3 Steps to Become a Creative Breakthrough Genius

The following is adapted from The Ultimate Real Estate Machine. 

Do you know what happens when you achieve dreams that other people told you were impossible? You begin to think differently. You begin to see new possibilities. 

It’s “breakthrough thinking”—in other words, thinking you can achieve anything that you put your heart, mind, energy, and action into. When you consistently think this way, you become the type of person who creates breakthroughs in life and in business—and that’s a huge asset. It’s an asset that no one can take away from you. For the rest of your life, as you keep getting better and better at creating breakthroughs, they become easier and easier. 

Breakthroughs allow you to reinvent your business. With increased profit comes increased opportunities. Those opportunities make room for bigger breakthroughs and compounded results. They allow you to ethically utilize other people’s knowledge, capital, and resources to your maximum advantage. Breakthroughs will make you legendary and wealthy. 

But exactly how do you become a breakthrough genius? You hone in on these three simple concepts and watch your real estate business maximize its performance and profit. 

#1: Look for Unexplored Opportunities 

To unleash your creative potential, open your eyes. And not just to what’s in front of you (although make sure to explore that, as well.) I’m talking about expanding your viewpoint to see industries and innovators from realms you seldom visit. When you expand the scope of what you’re looking at, guess what you’ll see? Hidden opportunities and assets that are ripe for adopting and repurposing to fit your industry and your purposes. 

I can say this with confidence having applied this strategy before: tactics, systems, and processes that are common in other industries that have not been applied to real estate can have the effect of an atomic bomb. When you start to find creative ways to bring proven successes in another industry into real estate, you have an extreme advantage. 

Take Nokia: they started off as a pulp-and-paper company in the 19th century. That’s right—the world’s largest cell phone manufacturer started out as a paper mill operation. Innovation can come from anywhere, if only you keep your eyes open to the opportunities. 

#2: Shift Your Mindset 

You cannot become a creative breakthrough genius with an old, negative, problem-focused mindset. You will need to change the way you think from here on out. You must shift your way of

thinking to be an opportunist predator rather than problem-focused prey. If you cannot learn to break out of that mindset, you will simply not be able to capitalize on major breakthroughs. 

Most breakthroughs don’t come from “eureka” moments. They come from common sense, a high degree of open-mindedness, and being bold enough to seize your opportunity. That’s why I use the term predator when describing the mindset you’re going to need. A predator doesn’t wait for permission—it goes for the prey with a single-minded determination and focus. 

Prey sits around waiting to be devoured. It can’t see better, faster, or more profitable ways to operate because the problems stacked up around them are insurmountable in their mind. 

Steve Jobs is one such predator. In 1997, he oversaw the production of the first smartphone ever invented. No one else had ever attempted such a thing; in fact, no one else believed such a thing could be done. Now here we are nearly 25 years later with a smartphone in almost every single pocket, and Jobs enshrined as one of the greatest innovators ever. 

#3: Don’t Step Over Dollars to Get to Pennies 

Let me share a story to illustrate this final point. There was a man who would stop and pick up any loose change he saw on the ground. Since he was a little boy, whenever he saw change, he’d pick it up and add it to his savings, year after year. Never missing an opportunity to add change to his collection, as you can imagine, over his life, he collected an astronomical amount of change. He kept his head down as he walked, looking for newfound treasure. 

When he went to count his change, he’d collected $22.87 through the years: 387 pennies, 62 nickels, 49 dimes, 16 quarters, 2 half-dollars, and 6 one-dollar bills. 

The money was pure profit. It did not cost him anything, right? Think again. 

In his quest to pick up change (mainly pennies), he missed a lifetime of sunrises, sunsets, smiles, children playing, and birds flying. He also missed out on breakthroughs that could have made him a millionaire—all because his singular focus was on the ground. 

My grandfather always said that “a penny saved is a penny earned.” It is wise to watch how you spend and manage your money, but do not waste it on nickel-and-dime thinking. 

Train your mind to always be on the lookout for breakthroughs. Look for the big opportunities that others are ignoring in their quest to follow the standard way of running a real estate business. Observe everything and think about how it could apply to your work. 

Breakthroughs Happen When You Look for Them 

My simple advice for finding creative breakthroughs? Stay fascinated with how things work all around you. Particularly, pay attention to realms of business outside of real estate.

There are unlimited numbers of breakthroughs that can occur when you have your eyes peeled. They can be strategy or marketing breakthroughs that allow you to innovate and separate yourself further away from the competition. There may be a system, process, or procedure breakthrough that allows you to operate more efficiently and effectively while increasing your productivity exponentially with less work. Start thinking this way now and it’ll pay dividends in the form of differentiating you and your team from the endless sea of real estate agents. 

For more advice on how to implement breakthroughs in your business, you can find The Ultimate Real Estate Machine on Amazon. 

Jason Williford is a serial entrepreneur, author, speaker, inventor, and consultant for high-producing real estate agents. He is a master in business strategy, strategic marketing, innovation, differentiation, agent production, selling systems, and referral generating systems, as well as training, recruiting, and mentoring real estate agents and inside sales agents. After years in the trenches of real estate, he set himself and his team apart with strategies and techniques that were learned in other industries and applied to real estate. His unique talents and knowledge fill industry voids for high-performing real estate agents and team leaders.