BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 427: The 12 Week Year and The Danger of Long-Term Goal Setting with Brian Moran

Episode Date: December 20, 2020

We’re joined today by author, consultant, and entrepreneur Brian Moran, author of The 12 Week Year. Brian holds a view that many BiggerPockets listeners subscribe to: you are more capable than you think. Through short term sprints, Brian has found that we can all accomplish long-term goals, regardless of the difficulty. This isn’t just a strategy that works for real estate, this works in any industry. Brian has consulted with every kind of business, and the results speak for themselves. Regardless of job type, business type, or industry type, the 12 week yearhelps you accomplish more by doubling down on what you need to do most. Brian also talks about the danger of long term goal setting, and even annual goal setting. It isn’t that long term goal setting doesn’t work, it’s that it presents us with a long time frame to accomplish something we could do far quicker. That’s how the 12 week year kicks our “unproductive mindset” to the curb, and gets us fired up to do great things sooner. Many investors find it hard to break out of their comfort zone, do the things that they find hard, or even just feel motivated. The crucial part of finding success wherever you need it? Take action, start today, track, plan, and re-plan when needed. You’ll soon find that you’re fired up about things that used to seem scary! In This Episode We Cover: What the “12 Week Year” really is How short term goal setting can help you accomplish your biggest goals Why you need to shift focus to executable tasks  How to get tactical on your goals and what you can do to accomplish them Leaning into hard things and shying away from comfort The importance of “vision work” and knowing where you’re headed Holding yourself accountable for what you want most in life How repetition forms competence and competence forms confidence And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Podcast BiggerPockets book store Real Estate Investment Calculators Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat by David Greene The House Hacking Strategy by Craig Curelop Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show427 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You can't sit here and think your way into feeling confident. It only comes through actions. You know, when you're feeling really down and you're feeling like, boy, this is never going to happen. The best thing you can do is go out and do something that's productive. If you're in sales, it's pick up the phone and make a call. Even if someone says, no, I'm not interested. Internally, you know that you're more in control than if you're just sitting, waiting, or hoping something's going to change.

You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on about it's Brendan Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with another phenomenal weekend show with my buddy, David Green. David, it is good to have you here once again. Got some big goals lined up for next year? Oh, huge.

And I loved every single second of today's podcast with our guest because I now have the framework in my mind for how I'm going to take those goals and get them into reality. This was absolutely fascinating talking to Brian today. Yeah. So our guest today is an author, Brian Moran, who wrote a book called The 12 Week Year, made a huge impact on me. I like to think of like if my life was a cake, I like making everything in a cake analogy. But if my life was a cake and there's a lot of ingredients that go into said cake, the 12-week year was a massive, that was like the flour that baked the cake of what I do today. And a lot of that, like, for example, everything I do with like the intention journal that I use

every day and that we have for sale at bigger pockets, a lot of that is based on 12-week-year philosophy and mentality. And so we really unpack it today and today's show. And you'll see why I love this so much. It's because like, this is everything me and David teach is like what he talks about today. but he goes into specifics on why annual goal planning might be dangerous, might be causing you not to get as much out of life as you could. He talks about how setting vision, about working with teams,

all sorts of really great stuff today. And this applies so well to real estate investors, like so well to real estate. Like everything we're talking about today, even though it's not a real estate specific guest, everything today is how you should be running your real estate business. So that is today's show. We're going to get to that in just a minute.

But before we do, let's get to today's quick. Tip. All right, today's quick tip is this. So today we talk a lot about why the annual goal might not be such a good idea and why we should really have shorter sprints like 12 weeks. Well, guess what? At bigger pockets, we have a journal. It's called the intention journal. And guess what?

It's 90 days long, which is approximately 12 weeks. And so the idea with the intention journal, like I said, was based on this idea that don't we think in a year down the road, be thinking, what can I do this next 12 weeks, this next 90 days? So if you want help with that, pick up a copy of the intention journal from BiggerPockets. You can get it at BiggerPockets.com slash store. And if you buy it like today or tomorrow, you're not going to get it by the first of the new year if you're watching the show when it comes out. It might. We might get it in time.

We buy it like today. It is coming up. You might get it in time. But if not, you'll get it within the first week or two. It's fine. But that is going to make a huge impact on you because it helps you do exactly what we're about to talk about on today's show. And you can get a discount on it.

So just go to BiggerPockets.com slash store. And I think it's a 20% off discount. code. We're going to call it a podcast. That's going to be your code. Podcast. And so use the code podcast to get 20% off the journal. And if you buy three of them, you get a fourth one for free. That they'll cover your entire Gregorian calendar year. Now, why did I say Gregorian calendar year? Well, you'll find out here in a little bit on today's show. All right, and that's all I got. So let's jump into today's show. I will say this. So the interview where you're about to hear, me and David just got finished recording it. It was phenomenal. But because it's not a real estate

specific-related show. And we talk more about the, like, the process needed. After the show, David and I are going to spend a few minutes breaking down what this means to you as a real estate investor. So after Brian leaves during the interview, after you listen for me and David's breakdown. Anything you want to add, David? No. Just be prepared because this is some good stuff.

Yeah, it is. All right. With that, let's get the interview with Brian Morin. All right, Brian, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast, man. Super, super good to have you here. Yeah, great to be with you guys. Yeah, so let's let's jump into this. So, you know, first of all, a little backstory.

So I read the 12 week year, you know, several years ago now. And I've gone through a pretty dramatic, like, climb in terms of like the number of real estate deals I've done and other business stuff I've worked on. And then I reread it actually this morning, the entire book. I got it really early this morning. We read the entire book this morning. And it was amazing how many things from that book have now, like, I've been teaching now for years and like stuck with me.

And like, it's one of those. books, I don't know, I don't want to say it's like a fine wine where just ages so well, but it is like, it was such a solid information. So anyway, I'm, I'm super stoked about this interview. I didn't hear that. That's awesome. So that's, that's a couple more times than I've read it actually. Okay, there we go. All right. So with that said, why don't we start with who you are? I want we start with who you are and how did you get into this whole world of, you know, writing and what else do you do? What's your story? Yeah, you know, I didn't set out to be a writer. My background has been, I started out in corporate America. I was working UPS to pay my way through college.

They promoted me into management, moved to Southern Cal, got a job with PepsiCo in leadership, and then joined a consulting room. So one thing to another, and then had an opportunity to get involved with a startup back here in Michigan. I'd moved back. My wife and I came back to be closer to family. And then in doing that, really figured out what I loved was the consulting, teaching, training parts. So started my own thing. And then Michael joined me. I had worked with him at a consulting firm earlier.

He joined me. And we were actually headed to a conference. And we were going to be a vendor. And we were kind of like, okay, what do, you know, what are we going to leave behind? What shiny stuff are going to leave behind? And I've been thinking about writing a book. So I said, let's just write a short format book.

And we wrote the precursor in the 12-week year. It was called Periodization, 12-week-week-year. So we wrote it in 12 weeks, went down to Kinko's printed up 100 copies. And from that sold like 100,000 copies. It literally changed our business, changed our life. And so it wasn't that I set out to be a writer, but we just documented what we were doing with our clients. And I think that's why the book is successful. We didn't set out to write about theory or things we thought.

We were just documented what we had found out was working. That's cool. So why don't we begin with that? Before we dive into the what it all means and how do different aspects work, Like what, I want to basically establish some, I don't know, credibility maybe the word. For those people who have never heard of you or heard of the book, like, what kind of impact have you seen with clients you've worked with from people you've seen implement the 12-week-year systems?

Like, what kind of results or success have you seen from it? Yeah, it's pretty phenomenal. I mean, we get, we get emails every day from around the world, people we've never met. But clients we've worked with, I mean, from individuals, we have individuals that have, you know, quadrupled their income in a very short period of time. We work with a lot of sales folks. The average sales folks, you know, have 20 to 30 percent bump in their first 12 weeks. We have thousands that have 100, 300 percent.

We help the billion dollar broke double their app count in six months. I mean, that's crazy, you know. And people use it in their personal life as well. So we've worked in just about every industry. I know your guys are mostly investors, but we've worked with investors. We've worked in just about every industry. And when you apply it, it works really well. That's the great news for your listeners.

They don't have to worry, hey, has this thing been vetted before? It's been vetted in every industry at every level and in every walk of life. Yeah. I want to jump in really quick and just say, Brian, what you are describing is exactly what I think everyone should look for. There's a lot of books that are written. It's easier to write a book right now than it ever has been in the history of man. And not every book that you read is actually trustworthy advice, okay?

it's not hard to become a published author. And it's actually ridiculously easy. And I was thinking about this on my car on the way to work. It's so funny you brought it up. How do you know to trust what you read in a book? When someone says, go do this, just because it sold a lot of copies,

does not mean it's good advice. Typically, the stuff that people like the most, like there's more McDonald's hamburger sold than steak. Okay? It's not always the best advice. The best advice comes from people that did something very well for a long period of time,

documented what they did and maybe expanded on why that was different than others might be. So this is the perfect example of the type of person that we should all be looking to learn from and trusting the advice that they're giving. I just wanted to say that. That's good, man. It's funny. Actually, a side note. So a buddy of mine named Brent, he was actually on the bigger pocket of business podcast.

But a while back, he went out to prove that not all books that say like bestsellers are good books. Such a good story. You're going to love this, Brian. Yeah, he took a picture of his foot, right? he took a picture of his foot, turned it to a PDF, uploaded it to Amazon, some obscure category,

had his friend buy two copies, and it became the number one in that obscure category of like, right? And so his book, which was called Picture of My Foot, and it was a picture of his foot ended up being a bestseller. And he was just mocking like the industry,

how easy it is to say that. So like, anyway, so I think the results speak for themselves. I mean, the impact that made on my business, my career has been huge. So let's get into it. If you could summarize,

we're going to go into pieces, of it obviously today, but what is the 12-week year? And why is it so powerful? It's really a system to help you accomplish more of what you want faster. 30,000-foot view, that's what it is. And our focus through the 12-week year is always on the execution. People got great ideas. They're connected. They've got all kinds of resources. In the end, the breakdown is never not knowing. It's not doing. And so the 12-week year is an execution system, which is brand as a one system. everybody lacks, right? They've got all these other systems, even big companies that we work with.

They've got all kinds of systems, but they lack the one that drives everything, which is the execution system. And so our focus is all about what you can control and what you can't control and really being more consistent with the things that you can control. And so that's really what the 12-week-year is. It's just a systematic approach to accomplishing more faster. That's cool. And the idea is, you know, my understanding and my reading and implementation is the average, like when you set an annual goal, maybe I'll ask you, rather than trying to explain to myself, what's wrong with annual goal planning? Like a lot, most of the world just says, hey, this is my year, my year goal. What's what's challenging about that? Yeah, yeah, you're right on

because that's never, it's never coming to question, right? We've been taught, hey, you set goals, you do plans. And so naturally, we've all done them in the context of an annual environment, which is what we did with our clients for years. And we found that we weren't getting what they were capable of. They were getting good results. You know, annual planning, annual goal setting is better than no goal setting. But there's inherent barriers in it. And the biggest one is that there's this illusion of lots of time that, you know, January is going to roll around. Everybody's fired up. Everybody's thinking, but everybody's also thinking they got lots of time. But with that annual goal, if you get to the end of January, most people are behind their goal. They're behind plan, but nobody's

worried. And so it's that mind. Oh, we got all year. We got all year. You got 11 more months to catch up. And it's that mindset that permeates the year that holds people back. It's not, the 12-week year isn't about taking what you were doing 12 months and crammed it into 12 weeks. It starts with a different mindset. And we borrowed a concept from athletics called periodization. We adapted it. And that's where the 12-week year was born. We recognized that we had to have a hard line in the sand that was, you know, close enough where you don't lose the sense of urgency. but far enough where you can make profound progress. And, you know, 12 months is just way too much time.

In fact, you can't even plan accurately for 12 months. You might have been able to 90 years ago when it first came into vote, but with the rapid pace of change, and, you know, 2020 is a great example of that. January, everybody made plans and then COVID showed up, and everybody figured out that this annual planning stuff doesn't work. Yeah. So it's that if you have a whole year to bury your goals and it becomes so easy to lose a sense of urgency that it takes to accomplish them.

Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So why not just break it into quarterly planning? Well, so quarters what? It's one-fourth of a hole. Yep. So it's still that mindset that says, it's that mindset that says I can catch up that I

got to get out of because honestly, David, you might catch up on the goal, but you can't go, we capture the capacity you left on the table last week, last month. And that's the difference between where people are at and what they're capable of, without learning anything new, right? If you just did more of what you know consistently, you'd have better health, you'd a better relationship, you'd make a lot more money.

And so that annual environment really is just this, this snag that causes you to go, well, I got lots, I can put that on. I don't have to do that today. In a 12-week year, you can't do that very long before you realize, right? You're hit right in the face with, wait a minute, if I'm ever going to hit that goal,

I got to get after it. And ultimately, that's where execution happens. It doesn't happen monthly and quarterly and semi-hannually. It happens weekly. It happens daily. And so with the 12-week year, that ineffective, that unproductive mindset is challenged right out of the gate. Yeah, that's so good. That's so beautiful. I mean, when you talk to people that are good at other things, Olympic athletes, people that excel in fitness, they never talk about what their goals are over the year. They say, this is my habit for the day. And they really, like get granular with that. And Brandon, you've had some pretty big success with that. Is that something like

this book helped your mindset when it comes to some of your fitness goals and open door capital's progress? Yeah, I mean, even to the point of like, I mean, yes, I mean, almost everything I do is around that 90 day, the 12 weeks. We have a 90 day challenge of bigger pockets. I did 75 hard, which is a workout program. Like, I like like the entirety of it is in a short sprint. It's to get it done because yeah, you don't get lost in the in the year. And I'll make it up later. And, and, and what you You just mentioned Brian. I don't want to gloss over it because it's so important. I know there's people right now thinking, yeah, but I've been doing annual goals for a while now. It's been fine. We've been fine with annual goals.

And like you said, it's not just about whether you've been fine, but what have you left on the table? Like, what could you have done if your entire year, your goal planning sessions, all that was a 12-week period, which is long enough to get, I mean, long enough to get anything done pretty much, especially in this world. Like anybody listening to show right now wants to get into real estate, let's say. You can find a property, get financing, build a team, fly in, check on a property, understand a market, meet a dozen things, make 50 offers, and then close on a property all in 12 weeks. It's entirely doable. And if you give yourself a year to do that, like most people listen to show are, if they're new, they're going to be like, well, I want to buy a property next year.

Great. You'll probably do it. But if you gave yourself 12 weeks, it's short enough to be urgent, but not. Yeah. And so we have, you know, we have tens of thousands of people that have accomplished more in 12 weeks than they did in 12 months. I mean, I was on the phone last week with a, with a gentleman, he happens to be an advisor, investment advisor, but the prior year he did $7.2 million. The last 12 weeks he did $8.3 million. And that's in COVID, in the middle of COVID, right? And that's just,

that's just an example. And it sounds crazy magical, but it's not. It's the fact that when you bring that deadline near term, it creates an intense level of focus for you, not a stressful level, but just a clarity around it that, like you said, I could take 12 months to buy this property or I could do it in 12 weeks. Let's do it 12 weeks. Then let's do it five or six more times in the same 12 months. You know, I've told this story before on the show, but I'll share it again now because it's so applicable here.

There was, I don't know, six years ago now, maybe seven years ago. It's been a while. But I set a goal at the beginning of the year. I had a year-long goal to buy 12 units. I was like, I'm going to buy 12 units this year. And then as goals go, I set the goal. And I just kind of like didn't think about it for a while. And then the year went by.

And here we are under, it was on December 21st. I remember it. I thought like a piece of paper somewhere. I remember it. I had a goal of 12 units. And I'm like, what did I buy? This one, this one. Duplex.

A single. Oh, 11. I was like, well, 11's pretty good. 11's great. Right? I did 11. And I was like, I'm not somebody who misses their goals that easily. I got nine days or 10 days.

And I did it. I found a property, put out a contract, got the finance and enclosed in nine days. And so this perfectly illustrates, one, I had a looming deadline. I made it happen. Secondly, if that's all it takes to buy a property was nine days, I could have bought a whole lot more during that year. And if I would have had a 12-week year plan, I would have set maybe a goal of, let's say, four for the 12 weeks. And then I would have blown by that and be like, oh, well, I can do double that. This time I can do eight. I can do 12 units. I can do 20 in this next quarter or this next 12-week time. So, yeah, phenomenal. Yeah, great example. Love it.

So let's dive into the specifics of how this thing actually works. First of all, for those who are doing the math, you're thinking 12 week year, 12 and 12 is 24, 48. Most people are thinking 52. So why is it not the 13 week year, first of all, which would fit nicely into the Gregorian year? Yeah. So if you want to fit into the Gregorian calendar, you'll notice you get an extra week every

year. That's a week that we take seriously. We go off-site as a team. we review the last 12 weeks, we plan, we lock and load for the next 12 weeks, and then we celebrate. You know, what you celebrate matters. It creates focus. It creates culture. It creates momentum.

And so that 13th week is part of the 12 week year. It's a flex week. If I need to pull it out like you did to hit the number, right? If I need to work hard, then I'm working hard. But for the most part, that's a week we're also going to celebrate. And that's an important thing because a lot of people, a lot of high performers in particular, or the minute we get there, what do we want to do? We want to set the next there and the next there.

And it's important that we stop and we celebrate and the 12-week year gives you more opportunities to do that. Yeah, that's so good. Yeah, I just find that time where you either accomplish your goal and you celebrate or if you didn't accomplish it, you sit back and go, what can we have done differently? Let's reflect on this. Let's learn from this. It's so important.

And you certainly celebrate the progress because there's always progress being made. Yeah. Right. Even if you, one of the things we talk about with our clients a lot is you got to understand you don't control the outcomes. You control your actions. And so the important thing in a 12-week year is did I do everything I could do to create the outcome?

And if I didn't create it, there's a lot of learning in that. There's confidence built in that. There's momentum built in that, which allows me to crush it the next time. But if you get too fixated on the goal, it can actually stymie it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There's a quote. I actually wrote down this quote here related to what you just said. It's from the book.

It says, consistent action on the critical tasks needed to reach your goal is the key to getting what you want in life. Your current actions are creating your future. If you want to know what your future holds, look to your actions. They are the best predictor of your future. And it's like what you're doing today, what you're doing in this moment, like today, this week, what you're like, that's all that matters. Like so many people are big on like going on Instagram or Facebook or whatever

And they're like, I'm going to buy this this year. I'm going to run this marathon. And they love to talk about their plans and their goals. That's not what gets to there. It's a daily action. So how does that fit in? Like how do we work from this 12 week year? What's the process look like?

I know it goes from 12 week. What's the weekly stuff look like? And I know there's a vision component there too. I'd love to kind of dive into that. Yeah. So Brandon, it starts with the longer term vision. Because in order to have an effective 12 week goal and 12 week plan, it has to be connected to something longer term, more aspirational.

So, you know, a lot of people have done vision work. They tend to do it around their career, their income. We start with your life because all that other stuff is part of life. What do you want your life to look like three years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now? By the way, what does great look like? God willing, you're going to be here. Let's make it great.

Then we bring that near term so we can set a 12-week goal that aligns with that and enables that. Build out a tactical plan. And that's one of the keys. In the book, we get into what's different between a 12-1, we plan than a traditional plan, most plans are conceptual, concepts don't execute, you've got to get tactical. And what that means is really granular. It means where the statements in the plan describe an action that you can take translates to daily weekly. So we build 12 week plans, we have software and whatnot, but whether you use that or not, each action, we call them

tactics. It's tactic in the plan as a due date. That due dates a particular week. Week one, week five, week one through 12, whatever the frequency is if it's a, it's a recurring activity or it's a one-time activity. But that's how, that's how you understand what it takes to win the week, because that 12-week plan feeds into a weekly plan. Can you maybe give us an example of what that would look like for like Brandon's goal? Let's say he wants to buy a mobile home park. What would a plan look like that he'd set up and what were the tactics involved be? Yeah, so that's a little hard for me because I don't have a lot of experience there. But it would be really granular. It'd be, It'd be doing a search for the mobile parks that are available that exist within this geography.

That might be one tactic. Yep. Right. And then it'd be reaching out to each mobile, finding out searching for the owner of one of those mobile parks would be a separate tactic. Reaching out to each of those owners would be another task. Right. I mean, you got to get really granular and really break it down. So let me give you an example.

Go ahead. It's a weight loss example, right? Let's say I want to lose weight 185 pounds, 10% body fat. Right? So the first thing I'm going to do is probably download the Weight Watchers app. That's going to happen week one. It's a one-time tactic. The next tactic is I'm going to enter my food intake daily on that week watchers app.

That's weeks one through 12. The next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to order superfood, spirulina, wheatgrass, oil. The next thing I'm going to do is take those daily. The next tactic is I'm going to work out four times a week with weights. the next tactic is I'm going to do cardio twice a week. Now, if I haven't worked out, I've got to hire a trainer, I've got to join a gym. There's a whole different set of tactics if I don't know what I'm doing. But does that help, David, do you get to feel for where I'm going with that?

Absolutely. And what I like that you pointed out is if you get to a thing that you don't know how to do, then it doesn't be, well, I guess I can't do this. You say, well, who would I have to hire? Who would I have to partner with? What book would I have to read? And then you say, okay, I need to hire a personal trainer. And then you have a new set of tasks.

I'm going to interview X amount of trainers. I'm looking for someone that does this. What do I ask him? Well, that guy's in shape. Let me go ask him what his trainer does. Oh, I like that. Now I have a list of questions. And what you're really describing, Brian, is you're taking the overall goal and you're just

systematically breaking it down into steps that are like a bite-sized chunk that you can actually chew on to eat that elephant. You have individual discrete actions. Yeah. So that when those things translate into my weekly plan, there's no question about what I do. Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, and that really as a business owner, I feel like that's what most of my time is spent doing is saying, how do I take our goals and cut them up into small pieces so I can give them to employees so they can say, what am I doing today? Because most people, like we're mentioning here, they don't do this naturally. They just sit down and say,

man, it's a big task. I don't know what to do. Would you agree that that's what a lot of the problem? This is why this is so needed. Is there so many people that don't think this way on their own? Yeah, and we've been taught the plan where it is conceptual. The problem with a conceptual plan is it really masks the work that's involved. So if I don't have true tactics, there's a lot more, you know, I might have three items on the page that I might call them tactics. So it looks like I've got three things to do. And those three things might be 30 things when it comes down to it. And so people create a plan that they start out the year overwhelmed.

They go through the year diffused. That's the other thing about the 12-week year is we talk a lot about less as much. mold. One goal's better than two, two, two, better than three because you have limited capacity. You have limited time capacity, limited energy, you have limited physical capacity, limited intellectual capacity. That's not a slam on anyone. That's the reality. And so the more goals you try and pursue simultaneously, the greater the likelihood that you're mediocre at everything. Yeah, that's so true. So, so how do we take, like, what is it, what does the weekly stuff look like? Let's go from, You got your vision of where you want ahead in life.

You got your 12-week year. Maybe is it a goal and then one, two, three goals? You have a number you specify? One's better than two, two is better than three. I love that. When you start to get over three, you're stacking the odds against yourself. Yeah, perfect.

So you got your, let's say you got your one goal or maybe it's two, but let's say one goal for now. Yeah, let's say you got a business goal for a personal goal. Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. So where does that go from there to weekly?

Like how do you review it every week, every month or how does that work? Yeah. How do we break that down? So the way it'll happen is because you put due dates on those tactics, and remember we got real granular. The weekly plan is created just by looking at what's doing the 12-week plan this particular week. So in a sense, the weekly plan is a 1-12 slice of the 12-week plan. I'm not worried about everything doing the plan.

It doesn't contain everything I do in my life or my job, but the weekly plan just contains what's doing the 12-week plan this particular week. But by default, it's the stuff that matters most. That's really good. Because the way it was built, we said, look, we started with this longer term vision. We set a 12-week goal that aligns with that, that leans into that and build out the tactical plan. That's the most important stuff for me hitting that goal, which is my most important goal for me live in my vision. So by default, everything else is secondary. Yeah.

Which is one of the benefits to the 12-week year is it reduces your stress. Why? Because you know what matters most each week. You know how to win the week. You get this stuff done, you win the week. You get all that other crap done and you don't do this, then all bets are off. So the good news and bad news in that is it confronts you with what matters most each week. The challenge for people is if you're creating a new result, there's stuff in there that you haven't done before.

So there's discomfort, there's uncertainty. And so back to that mindset about really embracing and learning to lean into that stuff. and not being distracted by all the other stuff, by all the emails and the voicemails and all the stuff I could waste my time on, at least now I know, at least now I know what matters most for me this week. And I know that every week for the next 12 weeks.

So the game is, how do I get myself to do what's in that plan? So I pull that thing, I calendarize it. What am I doing Monday? What am I doing that? What am I doing Tuesday? What time I are doing those things? And that becomes my daily plan. So, you know, when,

20 minutes opens up in my calendar for some reason. I'm not checking my email. I'm not checking my voicemail. I'm going to my weekly plan. Because again, if that stuff gets done, I win the week. Yep. If I weed through all my emails and all my voicemails and the stuff doesn't get done, I've lost a week.

Yeah, that's what I love about identifying. Like, I always call it like my weekly objective. Like what's the one thing that this week I have to get done and I'll call it a win because that one objective, and again, I totally got this from your book. But like, and I've been doing it for years now is like, This objective for the week lines up with my 12-week goal, right? That lines up with my vision of where I want to be in life. So even if I didn't get to any of the other stuff and I felt like, oh, man, I got 400 emails

I didn't get to this week and I got this messed up and I didn't return that phone call. But you know what? I accomplished that thing. I did that thing that I said I was going to do and I got it. Now I can feel good about myself and feel like, you know what? Everything else can wait because that's not the most important thing. Right. You know, the results are always lag.

So it's like the farmer, right? If the farmer doesn't work the field, doesn't plow, it, doesn't plant, it, doesn't cultivate. There's never a harvest. It's the same for you and I and everywhere in our life. The work in the field is doing the heavy lifting about doing the activity that we might normally shy away from. And I would say normally shy away from, otherwise we'd be having the results we're looking to have. Yeah.

Right. Anytime you take new ground, there's new activity. There's things I haven't done before. and so there is uncertainty and discomfort with that. The game is really, how do I get myself to lean into that instead of away from it? And the 12-week-year plan just puts it front and center for you so you can't ignore it. Brandon, you have a really good quote about there's nothing new, only processes you're unfamiliar with. Can you remind me?

I don't remember my quote. No, I think it was like nothing's hard. Yeah, yeah. It was like something like nothing's hard, only steps undefined. or processed unpracticed, right? It just means you haven't defined what it is or impracted, but nothing's hard. Like, you could build a nuclear bomb if you knew the process and you had practiced it enough. Like, it's not hard to a nuclear scientist, probably to build a nuclear bomb because they've done it enough and they know the steps.

So it's once we realize that nothing, I mean, cancer is hard, right? Like the passing of a loved one. Those things are hard. But like business, they're trying to buy a rental property. Is it hard or is it just you haven't practiced the steps yet? Like, so I think we should reserve words like hard for things. that are actually hard in life and everything else, just rephrase it to, I just don't know the steps yet. And I haven't practiced them enough. So let's figure out.

But what's so empowering about what, Brian, what I hear you saying is that you use the word uncomfortable. It's subconsciously, if you know I want to buy a mobile home park, but you don't know it, you don't feel confident taking progress. You don't know what steps to take. So you kind of just wander around and hope you bump into success. And when you don't find it, you, you beat yourself up and say that didn't work. And then you go on and, you know, lick your wounds and come back with something else. But if you've broken it down into these individual steps or lead indicators maybe from the 40x principles, and you know this is what I have to do. And there's four key components that you've got to do to win the week to win that goal. Two of them you're comfortable with and

two of them you're uncomfortable with. You are in a position where you're empowered to go practice what you need to get comfortable with them. And then it doesn't feel, quote unquote, hard. That's such a different mindset than, I don't know, it just, didn't work out. You know, I wasn't really sure what to do or I didn't know how to analyze properties, but if you said, what is analyzing a property detail? Boom, boom, boom. Well, I only know how to do the first one. Where could I get the information for the second one? It gets to the point where it doesn't feel uncomfortable. It doesn't feel hard. You don't have that resistance against doing that task. And then, Brian, you mentioned the phrase momentum, which I think that's so underestimated in business.

When I look at what I'm doing well doing, it's so much because of momentum that I built up from stuff I did before. elaborating maybe a little bit on that concept and helping bring some encouragement that as you build momentum, which you find is things that used to seem uncomfortable or difficult, they just start going down a lot easier. Yeah. I mean, if you think about that, that's how momentum and confidence kind of go hand and glove. And it's hard to be confident if you're not competent. And competence comes through reps. Yeah. Like we've been talking about, right? You've got to have a process for doing it. And the first time you do it, you're probably not very good at it. So you've got to do it again and again and again. And as you do that, though, you build the confidence, you build the confidence, and you start to

build that momentum. The cool thing about the 12-week year is, let's see you're having a really bad year. It ends, the longest it's going to go is 12 weeks where you've got a fresh start. In an annual event, in an annual calendar, you know, people in September have given up on the year, and they're just sort of passing the time until January rolls around. That's crazy. That's, in our world, that's two years. But part of that momentum comes because I'm not just focused on the goal. on the activity. And as I take that activity, the marketplace always gives me feedback. So when I break it down granular, I'm going to know specifically which actions worked and which ones didn't. When I'm executing concepts or trying to execute concepts, I don't get that same level of feedback.

And so the 12-week year is, look, there is no perfect plan. Every plan you ever write is flaw. So the thing you've got to do is go out in the marketplace and succeed or fail as fast as you can. And because we're tactical, the 12-weeker allows you to make smaller adjustments more frequently. Yeah. And so you're able to dial it in versus trying to make these massive assumptions or corrections. You know, you're constantly adjusting because there is no perfect plan. And the marketplace is dynamic. It's constantly changing.

Right. What worked by a mobile home park, you know, a couple of years ago is probably different today. And not completely different, but there's some different. aspects to it. Yeah. And so because it's tactical, you'll know specifically which one's worked and which ones did. Yeah, it's really good.

Which is really powerful. So you can focus on that, which then causes you to have some success. And just the fact that you're taking the action builds confidence and builds momentum. Yeah, that's awesome, man. You can't sit here and think your way into feeling confident. It only comes through actions. You know, when you're feeling really down and you're feeling like, boy, this is never going to happen. The best thing you can do is go out and do something that's productive.

If you're in sales, it's pick up the phone and make a call. Even if someone says, no, I'm not interested. It's still, it's still you feel like internally you know that you're more in control than if you're just sitting waiting or hoping something's going to change. Isn't that funny that we see so often that people don't want to take action until they feel confident, but you can't build confidence until that was such a great thing. Confidence comes from competence. Competence comes from repetition.

repetition is daily action. And if you really think about it, it's like saying, yeah, I don't want to go to the gym until I feel strong. Right, right. I'm not going there until I look really stuck. That's exactly right. You ain't never going. You know, it reminds me I teach these webinars every week to bigger pockets listeners.

And David does as well. And we are constantly teaching people how to analyze deals. And one of the reasons why is for this exact concept of like, even if you're not ready to buy yet, even if you don't know what the market's going to look like a year now or six months from out, You might not have the money. You might have none of that.

If you sit down and analyze a real estate investment every single day for the next three months straight and you get through 90, 100, 120 of these things just knocked out, you are going to feel so comfortable and competent because you've done the reps. And now making an offer is not going to be that scary. Nothing's going to be the scary because you have the reps. You've done the work. And people are like, well, I don't know how to feel comfortable. Just analyze deals. I don't have any money. Analyze deals anyway.

But like it's not a horribly complicated thing. It's a best time to learn. You need nothing to lose. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to love. That's what I love about real estate, too. It's like you could like, it's kind of like mock stock market stuff.

You know, like, like you can do like a mock stock market game, like an app where like you're not actually trading, but you pretend you are. Real estate's like that too. You can like literally just like pretend all day long to practice to get really good at running the numbers. You could talk to a real investor and be like, hey, these are my numbers. What is it? Do you agree? Does this look like it would work? And they'd be like, no, change this thing.

And then, okay, go back and change that thing and then do better next time. Yeah. Yeah, that's just smart. That's. It just works. Did you know, your house gets bored when you leave? I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action. The footsteps, the late night fridge raids.

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So how do you, if you have a team of people working with you under you, maybe you have partners, maybe you have, you're just part of a big team. How do you apply the 12 week year to a team mentality? You know, it's in some ways it's actually more powerful with a team because it creates these structures. If you're, if you're part of a team there, I would argue that there's three underlying structures that you have to have. for the team to perform at their highest level. And it doesn't matter what you value. It doesn't matter what your values are, whether they're innovation or customer service or whatever it is.

You have to have clarity, clarity of vision, clarity of goals, most importantly, clarity of actions, clarity of expectation. That's why you got to get tactical. You need to have transparency with regard to what people are doing. So are we actually doing the stuff or not? If you're an individual, you know whether or not you're doing it. If you're on a team, that gets lost. And then third is we need evidence of is it producing or not.

So the 12-week-year brings all that into play, and it forces the team to engage and interact differently. So when we work with teams, the first thing we do is we start with vision, but we still start with their personal lives. How so? We don't start with the business. We start with their personal lives because we have to connect the dots, ultimately have to connect the dots between what I'm doing Monday through Friday and the business.

and the life I want to live. Oh, so good. And for so many people, those dots aren't connected, especially on teams. And so we start with everybody, even part-timers. We've worked with groups that they've got part-timers. They go, well, those people don't care. And I go, I beg to differ.

They care about their life. And so we're going to work on it. And then we work at the company vision and say, okay, now how does us succeeding here enable you to live the life you want to live? That's how we connect those dots. And then as a team, we set the goal, as a team, we build out the plan so that what's happening in that is if the leader does all that, now they've got to go sell it to the team. And there's a chance that they don't buy. We're less opposed to anything we help create.

So the team creates the goals, creates the plan, gets tactical, argues back and forth about this matters, no, this matters. And so all that, all that discussion is what creates the buy-in. And then at that point, we're locked and loaded. Now it's moving forward. And, you know, everyone having a weekly plan. So there's clarity about what matters most this week by individual. And there's transparency that everybody can see who's supposed to do what and what's getting done. And then we're tracking it.

We're tracking the results. Is it moving the needle or not? When Brandon really saw what, look to me, Brandon, like when your business shot off was when you came up with that vivid vision poster you have in your shed, where he basically, Brian spelled out, here's exactly what I want my life to look like. And here's how my team plays a role in it. He created a very descriptive, vivid description of what that would look like. He shared it with the team members. And then he hired people to fit into that world. Is that sort of in line with what you're describing here?

Yeah. So if you've never done the work, we do it as a team. But even like our organization, you know, we go offside every 13 weeks. We go back to. the vision and making sure that we're all bought in and is someone seeing something that we didn't see before that we want to add to it or is there's a piece of it that doesn't make sense for us anymore because we're, you know, different opportunities opened up. And it's really making sure if you have a team that everyone's on the same page and that ultimately like down to the part timer, how does the part timer succeeding there help them live the life they want to live? Otherwise, you're just an employee. That's so cool. So it's sort of using the carrot.

Yeah, well, it's a natural carrot, though, right? Because if I want my team empowered, the greatest empowerment comes from when I see how doing these things in the business helps me. I get how it helps you, David. It grows your revenue. It grows your income. How does it help me? When I see that, now it's a different deal. Now I play at a different level.

Now I'm playing a much bigger game because I can see how me doing these things, not only benefits you, it benefits me, more than I get to keep my job. Because candidly, I can find another job. Right. Yeah, I guess as you were talking, I was thinking how if you don't do that, you have to make up for that with the stick. Whereas if you get the buy-in. Nobody wants to do that.

Like you have to check in. Yeah, punch the clock at this time. That's why the companies that have to rely on things like punching the clock and you've got your three write-ups. You're out the door. Like, that stuff sucks. I don't want to work for a company like that. That's all terrible.

No, most people don't. And even the people managing them don't want to manage that way. They just don't know what you did. They haven't been brought into a better system. Yeah, that's really good. Really good. All right. So for those who want to like implement the 12 week year in their business right now, like

I mean, obviously read the book. We can tell people read the book. But what are some tactical like, okay, do this first. Then this is important. Do this. Then do this. Like what are some of the key kind of takeaways that people can walk away from this interview with? Yeah.

Step one is do the vision work. You know, some of the people listen are going to, oh, that's fluff. It's not fluff. It's the cornerstone of all high performance. If you don't know where you want to go, everything else doesn't matter. So do the vision work. Then bring that near term, build out a 12-week plan. And then the game on.

It's really about executing that plan. And listen, you're going to have weeks when you stumble. I have weeks when I stumble. And I've been doing it for a lot. You don't beat yourself up for that. There's a lot of grace in the 12-week. because you can't change anything you did last week, right? But we can learn from that.

And so as we look at last week, it's with an eye towards reality and candor. What actually happened? I'm not going to shy away from my stumblings or my failings because those are opportunities to learn. And if they sting, they sting. Okay, that's okay. That's part of the process. We call that productive tension, which causes me to behave differently next time.

so you don't shy away from the reality of the situation, whether you're winning, whether you're struggling. But it's really taking it one week at a time. That's awesome. Right? Win this week. I don't worry about next week till next week. I don't have to because the 12-week plan will tell me what to do next week. Let's just win this week.

Yeah, really good. Really good, man. One of my last questions I got for you is on accountability. And you talk about this a little bit in the book about like that people get the word accountability wrong. or they say like I want somebody to hold me accountable that's what they're looking for. Where is the misunderstanding of that term? Where is that? Yeah, well, we laugh at that because I think saying I need someone to hold me accountable

is probably the least accountable thing you could say. Because you're trying to shift the burden. Yeah. The burden to perform is yours. And so the misunderstanding is most of us have experienced accountability as consequences. I mean, everywhere you hear the word, the society. You'll hear it today on the radio or TV or something that they're going to hold this person accountable and what do they do, right? They find them, they suspend them, they punish them

in some form. And we've all experienced accountability that way. And that is not accountability. That's consequences. And consequences play a role, but accountability is different than that. Accountability is ownership. It's the recognition that we have free will choice. We always, always have choice. And then taking ownership of those choices. And in the end, I would argue we choose our consequences. But you either choose to be successful and happy and healthy or something else by the choices you make each and every day. And so when you really understand accountability as choice as ownership, it's probably the most empowering concept we have to live the life we want to live. Yeah, that's really good.

To add a humorous story to this, I got a buddy from college that I met in college who to this day now, he's almost 40. he lives at home and gets very upset when his mom does not wake him up. Because you were supposed to wake me up for that thing, Mom. And he gets really irritated. And he'll complain about how I asked her to wake me up and she'd wake me up. That's why I missed the meeting or missed my work that day or whatever. And I'm like, I mean, they got these fancy things called a larb glad. But it's like a silly example.

But it's like that. But the question is like in what way, like I would ask every listener right now. And I'm thinking about myself. Like in what way am I acting like that? where I'm shifting my responsibility to do something onto somebody else because it takes the blame off me. And I don't feel bad that I'm not taking action. I'm not holding myself accountable. I'm going to blame somebody else.

And I think there's probably areas of all our lives where we can look at and be like, yeah, and you just step up and take ownership of that because right now I'm not. Yeah. I'm looking outside myself, someone or something to change. You don't control any of that. Yeah. Right? And that is a level of a victim mindset.

This victim mindset is that the world happens to me and I fail or I struggle because people didn't do what they were supposed to do or whatever. Life is a struggle when you come up to life that way. When you recognize that you don't control the circumstances, but you control how you respond and that you always have choice and taking ownership of those choices, life just shows up so much better. Not perfect, right?

I mean, there's still struggles. There's still disappointments, but you're equipping yourself to have the best life you can have, which is I think what we're all striving for. I've really noticed that, Brian, and a lot of what you're saying here, you're teaching your philosophies, the principles in this book, are empowering principles. It is, this is how you can get more out of yourself. I wanted to ask, in your experience, what are some things that prevent people from embracing this perspective or this philosophy? David, I think it's probably more than anything else. It's the discomfort of growing. I mean, I think I talk to groups all the time. Does it take sacrifice to be great? And everyone agrees. And I, and I would argue you don't have to sacrifice your values you don't have sacrifice your integrity your health your sanity your family but you got to sacrifice your comfort because if you're going to grow if you're going to be if you're going to do anything great it's going to be uncomfortable and and i think that's

at the heart of personal leadership and being successful is being comfortable with being uncomfortable because that's the process of growing and that's how that's how you've gotten to where you're at today you know but it's there's a there's a mindset of just being intentional with that that recognizing that that's part of the gig and to lean into that versus lean in away from that. But I think that's the number one thing that holds people back is we are wired for comfort. And when you realize that, that's the villain we're fighting our entire life is from, from, you know, the comfort of other people accepting me to the comfort of just the physical comfort of doing stuff, the emotional comfort of where I want to be.

And we're just wired that way. And it's not a bad thing, but it does hold us back. And so recognizing that that's the enemy not given into that, um, surrounding myself with people that, that think the same way I do using systems like the 12 week year that help me confront that comfort on a daily basis and make a conscious choice about, okay, am I going to choose success today?

Are I going to choose comfort? Am I going to choose a better relationship right now and, and serve my spouse or my mate or am I going to choose comfort? Am I going to, right? Am I going to choose to be the father that has impact that has, that has influence or am I going to choose to sit here and watch the football game right now because it's comfortable and it's easy. I mean, those are those are choices we make each and every day that shape our lives. That's fantastic. It's a really good man. Well, I want to shift and head over

to the next and final, I guess, segment of our show. It's a segment we call our Famous Four. This is the part of the show where we ask the same four questions every week to every guest. And we're going to shorten it to the, we'll call it a famous three today. The first one we usually ask about a favorite real estate related book. For these Sunday episodes, we really got to come up with a better first question. So, hey, if you're listening to this show right now, and you got an idea for a better first question for our non-real estate shows, let us know, I guess hit me up on a beardy brand on Instagram. Let me know if you got a good question. Well, one would be just a favorite book. So I'll give you a favorite book. How's that?

Well, that is a second question. But yes, go ahead. That's going to be our first question today. Okay. And it's just as important if you're a real estate investor. It's called feel the fear and do it anyway. I've heard that, but I never read it. Great little book. She's, she studied successful people and found that, you know, they had fears just like people that didn't have the kind of success, but they didn't let him stop. And she talks about five truths of fear. It's just a really, it's a really good read. One of my favorites. That's awesome. I've been actually teaching my daughter. I got a four-year-old, four-and-half-year-old Rosie. And I've been teaching her a lot lately about like, like being brave doesn't mean you're not afraid. It means you feel the fear and do it anyway.

And we've had a lot of discussions about that because she's afraid of everything. And courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway. Oh, I love it. Yeah. Love it. Cool. Yep. Okay.

What are some of your hobbies? I used to golf. Don't do that much now because I've got kids. They didn't get into it. Took a lot of time. One of my goals in life, we're big on family. I want to be the biggest influence in my kids' life. and I think that takes quantity time, not just quality.

I think quality time is an excuse to recreate. But so we do horses. We raise Arabian horses. We show them. It's a great family deal. The girls play sports too. But when they do that, they're going separate directions. We do the horse thing.

We're in the same spot for a week. And so that's probably my biggest hobby is that. And I shoot clay pigeons. Sporting plays. Sporting plays. Yeah, that's my newest fun. When you watch someone else do it, it doesn't seem that great. but when you're doing it, it's a freaking blast.

Yeah, I love it. It really is. Yeah, I don't, I can talk to you about sporting. Yeah, the next hour if you are open. What kind do you do? Is it five stand? Is it trap? We do them all.

The club of mat has a one mile course too where they have 16 different stations, four different throws. And then they have two trap and two skied as well. It's fun. I'm fairly new into it, but I'm loving it. It's great. There's something that I've noticed that this is completely unrelated to the topic. I'm just curious, Brian.

if you're the same way. When you combine a physical action with a mental puzzle that has to be solved, it just is fun. Like, that's what I loved about sports, was my mind had to analyze what was happening, and then my body had to execute a movement or a decision. And when those two worlds sort of collide, that's fun. And that's what like paintball, I get that same rush out of it or sporting clay is like, okay, every station they're different. What are the angles? How much do I have to lead it by? What choke am I going to use? And then I have to go do it. Is that, is that something similar that you found? I think so. You know, we found that too, David, with parties. If there's something, if there's a theme around the party, there's something to do, like we'll do a Christmas caroling party where we go to a nursing. That is one of the most fun parties because there's a purpose to it. There's activities for people to do. And so there's a lot of communication happens that wouldn't otherwise happen. It's the kind of thing, I think. When there's something to do there that is intriguing and kind of taps the curiosity and a little bit in elected. There's something rewarding to a human about solving puzzles.

I mean, really, if you look at what we talked about today, it's how do I solve the puzzle of a goal that I'm trying to hit, particularly within business, right? These are puzzle solving strategies that we're talking about to get the most out of yourself. I agree. That's cool, man. All right. Well, my final question of the day,

what do you think separates successful people from those who give up or they fail or they just never get started? I think, you know, that's an interesting question. I think the one thing is the comfort thing, Right? People buy into that. But I think it's really having a strong vision. That's why I say that's the cornerstone, right? You have to, if you don't have something you're striving for, then it's really easy to give up. If you have something that matters to you and you're passionate about it, right? If you think about passion comes from vision, that's what creates passion. If you don't have a clear vision, like if you're lacking passion in some area, you probably don't have a clear vision for it. The things you're passionate about you have vision for it. So that to me, that that passion, the vision creates the passion, the passion creates the courage to do the things you need to do. So the reason people don't do the things, if you tie it back, they like the passion, they actually lack the vision about something bigger than what they currently have,

right? A future that's more compelling than the present that causes me to want to step out and try some things and be willing to stumble and fall down and pick myself up. And, you know, I think if we didn't learn to walk as kids, we wouldn't do it because we'd be so embarrassed, we'd fall a couple times and then we'd all, you know, kind of settle into the weird here. Because, I mean, you know, too many of us are concerned about what other people think. And so when you've got a strong vision, it lessens the impact of that, right? I don't care so much about what other people think. I really want to make this happen because it matters to me and my family and there's a personal

why behind it. I think that's the key. That's really, really well put. I love that line. I've never heard anyone say that if we didn't learn to walk his kids. We probably wouldn't do it. But it illustrates a very good point. Cool, man. Well, David, final question. All right. Last question of the day from us is where can people find out more about you? Great. 12 weekyear.com. So the digits, one, two weekyear.com.

A bunch of free stuff on there, getting started, course. There's some other online programs. We've got a virtual live event coming up in January. And that's, that'll be great. So yeah, all that stuff. we can help with, please, please reach out, 12weekure.com. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you, man. This has been fantastic.

I love connecting with, you know, authors who have written and just, you know, stuff that's just shaped my life. So, you know, thank you for writing this book. Yeah, you're welcome. Appreciate the opportunity to connect with you guys. All right. All right. And that was another fantastic episode of the Bigger Pockets podcast with an amazing guest, Brian Morin.

That was, that was really, really cool. What'd you think? I mean, like, you had not read the 12-week year, right? So this was kind of new to you? Never read the 12-week year. I've heard you mention it briefly, but I didn't really have a good understanding of it. But the more he talked, really, the more I started thinking about other very successful business people and what they're teaching and how it all sort of connects. He mentioned a lot of things that made me think about the one thing. How do you win the week? What's the one thing you got to do that will make everything else easier or unnecessary? I thought about a lot of the 40x principles. I know you love that book also, right? Lead,

measures and lag measures. Don't, don't measure just the results. Measure the action that you're taking. The sense of urgency that he mentioned to get the most out of yourself, I thought that was incredibly valuable. You may hit your goal, but you still left so much on the table for what you could have done. Right? You thought, I want to buy a property next year. Well, you could probably buy 10 properties next year if you take what you did and you just amplify it. And, you know, in my personal life, I see this come up all the time where we have a mindset, we have subconscious belief, that are absolutely sabotaging us. Okay, like the eight hour work day is one of them. Who says you have to work eight hours? You can get everything done in two hours. Or you could work 14 hours if you really

want to depending on your goal. That's a way that people think that gets in their way. So this type of stuff really challenges that conventional thinking that we're comfortable with, forces us to get uncomfortable. But man, if you want to unlock your potential, this is where it's at. Yeah, that's so true. You know, one of the things he talked about today was you know, you have that vision. You start with your vision. And I love that he talked about that, that your vision to begin with your personal vision. Because your work should line up with your personal life. They go into a lot more depth on that in the book. So make sure you guys pick up a copy of the book.

It is fantastic. But they go from vision and then you have your goal, your 12 week year goal. And then you have your tactics. And so I want to talk about that just for a few minutes here because I want to relate this back to real estate investors. Let's just take the average new real estate investor. Now, if you're an experience one, stick with me anyway. But let's just say you're new and you want to buy a property. And let's say your goal is to buy one in the next 12 weeks.

So in the next 12 weeks, you're going to buy a property. I want to, David, while you're here, you and I just real quick, let's brainstorm. What are some of the tactics, like the things that have to get checked off your list that once you get all these tactics done, you will then have a property? Or at least you've done everything in your power needed to have a property. So what are some of those things? Maybe just kind of fire them back and forth. How are you going to fund it? Okay.

That's a good one. So you need to get a funded. So that's even go deeper on that one. Can you get pre-approved? Can you get pre-approved? So maybe like week one, my goal week one is to contact a lender, contact three lenders, and my goal week two, or not even goal, but a tactic. Tactically, one is a contact three lenders and submit my financial documents to them.

Or maybe week one is actually get your documents together. I don't know, maybe you can do both in one week, depending on how busy you are. And then you're going to get your documents to your lender. And then what about how are you going to find deals? So maybe it's, I'm going to get a real estate agent. That'd be a good tactic. Well, maybe first pick your market where you want to buy in. Greg, and then get cleared in your criteria.

Yep. What type of property do you want? Yep. When you have that, now you can go to the agent and say in this area, I want this kind of property. Can you help me do it? Yep. And maybe interview a couple agents the same way that you talk to a couple lenders. Yep.

That's great. And maybe one of my tactics is maybe an ongoing one. I'm going to analyze 10 deals every week until for the whole, for the, so it's 120 deals over the next 12 weeks. I'm going to analyze 10 properties. Okay. So, Brandon, if I don't know how to analyze a property, what can I do? You can't do anything.

You have to give up and go back to watch. TV. That's just, that's just how it works. You can watch one of a billion YouTube videos on how analyzed rental properties or you can head over to biggerpockts.com slash kelk. C-A-L-C. And we have a calculator that helps you analyze properties, whether it's a flip rental, whatever. But that's, like, that's a tactic is go and analyze some properties. So maybe that's another one. By this week, I'm going to have analyzed 10 of them or by 20 of them, whatever. There you go. What else? We got to, what else does somebody have to do? I'd say after that first week and of analyzing that many properties, you should have a baseline for what kind of ROI and what type of

turn you can expect on the different properties. And by then you should recognize when you find one that is above that baseline. Now you kind of know, like what a deal would be. It's something better than the other properties around. So you would want to start identifying deals and writing offers on those properties. Yeah, making an offer like, hey, my week seven, I'm going to have submitted an offer. Week eight, I want to submit two offers. Week nine, I'm going to fit 12 offers. You know, whatever. Scale up a little bit if you feel like it. And like, like he said earlier, you can't control the outcome, but you can control your inputs. Right. So we can't, I don't want to say you're guaranteed to buy a property in 12 weeks. I hope you do. And if you do the right inputs, you should,

if you put in a dozen offers, you'll probably get something accepted as long as you're not going, you're not being super crazy strict. You know, another one, it would be a good one. If you're just getting in the education phase, maybe it's like, hey, you want to invest at a distance. Like maybe their first step is to read David's book, long distance real estate investing, right? Or maybe you want to burr. Maybe the first step is to read buy rehab, rent, refinance, repeat. Maybe you want a house hack. Maybe you should go read Craig's book, the house hacking one. Or you just want to buy any rental, read the book on rental property investing. You have no money. read the book on investing in real estate with no and low money down. That can be a tactic for week

one is to finish one of those freaking books. It doesn't take all week or all year to do it. Get it done in a week and then move on. Check it off your list. Great. I accomplished the one thing that I was going to do this week, which was read the book. If you didn't answer emails, if you didn't respond to that text, who cares? You did the one thing that got you closer to your goal, which gets you closer to your vision, which gets you closer to life that you want to leave. I'll give you another thing. Take your plan that you've come up with. I want to use an FHA loan to buy a property in this area that looks like this. at this price and run it by somebody else who's more experienced than you and say,

what would you change about this plan? Yep. Yeah, I love that. In fact, you can even take your entire 12 week year plan in front. Like if somebody came to me, like that I knew, right, I'm not going to do it to a perfect stranger and you shouldn't either build relationships people. But if somebody came to me new and said, hey, I really want to buy a property in the next 12 weeks. So I wrote down this list of 12 things that I need to do. And it includes market this, this. I'd be like, oh my gosh, that was so good. Like, look at you. Look at you. I'm so proud. of you. Like, yeah, let me tweak this little thing. And yeah, I think this is probably not going to work out, but try this one instead. Like, that is such an amazing way to get a mentor to help you

is by approaching them and say, this is the 12 tactics I'm going to work on the next 12 weeks. Am I missing anything? Or would you add anything to this or would you take anything away? Like now you didn't just come to me with like, how you, will you help me and be my mentor? You came to me with like a specific question, a game plan. And all I had to do is read it for three seconds and decide if it's good or not. Very, very good. Cool, man. Well, that was a good one. You got at that one. That was good. I just expanded upon that. So thank you.

With that said, I think that's all we got. So let us know what you guys think of the show. If you have not left a rating or review for the Bigger Pockets podcast, those really help us reach more people, helps keep us in the top of all business podcasts on iTunes and Stitcher and Google Play and all that. And it makes us feel good. So leave us a rating review if you would. And follow us on Instagram at Bigger Pockets, B-I-G-E-R pockets,

like Hot Pockets, but larger. And you can also follow David. at David Green 24, Mia's at Beardy Brandon. And that's all I got. So David Hot Pockets Green, you want to take us out? Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Please. I like you giggling over Hot Pockets. I don't know why. And then you said we have like, we're like hot pockets, but larger. That's funny. I started thinking maybe we need to make a spinoff called larger pockets. Lager pockets. Yeah. Share this episode with somebody that you think would benefit from it. Think about the successful people in your life who are very driven. I promise you, they are

dealing with daily frustration that they want to be doing even more, even though it seems like they're doing good. This type of stuff is very, very valuable to them and they will love you for it. It's true. All right. Get us out of here. I need to get on a plane to get to Hawaii. Go see you in a little bit there. Come hang out. It'll be fun. Thank you very much. This is David Hot Pockets Green for Brandon, the 12-week Wonder Turner, signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place.

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