Experiencing Deep Growth in December

The holidays are a great time to be together with those we love the most. They are also a great time for us to become a better version of ourselves, prepared to create a better year than previous years.

Here I share Waze you can utilize the holiday trifecta in order to set yourself up for deep growth in December.

FULL AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION: 

Justin Stoddart 0:01
So the big question is this. How do we those of us in the real estate industry with crazy amounts of ambition? How do we think bigger than the building of our own empires? How do we simultaneously see success and significance, income and impact? My name is Justin Stoddard. And this is the Think bigger real estate Show.

Welcome back to the Think bigger real estate Show. I’m your host, Justin Stoddart, here with a unique episode of the of the show. Today, I’m gonna be talking about something that I’m very passionate about, which is personal growth. You see this time of year is really interesting time of year, as we come to the close of an entire year, we now look to a new year, right? It’s December 1 today that, that I’m actually recording this, not sure exactly when you’re reading this, or actually when you’re listening to this. But I think all of us in the month of December, everybody that I know that’s growth oriented starts to take some time to devote to thinking about what’s happened in the past year. And what they want to have happen in the next year. In fact, just this morning, I was on a business planning session with 52 other ambitious professionals who want next year to be better than this year. And it’s just reflective of the overall mood and sentiment that we’re all in, which is we all want to grow, we all want to be better. We all want to be accomplishing more in the upcoming year. So today, I’m going to talk specifically about deep growth. You see, it’s very, very common for us to talk about personal growth. But I believe that there’s a bit of a fallacy as to what growth really looks like that oftentimes, we do what’s called shallow work. And that many of you have maybe heard of the book by Cal Newport called deep work. Well, I’m going to, as a tribute to to Cal, and the great work that he did in writing that book, I’m going to pivot off of that and talk about deep growth. All too often. Again, we do shallow work, and all too often we do shallow growth. And so today we’re going to talk about deep growth. In the book, Deep Work by Cal Newport. He outlines like, like most of us were probably easily distracted by wandering thoughts, or social media updates while trying to be productive. When in Cal’s book, deep work, he teaches us how to develop our focus, and resist distractions, so you can rise to the top of your field and drive toward your most important goals. He contends that focus is like a mental muscle. And that’s in our ADHD world today. We have gotten very lazy in our ability to do deep work, that it’s oftentimes very shallow.

And therefore we never really pull on the complete cognitive abilities that we have, because we’re always interrupted, we’re always pulled from what it is that we’re doing. And he goes into talk about the importance of shutting off a lot of the distractions, so that we can focus on deep work so that we can actually move to the limits of what our cognitive abilities actually are. You think about much of the great work, most important work that’s done in the world. It’s, it’s no longer lifting heavy things. It’s no longer muscle strength, its mental strength, it’s knowledge. We are knowledge brokers, those of us that are in professional, professional based businesses, we are being paid for our knowledge and the results that that knowledge brings. And so if it’s true, that knowledge is the key, then Cal Newport really strikes on a pretty deep chord, when he says that most humans never really get to the, to the cognitive, even close to the cognitive abilities that lie within them, because they’re too easily distracted by shallow work, or both, or by practices and distractions that would promote shallow work. So with that being out of the foundation of what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to go deeper than deep work. We’re gonna talk about deep growth today. So I’m excited to share some thoughts with you again,

I’ve been a student of personal growth, probably ever since I was introduced to Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I read that book actually listened to it had the CDs that I carried around in my car, I’m just dating myself right there. And I uncovered the fact that there was something unique about this concept that I could grow myself and I quickly became attracted to anybody Add in anything, any resource that told me that my possibilities were endless, that I did not have to be limited by the person I was at that time, referencing back to the business planning session that I did earlier today, went through and created a pretty RoboHelp agency create a pretty robust plan for themselves. And then at the end, I said, here’s the bad news is that the plan that you just created, you are not going to achieve being the person that you were last year, you’re going to have to become somebody different. But I said, here’s the good news is that you absolutely can become somebody different.

Somebody knew somebody better. And that’s true for all of us. And hence I was attracted and drawn to sources. And people who told me that, that I could be somebody different that I could be somebody better. And I’ve since joined those same ranks of being somebody who wants to not just whisper but yell at people and have at people’s their right term. But I want to, I want to inspire in them, the reality, the truth, that they can change that they can be better, that they don’t have to be the person they were before. It’s probably reminding you of a famous Christmas movie, in which Scrooge becomes somebody different and believes he can become somebody different.

On that note, on this topic of deep growth, I believe that there’s five key areas in which we need to grow. And oftentimes, we just tend to focus on the ones that are very visible, right, it’s time for health goals, because we don’t like how we look in a swimsuit. We we talk about business goals, because we don’t like the car that we drive or the home that we live in, or the carpet that we walk on. Right. We are driven, oftentimes a very superficial things. And today, I want to talk to you more about deep growth, again, going down a similar vein is Cal Newport when he talked about deep work. Today, we’re gonna talk about deep growth. So there are five key areas in which I believe that we all need to be growing in order to to truly experience deep growth. Number one body we need to be healthy.

Jim Rohn once said that, if you don’t take care of your body, where are you going to live. And that is absolutely true. Although it tends to be as I mentioned before, one that’s kind of the easiest one to set goals around because it’s the most obvious to us and all the people around us, if we’re not healthy. It’s also there’s there’s deep underlying repercussions if we’re not healthy. I think over the past couple of years living through a pandemic, we’ve come to realize that, that health is first and foremost, essential to life, let alone a good life. So, deep growth includes having not just superficial like I want to see how big my biceps can get. But growth really around how healthy how capable am I as a dad, I used to never think that I would be that guy, when my kids said, Let’s go play dad, or come on, like get down here and wrestle with us that I would I would have the thought of like, I love to do that. But I think my knees hurt too much.

Now there’s some yoga, some things that I can do and we’ll be doing in the coming months to correct that where I won’t be complaining about my knees hurting. It sounds like such an old guy thing to say doesn’t it. But all of us need to be be aware of and setting goals around our bodies keeping us from doing things that we other otherwise would like to do. Our bodies keeping us from feeling about ourselves how we would need to feel to be successful in other areas say self confidence is such a big indicator. It’s such a such a big foundation to everything else that we do. And if we look in the mirror, we don’t like what we see. And we know that we can change it we know that we can be different. That takes takes a toll on us. So first and foremost, deep growth includes body being healthy, being fit, being capable and able to do the things that allow us to be uniquely who we are, and be uniquely on the mission that inspires us and helps us to feel like we are doing the work that we were designed to do. The next area after body is our heart. Okay, so think about heart in terms of emotions that when you feel your relationships.

I was listening this morning to a spiritual mentor and he talked about at a funeral. How people don’t talk at funerals about what kind of house or houses that somebody had, what their particular positions were in business. at a funeral, they don’t talk about how much money you had in the bank account. It’s just not that important. And if it’s not that important at the end of our lives, maybe it’s not that innocent. Right now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t, that those things are bad. You shouldn’t have nice houses, nice cars, lots of money. I think those are all great things. As long as they don’t take the place of stuff that will be discussed at your funeral stuff that ultimately does matter. Like the relationships, are you devoting proper time and attention and this attention starved world to truly be great with the people you love?

Would the people that who you love the most, would they say that you are really there for them? Or maybe you just check in in the evenings, while you go back to checking your phone. I say this because it stings a little bit. I’ve been guilty of this fact, just recently. It’s my daughter’s 15th Birthday just a few days ago. And I spent too much time on my phone like an actor’s I didn’t feel good about myself. I felt like I was doing important stuff. But I knew at that moment that I needed to let go and focus on her. And I didn’t, and it was pretty awful. She didn’t say anything. But my guess is if somebody else would have asked her, she probably would have felt that I could have been a better dad at that time. Now, thankfully, I’m still here. And that wasn’t her last memory of me, I can be better. But I would encourage you to think about your key relationships. And are you really committed to growing? In them? Is your heart centered on the right things? Which ought to be the people that you love the most? The next area after? After heart is mind? Are you growing? In your mind? I talked a little bit at the start of this, this episode about deep work. And I think that correlates with having deep mental growth.

Are you just stimulating your mind? Or are you really growing your mind? What I mean by that is oftentimes social media when we’re not intentional about it, we’re not following people that really grow us and move us and hopefully, I’m one of those people for you, who does grow you and who does move you. But we just we snacking, somebody who I have huge respect for in life. Not very active on social media. And I said, tell me why. He said, it just feels like a steady diet of junk food. And he said, I prefer to have better, better nutrients for my mind, better nutrition for my mind. And I think there’s there’s a lot of wisdom in that. And I think social media has a place for getting your message out and serving people and being attuned to what’s happening in their lives, but also think it can be overdone. And are we getting all of our information from kind of junk food? Are we getting it from sources that are tried to untested, for you to grow at the level that you can grow? Having deep growth, you need to check your sources? Number one, be sure that they’re people that you want to be following people that you admire in all areas of life. But number two, are you are you just having a steady diet of junk food? Or is this is this really growing your value in the world in the marketplace?

The next area, we’ll talk about his spirit. Now, I’m a very religious person, church is very important to me, my faith is is essential foundation. I’m not saying that that needs to be that way for you. You get to choose for yourself what what spirit looks like for you. For some people, they get a deep spiritual connection by being out in nature. They have a relationship with with the universe, right? For me, it’s a very personal relationship with a heavenly father with with God, who, again, to me is more than just some abstract being. He’s literally my, my father in heaven. And so that’s what that means for me. For you. I don’t know what that means. But I believe that you need to spend some time to uncover that and discover that what that means for you. Because as you get clear on who or what that is, then things get easier and more purposeful. And you start to tie it all together. You know, science does a very good job of, of describing kind of the, the what. But it doesn’t do a good job of describing the why it has no clue on the why.

And so I would encourage you that part of deep growth includes having a spiritual connection to something bigger than you. It could even be a cause. You can get very spiritual, that contribution to some cars that you deeply care about. That could be a part of the picture or it could be the majority of the picture. I don’t know. That’s for you to decide. That’s for you to spend some time developing a spiritual life. If that’s an essential part of deep growth is having something some deep inner connection to something bigger than you. The last, the last step of deep growth, his enterprise, business, and finances, right, we sometimes again, this gets talked about often and frequently, because it’s the most obvious and the one that’s oftentimes in front of us, and oftentimes can limit us very directly if we don’t have the funding to do what we want to do.

But I believe it’s deeper than that. When you look at by mind, heart and spirit is their alignment with your enterprise, do you bring nothing you need to be in the health business and the spiritual business, but is there an overall alignment between who you are at the core, the things that are important to you with what you do for a living, because once you get in alignment with that, then business gets much more rewarding. It doesn’t feel like a grind, or we kind of live in this hustle culture, let’s get up and grind Monday, it’s time to grind. I don’t think it needs to be that way. I don’t think it needs to be a grind, I think it can be very deeply fulfilling. Not saying it’s always that way. It’s not like there’s things that you have to do. Or I’m not saying that you’re going to love everything that you do. But the overall work that you do is in alignment with something that inspires you something that’s meaningful to you, something that you’re proud of, and the impact that it leaves upon other people. And along with enterprise, again, is the ability to make a profit and to build wealth. So that when you’re done working, you can actually be done working.

So you can contribute in bigger ways other people, whether you’re a fan of the Uber wealthy or even the wealthy at all, whether you want to be one or you despise I believe that the more that good people can create wealth, and build wealth, the better the world will be. Like, if you’re really upset about the way the world is, or some part of the world, then create wealth and contribute toward causes that that correct that. It’s hard to really have big influence and big impact when you’re broke. So enterprise is a key part of you, fulfilling your mission, who you really are what you’re about. Now want to talk quickly. These are the five areas of deep growth, body, mind, heart, spirit, enterprise, body, mind, heart, spirit, enterprise, good, not necessarily in that order. But those are five areas that if you really want experience deep growth, they need to be present, you need to be able to consider at each of those. Now, I want you to consider here that we’re we’re in what I call the holiday trifecta, three major holidays. There’s Thanksgiving, right?

There’s Christmas, or maybe you celebrate Hanukkah, and there’s New Year’s, I’ll use Christmas, I’m a Christian. So Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. And however, or if you celebrate these at all, I still believe that you can look to the even if you don’t, you can look to the overall theme and spirit of these holidays. And take something from this even if you don’t celebrate. Okay, so Thanksgiving, obviously a season of thanks, we’ll look at the definition of thanks of thankful it’s a conscious that’s been conscious of benefit received and aware of all that you have.

So Thanksgiving creates a bit of a foundation for you to be able to do move on, right Without gratitude. It’s hard to really experience a lot of growth. If you’re, if you’re unaware of the fact that you’ve actually been given a lot. You’re very fortunate. It’s hard to actually have be in the right spirit mood to go do even more great things to actually experience growth. If you’re always feeling entitled that somebody wronged you and that you, you don’t have any benefit or blessings in your life. It’s gonna be tough. Start with gratitude. If you want to grow these five years deep growth will begin with having a deep sense of gratitude. Once you have that, it gets a lot easier.

The second holiday or the theme of Christmas is redemption, right? It’s the birth of a savior. Whether you believe that or not, that’s not the point. But the point is, what is redemption, right? It’s it’s serving to offset or compensate for a defect. It’s forgiveness. It’s empowerment, to overcome wrongs that have been committed. Right in the sense of Christianity. It’s a Savior who died for the sins of others. There was a defect that had been identified mankind was fallen. And Christ stepped in to redeem mankind. Again, this isn’t a theology lesson. But I want you to take that theme of redemption. Once you have gratitude in your heart. Now you can look for serving to offset or compensate for that defect to make wrongs make a right to forgive other people to forgive yourself. Okay, that’s really what I’m getting at here is it is hard to move forward and do great things, if you are holding grudges against other people. And if you’re holding a grudge against yourself, redemption needs to be made however, that looks like for you personally. There needs to be a redemption, cleaning of the slate, so that you can go forward, which is a perfect segue into the last holiday again, which will help you to do this, which is New Year’s, right, which is to be recently born new, a fresh slate brand new redemption helps you to get there.

Now you have it now you have a clear canvas, clear template on which you can build the life that you ultimately want in the upcoming year. So get into review, there’s five steps to deep growth, body mind, heart spirit enterprise, and you can use the holiday Trifecta having gratitude, redemption, meaning forgiveness, clearing the slate to then have the new slate of the new year be thinking about these holidays and how these can help you to experience deep growth.

Thank you for tuning in, whether you’re listening live, small audience listening live and and their audience and they will be listening to the recording. So thank you for that. Enjoy your holiday season. experience some deep growth don’t just be entertained this holiday season, but experience deep growth. And my final request of everybody listening here today are these three simple words and they are go think bigger. Thank you for joining us here today talk soon.

I want to thank you for tuning in to this episode of The Think Bigger Real Estate Show. If you found value here, I asked three things number one, give us a review. Number two, go to Facebook and in groups search Think Bigger Real Estate and apply to join. Here you will find a community of big thinking proessionals that will help you grow your income, your independence and your impact. And my third request is go Think Bigger.