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Peak Experiences: Why We Work So F#@%ing Hard.

February 18, 2009 By

[[I wrote this earlier this year on a blog I'm no longer maintaining.  I brought it over here because it's important that we bring it up.]]

The enduring memories that we have that we live for. The time we were able to push ourselves to run a marathon, to do our jobs better…peak experiences are why we’re alive. Some of ‘em are found at work. Some of the things that we live for are in our jobs, but some things have nothing to do with the loan business. Peak experiences leave us with a permanent mark, changing us for the better. And let’s be honest. Making money is fantastic, it’s fun, but it’s not an end-all be-all. Having an extra $600 bucks from a closing in your checking account isn’t the point.

…the freedom money allows is the point.

The reason we’re in this business is to fuel those peak experiences. That’s it. The reason we do what we do The picture you see is e on May 1 2008. I’m holding my brand new baby daughter, Ruby. A peak experience to be sure, she was born healthy and happy. Raising my son, shown on the right is the most joyful and important thing that I’ve done.

Not Every Peak Experience is found at work! The work that we do–even in the mortgage business–can make it so we can be around for more and more peak experiences. If we are ALWAYS having things that change us for the better, exposing ourselves, pressing ourselves, and doing whatever we can to have new and better experiences…life becomes a fulfilling playground of wonder and joy. And that’s what L.O.S.T is all about. I created a program that was going to give you more Peak Experiences.

Know Your Peak Experiences

Often, the worry about money, the worry about ego driven “junk” can hide from us what the peak experiences we’re after really are. We elevate other things that don’t matter, and we strive for stuff that doesn’t really make us tick because we think we oughta have it. Some people who don’t care about cars buy a Mercedes. Some people that don’t care about houses buy a big house. These decisions are made because they do what others do, they don’t take JUST a moment to figure out and connect with what really turns them on.

The business planning that we do at Loan Officer Survival Training STARTS with YOUR peak experiences. We anchor how you spend your day in such a way that you always are weeks away from what could be a peak experience.

Sometimes peak experiences cost (i.e. Christmas shopping in Manhattan), and you need to arrange your budget to include them. Sometimes, Peak Experiences don’t cost much at all (taking my kid to the park, playing baseball with him). The point is, we need to have a peak experience to look forward to.

What If I Don’t Know What My Peak Experiences Are?

Be adventurous. Try new things. What might your peak experiences be? What do you think you’ve always wanted to try to learn? Don’t think about what other people are doing–what turns YOU on?

What are the best memories that you have?

What things do you want MORE of in your life?

What things do you want to have in your life?

What is going great right now?

Spend some time thinking about this–how can other people be served by your peak experiences?

You’ll come across goals that really charge you and really turn you on when you’re always asking the question: what next?

A List of Peak Experiences

To help you get started, here is a List Of Peak Experiences.

  1. Shopping in New York City
  2. Paying off A credit card
  3. Running a 5k
  4. Running a Marathon
  5. Being completely debt free.
  6. Being recognized as #1 in your office.
  7. Starting a scholarship fund in your community.
  8. Competing in an Iron Man Triathalon
  9. Giving Money To Church.
  10. Completing A Course on Being a Public Speaker
  11. Running in a Road Race.
  12. Making amends with family members
  13. Buying a Sports Car
  14. Performing our Art in front of a good audience.
  15. Getting the recognition of our peers.
  16. Getting in world class shape.
  17. Reading 500 books.
  18. Learning a new language.
  19. Renewing wedding vows.
  20. Taking a month long vacation
  21. Meeting a famous mentor
  22. Helping a famous mentor.
  23. Creating a new church program
  24. Quitting Smoking.
  25. Going to Mardi Gras.
  26. Going to a World Series Game
  27. Teaching your child baseball.
  28. Re-finishing family heirloom furniture.
  29. Becoming an expert in a sport or game
  30. Getting an article published in a magazine.

This List of peak experiences is just few things–but they come in a wide variety of things. What are your peak experiences? Let me know in the comments!

Filed Under: Achieving Goals, Business Building, Start Here Tagged With: , ,

Big Damn 2009 Goal Post, Part 1.

November 22, 2008 By

A lot of times, I’ve written down goals.  It’s a big step, and it’s important.  It’s not something that you do lightly, but in my case, my goals never mattered to me.   Not one day that I was a full time real estate agent did I give a shit.   Not one day that I was a lender did I care.   Oh–let’s be honest.  I’m great at generating leads.  I’m reasonably personable, and reasonably honest (by reasonably honest, that means I’d never let anyone get screwed over).  

I set goals–sell x units, do y in volume.  But I never felt it.  The big ‘so what’ was always behind that.  I couldn’t make myself give a crap about any of it.  Sell another commodity house here in CMH?  Sure.  Happy to serve.  No, really.

I got jazzed about the marketing: doing something that generated leads.  And I had a tsunami of leads.  But I saw myself as a (just) six figure guy, and that’s what I did.  Oh, I sustained a bunch more in ’05, but we all did.  I had the gig from 01 to March of this year.

If I felt I had enough listing appointments, I’d flake out on people, cancelling them.   I only wanted so much work, and I didn’t realize that.  Since I was great at generating leads, I could always pick from the easiest and nicest people to work with.

Each quarter, there I was, netting out what I needed as a Realtor, letting leads and deals rot on the vine.  When leads are abundant, I didn’t value them.  (Hey, kids, they are still abundant).  Rather than work with an asshole it was, “Here, here’s your listing back, sign this mutual release, and I’m out of there.”   I didn’t care, couldn’t care, and still don’t see the anxious need to produce the nothing that makes up a lot of the Real Estate Practice.

Still.  Still there are good reasons to love the business.  The reason I still orbit it is this:  if someone is willing to take a 100% commission job, they value freedom over security.  That must be nurtured, period.  That spark is sacred, and part of the best within the American spirit.  If you can do your job better for them,

Life went on.   I would then pretend I loved the business after being geeked by a MFO event or something like it.  And in lieu of creating what I wanted to (leads), I got stuck as a practitioner.   And I would set goals I couldn’t care about each year.

60 houses.
$350k average price
$550 GCI.
$350k net.
1000 hours prospected.
Etc.

Yawn.  Possible?   Sure.  But money doesn’t lead, it follows.  You don’t start with an income and then build a life around it.   To maintain it, I had to ingest so much poison I almost became that guy.   And I didn’t have the right ethos then to really get after it.  I didn’t have acute needs, till the IRS gave me the Rodney King treatment, I was coasting, if that.   I didn’t love what I was doing.  And that’s a way to waste your life.

Not saying you can’t.   Not saying it’s not possible, but I ratcheted it all down to mere numbers.  Numbers do matter, but only when you’re chasing something that also drives you.   Right now, i’m driven to write, driven to lose weight, driven to help people get efficient, and I’m driven to get out of debt.   I’m carrying a net worth of roughly -$65,000 that I want GONE.  Money comes easily enough for me.  I don’t need to make that the end all/be all.   I want to make Right Right now into a practice of some sort.  A couple people asked what my BIG DAMN GOALS were:

  1. I will weigh in at 175# before March 1st 2009. My ultimate goal is 159#, but I won’t be thinking about that for a bit. I want to think about all the milestones I need to pass through first.  Friends, that’ll put the total weight loss at 97#.  That’s a gymnast.  I’ve already lost a bunch.  Only standard is to get to 175#.
  2. Next E-book, f-therapy, does 10,000 units. I’m getting it started (this is the first time I’ve talked about it) at http://f–ktherapy.com  It’s a strident treatise about uncluttering your life, your mind, and ignoring the toxicity of our society.
  3. I will get “subprime” published and collect an advance of $50,000 or more. Again, I’m already stacking the deck in my favor.  The quality of the writing & insight matters, but I’m making it such that I’ll get the most receptive audience possible.   I don’t know if it’s a meritocracy or not, but if it’s not, that benefits me as I like to win, and I’m competing to win right now.  I stack the deck with stuff that makes it hard to ignore me.  Just watch.
  4. To be debt free in 500 days. I have my debt pegged at $65,000, most of it being the IRS’s suff.   It might be a little less, and I’ll tabulate it next weekend.   My budget/burn rate is something like $2500/month.   Gross THAT up for taxes, and I’m at an income need of $4,000.    365/500 =73%.   73% of $65,000  = ~47,450.   Gross THAT up by 30% for taxes = $62k.   Divide that by 12, and we’re at: 5200 month for debt retirement.   Add that to $4,000 and we have a need (without savings) of 9200/month.  This puts me at 108,000 for the year, a number I can hit in my sleep, doing this stuff.

That’s pretty much what matters.   I put a $$ on the advance because I want to have it taken reasonably seriously–I’m not necessarily going to just take the first person to write that check, I’m going to make it have the best chance at a real live widespread audience.   I know times is hard.   I don’t want to be in a ‘need the money,’ point in my life.  And I won’t be.

A lot of other things are ‘nice to do’ next year:  I wanna read about 100 books, 40 fiction/60 nonfiction.   I want to run a 3:30 marathon.   And to make $108k, I’ll need to divide my income somehow–ebooks aren’t a ‘guarantee’–I need to pursue the courses that I have taught, and the rest of the stuff that I regularly do.  I think that if I rely on the consulting gigs for the income and make everything else ‘fun,’ we’ll be juuuuuuuust fine.

I have to rewrite it fully (or therabouts, there are great scenes) by Feb 1, 2009, choose the best representation by 6/1/09…and catch lightning in a bottle.  I can do ll this stuff, things like this always happen quickly for me.  Someone next year will sell a breakout debut novel, lose a ton of weight, and do a kicking e-book.   Why not me?

Dashboard comes up tomorrow.

Filed Under: Achieving Goals Tagged With: , , , , , ,