One of the most valuable gifts you can offer is access to your professional network. If you don’t think of this as one of the core services, you’re missing an opportunity. But, how you do it matters. Connecting someone to your network can be done with a forgettable introductory email or with a memorable demonstration of professionalism.  

Every day our clients face an onslaught of disconnected market information and advice. The national news trumpets the latest rate hike or unemployment stats. Talk show guests debate recession and affordability. These bits of information are sliced into eye-grabbing videos and provocative headlines on social media. It adds up to an overwhelming amount of information that doesn’t make anyone informed. Meanwhile, your seller’s coworker shares how badly prices have fallen in the past few months in her hood. And their favorite podcaster prescribes renting over buying.

I hope you’re kicking off your year by building the  #1 habit I recommend.  I want to continue that theme this week. Here’s a fact: the team that wins the championship and the team that slumps into last place shared the same goal. They both wanted to win every game. They both set out to win it all. But one succeeded and one failed. What do champions do that others don’t? They focus on building habits and systems that naturally lead to their goal.

Our team at The ONE Thing  has helped thousands take the 66-Day Challenge™ to build powerful habits in their lives. Today, I want to share the most impactful habit we’ve found in the past six years.

We’re down to the final two weeks of 2022. That means just two more editions of the TwentyPercenter before 2023. This week, the call to action is to turn your experiences into insights. Next week, I’ll share the most powerful habit I’ve found to kickstart your year.

I thought that 2020 would be the year the real estate market crashed. When Covid hit, I bemoaned the fact that I’d gotten lax with my finances. I regretted that my database had been neglected. Eleven years of growth had led to sloppy habits and a messy business.

You’re making your list and checking it twice. Gotta figure out who gets what and at what price. Is gift-giving at work making you frown? This week, I’d like to share a hack to take the head-scratching out of professional gift-giving. That said, I have no answers for what to get your mother-in-law.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Blumenstein, Astro Teller, captain of Moonshots for Alphabet's X, asked this question: “If I was to tell you that we’re gonna to try and get a monkey up on a ten foot pedestal to give a Shakespeare monologue, which do you think we should do: train the monkey first or build the pedestal first?"

I recently caught up with Laura Gillott. Laura’s team is based in Lebanon, Oregon, a town of about 17,000. Nevertheless, her team sold 552 homes for $196M in volume this past year. For 30 years, Laura has been serving her corner of the Willamette Valley and a huge part of her team’s success comes from client events. They host about two per month, anchored around the biannual Pie Days for Thanksgiving and Independence Day. This year she gave out over 1,000 pies and received 65 referrals!

Four times a year, we mastermind with our top agents from around the globe. We send invites to the top 250 teams and individuals. Of the 180,000 real estate agents in our company, these superstars represent the top 0.3%. This week, I’m sharing my favorite ahas from our most recent gathering.