I just got back from San Francisco where I attended the Closing Table Mastermind with some of the top real estate professionals in the country. I gave two presentations there. One was about the blockchain real estate company I’m building called, Kribbz. The other was about SEO. It’s cool to geek out about this stuff and share it with others and see how excited they get.
The strange thing was that I shared Kribbz with an audience that it’s not necessarily intended for. It’s not intended for real estate agents. It’s meant more to remove friction from the real estate transaction. And we all know that realtors largely add friction there. Not all realtors, of course. But a good majority, in my opinion.
In fact, the idea for Kribbz was first born when Kent Clothier, founder of REWW, said something to me that I’ll never forget. I still remember telling him about what had happened in my past business and how I had this massive dispute with my old business partner. I showed him a version of what I had developed and he said the following to me:
“Rob, you know what I thought about immediately when I saw this? I thought about how we could use something like this to remove the real estate agent from the transaction.”
Ding. The light bulb went off in my mind. Could we do it? Was it possible? With someone like Clothier, who runs a massive real estate company, it was. Then, somehow, one way or another, the stars aligned. Howard Panes and I met in Scottsdale and jumped on a call with Clothier and the rest, as you say, was history.
How to keep going even when you don’t want to
Yesterday I thought about something important. I’ve fielded so many messages from readers about how they wanted to give up. Everything had collapsed in their lives and there was basically no hope. They were done. Finished. No money. No job. No relationship. Nothing.
It’s hard getting those emails. I have to put myself back into that headspace when things collapsed around me. It was the worst time in my life so my heart goes out to them. But the question I keep asking myself is this — how do you keep going even when you don’t want to? How do you push forward when every last fiber of your being is screaming for you to give up?
I remember what I did. I remember I had to cut out all the noise. I instilled supreme focus in my mind. After my life imploded around me roughly 7 years ago, I was decimated to the core. At first, I didn’t want to push forward. I didn’t want to try again. I had tried so many times. But something inside of me beckoned me. Not sure where it came from.
Somehow, I had this renewed sense of spirit. It was like a pilot light that had always been on. But once I tapped into it, I turned it into a fire. It was at that point I made some serious decisions on what I would do and not do with the rest of my life. I knew there had been one thing holding me back from really making progress.
When you look back on your life and you really think about things in perspective, it pains you. But it’s never too late to change. It doesn’t matter how old you are. Did you know that Colonel Harland Sanders, founder of KFC, started his business at the age of 62 with just a $105 social security check to his name?
Before that, he had been broke and even destitute. He had worked every single job under the sun, started businesses that kept failing, over and over again. But you know what he didn’t do? He didn’t give up. He had a chicken recipe that he believed in so wholeheartedly that he got into his car with his now-infamous white suite and tie, and drove from state to state all around the country pitching his idea for his chicken recipe.
All he wanted was a portion of the revenue. That’s all. So many people rejected him. So many people turned him away. Legend has it that 1,009 rejections later, he finally got a yes. Could you imagine getting turned down 1,009 times and still keep going? I mean, most of us give up on the 1st rejection. How about 10 rejections or a hundred? How about a thousand? It just blows my mind. Yes. It’s never too late to do anything if you don’t give up.
Shifting your focus and changing gears
I think like everyone else, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when you have so much going on. Even when you don’t have a lot going on, it still happens. But I’ve noticed one very important thing that has allowed me to stay laser-focused in life. When I cut this one thing out, everything changed. I don’t get sidetracked anymore. I stay focused and committed, moving towards my goals.
That one thing was literally any toxins. Now, I was never much of a partier. But for a brief period of my life, I let success get to my head. And one thing lead to another and I stopped paying attention. It’s funny how much toxins like alcohol can mess with your neurochemistry. And I’m not just talking about hangovers. I’m talking about long term loss of focus.
We never realize the damage we’re doing to ourselves when we’re doing it. We just don’t. But it’s easy to keep going when something is habitual. Now, I was never an alcoholic. But I was always an all or nothing kind of person. I was either in or out. I suppose that’s the entrepreneur in me. But that personality doesn’t always serve you in certain situations.
As an introvert, I always found it hard to connect with others. I was always bad at networking and meeting people. Always. That’s why I tried to find partners who were good at that stuff. Me? I’d prefer to sit in a room behind a computer screen and build cool stuff. Code. Write. Develop. Design. All of that stuff. Not meet people.
The funny thing is a year ago when things collapsed, that’s exactly what I did. I made a change. It was similar to the change I made back in 2011-2012 when my other business feel apart. I changed one thing that made a big impact in my life and allowed me to build up a massive passive income stream. But a year ago, I changed something else that had a big impact.
I put myself out there. I started by helping others. I reached out to the biggest and brightest people in business and marketing and offered to share their story to add value. Not in exchange for something. That never works. These are people who literally swat away pitches every moment of the day. No. I didn’t do that. I just wanted to add value and help them.
I knew that was the quickest way I could learn from wildly successful people. That was it. Nothing could get me further ahead in the fastest amount of time. By directly interviewing successful people, I knew that was the quickest path forward. Funny thing is that I started with David Sharpe, someone I knew had built up a very successful business, but then had it collapse around him after a dispute with his business partner. So I related deeply to that story.
What’s going on in my life now
I’m back in Europe, but not for long. Off to San Diego soon for more Kribbz meetings. Really looking forward to that. It’s funny how an idea just builds steam and keeps building. You know, I’ve always linked up with people who I thought weren’t smarter than me. And that was a mistake. I was always helping others. Working with friends. Trying to be the guy that would lend the helping hand.
Well, I’ll tell you what. If you’re the smartest guy in the room, you’re in the wrong room. When I started surrounding myself with people way smarter than me at a lot of different things, that’s when the magic started happening. Going to masterminds and connecting with really intelligent people is the pathway forward. As David Sharpe often says, your network is your net worth. There’s really a big lesson to learn from there.
So Kribbz is taking shape. Not just in our collaboration and team meetings, but also in development. I’m knee-deep in the code right now. It’s like a big puzzle to me. I love that stuff. Always have. Making things work and automating things is such a passion of mine and always has been. It’s just incredible to see an idea coming to life like this. I’ve never been involved with such smart and successful people before where we literally are just rejecting capital investments left and right.
Panes says, why would we dilute this thing? Coming from someone so wealthy, that makes sense. It’s so wholeheartedly true. It’s just weird not really needing money nor anything else for that matter. I’ve never been involved in a business like that. But it’s also very cool because it allows you to focus on building something extraordinary as opposed to having to hustle to bring all the other pieces together.
After San Diego, I’m heading back to Boise, Idaho to hang out there for a week and attend Russell Brunson’s Inner Circle mastermind. I get to see some really cool people there like Dave Woodward (who I originally met in Scottsdale when I was there with Howard Panes at the 100K Group with Dean Graziosi and Joe Polish). And I’m now infatuated with masterminds. In fact, I remember sitting there talking with Woodward and Dan Sullivan, a legend in the marketing world, about Kribbz before it was fully formulated or fleshed out.
It’s weird how it’s evolved so much since then. It’s funny how it’s come together and everything has come full circle. It just fascinates me on what you can do or achieve when you stay focused and you don’t give up on things. It’s hard sometimes, especially when you battle the demons in your head and you just want to take the easy route. But great pain always leads to great breakthroughs. Always.
What I struggle with
At Funnel Hacking Live, Russell Brunson gave a presentation called Conversation Domination. It was awesome. Today, this all seems effortless coming from him. But I know he struggled with these specific things before. He wasn’t social. In fact, he’s an introvert like me. I know, because he tells me so. My struggle is moving from the written word to the spoken word and video format.
If you guys have noticed, I posted a vlog here not too long ago. And I’ll be posting more. But I struggle with it. After all, I’m an introvert. I love to sit in a room and just create. But not so much on video or audio. I know I’ll get there. But I struggle with it today. And you know what? That’s okay. Everyone has something they struggle with. Everyone. I just wanted to relate that so you don’t think that I’m perfect at everything. I’m not at all.
However, I am always willing to improve and get better. And you should too. Instead of listening to what others say you should do, focus on what makes you happy. And take action. Literally, take action every single day. Things snowball after a while. It doesn’t happen instantly. But when you keep at it, it always does. That’s the beauty of having a persistent nature and working tirelessly towards your goals.
Until next time. I hope that you guys grabbed some value from this. I hope that you do something today to change your life and make it better. Make a decision and act. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be shy. Forget what everyone else thinks. Even if you’ve failed or people have talked smack about you. It doesn’t matter. Just put your head down and work silently until your success can make the noise. Talk soon!