EPISODE 155
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:05] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Turn the Dial Podcast, hosted by Scott and Renee Comey. Scott and Renee are real estate industry experts having reached the top 1% in the nation both as agents and brokerage owners. Their insights, ideas, and suggestions will help guide you to a place where achieving your life aspirations is fully possible.
[EPISODE]
[00:00:34] RC: Overcoming FEAR and Limiting Beliefs. Now, fear has a Webster's dictionary definition for sure. But I'm going to say, have you heard the acronym of fear for false evidence appearing real? Fear tends to be an emotional response. It tends to be the anticipation of danger, right? If you look at the Webster's Dictionary, it's the anticipation of danger. It is not the actual danger. So, we anticipate that something's going to go wrong. We have an emotional response, and that's crippling to us or can be crippling to us. And it's really common in sales.
Now, I know most of our listeners are in real estate or mortgage, and so we are salespeople no matter what we think, right? The difference between being customer service and sales is we got to ask for business. So, that is the difference for us. We don't just have the business walking in our door that we're serving. We actually have to go find that client to serve. So, we are in sales, so we have to combat that emotion. And we have to combat the limiting beliefs that we put in our own minds.
Now, Scott and I were just talking to one of the people we coach last week, actually, we both had a couple of different conversations. But I know Scott had one that the person said, “Hey, I'm going to call this person and they're going to tell me no. Where should I send them, essentially?” As Scott spoke with them, he realized, they never even spoke with the client yet. They were already telling themselves through limiting beliefs, through fear that the client was going to reject their service. We put those barriers up before we even attempt the conversation sometimes. Have you ever done that yourself? Have you ever heard, “Man, this person wants to sell a $3 million-dollar property. I've never sold a home in that price point, so I'm just going to give up.”
[00:02:26] SC: Yeah, why would they hire me over somebody who had sold a ton of these? Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:31] RC: Or if you're brand new, usually, we think about that a lot when we're first starting in the industry, or maybe we've had a bad streak. Maybe you've had a couple appointments, listing appointments, where you've heard no, then you just talk yourself out of the next one, right? You go, “Gosh, they're not going to hire me. No one else has hired me. No one else has hired me lately.” And we talk ourselves out of it versus getting in the game, and doing an amazing job and letting the consumer decide. Worse, we don't talk ourselves out of showing up. But we're so unconfident about our ability or our skill. The client hears that and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Right? They hear, “Well, I guess I could maybe put a sign in your yard and I could try to sell your house. Maybe, possibly. I mean, I've sold some homes before, but not everyone hires me. So, it's okay, if you don't hire me.” Would you hire someone with that pitch?
[00:03:30] SC: No.
[00:03:32] RC: And we might not say those exact words, but it comes across in our emotion. Now, when we are trying to overcome fear, we've probably all heard too, when you're faced with fear, we tend to do fight or flight. You've heard that right. And we have the picture of coming across the scary monster in the forest, and are you going to fight him? Are you going to run away? But fight or flight can work in these areas, too. If you are experiencing fear, maybe you are scared of making phone calls, right? You're scared of calling your database and saying, “Hey, guess what? This is Renee Comey. I'm a real estate agent. I'd love to know if I could be the realtor you'd refer if you knew of someone looking to buy or sell a home.” You're scared of making that call.
So, your fight or flight, do you fight through that fear and make the call and it gets easier? Or do you flee and you avoid it? And you say, “Well, instead of making a call, maybe I'll make the call tomorrow. Or maybe I'll text them or maybe I'll post something about being an agent on social media. I mean, that's like the same, right?” It's not. We didn't face our fear. Scott is scared of heights.
[00:04:44] SC: Mm-hmm.
[00:04:44] RC: Right? If he never faced that fear, we'd never have Christmas lights on our house any holiday.
[00:04:53] SC: Very true, very true. And also, I am naturally a very shy person. So, that’s really hard for a lot of people to grasp the concept of because we speak on stage and Renee and I travel and, and do lots of trainings in front of lots of people. But that was because we wanted to get to that point. So, in order to get to a point where you get more comfortable with doing that, you have to face it head on. You've got to do it more. And the more and more you do it, the more you get comfortable.
Now, I still go on stage, and I still get nervous, right? I'm still a little bit fearful of am I going to mess up? I mean, all these things go through my head, but I still do it. The reason I still do it is because my longer-term desires, my life aspirations, my big why's are bigger than any fear, right? So, that's what has to happen, is you've got to push through to find a way for your desires to be more important to you than the fear.
[00:05:53] RC: Yeah, but just going up on stage, just deciding tomorrow, you're going to go speak to a big group of people doesn't help eliminate your fear. What kind of things do you do that help eliminate the fear before you get on that stage or reduce the fear? You practice, right? I say you do this in our living room today.
[00:06:08] SC: Absolutely.
[00:06:09] RC: You practice and you practice and no matter if you've gone and spoken to hundreds and thousands of people before, you still practice.
[00:06:16] SC: Yeah, here's the thing. If I'm afraid of making a mistake, or forgetting where I was in the program, when I'm speaking, one thing that I know can help alleviate the chance of that happening, is practicing. So, to your point, Renee, going through my PowerPoint presentation several times, like I've done, standing up, creating a fake podium and a fake projection screen behind me, which I do in my living room, every time before I speak, multiple times. That helps me build a confidence. That's the thing, right? I may not be perfect, I may still be a little frightful, but my confidence level is so much greater than it was without the practice.
[00:06:54] RC: Yeah. I used to always do before a listing presentation, is actually practice making a mistake or being stumped. Because then I wasn't scared of it. Isn't that normally what we're scared of? We're scared that they're going to ask us a question that we don't have the answer to. So, practice that moment. In your practice, it could be you know, “Mr. and Mrs. Seller, I actually don't know to answer that. Let me go ahead and research that and get back to you. Would that be acceptable? Do you prefer me to come back in person tomorrow? Give you a call? Or shoot you an email with that answer?” And that comes across confident. I didn't lie. I didn't make something up. I didn't go start sweating profusely because I was fearful. But I practiced making that mistake and not knowing that answer.
[00:07:37] SC: Yeah. And you have to understand, or you have to internalize the belief that the client prefers that you do that, then trying to look confident. Because I know, in your mind, you're like, “But I just want to have all the answers.” I don't want the client to see me weak. But you know what makes it look worse is if you try to fake yourself through that answer. So, what I love about that, Renee, is that that was always kind of like my get out of jail free card. I knew that that was a dialogue that I can use at any time if I didn't know the answer, and that gave me the confidence.
[00:08:12] RC: And then practice making a mistake and tripping on your words, right? I mean, that's another thing we get scared of. So, what happens when you trip on your words? Do you have a routine that you feel good coming back to and saying, “Hold on, I think I'm not answering your question. Can you repeat that question?” Are you okay practicing, sitting in silence for a few seconds before responding? We tend to make mistakes when we rush, right? And it's actually if you've noticed, when you're talking to someone, and they take just a few seconds, we're not talking an hour sitting there silently staring at you. But when they take a few seconds to respond, don't you end up going, “Man, that person's smart. They're like reflectful.” They're really coming back with a good response.
It actually comes across confident. It is okay to take a minute and it shows the respect that you listened to the question. If you need to stall yourself a little longer. You feel like you're past that point of awkwardness. Repeat the question. This is what I heard you say, right? That gives you another moment to compose your thoughts. And those are things you could practice that can get beyond the fear of the moment.
[00:09:25] SC: Yeah, and I want to touch – I know the title of this episode is, overcoming your fears and limiting beliefs. Let me just give you a definition real quick of limiting beliefs.
[00:09:35] RC: Yeah, we started with only fear.
[00:09:35] SC: Yeah. So, what are limiting beliefs? So, limiting beliefs, it's a state of mind or belief about yourself, that restricts you in some way, right? So, these beliefs are often false accusations you make about yourself that can cause a number of negative results. Let me give you a couple of examples, and you guys, if you listen to our podcast consistently, you've heard me say this before, but essentially, it's like this. I don't want to call people in my database and ask for referrals, because I don't like it when people call me and ask for referrals.
[00:10:07] RC: Oh, I like it even better with, I don't want to bother them.
[00:10:11] SC: Yeah, I don't want to bother them. These are people in your database that no one likes you. Right? You're not bothering them. But I can say that easily on a podcast. It is up to you to change your brain, though, right? It's up to you to change your mindset on that. And let me give you another example. I don't want to go door knock, because I don't like it when people door knock on me, right? So, what you're telling yourself is that everybody in the neighborhood that you could have gotten and door knocked, and maybe gotten a listing, thinks exactly the same way as you.
So, that's a limiting belief. It's a state of mind or belief about yourself that restricts you in some way. I promise you, the people, the 80/20 rule, right? 20% of the agents are doing 80% of the work, or 80% of the deals, and it is because they have found a way to push through the limiting beliefs. For me, that moment was when I drew a line in the sand and said, “You know what? I want out of debt.” My big why initially was that I wanted out of debt, right? I was sick of credit card debt and stuff like that. You guys have heard me tell this story before. But essentially, that was a big enough reason that I don't care what anybody may or may not think of me when I call and ask for a referral. Because all I know is I need to do that to get referrals, so that I can pay off my debt.
[00:11:29] RC: I'm going to take us into left field and hopefully I don't lose you guys here. I was listening to a podcast by Jay Shetty, who is the person who wrote Think Like a Monk, really great content, if you ever get a chance, check them out. So, there's no podcast within the last couple of weeks. And he shared, there was people who built a biosphere in Arizona, in the desert of Arizona, and they were trying to essentially grow the perfect atmosphere, biosphere. So, they had trees and the trees kept getting to a certain height and then just fallen over in the biosphere. They were trying to figure out why. Why do these trees keep falling over? They all get to the same height, they all fall over. What is different in this environment, than if the sphere wasn't here, the bubble. Let's call it the bubble, actually. We all have a comfort zone in our bubble. So, this is going to work out well.
In the actual world, not the biosphere, not the perfect bubble world, trees have wind that hits them. Trees have fires that come through. It's just part of nature, thunderstorms and lightning, and the strong survive. They get stronger bark, they grow a thicker root system, because they are having to be stressed out once in a while with some environmental factors. They don't get to just stay in their bubble world like they did in the biosphere, where they just keel over and die because they aren't strong enough to grow, because they don't have a root system. They don't have a thick bark.
I'm thinking about that when you just mentioned this piece of fear and limiting beliefs. If we always live in our bubble, our comfort zone of, nope, I'm not going to do that because I wouldn't like that. Or I'm not going to do that, because here's how I would respond, then we don't build that thicker bark or thicker skin. We don't build those roots or that foundation, and we're not able to grow to our full potential. We just fall over. Right? So, if you think about that, it's actually benefiting you every time you get a no.
There's a book that Scott loves to reference called Go for No. I can't remember who writes it. Scott will probably know that. But Go for No. In that book they talk about, you're going to collect your noes. Maybe my goal is to get 99 noes today. Not to get one yes, but to go get 99 noes or maybe it's just to get nine noes. I don't know pick where you're starting. But you're going to get out there, and you're going to try and you're going to expect to hear no. Because do we hear no more than we hear yes?
[00:13:57] SC: Yes, absolutely.
[00:13:58] RC: I actually saw him pull up the – or pick up the book. Go for No! Yes is the Destination, No is How You Get There. Oh, my gosh, how impactful. Who wrote that?
[00:14:07] SC: That subtitle is phenomenal. Yeah. Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz.
[00:14:11] RC: Awesome.
[00:14:12] SC: By the way, it's a quick read. It's a thin book. It's a quick read. So, pick it up. It's on Amazon for – since I'm right here. It’s on Amazon for 12 bucks. Go get it.
[00:14:22] RC: But yes, is the destination, no is how you get there. You just got to get comfortable with getting some noes. I went to our bookcase right before starting this podcast and just pulled a few books that are about fear. Do It Scared by Ruth Soukup. Right?
[00:14:36] SC: Yeah.
[00:14:37] RC: I think that’s how she says her name. I'm not quite sure. What would you do a fear no longer stood in your way? Angela Duckworth wrote Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. We got Relentless by Tim Grover. We got No Excuses! by Brian Tracy. We got Rejection Proof by Jia Jiang. Mel Robbins, The 5 Second Rule, right? There are so many great books that address fear, especially for the salesperson. Because if you are going, “Man, I'm the only one that has this feeling.” You're not alone. You're not alone.
[00:15:13] SC: Yeah, you're not alone. But if you've got deep desires to produce at a higher level, something's got to change you guys. I know that it sounds easier, said than done. But we've been saying this for years, and especially, some of the four things to do in a shifting market, the episode that we did about six weeks ago or so. One of the things is personal growth. You need to start thinking about where do I need to improve, and then find a way to improve it, right? You just gave several examples of books that can help somebody that has fear, or that has limiting beliefs.
[00:15:47] RC: And I'm sure they all have audio versions. If you're a podcast listener, and you don't like to read, I'm sure you love to listen.
[00:15:53] SC: Yup, even, Go for No, I just saw here, the audio book is free. It's free on Amazon. So, there are no excuses. There really are no excuses. But the thing is, guys, is you can't go through life, complaining about circumstances. You can't say, “Well, my business is down, because interest rates are up.” Okay, you can't. You can't. We have absolute control over what we do. We cannot control the outside circumstances, right? But we can control what we do. If we can just be more proactive, and be committed to your long-term life aspirations, and then say, “Okay, I need to call more people in my database.” I get it. I get it, Scott. I get it, Renee. I'm fearful of doing that. Okay, perfect. Read a couple books, start learning some tricks.
Mel Robbins, 5 Second Rule. When I read that book, it was a game changer for me. Because what I started to do is I would pick up my phone when I needed to make calls. My coach said, “Make some calls If you want to get referrals.” I pick up my phone, I go to the next person I'm supposed to call. And guess what? You do not give yourself more than five seconds to think about what is that person going to think? What if they answer? What am I going to say? Just hit dial.
[00:17:03] RC: Yeah. It starts ringing, they're going to pick up, or they're not. You're going to voicemail.
[00:17:07] SC: And you know what? I'll figure it out, right? We're human. And you know what? People like it when you're human. It's okay. If you stumble on your words a little bit, it makes you more human. They actually are more attracted to that than if you're scripted.
[00:17:20] RC: Yeah. So, if you have not read a 5 Second Rule, that really is exactly what it's about. It's not about the food you drop on the ground and picking it back up and throw it in your mouth. It is about not giving yourself the time to talk yourself out of something. Because we do that often, right? We go, “Man, I'm going to go do – oh, but what if? What if? What if? What if they don't like me?” We talk ourselves out of it before we take any action.
[00:17:46] SC: Yeah, you're driving down the road and there's a for sale by owner and you're like, “Oh, I should pull over and go knock on the door and see what they're up to. What kind of activity have they gotten? What are they asking for their house?” And you pull up to the front of the house and you sit there and you're like, “What if they're not home? They're probably not home? Well, maybe they are home. But then, what if I go knock on the door? What if they don't want me to knock?” Okay, five seconds already passed. It's already passed.
[00:18:07] RC: You're going to talk yourself out of it.
[00:18:08] SC: You’re going to talk yourself out of it. You're going to drive away. Pull up, open the door, get out, start walking towards the front door. That's all. That's what the 5 Second Rule is. I know that sounds like, “Wow, there's no way I can do that.” You guys trust me, you can. You can do it. You got to change your mindset on it.
[00:18:24] RC: I am going to give you a free coaching trick right now. So, for several of the people I coach, the fear of calling, the fear of rejection, that limiting belief that their people don't want to hear from them comes up. And how we start, as I say, make the call and say, “You know, I have a coach, and they told me I need to call three people today, and remind them that I'm in the business and I'm available for the referrals.” Blame me. Blame me.
So, even if you're listening on this podcast, you can say, “I just listened to a podcast today and this person gave me a challenge to reach out to three people I haven't talked to in the last month and say, ‘Hey, so and so, I don't know if I've mentioned this lately, I'm in real estate and I would love to help anyone you know, buy or sell a home.’ They gave me that challenge. I just thought I'd reach out.” Who knows? Use me as your excuse.
[00:19:20] SC: I absolutely love that. And here's the thing, Brian Tracy's book, No Excuses. By the way, we're doing a kickstart event. And depending on when you're listening to this, we already did a kickstart event, or we're getting ready to do a kickstart event. One of my presentations includes Brian Tracy's – a slide, with Brian Tracy's book, No Excuses. And the reason I love this so much is you're not making any excuses, right? You have to talk yourself out of every excuse that pops up. “Oh, but Scott, there's somebody in my database. I don't know who they are.” Okay, well then call them ask them. “Hey, I was going through my phone and I saw your name in my phone and gosh, I'm so embarrassed to admit, but I don't remember how we ever met. Do you recall?” And then let them tell you. It’s okay.
[00:20:04] RC: Those are the best ones, right? And we're so scared to call them because I don't know who they are. Who are they? I don't know. Those are the best calls.
[00:20:12] SC: They are the best calls, you guys. Here's another one. You sold somebody a house five years ago, six years ago, 10 years ago, for that matter, right? And you say, “I don't want to call them because I'm so embarrassed. I haven't stayed in touch.” All the more reason to call them you guys. Come on, man. The best time to call them was the month after you sold them a home. The next best time is right now.
[00:20:33] RC: Is right now.
[00:20:35] SC: Just do it. You guys, they want to hear from you. But here's the thing, just start by apologizing. “You know what, I was going through my phone, I saw your name, I realized, ‘Oh, my gosh, I don't know how I did this. I sold you a home six years ago, and I have not stayed in touch with you this entire time. I am extremely embarrassed. But if you're open to it, I'd love to grab a cup of coffee with you.’ If that's not you, if that's not you, how are you doing? How are you and the kids doing? How's the house doing?” It could be that simple.
[00:21:03] RC: Yeah. “I haven't talked to you in ages and that's on me. But I'd love to talk to you today.” How wonderful would it feel if you were on the receiving end of that call? And maybe you've been on the receiving end of a call like that. Maybe you've gotten a call from a past coworker or somebody you went to school with. Someone just from your past life out of the blue. And if you have had that call, think about how it made you feel. If you haven't had that call, think about how it would make you feel. Think about if your favorite teacher from junior high, high school, elementary, I don't know, gave you a call and said, “Hey, Bob, I was just thinking about you today. And you know, you were the best finger painter back in kindergarten. I just haven't told you lately.” It would put a smile on your face. You wouldn't be like, “Why the heck is Bob calling me?” You'd be like, “Wow, what is going on with you? I haven't talked to you forever.” It would be the highlight of your day. And your fear could be keeping that from someone.
We are in a world where we crave connection. Connect. Take the time to connect with people or reconnect with people.
[00:22:15] SC: Yeah, I've got another one. I've got another limiting belief, okay, that I've heard a ton lately. Is my database doesn't like calling. They don't make calls. Right? They only like text messages. Oh, that's interesting. Did you call and ask them? Or did you have a conversation with them, and they all told you that? Because if not, it's a limiting belief. You are putting a thought in your mind that for everybody in your database. And by the way, you could be a millennial, and still like to get calls. You can be an older person and still like to get text messages. Right? There's no age limit. You can't say, “Well, my clients are or the people in my database are mostly younger, and the younger generation mostly text.” Okay, that is a true statement. However, you can't say everybody. Okay, everybody is not true.
[00:23:05] RC: Yeah. Well, and every moment is not true. So, think about that. Hey, I don't mind getting a text once in a while, but not for everything. If you just want to catch up with me, that would be a really annoying text conversation. Because I'd be like, “What do you want, there's no information here.”
Now, if I'm selling you a vacuum, and you're telling me you're running five minutes late to meet me at the grocery store parking lot, that's can be a text. I don't need to call for that. But if you just want to connect in a deeper way with someone, it's not just an informational pass on, you can't do that effectively without hearing someone's voice. Even better, getting face to face like Scott mentioned, hey, when you talk to him, would you want to grab a cup of coffee or go for a walk sometime or just catch up? Because we see people's emotions. We hear people's inflections. You’re listening to a podcast. If I just sat here talking like this, like the text translator on your car, you would switch the next podcast.
[00:24:05] SC: This is the Emergency Broadcast System.
[00:24:06] RC: Yeah, it's just not exciting. Who has not received an email or a text and read it and gone, “Are they mad at me?” Because you failed to use a happy face emoji at the end of the sentence, right? That we cannot feel someone's emotion or inflection, just from text on a screen. So, that can't be replaced. And the minute that can be replaced, guys, everyone in any type of service industry is out of a job. We don't want it to be replaced. You want to connect in a deep level and provide that value to others.
[00:24:45] SC: Yeah, I'm squashing all of your limiting beliefs right now because I just thought of another one that I've heard, over the years is that, “Well, I want to call people in my database, but I just feel like most of the time they're at work, and I don't want to bother them at work.” Okay, I'm sorry. You know the work schedule of all the people in your database?
Guys, I know this is tough love. But if you want to thrive in 2023, let me remind you, transactions are forecast to be down 6.8%. National Association of Realtors, Dr. Yun, Chief Economist, stated that that is the forecast. Sales are going to go down just under 7%. So, if you don't do something different, and you guys, I'm not saying if you don't make calls right now, I'm not saying make 20 calls a week. I used to make a minimum of 20 calls a week. I'm not saying do that. But can you start with two or three or five, right?
I have several coaching clients, that's where we started. They never made calls. That's where we started. And now they're up to 10, 15, 20 calls a week and their businesses are thriving. Consistent, six figure incomes, because they started small. This is a get rich business. It takes years to get rich. It's not a get rich quick business. But one thing I know, as my friend Les Brown would say, “If you do what's easy, life's going to be hard. But if you do what's hard, life will become easy.”
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:26:06] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to Turn the Dial Podcast. Please check us out on Facebook or TikTok at Turn the Dial Coaching. We would also love for you to subscribe to our show and rate us on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen. For more information on our coaching programs, please go to turnthedialcoaching.com. Thanks for listening.
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