Battle Winning Tasks
Some of us are both blessed and cursed by the presence of a dream that burns in our heart.
If you want to see your dream come true, you are going to have to Battle For Your Dream.
If you want to see you dream come true you need to focus on your Battle Winning Tasks.
What are Battle Winning Tasks?
Battle Winning Tasks are the crucial, mission critical tasks that you have to get to, if your dream is going to come true.
It is easy to spend time doing activities that may feel important, that are not actually going to help you get to where you want to go.
It is also easy to come up with any number of reasons that now is not the right time to work on your Battle Winning Tasks.
You Can Get To The Important Stuff Later….
In early 2007, When I was first starting out as an Wholesale Mortgage Account Executive (AE), I quickly discovered that going out and actually seeing potential clients was the most important thing I could do to get my client base established. However there were a number of other things I was encouraged to do that while important, would not actually help me succeed.
In addition to that, I had fellow AE’s who would say (in jest?) that there a number of days and times that we should not go see our clients.
I was told that Monday was a bad day to go see Loan Officers, because they were busy returning calls from the weekend. Fridays were a bad day to go see Loan Officers because they were distracted thinking about the weekend and they left early on Fridays. Mornings in general were not good a time to go see Loan Officers, because they did not come into the office until midday. The last week of the month was not a good time to go see Loan Officers because they were busy getting their loans closed. The first week of the month was not a good time to see Loan Officers because they recovering from the stress of trying to get their month end loans closed, and they were dealing with the problem loans that for various reasons did not fund.
As you can see it really only made sense to see potential clients the second Wednesday of the month from 1:00 – 3:00 PM. The other 29 days of the month were better spent in your home office…
There was some wisdom in what I was told. Often Loan Officers did not work on Fridays, However they would find my business card on their desk Monday Morning when they came in and they would call me. They wanted to know what kind of AE worked on Fridays…
First Figure Out What your Battle Winning Tasks Are
If you want to see your dreams come true, It is imperative that you figure what it is that have to make sure that you get to.
When I was an AE, I was told to just go get loans. The problem was that I only got paid on loans that funded. I was told to just go bring potential loans in. However I did not get paid for bringing in potential loans. I only got paid on bringing in loans that actually funded.
I quickly discovered that those who told me to just go get loans were ignorant of what I really needed to do to feed my family. I needed to go get loans that could actually fund, and then I had to make sure that they funded. I was told many times that I worried about the wrong things and that I did things that were not my responsibility. More than once, I was told that I did my job the “wrong” way.
The flaw in that criticism was that every year for 3 years my volume doubled and in 2010 I was only person from my office attending the Chairmans’ Circle dinner at the Fontainebleau Resort in Miami Beach. www.fontainebleau.com (Only the top 6 wholesale AE’s in the country qualified for this event that followed Presidents’ Club). By the way, I loved it there and I am once again regularly working after midnight so that I will once again stay there and enjoy an afternoon at La Cote. (In 2008 and 2009, I worked very hard to make it happen and, I am once again back in the hunt)
I figured out what my Battle Winning Tasks were and I did them, even when other people told me that I did not know want I was doing.
Next – Make Sure That You Actually Do Your Battle Winning Tasks
One of my current projects is www.PortlandFoodCartAdventures.com
I eat at Portland area Food Carts, take pictures of what I eat, write down some notes, and then once I have sampled enough of particular Food Cart’s menu , I write up a review. In the process of working this project, I update the Facebook Page for Portland Food Cart Adventures www.facebook.com/PortlandFoodCartAdventures and I manage (update and read) my Food Cart Twitter feed. twitter.com/Gr8FoodCartsPDX
Twitter and Facebook are very important to this project. However, going to actual food carts and eating food cart food, taking pictures and taking notes, are much more important tasks. In fact, as far as this project goes, those are Battle Winning Tasks. Furthermore, I am only doing those things so that I can write articles for the Portland Food Cart Adventures website.
Right now, at this stage of this project, regularly having new articles up on the Portland Food Cart Adventures website, is my #1 Battle Winning Task. I visit food carts, enjoy amazing food, take pictures and take notes so that later I can write an article for the website.
It is easy to be busy and delude yourself into thinking that your busy work will pay off. Rise above busy work, focus on your Battle Winning Tasks.
Ask yourself – “If I am to see my dreams come true, what are the most important 2-3 things that we have to regularly make sure get done, i.e. – What are my Battle Winning Tasks?”
Battle For Your Dreams! They can come true.
I am pulling for you!
Steven Shomler
