And welcome to Mike Ferry TV. The week of April 28th, 2025. Have you ever noticed that as we get a little older in life, as we become more mature, time seems to go by a lot quicker? You know, at age 21, we think we’re going to live forever, thought we have forever to do what we want to do. And then all of a sudden, the next day you’re 41 and you think the same thing, and the next day you’re 61. So, understand that the skills we’re talking about are easier to learn when we’re young, because we don’t have as much going on in our heads. But as we get older, there’s more information available, and it’s a little bit harder to define some of those skills. So, there are three more skills that Tracy Stein talked about in that great article on things that you can do to become more successful forever. And then I’ve added three to those and we’ll see how we do by the end of our short Mike Ferry TV today.

19) The ability to master and control your thoughts

So, number 19 from Tracy Stein, the ability to master your thoughts, or I like to think that the ability to master and control your thoughts. What goes in here and what goes in here comes out in our actions and the words that we use. So being able to master our thoughts allows us to always present on a more positive or more enthusiastic level in terms of our conversation, communication and presentation. So, mastering your thoughts requires that we restrict what goes in so we can control what comes out. Master your thoughts.

20) The ability to create words to persuade and influence others

Number 20 on his list. The ability to create words to persuade and influence others. And I thought about this one a lot when I when I read this the first time about two months ago. The ability to write words to persuade and influence others. The easiest way to learn to influence a person in a sales presentation, whether it be to a buyer or a seller, is to ask a lot of questions. So therefore, if you take and say to yourself, I’m going to learn the master and become a master of asking questions. Just take a piece of paper like I have in my hand. Take a pen and start writing down. What do you normally say to a buyer or seller in terms of a presentation to persuade them to buy or sell from you versus somebody else? Then look at those words that you wrote carefully, and then turn that words sentence into a question. Because a question is much more persuasive when you engage another party in a conversation. Polymerization communication, so we can become much more persuasive by asking questions than we probably will ever be from just in communicating and telling people what we think.

21) The ability to ask for help

And the last thing that Tracy had on this list of 21 great ideas was the ability to ask for help. Because the truth is, everybody needs somebody to assist them in the process of growth, whether it be a grade school teacher, a middle school teacher, a high school teacher, a college professor, whether it be mom and dad, whether it be a couple of good buddies, whether it be a mastermind group, accountability partners, role play partners, a great broker, a great manager, you know, a great consultant, a coach like myself. Everybody needs help. But the hardest part is asking for it because as I said earlier, now you have to eliminate the ego from this whole conversation. So, the ability to ask for help. And then I wrote down. And then from yours truly, here’s three more thoughts.

22) The ability to laugh at yourself and what you do

The ability to laugh at yourself and what you do. Because we all make mistakes. We all do things that probably we shouldn’t have said. Or we get halfway through a sentence and realize we’re talking to somebody different than who we thought we were talking to. You know, we all make mistakes. And if you can learn to laugh at yourself versus being so tough on yourself. Now, granted, we make mistakes and then we learn from them, and we move forward. But some of the stuff we do, if you can’t laugh at yourself. Trust me, somebody is laughing at you. And it’s better to have them laughing with you than at you.

23) The ability to rebound quickly

The next thing I wrote down the ability to rebound quickly. We’re going to have setbacks. This, for example, let’s take 2025 this year of real estate. January was one of the worst months we’ve seen in probably 8 or 10 years. February was medium to getting a little better. March was a very strong month. But what I tell people is we have to remember that March also was the longest month of the three in terms of days to work. So, the ability to rebound quickly means what are we going to do in April? It’s almost the month is almost finished as the week of the 28th. Did you have more success, more listings taken, more contracts written? Watch the ability to rebound quickly from a poor first quarter to a great second quarter, or something as simple as the ability to rebound quickly from calling a past client who is upset about something totally different going on in their life. And they take it out, take it out on you to calling on Expired listing who won’t even listen to you and hangs up on you. How quickly can you go to the word next, because that’s one four letter word that always propels us forward.

24) The ability to understand that you’re not always right in every conversation

And the last thought I wrote down to the ability to understand that you’re not always right in every conversation, the agents that have to be right with the buyer and seller are the agents that have the most trauma and drama involved in their transactions. You don’t have to be right. What you have to do is make sure that what you’re saying benefits the buyer and seller, and the end result, which is getting a contract signed for a buyer or seller. But so often you’ll hear the argumentative tone that people use in conversations because they’re trying to prove that they’re right. Listen, folks, it’s not who’s right, it’s what’s right. And if we can get into our minds, the most important thing with the buyer and seller is to say, this is the best thing that I can see for you. Do you understand what I’m saying? Do you see where I’m coming from? Do you understand what I’m trying to accomplish? To help you get what you’re trying to accomplish? So, giving up on having to be right is critically important. So, I wrote down, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this series with a little break from Tony Smith in the middle of it. Um, that Tracy Stein, I read something from him almost every day. Um, if you’re on LinkedIn, he is very active on LinkedIn, and I think it’s something that you would enjoy. So, let’s make sure we finish April strong because May, June, July, August are going to be great months in spite of the economy, in spite of interest rates, in spite of the marketplace. They’re going to be great because you’re great and you’re going to demonstrate that. So, let’s get out and get it done. Thanks for today.