Birthdays and Forced Reflection: Five Lessons From 21 Years in Business
Mindset · From Student of the Game
Birthdays and Forced Reflection: Five Lessons From 21 Years in Business
Student of the Game usually features a guest interview followed by a solo Huddle. For this episode, Brad Noll goes a little rogue and makes himself the guest. It is his birthday week, and he believes birthdays, like anniversaries and New Year's, are moments on the calendar built for forced reflection.
Brad says he doesn't mind getting older, even if he doesn't love the effects. With age comes wisdom. His roots are growing deeper, and he believes he is producing better fruit. So he uses the week to sit down, look at where he has been, and share what he found.
The Present Isn't That Deep. The Past Is.
Brad's kids have a phrase that drives him a little nuts. Whenever he turns cleaning a room or doing the dishes into a life lesson, they tell him, "Dad, it ain't that deep." During his week of reflection, he found a new meaning in it. "The present isn't that deep, but your past is the deep end," he says.
He remembers being on the swim team as a kid and being scared to death of the deep end, especially at the lake, where you couldn't see the bottom. Looking honestly at your past can feel the same way. But when you dive down and touch the bottom, you can push off harder than if you had simply floated to the top.
His first suggestion is practical. If your birthday is coming up, put time on your calendar for deep work on yourself and your business. Everyone wants to grow, Brad says, but few are willing to go back, analyze, and look for patterns. He considers spotting patterns in data one of his skills, and he turns that lens on his own 21 years in five lessons.
“Out of the 40 successful people I met with, I paid for zero. And what I learned was successful people give clues.”
Brad Noll
Lesson One: Embrace the Grind Early
Brad goes back to his college basketball conditioning, when he had to run sprints faster than he ever had before. He did it, and he still holds on to that memory. Doing hard things builds confidence and reveals untapped potential. He is careful to say he isn't promoting grind culture where sleep is for suckers. But early on, you have to get after it.
When he graduated, he asked his coaching staff for the list of donors he had met at team functions. About 50 names were on it, and he booked roughly 40 breakfasts and coffees. He didn't worry about the 10 he couldn't reach. A broke, newly married college graduate, he went to every meeting planning to pay. "Out of the 40 successful people I met with, I paid for zero," he says. "And what I learned was successful people give clues."
Lesson Two: Invest in Relationships, Not Transactions
For his first four years in business, Brad did everything: TV ads, radio spots on a smooth jazz station, postcards, and recipe cards. He spent nearly every dollar he made on promotion and told himself that was how a business grows. He was cold calling, door knocking, and chasing for-sale-by-owner listings.
Promotion still matters, he says, but "the investment in relationships pays the greatest return." That's why he says yes to almost any new agent who asks to meet and learn how he runs his business. He doesn't want anyone to spend four years confused the way he was.
Lesson Three: Embrace the Plateau
This is the lesson Brad most wants listeners to hear. After digging into his numbers, he found that 15 of his 21 years in business were spent on a plateau, with little or no growth. The jumps came after specific changes:
- In 2006, three years in, his business rose 73 percent when he started to believe in relationships.
- For the next several years, through the recession, his production held nearly identical.
- In 2012, he hired a full-time assistant, and business grew 67 percent in one year.
- Around 2018, he added a buyer's agent and began attending a conference with elite producers who challenged him, and business nearly doubled.
- Overall, his business has grown about seven and a half times since his first year.
If you are two years in and not seeing progress, Brad says, keep going. The work takes time. It is the crock pot, not the microwave. Based on his own numbers, someone posting on social media without traction might need years before something happens. "After 21 years, you can be overnight success, too," he jokes.
Lessons Four and Five: Challenges and Values
Most people don't love change or challenges, Brad admits. But if you reframe a hard moment by asking what you are supposed to learn, challenges become a catalyst for change. Approach every conflict by asking what you can learn from the other person, and conflict loses its grip. That is part of growing constantly, one of his team's core values.
Finally, define success through values and personal development. Your story carries more weight when you know what you stand for. Brad's mom taught him to live a principle centered life, which to him means being intentional with your decisions. His team's core values are serve others, earn everything, grow constantly, win together, and always represent.
Are You Ready to Jump Into the Deep End?
Brad closes with a challenge. Forced reflection lets you see the traits and the lessons in everything you have been through, good and bad. "Are you ready to be the person that your younger self needed?" he asks. You have likely grown more than you realize. Whether it is your birthday, the new year, or a holiday, pick a moment, dive in, and look for the patterns that will shape your next season.
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Birthdays are Great for Forced Reflections, on Student of the Game.
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