Lifelong learning

The most successful NCAA basketball coach of all time, the late John Wooden, once said: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” Similarly, superstar mortgage professionals know that their education never ends. They understand how important it is to continue to feed their minds with positive, uplifting and useful ideas, especially new marketing ideas they can use to take their business to the next level.

The superstar mortgage pros that I know invest thousands of dollars every year in books, home study courses, audio programs, seminars and conferences. They all have an insatiable appetite for learning. They can’t even go to the gym or drive in their vehicle without listening to an audio training program. They turn their car into a “university on wheels” because they know that just one good idea put into practice can unlock a breakthrough in their health, wealth and happiness.

This certainly has been true in my own life. I have found that the more I learn, the more I earn. The more I grow, the more my business grows. And the more my business grows, the more it reinforces my desire to learn. It becomes a powerful upward
spiral of learning, growing and achieving. And it all starts with a thirst for knowledge, wisdom and understanding.

Perhaps this is why the Bible says, “wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.”

Superstar mortgage professionals don’t just learn for the sake of learning. They have formed the habit of taking newfound knowledge and implementing it – they have a strong bias toward action. You see, superstars would rather have a marketing
strategy that is 85% correct and execute it with 100% accuracy than have a marketing strategy that is 100% correct and execute it with only 85% accuracy.

It’s not what we know that counts – it’s what we do with what we know that really makes the difference. 

A few years ago, I read a powerful little e-book called The Common Denominator of Success. After studying the habits of successful people all over the world, the author concluded that the number-one common denominator of success is that they have made a “habit of doing the things that failures don’t like to do.” It went on to say, “Failures are influenced by the desire for pleasing methods, while successful people are influenced by the desire for pleasing results.”

Those words really impacted me. What I came to realize is that the only thing separating the achievers from the dreamers, the superstars from the mediocre majority, is action. It’s not enough to just know what to do. You must take action on what you know and keep taking action until you achieve your desired result. But it can’t be just any action. It must be the correct action. Consistent, persistent correct action is the key to success.

So what exactly is success? Is it measured by your bank balance, the kind of car you drive or how beautiful you are? I think not. If that were the case, why are there so many celebrities in Hollywood who seem to have it all – wealth, fame and beauty
– struggling to find true purpose, meaning and fulfillment in their lives? How could that be? I believe it’s because they have a faulty definition of what true success actually is. The best definition of success I’ve ever seen is from Coach John Wooden:
“Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.” I couldn’t agree more.
 
If success is truly about becoming the best you are capable of becoming, then developing an insatiable thirst for wisdom, knowledge, skill and understanding is the first and most critical step to unlocking your full potential. It doesn’t matter how
much action you take and how persistent you are, if you’re taking the wrong action, you’re destined for frustration and failure.



This is a slightly amended version of an article written by Doren Aldana, Canada’s leading mortgage marketing coach. It has been shortened to make it suitable for web publishing.