You may be asking yourself, “Who is Joe Girard?” Well, let’s get to know Mr. Joe Girard better. Joe was born in Detroit in a poor Italian family. His father beat him often and he didn’t find a whole lot of love and fun in his family. He spent a lot of his time on the streets of Detroit and became a crook early on in his life. He didn’t do well in school and dropped out soon. It was only many years later that he went back to school as an adult and got his high school diploma. He even tried the military for a short while and couldn’t last beyond 90 days. He tried many things but none of them really worked out well for him.

Despite his poor track record of success, he decided to get married and that was the only thing he did well. But soon after that, he looked at himself and said: “This cannot go on forever. I’ve to take control of my destiny and start to change my life. I’m married and I don’t even have two dimes to rub together. I’ve to do it better even if it is for my family’s sake.”

Think about it for a moment: he was a failure no matter how you look at him up this point in his life. He had all the reasons to admit his failure and give up, but he didn’t. He kept pushing and tried to recognize his shortcomings and compensate for them. He tried even smarter and harder the next time around. At this stage in his life, Joe was unemployed and looking for a job, again.
It was 1950, just after the World War II. Most American families were buying their first car. So, he decided to get a job as a car salesman. He found a job as a car salesman but he didn’t know anything about cars. His first goal was to repay his $10 advance check he received from his employer to buy food for his family. He eventually repaid that money and he kept setting other and higher goals for himself.

This was a pivotal moment in Joe’s life. He started to change his Internal Dialogue. He sets the goals and stuck to them. He learned more and more about cars, and sales & marketing. He was very focused and paid attention to little details which differentiated him from the rest of the crowd. His goals at the beginning were not too high but he achieved them all. And every time he sets the bar a little bit higher. This was not an easy road for Joe. He had to learn many things along the way and fine-tune his strategies and tactics, but he kept pushing the envelope.

Years later, he was (and still is) renowned as the World's Best Salesman in the Guinness Book of World Records. Joe had developed a system for himself, a roadmap, a game plan that he systematically followed and perfected over time.

Back in the 1950s, there were not too many courses, classes, tools or systems that Joe could depend on for his aspiration to higher grounds. The landscape is different 60 years later. Now, you can give up or develop a system as Joe did over many years, or use a system that is developed by a team of experts. The choice is yours. The point is, you have to change your internal dialogue if you think the one you have now is not working, or letting you succeed.

A real estate professional has scripts and dialogues for clients, and also in his own self. You can separate the one from the other for a time and with some people, but more often than not, the two dialogues blend despite of yourself. And you don't want that reflected in your job that you hold dear. Change your internal system, and your frontline dialogue will follow.