We are still writing and recording videos that make commercial real estate easy, but during COVID-19, I want to share ideas to help you keep moving and taking steps ahead in your life when everybody else is watching Netflix or making excuses about why they are compromising their goals and “readjusting their expectations.”

Leadership and change starts from the inside out, so we created a video where we talk about leading yourself before you lead anyone or anything else. If you haven’t seen that video, stop this one and watch it called “Lead Yourself.”

We start out by saying that in order to lead your life you must first lead yourself. Once you’ve defined your goals, you’ve considered your calling, and created a framework for your daily routine, now what?

Act Quickly. Based on your values and calling, it’s time to look outside yourself and assess what in your life should stay and what should go, and when you decide, act quickly. Take 15 minutes and really think about these things in light of your values: goals, business, coworkers, clients, and projects. The near-global shutdown we are experiencing could maybe be the final push you needed to leave your company to find a better fit, double down where you are and put your foot on the gas, or maybe you are unemployed and need to find something now. Whatever it is, act quickly. Here are 4 categories of life to evaluate after you have clarity on your values and calling.

1. Goals. Do your goals reflect the things that are most important to you based on what you just outlined? Is it time to readjust your goals? If so, act quickly.
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2. Business. Are you in the right business that is going to get your new goals? For example, if you want to build passive income through real estate but you are in a career that only allows you to generate $10,000 a year in savings, you may need to find a new career. If so, act quickly.
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3. Coworkers and Friends. It’s really hard to get rid of friends that are not moving in the same direction as you, because you like you like your friend. Sometimes it’s harder when they like you even if you don’t like them so much. Now is a time to take an inventory of your closest relationships and consider if those people are helping you move toward your goals and then quickly and decisively cutting loose the relationships that do not help you achieve your goals, again assuming that your goals are coming from your values.
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4. Clients and Projects. If you look at your values, goals, career, and close friends and coworkers and you have made the changes you need to make, it may be time to look at your clients or projects that take most of your time and ask the question, “Are these clients and projects ideal to get where I am going?” In sales for example, it’s a lot easier to work on a highly likely deal that’s easier to get done where you’ll make less money than working more risky deal where if it happens you’ll be put in a much better place place to succeed, but your chances are small. Getting into larger deal cycles is harder and takes much more time and effort. It requires ratcheting up your level of activity so that you can have more and more balls in the air so that if the deal dies, you’ve got a lot more coming.
   

In Summary: Act quickly. We have all heard stories of those who experience a tragic event or a near death experience that turns a deadly obstacle into greatest thing that ever happened because of the lessons learned through it and the opportunities that presented themselves in the difficulty, all because the person saw that opportunity and acted quickly and decisively. I encourage you, I implore you, do not let the opportunities presented to you right now go to waste. For better and for worse, never before in our lifetimes have we had the chance to press the restart button on our entire lives in the span of a few months. Don’t waste the chance we have now. Look at your life, look at what should stay and what should go. Make changes, and act quickly.

I’m David Skinner, and this is The CRE Coach, where together you and I are lifting the hood on commercial real estate.

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