The first thing is you win. Be aware of what you win, right? Sometimes the top 1%, even the rest of the 99% forget how they've won!

Because we're such perfectionists, or we want to improve, or we're achievers, we sometimes forget that our past success has already lifted us a clue, right?

You've just achieved X, Y and Z. You've just got that house onto the market, you've just put that sale together, you've just got that Google review, whatever it is, understand how you've won.

You've got to understand how you've won to continue to win, right? Success leaves clues.

It's so important you lock this down so you don’t just focus on the negative. When I was in the corporate world, I had 148 KPI's just before I left. 148 fucking KPIs, right? That was my week.

Jesus Christ, all of these results, you know, you're lying awake at night going ‘God, God, we're crap because we haven't done this. Oh my god, we're really shit because we haven't done that. That's not good enough. That's not good enough.’

But in that 148 there were some amazing results, some amazing successes and wins, but we were never conditioned to really focus on that because as human beings we unfortunately have this negative frame. We naturally have this negative mindset. We’re conditioned to always look at what we've not got, what we're not good at, what we haven't done, and what we haven't achieved.

Let’s change that and instead ask these questions:

How have we got to where we are?

What have we achieved?

What did we do?

Look at what you've done in your life so far. You're reading this post and you're giving me your time. This time is precious. You're giving it to me. I'm really grateful. I've won. You're winning, too, and I'm gonna ask you, how have you got to this place that you're in? Take a minute to write down the things that you've won in your life so far. Your list could include:

- you're married,

- you've got a great partnership,

- you've got a business,

- you've got a team behind you,

- you've achieved a new career goal,

- you've got a car, a house, whatever.

Know that you've won in life because you're watching this. You've won because you've achieved stuff that has got you to where you are right now and you are where you're meant to be right now, okay?

Don't ever feel anything other than that. So know how you've won. There are things that you've done, that you've achieved that you're proud of. So look back at that journey and ask yourself how you got there:

- What levels of planning were there?

- What levels of vision were there?

- What levels of intensity were there?

When you can answer those questions, you’ll know how you win. That's a great start. And what the 1% do is they focus on what they win as well as what they learn, which is step two.

Win, learn. Do you find yourself saying, “Ah, I've lost an instruction because the vendors have gone with somebody else because their fee was cheaper”? If that makes you feel better, just step outside of the 1% and fuck off. Seriously, I've had so many people come to me and say, “Oh, it's down to the fee.”

And I've fallen into that trap before. And as soon as I get in my head, I have a bit of a wobble, but then I realize that actually it's not the fee. It's because they don't trust me enough. That’s the lesson.

You don't learn from the wins as much as you do the defeats because we don't obsess about wins.

We obsess about the fricking defeats. We’re pissed off because somebody's let us down, or this is happening, or that's happened.

You know what? Only this morning, I left a guy a voice note to find out after the last two transactions where I felt the client had won massively on both, he was actually really unhappy. He wasn’t happy about the part of the legal process and part of the management situation with a property that he was selling. So he wants to try somebody else on this transaction that's coming up.

Fuck, what's all that about? You know, he's won. He's won. He's won, but you know what? I didn't follow him up quickly enough. I didn't get to him sooner to have that conversation, so he felt that I acknowledged his pain. What I did is I slipped into the comfort of being in the 99% which is to shrug and say “Ah, that’s their fault.”

So learning is about loss, failure, challenge, shit stuff, the difficult things. That's where you've got to lean in. That's where you've got to go, “Do you know what? This is really hard right now. I'm finding things really difficult, but I'm going to take every bit of lesson out of this I can. So I know that when I get anywhere near this again, I'm even better prepared.”

It's a key to getting better, because what you do from learning is you close that gap. And then when you close the gap, you accelerate. Literally accelerate.

Because actually, learning is the only way to improve what you do. If you don't like losing, failing, fucking up, messing up, whatever the word is, if you don't like any of that, you are just going to stay in this place called your comfort zone. And whilst it's nice and warm and fluffy there, you're just going to keep the same habits, have the same conversations, and hang around with the same people. That's what's going to happen.

And that's absolutely fine if that's what you want. But we're talking about being in the top 1%. The top 1% don't want to be in the 99%. They want to avoid that. They want to be their best. They want to win. And they embrace learning.

And when you're dealing with people, which we are in our industry and you are with your emotions, you're going to get loads of defeats every single fucking day. You are going to have a load of things chipping away, challenging and testing you just to give you that resilience that's required to move forward. Because boy, we need resilience. We need more of it. You know, we really do.

That's life. It's gonna come with hurdles, punches, kicks, snipes, people chatting shit about you. It's gonna give you all of that stuff. Don't let it take you away from being your best. And your best isn't my best. It's your best. And you know what it fucking looks like.

That 1% is you, no one else. Does that make sense? And you know it. You know if you're there and what you need to do and how to improve, you know it.

The final thing is change.

I've made some serious mistakes over the years because I've been fucking doing the same stupid thing again and again and again. And as I get older, I'm starting to really see the signs. You kind of feel it in your chest. That's emotion. That's your values. Everything's kind of telling you, “No, this isn't right.”

What’s worse is that in the past, I haven't changed things because I've been frightened of how it might look to other people. But change is necessary.

We are in an era of changing economies, changing climates, changing minds, changing businesses and innovation. It all requires change.

If your process doesn't work, change it.

If you don’t, you’ll just continue to get the same results. Great quote, yeah? You want different results from doing the same stuff? That’s insanity.

So change is essential and it’s something you can do every single day. You have to because you are bombarded emotionally every single day.

One of the big things for me is my bloody mobile – it gets in my way. It's blocking my growth. It's blocking my strength.

Why? Because it's eating into my rest time. And I need that rest time, otherwise, I'm not going to have the energy to write these posts or make my videos. I'm not going to have the energy to mentor some of the best estate agents in the UK. I'm not going to have the energy to make the right decisions. I'm going to make the wrong decisions because I'm feeling shitty.

So you can't expect to feel the energy, feel the power, feel great about what you do if you're drained and running off of an empty battery.

So win, learn, change. Embrace those core elements and join me in the top 1%. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about how you can be in the top 1% of real estate agents in the UK as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing it with you.

Carry this simple ‘win, learn, change’ formula around with you, have it written down somewhere. If you work on these three core principles, you're going to smash it out of the park. Believe me. And that's what I want you to do.

If you want to learn more about how to thrive as a real estate agent in these challenging times, check out these posts:

- ‘3 Things You Need to Do to Stand Out as an Estate Agent’

- ‘The Pain of Being an Estate Agent: 3 steps to turn pain into profit’

- ‘How to Become a Successful Real Estate Agent in Five Simple Steps’