6 Thoughts That Are Costing You Money & Keeping You Stuck

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I'm Jennifer Myers, Founder of Agent Grad School and host of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent, The Agent Grad School Podcast.  My goal for each episode is to give you actionable steps you can implement today to grow your real estate business.

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I thought there was something wrong with me.

My first few years as a real estate agent, I felt like I had tried everything. I poured my blood, sweat and tears into my real estate career and yet I had not clients to show for it.

​​I thought I should be further along. I didn’t realize how hard this was going to be and I didn’t have any money to spend on online leads or anything else for that matter.

It was one of the lowest moments of my life, a feeling that I will never forget. ​​I felt completely deflated and like a failure. I almost gave up.

​I sometimes wonder where I’d be today if I hadn’t kept going. It would not have been good.

What I didn’t realize until YEARS later was my thoughts were making my road to success much more difficult than it needed to be. ​​

There were 6 thoughts in particular that were keeping me stuck back then:

  1. I’m a real estate agent
  2. I sell houses
  3. This should be easier
  4. I should be further along by now
  5. I’ve tried everything
  6. I don’t have enough money to ___________.

All of these thoughts seemed true to me. They seemed like facts. Anyone looking into my life at the time would have said, “You are right about all these things!”

You might also have had these thoughts and they may seem true to you too.

But, little did I know they were keeping me stuck, keeping me comfortable, keeping me small and keeping me broke.

If you’ve ever had one of these thoughts (you’ve likely had at least #1!), then today’s episode is for you!

I’m walking you through how UNtrue these thoughts actually are and what to tell yourself instead so you can get yourself unstuck and back on track to the life and real estate business you deserve.

To your success,

Jennifer

P.S. If you aren’t already a member of the Agent Grad School Inner Circle, join today! It’s FREE and it’s the place where share my best free advice, free trainings, and all sorts of other goodies I don’t share anywhere else. Join here.


Episode Transcript

For show notes and audio recording click here. Typically real estate agents come to me and Agent Grad School because they’re wondering how they were looking for a tactic, a strategy, a thing. How can they get more clients or how can they be more successful as a real estate agent? And they want me to give them a thing, a tactic, a strategy, which when I do nine times out of 10, when I tell them exactly what I did, it’s pretty basic nine times out of 10. They say that sounds too easy. There’s got to be more to it. You’re not telling me something. Yeah, it’s going to be a lot more to it because our human minds make it a lot harder than it needs to be every step of the way it will get in the way with all these thoughts and all these fears and all these feelings of being uncomfortable. And you will let those thoughts and feelings to take you down roads that you have no business going down. It will take you right off the highway onto the scenic route or business route where you are going super slowly or worse. You’ll see road, rock blocks. And rather than taking the detour that is outlined for you, you let it stop you. Your thoughts along the way to success, will make your path there much more arduous than it needs to be. And how do I know this? Because my mind does it to it does it, it does it every step of the way on my path to success. And it does it all day long today, too. The only difference is I don’t believe every thought that comes to me. I do not believe every thought that I have instead. I choose which thoughts to believe based on the results that I want to achieve in my life. I asked myself this thought that I’m having, it’s usually really negative. It’s usually one of those taking me down the wrong road. And I asked myself, will, this thought get me closer or further away to what I want to make happen. I then asked myself what thought would get me closer to my goals instead of, you know, there’s all sorts of quotes from all sorts of philosophers and success, experts in business, people all about how our thoughts become a reality and our thoughts create our things. And one of my favorites recently that I read is from Brian Tracy, who says today, the greatest single source of wealth is between our ears. I didn’t really understand what that concept meant when I first became a real estate agent. Instead of I was full of Thoughts and made me feel like there was something wrong with me because during those first few years, as a real estate agent, I felt like I had tried everything. I had poured my blood, sweat tears, literally into my real estate career. And yet I still had nothing to show for it. Back then, I kept having thoughts. Like I should be further along by now. I didn’t realize how hard this whole launching a successful real estate career was going to be. And it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. And I certainly did not have any money at the time to spend on things like online leads or marketing or anything else for that matter. I had no idea I was supposed to have some money to launch this new business or this new career. I had just this feeling, like that part was going to be easy. And I was so worried about the semantics of actually selling a house. I hadn’t even thought that I needed to try to get clients or spend money trying to get clients, that concept didn’t even cross my mind. This was one of the lowest point, about two years into my real estate career. I had worked. What I felt like was so hard every single day for two years had a second job. And I had literally not just nothing to show for it, but mounds and mounds of debt to show for it. And it was one of the lowest moments of my life. It was a feeling that drives me every day and a feeling I will never, ever forget. I had felt completely deflated. And like a complete failure, and I almost gave up and with 80% to 87%, according to the national association of realtors, statistics, 80%, 87% of real estate agents go out of business without within five years. I think I was feeling like a whole lot of real estate agents do at that point in their career. The majority of real estate agent, obviously. And sometimes I wonder where I’d be today. If I had not kept going, if I had let all those thoughts and feelings stop me, all I know is, and it would not have been good at all for me. And when I realized, but I didn’t realize until years later, was that my thoughts about what was going on, where I was making my road to success much, much more difficult than it needed to be. And there were six Thoughts in particular that were keeping me stuck by them. Back then. Another quote that I love is from Thomas J. Stanley. He’s the author of the millionaire next door in the millionaire mind. And he said, before you become a millionaire, you must learn to think like one, and I could not agree more. My hope today is This episode can help you start thinking more like a millionaire, more like the business owner, the real estate agent that you want to be, not necessarily what your circumstances are telling you is true right now. These six Thoughts that I’m sharing with you today are pretty common thoughts, The first two you’re probably going to laugh at because they’re thoughts that seem really common and really obvious I had them too. I didn’t realize until years later that these thoughts had me stuck or keeping me comfortable, keeping me small and keeping me broke for way too long. All of these thoughts I’m about to share with you seemed absolutely true to me at the time, they seemed like facts, and anyone looking into my life at the time would have said you are right. You are so right about all these things. And they would have told me that what I was thinking and feeling was absolutely legitimate, but my hope and intention for this episode is that if you have any of these thoughts that you’ll catch yourself and start thinking differently, even if they feel true for you, like they did for me, these thoughts, these six Thoughts in particular. And there’s probably more, but these are my favorite six that kept me stuck. These thoughts are costing you money and keeping you right where you are. So I’m going to walk you through how untrue these six really common thoughts are and what to tell yourself, or remind yourself instead, so that you can get yourself unstuck and back on track to the life in the real estate business that you deserve. Now, the first thought that is costing you money and keeping you stuck is I’m a real estate agent. I know, I know, I know this one threw me for a loop to hear me out though. There are a few things wrong with thinking of yourself as just any other real estate agent. The first is that it doesn’t set you apart from everybody else in your office or in your town who is also a real estate agent. You’ve got to be thinking of yourself as more than just a real estate agent. For my students, you know, that I always talk about what problem do you solve? Who do you help? Right? You think of yourself as a problem solver. You’re more than just a real estate agent. You’re more than somebody who opens doors. Your more than somebody who does transactions, you are solving people’s problems and helping their dreams come true. Real estate is the foundational thing, a home and the financial wealth that real estate brings to not just this generation, but generations further down. It’s proven that real estate is more than just behind selling a house. So you have to think of yourself as somebody whose more than just somebody who helps people buy and sell houses at has to be about more than that. It also has to be more about what is going to make somebody choose you as their agent from everybody else in town or in your office. What makes you different than every other real estate agent. Real estate agents so often want to feel like they’re in the group, that there’s this group dynamic, that we’re one and the same, but my advice to you is, is that is great. If you’re looking for you to build a community and we all need that in our life. But if you’re looking to build a business and bring clients to you, you need to be asking yourself what sets you apart and not what makes you have in common. The other reason thinking of yourself as a real estate agent is not enough is because when you became a real estate agent, whether you know it or not, you actually became a small business owner. And I did a whole episode last week on what that means financially, and like, kind of daily in your business, how to think like a business owner. So if you haven’t listened to that episode after this one, go to listen to that one next, but just think of yourself. Thinking of yourself as a real estate agent is costing you loads of clients, loads of money and keeping you stuck because you are not just a real estate agent. You are way more than, kind of, what at least I coming into being in real estate agent thought being real estate agent was. You are a small business owner. You are the CEO of your real estate business. You’ve got to be willing to step up into that role. That means things like making CEO decisions. I talk a lot about this to our students. You are the CEO it’s decision. Are you going to make for your business? You have to make decisions like investing in your business. You are also the head of the marketing department. What decisions are you making as the head of the marketing department? You’re responsible for bringing in those as head of the marketing department, as the CEO of your business, you are responsible for that. Being a small business owner, rather than just a real estate agent means automating as much as possible, because you cannot possibly do everything thing and have it rely on you. So automating the bringing in of clients, automating the follow-up of clients and automating as much as possible, the servicing of your clients, is crucial so that you have a business, but also have a life because not everything can rely on you. Having a small business, thinking of yourself as a small business owner, rather than a real estate agent means you’ve got to check your income, your expenses. You’ve got to have a bookkeeper or somebody needs to keep it, keep the books. Even if that person for a period of time is You, that means doing your taxes, paying your taxes, having a business bank account. It means not spending every dollar that comes in on the personal side, because you have to, first of all, pay taxes in it. Second of all, and reinvest back into your business to grow it. It also means things like setting up your own retirement plans, because there is no retirement plan for real estate agents, unless you create one yourself. Okay? So these are just examples of do not let yourself off the hook by saying But, I’m just a real estate agent. Know why do you have to worry about this? Or why do I have to step into the role of CEO of your own business? So rather than thinking of yourself as a real estate agent, step proudly into that role of CEO of your business, and be willing to make decisions from that place. And then the students listening to this are probably sick of me saying this, but what decision when you’re at a crossroads or you’re feeling down, what decision with the CEO of this business be thinking here, because that is a much more powerful place to launch and grow a successful real estate career, right? That is the place, that is the role you want to step into. Okay. So that was number one. The first thought common thought, obvious thought, is I’m a real estate agent. And that thought, thinking of yourself as just a real estate agent is costing you money and keeping you Stuck okay. Okay. Give to yourself as so much more than that, because you are so much more than that. The second thought, very common thought, keeping you stuck and costing you money it’s kind of extended. It’s like, I’m a real estate agent. And I sell houses. That seems like an obvious thought. You might be thinking, yeah, I’m a real estate agent. And I do so houses. Well, yeah, on the surface. That’s what it looks like. But now that you know that to be a successful real estate agent, you need to think of yourself as a CEO of your own business. You have to understand what business you are in. And yes, you are in the business to sell houses, but you cannot sell a house. Any houses, if you don’t sell something else first, any guesses to what that would be? It’s you, you cannot ever sell a house, if you don’t sell first, somebody’s on buying you as they’re a real estate agent. Okay? More than anything, it means that you are in the business of selling you first, and houses second. You cannot sell honey houses, unless someone buys you as their real estate agent. And if you can not sell You to someone who needs to buy or sell a home, you can not sell any houses. So I know you’re constantly thinking I need to sell a house. I need to sell a house. I would recommend that you instead, first thing, I need a client, how do I get a client? How do I become the real estate agent of choice for the types of houses that I want to sell? Okay, you guys getting this? You can not sell any houses. If you don’t have any clients, you have to sell You first so that you can sell houses. So then, how do you sell people on the idea of you, so that you can do the job you think you signed up for, which was to sell a house to them or for them, how you do that is you have a powerful and meaningful enough answer to the question, why should somebody choose you versus every other real estate agent? You hear me say this over and over again. That is where you are having clients come to you begins. Without that powerful answer to that question, and this is the first thing we help you do as a student agent grad school, is to figure out, every single one of you listening to this has a powerful and meaningful answer to that. And that is the first step in putting together a successful career, is figuring out what your answer to that is. And so you have to ask yourself if your answer, once you kind of, what happens a lot in what I did was like, bounce around different answers for a while. And how do you know if you’re in the right places? You have to ask yourself if your answer to that question is powerful enough for you to have chosen. You if you weren’t a real estate agent, right? You put yourself in their shoes, You also need to have a good enough answer to that question for two different groups. My students always hear me, are we talking to people you know or people you don’t know. And sometimes the answer of why should somebody choose you is different for those two groups. So you need to have a powerful and meaningful, and impactful answer to that question for your friends, family, and past clients. So they want to choose you too. Okay. Don’t think for a second that they should choose you just because you know them or are your neighbors, for example, or that you worked with them in the past. You a good answer to that question for them too, and it might have to be different for your friends and family and past clients than it does for the strangers, for the people that you don’t know already. For example, my initial answer to why should somebody choose me? Because I had no past clients, that I didn’t know anybody buying and selling a lot a home was, you know, I had a lot of reasons why I was helping first-time home buyers, I knew all the programs to make it more affordable. And so that was my initial answer. But then I realized that that was not a powerful enough for me, meaningful enough answer for my past clients, for my friends and who had already bought their first house. So what I did was I created a loyalty program and the key to qualify for my loyalty program, which was all sorts of goodies. If somebody bought or sold a home, right with me, that it should be to qualify for my loyalty program and learn more about that. You had to be a friend, a family, or a past client. And I marketed the heck out of my loyalty program and I built my business from there. Okay. So you see how to get people I didn’t know, to come through to me, I talked about my first time home buyer knowledge, my program’s, the way that I made it more affordable for them. And of course, those things worked for some of my friends and family and past clients. But when I realized that I was, I was losing people, who didn’t fit in that category, that is when I realized I needed a second powerful and meaning answer to why should somebody choose me? And that loyalty program worked perfectly that I created. So for my friends who have had owned houses before I became an agent for my family members and for my past clients, especially. And so remember you are in the business of selling people on the idea of choosing You first and then helping them buy and sell a home. Second in a nice bonus of thinking this way is that you are more focused on building relationships with your clients than you are on that transaction. And we can talk about that. I could have a whole episode on that, and I probably will in the future to be thinking more about building right long-term relationships with your clients instead of on the transaction. So many agents, I hear them say, but I have been working with this client for so long. I’ve taken them out days. Well, sometimes you’re going to have to take them out for it. Doesn’t matter how long they’re your client. Okay. So I can talk about this all day. These tiny mindset shifts on that note all day, but just know the first and foremost, do you not think of yourself as a real estate agent who sells houses, think of yourself as a small business owner, who is in the business of selling you first. And once you have somebody who quote, unquote buys you as their real estate agent, then you can get on the business of what they hired you to do, which help them buy or sell a house. Okay. There’s a step that happens before selling houses that so many real estate agents try to skip right over, or they try to get right to the sale, right? To getting under contract, right, to getting in the car. Now you need to have some steps in your process to make sure that you are making it clear why somebody should choose you and that they’re making the right decision. Okay. The third thought that is costing you money and keeping you stuck is this should be easier. Or same thing just said differently. This is so much harder than I thought it would be. Give me an amen if you’ve ever thought that thought. I know I have, I’ve had that thought about a a hundred times while writing and recording this very podcast episode and alone. But this is a tricky one because it doesn’t always show up literally right? Sometimes our mind will play tricks on us and have us thinking that it’s not literal. So often this thought gets disguised as things like confusion or frustration, or thoughts like, I don’t know what to do. Or even an indecision doing nothing, staying right where you are. That’s how sometimes the thought of it should be easier unfolds. And I totally get why a lot of real estate agents feel this way. I know I certainly did that first few years as an agent. And I think it comes from, and I don’t know where, why this is the kind of general thought. And I had the thought too before I became a real estate agent. But for some reason, people think being a real estate agent is easy or should be easy. In fact, there are multiple companies out there. Big time companies are making a ton of money who think our roles as real estate agents are so easy that they can replace us with technology. But here’s the thing, if being in real estate agent was as easy as most people thought, there wouldn’t be these staggering statistics from the national association of real estate agents, like a stat. I mentioned earlier, 80% of real estate agents no longer being in business after five years because they aren’t making money. And the income stats are terrible for real estate agents. The median gross income of realtors in 2019, which is the last time they published this report was a $49,000 a year. And it does not get better the longer year in real estate. If you have 16 years or more of experience, the median gross income is $71,000. I don’t think any of us got in business to make less than six figures after 15 years, but that is the reality. And for some reason, nobody thinks, nobody kind of pays attention. I know, I certainly didn’t know that. I don’t know I would’ve become a real estate agent. I don’t know if I would have become as successful if I had known these stats. I just thought for some reason, being a real estate agent would be easier and more lucrative than a nine to five. I have no idea where I got that, and I was sorely wrong. And what’s even more staggering is real estate agents with two years or less experience have a median gross income of $9,300. So if you’ve been a real estate agent for less than two years, that is the average salary that you can count on. So why do we think when we become licensed, we put a few months of work into doing what the average real estate does. Do we think that doing any better than average in anything is going to be hard, but we can do hard things, as Glennon Doyle always says, we can do hard things. Okay. Our students inside agent Grad School know that building a successful real estate business is not easy. They do it anyway. They follow the plan and they complain every step of the way about how hard it is. And that is okay because they keep going until they have the business that they thought they’d have until it becomes easier, everything and anything at first, we’ll be hard, that is without a doubt. Anything new that you’re trying is going to be hard at first. And if it were easy, not only would everyone else be doing it, but chances are, we would get less satisfaction out of doing it. I know we think if we want things to be easy, but we actually get our self-confidence and our kind of our proudness about something, because we overcame that difficult part. Think about it. I think of the things that you do every single day that are easy, and I don’t know what they are for you, but you likely get little satisfaction out of the things that are easy in your life. Yeah. The other thing to think about is what other profession on earth has such a low barrier to entry with such a wide open earning potential. There are none. There are none. If this whole real estate agent being easy was, was true. There would be way more than 1.5 million agent’s in this country. And they are in the average salary stats would be way higher, but being a successful real estate agent is going to be harder than you think it will be. And the hard will not necessarily go away. It will just change. There’ll be something new that’s hard. You’ll be like, Oh, I finally got that. And then there’s going to be something else that is hard because it is new and hard. Okay. But always remember these wide wise words from Amelia Earhart, who says you can do anything that you decide to do. And I’m going to tack on the end of that. Even if its hard, you can do anything that you decide to do, even if it’s hard. The fourth thought that is keeping you stuck, costing you money every day, is if you think I should be further along than this, and does this mind get the best of us? Oh, this one creeps in. Especially when we start looking around at what everyone else is doing, thinking they are younger or been in this a shorter time or whatever it is when you take your eyes off your own paper, you’ll start looking around the room. This one hits hard. I can still remember at my very first brokerage and my very first year as a real estate agent, there was another woman that got started the same day as I did. We were in the lobby the same day, we met that day. We were like in this together and we’ve got the tour of the office together. And like three months later, she was on the top producers list and I still had not sold a home. And the feel like even just telling a story, I can still feel this like horrible feeling of beating myself up, you know, back then, I don’t do it today, but I did it back then. I can still feel that terrible feeling like I thought. And I was so happy for her, but I was also really beat myself up about my results. Look, you are exactly wherever you are in this process called life and building a real estate agent, a business. You are exactly where you should be because you were there. Okay? So now no longer how long something takes, the only sure fire way that you should be further along, is if you quit. If you quit on whatever it is that you went after, that’s the only time that you can beat yourself up for not being further along. Don’t quit. Recently. I had one of our students say in one of our calls, I’ve been doing this for such a long time. I’ve been doing this for two months and I was like two months. On is not a long time. You are building a business. It’s going to take more than two months to have a successful business. And by the way, having a successful real estate business and career is an active thing. Like you don’t just be done with it. And then like do nothing and then be successful. It is something that you do every single day too. It’s like losing weight, right? Or you got to do the things that you did to lose weight, to keep the weight off. Otherwise, you’re going to gain the weight. You have to maintain. You have to do things. And yes, keeping it, like getting the weight off, in the metaphor is harder than maintaining and getting your success, getting your business to be a successful place is going to be harder than maintaining it. But if you start sliding into your old habits and not doing the things that got you here in the first place, you’re going to be right back where you started. Okay? So a successful business is not something you were just done with at some point. There’s no further along. You just are where you are, and you make decisions and do the work that is necessary to be where you want to be. A true, solid can stand a recession or whatever else comes our way, especially in real estate with all of the competition and all of the pressure coming from all sides, building a business that can withstand all of that. And stand the test of time is going to take more than a few weeks to build. But then once you’ve built it, however long it’s gonna take, you can live there, it’s like a house, your building, a house you can live there. It’s going to take more than two weeks to build your successful real estate house. But then you can live in it for the rest of your career. You know, whenever I think that things are taking longer than they should, which I think all the time, what I would say I applied to my own life often is I remind myself that old story of the tortoise in the hare, Right? In everything In life, there are tortoises and there are hares. I am a tortoise. I know this about me. And I have become proud of the fact that I am a tortoise. I will get to that finish line, no matter how long it takes and likely those hares who’ve been bouncing around and doing all these other things have already worn themselves out. By the time I get there. Right? Right. I will keep going no matter how long it takes. And I hope that you will be a tortoise with me here. Be the tortoise, just get there no matter how long it takes, put on your blinders. And don’t look at whatever nobody else is doing, because chances are, you won’t feel like you should be further along. If you aren’t looking anywhere else, other than your own paper and whatever, you do not quit. That is the only time that you’re allowed to tell yourself that you should be further along is if you quit, because you shouldn’t be further along because you should not be quitting on your dreams on yourself, you can do whatever it is that you’ve set out to do. If it was not possible for you, you would not have it in your belly, in your soul, in your mind to accomplish. And when the going gets tough, you just keep on going. Nobody said the path to success is easy because if it is, and everyone would already be there, and it would be something easy we would want, we would look for something to make hard. Okay. The fifth thought that is keeping you stuck and costing you money. I’m telling you these two last too are real big ones. The first is I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried things like this before that didn’t work. So I might as well not try again. I hear that one a lot. You have not tried everything. Let me tell you this, because if you had literally tried everything, if you have tried everything, then you would have the life and success that you want, but just don’t give up on yourself. Don’t give yourself permission to give up or not try new things. Just because the first two things didn’t work or 50 things didn’t work. If it takes 51 things, but it works. Try it. I think this story from one of my favorite books from is Think and Grow Rich. I used to drive around in the car. When I first started in real estate. I had like, there was this before a podcast. It was like the only tape that I had. I don’t know why I had the tape, but I would just listen to it over and over and over again. And Napoleon Hill is the person who wrote this book. And he wrote this book because he was paid to study the most successful men at the time, right? This was the 1930s. So it’s very men driven. So at the time that’s what happened. He was paying to study the most successful men in this country that he specifically says the most successful men in this country has ever known. And he studied them for over 20 years. Oh my God. I think that would be the coolest job ever. And he wrote, think and grow rich. The way that he wrote it was he found that there was 14 principles of success that these 500 men or whatever it was, it was like a right around 500 men or so. But they all had in common and they all said, these are the things that got me to the level of success that I’m at. And if you haven’t read that book, please get the audio version, drive around your car, listen to it, incessantly. It will change your life if you do that. But in that book, Napoleon Hill says, and I quote, before success comes in any man’s life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat and perhaps some failure. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. But that’s exactly what the majority of men do. More than 500 of the most successful men in this country has ever known, told the author their greatest success came just one step beyond the point at which defeat had overtaken them. And somebody once said to me, and I don’t know why it resonated for me. Don’t quit the mile before the finish line. And you just don’t know when that moment is. Okay. So you have not tried everything unless your exactly where you need to be. If you’re not there to try something else, you can handle it. You can handle that thing also not working, but keep going, find something else, keep going. Another one of my favorite quotes comes from the author of the Secrets of a Millionaire Mind T Harv Eaker. He says, it’s simple arithmetic. Your income can only grow to the extent that you do. Okay? So if you focus on growing your skills, growing your own self development, getting better at your craft, growing yourself and growing your business, your income we’ll grow to, and you can not know what none of us can grow faster than our own self development has grown. Your bank account is simply a reflection of the thoughts that you have, okay? Which leads me to the sixth thought, that’s keeping you stuck, which is I have no money, but I don’t have enough money to do that. This is a big one. And this one, no matter where you are, no matter how much money you have in the bank, this one will haunt you. You believe me. This one haunts me all the time, too. I don’t have enough money to do that. I can’t do that. I don’t have enough money. Okay? The same author of the secrets of a millionaire, Mark T Harv, Eker said a lack of money is never, ever, ever a problem. He says that three times never, ever, ever a problem, a lack of money is merely a symptom of what’s going on underneath. Norman Vincent Peale says empty pockets has never held anyone back. Like I totally get this one. I totally get this one. And I did not realize how detrimental this can be. Especially in the beginning when you literally have no money, but you have to think yourself back to number one, your starting a business. So do not quit your job and become a real estate agent. Unless you have set aside a budget of at least $500 a month for a year to spend on launching and growing your business, you need to learn this, spend that money. On learning the skills. You need to do a completely new job that you have never done before. You need to spend money on that, and you need to have a budget so that you can get clients. You need to become known. You are just new on the scene. You have to spend some money to become known so that people can choose you so that you can have clients and then sell them houses. So do whatever it takes. Get a second job until you can get things working and your real estate career don’t quit your job until you have a nice cushion to pay your expenses for your life. Totally separate than real estate for your life. For at least six months to a year, I would say a year plus that 500 minimum per month to spend in your real estate business. So, you know, be prepared not to do, kind of the income. You’re not the most likely going to have the income that you’re trying to replace in the first year. By year three, you can get there, put things on a credit card if you need to, obviously be responsible and make choices. Like I had to go into massive credit card debt. When I first started as a real estate agent, because I had quit my job prematurely because I thought this was going to be a lot easier and more lucrative in the beginning. So I had to get that second job at rock bottom and be out till 1:00 AM slinging dollar beers. And then, you know, back in the seat at 8:00 AM trying to get clients. I had to do that and not everybody’s in that position. I completely understand that I do. But my point is is if you don’t have money to start your real estate business, do not start your real estate business as a full-time job until you have some money set aside until you are willing to put some things on credit or get a second job, do not just quit your job and expect this to be lucrative and to replace your income in one year. I think that is very, very, but that’s very, very unlikely to happen, especially if you don’t have money to invest. So I did what I had to do to get through. And, you know, I had to work at the bar. I put a ton of stuff On on my credit card, but frankly for me, that really motivated me. I highly recommend don’t being as reckless as I was back then. But if you’re going to have to start this new career, you have to have savings. You have to work a second job. If you don’t have any income or you have to be willing to put things on credit. Okay. And if you’re not willing to do that, my advice to you is don’t yet become a real estate agent, don’t yet become any kind of business over because you will have to invest it, listen to last week’s episode about that. But don’t think that that means you can’t just be, just tell yourself, what are you willing to do? What are you willing to do to make it? And for me, I don’t know why, but I, I just had to kind of get in this desperate place to really give myself a kick in the pants and just, I had no other options. I had to pay off that credit card debt. I had to pay my mortgage at the time I had just bought my first house. So I had to take that job and I had to put things on credit. And so that’s what got me through. You need to make your own decisions, but you have to be willing to invest in your business every step of the way. So I really hope that this episode has helped you. Let me know if it has by leaving a comment on iTunes. I would really appreciate if you have been listening to this podcast and you’re getting anything out of it, I get your emails and I love hearing from you, but I’d love also for you to leave a comment, a review on iTunes that would really help me a lot. So I’d greatly appreciate it. And if you aren’t yet a member of the Agent Grad School inner circle, you are totally missing out. It’s the place where I share advice on how to be a successful real estate agent. I give free trainings, I’m creating a new one right now that will not be on my website and all sorts of other goodies that I don’t share anywhere else. I don’t share it on this podcast. I don’t share it at AgentGradSchool.com. I just share it by email. So join today, it’s free, but at agent Grad School dot com forward slash inner circle and sign up. So I’ll see you next week. I am continuing this financial month on the podcast where we are talking about money and how to make more of it and how to keep more of it. Next week, I have my favorite CPA who specializes in helping real estate agents keep more of their hard-earned commissions, where they belong in the PO in your pockets and not out the window in taxes. Somehow she makes every tax season something to look forward to. And I think you are going to love this episode about how to love expenses and deductions and keep more of your money and not have to pay the tax band as much as you possibly think. We’ll see and do it all legally. And so I can’t wait to see you then. See you next week. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Remember change happens when you take action. So apply what you learned today to your own real estate business. If this episode has helped you subscribe, leave a review and share it with all your real estate agent friends, and as always, if you want even more great resources to create the real estate business you’ve always wanted and have the life you want outside of your business to head over to agent Grad School dot com and sign up for the free weekly trainings, you’ll get free classes and discounts and other goodies that only go out to real estate agents on that email list. See you next week right here on Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent the Agent Grad School Podcast.

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