Ep036: 59 Rules for Becoming a Top 1% Real Estate Professional

Chris McAllister: Hi all. Chris McAllister here with the Connect Practice Track and Grow podcast where it’s my job to make your real estate business better and your life easier. I’m here today with my podcast partner, Laci LeBlanc, and this is the 11th episode of our 12 part series called Protecting the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs.

And this episode is called. 59 rules for becoming a top 1% real estate professional. How’s that for a title Laci? 

Laci LeBlanc: Um, it’s not gonna lie. A little overwhelming. 

Chris McAllister: It’s a lot of words, isn’t it? 

Laci LeBlanc: 59 is a lot like, like do you usually hear 10 rules or like three rules or, but 59 is is a bunch. 

Chris McAllister: It is. And I don’t think we’re going to, uh, go to get to all 59 or go too deep into all 59 today.

But I, I have to tell you, I’m excited about where this is going though. Uh, are you familiar with, uh, chef David Chang? 

Laci LeBlanc: I don’t think so, 

Chris McAllister: but he’s got a show on Netflix called Dinnertime Live and he is the entrepreneur founder of Momo Fuco Restaurant Group. So, um, it’s sort of a Korean, American, Asian hybrid.

He does all sorts of different. Types of food. And, uh, he, he’s just a great chef and an inspiring entrepreneur. And I read his book, um, autobiography recently called Eat A Peach. And at the end of the book, he wrote his 33 rules for Becoming a Chef. It inspired me to do something similar for real estate professionals.

So I, I might’ve gotten carried away with 59, but, uh, you know, it’s, it’s sort of a work in progress. 

Laci LeBlanc: Well, I am familiar with his restaurants. I just didn’t know that was his name. Um, but I think that if we can break it down into bite-sized chunks, um, restaurant style, then I think that 59 is the, I mean, the more the, the merrier really, um, as long as we can consume it.

Chris McAllister: Well, I, I’ve broken ’em down into six themes, and the themes are your why in mindset. Connecting, practicing planning and tracking and growing. Did you get that Connect practice, track and grow. And then, um, the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 theme is we close with playing the long game. So, um. I, I, I’m really, I’m more excited about this than I’ve been about anything since we launched, uh, protecting the Glees, the Golden Eggs.

So I’m looking forward to exploring this in, in the months ahead. But just to kind of, kind of go through here, I think, I think these rules will, will get our, uh. Listeners thinking who have stayed with us on this journey throughout protecting the the goose. At least the golden egg. So let’s start a little bit with your why in mindset.

So these are rules that address embracing and protecting your unique reason for becoming a top real estate professional. So here are a few of the rules. I’m not gonna get too deep into these ’cause we’ve got 59. But first of all, burn your bridges. What do I mean by that? I want you to commit fully to this profession.

No backup plan. You’re not just an agent. You’re an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur now, and if you’re anything like me, there’s a good chance that you’re no longer employable. So you want to embrace that and dive in deep. You also want to be you. You don’t wanna be like any other agent you’ve ever met or been impressed by or worked with.

Your personal authenticity is your personal brand. The third rule is find your niche. You want to carve out that space that aligns with your strengths and passions. You know, my strength and passion is clearly and always has been working with investors, and that’s where I, I’m focusing on as an example.

The other thing to think about is there are no rules, and you want to be the glitz in the matrix, right? Just because there, there’s all these, uh, rules and customs within the National Association of Realtors, the State Board of Realtors and so forth. Let me tell you there. There are no rules, so don’t limit yourself to what people have done before.

You wanna look for any way you can to differentiate yourself and build a business that takes care of the clients you choose to work with, and just as importantly, takes care of you. The next thing to think about is there are no rules, and number five is it’s all made up. Everything in this business is open for innovation, so you get to make your own rules.

The third thing to keep in mind is nobody’s in charge. Uh. You could argue that the State real Estate Commission is in charge. They have laws that could impact your, your ability to make a living. But you know, the realtors may be in charge to some degree. They have influence, but they’re certainly not in charge.

So nobody’s in charge of what you do. Nobody’s in charge of your business. So take ownership. There is zero ultimate authority in this business to hold you back. We talked a little bit in a previous episode about Jomo. Jomo. The joy of missing out is the way you wanna embrace that as a rule. Here’s another rule.

Stay the hell off social media. It’s bad for you. It’s poison. Stop watching the news too. Now, that doesn’t mean, and there’s a conflicting rule that you’re not gonna use social media to. Uh, market your business, but from a personal standpoint, stay off social media and finally stay the hell away from the local board of realtors.

I know this will rub people the wrong way. Maybe it’s even a provocative stance, but I have to tell you so many people. Get involved with the joy of with, with the Board of Realtors because of the social connections. It’s a social thing, it’s a party thing. You know, so much of the convention, some of the conventions have some fantastic education speakers and so forth, but a lot of it is just a social gathering.

Don’t get sucked in it. It is so much of what goes on in the Board of realtors is conducted by licensees, realtors that really don’t do a lot of business and can barely support themselves. So. I know that’s a little bit, uh, out there, but my advice is stay the hell away from the Board of Realtors, especially when you’re just getting started.

Laci LeBlanc: I like the way this is beginning with all of this controversial and against the grained kind of advice. Um. I love the idea of really being kind of true and authentic to yourself. Uh, that’s something that I learned early on in my career, thank goodness. ’cause I don’t think I could be another way. I’m not, I’m not a good pretender.

Even when my kids were little and were like playing, pretend like that’s not my strong suit, I found. Um, but yeah, I think it’s these, these really challenge folks. Um, to think outside the box too. Which I like. I think that’s, that’s necessary to be successful these days. 

Chris McAllister: That’s the goal. So we move on to the second theme called connecting.

And these rules revolve around building relationships, setting boundaries. We talked about that in episode two, creating collaborations and dealing with clients and peers. So rule number 10, A, b, C. Always be connecting. Not always be closing. Always be connecting. That’s what this is all about. That’s what connect, practice, track, and grow is all about.

Number 11, define what’s in it for them. Everything you do, you have to, you have to be able to see the value from your, from your targeted client’s perspective. It’s not about you. It’s about what’s in it for them and be an interesting person. You, you want to have a, a rich and varied personal life. You want to be somebody that people are attracted to, that people want to talk to, that people want to learn from.

So whatever it is that you’re excited about in life outside of real estate, go deep. Carve out time, be part of it, but be an interesting person. Number 13. Don’t work with assholes. Protect your energy. Protect your sanity. And you know, I, I’ve always run into people who say, well, he is the only client I have, or She’s the only client I have.

What am I supposed to do? I’m new. It’s not like people are banging down my door. Lemme tell you something. You work for people who don’t appreciate, you, don’t appreciate the value you’re offering. Don’t appreciate what you’re doing. It is gonna wear you down. That single client that you feel you can’t let go of has the potential to destroy your entire career.

So don’t work with assholes. Number 14, set boundaries. We’ve talked about this extensively. I think it was episode two. Freedom comes from creating guardrails. Constraints are not necessarily a bad thing. Set boundaries for yourself. Always be ready to walk away. I know this is impossible when you’re just starting out, but let me tell you something, not every deal, not every client is worth your time and a bad client that you don’t feel like you can walk away from, that you don’t feel you can fire is gonna do more damage in the long term to your attitude, your psyche, and your outlook on life than, than not.

So be ready to walk away. Rule 16. Contradiction to rule number eight. Rule 16, make social media work for you, right? Be strategic about how you want to connect online. If you’re doing it for business purposes, great. If you’re doing it for, you know, reasons that that support you personally in the business, great.

But if you’re getting sucked in and you’re looking at things and counting likes and you know, comparing yourself to others, again, stay the hell away from it. Don’t compete. Don’t worry about what any other agent is doing, whether it’s how many relationships they seem to have or how many transactions they, they have.

This isn’t about competing. You wanna adopt a mindset of abundance versus cutthroat competition. I. You want to associate with the best in the business, and you want to associate with the very best clients in the market. So forget about competing. It’s not about that. It’s about being you, about being an interesting person, about adding value and being constantly conscious of what’s in for them.

17 is don’t compete. Number 18 is collaborate. I want you to find a partner that, that you could constantly talk to. Um, you know, kick things around with, discuss certain scenarios and, and, and find a partner or partners in this business where you can leverage your collective strengths. Maybe that is another realtor.

Maybe it’s in the office. Maybe it’s not in the office. Maybe it’s a realtor that you meet, you know, uh, across the country, you know, through some sort of a NAR event or something that your goal is to find solid collaborators. One of the best collaborations I ever had, or some of the best collaborations I ever had as an agent were with my lending partner.

So not don’t compete, collaborate. Here’s another tip for connecting. Keep a gratitude list, right? When you’re talking, when you’re thinking to yourself that, you know, my personal connection standard is I have to do, you know, I have to make five calls this week to my database. I need to write five personal notes and, and I need to add.

Um, you know, x number of people to my data base this week. One trick that has always worked for me is keep a gratitude list and every, at least once a week, maybe a couple times a week, I want you to go back through your calendar, resurrect your, your, your recent days, and think about all the people you interacted with and, and try to identify at least one person that you can write a personal note to and thank them for the, their time, their, the, the service they provided or whatever it is, but.

First of all, think of people that you are grateful for the interaction, and then write a personal note and tell ’em about it. Number 20, here’s another one. Never pay or a lead. I have tried it. I’ve watched agents do it, whether it’s Zillow, whether it’s realtor.com, et cetera. Almost never is it possible to build a sustaining business by paying up to, and I’ve seen people paying up to 10, 15, $20,000 a month on Zillow leads and it becomes a massive number.

GA numbers game. They, they spend all of their profits. I’m trying to, um. You know, to Zillow, they’re, they become more of a Zillow employee than, than, than a, uh, self-employed person. Your goal as a top 1% real estate professional is to figure out how to create your own leads. Your goal is to be, is to build an organic lead generation machine.

Is it easy? No. Do we have a lot of ideas that we think can help you? Yeah, we do actually. But my goal for you is never pay for a lead. Now if you’re currently just getting started or if you’ve got something that’s working for you, great. Don’t stop. ’cause you gotta have food with your meals. But I want you to start thinking, what would I need to do?

What would I need to build? How do I get my own Laci to help me build a lead generation machine? 

Laci LeBlanc: Yeah, I think that’s, that’s a huge. Disparity that I don’t think people understand when they say, don’t pay for leads, don’t let someone else send you and a hundred other people the same lead. Right. Um, and we can talk about this in detail when we, I, I’m excited to go through all of these in more detail.

Uh, but yeah, I think that that’s a huge difference between generating your own leads and then paying for the same leads that somebody else is already paying for. Um, you’re just really buying competition. 

Chris McAllister: And that goes back to, you know why working by referral makes so much sense, right? You’ve got 150 referral partners in your database, right?

Dunbar’s Law, you know those people are only referring to you. They’re not referring you to, they’re not referring 500 realtors to their friends. They’re referring you. So that goes back to why working by referral is the way. The next name is Practice Practicing. These are your day-to-day disciplines, your habits, your tactical approaches to, to doing the work of real estate.

And remember, your professional practice is no different than that of a doctor and a lawyer, and I want you to see yourself in that same light. So keep in mind, working one-on-one with clients is only part of the job. In fact, when you think about everything that has to go into getting ready to meet with a client, to surfacing a client to work with.

You know, the actual time that you spend with that clients, that time quote in performance is far less than 10% of the job. You’re gonna spend 90% of the job getting in front of that finding and getting in front of that person. So keep that in mind. I. That takes us to rule 22. The boring shit makes everything else possible.

You gotta do the boring stuff, you gotta get the admin stuff done. You gotta do the follow ups. You gotta find your daily routines. Those are the backbone of success. If you hate the boring shit or you don’t feel like you have the discipline to do it tough, you’re gonna have to do it until you build enough volume that you can hire somebody to work with that can do a lot of that for you.

But just keep in mind the stuff you hate is what makes. Getting in front of a client to actually do some real estate business possible. Put your phone down. We talked about this, um, in a previous episode too. Let me tell you something. If you’re with a buyer or a seller and you’re not distracted by your phone, that is perceived as a superpower.

So many people in life, so many realtors, even when they’re one-on-one with a person, they’re constantly interrupted by their phone pinging and buzzing and so on and so forth. So you’d be the one to put the phone down. Passing. The state license exam has nothing to do with being a real estate professional and certainly not a top 1% real estate professional.

It’s not about that test. Real estate success is about your skills. It’s not about licensure, and while we’re talking about licensure, accreditations will get you nowhere. You want to focus on real world competence. You don’t wanna just try to collect all those little initials after your name on your business card that the NAR.

Provides you when you, when you pay for another course and check that off your box. Accreditation, nobody cares. They care about you. They care about what you can do for them. Be prepared, right? Most of us work from everywhere. Now your office is wherever you are. Always have what you need, wherever you are.

Right? If you need to keep a laptop in your car, keep a laptop in your car, you know, have it so you can walk into Starbucks to meet a client. Have it so you can walk into Starbucks and, and catch up on your email. If you can do that in your office, great. If you can do it anywhere, that’s what your, your goal is.

So be prepared. Another tip. If you’ve got, uh, Popeye gifts or, uh, you know, some branded swag or something, keep a whole big box of that in the trunk of your car so that when you’re out and about, you can hand that out your business card. Learn by doing experience is the best teacher. Getting yourself in front of a client is your goal.

Figure it out. You’ll, you’ll be able to figure it out from there. And hopefully you’re gonna be with a, with a broker or brokerage that’s gonna be right there with you when you have something to actually offer a client. This whole thing about continuing education online, you’ve heard me rant about this.

I think it’s an absolute waste of time, but I want you to make mandatory continuing education mean something. Look for something that appeals to you. Look for something that’s gonna challenge you. I don’t care if you have to sit in class for three hours. Don’t just try to check the box. Find something that could at least halfway get you excited.

And apply what you learn. Rule number 29, copy everything. I want you to borrow shamelessly from the best of the best, but I also want you to be able to, uh, give them credit for what you’re borrowing in the moment. But you wanna watch, you do wanna watch, you do wanna benchmark, you do wanna borrow, but you also wanna make these things your own.

You want to adapt them to your style. So copy everything. Here’s another one that we’ll go deep in. And I’m, I’m, I’m gonna sort of gloss over today, but I’ve had some personal experience with this. Friends and family sign twice, right? I think, uh, so many realtors have had situations where they’re doing something for a family member or a close friend, and maybe they’re a little loose on the process.

Maybe they’re, they’re a little bit loose on the signatures. Maybe, you know, maybe they’re thinking, oh, this is my friend. I can take a shortcut here or there. My experience is it never works. It always ends badly. Set your standards as a professional upfront, especially with friends and family. Friends and family.

Sign twice teams. Oh my gosh. I was gonna do an entire episode for, uh, um. Protecting the goose, at least the golden egg eggs about teams. But lemme tell you this whole idea of teams. It’s a lie. It’s a lie perpetrated by the National Association of Realtors to get more people to pay the National Association of Real realtor dues.

So we’re gonna go deeper into this later on, but you want to, you wanna question the entire traditional team model. You want to question the team model from your perspective as a new agent, if you’d like to join a team. A lot of people join teams ’cause they think it’s gonna be easier and somebody’s gonna hand them leads.

But the real perversion in all this is I’ve seen so many agents who to, you know, get a decent start. Maybe they get a, you know, a few transactions under their belt in the first few months, and then suddenly they’re building a team. You know, the one point I wanna leave you with about teams is if the only reason, the only reason to build a team is that if you have so much work coming in and so many wonderful people to work with.

You don’t have time to take care of all of them, and that’s when you need help. So teams are alive, perpetrated by the NAR. The only time you need to bring somebody in as a team member is when you have more work that you can honestly possibly handle. How am I doing? I feel like I’m rushing through this LA 

Laci LeBlanc: Well, I, you know, I think that it’s, I think it’s good.

59. I mean, I, I’m just hearing so many things, um, and this is really valuable because. It’s like a checklist. 

Yeah, it is. 

Laci LeBlanc: Right. So the 59 things are gonna be like a checklist and some of them you’re gonna be able to, to know, right. Add x number of names to my always be connecting. Like some of them are gonna be like, I need a, a poster on my wall of all of them.

Yeah, to remind me. So this is the checklist, and then if there’s, there are things that we need to go into more detail about, we’ll do that later. So I think it’s really helpful because I’m hearing things both. I mean, I think other people will feel the same. They’re gonna hear things that they’re already doing right?

They’re gonna hear things that they know they should be doing, but they’re not doing. And then they’re gonna hear things that they’ve never thought about doing before if they’ve never listened to this podcast. That is. Uh, so I think that it’s a really great way to. To look at this big picture style. Um, and I think that, you know, we’re gonna be able to hear the sections and think, oh, well, I’m doing a pretty good job of connecting, but the tracking part, the planning and tracking part, I might need some help with.

So I think it’s, I think it’s fantastic. 

Chris McAllister: Alright, let’s dive into planning and tracking. So these are rules that emphasize metrics, financial discipline, and the importance of measuring your progress. So number 32, leverage constraint. We talked about constraints earlier, but this is about money. Let me tell you something, you will never, ever be able to afford everything you want to do.

So get creative and get over it. Laci, we just had a discussion about how much money I really wanna spend to create more property management leads and, and the one constraint is we don’t have unlimited funds and we never will. So we’re gonna figure out how to be creative, how we’re gonna crack that code, and, uh, get in front of people who, who we, we, we know that we can help.

So, leverage constraint number 33, profit First, you need to be paying yourself property. Properly, you need to structure your finances so that your business is profitable. And if I don’t care, if you’re a single agent, you are a business and you are the, you are the goose, you are the, the goose that lays the golden eggs.

So pay yourself properly. Know your value. Don’t get, don’t get sucked into a commission me When, uh, somebody challenges you on your fees, profit first. Keep that in mind. Million dollar producers are usually broke. I’ve seen this time and time again. High gross sales don’t mean high net income. You’ve got to watch the bottom line.

You see all these folks out there on their business cards that say, I’m a million dollar producer, and they barely make 30 grand a year because they’re using metrics that the National Association of Realtors use. So million dollar producers are usually broke. That may be a statement more than a rule, but, uh, we’ll tweak that track everything, even if you have nothing to track.

You’ve got to build this habit of measurement early. If you’re a brand new agent, then track the number of calls, notes, and pop bys and and, and person letters that you mail out. Track the number of people you add to your database. You know, tracking also includes. What did you learn about that person? If you didn’t add 10, if you didn’t meet 10 new referral sources or add 10 people to your database, but you did meet one person, how deep could you go into that person?

How much did you learn about them? How? How much of a relationship did you really initiate in that moment? Right. So you got to track everything. Once you get, um, you know, some, some activities under your belt and you’re actually working with a client, even making sure that you’ve got all of your texts together, that you’re, that you don’t delete a thread that you’ve, that you’ve got all the emails together, that any documents you have are saved together, you know, that is all tracking.

So again, you gotta start somewhere. You want to track everything, even if you have nothing to track. And you know what, if tracking takes five minutes the first few weeks that you’re in the business, great. But there will come a time when you’ve got so much incoming and so much to to pay attention to and so much to remember that tracking is gonna be become second nature.

And don’t forget every entry you make into your customer relationship manager that is tracking, it’s not just about your numbers, it’s not just about a profit and loss statement. Here’s another rule. It’s not about the split. You wanna focus on, on the purpose, your purpose, and how your broker helps you manifest that purpose, right?

What is the value your broker is providing? So I want you to focus hard on the value that that brokerage brings, and I want you to focus on whatever that split is later. We’ve had this discussion many, many times in the past few months that we’ve done this series. That the, the cheapest brokerages out there.

Are are the ones that provide the absolute least amount of support. And the good thing is, I think I’ve always said this before, you know that those brokers expect nothing from you, so you should expect nothing from them. But bear in mind it’s not, it’s not about the split. A hundred percent of nothing is still nothing.

Find a partner for unplugged free days. We just did a blog post about unplugged free days. I think that’s on the calendar, Laci, but you wanna find a partner of somebody that you could work with, that you would trust to talk to your clients and vice versa, so that you can get some free time in your life.

Here’s another one that might be a little controversial. There is zero upside to becoming a broker. I want you to question the standard career ladder, and I want you to find your real, real path. You know, this is no different than starting a team, right? You, you, you wanna become the best individual contributor, the best individ, individual producer that you could become.

Then you wanna see about adding some help because you’ve got more work than you can do. Maybe then there’s an opportunity that becoming a broker. You know, makes sense. If you do wanna start your own business, or even if you just wanna start your own team, that extra education means something. But question the fact that just because you’ve had your license for X number of years, that you should become a broker, you should become a manager or this and that.

There, there is generally no upside. People think they’re gonna become a broker because they’re gonna quote, you know, help manage other agents or train other agents and so forth. And the only thing that does is take you away from your, your first priority, which is which are your clients that you work so hard to.

Connect with in the first place. So zero upside need. Starting to think 

Laci LeBlanc: that this list is meant for not just real estate agents. Um, and maybe it’s meant for some others of us who are listening because that’s true. You know, I just made the decision to, to not be an agency because, you know, I never wanted to do the agency model.

It just isn’t what’s in my heart to do. It’s not what I am passionate about in the business. And, you know, I’m. The relief was immediate when I decided to go back to just working directly with my own clients instead of managing other people to work with clients. And I think that that’s true for, for any business really and truly.

Um, you just lose the freedom that you, a lot of us got into this, um, self employ. Situation to begin with for I, 

Chris McAllister: I agree completely. Number 39, stay in sequence. Brian Ney talks a lot about this in his a hundred Days to Greatness class. You know, staying in financial sequence, you know, do what you need to do first and then add things when it, when it makes sense, when you have the cash to do it or the resources to do it.

So stay in sequence. You don’t get a license and jump to team Leader. You don’t get a license and jump to broker. You don’t do what I did. Get get, get a real estate license, have some success. Two years later, get your broker’s license and then boom, buy a franchise. Stay in sequence. We’ll get into that later on.

Everybody has their handout. This is a lot about the, the shiny object syndrome, right? There’s so many things that get, uh, emails and, and so many things that, that get in front of us as real estate professionals from a million different vendors, and they all look like shiny objects, and we want all of ’em.

But let me tell you something. There’s, there’s nothing, there’s no shiny object. That’s gonna be a shortcut that works, right? So you really want to say no to a lot of people. Your default response when somebody has their handout is no. If you, if you, uh, if you say no, and maybe here’s what I do, and I do this on Amazon too.

This, maybe the Amazon story is the best. If there’s something I think I want. I go to Amazon, I find it, but I’m training myself not to, not to buy it. I’m training myself to put it in my, uh, my wishlist. And once I put it in my wishlist, it, it seems to, uh, take care of the cravings, so to speak. And then when I go back a few days later and look at my wishlist, I can’t even remember how it got on there.

So everybody has their hand out. Everything seems like a fine idea at the time. I want you to learn how to say no. In 41 under, uh, planning and tracking. Focus on what is scalable and what is sustainable. Focus on what you can do more of, but always do it. Don’t come up with things that are one-offs. You know, think, think that, think like a business owner.

Think like a franchise owner. You want to be in systems and you want to only establish systems that you can create habits and they happen automatically. And you want to build systems that can grow with you. Not burn you out. So focus on what’s scalable and sustainable, and then of course, connect, practice, track, and grow.

Now we’re into growing. So here’s a few tips that we’ve probably talked about before in this series. A few of them, but you know, personal and professional development, continuous learning, resilience, it’s all about leveling up your career. So number one, get a coach. If you can’t afford to coach yet at Athenian Company, then find mentors who will challenge you to improve.

You’re, if you’ve got a good brokerage relationship, that broker should be a mentor to you. That broker should be able to help train you, challenge you, point you in the right direction. So. Get a coach. Here’s another one. This comes back to being an interesting person. You know, you wanna grow as a person.

Study humanities. Broaden your worldview to better connect with clients and ideas. Number 44, make invisible opportunities visible. I believe that was episode three, but it’s a rule. You want to train yourself to see deals, possibilities, and relationships that other people miss. You wanna go deep with people.

You don’t want to be collecting people. Buy the best equipment you can afford. This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, and it’s not just about the things you use for work, although I will tell you, you want a laptop that is always gonna connect to the wifi. You want a printer that always works, right?

But you also wanna make sure that you’ve got the best brick and mattress you can afford, right? You want the best set of eyeglasses you can afford. You know, think about the things that you use every single day that impact how you feel personally and about your business. Think about what those things are and buy the best equipment you can afford.

Maybe it’s about, you know, cutting out certain things and buying, you know, more, produce, more natural food at the grocery. Maybe it is a better mattress. You know, there’s so many things that, that we, we cut corners on and we ne neglect, and I want you to be conscious of that and think about the things that were gonna make you.

Better prepared for, for your, for practicing your profession on a day-to-day basis. Manage the strain. There are gonna be bad times, there’s gonna be great times, right. But you gotta manage the strain. Sometimes when we get, you know, we we’re humming right along and then all of a sudden we, we have more clients that we can handle.

I want you to manage that strain until you’re sure that, that, that those extra clients are gonna stick around, right? So, you know, there’s always gonna be strain. Plan for strain. Take care of your health and anticipation of strain. So prioritize your physical health, your mental health. Take your downtime, be be conscious of self-care.

Rule number 47, turn setbacks into advances. You gotta learn to use failures and disappointments as a springboard for getting better at what you do. And I want to go deep into that later on. Lisa, I think some of the best, uh, things that have ever happened in my career have come from just flat out disasters.

So I think there is a, a, a set of skills to turning setbacks into advances and get back up right. Resilience matters. You’re gonna get knocked down. Just keep going. Rule number 48, get back up. Number 49, soar with your strengths, right? I want you to identify and double down what you do best. I subscribe to the argument that focusing on your weaknesses are just gonna give you some really, really, really strong weaknesses, right?

So leave the, we leave your weaknesses to somebody else. Maybe it’s a skill for them, but I want you to identify and double down on what you’re great at, and that’s what I want you to focus on. It’s a, it’s a unique ability situation here. And finally, underg growing in, uh, rule number 50, the skills that got you out of Egypt will not get you to the promised land.

I. You may, you, you know, maybe in your first few years of real estate, you knock off every goal you ever had, and you find yourself in column four, you’re really feeling like a new real estate professional. Well, let me tell you something, that’s the dangerous signal, right? That means that you’ve got to challenge yourself.

You’ve got to find ways to add more value. You should start looking over your shoulder a little bit. Maybe you shouldn’t look over your shoulder as much as I do, but the, a little bit of paranoia is healthy. So I want you to evolve. I want you to adapt as you move to higher levels because you know, you get to a certain point in your career, you’re gonna be faced with new problems, new opportunities that you’ve never faced before, and you’re gonna have to do it all O over again.

So the skills that got you out of Egypt are not going to get you to the promised land. 

Laci LeBlanc: Lemme just finish writing down on my notes. A little paranoia is healthy. I do think that there’s a lot to this one. Um, you know, earlier one of the rules was teams are a lie. And I think that, you know, that’s true in a lot of ways, but when it comes to focusing on.

Your unique abilities and not focusing on your weaknesses. I think that, you know, team members, people who can do some of those things for you that you’re not the best at and keep them done and make sure that everything’s getting checked off the list are invaluable. So, you know, partners, teams may be alive, but partnerships that you talked about a little later are certainly valuable.

And I think that’s something we can go into in this section is, is you know how to get all this stuff done, even if it’s not in your unique ability or if it’s not what you’re passionate about or good at. 

Chris McAllister: Yeah. Now that we’re, uh, gone through 50 of the 59 rules, I think this is gonna be a pretty big book.

Laci LeBlanc: Well, I mean, we, I knew that from the time you said 59 rules, but.

Chris McAllister: Let’s wrap this up with some rules that that belong into the theme of playing the long game. So these are practical rules, habits that emphasize patience, longevity, and playing for enduring success rather than short term wins. Basically, this is about playing the win, not playing, not to lose. So number 51, eat what you grow.

You wanna learn to rely on your own production and be accountable for your own results. Don’t be a parasite if you’re not adding value. You’re a taker. Embrace the fallow periods. You’ve got to learn to accept the cyclical slow times as opportunities to reset and plan. And as we approach spring here in 2025, I gotta tell you, it feels a lot like the fall did.

I’m not sure what kind of spring we’re gonna have. There’s a lot of turmoil in the economy. There’s turmoil in the real estate markets, rates are high. New administration, all of these things. This is the time to, you know, reset your expenses, reset your expectations, and if this is gonna be a fallow period, then we need to figure out how to embrace it, make the most of it, reset and plan for the future.

Playing the long game, you’ve got to invest in your profession. You’ve got to invest in real estate. We did a whole episode about the, the fact that we’ve got so many special. Um, opportunities as real estate professionals when we invest in residential real estate. So you wanna build with wealth by owning what you sell.

Number 54, this ride never ends. Real estate is a marathon. You wanna avoid the get rich and exit mentality. Always save something for the swim back, right? So, yeah, I said Burn your bridges in episode one, and you’re gonna put forth an incredible amount of effort. There’s gonna be times when you, you’re gonna work harder than you’ve ever worked, but I want you to manage your resources.

I want you to, you know, whether they be financial, emotional, physical for the long haul. I never want you to get so far out there that you’re so burned out, that you just don’t have the strength to get back to sho to shore. Here’s another one. I don’t care if you’re a morning person or not. Here’s rule number 56 5:00 AM Maybe it’s not 5:00 AM.

Maybe for you it’s uh, 10:00 PM at night after the kids go to bed. My rule is I’m up and at my desk by 5:00 AM It’s natural. I like the quiet. I get more done between, you know, five and seven, then just about anybody I know. So 5:00 AM means adopt disciplined routines and early hours can be a game changer.

Playing the long game number 57 journal. You do want to create a habit of cultivating reflection and self-awareness. And that’s where you’re just gonna start coming up with, um, your gratitude focus. Your gratitude focus is naturally gonna be a part of your daily journaling habit, the work and learn out.

This one. I love this rule. So this, I’m gonna tell you something that I, I figured out during covid. You know, I’ve, I’ve always struggled with. Getting enough time to exercise and so forth, and I finally allowed myself to put it on my calendar as if it was another task in the workday. And I, it doesn’t mean I like it.

I still hate it. I went to the gym this morning, it was a leg day. I didn’t wanna do it. I did it. But you know what got me through? And this is why I call it the work and learn out. I never ever go to the gym. Without an audio book or a podcast. And I’ve, and, and many, many times I don’t wanna go work out, but I want desperately to hear the next chapter, next chapter of that book.

So this is the only place where I’m ever gonna tell you to learn to multitask. You’re working out and you’re in, and you’re learning. So number 58, adopt a Work and learn out, uh, habit for yourself. Number five, build yourself a perfect week. Yes, this is always aspirational, but I want, it’ll teach you how to structure personal time, buffer time, focus time, et cetera.

And while you may get pulled from that at the beginning, if you keep focusing on coming back to that week after week, you will get closer and closer to the freedoms that got you your real, that caused you to want to get your real estate license anyway. So that’s rule 59, the perfect week. And. The final part of the theme playing the long game.

Laci, I’m, I’m almost out of breath. You really did run through this. Um, yeah. I mean, I. Speaking of aspirational, right? Like, uh, 59 things that which, you know, 52 weeks in a year, one thing a week that’s a little over, you know, it’s a, a week or a year and a little bit. Uh, there are just so many different ways to break this down and so many ways to, to figure out, do you focus on one thing from each category each month?

Laci LeBlanc: Do you focus on one category in total each month? I just think there’s so much to talk about moving forward. Well, maybe that’s the challenge. Maybe I’ll trim it to 52, so it’s one a week. I can probably find some duplications in there. May, maybe, but, you know, 59 has such a nice ring to it. I do. I think that there’s, and, and not everything’s gonna apply to everybody or is gonna intrigue everybody in the same way.

So, uh, you know, what a whirlwind A, but B you know what an exciting series of conversations we have coming up. 

Chris McAllister: Yeah, so these 59, 59 rules, they’re not just about real estate, they’re about building a sustainable, fulfilling career that lets you create the life you want, right? This is about lifestyle design.

If you take nothing else away from this episode, remember this, the top 1% of real estate professionals aren’t just better at selling houses. They think differently. They play the long game, and they design their businesses and their lives around their unique strengths and abilities. And as always, it’s not about transactions.

This time, it’s not even about relationships. This is about transformation and this entire protecting the goose that lays the Golden Egg Series has been about protecting what makes our careers and our lives valuable in the long run. So this wraps up our. Uh, episode 11, and the next time we get together in the final episode, episode 12, it’s gonna be called Putting It All Together.

And we’re gonna try to do, uh, you know, some, uh, uh, key points and action steps, things that we’ve covered in the last 11 episodes about mindset strategies, business models, financial disciplines, and so forth. How do we take all of this and, and, and be able to apply it? So that’s what episode 12, the final episode of this series is gonna be all about.

Laci LeBlanc: Can’t wait. 

Chris McAllister: So thank you for listening to the Connect Practice Track and Grow podcast. And if you like what you’ve heard, share this episode with a friend. Thank you.