Growth Drivers
Mike & Rachael Novak run the #1 real estate team in Everrett, WA. They mentor hundreds of agents & have sold 1,000+ homes in their career.
Join Mike & Rachael as they discuss how to drive GROWTH in business, relationships, fitness & more 📈
Growth Drivers
The Weekly Planning Ritual that Guarantees Growth
This isn’t another motivational podcast. This is a wake-up call.
In this episode, Mike and Rachael Novak go to war against the chaos—the reactive, unfocused, burnout-producing way most people start their week.
Here’s the truth:
If you're rolling into Monday with no plan...
If you're letting your inbox, your clients, and your calendar run the show...
You're not leading. You're surviving.
And survivors don’t scale.
Inside this episode, we break down the exact weekly ritual used by top-performing agents in the Warrior Agent Movement to dominate every domain of life—Body. Being. Balance. Business.
YOU’LL LEARN:
- Why most agents are stuck in busy work instead of real progress
- The Sunday Review process that recalibrates your focus before the week even starts
- How to build your Ideal Weekly Schedule (IWS) to create time for what actually matters
- The "Weekly War" system—4 specific targets across all domains to stay locked in and accountable
RAISE YOUR STANDARD.
Rachael breaks down how this planning framework helped her reclaim her time, level up her fitness, and deepen her connection with family—all while scaling the business.
Mike lays out the consequences of not taking this seriously: distraction, disconnection, disarray.
THIS ISN’T ABOUT A TO-DO LIST. THIS IS ABOUT WAR.
The battlefield is your calendar. The enemy is your distractions.
And your weapon is intentional planning done BEFORE the fight begins.
IF YOU WANT TO GROW—YOU MUST PLAN TO WIN.
No more rolling into Monday hoping it all works out.
No more pretending that being “busy” is the same thing as being effective.
Listen now. Then act.
This episode is your new operating system.
Deploy it. Live it. Win.
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Mike Novak:
[0:33] Still overwhelmed, scattered, and stuck, this planning ritual is going to give
Weekly Planning Ritual for Success
Mike Novak:
[0:37] you the ruthless clarity and the momentum to finally win the week. Today, we're talking about
the weekly planning ritual that guarantees growth. I see so many people, not just agents, but just
friends, colleagues, leaders in other businesses, and just like even nine to five people really
struggle with this, where they jump into their week and they're like instantly in reactive mode. Have
you seen that?
Rachael Novak:
[1:01] Yeah, no, that's exactly the word I was going to use for it because it is, it's like you're waking
up Monday morning, like you don't want to do the thing Sunday to prep that we're going to kind of
get into. And you wake up Monday morning, already feeling behind, like already trying to play a
little catch up, already trying to, you know, close some loops and button up some things before you
can be proactive in your business or your life.
Mike Novak:
[1:26] Right. If you come into Monday morning and you don't already have a plan for that week,
you've already lost not just that day, but the entire week.
Rachael Novak:
[1:34] Yeah, you're going to lose massive momentum. Right.
Mike Novak:
[1:37] So like out of that, I mean, what are some of the negatives that come out of that? I mean,
obviously, like a huge lack of focus is a negative. Spinning your wheels and feeling like you're doing
like you're busy, but you're not productive is something that I see a lot as well. You know, where
you're putting in the time, but you're not really getting anything out of it.
Rachael Novak:
[1:55] Yeah, I mean, I think that will manifest itself in like showing up to the office. And because you
haven't like laid out a clear plan for what the focus of your week is, or in warrior speak, what your
weekly war looks like or your domino door. Now you're showing up, and you're kind of like, well,
should I do this? Or like, should I focus on this area? Like, you're very scattered. And you're now
attempting to multitask, which is a buzzword in our industry, especially like we're all great
multitaskers. multitasking is the thing that
The Cost of Lack of Focus
Rachael Novak:
[2:25] will keep you back from relentlessly accomplishing your goals week to week.
Mike Novak:
[2:30] Yeah multitasking is the opposite of focus correct so, yeah and and then i think the worst thing
maybe that comes out of this is you end up basically being on the receiving end of everyone else's
needs yes right because you haven't called your own shots you haven't allocated your time and
your focus for each day of the week and what you're going to do you now just become you know
basically like the solution to everyone else's problem and you have to take care of all the needs
that they have that they come to you with you know this could be like in transactions real estate
deals like clients it could be agents on the other side where you're just you feel like you're playing
defense the whole week like you never actually feel caught up and then friday or saturday come
and you're like what the hell did i actually get done this week yeah you know like i survived but i
sure as hell didn't thrive yeah.
Rachael Novak:
[3:13] It's like it's the the difference between you know responding to a bunch of emails with
answers and closing loops for other people but not ever sending emails and being proactive about
the things that you're trying to drive your business forward with.
Mike Novak:
[3:26] Right so like on the reverse side of this i I mean, it doesn't really have to be this way. You
know, we've worked really hard on this over the last 10 years and we've coached a lot of people on
this as well. And how do you actually set up your week to be massively successful so that when
you come into Monday, you feel like you've got a plan, right? Like, you know, what you're going to
do for the week, you know, where you're going to focus your time and that time that you're going to
be focused on aligns to your bigger goals. It's not just kind of shooting from the hip on what needs
to be done that day, but it's actually like aligning and synergizing to your ultimate goals for the year.
Rachael Novak:
[4:00] And I want to specify that this isn't just the business domain. This is your body, your fitness,
your family, your kids, your marriage, relationships, as well as business. Like there is a big shift in
accomplishment, quality of life when you put into place this consistent cadence of planning for your
week where you can show up better, you can show up more fit, you can show up more present,
you can create quality time even if it's not the quantity that you may want. It's better in every single
domain.
Mike Novak:
[4:42] Yeah, you have intentionality, right? Like you've got conscious intentionality, versus like
passivity to your schedule and your, your planning. So you know what you're going to do each day,
you know, the time you're going to do it and you, you know, the focus of that time block, like, Hey,
I'm going to really go deep on this one thing and not do other things at that same time. And that's
where like people really start to find success, you know, like success in real estate is really pretty
simple. It's about being focused on a couple of very simple things and then being really
Setting Up for Success
Mike Novak:
[5:13] ruthlessly committed to doing those things week in, week out. But when you see people that
don't plan their week and they just show up on Monday morning ready to take on the week and
shoot from the hip, those things don't actually get done. Like they should get backburnered
because whatever the chaos is of the day takes over.
Rachael Novak:
[5:31] That's exactly right. So if it doesn't have to be this way, and instead it looked like intentionality,
proactivity, moving the ball down the field in every single domain, how do we get there?
Mike Novak:
[5:44] Yeah, and focus. I want to make sure we stay very honed in on that word focus. Because
when I look at our industry right now, and just society as a whole focus and lack of focus is the
biggest problem we have. We're a very distracted society.
Rachael Novak:
[5:57] Yeah, attention is the most expensive currency right now.
Mike Novak:
[6:02] So what is the path to actually have a supercharged week and what is this planning ritual?
We're going to break that down for you and what we found works really, really well. So let's jump
right into that. Like, what is the solution to this problem? What is the tactical roadmap and the
blueprint that you can take away from today's episode and go start doing it next week? Like
change, change immediately, take action and don't just listen to this and move on to the next thing
of your day. Right. The first thing that we do is a Sunday review. Do you want to kind of tell people
what a Sunday review includes?
Rachael Novak:
[6:33] Absolutely. We used to call this the weekly alignment meeting, right? So Sunday review is
essentially looking back at the calendar over the last six or seven days. What did I accomplish?
Where did I actually meet the goals that I was intentionally trying to get to in different domains? Did
I honor the time blocks? Did those time blocks work well? Were I productive during those time
blocks? Really kind of doing a full review of what this past week looked like. It sounds pretty in-
depth, but quite frankly, it takes four minutes. It takes no time to really reflect on it and look back on
your calendar. Once we've done that Sunday review, now we want to review what does my
upcoming calendar look like? What does Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, Sunday this next week look like? What obligations do I have? I want to say that, you
know, especially as parents, it is incredibly critical that I'm checking the school's calendar. I'm
checking the kids' sports calendars. I'm checking, you know, even now that they're teenagers, their
social calendars. Like, what plans do they have this week that we need to work around or help
them support them with? You know, where where is it? Where is it working? Did it work with my
time blocks for my fitness this week? Do I need to push those back and push those up? Was I
squeezed for time in a certain way that took away from something else?
The Importance of Sunday Review
Rachael Novak:
[7:50] This is all included in that Sunday review. So what was a week prior? Did it work? What do I
have upcoming this coming week?
Mike Novak:
[7:57] Yeah. And I think this is maybe a good time to talk about the IWS, the ideal weekly schedule,
you know, because we always coach people to create an IWS. Like what is the ideal schedule for
your position? And that's in alignment with your goals in each area of your life. Like how, if a perfect
week was laid out, how would you spend your time? You know? And so we help agents kind of
build this and it typically includes, you know, some kind of wake up around five o'clock, you know,
some of us get up earlier, some of us get up later, whatever. It typically includes going to the gym,
right? And getting that mental clarity through exercising and moving your ass. And then it includes
coming to the office and role-playing, includes lead conversion time. It includes following up with
people you've met, includes following up with your clients. And then in the afternoon, it includes
going on meetings, right? Like if there's one hack I can give agents, it's to stop meeting with clients
in the morning and instead stay just massively consistent with your lead conversion time. Like if
even if it's just an hour every day, but it's done with ruthless consistency it's going to yield massive
fruit.
Rachael Novak:
[8:57] Yeah that's exactly right yeah i think you know to your point it when when you go outside of a
weekly calendar like there there are instances right and we'll talk about customizing your weekly
calendar week to week based on activities or seasons or whatever that you're in but when you last
minute sacrifice, your time blocks that are meant for productivity and proactivity, for lead
generation, for follow ups, when you sacrifice that time in order to serve something right now, that's
exactly what starts creating the roller coaster of income effect. And that's what you want to avoid.
Mike Novak:
[9:34] Yeah. And for some reason, agents do this where they come in and they deal with the fire of
the morning, you know, which is typically a client freaking out about something or a transaction is
about to fall off the, tracks, you know. But having the discipline to just compartmentalize that and
just say, hey, that problem will still be there in three hours. It may even be resolved by the time I get
to it. I'm going to just go ahead and pretend like that's not there till 11 or 12 o'clock. I'm going to just
focus with consistency on making my phone calls, doing my follow-ups and keeping my pipeline
really, really full. That's me controlling my day and not having other people control it.
Rachael Novak:
[10:04] Yes, exactly.
Mike Novak:
[10:05] So you have that IWS, but then you want to customize it each week, which seems kind of
contradictory.
Rachael Novak:
[10:11] Right?
Mike Novak:
[10:11] But the reason we do this is I see so many people that have life happen, you know, like right
now is graduation season and our son's graduating from middle school. We're going to deviate
from our Friday night schedule tonight to go to his graduation, right? But we made that proactive
change to our calendar and our IWS on Sunday. So those things happen, but what happens and
what I see occur is agents just don't make those changes to their calendar. They just pretend like
they're going to run this IWS that they don't actually run.
Rachael Novak:
[10:39] Right. And it's it's so easy, whether you use Outlook or Google Calendar, it is so easy to drag
and drop your time blocks to still fit all the things in. Like just because we have this thing Friday
night. OK, well, that means date night looks a little bit different today. We have to push it up a little
bit, which means that we had to push up some other activities today. Like that's OK. That's normal.
I'm still getting in the same time blocks. I'm just relocating them so that I'm able to accomplish all of
the things that I need to and know that it's not going to be cookie cutter every single week. But
these general things, these big rocks in my business and my life in each domain are going to be
tackled.
Mike Novak:
[11:18] A hundred percent. And so then how do you recommend they connect with their spouse?
Because obviously like pulling out the calendar together and looking at it on Sunday is pretty
important to make sure you kind of understand where you're each going.
Rachael Novak:
[11:29] Right? Yeah, I think this is a big miss for a lot of people. I think a lot of people kind of live last
minute, fly by the seat of their pants, like forget to remind each other of things. And I mean, it's
happened to us. But overarchingly, when we're able to spend Sunday, like, hey, what things do we
have coming up this week? I see this is on your calendar. What does that mean for the kids pick
up? Or what does that mean for the workday? Or what does that mean for when we're going to,
you know, record a new podcast or whatever it is? We have a plan. So we're pulling in each other's
calendars and holding each other accountable to the things that we're trying to get done week to
week and getting on the same page, syncing our calendars so that there's congruency and we
each know where we're going.
Mike Novak:
[12:11] Yeah, and sometimes there's cover and move. We're like, you know, I need to go grab the
kids for you because you got a meeting or something's happening. And so if you don't do this, you
know, you get out of sync really quickly with your spouse and all of a sudden you're like kind of
ships passing in the night. You don't really know where the person's at or what they're doing and
they don't know what you're doing either.
Rachael Novak:
[12:26] That can create a lot of frustration. I mean, like if I don't plan well, and I have a meeting that
I've either forgot to remind you or forgot to put on get on your calendar that I need you to pick
something up or grab a kid or whatever. And then an hour before I need that done, I'm calling you
and you have to now drop whatever you're doing because you have to go do that. That's very
frustrating. And that's disrespect on your time. So really, this is like a respectful, proactive way to
coexist with your spouse in a way that is in alignment constantly with each other, which helps your
relationship and the communication day to day. Yeah.
Mike Novak:
[13:05] So the ritual really is the Sunday review, right?
Weekly War Setting Explained
Mike Novak:
[13:09] And that includes having an IWS, customizing each week, singing it with your spouse. We
take it a really, really big step further with our weekly war setting inside of our Warrior Agent app.
This is an app that's available for our coaching clients. But do you want to talk just a little bit more
about this? Because I think this is the most powerful part of our weekly ritual. It was a huge
upgrade once we both started following the system.
Rachael Novak:
[13:32] Yeah, 100%. So the weekly war in the warrior agent program is in the app that we use. So if
you're a part of the movement or your premier coaching client, you know exactly what we're talking
about. But the weekly war is meant to create laser focus in every single domain. So you have four
specific targets in body, in being, in balance, and in your business that you know you have to get
done. And by creating those four specific targets, it laser focuses you to accomplish those things,
and it puts in writing in the app where you can check every single day.
Rachael Novak:
[14:11] Basically like a to-do list, like a checklist. Am I working to get this done? Am I closing this
loop? Am I accomplishing this? And then one step even further than the four things, four hit items
per domain is what we call the domino door, which is like, what is the one thing this week I
absolutely have to get done? And what are the four keys that I need to do, the activities or tasks or
things that I need to do to get that one thing done, knock down that domino door? And this, what
this has done for us is it has created a framework where I'm now maintaining my body domain in
bodybuilding prep. I am maintaining my pipeline and building my business with my partner.
Rachael Novak:
[14:55] I am maintaining 30 minutes a night with the kids, completely uninterrupted, no phones, just
BS in, catching up with them, hearing about their day, being very intentional with that time, eyeballs
to eyeballs, quality time with them. Even if it's only half an hour, it's there. And then, of course, also
spending time for me, right? So I'm stacking and I'm reflecting and I'm reading and I'm doing the
things. And without that intentionality, without that weekly war setting, without those four hit targets
per domain, I'm just kind of flying by the seat. I don't have a framework. I don't have a structure of
things that I need to get done every single day. So by having that, it allows me to focus way more
on the different specific things in each domain that I need to get done to accomplish the goals that
I'm really going after in each domain.
Mike Novak:
[15:43] I know for me, I struggled a lot to keep all four domains going at the same time. And I before
Warrior, I actually never had met anyone that did all four really well. Like no one actually. Everyone
would be like really good at one or two, but then they'd be really bad at one or two as well. And so
for me, it was body and business. Like those were the easy gimmies, but I would have very little
intentionality week to week with the being and the balance side of things. And the side effect of that
is obviously, you know, ending up extremely one dimensional and massively out of balance and
neglecting people that mean a lot to you or neglecting your sense of being in spirituality as well.
Right.
Balancing Life Domains
Mike Novak:
[16:20] So, and ultimately that will hamstring your business growth.
Rachael Novak:
[16:24] Mm hmm.
Mike Novak:
[16:25] Like people think that when they spend time in the gym, they spend time doing anything
spiritual, they spend time with their family. They think that that is costing them money. Why is that
not true? Because they're like, hey, and I was here at one point too, like, you know, like six, seven
years ago, where I was like, hey, I need to go keep working. I need to keep making money and I
don't have time to go do these things and I'm losing too much money doing them. So what would
you tell someone that kind of has that mindset?
Rachael Novak:
[16:52] Yeah, I think that's such a common mindset. And what it does is it spreads you so thin
because if you're constantly thinking about worrying about focusing on business only and you're
never able to detach enough to be present with people in your life, it starts to create stress
fractures in the relationships that you have with your family. And it creates stress fractures in your
own self-confidence and the relationship you have with you. And when your self-confidence is
shaken or when you have stress fractures in your marriage and things get tense or your kids are
giving you a lot of guilt because you're not spending time with them and when they see you, they're
acting out because that's the only way that they get your attention and you're frustrated because
they're acting out. It's kind of a sick cycle when that happens. Well, by compartmentalizing and
taking that intentional time to focus on yourself, to reflect and rephrase and mirror and, sorry, and
stack, and then to also spend intentional time with your spouse, spend intentional time with your
kids, you're investing in those relationships in order to enrich them, in order to keep them strong
and keep you kind of a person who's in harmony. And when you are a person in harmony, when
you have built that self-confidence, when you have, you know, you continue to maintain your
marriage and you feel confident in your spouse and you feel confident in your kids when you go
home, you can show up in business tenfold more powerful.
The Dark Side of Discipline
Rachael Novak:
[18:20] Like significantly more powerful by focusing in those other domains. It all bleeds into each
other.
Mike Novak:
[18:27] Yeah. You've built really a sustainable four-dimensional life at this point.
Rachael Novak:
[18:31] Right?
Mike Novak:
[18:31] And you don't have something that's just going to come up as a blind spot. And bite you in
the ass, you know, like that often will show up in the form of like a major health issue that
somebody has, you know, they were all focused on business, they neglected their health. And all of
a sudden, boom, they have like a catastrophic health event that then now hamstrings their
business growth. Or they get out of touch with their spouse, spouse divorces them, and that derails
their entire business and their financial life. Like all these things really do connect together.
Rachael Novak:
[18:56] Yeah, I was thinking, I was listening to Craig Ballantyne. He did a podcast on his own
podcast. He had somebody else interview him about his new book, The Dark Side of Discipline.
And it was actually pretty fascinating, just kind of his take on it to kind of hear how he summarizes
this book. If you have not read Craig Ballantyne's newest book, he's one of our favorite mentors
we've ever had. Such a phenomenal human. He wrote The Perfect Day Formula, which was the
foundational reset that we needed when we got back into real estate in 2016. teen. He just came
out with a book called The Dark Side of Discipline. Go buy it and read it immediately. It is such a
great take on the facade that our society created with this word discipline and what discipline
actually means. And what Craig really breaks down is exactly what we're talking about, is being
present in each domain and prioritizing the things that are really important. And when you do that,
being able to show up in every domain even better. as a person.
Mike Novak:
[19:55] Yeah, it's really a book about how busyness does not equate to productivity.
Rachael Novak:
[20:01] Exactly.
Mike Novak:
[20:01] And a focus on taking targeted action.
Rachael Novak:
[20:04] Exactly. Yeah, really good.
Mike Novak:
[20:06] One other thing just about the Weekly Wars that I think is so powerful, like there's so much
to it, but it connects, like there's kind of like a three-part planning, you know, system here. It starts
with setting your annual goals, which we call our impossible game. And then we break that down
into milestones, which we call our monthly missions. So there's 12 monthly emissions, obviously,
each year. And those monthly emissions are like a progressional step towards your impossible gain
in each domain, right? So now I've synergized what I need to do this month to take kind of a bite of
the apple for the year. And then it's going to get broken down even further into weeks. Like, what
are the actual actions that need to happen this week to now make progress on not only my monthly
mission, but then also towards my impossible game? So the outcome of that is massive synergy,
right? And focus.
Creating Structure and Freedom
Mike Novak:
[20:53] You're not spinning your wheels doing busy work. You're not spinning your wheels doing
things that don't align to the bigger picture. You're super targeted.
Rachael Novak:
[21:01] Well, and it gives you a structure, right? And within.
Rachael Novak:
[21:05] Wait, I just had this conversation with my accountability group on Tuesday this week
because, you know, we talked a lot about how prior to utilizing this framework, this warrior way and
the weekly war setting, it's like, you know, the things that you need to get done week to week, but
you also have a lot of autonomy within that, within this industry. you can do whatever you want,
right? Like we can control our schedule however we want. And so people will run wild with that
sometimes. Whereas if you create yourself a framework and write down the four things in each
domain that you absolutely want to get done or you absolutely want to maintain, for instance, in
body, mine is 100% training, 100% cardio, 100% stay on meal plan, and a certain amount of
ounces of water per day. Like I know very clear every single day what I need to do, and taking the
steps towards doing it. And so what we talked about was by creating this framework and having
that to follow is so freeing. And it's the opposite of what you think it's going to be. You think it's
going to feel like you're trapped, like you're stuck, like you're obligated to do these things. And quite
the opposite is true. When you start actually compounding all these proactive activities, you find
this level of freedom that you're like, Like, holy shit, like I can accomplish a lot in a short amount of
time that I did not realize with this laser focus.
Guided Implementation and Coaching
Rachael Novak:
[22:28] So it's been a phenomenal framework for sure.
Mike Novak:
[22:31] Yeah. So like the last thing I would mention is, you know, if you're looking for guided
implementation on all of these things, definitely check out some of the links below. Whether you're
listening to this on the podcast or watching it on YouTube, and you can learn some more about our
coaching programs. We've got an awesome premier coaching program that has direct access with
us to co-pilot your business for one year and we're helping people in one year get done what most
people get done like three or four years and not just in business but in these other domains as well
through using these program systems you know like there's really a formula to create this life by
design and to ultimately have it all.
Rachael Novak:
[23:05] Yeah that's exactly right.
Mike Novak:
[23:06] So that wraps it up for today we will see you guys next week.
Rachael Novak:
[23:11] Have a great one guys.