Consistently spending more time within your zone of genius

I’m not sure if you noticed, but a few months ago I stopped releasing the podcast every week and I got into a new rhythm of fortnightly episodes.

I did this because I just wasn’t feeling motivated to release episodes every single week, and I thought it was better to pull back than to halfheartedly release them weekly (or give it up altogether).

Well, after a few months of creating episodes featuring my clients’ success stories, I’ve reconnected with my passion for podcasting, and I’m energized to bring you weekly releases once again!

I’m also committing to share more about me on the podcast and to connect it back to ways that you can work fewer hours in your business, deliver more value to clients and grow your revenue every year.

It all starts today with a brand-new solo episode that dives into how you can consistently spend more of your time operating within your zone of genius.

I'm pumped to bring more energy to the podcast, and to share more of me personally with you on every single episode of Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

Episode transcript:

If you're looking forward to another fantastic interview with a commercial real estate principal who has so much to share that can add value to your business in today's episode, you are going to be a little bit disappointed because, well, it's just me. 

Hello, welcome to episode 187 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership. I'm your host Darren Krakowiak. 

And if you are a commercial real estate principal who wants to work a little bit less and deliver a lot more value to your clients and also see revenue in your business grow year on year, you are in absolutely the right place because that is what this show is all about. 

And I want to start off today by saying thank you to a number of my clients who have come on the show recently.  

We're going to have more of those interviews coming up in the future, but that's sort of in the current series. 

We had Ty, Brad and Charlie, Simon, Darren, Will, Rocco and Andrew.  

Very, very grateful that so many of my clients have been willing to come on and to share something of value with our audience. 

And also, to speak in a very complimentary terms about their experience of working with CRE Success. 

And I hope that from those interviews, if you weren't inspired to get in contact with me, you're at least inspired to do more to extract some of those experiences from your clients and then share them with your network.  

Because there's a real, I guess, power that comes from when someone else is talking about their experience of working with you and the value that you can bring as opposed to you just talking about it yourself. 

So, have a listen to those episodes, look at the way that I've been asking questions, talking to my clients and have a think about what are the questions that I should be asking my clients?  

What are the things that I would want them to know about their experience, about where they were before and where they are now that we've worked together? And how can I share that with more people?  

It adds, I think, a lot of credibility to your overall marketing message and will do a lot to support the personal brand building efforts that hopefully you're already undertaking.  

Well, I wanted to share something today about this podcast, because over the past few months, I've only been releasing episodes every second week. 

And that's a little bit of a change from the past.  

And I've decided that I should be a little bit more diligent moving forward.  

And I figured the best way that I can commit to actually releasing the episodes every single week again is just to get on here and tell you that I'm going to start releasing episodes every single week again. 

So, that is something that we're going to do. And I'm going to be, I guess, changing up the format a little bit.  

I want to make it a little bit, I guess, easier for me to connect with you.  

And one of the ways that I can do that is just to talk a little bit about what's going on in my life and hopefully add some value and also speak in terms that resonate with you as a commercial real estate principal as we do that. 

So, that is what I'm going to do. And it got me thinking about the reason why perhaps I wasn't producing the episodes every single week as I was when I first started this podcast. 

And I think one of the reasons why is because I kind of wasn't getting as much enjoyment out of doing the episodes. 

It was, like I said in that interview with Will Tong on a recent episode when perseverance without passion isn't a grit, it's just a grind. That was the quote. 

And if I wasn't feeling really lit up and inspired to get in there every single week and recorded a podcast episode, then why do it? Right? 

It's not compulsory. Why not focus on things that are actually going to motivate me more and then I'm motivated to do and that are going to give me that energy and excitement.  

But I also was thinking about, again, I think we talked about this in the interview with Will, about your zone of genius. 

And your zone of genius is, what are you good at, what do you enjoy, and what contributes a lot of value or makes you more money or you know, is productive for you to do. 

And I guess I wasn't feeling like the podcast was that. But then a couple of things happened that made me realize that actually, I think the podcast probably is one of those things. 

And that maybe there was just too many competing demands in my time and I needed to get some things off my plate so that I had more time to do something, which was more aligned with what I'm naturally good at and can enjoy.  

So, I guess something that reminded me that I actually do enjoy this modality or this sort of format of producing content is my history in radio. 

And I worked in radio community and commercial in my late teens, early twenties.  

And there was one radio station that I was involved with in Melbourne called Hitz FM, which was a community youth broadcaster.  

And I was so disappointed recently that I wasn't able to attend a reunion. 

And I guess I didn't realize how disappointed I was until I saw some of the photos from the reunion.  

And I was overseas at the time, which is consistent with my values of working less, spending three months a year overseas.  

So, that is a tick. But once I heard that there was going to be this reunion, I'd already locked in this trip and I guess I thought, "Okay. Well, I can't attend." But I realized, "Oh, I do miss radio a little bit." 

And there's a lot of people that I would have liked to have seen, even though I'm connected still with some of them.  

There were others who I've lost touch with that would have been great to see.  

And I guess that doing this is close to radio. And maybe podcasts probably now is an audio medium that more people are listening to maybe more so than radio, particularly at a certain age group. 

And this is something that I can continue to do. And it is something that hopefully I'm good at or getting better at.  

I've done 187 episodes now, so I better be getting a little bit better at it.  

And it reminded me that I do enjoy it. I guess I just kind of forgotten. 

And I'd also forgotten about the value that it brings to the business because a few clients have come on board recently and I've told me, "I've listened to the podcast. I've listened to the podcast."  

So, it’s there, helping people, get an understanding of what it is that I do, how I can help. 

And maybe one thing that I could do to make it resonate more and more enjoyable for me is just to, I guess, share a little bit more about myself and what I do. 

So, I want to be doing that on each episode and I may as well start now with a little bit of an update. 

And coming up this week, there's a few significant things. One is that Daniel O'Brien, who is the CEO of X Commercial is coming in to speak to our private clients about building his empire and also growing his personal brand. 

You might follow Dan's X Commercial brand on Instagram. He's got about 32,000 followers now. 

And it's just incredible what he's done in that one channel to really position himself as a thought leader in this industry. 

Something which no one gave him permission to do. He did with his own initiative and he's gone all in and it's producing amazing results. 

I'm really looking forward to him sharing with my clients exactly the process that he's gone about to one, build a network of offices, to start his own franchise group and to create this incredible content that's getting so much traction on Instagram.  

So, that's on Wednesday. Then on Thursday, I'm flying down to Tasmania to speak to the REIT, not the real estate investment trust, but the real estate Institute of Tasmania. 

It's the first time I've ever been to Tasmania, which I'm excited about. And I'm really grateful for the opportunity.  

However, this travel does keep me from a Father’s Day event, which is happening on Friday morning at my daughter's kindergarten.  

And usually I would just, whatever it was, if it was a work thing, I would just cancel it, move it. Find a way to get to my daughter's kindergarten for this Father's Day event. 

And I'm a little bit upset that I can't get there because I'm worried about how my daughter's going to be feeling when all the other Dads show up and I can't be there because I'm in Tasmania that day.  

And I don't do a lot of interstate travel for work for speaking engagements.  

So, I guess I just wanted to document right now that if one day my daughter comes to me and says, "Daddy, why weren't you at the event for Father's Day in kindergarten?" 

I want you to know, Juna, that I was really disappointed and sorry that I couldn't be there. And I will do my best to make sure that I am there with I guess, even more presence and enthusiasm the next time that all the dads are invited to come in to the kindergarten. 

So, look, that's our episode for today. I really just wanted to acknowledge the clients that came on to recent episodes.  

I want to do a little bit of a reset and tell you that this is something that is a passion of mine and that I realized does or can contribute more value to the business. 

And I want to do that. And one way I can do that is by one, committing to do it.  

And now, I think before it was, it was a little bit of a grind. I just had lost a little bit of that passion. Because passion, I think, is one of those things.

And this is again, talking about an interview. You don't have to be passionate about commercial real estate. 

You don't have to be passionate about office buildings, for example. You just need to find the thing within your business, within what you do, that you are passionate about and focus on that. 

Because once you've got the thing that you're passionate about, then that is the thing that can provide you with that motivation to keep going and to make the work that you do less of a grind and more enjoyable. 

And I hope that this podcast, once again, will be that I even went back and listened to some of my early episodes.  

And probably the earlier episodes, I put too much work into them in terms of the amount of editing and production that we did.  

And I guess it was different back then because the business was not producing revenue at the same level at all that it is now. 

And again, I was looking over the numbers and it's in four years, it's eight times as big, which is fantastic, right?  

I've dropped the ball a little bit on the podcast. So, this is my commitment to bring it back.  

And as I said, there'll be a little bit of a personal update each episode, but also, I'll be looking to bring you more value related to ways that you can get the right people in your team, serving the exact clients that you want to serve inside a business that just works. 

So, that's what we're here to do. I've made a promise to do it every single week. So, we've got to start doing that from now on.

And I hope that you're going to come on this journey with me.  

That's our episode for today. Thank you so much for listening. I will speak to you soon.