Most high achievers drown in daily busywork because they mistake being busy for being productive. Jeffrey Saad sits down with co-author Steve Shull to break down how a Personal Constitution frees you from constant survival mode. Together, they reveal why adding more tasks to your plate dilutes your focus and ruins the flavor of life. You’ll discover how to pause before reacting, embrace what you control, and drop exhausting personal stories. When you strip away unnecessary friction, you can run a thriving business in half the time without sacrificing joy. It’s time to stop renegotiating your standards every day and start living by design.
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My Co-Author And I Sharing The Power Of The Reduction
It’s so super exciting. We finally did it.
There it is.
The Reduction. Jeffrey Saad and Steve Shull live in the flesh. What a journey, man.
Absolutely. What about a year and a half of just recordings and twenty-plus years?
Well said. See, that is the best point of all. In everything we talked about, it is not about “We did this in the year.” This is a culmination of 20, for really 30, years of evolution. Pursuing excellence. We thought we would talk to you about what you are going to get out of The Reduction. What is the reduction? In so many ways, everything has been done before. Everything has been said before. What was our mission with this book, what are we saying, and how is it different?
The Flavor Of Intentional Living
I was thinking about something the other night, the motivation for the book began because I just look at the way you go through life, with joy in everything that you do. I do not see that out there in the general public, so to speak. I am talking to a hundred people every single week, one-on-one in my coaching practice, supporting people in life. There is not a lot of joy going on. That was the motivation for writing the book. Lastly, I was thinking again about The Reduction: How to Cultivate Joy and Build a Life Worth Savoring.
The whole idea of The Reduction, the brown sauce story, how something dilutes when you reduce it down brings flavor. No one ever talks about the flavor of life. I just talk about doing more and more. Just look around you. Everything is about more. Everyone is trying to create a spreadsheet instead of a good story. There are more things to think about rather than doing what is important. That is the scam of all of it. We think we are doing something. We are not really doing anything.
You have always been the master of that in your own way. Steve was my coach, 99’s real estate coach right out of the gate 25 years ago. I am always grateful that that was my first introduction to real estate. You have always been saying that, in so many ways, like everyone is going, “These six building blocks are what it takes.” Great. Now let me find something more complicated because that is too easy. It is like, why are we always after more and more complicated?
Escaping The Survival Operating System
Actually, because we are wired, and this is what the white light, let us pull this all together. As human beings, we are wired for survival. Survival that wiring again, it is in everyone. It is 24/7. It is automatic. It is the way you came into this world. It is what has kept mankind alive since the beginning. It is not a bad thing, but it is always scanning for danger and does not make a distinction between danger and discomfort. What more does? More gives you the feeling of relief. It gives you the feeling that you might be doing something.
Your back of the cave. The tiger is not going to get you.
It feeds right into your wiring. However, we have another operating system that is available to us, which is our conscious operating system, which is slower. It is not automatic in the way the survival system is. Learning how to rewire your brain. If you do not understand these two operating systems, then your survival system is running the show. That is when you are doing your whole life. That is where more comes into play. You will be busy. Is it busy? Is it productive? I will get into the story in a second. Anyway, we have another system, our conscious system. We can choose how we want to live our life. The conscious system takes work. You figure it out with the personal constitution.
Rewiring Your Mind With A Constitution
If we look at the book, there are three big concepts. Circle of control, personal constitution, no storytelling. The first thing you have got to understand is what you control and what you do not control. You have got your tattoo. Once you go inside your circle and look at what you control, that is your personal constitution. What you started twenty-plus years ago, you began rewiring your brain out of survival into your constitution, how you want to live your life. That is what you did until that became automatic. You were filtering everything you do through your constitution.
Baby steps. Exactly.
You people do not understand. I mean, you have been doing this every single day for twenty-plus years. That is a practice. Survival is automatic. Living consciously is a practice. There is a difference there.
It is not ironic that our default way of being makes us uncomfortable. That is the irony. The default is the security system to play it safe more, but the default is bad, just like healthy food takes work. The default is that we want sugar.
The irony of this, and this is nothing anyone has not heard before. We all know we are here for a finite period of time, and we do not know when it ends. Rather than spending our whole life wanting to express who we are, we spend our whole life not wanting to expose who we are, which is the great contradiction in life. This book is really a wake-up call to make a choice to begin living consciously and then lays out, in a very simple framework, how you can actually do it. Because the issue is not knowing. The issue is doing.
It is interesting. You and I are simple guys. We are not trained psychologists. We are not MBAs. What I am proud of is that you and I have learned from reality. In this retreat we did, and with the people we have interacted with, you especially, like you said, 100 one-on-ones a week, not to mention the tens of thousands in all your calls. The simple fact is, until people are willing to stop and say, “I have got this baggage. It is my story. You know what, I am going to throw some wheels on it because I cannot make it go away. If I spend all my energy going backwards trying to solve it, I am going to lose out on the moment.”
Once you figure that out, and you do not try to solve it, you just accept it and say, “What am I going to do starting?” You had a rough childhood. You had a terrible relationship. It is not happening right now. It is over. As of today, what do you want to do moving forward? That is what this book is about. You first identify, how do I want to live? Who am I? The irony is we all wear a mask to feel safe, but that mask makes you uncomfortable and anxious because you know you are just peeking through the eye holes, and it is not who you really are. When you do that personal constitution, you finally say, “Yes, this is who I am and how I want to live. I do not care what my parents think, what my partner thinks, what my friends think. This is who I am going to be.”
It is so incredible to think that most everyone is going to go through their entire life and never discover who they are.
I must say, I always had that natural default that I am not afraid of death. I am so afraid of not living. That is the thing, death is guaranteed. Why worry about living? Every day that goes by, you have either racked up another joyful day or you have just buried yourself a little early. It is such a shame.
This is a story I triggered a moment ago. I have a client who has, through AI, created a great operating system to the point that she was able to, and she has got a good business. She has got a good business to the point where she is able to let go of her system. Now every day she finds herself with time.
Dangerous.
No. In her call, she is sitting there, and she has got topics. She is so uncomfortable because in real estate, everyone is so programmed to think if you are not busy 24/7, you are going bust.
Stop chasing more tasks just to feel busy. When you reduce your focus to what counts, you bring flavor back to your life. Share on XThat is not in real estate. That is everybody, right? A guy who sold his company made a ton of money, and he is going crazy with a new idea. I am like, “Do you even want to do this?” or “Are you just filling time?” He is like, “You are right. It is a sickness.”
Unlearning The Addiction To Busywork
Our whole conversation was about how she now has to get used to the fact that she is going to have time. That does not mean her business is failing. It is really perverse how everyone has gotten programmed in this way. You said, “You can use your time to think, go have fun.”
I’m so proud of her. You are getting her there. That is exciting.
This is, again, the big thing from my perspective with the book was the agents I work with going forward, I want them putting their life first, which is what you master. The sad thing is the game that we play is life. It is not. This is only a small piece of that.
That is when I always loved your answer when people were asking you, “Why is this a real estate book?” You are like, “It is a book about life. Real estate is part of life.”
Any game, the game of life, has rules, and it is really about aligning, one of the things I figured out the other night. Resolution is when you align your life with the rules of life. You are not fighting, you know, and that is what you have learned to really do. That is probably the biggest reduction you can make in life is to stop resisting what is happening. Stop wanting the moment to be different than it is, me. Reset. Stop needing the moment to be different. None of that.
We have always said it well, just stop trying to control the universe. Everyone is trying to control the universe. The Reduction is about embracing whatever the universe brings because you are prepared, and it does not matter what happens or who does what. You are still the same regardless of what the universe does, while everyone else is just trying to force the universe. When it does not cooperate or behave or give you what you wanted, you are a mess.
Again, the world is going to do what the world is going to do. That is the theme song. Anyway, being able to sit down, and this is what the personal constitution is actually taking the time to sit down and say, “How am I going to live?” Not how do I want to live? Not what do I want? Not what do I want to be. How am I going to live today, right here, right now? Making that conscious choice and knowing that it is only real if it holds up under pressure. Writing it down, that is not the issue. Are you actually living it every day? That is how you end up with a flavorful life. Reducing it to what is most important and doing what needs to be done, period, end of story.
You and I have learned a lot with these group calls and talking to people because what is interesting is that the Constitution is not affirmations. That is the big difference. Affirmations are flowery statements that are meant to cheer you up and, I want to mention, I am the smartest guy in the world, whatever. That is just sweet icing on a dry cake. The Constitution is rebaking the cake, moist, delicious, exactly the flavors you want.
Somebody said something interesting on one of our calls. “Now I am doing this and before I did that.” Stop. The Constitution applies no matter what you are doing. It is your new operating system, and it does not change based on the deal you are presented with, the job opportunity, or the relationship. It is the constant in your life because joy emanates through you into everything you do.
That is the big misunderstanding is people keep looking for joy out there, which cabinets it in, how am I going to find happiness? It is like you bring that into what you are doing. That is why you and I always said in the book, write these personal constitutional statements in the present tense, even if they are not happening yet, because that is who you plan on being. It is who you are. You just have to get it programmed.
Until you understand this concept of an operating system, you are just going to try and use willpower. It is not about willpower. It is about rewiring. You actually have to rewire. The good news is you can. You can rewire your brain. That is what you have done with reading your constitution and not only reading it, but feeling it, and then living it every day. You have rewired your brain. Now it is automatic. This is available to every single human being. Yeah. It is not a fad. It is not a feeling. It is real.
You and I both know, because you have coached the top agents in the world and the most agents in the world. You and I both know the hard part of this guy’s bad news. It takes time. It is not quick and easy. That is why it is so worth it. It is a process.
However, I had this thought a week ago. It always cracks me up. Where is everyone rushing to?
It is so true.
The client said to me, we can go, “God, I just want to learn this stuff faster.” Why?
It is not a race.
I am learning. It is every single day I am pulling up another layer of life, another layer. There is no end to this process. More importantly, the idea, and this is what a lot of people do and have to take a look at, they are willing to sacrifice the experience for the result. It is the experience that makes a difference. The result is temporary. Results come and go all the time. It is your process, how you show up every day. That is the thing that brings true meaning and value to your life. Results are just going to come and go.
Survival is automatic, but living consciously is a daily practice. Set your standards before the pressure hits. Share on XI would say, if you are surfing the rainbow, your life is technicolor. If you are only focused on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you miss the color. You miss the journey. That is the challenge with more and the way our culture is. Is that it is always about the finish line. It is not people’s fault, but that is kind of how we are programmed. It is the finish line. Did you exit? Did you make the money? Did you monetize it? Did you get what you wanted? The great news and the surprise is that it is just this moment. Make this moment great, and then this moment is all you have to do. One thing at a time, one moment, one person, take a breath. The result ends up being what it is meant to be. That is what is cool.
The Power Of The Conscious Pause
In this book, you are going to learn to see the moment. What is it? It’s because that is all there is. You can see what is. You have to know you are going to have a survival reaction. You have to know it is automatic, but you do not have to react to it, and you can pause, and this is what you have done, and ask, what does this moment require of me that aligns with my standards?
Say that again, dude. I love that. That is the answer, right there.
What does this moment, again, you are going to have your survival reaction that wants to point you in the direction.
No, the first reaction is going to be a fake bump. Do not fall for the jam.
It is automatic. You know it is coming. Just notice it. Pause, then ask yourself this question. What does this moment require of me that aligns with my standards, my personal constitution? That is that pause.
If people do not have the constitution to go to, in your experience, Koshy, what do they go to instead?
Whatever is comfortable. That is the whole thing. This is why you got to write your constitution upfront. You have to sit down, not when you cannot decide in the moment what your standards are. You have to predetermine what your standards are. That is where the mechanics of that pause, asking yourself, and then choosing, because we control our choices. We choose what is in our constitution.
You now have your internal GPS. Most people are just putting in, “Take me anywhere.” They wonder why they are somewhere else than they hope to be. The Constitution is your roadmap. Most people, I think, are constantly adding water to their pot because every single situation is a renegotiation with themselves. They do twice the work. First, they are trying to renegotiate with themselves, and then they are reacting or overreacting. When you have the Constitution, you are very clear on what the answer is because it is how you plan on living your life.
People bring up goals all the time. It is not that we are anti-goal setting, but you’ve got to understand that goal setting by itself is just another exercise in hope. That is just another distraction. Another way of making yourself feel good.
Look, I did it. I have a whole business plan, so I am good.
The first thing you have to do is you have to look at what is going on in your life right now. I say to people, this would be a great exercise for anyone tuning in, “If you die today, what is the verdict? What did you actually accomplish?”
Can you say this? Again, this is my personal institution and does not have to be yours. My litmus test is, as you know, I can die any day. My last words are thank you with a smile. If you cannot say that, like I am glad you said that, ask yourself right now, what are your last words going to be? Is that what you want them to be?
It is going to be thank you with a smile, or it is going to be, “S***, I did not do this, and I did not do that.” The first thing, before you think about a goal, what are you doing, what have you done up to this point? The idea that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Let us project my life now out to the end. What is it going to look like?
The compound effect of that.
Of that, what you have been doing. The third question you have to ask yourself honestly, what in the world would cause you to change now? If you have not changed up to this point, tell me what is going to cause you to change going forward. You better be able to answer that question.
The big part of that that I am so passionate about is that there are so many great leaders out there. We are not doing anything totally new. We have a new approach that we believe, and we know from experience, works. The reality is, what drives me crazy is people are like, “Yes, I read that book.” “I went to that seminar.” It does not mean shit until it is muscle memory. Everyone, instead of applying what they have learned, what do they do?
They go to the next thing. I will do this new seminar. It is worthless if you do not ingrain it in your being. Better to be the master. I would rather be the one I have made in the land of the blind than trying to just dip my toe into a million different things. This is about really, and that is why I think, like you said, what is going to make them want to change? The thing that should make you want to change is that you are finally going to live it instead of just knowing it.
Again, life is finite, and we cannot go back, cannot change anything. We do not know if there is a tomorrow. Again, this goes back to Eckhart Tolle and the power of now and all of that. You hear this again and again, the power of the present moment. However, that is the ultimate reduction in life. Asking yourself, what does this moment require of me? Giving your highest and best to that moment that is right in front of you. One of the great things you say is, I love this. Everyone needs to listen to this and really think about it. What you say is that, at any given point in time, we only have one thing to do, the thing in front of us. If we could all remember that simple piece of coaching, that is a game changer.
A list is gone. To-do lists stress people out. When you only have one thing on your to-do list, it is easy. All of us have one thing. The next thing is the thing you are on, and then it is the next thing, but one thing, and give your all to that. For the beginning, you helped me with this from the beginning. On Fridays at 4:00, as a realtor, my message said, “Thank you so much for calling. I will be checking messages and returning calls Sunday morning. Have a great weekend.”
What? You are a realtor. Cannot do that. Yes, I can. I always said I would rather show up 40% of the time with my engines roaring than be a hundred percent lame, always available and never effective. By the way, I think we should make this clear to people, Steven Krepke, if you have another version of it. We are not saying to make a ton of money and to love things and to love life. This is about how you achieve everything you ever wanted, but with time in your hands and in a joyful place.
This is not about “Go live in a tent with the toga.” No, we are not saying that. First of all, we are saying, what is the life you want to live? If your personal constitution is to be a billionaire, then do not even tell me about going home at 4:00. I had better not hear you having joyful evenings. Get your ass to work. Be who you say you want to be. If you say you want to have a balanced life, well then stop this nonsense, “Honey, I have to take this call.” No, you do not. It is not about us trying to preach a way to live. We are trying to help you live the best life you want to live.
Again, take whatever you want. There is no judgment on what anyone should be wanting to do with their life. What we are saying, though, is you better stop and actually figure out what it is, what you control, and what you do not control. Most of what people put down as goals are stuff they have no control over. It is a joke right from the beginning. Again, we are not anti-goal setting. It is just understanding what it is and what it is not, and what is more powerful is choosing how you are going to show up every day, no matter what the circumstance and no matter what the outcome. It does not make a difference to you.
Just to be really clear, if your goals and business plan are brilliant and perfect, correct, but you are not reducing, you will not get there anyway. I never have a business plan or a goal. Somehow I keep exceeding my own expectations because it is about the journey. Once again, it is great to put a marker in the sand. “I want to achieve this,” but it is all fantasy anyway.
What you have done though, Jeffrey, you in your business, you have reduced down to only what needs to be done. You can get that done by twelve noon every day or even less. If you have nothing to do, great. You have done what is most important. This is the thing. Everyone out there is chasing more because it gives them more things to think about. You do not have to do anything. You can just think about it. Reduction is the opposite. Reduction is reducing down to what is most important and doing what needs to be done. It is not about thinking about more things to do.
It is doing the thing that is most important. I went through this the other day with a client. This is just a normal human being living a normal life with three kids. She happens to be a single mom. She is a successful agent. She has got some hobbies and other things she wants to do. I started adding it up, and guess what? There is not enough time for all this stuff. What you and I like to say is, if you feel like you do not have enough time in your life, that is a very clear signal you are trying to do too much, period.
It’s because I have extra time. Always. I do not even make the excuse that I have a piano up there for a while. I was doing piano lessons. It is a beautiful piece of sculpture, but I am not using it. When people ask, I do not say, “I do not have time.” I say, “I am not making the time for it because it is a choice.” I am choosing other things right now, and that is fine. That is a big point. That is why I think AI is a gift. Everyone else fears it. I am applauding it because what it is going to do is two things.
One, you are going to have to take off the mask and look into your constitution because what you did before might not be available. Who could I be if I am not who I thought I was, especially if you identify with your work? The second thing is, like your client, it is going to give you time, which people should love, but they are going to fear it because it is like, “Now I am not valuable. I am not filling all my hours.” This is the golden opportunity to literally do what I have always done, which is to get it all done in 15, 20 hours a week and enjoy the s*** out of your life. AI is going to help you do that if you embrace it.
AI is not going away.
Fighting is silly.
No, it is incredible. Again, the beginning story of the book, the brown sauce story, says it all. What we do as human beings, we just dilute our life every single day with more things to do. More hopes, more dreams, more this, more that. A better question would be, what is enough? That would be a better question, followed up by, what do I need to eliminate? Nobody needs more. That is not the issue.
As usual, you do. You are such a synthesizer of success. You just made me think of something so crucial. I wonder how the audiences will resonate with this. What most people do is you say the word enough. Like, “It is enough.” They are going to maybe do twenty percent less, but everything they are doing is still diluted. That is the missing message. It is not about, “Let us do half of this terrible diluting.”
It is about reducing each thing you do. A great exercise would be to go look at everything you did this last week and ask yourself, “If I just did not do this thing, would the needle have moved? How much are we doing that we just do not even need to do?” Everyone should do a flow chart of last week, personal and professional. If I skipped these things, what would change? The things that you do not believe you need to skip or should skip, how do I turn 10 steps into 3?
A simple example is that, starting 30 years ago, I was very responsible and organized because I saw the opposite of my childhood. I would save every single credit card receipt. I would download QuickBooks, and I would match up every single tip, total amount, whatever it was. After doing that for years, I stopped, and I go, “I know spending like three hours on this, you know, every ten days or whatever it was, how many errors have I caught?” I was like, “I do not know, maybe $12.” The return is not worth it. I stopped doing that, Steve. It was like 50 hours a month I had, and I am not losing anything. Even if I am, is not that a reasonable cost to save all those hours?
Again, what you said earlier, what are the things that we are doing that we were simply doing that are just filling space, doing nothing more than that? That is what is going to actually bring flavor to your life. That is what this book is about.
Talk about storytelling. When we say storytelling, we mean stop doing it.
You can't stop your initial survival reaction, but you don't have to obey it. Pause and align with your standards. Share on XAs a book of stories like you, from all the coaching you do.
Talk about storytelling and the damage it does, and how to stop it and what that looks like.
Dropping The Internal Victim Narrative
It all comes down to, again, every single person has to, you have to be able to look at yourself and see yourself and really take a hard look. We have a choice in life. We can show up saying, “I am, period, I am.” That is what you have done. You filled in the blanks of your personal constitution. The way most people show up, and this is where the story comes in, “I am not okay.” That is the survival story that we all have. I am not good enough. I am not safe. I am powerless. I do not belong. Something is missing, or something is wrong. We have all got that story.
That is something you really added to this whole concept because you dove deep into that. When we did the retreat with eighteen very normal, successful, healthy adults, dude, I was blown away. We had eighteen adults in tears, and it was no surprise. They all had a version of one of five stories.
The burden of that storm. We got to keep the story alive all the time. We got to keep running and running. The survival brain loves novelty over consistency. Get back to something you brought up earlier. The story is an attempt to bring relief. Sometimes the story, I am not good enough, turns you into an overachiever to prove the point. It does not mean you cannot have some good consequences.
That reinforces the story. Exactly. It must be good that I am telling that story because “Look how much money I have made.”
Again, everything we tell ourselves is a story about ourselves. That is why what we want to do is observe. I am. How do I show up every day? Where do I spend my time? Not what I say I am going to do. Where am I actually spending my time? Where am I spending my money? Not what I say I intend to do. Where am I spending my money? Where am I spending my emotion? Looking at what we really do with our life. Again, that is what reduction is all about. Really boiling down to how you want to show up and meet life every single day.
To me, the challenge for everybody is that you are not getting rid of this story. It is just that we all have one. The good news is we all have it. It would be like trying to spend the rest of your life getting rid of one arm. We have got one. It is what it is. To me, the challenge is that the second you start going to that story, either consciously or subconsciously, it is harder to catch yourself. Stop and say, “Is that making my life better now? Is that happening now? What should I do now to have the outcome I want, which is the personal constitution and pivot?”
Otherwise, this one girl, we were at dinner one time, and I had just met this girl. She was a friend of somebody there. She is going on and on about how terrible guys are, her last divorce, and all this stuff. She cannot meet anybody new. There are no great guys out there. There was a moment of silence, and I leaned in. I cannot believe I said this to a stranger, go, “Would you date you?” She went from a slightly mad face to a realization because it is like we have to realize that when you keep repeating this story, you are reinforcing it, and I promise you, you are not attracting the things you want into your life. You are attracting that.
Something you say is even more base, if you have a thought, act on it or let it go. The story is when you have the thought, and you do not act on it, then you have the next thought, you do not act on it, and it is just one thought after another.
We think we are these elevated creatures with special powers think we are the only ones that are able to think. When I say to people that thinking is worthless, they look at you like you are an idiot, but the reality is thinking is not valuable. Having a thought. The greatest successes in the world, personally and professionally, are people who go, “That is what I am going to do. I am doing it.” Though other people just keep spinning in their heads and somehow that makes them feel like they are being effective and productive, all they are doing is spinning and spinning, and it is weight. It is adding water to the pot.
The sand keeps running out of the hourglass. Again, the goal here with the book is to wake you up. You are here, you are here now, life is now. Life is not tomorrow. What are you doing now? What are you doing? Meaning, what is most important to you?
The other piece of storytelling that is important is that you are the one who really brought in your origin story, which I think is so powerful. Even on a simpler level, we talk about in the book is the storytelling that we all do every day. You send a text to your client. You do not get a response. You start thinking and thinking, “Did I make them mad with that last comment? I wonder if they are hiring a new agent. I wonder if they are mad.” You are talking to this about other people with other people, and next thing you know, they were in a massage, and they just did not call you back yet, or they had an emergency. If it is not actual, stop making up a story about it because that is adding a ton of water to your mental pot.
It drags everyone down.
Have your clients. How do you see this?
I deal with this every week. I have one client this year who is a twenty-plus-year veteran in the business. Used to making a seven-figure income. Former, I will not even say, so she does not know. Anyway, she is whining and complaining. “I have only sold one home in the first six months of the year.” It was unreal. “What am I doing wrong? What has happened?” Just a total nervous breakdown. A month ago, we had a call. I detected just a little smile on her face. Two weeks after that, she had put four deals under contract in a week. I am just, “Where is the crying? Where is the complaining now?”
See, this is the opposite of the reduction. You cannot have your energy and attitude constantly in line with what is going on. “I got a deal in escrow, now I am happy. One fell out. Now I am sad. My partner is mad at me. Now I am unhappy.” That is a life of totally diluting, adding water left and right. Again, we are all human. Nani and I wrote a $15 million offer a couple of weeks ago. Amazing, right? Three hours later, he changed his mind.
The old us, twenty years ago, would have been bummed for a week. We had a 30-second pity party. We were great again. We pivoted right to how lucky we are to have this client now in our world. He is a great guy. You just focus on what you have, not what you do not. That is the key to life. I am grateful for everything I have. I do not want what I do not have, at least not in a way that is unhealthy.
If it's outside your circle of control, let it go. Protect your mental bandwidth for the actions you can take right now. Share on XIf we want to be very technical about things, and it does not sound technical, and this is not inspirational voodoo. We truly are living miracles.
How do you say that? It really is so beautiful.
I took it from a client, her personal constitution, line one. I am a living miracle. That is where I took it from. It is beautiful. When she said that, if you are saying the first thing every day, “I am a living miracle,” how can that not change your life?
How many of you tuning in say that? How many people do you think ever say that? Nobody.
Here is the thing that we actually are. I am not saying that. The fact that, if you look at the Earth, it is such a small speck in this universe. The fact that we are here alive, that is a miracle. That is a fact. Then the other thing, again, sounds inspirational. It is not. Whatever is happening in front of you in this moment is something truly extraordinary because it has never happened before and it is never going to happen again. It truly is an extraordinary moment. If you begin to connect the dots between I am a living miracle and what is happening in front of me at any given moment is extraordinary, it is a different way of looking at life.
You even have Ryan Holiday in the Daily Stoic, which I have read and reread. Every day there is a passage, and I am on, like, year seven, I think. Every day I never miss it. One of the passages in there is so great. It is like, when you truly think about what you need to survive, like basic shelter, basic clothing, like most of us, especially in America, like we do not have bad days. Everything is so excessive anyway.
It is like, and I say that just to reflect your miracle statement, just to be so grateful to be alive and to have shelter and to have food and to have loving people and to not be under constant threat. Although some people might argue that right now. It is a beautiful thing, and it is just shifting how you look at life. You will find what you look for. I see that with certain people. They are like, “This is always this way.” I am like, “You are right, because you are looking for it, and you will keep looking until it gets validated.”
It is all confirmation bias. It is a real thing. Again, what is different about the book is that you have to understand this idea. You have got to rewire your brain. Your personal constitution is how you actually do that. Something you said, so you reduce it to what is most important, and then you repeat, and you repeat, as you said earlier. You have to repeat until it sticks in your body.
Nobody knows better than you as an athlete. Why do you do all those? Talk about the football training and how that relates. I hate to use sports analogies, but it is because they are so perfect.
It’s because it is all about repetition. Every single day is about getting your reps in. In the world, we do not have a knowing problem. We have a doing problem. Everybody out there tuning in, you all know what to do. This is not rocket science here. You know what to do. You have got to look at two things, why do I do what I do, and why do I not do what I know I should be doing? Two, and this is what this book is about, is to make you understand why you are doing what you are doing and why you are not doing what you know you should be doing. Until you understand that, nothing is going to change.
Something you said, man, pretty sure it was said to be 15 or 20 years ago in our coaching, which I never forgot, I thought was so brilliant. You have to make a choice. Is it more painful to do what you know needs to be done or to not live the life you want to live, get the result you want to get? Either way, there is going to be pain.
Again, everyone tuning in to this. This is one of the big questions you have to look at. You want to live the rest of your life and risk people knowing who you are, or do you want to live the rest of your life and risk no one knowing who you are? That is what you need to think about. Is that risk going to be more painful? We are here to express. That is what I wanted to tap into. This work is an expression of Jeffrey Saad. That is what we are here to do, to express who we are, because we each have our own unique genius in our own way.
I have always said, I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not.
Say it again.
I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not.
There you go.
When I started showing up at listing appointments with the tattoos out, the earrings, I was on a different radio station. My energy shifted to who I really am. If you do not like it, it is okay.
This is something you say, and it is something so true. How you show up to whatever it is you are showing up to has a huge influence on what happens. How do you show up to the process? That is what this book is about. How do I want to show up and meet life? It is not what you say. It is how you show up.
People feel it. Yes, Steve. That is the thing. When I first got into the real estate business, I was like, “I better wear a suit. Everyone wears a suit.” I guess that is the expectation. I never felt like myself. You made me knock on doors, and you would not let me quit. I realized when I took the jacket off and rolled up my sleeves, the results changed. You got to show up as your best self. That is the business plan.
Look at that. Look at your evolution. Look at what you look like on day one in real estate. How did you dress? How did you talk? How did you look? Now look at what is going on. On day one, if you ever said you were going to show up looking like that, you would have said, “Ah.”
That is the crazy thing, and then what shifts is using the real estate example, but this applies to anybody with clients, which is probably everybody. When I walk into a listing, my definition of success is, did I show up as my best self? Do I fully understand what matters to the client? Whether I get the listing or not has nothing to do with the success. I mean, sure, I would like it, but I do not ever.
Nadia, I am so proud of Nadia, my wife’s partner, because she has evolved so much. It is such a beautiful feeling to no longer be about a pot of gold. The irony is I keep getting more gold. The reality is, I do not need the listing to feel validated. I am not judging my success by how many of those I get. I am judging it by whether I show up as my best self. Do I understand what matters to the client?
Here is the thing, everyone tuning in, you got to hit rewind, and through this, such a thing. Again, this goes back to this idea of result and experience. What do you really want in life? Do you simply want the result, or do you want the experience of what you have to go through in order to get the result? That is the name of the game.
I am sure there are a gazillion billionaires or rich people who, if they were honest, would tell you that even a buddy of mine who is salt of the earth, an amazing guy, made like 20-some million dollars at a young age. I said, “Dude, what are you after now?” He says, “It is a weird thing, but now I just got to beat the previous pot.” That is the sickness, right? Because if you do not love the journey, it will always be a goal you cannot achieve because there is no end. Again, we are not professing to not be successful or rich. I love money, I love travel, I love things, but let them be the natural result of the journey you have chosen that you are authentically showing up for, not a forced thing that you think will solve everything. Why do we not wrap up?
That is the thing. You can want whatever you want. We are not saying there is anything wrong with wanting. Just understand if that thing has to happen in order for you to feel validated in some way, then that is where the challenge is. We want you testing limits and pushing the envelope and doing all those things.
It’s easier for you to do that. This is not about wanting less. It is about achieving more personally and professionally by doing less, by having less mental weight and having joy in the process. We talked about personal constitution and storytelling. Let us wrap up with the circle of control because I think it is one of the biggest mental reductions you can make.
Mastering Your Circle Of Control
Anytime you are feeling any type of negative emotion, identify what you are feeling that emotion about and ask yourself, is it inside my circle? Meaning a thought, a word, an action I can take, or is it outside my circle? Meaning it has something to do with someone else or a situation that I have no control over. If it is outside the circle, let it go. This is one of the biggest reductions that you can make in your life because most people spend their entire day focused on things outside the circle that they have no control over.
That makes it so easy to avoid doing what I have to do, does it not? I do not care so much. I am so busy thinking about all these important things.
It is so much easier to focus on what is outside of us. The answer is outside of us. No, the answer is always inside. That is where the work is. That is where you have got to be willing to see yourself, not judge yourself, see yourself. Be aware.
The biggest pushback I get in the circle of control is, you are so callous. You do not care about this politics, but this guy does. You do not care about the wars. No, I care as much as or more than you, but I am not pretending to wear it as a badge of honor and to use it to avoid doing what I need to do.
You said you cared about something. They go, you want to go do something great. Do not tell me you care about it and do not do anything. That is what you are saying. Stop wasting your energy talking about that.
If you are outside the circle, quickly ask yourself, can I affect it, or will it affect me? In theory, you probably could affect almost anything if you put enough time and energy into it. If you are not willing to, then stop hanging on to it, because then your circle expands. My philosophy is that if I stay in my circle, my circle grows, and I spread joy, and if we can all connect those circles, that is a good life. If you are focused outside the circle, your circle gets crushed, and you wonder why you are showing up heavier and less energetic and less in the mood to make it happen because you are just so outside your circle.
A hundred percent.
I love you, brother. What a joy writing this book together.
I hope we could really change some lives.
Get the water out of the pot.
There we go. Thank you. Cheers, brother. Bye.
Important Links
About Steve Shull
Steve Shull is the founder and Head Coach of Performance Coaching. A former linebacker for the Miami Dolphins, Steve played under legendary coach Don Shula and served as one of the team’s tri-captains during the 1982 Super Bowl season. After an injury ended his football career, he transitioned into finance and real estate before ultimately finding his calling in coaching.
Over the past three decades, Steve has accumulated more than 70,000 hours of one-on-one coaching, working with some of the highest-performing real estate agents in the country. His approach focuses on taking the fear and fight out of real estate, helping agents strengthen their businesses while creating more fulfilling lives. His coaching spans mindset, communication, process, strategy, relationships, time management, tactical empathy, team building, and long-term business planning.
Steve earned his bachelor’s degree from The College of William & Mary and his MBA from the University of Miami. In 2007, he became one of the founding partners of Teles Properties, helping expand the company into Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Newport Beach, and Pasadena before leaving in 2012 to focus on coaching. He lives in Brentwood, California, with his wife, Katerina, and their two daughters.