The Abundant Agent

"Measure your success not by the results, but by the right actions."

Once you go "to work," you need to know what actions to take. Simplify your work life by writing down a simple action plan. Just 3 things you do each day that define a successful work day.

Hear how one agent I work with defines a successful day during the quarantine.

What are the three things you choose to do each day to define a successful work day?

To work effectively from home, you will need a dedicated space which communicates to your mind and body that this is where you work. This allows you to be more productive "at work" and more present "at home".

Would you share a photo of the workspace you have created for yourself during the quarantine?

Yesterday I spent 6 hours on coaching calls with agents from Alaska to Texas and 4 other states. Every single one described their challenge of working from home. 

"I am not productive"

"I don't feel successful" (Those things are different)

"My house is too distracting"

"I don't know how to work at home"

This week we are going to cover 3 critical dimensions to working successfully at home as well as 3 specific practices to master this week.

Your work domains are:

1. Space
2. Time 
3. People

Master these and your work environment will make it nearly impossible to fail. 

I have partnered with 7 other fabulous speakers and leaders to provide tools in uncertain times.  You can find out more at leadingthroughdisruption.com

Here is a recording of my conversation on The Daily Compass from March 19th.

I haven't posted a video in a while. I've been locked in my office writing a new book! Here's a sneak preview of what's to come.

Have you ever had a day FILLED with activity, but ending with the feeling that you didn't accomplish anything?

It's a day just like this that lead me to write a new book due out May 2020: Do What Matters Today!

I believe that long hours or hard work are not what leave you and me exhausted. It's futility! Activity without accomplishment. Perspiration without purpose. Movement without meaning.

In this new book, I cover three areas to have more days filled with what matters most.

1. Rediscover that your work matters
2. Distinguish the actions that actually matter from the nonsense
3. Act!--EVERY DAY

In my organization, we combat the misquotation "money is the root of all evil" with the quote "money is good for the good it can do."  And that is true to an extent. However this also becomes distorted by a belief that a business becomes good if the business gives to charity.  However, as Jeff VanDuzer says, "a bank robber can tithe (the judeo-christian practice of giving 10% of income to God)." The bigger truth is that righteously earned money is good for the good it can do, and blood money will always be blood money.  You can't open enough orphanages to make right cheating your customers, abusing your employees, and defaulting to your vendors. A godly business already enriches the world around it, then doubles those riches by generous giving from the surplus.

We can smell something is off when this view is played out in reality. Imagine a world where a drug-dealer runs a highly profitable business. He runs an efficient organization with effective sales people,...

Self-Assessment--What Value is my Work

Who benefits from my work/ business?  Be specific. Think of who is directly affected (eg Bob the customer) AND who is indirectly affected (Bob’s family, Bob’s neighborhood, Bob’s employees).  It’s not just your clients and customers who benefit from your business and work. Think of your employees, managers, bosses. Consider your vendors, neighbors, networks. Don’t forget the non-human beneficiaries of your business--the earth, the environment, plants, and animals. 

Why is anyone paying me in the first place?  What is the value and richness of life that the people paying me get?  Someone is giving you money in exchange for something, what is it? By the way, if you sell a product, it’s NOT the product, it’s what the product does for them. No one, and I mean NO ONE, wants a car. They want transportation, freedom, status, nostalgia, something...but not a car. This is why new sales...

Understand your Value

One of the most influential ideas in the late 20th-Century became for many the final verdict on a centuries old debate about the purpose of business.  Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman wrote in his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, and more popularly in a 1970 article in New York Times Magazine, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits….”  And with that, the purpose of business for most became clear: profit, profit, profit.

But this is a lie!  

Lie #1- The Profit-as-Purpose Lie.

Now let's get something straight, a business MUST be profitable--this is a necessary condition. If your business isn’t profitable, we don’t need to spend too much time talking about your mission, because you won’t have one for long.  But profit is not the PURPOSE of your business. How do we know businesses don't...

Pulling into the driveway exhausted, I know I look the way I feel.  I started 15 hours earlier, arriving at the office at 5AM to call, email, and even fax banks on the east coast.  By the time I had sent client financial packages, offers and counter offers on all transactions, and returned calls and emails from agents, the noon hour was upon me.  A few appointments were in my calendar for the afternoon, so I ran through the Carl’s Jr drive thru and racked up a nearly 2400 calorie meal before racing off to show houses. Painfully, a particularly hard storm and earlier accidents tripled my 30 minute commute to 90. With a day that busy, I expect tiredness.  But this is not tired, this is debilitating fatigue. Why?

I come from a family of work ethics and resilience. Our family lore is filled with stories of working graveyard shifts, 3 jobs, and digging ditches in the rain. I know how to work hard. My parents required my brothers and me to work summers as...

Abundance starts with a core belief that there is more than enough for everyone.

We don't fight over scraps in the market, abundance thinkers ask how to make the marketplace bigger. Abundance thinkers look at challenges, look at perceived scarcity and say confidently, "Yes we can do it...Now, how are we going to?"

Do you believe that there is more than enough for you, your family, your business, your community...AND for everyone else's as well?