Here’s something that sounds crazy for your 2026 planning: The entrepreneurs who set “reasonable” goals almost never achieve spectacular results.
I know what you’re thinking. That makes no sense. Shouldn’t realistic goals lead to realistic success? That’s what we’ve been taught all our lives: be reasonable, be practical, set achievable goals.
But this is what happens when you strive for reasonableness: you get reasonable effort, reasonable creativity, and reasonable results. And in a busy real estate market it is fairly invisible.
How Starbucks Grew by Becoming Obsessed with the ‘Impossible’
Let me tell you about a man named Howard Schultz. In 1987, he bought a small coffee company in Seattle called Starbucks, with a total of six stores. His investors thought he was quite ambitious when he predicted he would open 125 stores in five years. Reasonable goal, reasonable timeline.
But Schultz had a different plan. Ignoring his own projections, he asked himself an impossible question: “What would it take to open a thousand stores?” His investors thought he had gone crazy.
That impossible question changed everything. It forced Schultz to completely reinvent the business model. He couldn’t simply hire better baristas or find slightly better locations. He had to systematize everything: training, supply chain, property selection, brand consistency.
By obsessing over the impossible, he built systems that could scale. Starbucks had 1,000 stores in 1996 and within fifteen years had more than 16,000 locations worldwide.
Impossible goals force you to think differently
Here’s the truth: Impossible goals with unreasonably short timelines create a compelling function that makes you think differently.
If you give yourself five years to double your sales, you’ll probably work a little harder and be a little smarter. But if you give yourself two years to grow your business fivefold, you can’t just work harder because there aren’t enough hours in the day.
You are forced to completely rethink your approach. You have to innovate. You have to ask yourself, “What would make this possible?” instead of “Why is this impossible?”
This pressure creates something magical: relentless mental focus. Your subconscious becomes obsessed with the problem. You’re driving to an appointment and suddenly a solution appears. You’re in the shower and you realize a better way to structure your ad presentations. You wake up at 3am with a marketing idea that you need to write down immediately.
Your brain becomes a 24/7 problem-solving machine, but only if the problem is big enough and urgent enough to warrant that level of processing power.
But this is where most agents fail: they try to be everything to everyone.
How Domino’s Pizza focused on ‘impossible’ scaling
Think Domino’s Pizza in the 1960s. Tom Monaghan didn’t try to make the best pizza for everyone. He made one promise to one target group: students who wanted hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less. That narrow focus, that specific solution to a specific problem for a specific group, allowed Domino’s to scale to thousands of locations.
You should choose your target like a sniper, not a shotgun.
Who specifically are you trying to reach?
- Empty nesters looking to downsize?
- Growing families that need more space?
- Retired couples ready to downsize?
- Professionals moving abroad?
Define them so clearly that you could describe their daily routine, their fears about selling, and their perfect Friday night.
Then, and this is crucial, your message should not only speak directly to them, but also address a specific problem they likely have – before you ever mention your solution.
- “Worried about buying your next home before selling your current one?”
- “Don’t you want to go through countless showings while your house is on the market, making buyers think it’s a dog?”
When they hear their exact problem articulated, they lean forward. They think, “Yes! That’s exactly what I don’t want to happen. What’s the solution?”
But here’s the final piece that most agents miss: your solution must be undeniably different.
In 1980, Southwest Airlines didn’t say, “We are a better airline.” They said something radically different: “We don’t compete with other airlines; we compete with the car.” They compared their prices from Houston to Dallas to the cost of driving, not to American Airlines. That clear positioning broke through decades of airline advertising clutter.
At my company, 72SOLD, we don’t say we are “better agents” or that we provide “superior service.” Everyone says that. We offer something completely different: a proven process that uses a 72-hour event to sell homes fast. That’s not a better version of the same thing. That’s a completely different approach to solving the same problem.
Should your unique process be the same as our unique process? Heck no. Then yours is not unique.
This is your challenge: set a goal that seems impossible. Give yourself an unreasonably short timeline. Choose your specific demographic group. Define their problem in their words. Then craft a message so different from any other agent that homeowners will immediately understand why you’re not just an option: you’re the one and only logical choice.
The gap between starting and spectacular is not bridged by being reasonably better. It is exceeded by being impossibly different.
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