Friday thoughts . . .
Have you ever concentrated on what you want your work life and work environment to look and feel like? Last week at our RE/MAX Broker Owner Retreat I had the opportunity to listen to a speaker who totally held my attention for almost two hours. I was mesmerized. This speaker spoke about the company culture I had dreamt about. His name was Cameron Herold, probably best know for his COO roles in Student Painters, 1-800 Got Junk & Boyd Auto Body and Glass. It felt to me as if the speaker was answering just my questions about what’s next and no one else was in the room. It was as if he saw my vision for our company and was helping me by filling in the details. He asked all the key questions. I could hardly type fast enough to take the notes I wanted to keep. In the movie The Secret, the message is have clear intention and the mechanism will show up. It begins with building a Painted Picture of what your world will look like three years from now. It is important to need to get your “future life” video out of your mind so that everyone can see it. Lean out three years into your business life and then come back and tell everyone else what you see. Design your future and then reverse engineer it. Build today through reverse engineering the future. Execute the plan to create the painted picture. When we figure out what it looks like in the future – we build a foundation. We then build through the people and we know strategically why we are doing something.
Our painted picture will layout the culture in our company and the people who will be involved and how. Our painted picture will attract people to our culture and will repel the people who are not in alignment. If you are looking for a work life, balanced culture, then that is the type of person who you will attract. The Painted Picture doesn’t tell how, it tells what. When we read it over and over the picture will come together. When the picture comes together magic happens! Then we will have an insanely great real estate company and change our worlds. The how will figure itself out. I have always known that the best way to accomplish this is to do it through alignment with everyone involved. ie everyone has seen the Sound of Music and if I asked you to recreate a picnic like the one on top of the mountain in the Sound of Music you could. If you hadn’t seen it you couldn’t do it the same as the movie. When everyone has the same vision, everyone gets involved & you build together - easily. Conceive Believe Achieve
My goal is to build a successful company with a strong work-life balanced culture. So as we add people into our company, we want to look for others who have a worklife balanced culture. The person’s worklife passion must be there. Each person is a piece of the puzzle. Some will fit and some will not. I want to be in business with people who are a match with our cultural balance and values, not necessarily a super top producer who’s value structure is not a match. You can’t keep the wrong people in your organization. We won’t attract great people who are in alignment with our culture if we allow it to be hit and miss.
Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, said success is like the fly wheel effect. Mass x velocity is what makes a business move forward. You keep pushing and then eventually it moves faster with less effort. Here is the success formula to get fly wheel going:
Focus x faith x effort = results At the end of week how focussed were we ? Did we spend our time looking at our email or facebook or did we move our Top 5 goals ? Was it 50% or 80% of the week? How much faith did you have in your business? How much faith did you have in what you are building? How much faith did you have in you? How much effort did everyone put in? Was it 100%? Can you get to 98% focus in each category? He also says: “Get the right people on the bus, in the right seats on the bus.” Have an open environment – get people out of offices. It can still be productive and fun. If you need private quiet time, put your Bose head phones on. The younger generation would prefer to work in an open environment, instead of the sterile office environment. The new generation was taught to question things and to have fun.
I’ve included in the attachments some examples and notes. One is an example of a Painted Picture and all the information for you to create your own Painted Picture. Let me know your vision of what our company will look like and what your business will look like in three years. Let’s get our vision out there for what we want to do and how it will look.
Here’s a tiny example of what is in my vision: People’s photos, hobbies etc. will always be first before titles. We care about their lives. People don’t fail, systems do. We have a no blame environment. We have built our company so cool that the agents and staff are all hitting their dreams.
That’s it for this Friday Thought. Next week I’m going to set up a tour of the 1-800 Got Junk corporate office downtown – if you’d like to see what a #2 Work Place in all of Canada looks like – join me. I will keep everyone posted as to which Friday that will be. If you want to build a great business, team or company – it is always simpliest to model a great one. I am so excited about the opportunities ahead of us! I look forward to reading your Painted Pictures.
By next week our management team and our staff will have our Painted Pictures built.
You are the very BEST!
Deb
Friday, June 19, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Friday's Thoughts May 22,2009
Friday’s Thoughts . . .
Wow! Disneyland and a week of huge learning and fun!
This is my first vacation in seven years. A mistake that I will not repeat. There are three distinct categories of time: work time, education time and play (recovery)time. Most of our early years are spent in play up until we become five or six, then we spend most of our day in school learning, as we become adults we move into spending most of our time at work and finally when we retire we begin to spend our time in play mode for as long as we have our health. More and more people are moving towards having all these different time categories occurring together. For the past seven years my life has been way out of balance. I spent much of it on a plane or in a classroom and the balance of it helping our agents and building a new franchise. I left little time for play. That doesn’t mean there was no play, it was just not in enough abundance. Lucky for me after 20+ years I still love my work. However this week I have a renewed experience about how valuable it is to take time to rejuvenate yourself. When you do that, you bring more energy to every other part of your life. Play time is very valuable. Spending time playing with my family this week has been amazing!
For those of you who I have the privilege to coach will know that I am a strong proponent of one day totally off a week and four days off in a row every six weeks plus a minimum of two holidays. I know that this recovery and rejuvenation time is critical for longevity and success in this business. I have no challenge pushing you hard to take time off because I know the benefits are huge. However, without a life coach myself – I focussed only on what I was coached on – building a profitable business. Creating play time is a focused activity that is purposeful in its intention to provide you with recovery and rejuvenation time. It is as important as work or education time in the benefits it brings. Play time needs to be written down in your day timer at the beginning of the year (or now for the balance of the year if you haven’t done so already). The rule is to write all these activities in pencil and what you erase – you replace somewhere in the balance of the year.
This week I have experienced what you give your focus to happens. We are powerful creators. I have watched Olivia (my granddaughter) literally will things to her. She shows up just at the right moment to get on rides. She was very clear each day prior to entering into Disneyland what rides she wanted to go on and in what order. She also set her mind on a few items at the gift store, (which are all now in her possession).
Being a systems maniac,I have always had a passion around Disneyland. After this trip I am absolutely impressed with the systems and the people involved in the Disney Experience. It’s the magic that is created when each guest’s experience has been beyond what they expected it would be. I learned through reading the book “Creating Magic” by Lee Cockerell (this week) that this magic doesn’t happen by accident. Every situation has been planned out. They have scripts for every situation. This book is fabulous and the strategies can be applied by anyone in business. Did you know that every employee of Disney learns scripts, role plays regularly and they take classes at the Disney Institute, over and over – until it is part of who they are? The employees are keenly aware of their direct impact on their coworkers and the guests. Business is business, whether its theme parks or real estate sales. It’s all about building relationships and learning all the dialogues to communicate at the highest level. The success of business is determined by the experience our client receives. It’s about mastering the basics and building upon them. It’s about the ability to focus fully on the key 20% that creates success and the ability to stay out of the “stuff”.
I’ve learned from my 3 1/2 yr old granddaughter that reality and dreams crossover. When we turned the corner and she saw Ariel and then Cinderella she believed without a doubt they were the real thing and not just a character on the DVD . Now, that she had spoken to them, they were real! When she put on the princess dress we bought her (which she wore for the next three days straight) she literally became a princess, too. I recognized just how important it is for all of us to connect and reconnect with the people who we do business with. Disney knows that once Audrey connected with the “real” Ariel, she will forever connect to Disneyland. It made me wonder what we create for our clients to always bring our names to the top of their minds when they think of real estate.
Finally, I’ve learned from my littlest granddaughter, Kristy that laughter makes every situation better. She has entertained her entire family on this trip, I’ve learned all the actions to The Wheels on the Bus, how to answer “Oh No” when she says “Oh Man!”. She has the ability to charm even the grumpiest of us with her smile and sparkly eyes. It’s all about her attitude. This 1 ½ yr old is an amazing communicator! She’s direct and honest. We always know exactly where we stand with her. There is no mask, if she’s tired we know, if she’s happy we know, if she’s afraid we know it. Makes me think about what I create in my life, with my attitude – Is it exactly what I want to consciously create - I hope so – because I am creating it, everyday in everyway.
Today is our last day in Disneyland. I wanted you to know that you were in my thoughts. I feel very blessed to have each of you in my business family. I hope you had a great week!
D eb
PS. Don’t forget about the Mastermind next week. Each month we bring in a successful agent so we can learn about their organizational models and strategies they have used to create their success. You won’t want to miss Ray Yenkana owner and mega agent of RE/MAX Little Oaks – guests are welcome, they just need to be registered.
PPS Don’t forget to gather your items for the “Yard Sale for the Cure”, next Saturday.
Wow! Disneyland and a week of huge learning and fun!
This is my first vacation in seven years. A mistake that I will not repeat. There are three distinct categories of time: work time, education time and play (recovery)time. Most of our early years are spent in play up until we become five or six, then we spend most of our day in school learning, as we become adults we move into spending most of our time at work and finally when we retire we begin to spend our time in play mode for as long as we have our health. More and more people are moving towards having all these different time categories occurring together. For the past seven years my life has been way out of balance. I spent much of it on a plane or in a classroom and the balance of it helping our agents and building a new franchise. I left little time for play. That doesn’t mean there was no play, it was just not in enough abundance. Lucky for me after 20+ years I still love my work. However this week I have a renewed experience about how valuable it is to take time to rejuvenate yourself. When you do that, you bring more energy to every other part of your life. Play time is very valuable. Spending time playing with my family this week has been amazing!
For those of you who I have the privilege to coach will know that I am a strong proponent of one day totally off a week and four days off in a row every six weeks plus a minimum of two holidays. I know that this recovery and rejuvenation time is critical for longevity and success in this business. I have no challenge pushing you hard to take time off because I know the benefits are huge. However, without a life coach myself – I focussed only on what I was coached on – building a profitable business. Creating play time is a focused activity that is purposeful in its intention to provide you with recovery and rejuvenation time. It is as important as work or education time in the benefits it brings. Play time needs to be written down in your day timer at the beginning of the year (or now for the balance of the year if you haven’t done so already). The rule is to write all these activities in pencil and what you erase – you replace somewhere in the balance of the year.
This week I have experienced what you give your focus to happens. We are powerful creators. I have watched Olivia (my granddaughter) literally will things to her. She shows up just at the right moment to get on rides. She was very clear each day prior to entering into Disneyland what rides she wanted to go on and in what order. She also set her mind on a few items at the gift store, (which are all now in her possession).
Being a systems maniac,I have always had a passion around Disneyland. After this trip I am absolutely impressed with the systems and the people involved in the Disney Experience. It’s the magic that is created when each guest’s experience has been beyond what they expected it would be. I learned through reading the book “Creating Magic” by Lee Cockerell (this week) that this magic doesn’t happen by accident. Every situation has been planned out. They have scripts for every situation. This book is fabulous and the strategies can be applied by anyone in business. Did you know that every employee of Disney learns scripts, role plays regularly and they take classes at the Disney Institute, over and over – until it is part of who they are? The employees are keenly aware of their direct impact on their coworkers and the guests. Business is business, whether its theme parks or real estate sales. It’s all about building relationships and learning all the dialogues to communicate at the highest level. The success of business is determined by the experience our client receives. It’s about mastering the basics and building upon them. It’s about the ability to focus fully on the key 20% that creates success and the ability to stay out of the “stuff”.
I’ve learned from my 3 1/2 yr old granddaughter that reality and dreams crossover. When we turned the corner and she saw Ariel and then Cinderella she believed without a doubt they were the real thing and not just a character on the DVD . Now, that she had spoken to them, they were real! When she put on the princess dress we bought her (which she wore for the next three days straight) she literally became a princess, too. I recognized just how important it is for all of us to connect and reconnect with the people who we do business with. Disney knows that once Audrey connected with the “real” Ariel, she will forever connect to Disneyland. It made me wonder what we create for our clients to always bring our names to the top of their minds when they think of real estate.
Finally, I’ve learned from my littlest granddaughter, Kristy that laughter makes every situation better. She has entertained her entire family on this trip, I’ve learned all the actions to The Wheels on the Bus, how to answer “Oh No” when she says “Oh Man!”. She has the ability to charm even the grumpiest of us with her smile and sparkly eyes. It’s all about her attitude. This 1 ½ yr old is an amazing communicator! She’s direct and honest. We always know exactly where we stand with her. There is no mask, if she’s tired we know, if she’s happy we know, if she’s afraid we know it. Makes me think about what I create in my life, with my attitude – Is it exactly what I want to consciously create - I hope so – because I am creating it, everyday in everyway.
Today is our last day in Disneyland. I wanted you to know that you were in my thoughts. I feel very blessed to have each of you in my business family. I hope you had a great week!
D eb
PS. Don’t forget about the Mastermind next week. Each month we bring in a successful agent so we can learn about their organizational models and strategies they have used to create their success. You won’t want to miss Ray Yenkana owner and mega agent of RE/MAX Little Oaks – guests are welcome, they just need to be registered.
PPS Don’t forget to gather your items for the “Yard Sale for the Cure”, next Saturday.
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