I once coached a new mortgage agent who was really struggling. He did not have a sales background, or a large network, and English was his second language.
He had the trifecta of hard.
He was especially struggling with making calls to realtors, to set up meetings and ask for business. He felt uncomfortable and, like most people, avoided doing it.
However, a few months into coaching him, I noticed that the number of calls he was making went way up (we tracked this), and he started getting leads and closing mortgages.
On a call, I finally asked him, “What happened? How did you go from barely being able to pick up the phone to becoming an absolute savage about making calls?”
He explained that, one day, while sitting watching his boys play and stressing about his finances, he realized that if he didn’t get this mortgage career going soon, he was going to have to sell his place and likely move his boys to another school.
At that moment, he pictured himself sitting on the sofa, telling his kids that they had to move because Dad didn’t want to pick up the phone and talk to people.
The image burned into his mind, and he made the commitment that he was not going to have that conversation with his boys.
Not without putting 100% into his mortgage career.
He immediately made a mental shift and started making calls. The calls led to meetings, the meetings led to referrals, and the referrals led to closings.
One year later, he had made over $100K in gross commissions, and has continued on to a very successful mortgage career.
What happened for my friend was that he got really clear on what would be the worst possible outcome.
But he didn’t just imagine it—he let himself feel it at an emotional level. And that’s all it took for him to make a massive shift.
The thing about motivation is that it can be elusive—one day you have it, and the next day you don’t. However, there are several strategies you can use to motivate yourself. The strategy my friend employed was just one of the ways.
If you want to develop motivation that leads to changed behavior, check out my podcast, where I break down several different strategies like the one above.
This is a tough market, and it can be hard to stay motivated. I hope you can use one of the strategies in this episode to help you.
P.S. Last week, after I shared a story about Carl, I got emails from readers, asking how it turned out. Carl got to his destination safely, and thankfully, didn’t end up exiting the plane.
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