Ep# 43: The Six Lies of Success

Geoff walks through 'The Six Lies of Success' drawn from Gary Keller and Jay Papasan's book 'The ONE Thing,' applying each lie to mortgage originators. Best for LOs who feel scattered, overworked, and unable to prioritize the activities that actually grow their business.

Takeaways you can run this week

• Audit your calendar for last week: highlight every task that directly produced a referral or new agent conversation. If that's under 20% of your time, restructure tomorrow's schedule so your #1 revenue-producing activity (e.g., agent outreach, class hosting) is the first 90-minute block of your morning.
• Stop multitasking during prospecting calls: phone face-down, email closed, one tab open. Set a 30-minute timer and make only outbound calls during that window — studies cited in the episode show multitasking extends task completion time significantly.
• Pick ONE new habit to install this week (e.g., sending 5 video texts to agents every morning). Commit to it for 66 days — the episode frames discipline as only needed until a habit forms, so front-load the effort and let the routine take over.
• Schedule your single most important daily task (calls, class prep, agent meetings) before 10 a.m. when willpower is highest. Treat your energy like a phone battery: full in the morning, depleted by afternoon — don't waste peak charge on email or processing fires.
• Communicate your 'out of balance' periods explicitly: tell your team and family 'For the next 5 days I'm focused on [specific goal]. After Friday I'm fully available.' This keeps personal relationships intact during business sprints.
• If agent referrals are your identified 'one thing,' commit to teaching one agent class per month using a done-for-you format (topics from the episode include video marketing, millennial marketing, content marketing, Facebook) — this puts the law of large numbers in your favor without cold calling.

The playbook

1. 1. Identify your ONE thing: ask 'What is the single activity that, if I did it, everything else in my business becomes easier or unnecessary?'
2. 2. Time-block that activity first thing each morning when willpower (your 'battery') is fully charged.
3. 3. Apply just enough discipline to repeat the activity daily until it becomes automatic habit (the episode cites the smoker/drinker analogy — habits require no discipline).
4. 4. Separate life into two buckets — Work and Personal — and counterbalance differently: go long out-of-balance in work, go short out-of-balance in personal life.
5. 5. Think big: set a goal above what feels comfortable, then ask 'Who do I need to become to achieve this?' and reverse-engineer the habits.
6. 6. Embrace failure as data: when an approach fails (agent lunch no-shows, cold calls ignored), stop, evaluate, adjust, and re-engage.

Worth quoting

“Magic never happens in the middle. Magic happens at the extremes.”

“Success is a short race, a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for a habit to kick in.”

Best for

LOs who feel perpetually busy but end each day without having moved their most important business-building activity forward.