As the New Year approaches, I am sure that many of you are laying out your goals for 2018.  Here is a question -

Are you aligning your goals based on your limitations or based on your potentialities?

Meaning, are you putting a glass ceiling on yourself?

I recently faced one of my biggest fears during a personal development retreat in South Africa with my coach Meir Ezra.  My fear of heights.  I knew months ago that one of the group activities would be bungy jumping.  And I was certain that I was NOT going to participate.  After a few days of the retreat, I started to think,

“What if…” 

What if I jumped?  What if I conquered my fear?  What if I stomped out those voices that were telling me that I couldn’t do it?  If I could do it, if I jumped off of that bridge, I could do anything.

That really got me to thinking.  What else were those voices stopping me from doing?  These are the same voices that are telling me that…

* Contractors are hard to find in Tampa

* Houses don’t sell in the winter in Chicago

* I’m not good at math

* I’m too busy to plan

* I can’t influence all areas of my company

 Am I living my life based on those doubts, or based on my true power?

So I decided to do it.  I was just wrapping my head around this decision when I stepped onto the bridge with the Guaranteed Prosperity group, and they called my number.  Me first??  Really?!  Well, those voices started to rally against me.  As I stepped forward to get connected to the cords, those voices were screaming at me.  I have never felt such anxiety.  But I did not turn around.  I did not refuse to proceed.  I was crying, I was sobbing.  But I kept going.  I took the next step and the next step and the next, and I was flying.

I have not shown this video to anyone, but I am ready to show you now.  Here is my jump on that day.

I had done it.  Even as I returned to the bridge after the jump, the voices came back, trying to minimize my accomplishment.  The doubt started to creep back in.  But I said NO.  I did it.  It was ME.  In spite of the screaming voices, I still did it.  I would not be invalidated.  And how many times do I do this to myself?  I hit a milestone, and then immediately minimize what I did.

Validate every improvement. 

Celebrate your accomplishments!  Every step along the path to your goal is a step which you should recognize and acknowledge.

I realized that when I shoved those voices aside and jumped, I was actually the real ME.  I had removed the glass ceiling and can accomplish anything.

And now, in case you did not already think I was crazy, I decided to jump again!  This time, I was excited!  I wanted to experience it without the emotional melt down.  I wanted to exercise my ability to silence the voices.

Remove doubts.  Silence those voices. 

It is a purposeful, repetitive ability that you should practice.  For me that meant jumping a second time.  For you, that could mean purposefully validating yourself, making confident decisions and trusting yourself.

Listen closely… Are the voices holding you down, or are YOU lifting yourself up?

Take a look at the things that you “can’t” do.  What limitations are your voices putting upon you?

Now take a look at what you can achieve when you remove those limitations.

As you enter 2018, I challenge you to stomp out the voices.

Be willing to take a leap.

All the Best, Janelle

November was another successful month of growth and learning for us at iCandy Homes! We had one new deal close, we also lined up December closings, progressed through our current deals, and made the necessary adjustments to our operating basis to ensure that we continue to have the results we are after as a team!

Before we dive into the details on the projects that are currently taking place for us, let us first have a look at what we are putting into our near future.

During the month of November, we were able to get another 2 properties locked up and set to close at the beginning of December. Both of these deals were found on the MLS and believe it or not, we were not the highest offer! We were able to make the offer stronger than others by doing our due diligence before submitting our final offer, removing our inspection contingency and upping the earnest money. We’re lucky that the one who offers the most money is not always the best offer.

On the Flip Side

As we hinted, we were able to get closed the property that we had under contract in Oak Lawn. It’s the only off market deal we’ve close on recently and we have high expectations for it. We are now in the final stages of permitting and getting our plans approved. We’ll start the demolition of the property this week and prepare ourselves to be full steam ahead once permits are in hand. This one needs almost $90,000 in renovation. It should hit the market upon completion in March.

The first property we locked up is a small house in Worth. It is a 3/1 with no basement, roughly 1200 square feet. This property will require a full cosmetic renovation, including siding, windows, and a full interior remodel. It’s full budget is $38,000 so it should be a quick flip and we’re excited about this one!

The second property that is lined up for closing in the first week of December is a 4/3 in Bensenville. This property is 2200 square feet and will be another major transformation. We will be installing a new roof, siding, windows, and as always a full interior remodel. This property will be a bit out of the norm for us as we are working with a different color pallet and tile selections! It’ll be fun to see it all come together. If you want to see it for yourself during the process follow us here.

To check back in on our current renovations, we are nearing completion of our property in Lansing! The remaining items include installation of the countertops, backsplash, final plumbing hook ups, and punch list items. We are expecting this one to officially hit the market in the next week or so. We will do a final walkthrough video of this property upon completion on our Facebook page, so keep an eye out for that!

There has also been a lot of headway made on our project in Palos Heights as well. Currently we are working on getting the interior painting complete, installing the cabinets and the tile in the bathroom. There will also be updates on Facebook about this house as well, so check in for those and let us know what you think about the finishes!

To wrap things up on the project side of things, there was one lesson that was learned that stands out among the others for this month. We found that we have the most success in holding our projects to the timeline we projected in visiting them at least twice per week! Even if you’re working with a great contractor!! If you want the in depth explanation Dustin did on this topic check out Mini-Class Monday Episode 19 here!

During November we kept our event hosting and attendance light. We hosted a rehab case study at our renovation in Lansing. It was a great learning opportunity for those that came.

We have no plans to host an event in December. It’s a very busy month, But hopefully we’ll get out to an event or 2.

Other Gains from November:

Even though we had two closings lined up for December we new that we had to improve our lead flow to keep the pipeline full. We did a CRM update for ourselves so that hubspot had the best categories for our flow, and set up new policies around tasks associated with our leads so that there is always attention on each lead. From here on out, every property has an active task associated with it and it won’t get lost or left behind. That’s a big improvement for us. We were managing to pull enough closings without being as organized, but we’re sure this is going to make our system cleaner, and our process easier.

Another improvement we made was tackling the exact actions that need to be done to fulfill our goals. We recently updated our goals and realized that we hadn’t ever tackled the action plan to there. Sure in general we were headed in the right direction… But perhaps not on the timeline we had expected or with the right volume. Dustin will do a mini class to better explain this soon. But if you have your goals laid out, I challenge you to pick one thing and work out what specific actions have to happen in order to reach that one goal. Write those actions down and then figure out how to work them into your daily plans/schedule. Let us know how it goes for you!

Have a Great December and Happy Holidays!!

From the iCandy Homes Team ⛄