In this episode I'm chatting with Jay Papasan about how billionaires set goals, how to excel in life and business, and of course we're also discussing the real estate market!
Jay is a bestselling author serving as the vice president of learning for Keller Williams Realty International, the world’s largest real estate company. Jay is also vice president of KellerINK and co-owner, alongside his wife Wendy, of Papasan Properties Group with Keller Williams Realty in Austin, Texas. He was born and raised in Memphis, TN. After attending the University of Memphis he spent several years working abroad in Paris before attending New York University’s graduate writing program. Upon graduating he found work at HarperCollins Publishers, where he helped piece together such bestselling books as Body-for-Life by Bill Phillips and Go for the Goal by Mia Hamm.
Some of the questions/topics discussed on the show:
-How to design your life instead of living by default
-How to thrive in uncertain times
-Setting goals with your spouse/partner
-Habits and being intentional about your time
If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review letting us know what you loved most about this episode!
-Stephanie
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Stephanie Lindamood Real Estate Youtube Channel
Join the Facebook Insider's Group
Automated Transcription - Please Excuse Any Errors
Jay: (00:00)
And the challenge for most of us is a lot of that. Wasn't on purpose, right? You were just living a life by default. We weren't really being super purposeful. We just kind of fell into little routines and ruts, right. That we weren't really conscious of, but that is one of the ways we navigate our days. Like, have you ever been like driving home and you look up and you're pulling into the driveway and you really don't remember the commute. Right. It's just because you're familiar with that. Like your body doesn't have to use a lot of brain power, even though you're driving a 2000 pound vehicle down the road at 90 miles an hour or whatever. Right. You just it's automatic. And it's, it's just something that we benefit from COVID through all of that out the window. Right? So the first thing we all felt was stressed. Like all the goals we set for 2020 just went straight in the garbage can, right? We don't have, we didn't have any clue what we could commit to anymore, but at the same time, we have this amazing opportunity to remake our days with purpose.
Stephanie: (00:58)
Hey guys, it's Stephanie. And thanks for joining me on another episode of the glam life of real estate podcast today, we're going to be talking with Jay Papasan. He is a bestselling author. He has coauthored a couple of different books. One of them being the millionaire real estate agent with Gary Keller and Dave Jenks, as well as he helped author. The one thing which has sold over 2 million copies worldwide and garnered more than 500 appearances on national bestseller list, including number one on the wall street Journal's hardcover business list. And it's also been translated into 38 different languages. So whether you're in real estate or not, you've probably heard of Jay, he's going to share some tips on productivity. We're going to talk about how bill billionaire set goals. We're also going to of course talk about real estate because he is the vice president of learning for Keller Williams, which is the largest real estate company in the world. So I'm going to just get right to it and welcome Jay to the show.
Speaker 3: (01:53)
You're listening to the glam life of real estate podcast, where we talk about everything from productivity tips, social media strategies, business hacks, and more to get ahead of the curve and crush it as a real estate sales professional, whether you office out of a model home or your car where leopard print and high heels never go out of style. Here's your host top producing real estate agent, social media strategist, and for baby mama, Stephanie Lindamood.
Stephanie: (02:25)
All right guys. So today I am super excited. I know that I say this every show, but seriously, I actually got nervous before this episode, I get to interview Jay Papasan. He is a bestselling author. He's the VP of learning for Keller Williams, international, which spoiler alert is the largest real estate company in the world. I'm actually a part of Keller Williams as well, but if you've never heard of Keller Williams or you've never been in real estate, you probably have heard of Jay because he has a best selling book out on time management and productivity called the one thing that he coauthored with Gary Keller, Jay is on the show today. And we're going to talk about all things productivity. So welcome to,
Jay: (03:04)
Hey, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. I love talking about this stuff.
Stephanie: (03:07)
Absolutely. So I had the privilege of seeing Jay in action. I've seen him at a couple of different conferences for Keller Williams, um, but more specifically the one this past February and what we call family reunion. And he hosted a session called how billionaires set goals. And I thought that was super interesting and wanted to bring you guys more details on that and then COVID hit. And so what we're going to do real quick before we dive into all the time management details, we're going to quickly get Jay's perspective on the market currently, any changes or anything that Keller Williams is working on, because like I said, he is the VP of learning and just kind of get his thoughts and insight on the actual real estate market, because I know a lot of you guys are in real estate and then we're going to hop into the productivity and goal setting and time management. So what are you guys seeing currently, as far as, as a business, you've got agents, what, how has COVID impacted positively, negatively, and then kind of, what do you think in the rest of this year?
Jay: (04:03)
Sure. Without getting too in the weeds. Cause I can do that. Like we've seen, um, some trends continue. Like I think the market is still starving for a new inventory. So a lot of sellers right. Are hesitant to put their most valuable asset on the market. And what they're not realizing is there's a lot of pinup buyer demand. Correct. Right. So there's a lot of buyers right now that we'd love to have more inventory to choose from. And while it's not the case everywhere in a lot of markets, we still see it's actually a deepening seller market where homes are still appreciating, which is on March six or whatever. When we started talking Florentine, I would have never predicted that. So that's a big mega trend and there are markets, um, where they are very much in a buyer's market, right. Where they have an oversupply and homes are expiring, but those seem to be in the minority.
Jay: (04:53)
And there is an opportunity like I'm telling, we're telling our listing clients, there's actually an opportunity right now. These people have been pinup in their homes for 70 days. They are really clear that they want to move now. Like they are very clear about what they don't want in the home and what they want in the home, because that's where they been. And there is a moment in time where you might actually get disproportionate interest on your listing. Right. And so that's the thing that surprised me the most, even in, um, it all started in Seattle, they never moved into a buyer's market. And I talked to several of our top agents out there and they just said, yeah, buyer demand dropped, but there's still such a shortage of inventory. Right. You know, they had two months supply and homes were flying off the market sometimes with multiple offers.
Jay: (05:40)
So that's the big surprise. Um, another mega trend is like yourself. Like you've, it sounds like Stephanie, you've been doing virtual and digital transactions for a long time. Like you've, you've mastered that art. I think most of the real estate world has made that transition now to, they understand they have to do to safely offer their services. They know how to do a virtual home tour. They know how to do a virtual open house if that's what they need to do. And so there's a strong will on behalf of our state and local and federal governments, they're really want to do everything they can, if they can still keep us safe to keep the economy open. Cause we're really 40 million people unemployed. Um, there are a lot of people who don't know if their jobs are going to be waiting for them when the furloughs over and there's going to be a real economic impact. And if we can keep the economy moving more of those people will get to be re-employed and it'll have a much softer impact on the industry. So even here in Austin, like we got a little crazy right with Memorial day weekend and we're seeing the COVID cases fly up. And I don't know if this the same in Dallas, but there's now talk of their moving into higher restrictions instead of opening it up. Right. Because you're trying to keep her flat.
Stephanie: (06:54)
Right. They're trying to keep the curve flat. And we were hoping with the temperatures rising that might help kill some of the virus depending on if that's true. But we are noticing that the numbers are going up and with all the other world events happening, I don't think the coverage has been so much on COVID, but it's still in the background as an issue that's probably going to come back. This fall is what I'm thinking.
Jay: (07:15)
It's going to come in waves. I think until there's a vaccine, um, and really good contact tracing. And I also think until people are really confident that they can survive it. I think that, you know, every year the flu does kill people, but we also, unless you're old or you're immune, like you've been in chemo and you know that your immune system is compromised. People aren't actively afraid. We don't want to get the flu. We're aren't actively afraid of it right now. We just don't know enough about this. To know if we're safe or not. If our kids are safe. So until there's, there's more clarity around safety, we're going to be in the stop start mode. And it could last, I could see this lasting until the summer selling season next year. That's honestly, that's about as early as we'll really have a vaccine solution.
Jay: (07:58)
If we get one that, or we'll have a better protocol for treating patients. So knock on wood one way or the other, we've got to solve the safety problem, right? When people feel confident that they're not going to kill their grandparents, by going to get a coffee, then they'll go get a cup of coffee and the economy will chug along and we'll all have things. But right now real estate is essential for a reason. You said that, right? Um, there's always a time, no matter what the market looks like that people have to buy herself. Maybe they have a child and they need more space. Maybe they have a new job or they lost a job. They got divorced. There's good and bad reasons, but people have to sell homes. So we have to service them. So the market won't go to zero, but it's going to go up and down, um, for the foreseeable future. And we're just, we're just counting on it.
Stephanie: (08:44)
Yeah. And like I tell, a lot of my sellers is look, the great thing about right now is at least it's filtering out the looky-loos. So the buyers actually coming into your home, that you're maybe nervous about having showings. They're interested. They're not just out for a joy ride cause it's pretty out and they have nothing else better to do. And ANSYS rates are, I mean, we were saying historical lows two years ago. They're crazy lows right now. So that's I think helping the buying power. So even if you are in a seller's market where pricing is still appreciating, it's, it's helping with that transaction with the buyer.
Jay: (09:16)
Yep. Um, the last opportunity to Sue, we don't beat it to death is I do think I'm seeing a little bit of an opportunity if you wanted to trade up, correct. Right. That the lower price points have the highest pressure still. And there is less interest in the higher end of the market. So you might be able to sell your starter home or your second home and move up to the next tier. And you might be able to get a little negotiating room with the seller higher up the chain you go, whereas you had all the cards as the seller in the middle. So I'm watching that. It depends on the market, but it might be a move up opportunity for people
Stephanie: (09:55)
That, and just like getting real quick. I think our apartment dwellers and our renters are, I mean, I think anytime you have a big event like this kind of like September 11th, everyone takes stock and they go, what's really important. And they kind of hunker down literally right now. And it becomes about the home and family and those things become top of mind and important in an age where everyone's distracted with everything else, which kind of leads us into our conversation today because when we have entrepreneurs and sales professionals and you know, people that are in real estate and they're self employed, I thought it would just be really interesting to hear your perspective on goal setting and time management. Like, especially right now, how do you manage it in COVID or maybe what Kobe our new normal is going to look like in the next 12 months with more people working from home. So maybe there's less separation of, okay, when I go to the office, this is what I do. And when I come home, this is what I am, and this is my role. And maybe some ideas and tips on how to manage that right now, where the lines are even more blurred than normal.
Jay: (11:02)
There's a lot to unpack there. So let's just dive in and we'll chip away. And if I miss something, feel free to say, Jay, I asked you three questions. I want the second one too. But I do think like the number one thing I think about when we're going in and out of quarantine, um, and I I'll credit this to my partner, Jeff Woods, who runs our one thing podcast. So much of our daily activities are habitual. Right? You have a morning ritual. You had to go to work with Joel, you had at work ritual. You knew the people you wanted to chat to at lunch ritual. Um, I've heard some reachers researchers say about 70% of the average person's day is a visual. Oh wow. And the challenge for most of us is a lot of that. Wasn't on purpose, right? You were just living a life by default.
Jay: (11:44)
We weren't really being super purposeful. We just kind of fell into little routines and ruts. Right. And we weren't really conscious of, but that is one of the ways navigate our days. Like, have you ever been like driving home and you look up and you're pulling into the driveway and you really don't remember the commute. Right. It's just because you're familiar with that. Like your body doesn't have to use a lot of brain power, even though you're driving a 2000 pound vehicle down the road at 90 miles an hour or whatever. Right. It's automatic. And it's, it's just something that we benefit from COVID through all of that out the window. Right. So the first thing we all felt was stressed. Like all the goals we set for 2020 just went straight in the garbage can. Right. We don't have, we didn't have any clue what we could commit to anymore.
Jay: (12:29)
But at the same time, we have this amazing opportunity to remake our days with purpose. So like when I see the opportunity that we look at right now, I don't know what my annual goals for this year are exactly going to look like, because a lot of things changing, we're actually setting like 90 day goals right now. Like what can we look at for 90 days? And we'll, we'll, let's talk about the goal setting to the now process, which, you know, but we'll, we'll work through that. Like I'm using a little bit smaller window where I feel like I have more control, but I'm also asking the question, who's the J that's going to come out of this quarantine. Right? Like when I come out, I get to choose the person I'm going to look like on a day to day basis. Like a lot of us are cooking at home for the first time a lot. Right. Right. A lot of us are eating with our families, like for all of our meals, right. Where it used to be at work and let's go grab some food. We've fallen into a different rhythm. And gosh, our lovely pets are getting walked almost every day.
Speaker 4: (13:26)
You're like my humans are home. Like what?
Jay: (13:29)
Great. So my first thing would be you are your habits. You get to choose your habits and the ones you're going to commit to as we reenter what we're going to call the new normal. So that's just an opportunity. And if you're not aware of it, you won't be able to take advantage of it. But if you've built the habit of eating at the table with your kids or whatever it looks like, and you like it make a commitment to stick with that because we've already been in quarantine long enough to form a habit. It takes about 66 days on average. So we've already built new habits. We're going to be breaking those and having to form new ones. As we figure out how to move back into the office or whatever our new normal is. So that's the first thing on a big picture.
Jay: (14:10)
This is the goal setting to the now I'll transition. When we talk about goals, we have a process and one of the challenges is anything that's really big that you want to accomplish in your life. Isn't going to get done this week, or even this month, it's going to take longer than most people imagine to make big changes in our life. One of my favorite ahas that I have that Gary reminds me of is most people vastly overestimate what they can achieve this year and vastly underestimate what they can achieve in the next five. And to my 14 year old and 16 year olds in my home, like five years sounds like forever. Cause it's not a third of their life. Right. But it's a much smaller percentage of mine now. Right? So I'm like, okay, five years, that doesn't sound like forever. But if you're in debt, you could be a millionaire in five years.
Jay: (15:00)
Right. I know this. And I've seen people do it. Like, it's amazing how much change can happen. So the challenge is if you're looking out four or five years or farther, it's very hard to know how to behave today. Right? Right. I want to be a bestselling author. Um, I want to have a personal lifestyle brand or I want to be teaching courses or I want to have a podcast, whatever your big dream is. Right. You're looking out like, how do I behave this week to make that happen? So the way we teach people in our framework is what do you want to be someday? Stephanie, let's go out like, based on your mission, what you want to achieve, what does your life look like someday? We're not going to put a number to it, right? Based on that. What's the one thing that you would need to achieve in five years to feel like you were on track for your Sunday goals.
Jay: (15:46)
Now, granted we're in crystal ball land here, right? You don't really know what we're going to want that far out, but we're picking a target it's way down the road. Okay. The magic happens when you start working your way backwards from someday based on that, what would you have to be in five years now, based on your five year goals, what would you have to achieve in 2020 to feel like you were on track for that? And then you look at that and now you're a year out. Most of us can kind of imagine what's possible for a year based on your one year goal. What would you like to achieve this month to be on track for that? And based on your monthly goal, what would you have to choose this week? And based on your weekly goal, what would you have to do today? And now you work backwards. We call it goal setting to the now. And it's one of the ways that you do that really quick process based on my annual goals. Well, what do I have to do this month to be on track for that? What do I have to do this week to be on track for my month? You're breaking it down into digestible bits where I can look you in the eye and say, I'm doing something today that actually matters towards that distant goal,
Speaker 5: (16:44)
Right? It's like, you're just reverse engineering at all.
Jay: (16:47)
Absolutely. It's called backwards planning and there's tons of psychology that shows why this works for one thing. You're bringing the future into the present and making it relevant. We're not very motivated by future rewards, but if we bring them into the moment at work, so I'll give you a psychology test, um, and just roll with it. Right. But I'll, I'll give you the answers. Cause I know what the stats say. If you offer someone a dollar today or, um, a hundred dollars tomorrow, which would you take
Speaker 5: (17:19)
A hundred dollars tomorrow? That's right,
Jay: (17:21)
Right. He'd be full 90. Right? If I offer you a dollar today or a hundred dollars a year from now, what do most people choose?
Speaker 5: (17:29)
Oh, probably a hundred dollars a year from now.
Jay: (17:33)
Most people choose the money today. Yeah. Okay. And it doesn't, it defies a lot of economics. Right. But they actually do this, not on a hundred dollars. They don't $2 a dollar today or $2 tomorrow, a dollar today or $2 a year from now.
Speaker 5: (17:46)
Is that emotional? Yeah. Even though like
Jay: (17:50)
Either way, like I'm doubling my money in a year, like that's an incredible rate of return. Right? People tend to choose the near term reward. So if we can pull the big reward, I'm going to be a bestselling author. And we know that we've made meaningful progress this week. We're much more likely to do the things that we're supposed to do. So just this reverse engineering, it works for us in a lot of ways, but nobody teaches us to do this.
Stephanie: (18:14)
Right. So how do you do it when like, let's be real when you sit down, like I'm a big goal setter. I do a vision board annually with my husband. There are so many facets of your life, right? There's health, there's finance, there's business. There's being a good spouse or partner. They're spiritual. How do you manage it? When you're trying to, like, my husband will, sometimes he's supportive, but he'll kind of be like, Stephanie, you can't be great at everything. Like you have to pick a few areas that I'm like, no, I want to be like super fit and be the best dog mom and be the best realtor and grow this online thing. Like he's like, you can't do it all. But what if you do want multiple areas of your life to be very exceptional? How do you, do you need to focus on one thing at a quarter or a year? Or how do you work on that daily? What, what would you recommend
Jay: (19:02)
You're getting there, right? It's all about one thing at a time, Stephanie, right? There are ways for you to build really powerful habits and being a great realtor and being a great fitness. Like you have a great physique, be a great dog, mom, all the things that you just listed the key is to tackle them one at a time. And like the secret formula here is like, I'm on page one 14 of the one thing is the only page in the book I have memorized right now. I'm serious. I'm not that kind of, I don't nerd out on my own stuff. I nerd out with other people's stuff, but it's just something I found myself referring to again and again, Gary and I debate it. It's like, okay, the focusing question, which is the heart of the book, what's the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything will be easier or unnecessary.
Jay: (19:44)
It's just asking. What's the biggest leveraged opportunity I have in my life today to do this thing I want to do. Okay. Big question. That leads you to the best answers. Like how do we use that? And we felt like there were seven big areas of our life. It mattered more your spiritual life, your physical life, your personal life, right? Your hobbies, your key relationships, your job, your business, and your money. And I may have missed a circle. Like I didn't have key relationships might be pet. So you might want to circle just for your pets. I don't care. Your life is your life. The point was you can be a great person and all of those areas, you just can't tackle them all. At the same time. When we divide her effort, um, it takes much, much longer and you have much lower outcomes.
Jay: (20:28)
So the way we tackle it or teach people to tackle it is pick the circle that matters to you right now. Right? If I asked you to go through and audit, I would say, give yourself a score of one to 10 and all of the areas that matter to you, your health, your spiritual life, your key relationships, your job. Most people won't choose their nine to turn it into 10. They'll find the three. You know, I'm doing all this great stuff at work. I feel like my, my relationship with my wife is great. My relationship with my dog rocks, but I've gained 20 pounds in the last three years. I've got to do something about my health. They almost always go to their pain point, right? Start there and then ask what's the one thing I can do to change that result. And you want something specific, like if I want to lose 20 pounds, like what's the one thing I can do to lose 20 pounds such that by doing it, you kind of come up with a priority plan.
Jay: (21:22)
And I want to build a habit around that activity. So you're into fitness, right? Like I've had lots of discussions with top fitness people. Like if you really want to have the healthy body, that first habit you need to have as a good sleep habit, right? If you don't get enough rest, but you're more likely to binge eat your appetite, doesn't turn off. Like it's like, it's got hormonal imbalances that creates some, your body, your stress levels are up before you even get to the gym, you've got to sleep better and you've got to have a better diet. That's great. Abs aren't made in the gym are they they're made in the kitchen. That's right. So there's a series of priorities that you have to address. And if you dress them in order, everything that follows is easier. If I'm having a really healthy diet, I don't have to spend as much time in the gym to get the results that I want because I've got the right nutrition.
Jay: (22:11)
Right? I've got those. So it's, we call it, lining up your dominoes by asking the question, you figure out what's that first thing. And it can be really small. But if I build a habit there, it unlocks these other things and people are going, Oh my gosh, that's going to take forever. If it takes 66 days to form a habit, which is what the research shows, right? You could build five amazing, powerful habits for your life every single year, just by always focusing on one, waiting for it to form before you divert your attention to something else. And when I look at Gary Keller self made billionaire running the largest real estate company in the world and now owns multiple altar, you know, million dollar companies too. He's just someone who systematically focused on building the right habits at the right time. And then he didn't give him up.
Stephanie: (22:59)
That's the key, right? It's like, so if you're good on fit fitness, let's say, or just health in general. Yeah. You want to improve incrementally as we get older, if you don't improve, you're probably going backwards, but you can kind of be in that maintenance mode as few will keep those habits, right. While you're really putting your time and effort into something else over here until this becomes a habit like driving home. And it's just kind of normal. Is that kinda of
Jay: (23:23)
Absolutely. Um, the, the way they define the habit in the, in the research was 95% of the effort was removed. So it never goes all the way to zero. So like even brushing your teeth. Right? Right. I have kids. I know. I remember it's very fresh in my memory. It takes a lot of work to get your kids, to brush your teeth on their own a day. You have to nag them. You have to stand over them. You have to smell their breath. Like just let me tell you it's work.
Stephanie: (23:52)
That's a lot to get that habit now I'm using it.
Jay: (23:54)
I hope not. But hopefully like, because our parents did their job, it doesn't take much effort to think about, Oh, I got to brush my teeth before I go to work. It's very ingrained behavior. But I'll tell you, like, at least once a year, I might get to the car because I had a crazy morning. Sure. Do that go back house. So it's not perfect. There's still a tiny amount of effort, but maintaining a habit is so much easier than forming one, which is why you put all of your effort into forming that habit, put it into maintenance mode. And what happens when you go on vacation to some of your best habits?
Stephanie: (24:33)
Well, it's probably like COVID right in quarantine. I think I've had to really work on my habits during this time because like vacation, they kind of go out the window. Cause in your mind, you're like, Hey, I'm on vacation. I'm going to relax a little bit because in my mind, habits are a little bit more rigid. They're a little bit more structured. And sometimes you just want to be done with everything for a little bit.
Jay: (24:54)
Exactly. So I think that sometimes when the thing I learned from Gretchen Rubin, she wrote a book called the happiness project and better than before. Great author, a very funny lady too. Um, she shared with me that there's a good research that we've went up and found that when you break a habit, it's actually harder to do it the second time, because there's no novelty,
Stephanie: (25:15)
Excitement. I would say the same thing about weight loss. I was back in Oh seven. I realized I was on a cruise and I looked, literally looked at, you know, how they take pictures of you on your excursions? Yeah. We weren't in the room where there was always, you know, they do the photos every night and I saw my husband and I looked at the photo and I go,
Jay: (25:36)
That's you? Who is it?
Stephanie: (25:39)
Legit. And he's like, honey, that's you? And I'm like, cause I gained 30 pounds. And I was like, that's, that's not me. Well, it was me. The long story short I lost. But if I had, if I gained it back, there's no excitement in, Oh, I lost three pounds this week because you're sitting here going, I know what it's like to be there. This isn't like extra. This isn't exciting. This is like so frustrating.
Jay: (26:06)
It's good. I mean, it's good rebuild to know which means that when you go on vacation or if we go in and out of quarantine, it's worth a little extra effort to stick to some of your powerful habits because restarting them will take more effort and it might take longer than 66 days. It doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. Like if you gained the 30 pounds, you would go back and do it. It just wouldn't be as much fun the second time. Right. It's still a lot of work and it just as much fun.
Stephanie: (26:32)
Exactly. But now I have more governors on myself. So if the scale starts creeping up two pounds, I'm a lot more careful. And someone may say, well, why do you worry? I mean, cause you were here I go. Cause I know what it takes to lose way. I know what the effort and the, you know, all that kind of stuff. So talk to me a little bit about, um, quarantine, not quarantine. The world is a busier place and let's say it was 15, 20 years ago. Right? Technology has a great place in the world with efficiency and systems. And I, I say it all the time to my sellers. I don't know how they did real estate 30 years ago because there's so much that we benefit from having the technology in place. But I feel like with that, there is so much, so many distractions. There's so many, there's so much information out there. I think there's some statistic out there that says we receive more in one day than they received in a lifetime, like in the 15 or 16 hundreds. So we're constantly going to inundate it, whether it's listening to podcasts and it's not bad stuff, but I think too much can sometimes be a bad thing. How do people, you, when you talk about building a life by design, how do people stop and figure out what they really want and how to get out of the default rat race?
Jay: (27:48)
Okay, love the question. Um, for about the last three years we've been teaching this in our business. And so this is a big part of what we do. Um, and my wife and I have been doing this, I want to say for 14 years, Stephanie, um, every year we do a goal setting retreat and, and you look at any big business, right? They'll go. And once a quarter, sometimes they'll take their executives and they'll take them to some resort and get them out of their environment. And they refocus on what they're supposed to be doing. And at least once a year, cause I mean, I get called in to do keynotes in these things, right? This is part of the rhythm. It's a retreat, it's a business retreat. What works for business works for real life too. Um, when my wife was starting a real estate career, we had two kids, uh, 16 months apart, I'm working on books with Gary.
Jay: (28:35)
Our life was chaotic and I give all the credit to my wife. She said, let's get away and let's go talk about what we wanna accomplish this year. And so depending on who you talk to, I remember our first one was in the Hilton downtown. We got on Priceline and it was our first night away from our kids. She remembers renting a cabin that was just South of downtown. That was the first two years for sure. But I can't remember which one came first, but both of them didn't require a plane ticket. I remember we had to pay our babysitter a hundred bucks for overnight babysitting. And that was a big deal for us back then. And we got the cheapest room. We get fine. And all we did is go to dinner and we'd say, and you can do this for yourself. You don't have to have someone with you.
Jay: (29:17)
You can do it with your business partner. Hey, let's get away. Let's get out of the day to day the evening. You just talk about big picture. Like we used to reward ourselves and talk about what vacations do you want to take this year? Cause that was always the fun thing, right? And then the next day we'd get out our spreadsheets and say, great. What do we want to do with our wealth? What are we going to do with investing? And we do a lot of the hard work. And then we would have our goals for the year we would, who was in charge of them and you know, Keller Williams, we have, um, our GPS one year business plan. We have our four, one, one, we just got into a rhythm where at least once a month we would check in on our goals and we would give each other grace.
Jay: (29:54)
But the point was to check in because most people set goals and then live in a drawer for the rest of the year. Yes. But we made a commitment once a month to revisit those. So this is all part of a bigger plan. It's what we do in our business. Right. We set five year goals. We have an annual goal. And then we revisit those every month and I revisit them every week. And honestly I write here, I've got my annual, monthly and weekly goals. It's never outside of my reach. And I've got my calendar with a month at a glance where the rest of the year, even though I've got it all in mother, I want to know what my big rocks are, what my commitments are, right. The world doesn't need another way to set goals. Like this is all, that's all incidental.
Jay: (30:37)
What I'm trying to describe is what we need is a way to have a relationship with them. Okay. Think about when you met your husband, right. And y'all started dating. Did you go on your first date and then wait a year to check in again? No. Right. That's what most people do with their goals. Right? They set them on January 1st and they might have a couple of phone calls, maybe a dinner date with them for the next month. And then they will talk to them again until the next January. But real committed relationship requires a little bit of work. We need to have a relationship with our goals. You need to have a rhythm for looking at them and engaging and ask based on where I said, I wanted to be, what do I need to do this week? Or this month? That to me is the magic glue.
Jay: (31:20)
I giving you the bigger framework, you know, like the goal setting to the now every year, my wife and I it's all in that packet that I held up. I've got my five year goals. Right. We know where we think we want to go. And based on that, we set one year goals and then we just kind of agree. Who's in charge of what? And then we just meet. And it's like once a month, like we just sit on our couch, we have an L shaped couch, our feet touch in the middle. We built that our laptops, we pull up our goals and sometimes there's a glass of wine. Sometimes there's a glass of coffee. Depends on when we're doing it. But we check in and say, how's it going? Do you need help? Can I help you? No judgment. Yeah. Because if it brings judgment, people won't want to meet, but the rhythm is like, Stephanie, you didn't do it. Okay. High five. We'll talk about it again next month. If people know you're going to talk about it, they're much more likely to do something about it between now and the next time. So this is
Stephanie: (32:14)
How important do you think it is to attach the, you guys attach wise to your goals? As far as, okay, great. I want to run a marathon next year or whatever your goal is. Do you just leave it at that or do you guys talk about why that's important to you to figure out the root of where that's coming from when it gets difficult? Or what are your thoughts on that?
Jay: (32:35)
Um, we got pretty clear on our mission statements, right? Um, I'm pretty clear. I know where my sweet spot is. And so, but I'm also older, right? I just turned 50 last year. So I'm like, okay. I don't really know myself now. There's not mention of an excuse for that. Right? Yeah. When I was in my twenties and early thirties, I get it right. We're still figuring that out. Um, that is a journey. Um, our first big goal was to become network millionaires. And we, that requires some sacrifices for about three and a half years. We lived on about 65, 70% of our income and invested the rest. So we were saving three out of every $10 that we needed right now. And it required some real trade offs. Right. It meant that we, I couldn't get that big screen TV that all my friends had.
Jay: (33:21)
I couldn't do a lot of those things, but we had to remind ourselves why, why do you think, why is super important? Um, in the beginning you have to attach a why to the big goals. Like we wanted freedom. We called it our go to heck fund, right. To be PG 13. Um, but I never, I I'm fortunate to work for Gary Keller who after 20 years, I still admire and respect, but I never wanted to be a slave to my job. And I've literally interviewed people that cry in their car before they go into work. Right. They're just miserable. They have to go to that job because they have to pay the rent. They have to make the car payments. They're essentially an indentured servant. Um, I never wanted that. I wanted freedom and we were very clear. And that was, that was what pulled us through.
Jay: (34:03)
As we learned more about goal setting and the muscles got stronger, we just got more clear about our mission statement. Right? Yeah. And the clearer we got around, what were the kind of good we wanted to create in the world? Like, there's nothing we don't do that. Doesn't touch those things. Right. That's just it, like, I know that I need to be solving problems for a lot of people. That's what makes me happy. That's what shows up in books. That's what shows up. When I do podcasts, I'm trying to explore really big problems and trying to help people with a solution. That's what gives me joy. And I've got three words, family impact and abundance. Um, it's an exercise we do in our training and
Stephanie: (34:43)
Totally okay. I was going to bring that up about the session and I was, yeah, go ahead.
Jay: (34:48)
So you were there for that, but like if it's not a nine out of 10 on those three things right in the nine on the family means it doesn't yank me away from my family. Right. I want to, especially until my kids, like we could be empty nesters and the next five years we'll see what that means. It might be marriage impact in abundance. Right? Well, my kids don't want to hang out with me anymore, but I want to know that what I'm doing is going to have a big impact. And I believe in abundance and part of that as well. Right. I want money is good for the good, it can do. Not just for the stuffing and by I'm not into that. But I love being able to write a big check to charity. Right. I was able, I went earlier this year because we had built some abundance.
Jay: (35:25)
I had a staff member on my team that I took to a charity dinner when my wife was out of town and I took her and her boyfriend. And when we were bidding the paddles up, we were bidding in the thousand 5,000. I said, I want you to be the face of this gift. Will you do this for me? And I loved watching her when she got to be the person to be the face of a $5,000 gift. That's awesome. Right. Because if I, I can give, but if I can teach other people to get addicted to giving, then maybe they'll make the kind of commitments. You know what I'm saying? Right. So there's a mission there. Impact is not just about the other stuff. So you get clear on those things and everything lines up.
Stephanie: (36:04)
So the, the exercise we're talking about real quick is in the session at the very end. And it's been a while guys. And, and honestly with COVID I forgot a little bit about it, but there was these, if I'm not mistaken, there were these words. Or did we come up with the words? The words were on the worksheet. Right. And we had to go through, and I think the first time around it was like, pick anything that just spoke to you. Right. And you circled it. And then you go through a second round where you okay. Weed, some of them out. And then at the very end, you get to, you could only have three words left and it's hard because there's things that you feel like as a human being, you should circle, right? Like I should want to a whatever, be a great family person, but maybe three other words are speaking to you. And you're kind of embarrassed, right? That, yeah. Well, I don't want, wanna, I don't want it to be these words. I want it. So it's, it gets really into the root of who you are and you start to kind of build that identity and it was really powerful. Is there anything you want to add to that?
Jay: (37:06)
Yeah. I love it. I want to give credit, um, the idea comes from two places. Um, and I'm thinking of his name, Greg McCown. He wrote a book called the centralism and he talked about what he said. Yes and no. And he came up with his three core values. And if it wasn't a nine out of 10, that's where that came from. But he gave me no clue on how to come up with the values. Um, then I read a book called dare to lead by Bernay Brown. And in the very back of the book, she had an inventory, a psychology inventory of values, and she was encouraging people to pick their one or two. And the thing I remember about that is, um, do you know what Bernays Bernays number one is to do this? I'm playing, but she's also, but she also struggling, like, she's like, how can I not write family? That was
Stephanie: (37:55)
Right, exactly. Like I should be picking God or spirituality or whatever it is, you know? Cause you kind of that ego gets in the way,
Jay: (38:04)
My gift to my family, what I want my children to understand is I want them to understand the power of courage, the courage to do the right thing, to dare, to do the, to lead all of those things. So she understood that even though it wasn't socially acceptable, it wasn't that word that if she tattooed, she'd be so proud to show everybody right. Mattered to her. And that was the connection to those other values. That was how she was going to be the best person she could be for a family. So anybody can kind of do that exercise. We do that at our events and I we're going to partner with a company to just make a deck of cards for people to do this elsewhere. But it's just an inventory of what are the things that really matter to you? Can you articulate them, put them on a piece of paper. They're at the top of my goal sheet, I have to look at them every single day and ask the question datum for awhile are those the values that I really want to build into my life? They, they become a kind of compass for you and opportunity shows up. You need to have a reason to say, no, that's not just about money our time. It should also be about your values.
Stephanie: (39:06)
I love it because especially as sales people and entrepreneurs, like, let's be real. A lot of us do these professions and do this because of the income potential, right? Or some of it's the freedom of flexibility of schedule. And then we get in here and think, Oh wow. If I don't have leverage and systems, there is no freedom, right? You're, you're creating a prison for yourself. But I think it's really cool because when you go through the exercise, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about. Building a life by design versus by default, because what rusty roll with social media and with everything else out there with, there's kind of a blueprint for what people should want in their life, right? It's a million followers on Instagram. It's a seven to eight figure real estate business. It's a big bank account. It's a big house. What have you. But honestly, sometimes you get those things and people still aren't happy. And I think it's, it's really figuring out it doesn't mean success is bad, but what does success look like to you as a person? And if you can get your spouse involved with that conversation as well, or your partner, because you might, I mean, my idea of success in my husband's idea, because that's maybe totally different than you and your wife, but you can't just model it after everybody, you see
Jay: (40:14)
The worst mistake we see people make as they model it after what their parents or someone else expects of them versus what they truly want. Um, at the very end of our book. And I don't expect many people to have made it to the end of the one thing. But, um, there's a book called the five regrets of the dying. And there was a nurse that was with all these people and she would ask him this question. And the number one regret is that they failed to live their own life. They live someone else's and that made a huge impression on me and a huge impression on Gary. And so first and foremost, we had to be true to our own calling and it's okay. It's not, it's not a contest. Your values are your values. And the other thing that we learned in this research is if you're seeking happiness, that's leading, you can look for fulfillment and the pursuit of furthering your values in the world is a very fulfilling thing.
Jay: (41:05)
You can even have a fulfilling day when it was just a horrible, bad day. Maybe you had to fire someone in your organization that doesn't reflect your values. That's not a day you want to celebrate and it's hard, hard, sad work to do, but you can still still feel some fulfillment because you know that you followed your values that day. So it's a really good compass. It's a really great way to stay on track. I hope that my kids are happy. I really do, but they're going to have sad days, but what I can try to guide them and coach them towards is to choose a life of fulfillment versus always seeking happiness. Then you just make better choices.
Stephanie: (41:43)
I uh, interviewed an author, Cathy Heller a few months ago, and I think I'm getting it right when she says the opposite of depression is not happiness. The opposite of depression is purpose because when people have a purpose, they feel like they matter. I mean, think about how I've worked with sellers that they'll retire. And then they're kind of like, what's the point? Cause that was their purpose for so long. They haven't found something new that they feel passionate about. That's giving back, that's fulfilling them. So I think that's huge. As far as the goals we set, if we're revisiting them that give us that purpose to get up in the morning, especially as agents, right? Like we have that freedom and flexibility. We don't have to be at the office at 8:00 AM. So what's going to get you out of bed if you don't have an appointment or something set for you.
Jay: (42:25)
Yeah. I love that. That frame, that, that author has, I would only caution cause I do have people in our family that are clinically depressed, right? So they may be very in touch with their purpose and still struggling with it. But I will tell you that when there's all this research, that when people are pursuing things that they associate with their mission, their levels of happiness and joy go way up. So whatever your baseline was, maybe it's artificially low because the biology, we do know that pursuing purpose. It's a great source of motivation. It'll get you out of bed on a rainy day. It'll get you out there doing the job that you don't love to do because you know that it's fulfilling work. It has wonderful, wonderful things. And I just caution people. It's a heavy task thinking about your mission or your purpose, right?
Jay: (43:08)
Right. Just date something you don't have to don't rush to the tattoo parlor. Like it's not that big of a deal. Nobody's expecting you to have it. Perfect. Come up with something, live with it for a while, test it. It's okay to date it for awhile. And it will evolve as you get older. And as you grow and you learn more about yourself, but having something for your compass matters a lot black pants on that white pillow behind you, which the people listening can't tell, but just snuggling in over there. Sorry. It's my little Chihuahua. I have four dogs. I can just see the ears and the white pillows. Sorry about that.
Stephanie: (43:44)
I think action brings a lot of clarity and I've, I've struggled in the past with being paralyzed by not knowing what I want to do next and not taking action. And the more I take action, it will lead me to, Oh, I go down a road. Oh, that's not really what I want. But if I would have never taken the action, I wouldn't have gained the clarity from that.
Jay: (44:00)
Oh, I love that. It's the I'm still Silverstein. Although woulda coulda should is ran away and hid from one little dead. Right. Um, that poem that children's pointed. It always stuck with me because it's true. There's all of our intentions. There's all of this stuff. But when you do things, you get results. You get immediate feedback. And by doing, we learn, right. Somewhat kids. Don't walk by looking at a film of someone walking. They don't learn to walk by, you know, they learn to walk by trying. Right.
Stephanie: (44:29)
All right. So let's switch gears just a little bit. I want to talk about, I like to give the audience some tactical, tangible ways to implement what we talked about on the podcast. So whether they're driving down the road right now, or they're on a run, let's talk about time blocking. And I want to talk about your thoughts because I am a technology girl. However, my business partner is going to smile. If he's listening. Um, he has an added glance paper calendar, and I kind of give him a hard time sometimes and good humor. And Oh my gosh, can you get into the technology times? And he pulls it out with a pencil and he writes down his listing appointments. Anytime we meet, he writes it down. And lately probably the past six months I've been so keeping sub digital. But I do find when I write my goals or even content planning for the podcast or anything like that, it just helps me to write it out and get it out of my head, that physical action of writing. Talk to me about your process on time, blocking what that looks like for you, and then whether you use digital or paper and how you integrate all that.
Jay: (45:32)
Sure. Um, where the rubber hits the road in all of this, like you've got your five year goals. You wonder your goals. You break that down to your month and your week, every week, you still have to look at your calendar and say, based on my goals, how am I going to invest my time? That's where the rubber hits the road goals. Don't go anywhere without that investment of time. And the thing that I think is shockingly simple about success, right? It's surprising and simple registers. The subtitle of our book is that the very act of time blocking, which is just making an appointment with yourself to do something makes you about three times more likely to achieve it. There's research out there that we could go into the details, but people who navigated their week and asked based on what I want to accomplish when, and where am I going to do it?
Jay: (46:15)
We're three times more likely to go out and actually do it. Okay. So we're pretty good. Like when the calendar on our phone vibrates, we know that it's time to transition to the next thing. Right? Right. We've we've learned and we've become a bit, you weighted to those cues, whether it be paper or the other, we found ways to navigate our calendars. Like we know we had to learn where your kids to show up to school on time and to go from class to class. Like this is part of our training. We're just leveraging that. Sure. So each week this will be the thing. Ask the question in order for me to achieve that big goal, right? Maybe it's around health, whatever that habit is. What's the one thing that you have to accomplish this week to feel like you're absolutely on track. And then look at your calendar and ask, do I have time committed to do that?
Jay: (46:58)
And if the answer is no, it's time to start canceling some commitments. So time blocking is just putting on your calendar more than enough time often for you to do the things that you said you were going to do. And it works best if you do the same time every day, preferably in the morning, because that's the best possible time to control your time, control your energy and build habits. When you study really successful people, they're getting more done before 8:00 AM than most people get done in a day, right? They rituals. They know they can control that time. They have habits that they built so early in the day, whatever that represents for you is a great time to do it. But instead of trying to time block everything, just focus on, I'm going to write my book. Great. Can you find 30 minutes every morning to do that?
Jay: (47:45)
Put it on your calendar. Then every day, your one job as did I do my 30 minutes, or did I write 200 words or whatever your, your trigger is to say, I'm done, right. Start knocking that down and build momentum, build a habit around back. You'll look up and you'll be farther along than you've ever imagined. So to me, that time blocking, which is such a simple thing, did I put my goal on my calendar? If people will just start by focusing and really making a stand around there, number one, to start with that and then see where that goes. I find that people, the big realization they have Stephanie is they felt like they were a drift in the stream that the, they have to take care of their older parents and young children and they have their job and they have their side gig their direction.
Jay: (48:33)
They're always reaction mode. They're always in triaged mode by taking control of just 30 minutes a day, maybe even 10 minutes to meditate, whatever it is, you make a stand on that. They suddenly realized they still have agency. They actually do still have some control and then they get greedy for it. But that little bit of momentum, it just, I've got a beachhead. I'm now controlling this next 30 minutes of my day. We see it literally a halo effect. It's in the research that people who committed to that one thing, other things start clicking into place and you start building positive momentum. So that to me is figure out your one thing this week, put it on your calendar and make a standard on that thing happening every single work day,
Stephanie: (49:14)
I call it keeping your promise to yourself. I feel like we keep promises everybody else around us. And when we tell ourselves habitually, I'm going to go on that run. I'm going to get up early and do that workout. It, it true. If we don't do that, it trains our brain that we don't. We have no confidence in what we tell ourselves anymore. And the more you do keep your promises to yourself. It trains you that you are worthy and you are going to build that confidence. And like you said, it builds that muscle.
Jay: (49:42)
Love it. Um, you asked me a second question. How do I use it? Um, I have lots and lots of technology in my world. We are a technology company now. Uh, but for years I resisted Gary's Gary still looks at a month at a glance planner. Yes. He has outlook meetings to like everyone else, but we call it your 20% items, the big rocks. So it's kind of like the one thing, right? In each of the big areas of my life over time, I built some habits. And so I track those and I'm holding it up for our video. You can't see that while you're driving and listening to the audio, but I don't have very much on my month at a glance calendar for me. I have my writing days. I have my speaking days. I have big events like anniversaries and birthdays with the people I love and my vacations.
Jay: (50:25)
Okay. Trying to manage everything. But there are a handful of things that really matter to me. And I want to look up at my month and know, because this is my number one for my business. Like for you, it might be listing appointments, right. And how many podcasts am I recording this month? Right. To make sure that I'm doing my marketing, whatever, you only have a handful of things, but I want to look up and go, wow. If I'm going to travel to Italy for two months in August, how am I going to get my writing day set? Right. So I'm going to have to pack a few extra and before and a few acts extra. And after so that I actually haven't lost any, but because I have a big view on time, I can actually navigate those commitments a lot better. Most people are just looking at their phone. I can't even see a whole day on my phone. I'm making a commitment with no context to my other big commitments around it. So I resisted that for years now. I'm kind of addicted to this. Okay. I'm going to try that. It's just the way I do things
Stephanie: (51:21)
For awhile. Okay. That's good to know too, because I'm literal. I'm very literal. So I was trying to manage all the micro things, the, to do list everything on that. And then I was like, well, I've got it on Google calendar or whatever. So it's duplicated. And how do you manage it all? So,
Jay: (51:38)
Yeah, I don't, I don't think so. I would for you, I would say like, when am I doing my lead gen time? And I would do my planning on my paper calendar, and then I would make my electronic calendar reflect that, okay, these are the boulders you're putting in the stream that everything else has to flow around. Right. The beauty is because their boulders and everything else has to go, like, my vacation is a Boulder,
Stephanie: (51:58)
Right. Same here. Yep. Kind of. Not really now, but yeah.
Jay: (52:02)
Right. But you'll work around it. If you do it early enough, if you wait till your burn out now you're desperate. And you got your laptop on the beach with you.
Stephanie: (52:09)
Yeah, no, we do our vacations in December for the whole year. There you go. I'm just saying with COVID we had to cancel them all, but yeah, we wanted to be proactive about it. And I think that's really the key. What I'm hearing is it's taking the time before you're there to be proactive and then checking in throughout the year quickly, you know, weekly to where you can adjust, pivot as necessary. Cause like you said, things are going to come up and you're going to feel differently about things, but it also will keep you on track with the other factors that are really important too.
Jay: (52:39)
Right. And so the last rule of the paper planner is we do use a pencil. So your partner is right there. Um, and our mantra is if you replay, if you erase, you must replace. So if my kids are sick or we're going on vacation, I'm going to erase some of those work commitments. Right. I'm going to go look for a new home for them. Okay. And what I love about the paper calendar is if I'm like, I'm moving a writing day from Tuesday to the next Wednesday, I'm looking at this counter. I don't see everything else. So I make my commitment and then I go make my electronic calendar men manifest that. Got it. Okay. Because then I'm looking at my electronic calendar. I go, Oh wait. I was supposed to have lunch with Rosalita that day. And I, you know what, here's the thing. When you cancel that lunch and say, can I please reschedule something bigger's come up. Most of the time, people are happy to be off the hook and they're happy to reschedule. It's not a big deal.
Stephanie: (53:30)
Right? No, I love it. Um, all right. So I have five questions that I ask each guest. So to get to know you a little bit better, first question is what is one thing that most people don't know about you?
Jay: (53:43)
Um, most people don't know that I'm a raging introvert. Um, there's so much of what I've had to do to become a successful author is learned behavior, right? I had to learn to teach on big stages. I had to learn to do interviews. I had to learn, get comfortable sharing things that I think of are, that are private and personal. Um, but the mission was more important than my personal behavior. So I've learned to do a lot of these activities and they're exhausting. Like I will go like take a nap after this podcast, but also they're also fulfilling. Right? I know that I'm doing mission work. I'm not doing it lightly, but I had to be very clear about that. So I think a lot of people are surprised to learn that I'm an introvert.
Stephanie: (54:23)
So it stretches your band a little bit.
Jay: (54:25)
Yeah. It's okay. Yeah. It's worth it. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? Um, uh, no one succeeds alone. Um, it's kind of a mantra around here. If you're going to do great things, you're going to probably do it in partnership with many other people and as a business person, um, to truly be a great business person, master the art of building relationships and learning how to create opportunity and hold other people accountable. Right. If you can build relationships, um, if you can create opportunity for people and then hold them accountable, like in a, in a coaching kind of way, um, there's nothing you can't accomplish.
Stephanie: (55:06)
What's the best piece of advice. Do you want to give the audience today?
Jay: (55:10)
Don't wait. Don't wait. Do do one thing in the next 24 hours. Like when you get home, when you end this job, think about what's the one thing I really want to change coming out of COVID or quarantine. What's that one habit I want to form and then truly make a commitment. Not all yeses and nos are equal. Um, I spoke for many years. Um, and I remember when I decided to quit that no is very different than the other knows when I was kind of doing it for other people. I wasn't my heart wasn't in it. Um, the, yes, I said to my wife, when we got married was very different than a lot of other yeses. Right. I knew implicitly when I said I do, I was saying no to everything else. Right. So make an actual commitment, make a big yes. Um, and that'll help you say no to the other things. So I would just say, don't wait, take that thing that you truly want to make yourself a better person, better husband, better wife, better father, better mother, better business person, whatever, make a commitment to one activity that you can build into a habit that will be life changing as you come out of this. Don't wait.
Stephanie: (56:17)
Okay. What is one of your favorite books or the one that's had the greatest impact on you? Oh, that's the question
Jay: (56:24)
That just, uh, you have to give me a topic. I mean, if I showed you around my office and my home office, I've probably got a thousand books just in my office and other thousand outside on bookshelves. I have a book buying and reading problem. Um, th the book about mindset, um, there are two books. I love grit by Angela Duckworth. I love that book. Um, I'm going to be interviewing her later this month as a part of our book club around that. I've read it twice already and reading it a third time. And there's also a book by dr. Carol Dweck called mindset. Um, and it talks about the difference between a growth and a fixed mindset. If you want a twofer, um, Angela Duckworth in grit talks about, and dr. Dwecks work. So you kind of get a twofer from that, but that's a great book.
Stephanie: (57:13)
Okay, cool. I love that. What's your current morning routine?
Jay: (57:16)
So, um, most mornings, um, my wife and I work out together. So we've been getting up later because we didn't have a commute. So it used to be, we got to put five 10. Now we can get up at five 30 and we work out with a trainer for an hour. Um, we then have coffee and breakfast together before the kids wake up and we often will do a lot of our reading. So we have exercise time and I'll tell you for our marriage, working out together was huge. It was just some extra time that gave us time to talk through what our day was, what going on our poor trainers, even though we're doing it on zoom now, they're like psychologists. They hear us bicker and talk about our days and whatever, you know, but we're working things out. It's a chance to communicate. Um,
Stephanie: (57:58)
When it's not covered, do you guys go to a gym or do the trainers come to your house?
Jay: (58:02)
Because we started when our kids were very young, we've always had a trainer come to the house in the beginning, we just had mats and we did it in the driveway, burpees and stuff, because we've been doing this for 11 or 12 years. Now we've got to like, we can, we got a squat rack, we've got a lot more equipment set up. It's a nightmare. When we have guests actually have to sleep in that room. Cause then I have to move everything into the garage, but we've got a pretty substantial workout. But then we, we eat breakfast together. We read together. Um, the thing I try to do before I look at my email is look at my goals and my calendar. I don't always do that. Most people start their day by looking at email and that's other people's priorities. But if you build a ritual of just reminding yourself, what did I commit to doing today? It'll help you say no to a lot of that stuff. That's in your inbox.
Stephanie: (58:53)
Agreed, agreed. Last question is how do you unplug and unwind?
Jay: (58:57)
I love movies and I love good fiction. So, um, I love, I mean, movies are definitely a passion. I'm very sad that we can't go to the movie theaters right now. Um, but I love a good detective novel too. I was really into the whole Bosch thing. And then I discovered that there was this series on Amazon and love that too. But during COVID, here's the funny thing we were the only people we knew that had never watched an episode of the office. So, Oh my gosh, you have social support too. But now pretty much every evening or most evenings, we try to watch an episode or two. And at the end of the long day where you're doing zoom meetings and, you know, wondering if a relative is going to be sick or laid off like this, this stressful time, it's really nice to finish the day. Just laughing. Yes.
Stephanie: (59:41)
We're binge watching Ozarks right now on Netflix.
Jay: (59:44)
That's on our list, but I've heard it's a little dark. So
Stephanie: (59:46)
It's dark. It's the first few episodes are kind of slow. I feel like they all are at the beginning, but it does. It does pick up. It's pretty interesting. Hey, at the end of it, you realize how great your life is because you know, you're not getting blown up or
Jay: (01:00:02)
I get it
Stephanie: (01:00:03)
So well, I know we both have to run. I appreciate your time today. I think this has been really helpful, both on the real estate front and just the goal setting in general with your experience with the one thing. And thank you for sharing all your information and expertise with us.
Jay: (01:00:18)
Thanks for having me, Stephanie have a great day.
Stephanie: (01:00:21)
All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed this interview with Jay. Got some great tips on how to design your life versus living it by default, how to set goals, how to be intentional, how to, you know, make plans with your spouse, your partner, and just really grow as a couple and as individuals and your life in business. Don't forget to check out Jay's books. He's got the real millionaire real estate agent, as well as the one thing. And we'll put all of his social links in the show notes. You can go to the glam girl, boss.com forward slash podcast. If you haven't had a chance to subscribe to the show, don't forget to hit subscribe. And as always, if you haven't had a chance to submit it online, any view, this is the data. Do it, let us know what you loved about this episode with Jay and have a wonderful rest of your day. Like guys.
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