Make Your Calendar Your Boss | Justin Stoddart

If I Just Had More Time in the Day... How often have we heard this from others?

Show Notes

👉 In this short, 30-minute Livestream, I will teach you:

--A simple acronym for creating more time and space

--How to get more done without always wishing you had more time

--How to teach this to your teammates, prospective teammates, and upstream referral partners

Links:
Full episode with video, audio, timestamps and full transcription
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Creators and Guests

Host

Justin Stoddart

What is Think Bigger Real Estate?

The road to success for real estate agents is well-marked. The road to significance is not. Here, we help you to Think Bigger than just your business. We inspire you to seek success AND significance, income AND impact. We do that by interviewing the biggest thinkers and highest achievers in the real estate industry, extracting the secrets to having it all.

Justin Stoddart 0:00
Hey, what's up everybody super excited to be with you today to talk about making your calendar, your boss, you know, we oftentimes will hear this concept both from other people as well as from ourselves that if I just had one more hour every day, if I just had a couple more hours, and I'm here to call BS, like, if that were really the problem, then everyone else in the world would not be performing at higher levels than you. Let me say that, again, if the only thing that were keeping you from achieving at higher levels is that you needed more time in the day, then, like everybody else would be capped at your level, the reality is that some people have figured out that creating more hours in the day is not actually the solution. The solution is really how do you use the time that you have, right? And that's true for all of us, I'm guilty of the same thing. So today, I want to go through and really give you a framework that I think is easy to remember, it's going to be the form of an acronym. For those of us who like to have easy ways to remember things, simple ways to remember things. It's just some simple tips for you to make sure that you are managing your commitments within the time that you have allowed. Because that's really what it's all about, is that are you making commitments to the right things. And if you were to look at your calendar, would your calendar validate that those truly are your commitments, because you might be committed to aimlessly scrolling on social media, and not getting real value not being intentional. And that is a commitment, unfortunately, and it's taking precedence over commitments that are, for sure, much more meaningful and impactful for you. And I say this from firsthand experience, just like each and every one of us, Facebook has a pretty good profile on me. And they know that they can put certain content in front of me, and I get pretty interested in it. Right? I get pretty, pretty excited about it. And I'm watching it for for too many seconds too many minutes. And so each and every one of us struggle with this, I decided to teach us not because I'm the foremost ultimate expert on productivity, but I aspire to be a master of it, or at least on the path to mastery. One of the ways that I can do that is not only by creating frameworks that are simple and easy for me, but also for things that that that I can easily teach, because I know that I learn best when I teach. So hopefully that doesn't sound too selfish. And I want to just thank anybody that's here watching us live. I know that I just popped this up on you last minute. Let me share kind of how that came about is it typically these are on three at 3:30pm Pacific time. And I changed this week's because I realized that I had a another commitment that was more important to me than having this go. And it's regular scheduled time. And what does that commitment, it's my son's cross country meet, and my daughter's cross country meet, they both run today. And at the exact same time that normally I would be broadcasting this, and frankly, no offense, but they're more important to me than this community. Now, there isn't too much else beyond them, that I would say is more important to the work that I do the work that I get to do in helping myself included all of us to think bigger. But they do take precedence over that I'm sure you understand. So with that being said, I want to get right to it right. But before we do that, again, I want to ask if anybody has a productivity question that you are not sure about that you struggle with that I don't cover or that you want me to be sharing cover, please speak up, because that will give me the ability to speak directly to that, and or spend a little more time on that. So I am more than happy to go deeper on any particular topic that you want me to go on. But I do have a framework here. So starting off, I want to just begin by saying that like the quicker that you take complete responsibility for your time. And the way that you handle your time is, the quicker that you will begin to gain mastery over your time. So I know that that is first and foremost anything if you look at any self development, professional development book at the core of each and every thing that we do, right, it's at the core of all of it is personal responsibility without personal responsibility. Everything else fails because we always blame something else that we don't have control over. So I think it's it's again, first and foremost, we have to accept that we are where we are because we decided to get here like we drove the car to this point. And as a result, we are where we are. Now. The good news is if you drove the car to this point, then you can drive the car somewhere else

Justin Stoddart 4:59
right And that's the beautiful thing about personal responsibility that's oftentimes difficult for us to understand. Or to accept is it shoot, I'm here because I made choices to get myself here, the way I handle my time, the things that I get distracted by, it's no one else's fault, but my own. So I would encourage that to be the cornerstone of what we talked about here that you can take charge of your time. In fact, just yesterday, I broadcasted a podcast, we're gonna be redoing it. Because my guests internet wasn't cooperating very well with this. Her name is Jen Dillard, fantastic agent out of the Columbia River Gorge. And she and her team will close over $100 million in real estate volume this year. And she said she works four to five hours a day because that's how much time she has, from when she drops kids off at school to when she picks kids up. So I want you to think about that pretty powerful to realize what's possible when we give ourselves a smaller tighter parameters. And I'm here to tell you that so much more as possible, as you master and get on the path to mastering your calendar. Now, there's a couple different places where I want you to think of it like applications for this, number one, apply it in your own life. Okay? Number two, I want you to take these principles, and I want you to apply them to the lives of other people. And then number three, I want you to think about teaching these principles to upstream partners. Those of you that know me well and know this community know that there is a better way to grow and scale a warm market business than just relying upon your friends, family and past clients that you can add in professional partners who are situated upstream from a real estate transaction. And they have the ability to send you referrals monthly, if not weekly. So this skill set is not just applicable to the life of a real estate agent. This skill set is also applicable to every professional out there anybody that's ambitious, and wants to achieve more they run into this, I'm tapped on time. And the realization that I don't know how to create more time, therefore I better figure out how to better manage my commitments within the time allowed. And potentially, when we realize that there are other commitments that are even more important than work, we can even start to squeeze down the time that we have committed and still get more out of that time. So that's the exciting thing. Hope you're all excited about that. So with the with the actual acronym, okay, the acronym is going to be centered around the word space. Many parents right now are rejoicing because their home has a little more space in it. There's fewer kids that quickly come behind them and make messes, where they just cleaned it up. I know this from firsthand experience from from my own home, my wife's like, wow, the house stays cleaner longer. So, this this time, and space is an important thing. Okay. So let's begin with just writing that up here. So that we have that in mind. So space. Okay. You have to excuse my handwriting, right? That's hopefully I'm not being judged by just my handwriting. Okay. So number s is, what time do you start your day? Okay. So that's number one start. If you don't yet have a dedicated time to start your day, then I would encourage you that that needs to come about I'm not here to say that you need to start at 4am. Okay, do I start early? I absolutely do. Why? Well, because that's what I found to be a great time of day for me to be deeply committed to things that matter to me a lot without inflicting time or taking time away from my family. So I don't care if that time is 730, if it's eight o'clock, or if it's 445, which is when my alarm goes off, for some of you that are way earlier than that. Right, and that you should not have a badge of honor as to how early you get up. I do that because I've got six kids, and I've held that responsibility. And I'm trying to fight off the dad bod. And, and so I realized I have to get I have to commit to an early time if I'm going to get the things done that I want to get done in the morning. But the way that you start your day is oftentimes sets the pace right when you start a race, like not starting off too fast. But getting off to a good start will help with everything and here's why in the morning hours. There's very few expectations on your time. There's very few people that expect you to get back to them right away. You can show up and do the work that is intentionally your work, your deep work, the stuff that will matter most to your life without any interruption with family or from outside influences.

Justin Stoddart 9:57
So having a time every day to start I think it's super important for you to decide. When do I start now, one of the keys to having a great morning routine is not only to have a defined start time and a defined regimen of this is what I do. But it's also very critical for you to have an actual end time to the day before. Because if you have a poor night routine, and you're up watching Netflix till midnight, one o'clock, getting up at your determined time, I don't care what time it is, is going to be difficult. So actually not just deciding when to start. But What time am I going to start to get ready for that start? In other words, What time am I gonna go to bed? Okay, so that's the first the first letter of our acronym space. Okay, the second one is p. Promises. Okay? P stands for oops, promises. Okay. Now specifically, what are the promises that you have made to yourself and to others? In regards to your time, you want to put those things on your calendar first, okay, now it could be, I'm going to work out three days a week, five days a week, put that in your calendar, that's a promise you've made to yourself. Okay. Now, what about the promise of I'm going to be at my kids cross country meets, I better put that in my calendar. Okay. Like who are the people that are most important in my life? For some of you, it may be your faith, like it may be a relationship with God. And I've got time every morning carved out to spend time developing that relationship, that could be a promise, okay? It could be a date night, okay, it should be a date night, if you if you're in a romantic relationship, that should absolutely be a critical piece that you put in your calendar, right? Whether that's every week, every other week, whatever it looks like for you put it in your calendar, okay, a start time and promises. Now, if you have an actual desire to grow your business, then you should have a promise that I'm going to be engaging in new business conversations every single workday. Okay, and there should be time blocked out. Now, if you're watching this, and you're remembering last week's presentation, which are the five pillars of freedom, I talk very specifically about what are those five pillars, number one, and two, which one should have your priority. And the only reason why you should not have generating new business in your as your number one priority in your business is because you have a nother group of people who are doing that on your behalf, to where you can maybe move your focus to operations or to leadership, okay. But again, unless you're already there, and you have a team of people that are generating enough business to where you don't need to be involved in it, then you need to have the promise that I'm going to grow my business every single day. And I'm I'm putting in my calendar, that is a almost non negotiable, like movement, like we cannot put anything over the top of that calendar. And when I say almost the only reason it would is if there is a promise that's more important, for example, like I will be there when my kids need me, right? I'm not saying they need you to like open them milk container, but they need you to be at a certain school play. Right? That would be like the only reason that you would say, okay, that's going to move in a different direction otherwise, that time is blocked out. Again, having Gary Keller right, whether you you love Gary or not, I think we can all look to him as someone as as a real authority when it comes to building a great real estate business. And he said if you can just master the morning hours, if you can just master the morning hours, everything else will like you'll be fine. Okay, so in those promises you ought to take a look at in my business until noon, am I keeping the promises that are most important to grow in my business? Okay. The next one is advancements Okay, you want to grow you need to grow. So what are you going to do to advance every key area of your life right which I would define as your spiritual life whatever that looks like for you could be religious could look like something else? Your relationships Okay, your mind, your body and your enterprise. Or you might just simplify that and say, right. These ones here are personal. And this one here is professional.

Justin Stoddart 14:43
Right, so if you're looking really to simplify this, how am I growing personally how am I growing professionally? Okay, that needs to be putting your calendar decided upon in advance. Again, keep in mind guys that we are the whole premise behind what we're teaching here is that your calendar becomes Your boss, but you need to set your boss up to actually get you to where you want to go. Because if it's just a blank calendar, that's a pretty lousy boss is going to put you bankrupt, right? So right now we're we're helping you to find and create the very best boss possible, we're helping put things in your calendar that allow you to really thrive, okay? So that is the A, the C is chaos, you are going to have chaos happen it does every single day, it might come in the form have an unexpected email, it might come in the form of a last minute client request, that's super important. It might come in the in the, in the form of of, you know, a transaction that blows up that messes up your cash flow that messes up a transaction timeline that messes up a deal, like chaos is going to have it could be chaos at home, it could be your your water heater explodes and floods your house to dishwasher. Right, like chaos will happen. So we need to have buffer time in our calendar that allows us to deal with some chaos. Now some of the major chaos, right, we might not be able to totally plan for half spaceform, we just need to deal with that as it comes get back on the horse as fast as we can. But we need to also understand that there's going to be stuff coming at us every day That's unexpected. And if we have a calendar that's so tight, we don't have the ability to actually work around some of that stuff or through some of that stuff that is going to leave us frustrated, right and our boss, the calendar is going to be mad at us. And we're not going to be on good terms. And pretty soon what happens if you do that long enough, is that you stop looking at your boss, if your boss has misled you and didn't give you time to adapt to a real world, then once what ends up happening is you stop listening to that boss. And all too often people have the most beautiful calendar, but they don't listen to it. So again, going back to the calendar is your boss, if you can really treat it, like if I don't do what my boss tells me, I'm not going to have a job, I'm maybe I'm not I'm gonna have like a family, I'm gonna have a relationship not gonna have my health. Like, that's how important this is, you guys, if you set this up correctly, all those things get put in place, when you set it up correctly, and then when you listen to it appropriately. But when you don't, when you either don't set it up, or you don't listen to it, all the important things in life start to fall through or they become very sporadic. And you do not live an intentional life, you end up living a life by default, as opposed to by design. And nobody wants that because it's far below our potential. And a definition of thinking bigger is to wake up to the potential inside of you. And to live in pursuit of that. So you can live given serve abundantly, that's what we're about. We're helping you to live a very intentional life to help you unlock that potential. And so living a life by default is not an option. So this is a pathway to help you to be sure that you live intentionally, not just in your mind, but in the practical day to day walk. Okay, so having some some time and some space built into your calendar to deal with some of the unexpected. Okay, like a morning ketchup,

Justin Stoddart 18:06
and afternoon ketchup. Okay. Now the last one here, II is the end, what time are you finishing your work day, oftentimes having a commitment or a promise to a loved one or a group of loved ones to be done, like, let's have family dinner, let's go on a walk at five o'clock, right and maybe four, depending upon what your current transaction load looks like. It might be I'm going to show property until six or seven o'clock at night. And then we're going to have a dessert, but I'm going to cut out and get my kids from school so that I spend time with them right after school, right? So just know that you can design it however you want, but design it however you want. Does that make sense? Okay, so this is the end, what time does your day and what does the end routine look like? So often, we put so much emphasis on the morning routine that we don't actually have any plan for the evening routine. So the evening routine looks like well, I come in the house, I kind of ignore my family, I'm still looking at my phone. And then I turn on the TV and I pay more attention to them than I do the people whose faces bring us joy. Okay, so the hard part of all of this is keeping those time blocks, right. That's where accountability comes in. That's where being in a community of fellow big thinkers that are doing great things will inspire you to do this at a higher level. Now, for those of you that are listening to this and are like man, I would love to have my calendar set up like that. And I would love to have my calendar actually be my boss who actually listened to it, and you're looking for some expert help to help you to do that. That's what we do at Think bigger real estate. Now we don't just do that oftentimes what coaching looks like is that we you have somebody giving you ideas and filling up your task list and saying I'll hold you accountable next week. That's valuable, right and absolutely is a valuable, but what would be more valuable that we've identified is to not only teach You hold you accountable, but we also help you do it. We set up workshop time, where we can help you take these principles, apply them into your business, give you feedback, and then monitor the progress and make any additional changes that we need to. So that's what really partnering with Think bigger real estate looks like. If you're interested in that just message me happy to have a conversation, I'll be able to determine pretty quickly if it's the right fit for you. And then you can make the same determination. Alright, folks, this is, again, how you can stop living your life wishing for more time, you don't need more time. Right? There are people that are producing it levels far beyond what you've ever dreamed of, who have the same amount of time that you do. In fact, they probably work less than you. They've just simply learned how to create space and time through the way that they manage their commitment. I hope this livestream has been helpful for you today if it has if you're listening to the podcast after the fact please message me and or give us a review. Let us know that this is helpful. If you're listening to the live stream, put the comments say hey, this has been valuable, this has been helpful. That will inspire us to want to do more, give more and continue to fulfill our mission of helping you to think bigger so in the process and that are in the in the meantime, Till we meet again. Go think bigger. Your partner and friend Justin talks to my friends