When the pandemic hit, world-class real estate trainer Tom Panos said his phone was running off the hook with agents asking to help him solve problems - “what should we do now?” In a recent interview on kerfuffle’s podcast, Tom said he went through the training material he has created over the last 20 years and realised he had nothing that was appropriate for these times. When you hear something like this it really emphasises how unprecedented these times are and the global scale of this challenge.
Australia has hit the pandemic on the back of the devastating bushfires that raged through areas of the country for months. However, Tom, someone who has bravely fought cancer on three times, remains optimistic. His own personal battles gives him a different perspective on this situation whereby he sees his role of having to stay home with his family easy. And that’s not because he isn’t understanding of the financial struggles agents are facing, it’s because he sees opportunity in the situation. A phrase he has used previously to describe difficult scenarios is “some of the best gifts in life come badly wrapped.” For anyone reading this and thinking that’s really easy to say but right now I’m sitting here money is tough, I’m depressed because I’m inside and missing my family and friends - there is no gift here, well here’s Tom’s advice to help shift your mindset and put you in a more positive place:
Tom’s template to help you shift your mind from everything’s f*****
1. Forget about the event (Covid-19) and focus on your response.
2. Forget about what’s missing and focus on what’s available.
3. Forget about what you’ve lost and focus on what’s the opportunity.
So he’s developed a plan for agents. A 21 day plan that allows them to take each day at a time - something Tom learned when he was recovering from cancer. During his illness, he suddenly took the decision to evaluate different parts of his life including his job with scores out of 10. For work, he gave himself a 6 out of 10 and then considered what he would look like if he was a 9 out of 10. Then he factored in an effort that every day for the next 30 days he would do something to drive him closer to becoming 9 out of 10. On day 45 he got the good news that his cancer treatment was working giving him momentum – good news, more good news. So we need to keep doing things to keep us positive, each day, driving us towards a goal. Got it.
His 21 day plan is based on what he calls is his most valuable piece of advice right now which is to “narrow your focus.” On this Tom said “What I mean by this is don’t think about the next 3months, 6months or the future. Think about the next 8 hours. How do I make this Friday a cracker? Because, if you’ve got the ability to narrow your focus, it will stop you from catastrophising, and estimating and forecasting a future which will relatively be wrong and psychologists say that a person will forecast a future that is more pessimistic than realistic. So what do you do? Narrow the focus. Say what does a good day look like today? Simple, a walk outside to get a bit of freshair, then I’ll hit the phones and start speaking to people that I haven’t spoken to for a long time – over communicated to the market. What’s the next thing I can do? I will go on to www.u2meskilldev.org and learn a course on video and social marketing. And you know what happens? You have a good day. Then you have 2 good days, then you have an other good day and before you know it you’ve had a good week. 80% of winning is just beginning. So I urge anyone listening to this just start. Don’t worry about the 30th day. Worry about today.”
The Tom Panos 21 Day Plan is focused at helping agents prepare for life after Covid-19. Each day it covers off on a challenge agent's will face post-Covid-19 and helps them to deal with it. For more information on his 21 day challenge visit his Real Estate Gym
Watch Tom’s full podcast interview below
