12 FAMILY VALUES AND GREAT QUOTES TO TEACH KIDS

Investing a weekend a few years ago to learn from Dr John Demartini, alongside reading his book ‘The Values Factor, really had a lasting impact on me.’ 

 

Understanding our highest values and living in alignment with them is integral to Chris and I, in family life and in our property businesses. So much so, we even named our main property business Adaero, a latin word for values. Our values guide how we do business, how we strive to interact with and serve others, and how we make decisions. 

 

Whilst this week’s post is not about any particular property strategy or deal, it’s about something so important that it transcends the tactics and strategy. Property is ultimately a people business, which is why we feel so strongly about having a solid set of values to guide us.

 

Having gained some understanding of values and the importance of them across life and business, I wanted to find a way to teach a solid foundation of values to my 3 sons. Back in late 2017 I set a goal to teach my kids a different life value each month. This would involve teaching through simple stories that give a meaningful message, little games and tasking them with learning a quote. We are now in year two of this nice little monthly habit and although the boys might whine about it occasionally, I know it’s helping shape them to become great individuals. 

 

So, for a bit of fun, and if you’re interested, here are the 12 values and quotes that my boys learned in 2018. You may like to do something similar.

JAN- LOYALTY, SERVICE & DEPENDABILITY

“The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.” – Mario Puzo

FEB-  RESPECT

“Treat others as you want them to treat you because what goes around comes around.”- Shera Chowdhury

MAR- LOVE

“We must show love through actions that are sincere, not through empty words.”- 1 John3:18

APR- UNSELFISHNESS & SENSITIVITY

“Someone who is all wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.”- Anonymous

MAY- KINDNESS & FRIENDLINESS

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”- Aesop

JUN- HONESTY

“The high road is always respected. Honesty and integrity are always rewarded.”- Scott Hamilton

JUL- JUSTICE & MERCY

“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.” – Abraham Lincoln

AUG- COURAGE

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”- William Shakespeare

SEP- PEACEABILITY

“Control your anger because it is only one letter away from DANGER.”- Anonymous

OCT- SELF RELIANCE & POTENTIAL

“For things to change, YOU have to change. For things to get better, YOU have to get better. For things to improve, YOU have to improve. When you grow, EVERYTHING in your life grows with you” -Jim Rohn

NOV- SELF DISCIPLINE

“Self-discipline is doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done even when you don’t feel like doing it” – Anonymous

DEC- COMMITMENT

“When you make a commitment, you build hope. When you keep it, you build trust.” -Stephen Covey

4 GREAT TIPS ON VISUALISATION AND MANIFESTING BIGGER GOALS

This week I wanted to share 4 seemingly small yet potentially super powerful tips which could see you hitting bigger goals, if you’re interested. 

 

Have you noticed that youtube started pushing clever notifications to you? So that whilst you are laser focused on something a little pop up suggestion of a recommended video appears in the top right of your screen. I’m normally pretty disciplined to ignore these pop ups but a few weeks ago one video headline caught my attention, for two reasons. One – because it was by Brendan Burchard and I know he makes valuable content, and two- because of the title, ‘How to Visualize and Manifest Bigger Goals’.

 

I watched the video intently and noted down the four tips he shared, and over the last few weeks I’ve been consciously referring back to them, actively incorporating them and telling others about them in mastermind groups. Clearly that’s too short a time frame to prove or disprove whether these techniques work, but what I will say is that I like them, and fully believe they will pay dividends. Hence I wanted to share them. So without war and peace, here are my summarised notes I took from Brendan:

 

TIP #1: VISUALISE FUTURE SCENES

You have to see yourself in scenes that you want that don’t currently exist. Most people write down goals and to do’s rather than taking the time to see the desired scenes in their mind’s eye. Everyday we need to visualise the desired day ahead, but also the bigger picture goals we are striving for. Regularly engaging in future thinking like this will help maintain clarity of why we are putting in the ground work, and it will tune our mental GPS system to look for all the ‘how’s’ to get us there. I know we all know this, none of that is new, but are we actually doing it? Are you visualising scenes in your mind of the completing the kind of property deals you aspire to?

 

I think now more than ever we have so many demands on our attention that we are whizzing about life each day like the Tasmanian Devil with a dust cloud of chaos around us. I recognise this and I’m sure you do too. So, I’ve consciously added in a little more time in my morning routine to visualise future scenes, and I have to say I’m liking it. 

 

TIP #2: BE PREPARED TO PRIORITISE SKILL BUILDING

Sometimes along this journey we have to prioritise skill building over stability. An example Brendan shared was of an unpaid intern. In other words the young graduate working for nothing to learn the skills that will deserve and grow them into that career over time. You could say the same thing about getting started in property- the first phase might feel like an unpaid intern exchanging your time for not much return at all whilst you learn the new property strategy. The question is- are you willing to compromise the stability/quality of your life a little bit whilst you acquire those new skills? Your why and what the end payoff means to you will dictate your answer to this. The hungry ones out there will be looking to accelerate through the skill building as quickly as possible, but it still requires that understanding of upsetting the equilibrium for a period.

 

TIP #3: GET THE NETWORK FOR IT

You have to build your network relevant to your big goal. Who would you want to be friends with and who would you need to know in your chosen space to help achieve the abundance you seek? Brendan reminds us that if you don’t know the networks that can help realise your dreams then those dreams will remain really far away. That’s why he, and indeed many mentors, advocate that we need to tell everyone about what we are doing and want to do. These communities and all the live events are great for that. Have I told you I have a book coming out soon… 🙂

 

TIP #4: MAKE BOLD MOVES TOWARDS THE DREAM SOONER RATHER THAN LATER

I really love this one- Brendan said that sometimes the trick is to put yourself in play in the dream sooner than you think, you don’t need to wait for all the conditions to be just right. I have been thrilled to hear some very special goals of service and significance lately around mastermind tables. In hearing those dreams it is exciting to discuss with delegates what can be done to start experiencing those dreams sooner, ie in a scaled back version now? Chris and I dream of designing and building amazing properties that sit in beautiful locations so we can host game changing mastermind retreats. Whilst goals like that sit further out into the future, we can absolutely live out a version of that sooner with rented venues that inspire what we might build.

 

So to summarise for you how to visualise and manifest bigger goals, you have:

1- VISUALISE IT

2- SKILL UP FOR IT

3- GET THE NETWORK FOR IT

4- GET YOURSELF IN PLAY SOONER THAN LATER

 

Which of these resonate with you, and which will you implement starting today?

GETTING THINGS DONE IS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

It would be a fair assumption to make that the vast majority of people in these social communities want to use property to live life on their terms- to create additional income, maybe be location independent, and most important of all…to create time freedom to engage in the things most important to them. 

The wonderful thing is that all of this is completely possible thanks to the technology we have access to and the specialised property education we can invest in. It’s possible for property entrepreneurs to create and control multiple property income streams either alongside a day job, or from sunny holiday locations of their choosing. Property education combined with internet tools, clever apps and virtual assistants have created this phenomenal opportunity and there’s never been a time like it in history. 

However, the same exciting opportunity that is empowering us to live life on our terms, comes with a massive, often overlooked challenge. Property educated and technology empowered people are facing an accountability crisis. People working towards their personal property goals, and typically doing so on their own, are inadvertently placing themselves in a state of limited accountability.

Whilst property income streams present one of the best opportunities to create freedom from conventional nine-to-five work life, the ironic thing is that the solo pursuit to create that property income lacks the accountability layers you typically get working in the day job. If you are working for yourself, you only have to be accountable to yourself, and we all know who the easiest person to let down is don’t we? Ourselves.

Those of us choosing the entrepreneurial path to create an income stream from property (or any self endeavour for that matter) are the most vulnerable to feeling feeling ineffective, unfocused and unmotivated. And here’s the big reason why – we often lack the accountability that focuses our execution powers on the biggest opportunities. 

So how do we combat this human weakness and get the best out of ourselves?

Here’s the key thing you need to know – getting things done and being productive is a social phenomenon. Human beings are social primates and the way we have evolved proves that we work better when accountable to another human. 

That’s why when you ‘lift the lid’ on ultra-successful people you find they have surrounded themselves with empowering webs of supporting advisors, investors, staff and accountability coaches. Doing this helps protect them from experiencing overwhelm, procrastination and self sabotage that creeps in when pursuing what might be quite a lonely and isolated business goal.

With true accountability in place, these successful people don’t have to fight so hard to push themselves to execute, instead they more easily show up as the best version of themselves week after week. 

Scientific research and studies by psychologists have proven that accountability is one of the most powerful tools for improving human behaviour and performance. 

This week we’ve been working hard on 3 days of masterminds, and the brilliant delegates we work with are experiencing the power of accountability month after month by pledging committed actions to their mentors and peers. 

Leveraging accountability effectively will be your competitive advantage and your psychological advantage. 

What can you be doing to stack multiple layers of accountability on your property goals?

 

P.S. if you’re interested to read further about accountability, here are a couple of other posts I’ve written on the subject

Accountability In Property Is All Or Nothing

 

Leveraging the Pillars of Productivity

 

 

11 LESSONS FROM BEING IN THE MILLIONAIRE MAKER CHALLENGE

After 9 months of activity, we are now in the final few days of the Touchstone Millionaire Maker Challenge. For the benefit of anyone who hasn’t followed the competition, this has been the first of it’s kind ‘X-Factor’ style property competition where a group of investors battle it out to be crowned overall Millionaire Maker of the year. In keeping with the title the aim is of course to get as close as you can to creating £1m+ worth of new property deals and property related revenue in the time frame given. Each month the candidates would be put through a series of challenges that have all be recorded and broadcast as episodes over the Touchstone Education Youtube channel. The viewing public have then had the opportunity to vote for their chosen candidate to keep in the competition.

 

From a starting pool of over 30 applicants, the presentations and voting challenges have trimmed the numbers down to a final group of 5. And following a final online vote over Sunday/Monday, there will be a LIVE final where the last 4 contestants will compete for the audience’s vote on Tuesday 8th October.

 

I wanted to use this weekly blog post to say a massive thank you to Paul and all the Touchstone team for creating this competition, and to all the viewers who have voted to help keep Chris and I in it to this stage. As a small gesture of thanks I’d like to share some of our greatest lessons and tips that have come out of this experience so far. 

 

#1 A MODEL FOR STRUCTURING A PROPERTY ENTRPRENEUR’S WEEK

Here is the MEND model that Paul taught us in January. This is a simple and memorable model that will help guide and structure your week to move your property business forwards. So at the beginning of a week you will be asking yourself what can I do to increase/grow each of the following:

 

MONEY – what activities are you doing to increase money flow?

[For money insights from the Millionaire Challenge see episodes 13, 21, 25, 29 & 30]

 

EDUCATION- what skill or capability gaps do you need specific education for to move forwards and what will you do to educate yourself in those areas?

 

NETWORK- who is it you want to target and bring into your network? How are you doing that?

[For more about the importance of Network see Episodes 18 & 19]

 

DEALS- What are you doing to get more deals into your short list for analysis?

[For more on deal flow see episodes 10, 11, 12 and 23]

 

Then at the end of the week you can reflect by asking, over the last 7 days what have I done to increase/grow in each of these areas?

 

#2 GET CLEAR ON WHAT PROPERTY STRATEGY YOU WANT TO PURSUE

This one is more important than you think, if there’s a part of your unconscious brain that is not in alignment with your chosen strategy and goal then you will end up procrastinating and not last the course to see the results. When you are 100% clear and committed on why and what, you will be able to figure out the how. 

 

If you are learning new skills to support the chosen strategy then it will massively accelerate the progress if that proactive new learning time is focused to one strategy, rather than trying to spread it across three. Furthermore you will be able to pick out specialists in that area or who have done what you’re aiming to do who can help provide some answers. 

 

# DON’T UNDERESTIMATE WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

Even though Chris has been 18+ years in the building trade, he is very honest with himself and humble when it comes to possible knowledge gaps in relation to covering all the considerations of analysing a multi-unit site. Therefore we recognise when we need to draw on the specialist skills and experience of others around us. Don’t assume or guess, but become proficient at figuring out how to get to the point of feeling you have comprehensively covered the questions and gaps you don’t have the answers for. 

 

# 4 HARNESS THE POWER OF DEADLINES AND ACCOUNTABILITY

A big attraction to Chris and I of doing the Millionaire Maker Challenge was because we knew it would manufacture certain conditions that would get more out of us, namely real deadlines and accountability of public pledges. One example of this was the challenge we had in April to secure a R2R property in 2 hours. It’s amazing how much more resourceful you can be and how much more you can get done when you are working towards a goal that you care about and within very real deadlines. 90% of the Millionaire Maker candidates came up trumps and secured a R2R. We went ahead with ours and opened it as an SA unit in June.

 

#5 FIND THE DEMAND/END USER FIRST, THEN THE PROPERTY/SITE

This is an approach we used to start and grow our SA business and one that we have now adopted when it comes to commercial and development sites. Over the course of the year Chris and I have picked out multiple mixed use sites up and down the country to analyse. Every time we have approached the deal from a position of knowing who the end user/client would likely be or when we we’ve had some kind of local competitive advantage, the analysis and decision making has been so much easier. On the other hand when we have approached a deal by just starting with a property that looks possibly interesting and then try to figure out the end user/s, it has been a much harder beast to arrive at conclusions. 

 

#6 COMMERCIAL SURVEYORS ARE ONE OF THE BEST SOURCES FOR DEALS

You’ve probably heard it many times before – go out and build relationships with commercial surveyors, tell them what you are looking for…but are you actually doing it? We have fully embraced that approach this year and it has been able to uncover a much better quality of potential deal than previous attempts without surveyors on board. Commercial surveyors not only have a more ‘investment’ led perspective than you think, they can also tap into a network of fellow professionals where they actively pass deals between them.

 

#7 THE IMPORTANCE OF DEAL FLOW

It is only natural that at some point you might become quite emotionally attached to a potential project. In other words, you can want it so much that you end up compromising on your criteria, your budget, your standards etc to secure it. Well the antidote to that, as Paul taught us, is to have steady deal flow. Make sure you have enough deal potential to consider, analyse and only proceed with the ones that meet your strict criteria. 

 

#8 PATIENCE AND PERSEVERANCE

I only need to borrow the wise words of Bill Gates to explain this point, 

 

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.

 

Along this journey we regularly have to temper big ambition with patience, and that’s OK. If being a property entrepreneur will be your life’s work, like we have chosen it to be, then those before us have shown that patience and perseverance pays off. 

 

#9 START CREATING YOUR SYSTEM NOW

Start recording what you are doing to get results in your property business now. Doing that will enable your growth, rather than trying to grow without having a system.  

 

#10 BE VERY CONSCIOUS ABOUT VALUING YOUR MOST PRECIOUS ASSET: TIME

In amongst all the hustle make sure there is time scheduled for the important things in your life like loved ones and health. From a commercial perspective, as you grow your knowledge, experience and value in the market place there will come a time where it is perfectly acceptable to charge for your time and contribution.

 

#11 GET COMFORTABLE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE

This can relate all sorts of scenarios as the circumstances that feel uncomfortable will vary from person to person. It might have to do with the phonecalls, or specific actions you need to do in order to progress your property business. For Chris and I this competition has meant that we’ve had to get more comfortable putting ourselves out on videos and on social media. As Dr John Demartini always says, “Growth occurs at the border of support and challenge” and that’s going to feel a little uncomfortable. 

 

I could go on but the post will turn into war and peace.  Thank you for all the votes so far and please be sure to vote this evening and tomorrow when the vote opens.

https://www.touchstoneeducation.co.uk/touchstone-millionaire-maker-vote-now