In this fourth part of the six-episode special series, Jeffrey Saad and his business coach and mentor Steve Shull both become guests! Joining their host Madison Fitzpatrick, they dive into the crucial role of mindset in unlocking business success and achieving personal growth. They explore the concept of doing less to do more, the power of focusing on inner work, and writing your story according to your own terms. Jeffrey and Steve also talk about the importance of getting a coach, particularly in overcoming fear, shifting to a more positive mindset, and setting a purpose-driven course for your life.
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Conversations With My Coach (Part 4 of 6)
How Jeffrey And Steve Met
I have Steve Shull and Jeffrey Saad. Let’s set the stage here. Tell me the story of who you guys are, how you know each other and what are we doing here.
I walked into Coldwell Banker at Beverly Hills East. I was a new realtor. I have my little suit on. I thought I had to be interviewed and get hired. I didn’t realize anybody would take you anywhere because they have nothing to lose. I walk in and somebody literally says, “You got to meet this coach, Steve Shull. He’s intense, so be ready.” I still wish I could remember who it was because I owe them so much.
We sat down about that front office. I still remember that little glass office at Coldwell bank. Steve says something to the equivalent of, “What are you going to make this year? What do we want to do?” I was like, “I don’t know.” “What do you want to make? Pick a number. Let’s get started.” It was great. From that moment, I always loved that statement, “What gets measured gets done.” If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.
Steve was my instant GPS in the business. It was just like, “I’m going to do what he says because of what he’s talking about.” That was the next seven years straight, head down, one-on-one every week. I did exactly what he said and it was just a great journey. We became great friends as well and it’s just been magical.
Mindset As The Foundation Of Everything
That’s the thing. We’re not here to talk about real estate. You guys are both in the real estate business. You’ve both been in other businesses and professions. I’m not a real estate agent. I’m a writer. What we’re here to talk about is mindset and maybe particularly for people who are trying to build something for themselves. Whether it’s a business or a project, isn’t that right?
Mindset is the foundation of everything. What I like to say is, if you don’t get your head on straight, then nothing else matters. I don’t care how hard you’re working. Again, the real work is the inner work. That’s what most people don’t understand. They’re directing all their efforts toward the outside world and trying to rearrange the universe and guess what? That’s not going to happen. The place you got to start with is, what are you doing on the inside? That’s what this show is all about.
That’s what’s amazing about you, Steve, because in the early days it was all about the master of process and that’s where Steve and I clicked too because there is a map for everything. It’s like, “This and this. You will end up there. Done.” What’s amazing about you is that over the decades, you’ve realized what you just said which is like if you show up and do A, B, C and D, that’s no good if you’re not the best self, showing up.
A, B, C, and D will have a very different outcome based on how you show up on a project. The process alone isn’t enough. It has to be how you’re bringing yourself to the process. If two together then, all of a sudden, make the magic. We all live in the same city but if you talk to ten different people, you’re like, “Are we even in the same country the way you think compared to me?” There’s something else there that’s directing people.
Most people are not going to find that something on their own. That’s why you always say, everybody needs a coach because we need some guidance, guardrails, feedback, and practice.
You brought something up. For most of us, all we’re doing with our life is we’re chasing after comfort and trying to avoid pain. That’s all we’re doing. We’re just reacting to whatever’s happening in our life. Again, that’s just survival. For most of us, the thing that’s running our life is just fear. All we do all day long is think about what can go wrong and how we would deal with it. As you said, it hasn’t even happened. It probably won’t even happen and yet that’s what we’re doing all the time. Making up the next shoe that’s going to drop and then how that’s going to impact our life in a bad way.
Why Everyone Needs A Coach
I want to jump back because you just mentioned you’re a chef and you are a former NFL player. That’s why we were surrounded by cool memorabilia. This is not just stuff. This is his stuff. Steve, coaching has been a feature of your life since childhood, since you started playing competitive sports. A lot of people, myself included, go through life without a coach.
I’ve never had a coach. I don’t think. I’ve had a few instructors here and there. I’ve had professors. I’ve had maybe some people who I might be able to call a mentor on some level but not a coach. Talk to me about this idea that everyone needs a coach. What is a coach? What is coaching? Why do we need this?
There’s so many ways. Let’s start with, what is a coach? In my mind, my job is to position people for success based on who they are, where they are, and what they want. That’s how I view my job. The irony of sitting here and calling this everyone needs a coach. My big coach Don Shula, wrote a book with Ken Blanchard call Everyone’s a Coach. I coached my whole life and the reason being, I just had this thing inside of me. I always wanted to get better at whatever I was doing. Sports was my thing. My mom was always so nervous because I was so one-dimensional in what I wanted to do.
She said you changed your own diaper if you could.
My dad said, “If you could, you could change your own diapers.” I wasn’t drafted. I was what they call a free agent. I got a call to go down to Miami. At the time, I had a big perm, very long hair and all this.
Where are the pictures? We got to see this.
They’re good. Anyway, I go right to get my hair cut before I fly to Miami. I go down there and I get to training camp. Shula has been out for a run. He doesn’t have a shirt on and a little overweight. He’s sweating and got a little bit of a list. That was my introduction to him. Anyway, I was there for four years and what I love to say about him is, 365 days a year, he had one goal, win a Super Bowl. Never ever backed off that in any way, shape, or form.
Mindset is the foundation of everything. If you do not get your head on straight, nothing else matters. Share on XBeing around him, he was so relentless in terms of his pursuit of perfection. The interesting thing, I was watching a documentary not too long ago and I played in the ‘80s. I was listening to guys who played in the ‘70s and they were saying the same exact things that I say about Shula, “You want to keep them off your back? Be perfect.” If you weren’t, you would know about it.
It permeated the entire organization and this is where I’m evolving into. What I want to get into in my coaching practice deeper and deeper is training real estate agents as if they were professional athletes because football is a performance sport and so is real estate. In real estate, you don’t get paid for your time. You only get paid for your results. The irony is you’re not in control of the result. You’re not in control of the outcome. You have this thing that you’re up against.
I just want to jump in for a second and say that this is true of anybody who wants to run their own business. There is so much that you’re going to have to do to make your business run that nobody is going to give you an hourly wage for.
Only because I tried.
It don’t count.
It doesn’t pay the bills. Having been in that environment, one of the things you have to do in professional sports is you have to learn how to play under pressure because there’s pressure all the time. For me, my job and this is not an exaggeration anyway. My job is on the line every single day. I could get cut any single day of the week. People don’t realize that in professional sports. It’s happening every single day. I was on that bubble. I did get cut once and brought back. I experienced that.
You have to learn how to adjust to that. In real estate and many businesses, you’ve got to be able to think in the moment. We call it in football, read, react, and close. You’ve got to read the situation. You’ve got to know the best response given the situation, and then you have to make the play. The thing that I can still hear him saying on the sidelines, it still rings in my ear many years later, “Make the freaking play.” That was his big mantra and that’s what we were trained to do.
Lessons From Being Coached
Tell me about your experience being coached.What did it do for you?
What he did for starters is laid out the roadmap. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel off, oftentimes. It’s like, “Here’s the sixth thing, the building blocks, do it.” That’s it, so clearly and a path. As he said too, what he did for me was to understand me and tap into why I want what I want. Now I got the path and he understands how I am going to show up to that path.
The best thing of all is just keeping it real. I will never forget to tell the story a billion times. He’s like, “You want to be in Bel Air? Fine. Door knock in Bel Air. They’re not coming to the office. Sellers are living their houses.” I get my little suit on and I’m up and down the street. This other couple had a million signs there and people used to say, “They own the neighborhood.” I’m like, “They’re leasing.” For a year, I’m knocking and sweating.
I’ll never forget, I call Steve. I’m like, “This is ridiculous. I’ve got one lead. I look like a freaking Bible salesman or something walking. I’m sweating.” He listens in silence and he’s like, “Keep knocking,” and hangs up. That’s it. He could have entertained this whole dialogue with me, felt bad for me and talked. No, he kept it clear and simple, keep knocking.
That was one of my first realizations of like there’s no expiration date in your dreams. Sure enough, a year later or two years later, all of a sudden, those other signs are gone. Our signs were there. We’ve done three deals from door knocking many years ago. A compound effect of all those years. It’s just keeping it real and keeping it focused.
That’s the thing is, you had that moment of doubt.
I would have quit right there. I just need to say, “You’re right. Sweet. I’m done.”
How many people are out there in a moment in their lives where they’re having that thought, “Am I doing the wrong thing? Why isn’t anything working? What do I do next?” That’s what they need, is a coach, to be like, “You’re doing the wrong thing and here’s a better thing, or just shut up and keep doing it.”
It’s funny because when he talks about that moment, I remember my moment when I’m knocking on doors in a suit and tie in Fullerton, California in August. It’s 100 degrees, dripping sweat. The whole point of wearing a suit and tie is to look good. I’m like, “What the hell am I doing here?” I played in a Super Bowl. I worked on Wall Street and now I’m knocking doors in Fullerton, California in a sweaty suit.
What has my life come to?
Tap into why you want what you want. It will reveal how you should show up on the path leading to it. Share on XIt’s about changing the story. That is to me what I hope everybody can walk away with here because all I did was say, “I’m the freaking Mayor of Bel Air. People are going to be lucky to meet me. I am a gift at the door and it may not be now but when they’re ready, they will be happy to know me.” Nothing changed. I was still a sweaty idiot but I looked at it differently. All of a sudden, it was like birds and the sun had opened up.
Everything in life is the story. That’s the first thing people need to do no matter what you’re thinking. I say this now all the time to people like when they say something and it’s usually with a very strong opinion. I say, “What’s the opposite of that story look like?” Either it’s a story, so why can’t it be a good one? It’s a choice.
Again, change your story, change your life. That’s what we want to do in this show, is change people’s story from one of fear to one of curiosity. That little 2-millimeter shift when you go from, “What’s going to happen to me?” I wonder what’s going to happen.
That’s so interesting. It makes me think of the door knocking situation.
Nobody in the right mind wants to knock on a door.
I never once did. I never got in the car and went, “Woo.”
If you ask anybody, “Do you want a stranger to knock on your door?” Hell no, especially now. It’s weird and scary. It’s like, what are you doing? If you make the decision that I need to knock on people’s doors to start those relationships that are going to be the foundation of my business. That’s what I need to do. You can either walk up to the door thinking, “What are they going to say? They’re going to think this is crazy. They’re going to think I’m going to threaten them or try to sell them. They’re going to respond terribly.” You can walk up to the door thinking, “I’m a gift. I’m here to give to this person. If I don’t walk up to the door, it’s like I’m taking something away from them.”
Bravo. Exactly. No has got to be your crack. I used to fear it then I started looking forward to it then I begged for it. If they don’t, then I don’t have any value to add if there’s nothing that they’re uncomfortable with and it’s flipping it. Amor Fati is one of the tattoos I have and it’s not just the love of fate. It’s more of not just dealing with what happens but being glad it happened and embracing it as exactly what was supposed to happen.
Everyone is way too busy thinking about what will not work and what works to determine which ones they want to work on. Share on XWhy Doing Less Is Actually Doing More
I want to wrap this up and just bring it back to this show, what is it all about? It’s not about real estate. It’s not even about business but it’s going to be great for anybody who’s trying to build a business because you’re getting in your own way. That is what holds people back more than anything. They think the environment is holding them back. They think the business climate is holding them back but for most people, there’s a huge amount that you can do just by fixing your head.
Almost to start with the technique but you got to start with the way you show up because that’s everything. Everyone’s way too busy thinking about what’s going to not work and to stop and go what I want to work or what do I want this to look like?
It’s not about thinking yourself magically into success or happiness or any of that. It’s about getting clear on what you need to do every day and having the confidence to go out and just do it.
You asked the question and we didn’t answer. What’s the practice? There is practice. Every day, you’ve got to take time every day and think about this. Now, you are pretty structured and what you do. You sit down and you have your personal constitution. You make time in the morning and you get your head on straight that way.
My practice is much more loosey-goosey in the sense of I just want to take time every day to decompress. I want to make sure there’s a part of my day where I just stopped, get quiet and get still and evaluate how I am showing up to life. For me, the thing I’m working on every single day is just making this 2-millimeter shift and it’s just an amazing shift from fear to curiosity because we all live in fear and that’s never going to change. However, how we respond to that and then when we start rewiring the brain. What was not natural can become second nature.
What I’m determined to give the readers is this is not about doing more and more. This is about getting more and doing less. Reduction. Getting rid of all the extra water and just having the flavor and that’s it. With a spoonful and now you blow the mind. You don’t need gallons.
We’re all doing too much.
More is not the answer. It’s like the old joke I had when I started opening restaurants. The joke was, “We’re losing $0.10 a burger. We got to sell more.” You’re just going to lose more. We got to fix the way we’re approaching this. Everyone is so ready to get out and conquer without stopping to say, is the latter even on the right wall? I’m at the top.
I’ll give you an extreme example. I have a client who sold 250 homes and didn’t make any money. How are we going to make money? Sell 350 homes. If you’re not making money at 250, you’re going to lose a lot more selling 350 because something is off. This is not about more.
This is so funny that we got to this point because this is something that my husband, who is amazing. He’s so insightful and aware. He’s a great teacher and coach. He’s always telling me like, “You’re doing too much.” He’s on the couch chilling with his video game like trying to hide and I’m bouncing around from room to room like what am I doing?
That’s what I’m trying to get. This is one thing I’m working on. It’s like, your brain is everywhere but here. You’re not appreciating the moment. You’re not being focused and productive. You’re just doing too much. This is a process that I’m going through with myself now. How can I intentionally pair it back? Less things to choose.
This guy we know is staring at the mountains all morning in his backyard and his wife comes out and she’s like, “Get to work.” He’s like, “I have the whole morning.” It’s like we say in motorcycle racing, “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” Sometimes you got to slow down if you want to go fast.
One of the things I love most about Jeffrey is again, going back to this whole reduction. He is all about pairing it down to only what’s necessary. He can get his work done every day by 11:00 or 12:00. He’s done with his work. Now, there might be some other work that has to get done, such as a showing or an appointment or a negotiation or an inspection but his work is done every day and that’s what people don’t grasp. The work that he’s getting done are laying down the foundation, all the things that he needs to have in place so he can have a successful business. If he gets to noon time every day and he doesn’t have an appointment or showing or a contract, then he’s done. He’s not looking for things to do.
I’m peaceful because I know I’ve done what I need to do. I will fight it. I’m not uneasy that I’m wasting the afternoon. I’m not stressed that I should be doing a better postcard or something. I know what I need to do. I’ve done it and now I’m just joyful.
This is such a thing for so many people as they never have that peace because when there’s nothing to do, they feel guilty. They feel anxious. They can’t just relax because they feel like, “There has to be more. There has to be something that I’m not doing.” I know there’s so much more that we can say but I want to wrap this up for now and we’ll come back in future episodes and tease out some of these things. Thank you, guys so much. It’s been a wonderful conversation. We’ll be back with another episode soon.
Thank you.
Thank you, coach.