Coaching: Personal, professional and financial growth - Rod Santomassimo

Running a coaching organization that has worked with thousands of commercial real estate professionals over the last 13 years, it is easy to identify which ones have grown the most. Growth comes in many forms. There is financial growth (substantially earning more commission and fees). Then there is professional growth (the ability to navigate market and transactional obstacles more easily) and then there is personal growth (creating more margin in your life to spend it doing the things you love, or with the people you love.)

Recently I attended a conference, facilitated by Brandon Dawson, who summarized these growth segments and the variables to achieving them. Brandon suggested there are three intellects. There is intellectual ignorance, which is understanding you don’t know. Then there is intellectual arrogance, which suggests you think you know, and finally there is intellectual curiosity. This is you wanting to know more and being open to the fact that you don’t know.

Put it another way, think of a pie chart. Let’s assume 2% of the pie represents everything you know. Then another 5% reflects everything you know you don’t know. For example, a real estate broker may know how to sell a building, but realizes they need to know more about DSTs. Now the final 93% is the fact that you don’t know what you don’t know.

And when you are intellectually curious about the items that you don’t know what you don’t know, is where your exponential growth begins.

Rod Santomassimo, CCIM, is the founder and president of the Massimo Group, LLC, New York, N.Y.