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Mark McLeod: Embrace your ambitions

A new year is the perfect time to get back on track in your life and business career. Here, Mark McLeod reveals five key tips to keep you focused on the habits needed to reach your goals.

Establishing a new start is about first identifying where you are. 

Whether in life or business, it’s about having the courage to identify where you are at, where you want to be and highlighting the steps to get there.

Without getting too deep, a great place to start is one of gratitude and being grateful for whatever you have or wherever you are in life. 

A great read on this topic is The Resilience Project by Hugh Van Cuylenburg. 

However, let’s attack it from the business world.

Ask yourself where you would like to be in one, three or five years and identify the tasks and habits you need to create to bridge the gap. 

Unfulfilled ambition is only someone losing sight and focus of the habits required to reach the destination.

I will give you the five things that I believe help from a business perspective. 

  1. I really do believe people know the answers to most of the questions they ask.

If I asked everyone in our industry, outside of rookies, to write down a plan to have a fulfilling real estate career, no matter what GCI you identified, the majority of agents could do that.

That is the first point – we all know what to do

2. Be honest with yourself. Everyone knows the shortfalls in their personality, focus, energy and tasks.

Write down all the reasons you would fail and start to build a plan around them. 

This is called a failure post mortem, and the wonderful writer of the Atomic Habits by James Clear will give you far more insight into understanding that. 

3. The third seems strange, but I believe it is also powerful. Stop assuming.

Agents make assumptions daily, and most are incorrect.

At Ray White, we have some new technology called NurtureCloud that enables incredible insights into agents’ performance and the behaviours of consumers.

It highlights that ongoing assumptions could be the greatest danger to a bright future. 

4. Understand the formula that drives our business – volume, consistency and quality.

These three points, if used as a magnifying glass over all parts of your business, will lead to success.

I am often asked what the greatest point of difference in our industry is, and I always answer, “consistency”

5. The fifth thing is personal development, and agents need to ask themselves one simple question.

Outside of what is provided for you by your employer, how much time and effort do you spend on your own personal development?

Ultimately you are the rudder that steers your ship, so you need to be consistently in good shape.

I could talk about the use of technology, and the blockage people have in their minds, or how you can be caught up in the effect or obsession of caring too much about what people think.

We could argue brand, independence, boutiques, and single agents, but at the end of the day, your future growth and ability to adapt and change ultimately comes down to you. 

Finally, and arguably most importantly, be a good person; good things always happen to good people. 

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Mark McLeod

Mark McLeod is the Ray White Group's Chief Strategy Officer for Real Estate. He works alongside agents and businesses across Australia, helping them reach their ultimate potential to achieve success.