals you closed, more money you raised or the amount of money coming in. Health is an important thing for a lot of people, especially as we get older. Health needs to be a big one.
I was on a webinar listening to a buddy of mine, Dave Meltzer, talking about how health has become the number one priority for him as he’s gotten older. When he puts that and where it’s gotten into his daily activities about, “I’ve got to get this done, I’ve got to get this taken care of.” Maybe a family goes, “If we hit this and this, we’re going to take a goal or we’re going to work through this.” I got a lot of people who will do goals with their kids, “If you make straight As, we’ll do this to celebrate or we’ll do a vacation.” “If we hit this number of closed deals, let’s go take the time to celebrate and go do something.” The important thing is book it and go do it. We want to share what their goals are for the year before I share mine.
I’d love to hear from some of you guys and girls out there who have struggled a little bit, “How do I get to where I need to be? What do I need to do?” An audience commented, “I love the way you built and develop that goal letter by letter.” Are you talking about SMART aspect of things, Bill? “It’s being specific.” I’ll tell you right now. I came up with the idea. I was like, “Let’s talk about SMART goals.” I totally had a whole different PowerPoint put together than what I had on here. I was like, “SMART goals is not what you need, let me see what it is.” The one I popped up. I was like, “That sounds a lot better than what I put.”
50-50-50 Goals
I was like, “I redid my whole thing for the level of thing.” Thank you, Bill. If you’re going to do one, you have to make it achievable. You try to add and make it achievable, feel free to copy or borrow. Just give me credit for it, Bill. Does anybody have some goals they want to share? I’ll be the first one. I have three goals. I call it 50-50-50. 2019 has been an interesting year. We’ve had our ups and downs like anybody else. I am excited about the New Year. I’m excited about the end of the year. I’m excited about the next last two months of the year because some of these goals, we keep rock and rolling through the stuff that we do, but it gives us something to measurable.
Especially looking back in reflection of the several months, there are some great things we’ve done this year and some crappy things we’ve done this year. Things that we didn’t do that led to crap. I’ve been tweaking some things and going from there. I found it out. I wanted to go back to basics for the year. Three years ago, we set a big goal to help 10,000 note students or investors to learn how to become note investors. We’ve exceeded that goal. It’s 2,000 students a year. We’re well beyond that especially with the podcast popping up. It blew it through the door. It blew that number way off.
We see that number of downloads, number of subscriptions, email lists and things like that. My goal is to go back very basic, 50-50-50. I want to lose 50 pounds. I’m down 25, 30, 35 pounds. It varies. I’ve got to get some new pants and the sweater that I’m wearing is very big on me. It used to not be so big as we gleaned up. My goal on 50 pounds lost, it’s one pound per week, 3,500-calorie deficit. That means a couple of things. I’m not eating red meat at all. I’ve had one bit of red meat. I eat a lot more vegetables. That helps and I feel great. That’s one big thing but to keep that goal going and to keep the momentum that I’ve worked so hard going, I’m going to be doing my strength training at least two times a week and then another two days of cardio. I need to increase the cardio a little bit.
Although, some of the trips that we’ve taken over this last year, I might be the biggest guy in the excursions but I’m leading people. My energy is good. I’m never going to be your Banana Republic size 28 waist. It doesn’t work that way. I don’t think I’ve been that since I was a freshman or junior in high school. Keep doing that four times a week. That’s every other day. I can make that happen. That’s a feasible thing. One pound per week, I’m down one pound. I want to add 50 coaching students in 2020. That’s what I want to do. I’m going to add one coaching student a week. I’m very blessed. I have an amazing trainer, Thomas Neih who I’m with constantly and so I appreciate that. I will check it out, but I’m very lucky. I’ve got a great trainer that I work with on a weekly basis.
Smart 2020 Goals: A smart goal must be achievable and attainable so you can figure out ways you can realize that goal and work towards it.
There are big goals that we want to add. We’re going to see a lot of influx and things. We’re wanting to add 50 coaching students this year. How do I get the 50? That means I know I have to add roughly about 500 people as students to begin with. By students, I’m talking about people that have signed up for our Note Blueprint for virtual students. That’s why we talk about the virtual workshop there. 10% of our workshop students end up becoming mastermind students and are going through our coaching stuff. We’re also changing a couple of things up with our mastermind and coaching stuff that we’ll roll out the first year or two that I think some of you guys will enjoy.
I know that I need to add 500 new students to roughly hit that 50 coaching. That also means I’ve got to add ten students per week. How do I do that? I had to be speaking a whole lot more and that’s one speaking gig per week is the way to look at it. I’m talking about podcasts. I’m talking where I’m back out on the road speaking a little bit more and speaking a lot more, whether it’s a recorded webinar, it’s out to Meetup groups and things like that. You’ll probably see a little bit more of that. I can guarantee you that throughout this year. That’s what we’re looking for. That’s two of the fifties.
The third 50 is going to add 50 performing notes added to our portfolio, my portfolio. It’s not anybody else’s but solely mine. I want to see 50 notes. This is by this time next year, the 1st of December of 2020. They’re are bringing in at least $400 a month in profits next to me on the portfolio. That’s $400 a year. It’s a pretty nice income just off that 50 residual stuff. It’s $250,000 in residual income. You can run numbers. One of the things, if you have a similar number that you want to do like, I want to add twenty deals or I want to bring in $5,000 in the cashflow. You can change the numbers up a little bit, tweaking it. You want to figure out how much you need to fund or how much you need to go. I’ve got the numbers.
If you’re going buying 50% of value. We figured out $75,000, low values, that means you need a fund by about $750,000 in real estate. It means you need a fund about $1.8 million in private money if you’re going that route or less depending on the ratios. It’s good to know those numbers. I want to go back a little bit more. I found a photo of me. This is 2010 at a baseball game. This is the first ballgame of my trip when I started traveling the country in 2010 and I am holding a beer there. I saw that photo and I chuckled a little bit. The ten years between that guy and this guy now accomplished and done things more than I’ve ever amazed. I would not be setting a ten-year goal. That’s not what I’m trying to get at with you.
If you think back and look back at what things you’ve accomplished, look back and what has been good things. There’ve been bad things. I’ll give you example, our buddy Jeff Wolfe, The Wolf Man, you’ve done an amazing job with your health, especially since you almost died getting hit on your bike. It is an important thing. Things like that, you can’t figure out goal-wise. Sometimes it’s, “I’ve got to take a walk, or I’ve got to start running or I’ve got to dress myself.” You’re going to have things that happen. When I look back at the last several years, I came across this and I was like, “What a great photo. I’m going to share it.” That kid had no clue of what’s ahead of him.
Sharing Advise To The Audience
I was divorced. I was starting a road trip because I didn’t know which way it was going to go. Things have happened that I’ve never imagined in a decade so does that person. I can get back pretty close to that weight, if not closer. Do some big things that help on a lot of great people out there, especially in 2020. That’s some of my goals for the year. Anybody else who has some goals they want to share? Nathan, thanks for sharing. Bill, you and Heidi have a goal, big goal for the year. You’ve got one kid in the house now. Another one’s off to college. Rick Sallinger, do you have some goals for the year? Johnny Reavis, Laura Wolfman, Donna Wilson and Darren Ross? Jeff wants to get taller. You know what that requires. That means you need to break the legs and stretch them all out. Nathan wants to get to see twenty patients a day. Deadlift 380. “I’m a doctor,” he says. An audience commented, “Start with the note business.” I’d love to visit with you more if you need some help with starting the note business.
Bill says, “I’m thinking about earning my Spartan Trifecta although I’m not sure I’m fully in yet.” What does that mean, Bill, your Spartan trifecta? I liked that. Is that you’re doing three Spartan races. Are they in different parts of the country and it’s traveling to those three areas? Johnny Reavis says, “I want to be one of your note students.” That’s easy. Just get signed up for the workshop, Johnny. Drop me an email and let’s talk some more about that. Anna wants to add twelve notes in my portfolio. It’s one a month and that’s very feasible.
Bill, here’s one thing to think about. “I had to do three races. One 5 to 6 miles, one 8 to 9 and one 13 to 15 miles.” That is a big thing. Are they all locally or you can pick your races throughout the country? “I’d have to travel quite a bit. It’s a big-time commitment.” If there are three races, it may not be that big a deal. Here’s the thing that I did and maybe you can take something with this. This picture of this kid up here now, as I say, 3 to 4 weekends minimum, will be do. You could do that, Bill. You can totally do three full weekends. I know you can.
Here’s what you can do. Look at your schedule. Go ahead and if you have something like this that this is a great thing. Pull up your calendar and look at your schedule then take all the Spartan races that were available and jot them down. Figure out where they’re at. Look at your calendar for other things that are involved. If you’re speaking more and doing some stuff, maybe you can find a local REIA club nearby. That way you can cross it off. Make him speak at the REIA club. If there’s an event going on in Vegas, maybe you’re going out to Vegas for Paper Source and you’re there to do it. I would do the 13, 15 somewhere close to home so you can sleep in your own bed. Some of these other ones, just set a goal for the first quarter to hit that small one. I know you can do it, Bill. From a guy that rides Peloton like you do, I know in three full weekends, you can do that. I know you and Heather can do it.
Laura says, “I want to get my partner to have enough casual that he can move to Colorado. I want to speak on notes once a month and I want to dedicate one day a week to my art.” Here’s a good one, Laura. Are we talking about the weekend or are you talking Monday through Friday? Here are a couple of things that I’ve seen toyed with. People doing a four-day workweek. You know your schedule more than anybody else. I’d imagine you don’t want to spend the weekend, Saturday, Sunday. You do want to do weekends then pick a day, Saturday, Sunday where you focused on your art. That’s awesome. I would say spend like Friday. Friday is always a good day, but you have somebody closing. A lot of stuff doesn’t happen on Fridays except closings for the most part. I’m either wiring in or wire it out. That’s good.
Steph is a big thing where she enjoys painting too. I’m always a big advocate of art. We’re going to the painting place. I’m always happy that she goes there and for doing that because it adds a lot. You have to have that balance between working the left brain and right brain. You can do that. “I want a steady enough cashflow. I’m thinking moving in Colorado.” Hopefully, he knows the expenses. You know what’s going to cost to be up in Colorado, whether it’s Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs or Fort Collins. Some of those are cheaper. I would maybe talk to Paul Cooper, who is up in Colorado and touch base with him. You probably worked out the numbers on what things costs and rents. I would say that Boulder and Austin are pretty similar when it comes to cost. Set it up. I know a lot of people aren’t doing it. They’re all doing a four-day workweek. They have a three-day weekend and they’re taking Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. They’re being just as productive if not more productive because they had extra stuff. Kudos for you.
Rick said, “Develop a philosophy of personal stoicism.” What does that mean, Rick? Close commercial loans is a good one. When do you want to do that by? Develop a philosophy of personal stoicism is hard. I don’t know exactly how do you measure that. Remember, it’s got to be measurable. That’s the M in SMART, the second one. One audience commented, “Closing two commercial loans in five months.” That’s very feasible. Is it closing that by the end of May or are we talking by March? It comes out if you’re originating, if you’re doing the origination side or refinance side by May. Why don’t you put yourself towards March? That’s seven months from now then. Don’t wait. Don’t put your stuff off until January. I know you can do it.
Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success
That’s what I’m trying to get at. Don’t put yourself off to, “I’m going to start in January.” Start doing them right now. Don’t wait. Start marketing now. Start doing the things you are doing now. Start putting the things in place like planning. Bill, go ahead and buy or sign up for three of those races. Get them booked and put them out there. That will motivate you more. You’ll be more about it. I guarantee on your calendar, you’ve got the Peloton circled on that weekend and that’s a big thing. That’s technically four weekends with your Peloton plus those other three.
I’ve had people reach out to me and say, “I want to pay off my credit card debt.” Never say that because all you’re going to attract is credit card debt. What you do is focus on eliminating so I need to make more money. We have our audience said, “Eat better and pure food now without sugar and water.” Maybe say, I’m going to eat vegetarian. I’m going to not just eat better but let’s be measurable and specific. I’m cutting out flour. I have sugar and flour from my diet. I’m going to my cabinet right now and I’m eliminating those things or I’m going to start adding more Keto or whatever that stuff is. I’m not a dietician on that stuff. Be measurable. Use the SMART system.
Here’s the thing, if you want to speak on notes at least once a month, you can do that, Laura. I totally believe in you and you can do that. What do you need to do for that? Do you want to speak in one note a week? What I would do once a month is pick out a date and start doing that. Start reaching out to the local real estate clubs. There’s enough here in Austin. There’s somebody here in Texas, Houston. Reach out to the local Meetup. Jump on Meetup.com and say, “I’m looking to see if you’re looking for a speaker on notes.” You have enough experience, you can definitely do that.
If you want some inside tips on that, drop me an email and we can jump on the phone call. You just have to start doing it. I want to speak, whether it’s a webinar I’m speaking and I don’t care if there’s one person on it or 1,000 people. If I spoke in front of 100 people or 150 people or I’m live streaming and doing that stuff as well. There are plenty of things that can be great out there for you. The thing is when you’re going to be speaking on the same topic, you want to structure your thing where you’ll be able to say it over and over again. It’s all comes with practice and you don’t want to wait until you’re booked. You want to start doing it now. It’s maybe a webinar or doing a Facebook Live where you are sharing where it’s the same discussion and you’re hunting through it.
Trust me, when you start speaking and stuff, for the first few times, you’re going to figure your jokes and figure through it. There are times now where I could my find fun flip thing when I speak to different reasons almost word for word if I needed to. I get better and better every time I do it. Thank you for those that shared and for those that didn’t. If you’d like to talk more, feel free to drop me an email at Scott@WeCloseNotes.com. I’m glad to send you my Calendly link and schedule some time with you to help you hit your goals and talk about your business or whatever we need to do. I’d be glad to spend time with you. Take 10, 20, 30 minutes and see if we can help you on your way to get your goals written down and get your goals started before the end of the year. Don’t wait until January. If you do that, you’re only killing yourself. Start marketing. Start doing things now to make things happen in the New Year. Thank you so much for being on the Note Night in America and we’ll see you all at the top.
Important Links
- We Close Notes – YouTube Channel
- WeCloseNotes.tv
- Virtual Workshop
- New Media Summit
- Outwitting the Devil
- Meetup.com
- Scott@WeCloseNotes.com
- http://www.NoteBlueprint.com