10 Ways to Become More Masterful in 2025
If there was one word that summed up remodelers’ thoughts about 2024, it would be “uncertainty,” says industry advisor Mark Richardson. This year, the word is “masterful.”
Richardson sees 2025 as the year for remodelers to sharpen their skills, grow their business, and take their game to the next level. How does one become more masterful? In his newest Remodeling Mastery podcast, Richardson shares 10 ways to do so:
- Find your reason why: 14:07
- Improve your focus: 15:02
- Allow yourself space to improve: 15:59
- Schedule time for yourself: 17:43
- Have a plan: 18:54
- Be more proactive, less reactive: 19:25
- Keep it simple: 20:13
- Create a routine: 21:55
- Make mastery a habit: 22:56
- Become a student of mastery: 24:21
Partial Transcript
Hi, I'm Mark Richardson. Welcome to Remodeling Mastery. Remodeling Mastery is a podcast series that's really designed to help you think and reflect on your remodeling business. Not just do your remodeling business. What I try to do is take different topics or themes, whether they're 1000, foot level or one foot level in the trenches, and really give you some insights to really reflect on these particular topics. Today I'm going to be talking about a topic that's pretty relevant to 2025 and that is, what is your theme for 2025 2024 my theme, and certainly something I talked about throughout the year, was a year of uncertainty we were coming out of, Obviously the pandemic, all of the headwinds and the tailwinds that were happening. It was very Herky jerky time. It was a wonky time in 23 and 24 and as a result of that, in addition to having a historic presidential election, it was a year of uncertainty. Now that theme, a year of uncertainty. Did not mean that it was going to be good or bad. It just means it was uncertain. And uncertainty sometimes is something that you've got to approach differently than it is a year of certainty. Many of the companies I work with all around the country and groups that I've certainly facilitate and lead were experiencing that, where they were going through periods of scarcity in terms of phone ringing or sales, and then periods of abundance, where all of a sudden, things didn't necessarily fall in. The good news is a very high percentage of the companies had very, very good years in 2024
However, that doesn't change the fact that it was uncertain. So what I like to do, as I think about the year and I think about things, is talk to a lot of different people. And couple of comments that came out of a recent leadership discussion was that, you know, I feel like in 2024 that we've stabilized. I feel like in 2024 the dust has settled, and now it's really time to really take our game to the next level. And I really think that theme as we move into this year is, in fact, something that could be a good way to not only create clarity for yourself, but also create, I think, alignment for your team. So my theme for 2024 is 2025. Is 2025. Is a year of mastery. And mastery is all about, how do I their the ax? How do I take my game to the next level? How do I really get better at what I'm doing? If I can get better at what I'm doing, and I can see even modest levels of growth, but improvements in effectiveness and efficiency, I can actually see pretty dramatic outcomes that come out of that, outcomes in terms of team, outcomes in terms of profitability, outcomes, in terms of client experience. So 2025, is a year of mastery. So I really want to talk about that topic today is, how do you become more masterful? And as you think about that, somewhat academically, you know, mastery, and it's been, you know, said that, you know, you can focus on your level of mastery in so many different ways. I like to use other examples in life. You know, mastery is all about learning. It's not just about results. So for example, occasionally, if I watch professional golf, and at the end of the professional golf tournament, you have the top players in the world, they're interviewed, and oftentimes the person interviewing wants to talk about the person winning or losing that particular round. Well, the real masterful golfer rarely talks about him winning or losing. He talks about the fact that what he learned in that experience, you know, he doesn't get, I think, all emotional about the losing a match. He talks about, you know, there's certain things I did well, and there's certain things that I learned, and I gotta get better at it. I remember hearing an interview by with famous comedian Jerry Seinfeld, and the interviewee wants to really drill into how does he prepare his jokes when it comes to his stand up comedy? And in the course of the interview, he said, You know, it's not about the joke. It's about the pause. And as a student of mastery and a student of success, I really, really listened carefully to what he's saying, and he said, you know, yes, of course, we got to get the blocking and tackling, but it's the pause in the audience that that's where I think the real magic and mastery really comes. You know, Malcolm Gladwell talked about and did studies that it takes 10,000 hours to really get good at something. And while you could take that number literally or not 10,000 hours, I think the concept is, what's really, really important. I know many times after I've given a particular talk to an audience, I'll have people come up to me afterwards and sometimes say, you know, Mark, I'm interested in becoming a professional speaker. I say, terrific. Tell me a little bit more about what you've done in terms of public speaking, whether it's in your community or in terms of larger audience. And often at times, they'll say, Well, you know, I haven't really done any professional speaking, but I really like the idea of it. And I kind of oftentimes look at them as saying they're really at such a low level of mastery that they'll never get, I think, a strong audience unless they improve. So I tell them, you know, I've done probably close to about 1000 talks in my career, and as a result of that, you know, the My first advice is just to get out there and find a little bit of a community that you can start to speak to. And once you start to do that, you'll gain more and more confidence.
