Why Would You Rob Yourself?

Sometimes I wonder if people truly understand who they are and if they really value themselves on the level that they need to. Let’s face it; there is nobody in this world that you will spend more time with than yourself so it would benefit you to like yourself. I mean, as the saying goes, wherever you go, there you are.

I am sure that most of us know our faults and have quarrels with ourselves at times, but in the end, we do like ourselves. So the real question is do you value yourself?

As a professional speaker there are certain parts of my career that I have had to take a step back from because of traveling obligations and time restraints. One of those areas is the amount of coaching that I personally do. I have made it a point to still personally coach about a handful of people at any given time. This allows me to stay current and keep my finger on the pulse of what people are going through right now and how they feel about things.

One of the most frustrating things that I come across, not only in coaching, but in life too, is to see people with such great potential not do for themselves what they are willing to do for others. This is an epidemic in our society right now. How many of you reading this right now can say that you are guilty of sometimes doing more for others than you are willing to do for yourself?

Recently I was on a phone call with one of my clients. He is a supremely gifted individual and a natural born salesperson. He has all of the people skills and intuition that I could possibly ask for in someone that I am trying to help get to the top. On this particular call we talked about how his business tends to go through spurts. One month he is living the life and the next month he is filled with anxiety. Now I know that if you follow certain patterns and cover the right bases that you will get the results that you desire, so I immediately began to go down the checklist to see if he was doing all that I was expecting of him. Not for just a week or two but every…single…day!

Wouldn’t you know it? I found out that he had not been following the five steps that I have all of our students follow each and every day. As a result he was able to directly point to five or six transactions from past friends and colleagues that had just closed through a different REALTOR® because they didn’t know he was in real estate. He knew that if he had followed the steps that I had laid out for him, they would have been his clients. When we calculated the value of those transactions, they came out to just over $30,000. He seemed upset about this but not infuriated.

So I asked him this question – if someone broke into your house or bank account and stole more than $30,000 from you, how would you feel about that person? He said that he would obviously be filled with anger. I think you see where I am going with this. We would get so angry at someone else for stealing our money from us but over and over again we sit back complacently while we continually rob ourselves by not doing what we know we should be doing to secure more business.

So why would we do this to ourselves? Why do we think that this is ok? I am convinced that the majority of people have looked to their environment and the people around them to determine their value – maybe not consciously but definitely subconsciously. Every time you push forward because you are not making enough money or pull back because you have made enough you are placing a subconscious value on what you are worth. For some it is “6 figures” and for others it is the average for your area, but either way, it is there. I don’t believe it should be though.

The reason I believe this is because you are invaluable. You have to start believing that about yourself. Every one of us were created with a unique DNA that makes us unique and different from anyone else on this earth. Because of this you have got to make the decision in your head that you will no longer settle for “just enough.” If you knew that not doing something would cost your friend $30,000 would you allow yourself to be complacent and not do it? Of course not! But you have to break the trend of our culture and start valuing yourself more than anyone else on this earth.

Now there is no doubt that there is a fear factor involved here. Many people don’t follow through with everything that they know that they should because if they did they would no longer have an excuse for not being a top producer. At least if they don’t give it their all they can always say, “I can do just as much business as she does. I just have a lot more going on.”

You may have gone through problems in your life and experienced hardships, but don’t allow them to become a crutch for you. I have always felt that trials in my life are only here to help me grow. If my life didn’t matter then I wouldn’t need problems because growth wouldn’t be necessary.

In the end we have to make a decision to do for ourselves what we would be willing to do for others and that starts with placing so much value on yourself that you wouldn’t dare not follow through with strategies that will make you another $30,000 or more, because it wouldn’t be right to steal from yourself.

If you are tired of robbing yourself and are committed to following through with something that you have been putting off, I want to hear from you. Write on my wall at www.facebook.com/jaredjamestoday or send me a tweet at www.twitter.com/jaredjamestoday and let me know what you are going to commit to consistently doing from this point on. I look forward to hearing from you!

Jared James is the CEO and Founder of Jared James Enterprises, an internationally sought-after speaker and trainer. James built one of the fastest-growing real estate teams in the country, was inducted into the International Hall of Fame for one of the world’s largest real estate companies and wrote a best-selling book—all before the age of 28. As an acclaimed speaker, James keynotes events for major real estate organizations and conducts regular webinars and training for nationally known organizations like NAR, CRS, Yahoo Real Estate,Trulia and Zillow Academy and blogs regularly for RISMedia.