Ep #106: The Power of Identity The #1 Secret to Achieving Your Goals

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey listeners, Jeff Zimper, welcome to this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. So glad that you have tuned in. If you're here for the first time, let me just say thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you. You have been here for some while. Hey, thank you also for coming back. What that tells me is that you are ideally getting consistent value out of these podcasts. And if that's the case, whether you're new or veteran, you know what I'd love and appreciate from you as we start off this brand new year. Give us some love. Give us a shout out on the inner webs wherever you're listening to this podcast. If it's on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, we're on Spotify now too. You're on the blog. Please book page wherever you're at. If you like what you're getting, just let us know. Give us a little shout out because the more reviews we get, right, hey, that's the social currency of trust today online is reviews. I appreciate you sharing your feelings about the value you're getting for the podcast. So thanks for that. And secondly, you know, we're in a brand new year here. So you're likely listening to this in January of 2019 and I wanted to say happy new year to you. This podcast couldn't come at a better time for you. The subject matter in the topics we're talking about in my special guest, blow your mind, blow your mind. Now, before I introduce and bring out my special guest, I want to make sure you're aware of a tool and a resource we've got to help you get off to a fast start in 2019. If you are looking to grow your agent referrals and do that with less effort and get more done in less time, be more efficient and effective in cultivating agent referrals. If you're looking to drive sales from social media online, looking to get going with video and Facebook ads and building your personal brand got something for you. It's called the mortgage marketing pro membership. What is it? Hey, it's the place where you can get all of that and more personal access to me, private coaching and mastermind sessions we do in our private group, guides and downloads, shareable tools and resources that you can give to your agents, you know, soup to nuts, everything you need to become a modern mortgage originator. If you're not yet a member, go check it out at mortgagemarketing.pro and that will get you off to a fast start. Okay, so let's transition to my special guest this episode. And I got to say, first of all, I feel grateful. I feel blessed and honored to have Jim Forkin on the podcast. I've actually known him for quite a number of years filed him from a distance and, you know, good fortune brought us together. So bottom line, who is Jim? What's he all about? Look, I don't know how to deliver an intro to this gentleman who's done so much and made such a big impact on people's lives. But for over 20 years, he's helped thousands of people deal in the areas of unconscious sales influence, human effectiveness and neuro persuasion. What does that mean? Well, if I give you the, you know, the poor man's version of that, look, all of us are working hard. You know, we tend to use struggle and strife and, you know, we've got to double down and hustle and all those types of things. And I'm here to tell you that when you listen to this podcast, which you're going to discover about yourself, about things that you want to achieve in your life, who you want to become, that it's not necessarily about your hard work. It's not necessarily about the hours you put in. It's more about your identity. It's more about what are the characters, traits, and habits that you need to evolve into, take on. Who is it you need to become to achieve that result? And so Jim and I unpack this whole conversation around, right, how you go about setting goals, how you go about your business plan for the new year. And most people have this, you know, have to be a mentality or philosophy in that order to have something. I need to do something in which means I need to be something or someone and then Jim totally flips that around and says it's more about be do have. Who do you need to be, right? To become to do this and what are the things you need to do to have the things that you want? And so it's not about necessarily, you know, first I need to get the skills, I need to get the training and then I can, you know, do this and that and then I can have the car or the Mercedes. This is the flip side of this. And so we're going to talk about your mindset, your personal mindset, your beliefs and what really drives results, what really drives consistency and performance for you in your business and in your personal life as well. And if you just want to lose weight, you want to get in shape this year. This is the podcast for you. If you want to grow your business and we're in a tougher market, if you want to not just survive, but thrive and do that in a state of flow, this podcast is for you. And so there's a lot of nuggets and ahas in here and there's a lot of links in the show notes to Jim's website to a couple of books. We mentioned to a free app that we talk about all to help you become the person, become the best version of yourself. How's that? And a couple of quotes here, Jim, you know, we talk about it's like money doesn't come from effort. It comes from identity. I'll say that again, money doesn't come from effort. It comes from identity. Right? And so we're going to take you through an exercise, a mini coaching session, if you will, to help you get clear on your identity and then help you work on those three areas that will help you become the person that you need to be, if you will, depending on the goals and the vision you have for yourself. So if you like this episode, hey, let us know and check the show notes for the additional resources and without further ado, let's get into this week's show with my very special guest, Jim 14. Hey, Jim, welcome to the show. Hey, glad to be here. Thank you for making time, especially at this, when our my listeners are probably listening to this episode, it's a brand new year. It's 2019. And as you know, my audience is sales related, they're sales professionals, mortgage, loan brokers, loan officers, et cetera. So I wanted to enter this conversation. I've been doing a lot of research and studying, you know, your website and some of what I think you bring to the market when it comes to how do we achieve our goals? How do we get better, if you will? How do we become that person we want to be? So with that kind of set up in that context, knowing that people just finished 2018, maybe they achieved their goals, maybe they didn't, but as often as the case with sales, you often get one of two things, maybe, hey, that was great. I hit my goals or wow, yeah, I didn't hit my goals. So you've worked with people in that same scenario in the past before, any just, you know, where do you want to enter the conversation from there, I would say? First things first, I want to enter the conversation of Wi-Fi. I did not hardwire. So what I want to tell people listening right now is I coach and have coach to top 1% of real estate agents and L.O.'s in the world. I'm going to actually flip a lot of what you believe and what you think and what you've been trained upside down. So even though we didn't hard, I didn't hardwire, I take responsibility for that. We might get a little distortion here and there. Make sure you listen all the way through, because I'm going to start here first. You had talked about achieving goals. That's the biggest bunch of nonsense in the world perpetuated by remote Wi. People don't achieve their goals. And I have coached, I don't know how many thousands of people over the years, I've been doing this 25 years, and I don't care if I'm at a large real estate event, a multi level marketing event, any event, any industry. If people in their audiences don't even get close to their goals. And the reason why is because many people set their goals from the left hand analytical side of the brain. I want a million dollars. I want to be a top 1% performing L.O. I want to be a top 1% agent. I want the new Mazerati. I want the house. I want the inner circle. End of the year, they look back, they haven't achieved any of that. As a matter of fact, many people look back over their goals for several years, they haven't achieved them. Why? That is all left brain analytical. And we perform from the right hand side of the brain, the unconscious mind. So you could say, for example, I'm going to set a goal to make $250,000 this year. And you never hit it over and over and over. Why? Because in your unconscious operating system and your identity, you grew up poor and you're broke. No matter what you try to do to make that money, you will never make it until you change your unconscious paradigms because we work from the inside out. In this culture, we have all the big personalities that will say things like, you've got to work tell your eyeballs, believe it, and you've got to take massive action. I'm going to tell you guys, stay with me here. That is all nonsense that keeps people trapped. The reason why is there is a big speaker, and he helps a lot of people, but he's a big tall guy. And he says, you've got to take massive action. Well, the reality is that is an external behavior, that is a doing behavior. But in your unconscious identity, if you're not a person that can sustain and you can't stay committed, which is a characteristic and way of being, if you can't stay committed to taking, which is a behavior, massive action, therefore, people go to these seminars and they're all pumped up and they're all hyped and ready to go. And three days later, they're back to their old behavior. Because every one of us, you and me, all of us, we work by our unconscious paradigms. And until you change who you are at the core level, your self-image, your self-identity and your unconscious paradigms, you will repeat your old patterns over and over and over again. I know that was a long opening, but I want to get people to start thinking. We work from the inside out and whatever subconscious paradigm you have is how you operate. To give you the best example for everyone listening, I think you're in Seattle, right, Pacific Standard Time. Yeah, Pacific Standard Time, yeah. So you're around lunchtime there. So if I brought up a plate of liver and onions and said, here you go, here's your lunch, liver and onions, would you eat it? No, okay. And notice what happens here. You didn't make that decision right now in this time, saying, well, would I? Or would I not? I don't know. Do I know? Boom, it's already been made at some point in the past and hell doesn't unconscious belief in paradigm. So you are in your behavior by not eating it. You are responding to the unconscious paradigm that you have. So all these people, all these speakers and all the stages and I've worked many industries will get up there and say, go do all this stuff. And everyone's like, yeah, I can do that three months later, three days later, they're back to their old patterns because what they're doing is not consistent with their self identity. That is where the change has to happen. Hmm. Okay. Thank you for sharing that. So for those that are listening, you know, when we set our goals and stuff like that for the new year, income wise, whatever, some people have already done this by the time they've heard this, they want to grow their income, do X more units, et cetera. Working hard is not it. So let's unpack then. Okay. Now, I already set my goals in place. How do I know I'm going to achieve those goals? I mean, is that a legit question? How do I know for certain I'm going to hit that mark? Most never do. And the reason why is notice what you just said here, and this is when everyone teaches, set your goals for 2019 and everyone will pull up that pencil and paper and they'll say, you know, I'm going to close so many units, if I'm in so many sides, if I'm an agent or so many loans per month or so much volume, the subtle distinction here is every bit of what we just talked about are all external things. What we need to be setting and working on is what characteristics, what I need to be to create what I want. And those characteristics are places that most people, and I'm saying most because I've coached, I've coached heavily in real estate and mortgage. I have coached two color Williams number one team leaders in a nation. I've coached a lady here in Dallas, who not calls one of the top 20 thought leaders in national real estate, owns one of the largest private real estate companies in Texas. And so I've coached the high end. And what we have to look at is not the external behavior, but what characteristics do I need to be able to do the external behavior? So and those are things like most people fall really short in these areas because we've learned the fall short is what is your level of self discipline? What is your level of commitment? What is your level of self integrity? What is your level of personal responsibility? These are four characteristics where people, most people fall short. That's why to give you an example here, and I know I'm talking a lot, but I can give these people a lot of value by listening. How many LOs or agents will say, you know what, I need to fill my pipeline and I need the prospect. But you know what? Monday I'm going to do it. Boom, I tackle it Tuesday. I'm all excited Wednesday. I'm like, I'm not so much enjoying this anymore. We go through that cycle for a long time. Didn't they go get an accountability partner because you're looking for something outside of themselves? The reason they're not following through is because of their level of self discipline, their level of commitment, personal responsibility, and self integrity. So they're trying to actually do a behavior to get the outcome they want, but to behavior, the doing is only as effective as the being doing the doing. That's why people fall off crack very quickly. So what is it then about the self identity that's missing? How can we work on that? How do we become the person that we want to be? Okay. So I have coached in the real estate industry. When I did one to one, which I coach very little in the real estate and mortgage industry anymore, my last two one to one mortgage clients. One of them has company road over a half a billion dollars a year in loans to start at the zone team who works for one of the big companies. Another one is the young guys, about 34 makes over a million a year also. What I look at with my clients is what characteristics and ways do they be? One of my clients went through one to one coaching with me. He said, you know what? I recognized that when I am 100% responsible for my outcomes, he goes, that gives me power. Now we've heard, we've heard speakers talk about this over the years, people like Brian Tracy back in the 80s and the 90s and the 2000s is that most of us do not have what I would say 100% responsibility for the outcomes that we get. Let me back up here. According to Miriam Webster, the definition of responsibility is causing something to happen. Now, if something doesn't happen in your business, it's because you have caused it not to happen, which means you haven't been responsible for making it happen. And then we go back even further, I pulled the corn shut back even more, is okay. My characteristics and ways of being, what I need to have to be responsible to make this happen in my business. But let me, let me solidify this even more, what everyone does is they go out and they try to do something, which is what I call the do-be-half model. If I do XYZ, then I can be successful and if I can be successful, then I can have the new Mercedes. Almost everyone works from that model from do-be-half, that is a broken model, why? Because if you don't actually do it, then you won't be it and you can't have it, but you never do it in the first place. Where we have to work from is be do-have. Who do I have to be to do what I need to do to have what I want? That is the reverse model of how most people work, but that's a true peak performance model. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Yeah, and I've often used that or tried to use that on myself in the past, like if I set the goals, I've heard it before. Who do you need to be to achieve that X and vision cast that out, if you will? What characteristics? What was it being? What habits, what attributes, how would this person enter a room? How would they perhaps even dress and all that kind of jazz, right? Yeah. Let's go there. Another thing that I work with people on is unconscious habits. When I use the word unconscious, I also mean subconscious people use the word interchangeably. Here's the thing, is people set all these goals for what they want. You will not get what you want. You will get your subconscious habits, because research has demonstrated that you, me, all of us, we show up on a daily basis, and 95% of our behavior is completely unconscious habit, which is reptilian brain-based. If you look at your morning, this morning, and every single morning, unless you've got small kids, which would make your kids a little older, but if you look at your morning, for the most part, you start your morning with the same sequence of behavior, whether it's coffee first or alate or cereal or the shower or whatever you do, you have the same sequence. You button your shirt from the bottom to the top or top to the bottom, same sequence. We go into unconscious habits. For all of you listening, let me show you actually how ingrained your habits are. Tomorrow morning, try to brush your teeth with the opposite hand of the one that you normally use and see how hard that is. Right. So let's take this in the business. Let's take this in the real estate and mortgage. Whatever your unconscious habits of thinking and doing are, you carry into your business, but you don't even know that you're carrying it into your business, because nobody drives to work and says, you know what? And even driving to work, you drive the same way every single day. No one ever drives and says, well, you know, what habits am I going to get into today? They don't do that. We don't do that. Film. It happens unconsciously. So whatever self-sabotage habits you have happen the second you walk in the door and they play out and then you're wondering why you don't get the end result that you want. Habits are vital. Remember, you don't get what you want. You get what your unconscious habits are and it's vital that you build and you start small. You build habits and even habits of thinking that get you the outcomes that you want. Vital, we start from the inside out. I attended a training last week. It was a disc certification. I'm sure you're familiar with that. And the study that they did what they found was one of the traits of the genius level achievers was self-awareness, which most people, it's so funny and it applies to all of us to a large degree is I'll tell people, you do this. No, I don't. Yeah. I want you to go back and just watch our coaching because it's live, just I mean, it's a zoom like this. Go back. We saw what I watched for patterns and I'll pull out a pattern and we're like, no, I don't do that, Jim. Go watch. And we're like, oh my god. I didn't even know that I did that. Yes, you do scratch your nose there. Self-awareness is vital. Okay. Most of us don't know. So then how do we become more self-interrupt our patterns? How do we become more self-aware so we can begin to make that change? A lot of that is just mindfulness, is paying attention to what we're doing. We have to become masters of our attention, but secondly is watching ourselves. Have you ever actually even just recorded yourself talking to people and listening for your patterns? We don't hear it. We don't see it. Right. My sister, my mentor is my brother-in-law who is a shaman and this is my sister's husband and I have a apprentice with a shaman which for those of you and most of you don't know a shaman would be the medicine men and Native American tribes or the sears or the healers. And I've worked and basically he's taught me to use higher function in the mind over the years. I was on vacation with him and my sister just a couple of months ago and he just kids. He calls his wife, you know, hey, babe, hey, baby, you know, what are you doing, baby? And we were talking and she'd been married to him for 35 years. And literally just a couple of months ago I said, well, he often says, hey, baby, what are you doing? He calls me, babe, and she's like, he never calls me that. I'm like, are you kidding me? He calls you that and, babe, hey, baby, baby, where's my keys? He says that all the time and in 35 years she wouldn't even aware of it. Really? Yeah, we're so internally focused as beings. We don't see a lot of what goes on in our behavior or outside of us. All right. So you said something on a previous podcast I wrote down, money doesn't come from effort or what you do. It comes from identity. Yeah. So that's huge. I do a lot of identity work with people. So I've got a coach and call with my students later today, but there's something in here it's just a book that I had that a lady named here in Dallas, her name is Virginia Cook. Virginia is considered one of the top 20 thought leaders by NAR in U.S. for a listing. She has her own private company. When she was 29, she was appointed president of Henry S. Miller, 29 years old back in like 1969, 30 at 5,000 male agents. She left when she was 60, started her own company and in 10 years it became the second largest private roller state company in New York, Texas. I'm telling you all this for a reason. This woman is as friends with people like Ross Perot. She was Roger Staubach, you remember the old name Roger? She was his mentor back in the 70s when he was getting in the real estate. Now she was my coach, but I mean, I was her coach, but she became my mentor and one of the biggest business mentors I ever had. And she said to me, we were talking one day and she said, you know, Jim, the first million is the hardest to make. And she said something that everyone listening right now has heard, but they don't they understand it, but they don't know it is she goes for somebody to be very successful. They first have to be successful in their mind. Now, let's go back a little further, look what everyone does for the most part. And I say everyone because almost everyone they try to go do things, but they're not successful in their mind. Now, let's go to identity. If I'll give you the best example, one of my somebody that I was coaching in LA at an upscale office, he grew up in a poor or a part of LA and he was working in a predominantly and I'm only just telling you this because this is what it was. He's working in an upscale predominantly Caucasian office and he was Hispanic, a very well-spoken guy, very smart. I mean, just very polished agent. And he told me one day on a coaching call, he goes, you know, these are his words. He says, the problem that I'm having is I'm still the Mexican boy from across the tracks. Those are his exact words to me. Now what I mean by that is even though he's working in an upscale real estate office, seven figure homes and all this, inside at the identity level, he was still the poor kid from across town. And I tell that very poignant, it's a very real story. I tell that because whatever you are in your identity, because your identity governs wealth, because if you grew up poor, which like even right now, 86% of the American population lives paycheck to paycheck, probably 80% of people watching this are listening, grew up middle class or working class. So if you grew up and all you ever heard was is money doesn't grow on trees, money's hard to come by. We're not like other people, money's hard to make and here's a big one. You got to work hard and you got to struggle for money. And you take that unconsciously, which is what we do. You live by that paradigm and your entire life. I grew up very much working class. So what I always heard those things, and a big one that I heard from my mother is that if you want a lot of life, you got to work really, really hard. Well, I live by those paradigms for a lot of years. I do not live by them anymore. I'm a seven figure earner. I mean, I make quite a bit of money and I might work three or four hours a week because I switched the paradigms. Does that make sense? I mean, I think about the conversations that we have with our kids and my kids, yeah, they're 16 and 14. Do you run the risk though of, you know, like in the example of the kids being like, well, then I could just be on easy street. I don't have to work so hard, you know? Well, that's where I go to not work, but responsible. What are you responsible for creating? Oh, so a whole different, that's a paradigm right there. Because I used to, I grew up with not responsible, I grew up with the hard work. I grew up on a small Texas farm and I was up every morning feeding the cattle. I mean, I worked hard. I would feed cattle if I'd get on the bus, go to school, get back from school three o'clock off the bus and back feeding and working at the cattle again, doing things. So I was taught that because my parents wanted me to be a success. But I was taught the way to do it is you put your nose to the grindstone and you struggle and you work hard. Now, everyone is supposed to be hard. Exactly. And you work long hours and you look at everyone right now listening or watching this, I guarantee you 70% will say, you know what? Yeah, I work hard. Why can't I crack 70 grand a year or 80 or 250 or whatever it is? Right. I'm not working for my identity and I have to give you an example of this so they will go, I get it. Many years ago, I used to speak at the same events of Donald Trump. Never listen to him speak. I mean, I didn't listen to other speakers. I just go speak and leave. One day, I was waiting for a friend of mine so I listened to Donald speak for a few minutes. And he said that, and I used to live in New York City and speak at large events. He said in 1992 that he was walking in the streets of New York and he saw a homeless guy. And he thought that guy is better off than I am. Because I, Donald Trump, was 2.9 billion dollars in debt. And that guy was a just homeless broke. So Donald Trump said, I am 2.9 billion on the other side of red of that guy. That guy is better off than me. Now, today, according to various reputable sources, he's worth about 3 billion dollars. How does he go from 2.9 billion down in the red that's 3 billion in the black? How does that happen? What do you think? Let's talk through this. Well, I think, first of all, it's mindset. If I'm looking at my notes here, he was committed to change that. He took self-responsibility for where he was in his own actions. And I mean, the next word is self-integrity. I guess the self-integrity to follow through. Okay, those are all, you're on the right track, but let's go even deeper. Even though, and this is where so many people sabotage themselves, even though in his external environment, meaning the bank account, which is outside of himself, it's external, he was 2.9 billion in the red. In his self-image and his identity, he was still rich. We will always do what our self-identity is. And people have to get that. That's why we said identity governs wealth. So however you identify? Yeah. Was he in massive pain? Don't know. I mean, I've heard it said before, then now you remember, I remember that example. So if your identity is, I'm rich, but right now I'm negative 2 billion or whatever, then there's a huge, you know, dichotomy between your identity and where you're at. And so that's got to drive everything for you to change that. Let's go somewhere with this, even deeper, great question. So what most people do, and I'm using the word most along, because I have coached a lot of people over the years, and I just, just prevalent. Yeah. Okay. So what most people do is, and I had somebody yesterday, one of my coaching programs, she goes to look at her bank account, and she didn't have as much money as she thought. Then she went in, which she'd been coaching with me for 10 weeks, that she knows better. We pulled her out, should like, yep, you're right. I went down the wrong rabbit hole. She knows better. So what happened was she looked at the bank account, something external. Now she felt bad when she felt bad that determined their behavior. So if I had the guest, Donald Trump, just watching over the years, probably said, you know what? Okay. I'm 2.9 billion in the red. What do I have to do to get out of that? It wasn't like, oh, poor me, I feel bad. You know what? I'm going to drink a bottle of tequila tonight. You know, the world's coming to an end. It's like, okay, what do I have to do to, because it's automatic. That's how he's, he's wired, because that's his identity. That's how he grew up. We learn this, a small children by the age of eight, were hardwired by the age of eight, or softwired, which is unconscious paradigms, by the age of eight. So however we grow up, that's why, for example, I used to live in New York. That's why you see the Orthodox, little Jewish kids growing up to be Orthodox Jewish. You see the Catholics growing up to be Catholics. You see the Republicans growing up to be Republicans, because we are indoctrinated as small children as to what the world is and is not. Yeah. That's the reality of it. Let me ask you this question. What comes first in the pyramid, if you will, right? Is that identity, then beliefs, then actions? Okay. So everyone actually, you as well, draw a triangle on a paper in front of you? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Draw a triangle, like a big old triangle, like most of an eight and a half by eleven. Okay. Okay. And everyone actually doing this, unless you're driving, then do this, because this will be, this is a big aha for people when they get this. Yeah. All right. You have the triangle? Yeah. Top of the triangle, I want you to write environment. Environment. Okay. Now, like a ladder, rungs all the way down, below that, we're going to go, I think, five levels. Below that, you want to write behavior. Okay. Behavior. Yep. Below that, you want to write capabilities. Capability. Okay. Below that, you want to write beliefs. Beliefs. Okay. Below that, you want to write identity. All right. Okay. Now, here's what happens. Let's go. We're in December. This is coming out January. Everybody's ramping up their business, setting their goals. New Year's resolutions, right? Well, research shows with New Year's resolutions by the third week of January, 92% of people have already fallen off track. Here's why. The environment is what you want to create in 2019. Let's choose a parallel metaphor for her working out. The environment is your body looking in the mirror. This is what I want. So when people want to change their environment, what they do is they say, well, what do I have to do? What behaviors are going to get me to the outcome that I want? So in January, they say, you know what? Okay. I don't like this extra 20 pounds they put on. I'm going to do something. I'm going to go to the gym. That's where most people start and most people stop. What no one ever asked is this. Well, okay. What capabilities do I need? What skills do I need to go to the gym five days a week? Hmm. And never ask that question. Then they never say, well, what do I believe about going to the gym five days a week? Because see, most people who don't go to the gym at all are habituated, not going to the gym. And they're actually unconscious belief is I don't like it. It's too much work. I don't have time. I'm too old. It's too hard to lose weight, et cetera. Then we have to look at, okay, well, what identity? Let's say that my environment is I want to be trim and fit. I want to be lean. I want to be a 32 inch waist trim fit and lean. Okay. Where we have to really go is what identity would someone have who has that body? Hmm. But if you notice here visually for all of you that have drawn this, where everyone starts is at the behavior level, not asking what capabilities do I need? What beliefs do I need? And how do I identify with this? And so what happens is because they start to behavior. Let's say at the identity level that's your person who can't stay committed, no matter what you always fall off track. When you try to go do something, which is going to the gym, you're going to be, you're going to be side swiped by the identity that says, you know what? You never stay on track anyway. And that's why you'll start to behavior. You'll use real power, which is a fixed resource. And then two or three days later, your bacterial behavior again. Hmm. Okay. Something applies to money and achievers. Same thing. So once again, we come back to identity drives everything. Identity drives everything. So for example, when I asked you earlier, like part of your identity is that you like music behind you on the wall. It's very evident to me. Yeah. It's a good music too. Thank you. But see that's also someone else could say that's crap music. But my identity is I like that kind of music. Right. So remember when I said liver and onions, you were someone you identify as someone who doesn't like liver and onions. Yeah. Let's dig deeper. How many cigarettes did you smoke today? Zero. Zero. Okay. I didn't either. But how come you didn't smoke any identity, man? You're not a smoker, right? But if you're a smoker, you smoke cigarettes. Now, let's go back to Virginia Cook. So she's like, Jim, my agents don't get it is that to be successful. You've, and we've heard all this in the motivational stuff, but people don't really, they don't understand it. To be successful in the world, I first have to be a success in my mind. One more step here. Sun Zhu said, I'm going to mingle this. But he said that a victorious warrior wins in his mind and then goes to battle. A defeated warrior goes to battle and then tries to win. Let's look at L.O.'s and let's look at real estate agents. They're not successful in their mind first and especially about money. And then they get a battle to their listing presentations and their consults and everything. But in their mind, they're broke, which sabotages them. If they're rich in their mind and their capabilities, they will be rich in the external world, which is the experience. I love that, I love that. So many thoughts are flown in my head right now. Yeah, sure. Because I'm conscious of the time as well when we want to wrap up in just a few minutes. But I wrote something down from, this is, I think, as long as the same line of what we're talking about. You said, if I'm correct, could be paraphrasing. Forget about your why. Yeah. I've seen, thank you for that. I tend to be somebody who breaks a lot of molds for people. It's a big one I've used, man. What's your why? You know, because the old saying was your why, you have a big enough why you'll figure out the how. Right. Okay. So break that down. Well, let me, let me go here. Have you ever heard before the study that was done at Yale University in 1958, where they actually serve at all the students, what are your goals? Do you write them down? 20 years later, the 3% who wrote them down made more than the other 97% combined. Yeah. Okay. So a lot of people have heard that and never happened. So that's people false. It's false. Yeah, never happened. So people are just perpetuating all this information, the same thing with the why. Or because they don't understand how the brain and the unconscious mind works. People work with external motivation, not how the brain works. And therefore people don't achieve their goals and they go to all these events and pay all this money. And they don't get anywhere with it. Okay. Here's the thing. If you need a why, and I'm going to go two places with this, if you need a why to achieve your goal, it's not a goal because you're saying, you know what? I really want that over there, but I need to remind myself over here why I want that over there, which means what you want over there is not compelling enough. So for most people, a why is analytical. Let me just go through my analytical thinking. Okay. Now I think, oh, yeah, yeah, I got it. Now I know why I want that. And I have seen people also go in a circle here in Texas, the Texas Aggies, there's a joke. If you want to drive an Aggie crazy, put him in a round room and tell him to sit in the corner. Okay. So people go their entire lifetime, what is my why? What is my why? What is my why? What is my why? What is my why? And I tell people, stop looking for your why and stop because it's analytical. And start asking yourself, what makes me matter? Because that's emotional. That's what drives us. So what makes me matter? So for me, I change lives at a very transitional level. What makes me matter? What makes me matter? Yeah. M-A-T-T-E-R. What makes me matter? Because that's power. That's emotional. That's not an analytical answer. The why is always an analytical answer. So I can buy the house where I can be number one or put my kids through college. But yet, I've seen people say, well, I do what I do. My why is put my kids through college. Yet, they don't increase their income at all. Two, three, four, five years. They do a 10% yearly increase. But on top of that, most people, and I worked heavily in the mortgage and real estate industry. Most people don't develop their skills. And especially their internal skills, they follow the economy. The economy goes up. They all go up. The economy comes down. They all tank. Because they're actually responding and living from something external, which is the environment. And is that why then we see people who do well in any market because of the identity? Correct. When I used to actually coach team leaders, sales leaders, one of the questions I'd say I want you to ask an interview with Jess. If the economy is good, I would say, what do you think about the economy going bad? If the economy is bad, I would say, what do you think about the economy? The reason why is I want to know if their answer is an external answer or an internal answer. Top producers will always say, I don't care what happens in the economy. I'm still going to do well. People that aren't top producers will say, you know what? I'll try harder. I'll adjust my marketing. I'll do this. All things outside of themselves. People that are top producers and I've coached on Wall Street. I've coached movie stars. I've coached real estate and I've coached. Yeah, it doesn't industry. People that are really successful will be successful no matter what's happening in the external world. And that is identity. And that is because with identity becomes those three things. They're committed, they have responsibility and self integrity. Yes and no. Let's go a little deeper here. You can have, for example, part of your identity could be that you're very committed with things. But another part of your identity could be is that you're not self integral. And self intent. Well, I'm going back up. I just conquered myself because those are actually complimentary. Okay, those are independent individual characteristics. It doesn't mean you're going to have all four in your identity. Okay. Because somebody, for example, I think what's important is to be a visionary. Now, you could be very committed, but have no vision. So you're not achieving what you could achieve. Those are each one that I gave you is an independent characteristic of identity. Doesn't it? You can have them all. You might not have them all. You don't need all three to, you know, be who you want to be or whatever, achieve. I would say the number one that you need is. Two. I'm going to give you two. Two that I think are indispensable. A hundred percent responsibility. A hundred percent responsible. And a hundred percent self integral. There was some research done at Harvard University by Dr. Michael Jenkins. I believe his name is many years ago. And he said this is one of the most overlooked principles in business is the concept of self integrity. Self integrity is that you do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it. What they've discovered at Harvard Business School studying, long term studying, is that when you do what you say you're going to do, your productivity will go up anywhere from one to five hundred percent, which means you will at least double your income to five times in your income with no additional input. However, I know the numbers because again, I've done this for a long time and I put all my students' assessments. Most will come in at what I call 90 70. When I give my word to other people, I keep it 90 percent of the time. When I give my word to myself, I only keep it 70 percent of the time. Well, if you only keep your word to yourself in school, that would be C. That would be an average score. If you only keep your word to yourself 70 percent of the time, then how can you expect to knock it out of the part when you don't keep your word to yourself? And that could be, I'm going to prospect three days a week, I'm going to work out three days a week, I'm going to contact ten new contacts a week, whatever it is, people don't keep their word. Why? Because you let the external world knock them off track. They don't keep their word and therefore they go right back to their old behaviors again. Michael Phelps, hang on here, Michael Phelps, you know who he is, we all know who he is. On 60 minutes, I don't know if it's true or not, but in seven years his coach said he mispractice how many times? My first gut reaction was once, but then zero popped in my heart. Zero. So that is, that's all three, isn't it? It can be, and you're getting stuck on all three, but what I look at is what are the personal characteristics that drive you? I've got an extra ten minutes, let's go here or something. Okay. A Navy seal once said, I don't know if I read this or one of my clients told me, a Navy seal said that he was going to run three miles a day. What happened is a couple of weeks then he got sick and he said to himself, am I going to stay in bed because I have the flu or am I going to run today? He got up and ran because he said that's what he said he would do. He said he'd recover from the illness, but he wouldn't recover from actually breaking his word to himself. And this is something where I can't tell you everyone listening. I want you to look at your own life. I can't tell you the amount of people that say things. I'm going to prospect. I'm going to lead generate. I'm going to do my yearly plan. I'm going to do this. I don't do it. Then this becomes unconscious behavior. We need to keep going with this because this is vital. So what if you're in business with somebody, you're, you've got a business partner and they say, you know what? Jeff, I'm going to do it on Monday. They don't do it. I'm going to do it on Wednesday. They don't do it. I'm going to do it next Monday. They don't do it. This goes for two weeks. What do you start to believe about them? Yeah. They're not a person of their word. They're not going to do it. Okay. So every time you give yourself your word and you don't keep it, you literally train yourself that it doesn't matter if I give my word or not because I'm not going to keep it anyway. Now, bring that in the business. I'm going to prospect on Monday. Oh crap. I got behind that and do it. I'll pick up Wednesday. Nope. Didn't do it on Wednesday. I'll do it right. Don't do it. This becomes a decades-long cycle for people because they've trained themselves that they don't need to listen to what they say and they don't value their word. All right. Then can we briefly close out on how someone can be have more self-integrity so they do become that person? Absolutely. Everything's habit. When I say that, people, I know you're nodding, but people don't get. Research demonstrates that up to 95% of what we do is brain-based habit. So if you're not a committed person, it's not because there's a moral value about you being a bad person of any kind. It's because you've learned not to be committed. When it's simple, my dad is an alcoholic. So I grew up and my earlier is watching my dad say, I'm going to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. My dad never did any of it. So what he taught me is it's okay to say that I'm going to do it and not be committed and not doing it. So that's what I learned. It depends on what we learn early on. So if we find that we're not committed, and let's say this, and that's a valuable characteristic and way of being, you start small. I would, if I was coaching somebody, I'd say download the app. It's called commit to three. It's free. You do three small things every single day and make them small. You actually, as simple as us, make your bed every single morning. And I'm just picking one arbitrarily. So you put the dishes away into this washer before you leave. Something that's actually easy enough, that's not work to do. And you start teaching yourself how to be committed. So what you want to look at, everyone listening, I'm going to ask you a simple question. What would be the number one way of being or characteristic that you could master that would get you to follow through and what it is and the things that you want to do in your business? Now, start small and start working like a muscle and building that characteristic and commitment and self integrity. Keeping your word when you say you're going to do it. Well, commitment, you can get committed to three. Self integrity would be, you know what? Never speak a word out of your mouth unless you're actually going to do what you speak. Because now, you're reconditioning the unconscious mind. Those are two of the, they sound very simple. And every one of you listening now, you might be thinking, oh, I get it, I get it, I get it, I'm telling you. I've worked with Olympic athletes. I've worked with billionaire CEOs. It's brain-based. It's not external motivation. It's brain-based. We have to recondition the identity. We have to recondition behaviors. One more thing here that I tell a lot of my students is what we're going to use the word visualized or imagery. What you visualize over and over and over is what you program your unconscious mind with. So to keep this really simple, without going in depth, every one of you can go to Amazon, get a book. It's really simple. It's 100 years old. No one knows who wrote it. It's called It Works. The book will take you about 20 minutes to read. It's a really short book. The author is, I think, R-H-J or something like that. The title of the book is It Works. What he has you do, which you probably read and think can grow rich. And the morning, and this is because of brain wave function also. And the morning you open your eyes, first thing you do is you imagine what it is you want to create. At lunch, close your eyes, imagine what it is you want to create. At night before bed, right before you go to sleep, close your eyes, hear, see and feel. The operative word is feeling because the unconscious mind works on feeling. What would you see? Who would you be? How would you feel if you already made 250,000 a year? You do that over and over and over with gentle repetition. Now you're reprogramming your subconscious paradigm. Got it. Okay, cool. And I'm going to put links in the show notes to all that to the app, to the book. It works. And speaking of links in the show notes before we close out, if anybody wants to connect with you, where would you like to send them? My name, Jim Fortin.com. Easy enough, right? Yep, easy enough. I've got a podcast coming live January the first. And we dig into all of this and go much deeper in the podcast. Yeah, and I have to say, I've been, I've been since you and I originally talked. I've been following your content. It's good stuff, man. Your Instagram is just like, I mean, you've got lessons on your Instagram. We just sit there and you look at it. You're like, oh, my God, wow, really? That's my intention. That is my intention to get people to really, really think at a higher level outside, outside of just what we've been. We all, people will say to me, I used to be a hypnotist, which is better than endorsed. And people will say, is it hard to get people into hypnosis? No, that's easy. It's hard to get people out of hypnosis from what they've been programmed by our culture. And especially for all of us here about money, because we've been programmed. It's hard and it's not easy. I walked into a poor stewardship last week. I grew up poor, shit, I mean, we had all beat up cars. I walked into a poor stewardship last week and just made an impulse buy on a Porsche. That's who I am this day and age because I can do that. But I had this shift that identity from we have to work hard for everything and we can't have that. And everyone listening is no different than me. It's the programming that comes out on us and we have to shift the programming. No, I get it, man. I've been doing some of that self-work too. It's like, you know, be open to the possibility of things just flowing to you. That's where I work from. I know we have to go in a bit, but here I want to give you guys something else. I tell all of my students to read this book, all of my one-to-one's and my coaching students. There is a book and I think it's a, what's the, when I author writes a book and it's not their real name, what do they call it? A pseudonym? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's a book called... Pen. Okay. Dollars float to me easily. Okay. And it's a paradigm shift for most people. And where I used to work from and you'll learn in the book, where I used to, I didn't learn this from the book, but the book just solidifies it so well. I learned this from my brother-in-law a lot of years ago. And where most people work from is that money comes from work. Money does not come from work. Money comes from the universe. It comes from consciousness and energy. And to prove that, if you ever had a time in your life, especially all of you L.O.'s, where you're just sitting at your desk, somebody calls you and goes, Hey, my name is Bob Smith. You don't know me, but I talked to Joe Smow. Joe said, I got to call you. Boom. A 3,000-dollar commission falls right in your lap. But you didn't know work to get Joe Smow calling you. The universe brings this money and the universe responds to our consciousness. This is not woo-woo. This is even quantum physics. Right. So if you vibrate, which means you feel poor, it'll attract more of that. You feel wealthy. You will attract more of that back in your experience. Awesome. We get them planning to think about today. We certainly did. And plenty of resources to go buy, download, whatever, you know, the books and all that stuff. So I'm going to put the links in the show notes. Thank you for helping us kick off 2019 to become more of who we want to be at our best. Absolutely. Thank you for the invite. You bet. Listers, as always, thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, please let us know. Give us a little love on the podcast ratings. And we appreciate you. We'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Okay. Okay. And as an extra bonus for limited time for all new members, you'll get access to a database of 200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere to from eight to 50 transactions in the last 12 months. And we'll provide that list uploaded into our platform for you. So you can get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for? You can check out more at mortgagemarketing.pro, see more of the success stories there. And if you feel compelled to do so, book a call. We'll have a chat. We'll see if it's a fit. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now. Head over to mortgagemarketing.pro.