I was thinking about what I want to do this year–what I will do, and what I might do. And a few good thoughts occurred to me. One: BHB is about excellence and splendor. The honor of knowing the people here has been nothing short of inspiring. The folks that write here do it for a million reasons. Everyone has raised the bar ever higher, demonstrated leadership and set a fantastic example. We are all evolving as we learn and lead the 2.0 world. We’re here–reading or writing–because we want to hold our hand up and be counted with the survivors and the ones who matter.
Two: IF we are pursuing a life of splendor and excellence, there is no room for mediocrity in any part of it. We must display excellent character to our clients, friends, colleagues. We must be learning constantly, we must seek ways to become more efficient in our jobs, we must honor our consumers. We must take control of our own finances, our relatonships, and even own waistlines so that the example we set is compelling. Note: contrary to the luke-warm, make-nice, milquetoast of the RE.NET, it does not display good character when we let trendy-but-terrible ideas get accepted without question. Just because an Idea comes from a nice guy, it doesn’t mean it’s any good. Splendor demands excellence, and we must–with focus and intensity, preserve and pursue excellence with all that we have. Mediocrity is a cancer, and a little cancer in your life is too much, and if you hesitate to point out to the whimpering nothings that they are whimpering, you’re allowing the epidemic to continue and there is death on your hands.
Three: 2009 Starts 1 December, 2008 for me. You can have a listless (in every way) December waiting for things to change in January. You can also change them by taking this short week to focus on how many days you’re going to work and how many cats you’re going to skin. I decided that I’m going to measure my 2009 starting from December 1st. I’m going to work 20 days in December this year (taking off Xmas eve, the day after, and working every other, save weekends). Who else is going to be doing stuff? Christmas falls on a Thursday this year. That means you can do some paperwork xmas eve, knock off at noon, have christmas and the day after and then the weekend, and get a refreshing break before you come and kick ass on the 29th. The average month has 20.6 days in it, so there is no reason to have a poor December.
Four: I want accountability–you do too–to focus on the few must do goals. I’m not an active practitioner of straight real estate or mortgage right now– though I’ll definitely at least $6-8mm or more next year in combined mortgage & Real Estate business. I’ve got a few things going, and I want to be held accountable, and I want to work with people that are focused on specific measurable goals–whatever they are. It could be losing weight (got that goal), hitting an income number, spending less, whatever. Gotta do it. Post some interest in the comments and we’ll use bloodhoundblog.net for a little place to be accountability publicly/privately. (That was the one Take Away from my time with Mike Ferry that mattered a lot).
So–are you ready for 2009? Are you going to kick ass in December, or let it float away? And, who’s going to know if you haven’t done the best you can? Will you even know?
