12: You Have to Know Your Why

In this conversation, Rebecca and Kim delve into the significance of business planning, emphasizing the importance of understanding one's 'why' as a foundational element. They discuss the challenges individuals face in identifying their motivations and the vulnerability that comes with self-reflection. The conversation highlights various tools for self-discovery, such as the CliftonStrengths and Enneagram tests, and stresses the need for ongoing evaluation of business plans. The hosts also touch on the impact of business planning on personal life and relationships, advocating for daily practices that keep individuals aligned with their goals.

Takeaways

• Business planning is essential for success in real estate.
• Understanding your 'why' is crucial for motivation.
• Self-reflection can be challenging but necessary.
• Tools like CliftonStrengths can aid in self-discovery.
• Business plans should evolve with your life circumstances.
• Identifying weaknesses is key to personal growth.
• Daily practices help maintain focus on goals.
• Vulnerability is part of the process of self-discovery.
• Your motivations can change over time.
• Writing down goals can reinforce commitment.

"It's so much more than just the numbers."

"You have to know your why."

"It's important to recognize your weaknesses."

"Your why is going to evolve over time."

"Write it down every day."

"Business planning is not just about numbers."

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding the Importance of Business Planning
• 2:53 Identifying Your Why
• 6:10 Tools for Self-Discovery
• 9:09 The Challenge of Defining Your Why
• 12:04 The Vulnerability of Self-Reflection
• 14:54 Evolving Motivations and Goals
• 18:13 Creating a Roadmap for Success
• 21:06 The Impact of Business Planning on Personal Life
• 23:49 Daily Practices for Staying Aligned
• 27:07 Wrapping Up: Embracing the Journey

Transcript

Rebecca Green (00:00.216)
Hi, this is Rebecca Green with How to Real Estate Today. I'm here with my co-host Kim Borcherding. And we are going to be talking today about business planning, but more specifically about understanding what your why is and why that's important and how it ties into business planning. Kim. Yes. Have you done your business plan? Get this, you are.

I wish I would say yes, but I have not. have been on a 30 day like hauling tail doing a bunch of things. So I have not. I actually, it is on my schedule to do on December 9th and 10th because I love it. Just had a really crazy 30 day stretch of travel. And for me, when I do my business planning, I really need to, I care a lot about business planning, but I also really need to be in like a calm, settled,

a grounded place because I need space to think. think actually for me, I've recognized that's really important is I need space in my life. I need space to be creative. I need space to have time to reflect. And if I'm in a compressed state, which I have different sprints. I like for me and my business, talk about different sprints. So when I'm in a sprint, I just don't have the capacity to think in a way.

that allows me to really connect with my intuition and myself and get through my business planning. So I have a skit with my December when my travels are done. Days and holidays, there's just like a lot of things like back to back. So yes, have you done your business plan, Rebecca? I'm working on it now. I'm on my second draft. You know, my business has evolved this year into a lot of different areas.

And so it's been interesting looking at the differences in my plan this year in comparison to previous years where it was mostly just my sales business. This year, I have coaching. I also, with the change of brokerage, have attraction and revenue share and things like that. yeah, but I'm a big business planning advocate. I think it's super important. It's something that

Rebecca Green (02:23.822)
I coach too, it's something I speak to a lot of agents about, but you're so right about being in the right frame of mind and also giving yourself space to actually work through it. Sometimes people think business planning is all about just the numbers and it's not. It's really about so much more than just the numbers. You have to know your numbers and that is a part of it, but you have to understand what you accomplished last year or in previous years.

you know, big projects you wanna work on throughout the year. You have to understand your why. It really starts with your why. You know, understanding why you're doing what you're doing. You know, you have to be able to, I always tell people it involves a serious gut check. You know, you have to ask yourself a lot of questions and be really honest with yourself. So it's so much more than numbers and you're right, having the space and having the right.

mindset in order to work through that is so smart. Yeah. So let me ask you, Rebecca, what are you, I mean, I really like nuts and bolts. Like when you decided working on your business plan, what does that look like for you specifically? What does that process look like? Yeah. So the business plan I've created for my coaching students is several different chapters almost, you know, to say, and the first one is really the why.

You know, why are you doing this? What motivates you? What gets you up in the morning? You know, the big picture why. That's one part of it. The other part of it is that gut check. Like, what are the things that I'm good at? What are the things that I'm not good at? my gosh, people have such a hard time identifying, you know, here are the things I'm not good at. And they ask all the time, like, why do I have to do that? Well, you have to know what you're not good at in order to figure out what you might need help with.

what you might need to outsource, or like where there are gaps or holes in your business. So that's really the, you know, not trying to beat yourself up, but just really getting the, getting clarity, gaining clarity, right? Becoming clear on things, areas of your business where you might need help. The other component of it. Yeah. Can I, I pause you real quick there? So I'd say that is something I've been working on these last few years and I've gotten so much better than I had been in the past.

Rebecca Green (04:44.43)
and for me getting really clear and what I'm good at, I will say this is so simple. I mean, you know, this, I'm going to show this cause it might help somebody, but I did, I was in a business kind of mastermind and they had us do the Clifton strengths, strengths tests. You could take it to online and that you, know, the series of questions and kind of highlights your strengths. get this report and it may even seem so obvious to people like what my strengths are. It was not clear to me. So if somebody is an, and literally this.

little exercise was so enlightening for me. And from that, I got my little report and I got my 10 strengths and like my top five. And I really started to look at everything through that lens of where my strengths were. And it was like, again, you would ask me like, duh, of course, like it was not clear to me. So if somebody is not having struggling what their strengths are, I got to tell you, as a little piece of advice, go CliftonStrengths. It's like made by Gallup. It was so enlightening for me.

to really get clear on my strengths. Anyway. I love that. I love that. Well, actually start people that join my coaching courses, I start them off with the Enneagram test because the Enneagram test is also like, who are you as a person? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? And it's along those same lines. Like it might be obvious to outsiders, but you might not recognize it yourself. And so that's.

Very interesting. Like literally before you do anything, I'm like, want you to enneagram. I want to know what your human design is. I want you to take the strength rider. Like before we go trying to put you down this path where you have this resistance, because that's not in your nature or how you're wired.

do this beginning. that is literally, I'm like, for those people who've not done this, like that should be a part of business planning. Do all these other assessments. I love it. Because the more you learn about yourself, the easier you, and for me, ultimately again, and we talk about, I'm trying to find alignment. I'm trying to find more flow. What comes, you know, if it's resistant and difficult, then yeah, it's gonna be harder for me. So, okay. Yeah, and I think also a lot.

Rebecca Green (06:54.124)
Yeah, no, I love that. But I think also along the lines of like identifying the things that you're not good at when you ask people that they immediately feel guilty or bad about themselves. And it's not meant for that at all. And like you were saying, like the Enneagram test or the test that you were chatting about, what's it called again? It's called Gallup Strengths.

A Clifton spring splinder, made by Gallup. Gallup Puddles, they do a lot of services. Yeah. So when you actually take those kinds of tests and you're able to like say, wait, this is part of my personality, you tend to feel less guilty or less down on yourself in a way when you are identifying the things that you're not good at, right? Or areas where you need to improve. So yeah, people tend to have a hard time with that. I mean, I think…

The other huge part for me about the business planning and about identifying things like that is that when you write it down and you commit to understanding it, you commit to working on it, at the end of the year, and I'm big on business plans not being one and done, it's something you should be checking in on throughout the year, definitely quarterly. I like to do it monthly. At the end of the year, it's really, it's.

feels so good to look back and say, okay, I identified this as a weakness. I made these three steps to make changes. And you know what? I tackled that or I overcame that or I fixed that. And so that's part of it too. Your business plan should grow with you for years to come. So, I tend to tell people, feel bad about it. Just get it to paper so that you can work on it. It's how you hear me say all the time,

It's like your roadmap, right? You cannot leave Portland, Oregon and go to Chicago without a map. You have to understand where you started, where you wanna go, and then you have a map of all these different things, places, directions that get you there. Totally. Let me ask you, a big piece of business, even in this business, like we talked about, is a hard business. To do this business, it is a difficult business, and if you do it well,

Rebecca Green (09:09.39)
It's not for the faint of heart. It's like you really need to know your why and be motivated at. So you talk to a lot of agents in your coaching program. What generally do you hear is like the why behind people? Why do they do this work? that is actually crazy to me because I would say, you know, over the last week or two, two weeks, I've had 32 business planning sessions with agents and no one

could identify their why. Like it works. Yeah. I mean, no, no one, they might say something or thinking though, why? And then when I really ask questions, they're like, yeah, I just didn't know what to write. So that's what I put down. The why is actually so much harder than people would think. And it is to me such an important component, right? It's also, I think important for people to recognize that the why changes as you evolve or as your life evolves.

Right? And so a lot of times people are using what they call their why as, you know, from, from 10, 15 years ago or yeah, it was, it was very interesting to me. Very hard for people to identify their why. I know, like if I said to you, what's your, your why, you know, right away what your why is, you know, and I know this year exactly what my why is.

you know, but yeah, that's really hard for, for people to identify, which was surprising to me. Yeah. Why do you think that is? I think a couple of things. think, first of all, there's a vulnerability in it. Right. And I had a call with my business, one of my business coaches this week, and he was talking about, you know, generationally, certain generations are very against any kind of personal disclosure.

Right? And he was saying that, you know, even in what he sees of me online, there can be a lack of personal connection or personal insight. And so I think generationally, when I think of some of the agents that I've been talking with, they're about my age, that could be it. Right? And when you're talking to a coach about business planning, no coach is trying to get personal with you. They're just trying to ask you to, you know,

Rebecca Green (11:34.552)
get personal with yourself, right? And that's a big thing, get personal with yourself. And so I think it's generational. I think that's one thing. But I think also in real estate, know, I go back to traditionally what brokerages talk to agents about or the business models that they've grown up in or that they work in. Like, I don't know, no one's outwardly talking about these things like in sales meetings, right? You know, it's just not,

a big topic of conversation. And so I think that comes into it. But mostly I think it's the vulnerability of being honest with yourself. Yeah, possibly. And I don't know because again, feel like I've always had and for me again, it changes all the time. Like my why five years ago is so much different now and like, yeah, but I that is really important to me to like know why I'm trying and like,

I don't know what you think about, like, so I'm also a big vision board person. I live, but I would say I have a very clear vision. actually, well, I'll say with that, I've had the same vision board since about 2018 and it's still so relevant. It's hang next to my bathroom. this is for vision boarding. If people want to do vision boards, here's something I've learned. Often you go to do vision boards and you cut stuff out of a magazine and I can never find.

quite the right essence of what I want to feel. now this, I mean, I've gone to a few vision board workshops and then there's a magazine and like none of them are quite right. I now do digital vision boards because it's easier to find a digital picture of what you're looking for. And then I just make it on Canva and I find these digital pictures and then I print out a few of them and then I have it in my office.

And, you know, in my bathroom and different places that I can refer to his vision more, but essentially the essence of like what I want my life to feel like. but, there's a vulnerability with that. There's a vulnerability in that because there is, I don't have this and maybe you're feeling like at your age, you should have it. Right. Or, so there is a vulnerability in it. Or I think also some times people struggle with big goals or big visions. Right.

Rebecca Green (13:55.544)
You know, I just shared this past Saturday, just talking about big goals, big visions, right? When I started the coaching business, my weekly newsletter is called 52 Weeks of Conversation Starters. When I started that at the beginning of the year, my goal was to have 124,000 opens on those emails, right? My database, how many times they're opened? So I hit 124,688.

not this Saturday, the Saturday before. And when I looked at that, I was like, holy shit, that's a lot of people reading stuff that I'm putting out there. And also when I put that number down, I felt almost when I was business planning, I felt almost an embarrassment about it because it's such a big number, right? You know, that was such a big number. And so I think when you ask people the why, there is the component of the vulnerability of

I haven't achieved this yet, right? And I know personally, right now, my why, there's a vulnerable component to it, right? Because my why is very geared towards creating retirement income. And the disappointment or what could feel like I hadn't met the mark is that we haven't done a great job with it, right? We have had many successes, but that's one area where I do feel disappointment.

but I can't hide behind it because I'm never gonna fix it, right? So I have to identify it. So I think there's a vulnerable component. I also think there's a, my God, can I actually get to that level that people struggle with? And so like a common why that comes, and I think another thing is sometimes people feel like the why is a big picture why has to come, has to be born out of some sort of trauma or struggle.

If that makes sense, you know, they're looking for, you know, right? Like my why, because my freedom because I grew up super poor and had more or whatever that is. Right. And that doesn't have to be the case. Right. You know, the why does and I've had agents say like, well, I've had nothing really bad to happen in my life. So the why is not, you know, and I'm like, well, that's amazing. But, but the why doesn't have to come from that.

Rebecca Green (16:20.666)
And your why can be, you you want to travel more because travel is important. You enjoy that with your spouse. The why is really like what gets you out of bed early in the morning. It's the motivator, right? And so, yeah, I think people struggle with it for a number of reasons. So if you were to, okay, and seeing how important it is, that's like where you start again is your why, your business plan, like you're saying, like, what is motivating you?

How would you coach somebody through trying to uncover what that lie is, Rebecca? You have to be so honest with yourself. And like I was saying, there comes that vulnerability. It's okay to recognize what you haven't yet accomplished or achieved, right? I think that that is hard for a lot of people.

I mean, shoot, it's hard for me, right? Like I've accomplished all of these things. I don't like sitting here in this season saying, I wish I had done a better job with retirement planning. You know, I don't like having that conversation, but if I don't actually address it, I guess I wonder how you ever fix it. You know what I'm saying? I, you know, whatever place you are,

is okay. And I think from a business planning standpoint, when you think of business planning, you don't think about having to get personal or looking inward. You think about our numbers. And so I think that's definitely a mistake, right? And recognizing that your why is going to evolve over time. For me personally, I look at past years and this is also your why and then also what did you do

What did you do well and what do you still need to work on? You know, I know in past years, like I've given my time and energy to the wrong people, the wrong places. And, you know, I was doing it because the money was good and I felt like I could create something else out of it. And what I was just doing was running myself ragged for the dollar.

Rebecca Green (18:40.662)
and I didn't actually have the time for the right planning and whatnot, though it was all a miss. It was all wrong, right? I can't turn the clock back, but I can address it and recognize it, right? I can look at, don't wanna do that anymore. So my why in that season was, know, in the midst of, you know, the COVID era where we had houses, you know, selling in three hot seconds, right?

My why at that time was to build my team, do as many transactions as possible. I wasn't really thinking about at what cost to me or the other parts of my business or my family. And so, you know, now in this season, time is so high on my why because I screwed it up. Yeah. Right. If you don't stop, you know, I know agents who have

I want to say abuse because they've abused themselves by giving so much of themselves and never really understanding the value of their time. So in a way, they, I just know so many agents who have done it for 20, 30 years, right? And they've lost so much. And partially, I wonder if it's because no one ever stopped them and said, hey, what's your why? Start thinking about,

what you did right, what you did wrong and what you need to change. You know what I'm saying? Like, and yeah, it's kind of, it's a shame to me. So I don't look at identifying the misses or being vulnerable about the whys. I don't look at those as negatives about myself. I look at them that I'm grateful I have the foresight and the mindset today to actually address that.

Does that make sense? totally. mean, I'd say, honestly, when I look at, again, to have a successful career, many agents have to trade something, whether it's health, you know, your relationships, like, I don't know, I'd be curious about this. But like, I think like being in a relationship with this guy, it's like a really is, I think it's difficult, you know, so I'm curious what the divorce rate is for real estate agents. It's very high.

Rebecca Green (21:06.766)
It's very, very high. I don't know the percentage, but it's high. I mean, I would think so. mean, again, one of the reasons I've been in the season of change is because my career was no longer supporting my goals in my family and how I want to up on relationship with my children, with my husband, you know. So, yeah, but I think you run yourself ragged and you...

Don't pay attention to your health. You don't pay attention to your finances. I mean, this is a very common thing where again, I feel very strongly about investing in real estate to build wealth for yourself and stability for you. But so few agents actually themselves invest in real estate. And that's been a priority for my husband and I to invest in real estate. And thank God for him for retiring. If it was up to me, I would be up for great. But thank God my husband has a spreadsheet and he has a plan. And this is our 20 year, da, da, da, and he shows me, you know,

So we buy real estate is what we do. And that's a big piece of our, we have a diversified plan, but a lot of people don't pay attention. And if it was, again, if it was up to me, there wouldn't be no discipline about the long financial, but, or that you just trade so much. And again, the star getting on this momentum, this hamster, and I totally get, it's hard to stop. It's hard to slow down for me. That's why I have.

2021, I just jumped off the treadmill and took a sabbatical for five months because I didn't, I just knew it was not, I was like, you thought I just, was lopsided places, but I didn't really know how to fix the lopsided. So I just jumped off and said, okay, I'm gonna just jump off and start there, you know, because it is- Yeah, and you had the wherewithal to like think through that. Another thing I do with my, with-

the agents that I coach and for myself in business planning is I ask a lot of questions to try and prompt people to figure out what the why is or what the path is. Things like, is your financial house in order? What does your retirement look like? What kind of investments are you making? Are you analyzing your expenses on a regular basis?

Rebecca Green (23:22.87)
So, you know, sometimes the why doesn't happen right up front. Even though it's the first question I ask, I also tell agents, go through the whole exercise, right? You know, at the end of it, sometimes agents will come back to me and say, hey, I decided my why for this year is that I want to lower my expenses and increase my profits, you know? And I'm like, yeah, bang on. That is so much more.

You know, being specific is so important. That's so much better than saying, I want to make more money. Who doesn't want to make more money? I don't know anyone that is going to stand up and say, I don't want to make more money, right? that is, mean, so I want to make more money isn't really a why, but when you break it down to, I haven't done as good of a job retirement planning as I wanted to.

And I know in order for my husband and I to have what we want at 60 or 65, I'm going to need to make these sacrifices. I need to make these changes. Like, that's my why. That's a motivator. Saying I want to make more money is not a motivator, right? So you have this mindset of, I could take this vacation or I could put this in a retirement fund. I could.

buy this investment property or I could redo my bathroom again, whatever it might be. You know what I'm saying? Like when you have the why so ingrained in everything you're doing, it makes decision-making every day. You're looking at it through a different lens. So it's like just your North Star. It's like, does this align with that priority? Yes, A or, you know, and if it's not a hell yeah, it's a no. you know, so what's it mean?

So yeah, that is a good piece. Like it is really important. And that's where you start. Like what's your why? You know, in this season of life now, not five years ago, not there is, like what's that heavily? What does he need? Like, and again, and it's like, when you look at your life holistically, not just money, but relationships, I was again, getting to course, what does that cost to you? Like tremendous, you know? And is there something you can be doing to like nurturing your relationship?

Rebecca Green (25:40.814)
and improving that versus, it really toast? Is it toast? I don't know, maybe it is, but maybe that's not. And maybe if you weren't not a crazy person like me, maybe my relationship would be better. so- Yeah, and I think to speak to that a little bit more, the evolution of who you are and where you are in your business and where you are in your life, the value of

having these conversations with yourself yearly and tying it into business and your goal is great. Like, you know, at a different season, my why was so my kids didn't have any debt after college, right? That was a why. And now thankfully they're through. you know, it also we checked that off the list. Isn't that great? You know, before that, when I first got into real estate, my why was because I had left school.

You know, I dropped out of college. I was totally addicted to the idea of buying real estate, renovating it, making money. And it worked and I did that. But like I got into real estate because at the time, knowledge, you know, access to information, I should say, was not readily available on the internet like it is now. So it was like, what better way to understand what it all takes? So I got into real estate. That was my why. It was like,

so many years ago, right? It's not my why today. And I think that's another place people get tripped up is, you know, their big picture, you know, having X amount of dollars in the bank, right? You know, is great to have, but you should be breaking it down into more relevant motivators. And really, maybe I change it. Maybe I stop saying what's your why and change it to like, hey, what's your

current motivator. My current motivator today is time, a peaceful life and trading maybe some extravagances or some luxuries for retirement. You know what I'm saying like that? So maybe it's the motivator, but yeah, people, was really surprised. I think I mentioned I had done 32 different sessions. I was so surprised at

Rebecca Green (28:02.722)
You know, the why part excites me and I was really surprised at how intimidating it felt to almost every agent I talked to and how, you know, difficult it was to come up with, yeah, that motivator. Yeah. Well, that's, know, I'm sure the people who listen is nice to know you're not alone if that is something that you struggle with as well. So, yes. Yeah, totally.

Good point for sure. So one tidbit and we'll wrap it up, but one tidbit that I loved and this is part of what I'm doing on a daily basis and I've switched it a little bit. So, Sharan Shruzvada, the president of Real, he puts a weekly email out and I think it came across on a weekly email or maybe it was a podcast I was listening to. He takes his, he says that,

After talking with dozens of very successful entrepreneurs and professionals, one of the common denominators is that they understand their goals so clearly that they can recite them at the drop of the pin at any time. They write those things, they write them down like daily or they know them because it's so ingrained in them.

And I thought that was such a great way to see, and he mentioned like, your day, starting your day like that. think he said he writes down his goals every morning. And I started, as I was talking to agents about their why and their motivator, I was like, you know what? Write it down every day. Every day, get up and say, I'm gonna trade for me, I'm gonna trade this luxury or this extravagance for something in retirement.

I'm gonna consciously not spend money here and invest it over here. Write it down to keep yourself going. I always talk to people about creating a pulse in their business and in their lives. You create a beat to what you're doing and of a it becomes so much easier and more exciting and less daunting, if that makes sense. So I love what you're drawing right now. Yeah, that's a great tip. No, I will. Write it down.

Rebecca Green (30:23.554)
Write it down, it keeps you on point. Yeah, so great. Anything to wrap that up with, Kim? Thank you, I appreciate it. I love this conversation. The business planning part is really near and dear to my heart. I wish I could get everybody to actually business plan. Come on, people, it's not that hard. And it doesn't have to be all of numbers. It can be a little bit of fun too. But yeah, this was...

This was a good one based on everyone that I had chatted with. I'm wondering if people out there listening are feeling resistance aided the business planning, but also, you know, self-conscious maybe. Yeah, probably, good. The more you talk about it, it's it's normal guys. All this is normal. Good. All right. Well, we'll leave it there. Thank you for joining us. We will see you next time.