287 | The 4 Box Framework That Will Change Your Real Estate Business

Have questions or need help? 

📱 Shoot me a text

🎓 Free Training — April 29th: Go to https://faithfulagent.com/ to register.

-------------

Are you building your real estate business by design — or by accident?

Most agents don't wake up one day and decide to be overwhelmed. It happens gradually. Someone at a conference says you should be doing open houses. A top agent in your office swears by cold calling. You see a Christian entrepreneur crushing it on Instagram and think, "I should be doing that too." Before long, your business is a collection of random activities instead of a clear, God-honoring strategy.

In this episode of The Faithful Agent Podcast, Garrett introduces the Four Box Framework — a simple but powerful tool to help you identify what you should actually be spending your time on in your real estate business.

The Four Box Framework asks two questions about every task in your business: Do you love it? And are you good at it? Based on your answers, each task falls into one of four boxes — and your goal as a faith-based realtor is to move as much of your time as possible into the "love it and good at it" box. That's where God uniquely wired you to operate. That's where your business grows and you feel alive doing it.

This isn't just time management advice. It's a biblical business principle rooted in stewarding the God-given strengths and gifts He placed inside you. When you stop doing what you were never designed to do, clarity creates margin — and both your business and your life get better at the same time.

Key Takeaways

1. "Should" is one of the most dangerous words in real estate.
When you build your business based on what you think you should be doing — based on what worked for someone else, what you saw on social media, or what your broker recommended — you end up with a business built by conditioning, not design.

2. You were not designed to do everything.
God uniquely wired you with specific gifts, strengths, and natural affinities. When you try to do everything, you dilute the effectiveness of the things that actually matter. 100% of your energy in one God-given lane will always outperform 20% scattered across five lanes.

3. The Four Box Framework helps you find your sweet spot.
Divide your business tasks into four categories: Love it + Good at it (sweet spot), Love it + Bad at it (passion, not profit — yet), Hate it + Good at it (danger zone — delegate this first), Hate it + Bad at it (stop immediately). Your goal is to spend more time in the top-left box. That's where your business grows and you feel energized.

4. Your business should be built around your calling, not your capacity.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. When you lean into what God uniquely designed you to do, things start to click. Clarity creates margin — and when you know what to do, what not to do, and what to let go of, your business gets lighter and more effec

Connect with Me!

Need help in your business? I'm here to help! Shoot me a quick text and we'll figure out the next step in winning at work without losing at life. 

📱 Text Me

📞 Are you a high-performing agent who’s succeeding, but knows there has to be a healthier, more sustainable path forward? Let's talk. Book a Breakthrough Call here ---> https://calendly.com/d/cvks-ds7-9dv

➡️ I wrote a book! And now I'm giving away the audiobook to my awesome and faithful listeners - that's YOU! Get the FREE Audiobook - The Balanced Breakthrough - HERE

Transcript

We've created this hamster wheel and we're stuck on it, and we just keep running and running and running because we're terrified what would happen if we stop running? But here's the deeper issue. You weren't designed to do everything. You weren't. And when you try to do everything, you dilute your effectiveness and the things that actually matter. One of the biggest frustrations I see with agents is they feel like they're doing everything, but not actually getting the results they want. They're busy all day. They're working hard. They're trying to do the right things, but at the end of the week, they're exhausted and they still feel behind. So today, I want to give you a framework that will bring a ton of clarity to your business. It's going to help you answer, what should I actually be spending my time on? What should I stop doing, and what did God uniquely design me to do in this business? Because the goal is not to do more. It's to do what matters most. I was coaching an agent one day and she was a good agent, but struggling to understand where should she be spending her time. Everything felt important that she did. She didn't have great help in her business in terms of leverage of other people, and she just didn't know where she should be spending her time. She was missing out on too many family dinners and date nights, and always had her phone and felt like she was always on. It could never really be off. And so we just started to talk through where should she focus? And I gave her this four box framework that we're going to talk about in today's episode. And as we worked through this process together, she started to get real clarity. She started to recognize where she should spend time and what things she needed to let go of or give to someone else. And the more that she did that, the better her business was, the better her life was. And the same thing will happen with you too. So let's dive in. All right. You guys know this would not be a faithful agent podcast without a Christian dad joke. A teacher was giving a lesson on the Old Testament and asked one of her students, Tommy, who knocked down the walls of Jericho. Tommy answered, well, it wasn't me worried about this lack of Bible knowledge. The teacher called Tommy's mother. His mother said, look, my son's a good kid. If he says he didn't knock the wall down, he didn't knock the wall down. More worried, the teacher called Tommy's father. He listened to her story and said, well, look, I don't want any trouble. Just tell me how much this wall costs and I'll take care of it. Most agents build their business around opportunity and not design. Meaning someone told me to do this, so I do it. Or this worked for someone else in my office. So I try it or this seems important. So I added it in to my business. Should is one of the most dangerous words and our entire industry. We look around and we see something working on social media and we say, oh, I should be doing that too. Or we go to a class and someone talks about their open house strategy. We say, man, I really should be doing that. To grow my business and should is a very dangerous word. We need to check ourselves any time we start to feel that way. And I feel that way too. There's a lot of times where I'll see what somebody else is doing and I'll say, man, I should be doing that. I should add this in. I could do this. And and all the questions that start to come up right as we look at what other people are doing. And I have to check myself and say, hold on, that's not necessarily true. In fact, it's often not true. I just feel this overwhelming pressure to be doing what other people are doing, as if what they do actually applies to what I do. Right. As if the Lord wired me the exact same way. The way they wired the person on social media who's got more followers and seems to be doing really well in their business. Whatever this scenario is, we don't often build a business by design. We build it by conditioning. We've been conditioned by the industry. We've been conditioned by what we see as working. We've been conditioned that we must use AI tools, and we must have SEO, and we must be on social media. All the things that we've had conversations about even recently, we've been conditioned that all of these things are requirements. And so our business is not purposeful, it's accidental. And yet we've created this incredible in a negative way hamster wheel. And we're stuck on it. And we just keep running and running and running because we're terrified what would happen if we stop running? And before long, our business becomes a collection of random activities instead of a clear and intentional strategy. But here's the deeper issue. You weren't designed to do everything. You weren't. And when you try to do everything, you dilute your effectiveness and the things that actually matter. What do I mean? If I have 100 pieces of energy and I could give 100 pieces of pieces of energy to the one thing that I was uniquely called to do, which in my business has been referrals, if I could give 100 pieces of energy to that, I could make a big difference in my business and in the lives of other people. That's thankfully what I did. But what if instead I gave 20 pieces of focus to referrals, 20 to open house, 20 to social media, 20 to cold calling, 20 to door knocking? Right. Whatever that scenario is for you. Well, every single one of those is going to dilute the effectiveness in my referral business. Right. The one thing that actually was going to matter, and I see that over and over and over again in our business, we're doing things that don't actually move the needle, that don't actually matter. We've just added them in instead of putting something out first and then adding something new, we just added it on top as if we're capable of doing everything. And look, guys, again, we weren't designed to do everything. It's not possible. And then we dilute the effectiveness of what we're actually trying to do. I remember telling this story on stage one day, and I throw up this picture of my mother in law who I'm. For those of you who don't know, I'm five. Well, five, six and three quarters. And when you're five six, you gotta add in those three quarters, especially if you're a man. And and so I'm five, six and three quarters, I throw up this picture of my mother in law who is standing next to my wife's good family friends growing up. So my mother in law's about five two, and then they're family friends. The Jensen's the dad is six foot ten and the son is seven foot one. I mean, I don't even know that we're the same species, right? And so I remember going to visit Mr. Jensen, who's six foot ten, and he's got he he loves sports like I do. And so he says, Gary, you gotta come see my sports memorabilia in my office. So we go into his office and and it really is it's amazing. You know, he's got the coolest stuff, but that's not what I remember. What I remember is he works at a standing desk, and I could literally walk under it back and forth without ducking, right? Uh, that is something that doesn't make you feel as manly as maybe you could, but but here's the reality. Right when I when I think about this. Well, number one, the Lord is the one who decided that I'd be five, six and three quarters and that Mr. Jensen would be six foot ten. Right. But, but but most of us spend our time in our business, even in our lives. And I struggle with this, too. But most of us spend our time saying, you know, why am I not six foot ten? I could have been a great basketball player, right? It could have been an amazing volleyball player. All of these things I could have done if I was six foot ten, and we just spent so much time wishing we were something or someone else, or had different characteristics, that we forget the giftings and the uniqueness that we have based on who we are. So I told this joke. I said, you know, look, here's the reality. I could spend all my time saying, I wish I was six foot ten. I would have been an amazing basketball player, but I guarantee you I would crush Mr. Jensen and hide and seek. No way. Six foot ten guy can hide, but I can all day. We've got to understand, not just in the things that the Lord has uniquely given us an affinity, a natural liking for. But but what did he wire and create you to do? Should is a bad word. Some of you are uniquely gifted in certain areas of your business, but you spend time chasing and wishing you or someone else or doing something else. And so you spend your time on not important activities. And we've gotten all kinds of confused. We're trying to do all the things right. Maybe you are the most introverted person ever, and you're thinking, why am I trying to build my business on cold calling? Maybe I was designed for something else. I was just coaching a team a week ago and that's what we were talking about. Some of them are really introverted. That's okay. Right. That that's a that's a gift that you have. That is a a characteristic that the Lord gave you. It's not a bad thing. The Lord created you that way. Let's just figure out who you are and how we turn that into a superpower. Right? Maybe you are the most extroverted, dominant personality, and you love being on the phones all the time, but you're spending time trying to create social media videos that you don't care about, and neither does anybody else. Just because you saw someone else do it and you told yourself I should be doing that to. My point is we try to do everything and we weren't designed to do everything. Hey faithful agents, it is a joy to serve you all in this way. But now I need your help. Do you know someone who would be an amazing guest on this podcast? Do you have an idea for a topic that we should cover? Have you sent this out to a friend or left a five star review wherever you can? I want this to reach more agents with the good news of the gospel, and to encourage them to be more excellent in their work and their faith. So if you have any of that, I hope you'll rate the show. I hope you share it, but I also hope you'll send me an email. Garrett at Garrett. Com and you'll tell me about someone you think I should have on the show, or give me some ideas of what you want to hear about. After all, this show is about you. It's not about me. I'd love to hear from you. Email me at Garrett at Garrett. Maroon. Com. Now back to the show. So let me introduce to you the four box framework, this framework that has solved a lot of problems for a lot of people, myself included. So I want you to picture this mentally. There's a box and there's four quadrants. Top left top right. Bottom left, bottom right. Okay. A four four boxes in the top left. Box right. The words love and good. You love it and you're good at it. And the top right box. Love and bad. You love it and you're bad at it. In the bottom left box. Hate and good. So you hate it, but you're good at it. Bottom right, box hate and bad. I hate it and I'm bad at it. So let me run you through that again. The top left box, love and good. Top right box. Love and bad. Bottom left box hate and good bottom right box hate and bad. Okay, that's all it is. And I just want you to take a minute, a few minutes and just think about the things that you do in your business. Right. We're just talking about business right now. The things that you actually are navigating in your business. And you're just going to ask yourself the questions. Right. And I'm going to walk you through this in a minute. But so so your sweet spot is going to be this top left box. The things that you love and you are good at the the top right box. Right. The things you love but you're not good at. That's those are the things you're passionate about. But you're not effective in the bottom left. The things that you don't love, right. That you hate and are good. It's competence, but it doesn't bring you any joy in the bottom right where you hate it and you're not good at it. That's the danger zone of any time that you're going to spend. And your goal in business is to slowly spend more and more of your time in that top left box, you're going to work your way to the top left box. That's the whole point of why we do this exercise. You're either going to stop doing some of the things in the other three boxes, or hire those out, delegate those tasks and spend more time in the area. The Lord has specifically gifted you and and given you joy in. You didn't choose what was going to bring you joy. You didn't choose what was going to be your natural giftings. I didn't choose to be five, six, and three quarters. Mr. Gibson didn't choose to be 610. But we are those things. And so therefore, my job is to understand who I was wired to be and pursue that, pursue excellence in that. So let me walk you through this. So top left, love and good. Right I love it and I'm good at it. This is where you are most effective. This is where you create the most value. It's where you feel the most energized. It's where you have an outsized opportunity compared to any of your competition. It's where you're going to get paid the most money. It's where you're going to create the most opportunities for yourself. Right. That could be an example. Might be sitting down with a buyer or seller. Maybe you love it and you feel like you're really good at it. Maybe building relationships, maybe negotiating deals, maybe creating content, maybe casting vision, whatever those things are, you are stopping to think about what you're doing in your business and you put those in the appropriate box. Do you love it? And you're good at it, right? These are not accidents. These are God given strengths. Let me say that again. These are not accidents. They are God given strengths. If you're good at building relationships, well, yeah, we can get better on those things. And we should pursue excellence in all things, right? That's the Lord's standard. However, he gave that to you. He made it. So you love it and you're good at it, right? Somebody might love social media, I certainly don't. And so and that wasn't my choice. That wasn't their choice. Jesse. My agent, my business partner. He loves fishing. I don't he didn't choose it and I didn't choose it. That's just who we are. And so he should spend more time doing that. And I should spend no time doing that. Right? It's just who the Lord created you to be. Don't look around and say, man, my, my love and good box should look like this. That's totally untrue. You were uniquely designed by the Lord. You were uniquely given specific skill sets. Use those. Find joy in those things. So loving and good at. What do you love in your business and what are you good at? Put them in that top left box and when you operate here, your business grows and you feel alive doing it. That's the box we want to work our way towards. All right, top right I love it, but I'm bad at it. Right. This is where a lot of agents get stuck. Things like I love making videos, but I'm not good at it, right? I love social media, but it doesn't convert. And these things aren't bad, but they're not your highest return, right? If you love doing it, that's fine, but only if your business is actually in a place where it can sustain you, even when you waste time on things that aren't producing for you, right? Even only when your family life is in a place where if mom or dad goes and spends two hours on a video that they love doing, but it's not producing anything in their business, and it's okay because you're not missing, you know, your son's soccer game or family dinner or whatever. Those are the only times it's okay to do that, right? So we've got two options. And we want to be honest if I love it, but I'm bad at it. Two options. You either get better or you stop expecting results from it, because passion alone does not grow your business. Right. So so we're going to talk about this right at the end of these three boxes. Love and bad is the first one. Do we just let those things go or do we hire them out. Are they important in your business? Stop thinking like an agent. Start thinking like a business owner. So bottom left. I hate it, but I'm good at it, right? This one is a sneaky box because you're good at it, so you keep doing it right. That that could be admin work. Transaction coordinating management, managing systems or detailed tasks. I can't tell you how many agents that I've coached that won't hire a transaction coordinator for $400, a transaction that is going to buy back 10 to 20 hours of their time because they say, well, I'm good at it, right? I'm good at it. I'm competent of this. So I'm convinced that it's just faster if I do it. How many times have you told yourself that? And here's the problem. Every time you spend time here, every hour you spend in this bottom left box of things I love, or, excuse me, things that I hate, but I am good at it. Stealing time from your top left box. The top left box is where your business will grow. The top left box is where you are uniquely gifted by the Lord. The top left box is how you start to create more opportunity, more income, how you make more but miss less because it takes you less time to create more income so you can buy that time back and spend time with your family. The top left box right is is where we're trying to head. This bottom left that I that I hate, but I'm good at. It's the first place we should hire out. It's the first place we should hire out. Just because you're good at it doesn't mean you should be the one doing it. One question that we ask ourselves sometimes is, is this something that should be done in my business? That's a good question and I hope you asked that question. We need to learn to ask the second question. And then the second question is if the answer is yes, you know, I need transaction coordinating in my business. Of course I do. The second question is who should do it? And I promise you, 90% of the time the answer is not you, right? It's not you. Even if you're a brand new agent, was coaching up a brand new agent the other day and I said, you know, as soon as you possibly can, and I would even do it from the outset, but it's up to you. I'd go higher. Transaction coordinator, that's going to save you 20 hours, right? As you're trying to figure it out for 400 bucks, you spend ten of those hours trying to find another deal, take the other ten hours and do whatever you want to do. Spend it with your family. And guess what? That's a good return on your time. Just because you're good at it doesn't mean you should keep doing it. And finally, the bottom right box is pretty simple. You hate it and you're not good at it, so just stop doing it immediately. Stop doing it. Right. Those are things like struggling with tech or forcing yourself into marketing that you hate to do, or doing tasks that you naturally avoid and procrastinate. These things drain your energy and they don't produce results, so there's no reason for these to stay in your business. The more that you aim and head towards the top left box, the more income you're going to have, the less time it's going to take you to get that income. And then if you've done a good job of heading in the top left direction, if you come back and you say, you know, there were some things that we needed in our business that I had to let go of as I was really focusing on the most important piece and aspect of my business and the way the Lord uniquely wired me. And maybe that's social media. Well guess what? Because you focus on the top left box, now you've got the income where you could go hire someone to help you with that if it was necessary. Right? You could go hire someone to help you with that. Maybe because you focus on the top of that box, you've created more opportunity and income, and now you've bought yourself back some time. And maybe it's something that you actually do really love, but you're not good at it, right? Like making videos. Okay. Guess what? Now you've earned the right to spend some time on just trying something that you love, and seeing if you can get better at it. That's okay. That's where this podcast came from. Right. I worked for eight years to build my business, going towards that top left box, and eventually I was able to buy myself enough time, create enough opportunity and income for me, get enough leverage on the things that I didn't need to spend time on so that I said, you know what? I'm going to try something. Even if it doesn't make money, that's okay. It's something that I think I'd really love to do. And now I've been doing it for five and a half years, that that's what we're talking about. It doesn't happen overnight. But if you head towards the top left box right, that's what's going to grant you opportunities. So here's the big idea. Your business should be built around your calling, not just your capacity. Just because you can do something, does it mean you should do it? God gave you specific strengths for a reason, and when you ignore those, you get frustrated, burned out, and business feels heavy. But when you lean into them, things start to click because clarity creates margin. When you know what to do, when you know what not to do, and when you when you know what to let go of, your business gets lighter and more effective at the same time. So here's what I want you to do. First, I want you to make a list of everything you do in your business. Write down everything that you do in your business. Then take each task and put them into one of those four boxes. Write admin. Work social media. Meet with clients. Print out buyer packets. Run comps. Set up the MLS portal, show houses all the things. I get it. We do a lot of stuff right? Write down everything and then put each one of them into one of those boxes. Where does it fit and identify from there what needs to be eliminated, what needs to be delegated, what needs to be improved, and then start shifting your time toward the top left if you can this week. Spend 30 more minutes in the top left box and 30 fewer minutes in the top right box. Guess what? That's progress in your business. Most of us are afraid to eliminate things in our business, but almost everything we do doesn't move the needle. So ask the Lord, what should I let go of? What needs to be eliminated, what needs to be delegated? And then look at the top left box and say, how can I get better on these things? Start shifting your time there. Even small shifts towards that top left create massive change over time. That's what we're talking about. Stop letting. The word should dictate what you do. You don't need more strategy, you need more clarity. And you need the courage and the trust in the Lord to stop doing things that don't actually matter. And my friends, if this is something you've been struggling with, which let's be honest, we all do at different points. I'm doing a free training on April 29th. It's next week. If you're listening to this, or I'm going to walk through exactly how to build a business that grows without taking over your life, you can register at Faithful Agent Comm. That's faithful agent.com. It's totally free. I want to see you there. Here's what I want you to remember. If you're listening to this after the fact, just email me Garrett at Garrett Maroon Comm and ask for the recording of the training. We will gladly give that to you. I do this podcast because I want to help you. Email me Garrett at Garrett Maroon Comm. We want to help. The truth is, our job as believers is to lean into what excellence looks like in our business because the Lord gave us that unique skill set. I just want us to have clarity in what it is and start heading in that direction. I love you, faithful agents. I'll see you next week. Hey Christian agent, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If it resonated, would you take 30s and share it with another agent who's also trying to grow their business without losing their faith, family, or peace? That's how this message spreads. And if you haven't yet, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss future episodes. I release new ones each Thursday to help you build success that actually lasts. It genuinely fires me up knowing this podcast is helping you pursue excellence to the glory of God, both at work and at home. I'll meet you back here next week for another episode of The Faithful Agent.