The Right Thought Can Change Everything

Keller Williams has a training program for real estate agents called BOLD. It’s an acronym for Business Objective: A Life by Design.

It’s based on the premise that life is not something that happens to you. Life is something that happens for you. And you have the power to design your life in any way you choose.

I like the word “design.” In my my mind, it’s closely related to the word “create.” In both words, whatever you design or create must first begin in the mind.

Every result you achieve in your life is first conceived with a thought.

That’s why it’s so important to examine your thoughts. Are you thoughts helping you, or hurting you?

In BOLD, there are several lessons about some universal laws, one of which is, “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”

Let’s explore this concept to see how it can help a real estate Executive Assistant.

Many years ago I decided that I wanted to be a runner. The best thing about making this decision is that it requires no special skills to be a runner. You put on some tennis shoes and you go outside and run. Now you’re a runner.

What I learned is that being a runner is not as much a physical activity as it is a mental one.

In the early days, running was hard. I couldn’t run more than a couple minutes at a time. Or at least that’s what I thought.

Every time I thought, “That’s it. I just can’t run anymore,” I would stop running and start walking. I let my mind defeat me.

But when I thought, “It’s ok. Just a little more. Just a little longer. Keep those feet moving,” I would keep running. I was still tired. I was still out of breath. I was still fatigued. And yet I could keep going.

It was my thoughts that determined how much I ran that day. Not how I felt physically.

I remember the day that I decided I was going to run four miles without stopping. There’s an out-and-back route in my neighborhood that I had been running intermittently and I wanted to run it all without walking.

What helped me accomplish that goal was the fact that I had decided to do it. Before I stepped foot out the door, I knew I wasn’t going to stop for anything. I knew it would be hard, and that was OK.

Along the route are several hills and of course the longest and steepest of them are at the end of the route. I ran that hill the slowest I had ever run anything. And my mind fought for me the whole way. It wasn’t my legs that powered me up that hill. It was my thoughts: Just keep going. One foot in front of the other. Not much longer now. This is going to be so great when I’m done.

Next thing I knew, I had run the four miles without stopping. I put that day in my top 10 greatest days of all time. Because I had proven to myself that I’m capable of doing hard things.

I no longer run these days. I injured my knee and now there’s persistent pain when I run, so I had to give it up. But the evidence of success stays with me, and I apply it to everything I think is hard.

Not long ago I made the decision to change CRMs. We were using Top Producer and because it lacked a lot of the automation I needed, I chose to move us to Realvolve.

I had no idea how hard it would be to learn how Realvolve works. It has so many tricks to it that even I was intimidated. But never once did I think I couldn’t handle it, because I can do hard things.

Here’s what I believe about myself and my world that you can choose to believe too:

1. I can do hard things.
2. With enough research and time, I can figure out anything.
3. Success is simple, not easy. (Another BOLD law!)
4. There’s enough time to get the important stuff done.
5. I am capable of change.

I was leading an admin mastermind group at my office, and a brand new agent sneaked in. She asked, “So as an assistant, your job is just handling all the paperwork right?” Oh, I had a good hard laugh at that question!

If our jobs were “just paperwork” I think I would be crazy bored all day.

I don’t think this job is hard, because I’m not always motivated to do hard things.

I don’t think this job is easy, because easy is boring.

The way I think about my job as an Executive Assistant is that it’s a very challenging job and I love a challenge.

Find the thoughts that serve you and feel good to you. Stop choosing the thoughts that tear you apart, frustrate you, or make you want to quit.

It may help you in this role to think of people the same way.

I believe some people are very challenging for me. (These same people are not challenging at all to someone else on my team, and I promise you it’s because of the way my teammate and I differ on how we think about that same person.)

Sometimes you just have to figure people out so you know how they work. Once you figure out how they work, you can work within that person’s framework to achieve your desired outcome.

For example, there are just some people who can’t read a spreadsheet. To them, they may as well be looking at something in a foreign language that they haven’t learned. I used to think that was ridiculous. It’s not that hard to learn how to read a spreadsheet. To me, it’s like Connect the Dots, but they don’t even see the dots!

I used to get really frustrated about this: Why can’t they just learn it? Everyone should be able to figure out what the spreadsheet means.

But those thoughts weren’t serving me; they were just making me mad.

So I quit thinking them. Now, whenever I know I’ll be looking at a spreadsheet with someone who doesn’t read Spreadsheet, I highlight the numbers in bold colors and verbally tell them what the spreadsheet is saying and what it means to them.

And that’s OK.

Yes, it takes a few minutes for me to take those extra steps. And that’s OK.

It’s when we think and believe that things are not OK that we stress ourselves out and create drama in our lives that we don’t need.

What are the thoughts that hold you back from being happy as an Executive Assistant? And what better thoughts could you choose today that would serve as the springboard to greater success and job satisfaction?

I’ll leave you with one final BOLD law that sums up my point entirely: Change your thinking, change your world.