The Power of Pause - Why Reflection is a Weapon

Let’s get something straight.

Most agents never pause.
Too addicted to the grind.
Too caught up in the hustle.
And it’s silently destroying your business, your growth, and your fulfillment.

This episode is your wake-up call.

Mike and Rachael Novak drop the hammer on a truth most won’t say out loud:
Reflection is not fluff. It’s your most underused weapon.

Here’s the raw truth:

• You are addicted to speed.
  Everyone wants to win faster. But if you don’t pause to assess, you’re charging straight into burnout and mediocrity.
• You are lying to yourself.
  Being busy doesn’t mean being productive. If you’re not auditing your calendar, your leads, and your habits—you’re just spinning your wheels.
• You are mistaking activity for results.
  If you’re not tracking ROI on your leads, your marketing, and your time—you’re guessing. And in business, guessing leads to losing.
• You are letting recognition destroy production.
  Coffees with lenders, free training, and YouTube reels feel productive. But they don’t generate revenue. They give you dopamine—not dollars.

So what’s the solution?

Reflection equals recalibration of focus.
Mike and Rachael walk through the exact reflection systems they coach inside Warrior Agent:

Quarterly: Fact Maps

• Deep dive into Body, Being, Balance, and Business
• Ask: What’s working? What’s not? What must I start, stop, or sustain?
• Align every decision with your annual goals
• Time investment: 90 minutes per quarter

Monthly: Missions

• Tactical recalibration
• Set focused targets for each domain
• Light reflection and quick course correction
• Time investment: 60 minutes per month

Weekly: Wars

• 30 to 45 minutes to prep for domination
• Review wins, assess gaps, and set weekly targets
• Track unfinished tasks and reset your action plan

Daily: Stacking (Journaling)

• Reactive stacks process emotion and extract action
• Proactive stacks break down wisdom from scripture, stoic quotes, or personal reflection
• Ask: What is the lesson? What do I see? What action must I take today?
• Time investment: 30 minutes daily for clarity and momentum

Bottom line:

• Stop doing things just because “that’s how you’ve always done them.”
• That mindset will cap your growth and stall your future.

Top producers reflect.
Amateurs run blind.

Reflection is not soft.
It’s strategic warfare.

And if you don’t build in the pause…
You will burn out in the chaos.

Listen. Learn. Execute. Or stay stuck.
Your move.

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Transcript

Mike Novak:
[0:33] The Power of the Pause, Why Reflection is a Weapon. Today, we're going to do a deep dive
into the concept of the pause, why it is important, why it's probably a blind spot you have as a real
estate agent and as just a person, and how reflection is one of the most powerful weapons you
have in your arsenal. This is going to be a really fun one, just because I think that this is a big pain
point for so many people. This sounds so simplistic on the surface, but there is so much to this
when you actually deep dive into it.
Rachael Novak:
[1:08] Well, it's kind of an invisible paint, like a mispoint, right? Like people actually don't even, like
they're not even aware, they don't even realize that they don't do this and what they're missing out
on by not doing this. And I know for us, you know, we were caught up in more badges of honor for
the hustle and the grind and never slowing down and never really stopping until we were forced to.
And we've completely 180 that in the last year and it's been compounding growth since then.
Mike Novak:
[1:41] Yeah but let's get into like why people don't do this and what the negative consequences are
to your life that are likely going to experience as a result of that and like you said a lot of people
aren't even aware this is a problem you know but it it is for virtually everyone like in our coaching
business i see most people like not doing this and this is one of the things that teach people to do
through our systems and processes. But for high achievers and people that are trying to become
high achievers, they want to move at a fast pace. Is that a fair statement?
Rachael Novak:
[2:11] Of course. Yeah. Like everybody wants to go lightning speed. They want to go as quick as
possible into success. They want to accomplish it in as little time as possible. So, yeah, I mean,
people try to get on a really quick trajectory thinking that results are just going to turn around no
time.
Mike Novak:
[2:28] Right so that they go really really quick and and what is the downside of going quick
sometimes because we're in a culture where everyone says prioritize action and action is super
important but planning is definitely it's it's a component of success as well right like it's definitely

important there's a balance to be found here it's not just all action no planning and it sure as hell
isn't all planning and no action yeah.
Rachael Novak:
[2:50] Exactly you know i i think that people who take, what happens is they take so much action,
they don't actually pause to look and see if there is fruit being produced by those actions. And they
continue to kind of ram up against walls or beat their head up against a wall doing these activities,
which leads very quickly to a feeling of burnout. It leads very quickly into a feeling of resentment for
the activity because there isn't fruit, as opposed to, stopping reflecting and we'll kind of walk you
through that framework but that's that's what i but that's what i see the most often is people go in
guns blazing want to know right now want to learn everything right now are impatient with their own
development in the skill or in that space and try to circumvent the actual process of experience and
learning to get to where they want to be and end up feeling really burnt out and like they failed or
like it's not working.
Mike Novak:
[3:52] Right right yep and these people are like drivers like they want to get after it and i totally get
that but they don't often realize that they're their own worst enemy when it comes to not actually
reflecting and pausing and slowing down a little bit and ultimately doing just at least a little bit of
planning right right like that that's kind of that balance that i want to focus in on today i'm not telling
you go spend you know hours every day reflecting and meditating on what could be I'm telling you
to establish some rhythms that could massively give you insights into your life, your business, what
to start, what to stop, what to scale, all these different things, right? And so giving people that
tactical blueprint, I think, is really important. But like I said, the negatives of this is really just going
so fast that you leave kind of a wake of chaos behind you and you don't necessarily take the time
to figure out what's working, what's not working and what blind spots you have. And those blind
spots could be in business. They could be in personal life as well, but not doing like an assessment
on what the cost is of what you're actually doing. What's the cost of the action I'm taking? Is the
action I'm taking actually producing the fruit that I want?
Rachael Novak:
[4:59] Totally. I think that this is, tactically speaking, a lot of real estate agents will... You know, be
doing business and going guns ablaze and investing in all these programs or investing in this lead
source or whatever, and not actually go back to see what is my cost per closing? What is my ROI
on this lead source? Am I actually closing deals here? Like we've experienced that many times with
people on our team who they feel like the majority of their business is sphere, they feel like a
majority of their business comes from a particular lead source. But when we actually look at the
numbers, it's very different from how they feel. So without that pause and reflect on where is
business coming from? What is my return on the investment that I'm making in these particular lead
sources? And is it making sense, like cost per closing? Like, am I upside down? Like, we do that
religiously every single month with our lead sources. And we found multiple lead sources in past
years to cost us on average per closing more than the commission was, which obviously isn't a
good business decision. So that's a kind of a tactical thing to look at. And that can be across almost
any entrepreneurship industry. What kind of systems, software, marketing are you investing in?

And is it having a direct ROI? Are you actually making money on that money that you're investing
for it.
Mike Novak:
[6:27] One of the most powerful components to reflection, I think, and like kind of a target or a goal
from reflection could be to figure out the 80-20 concept, right? Like what I know to be true is that
what you're spending about 20% of your time on is generally about 80% of your results. And so
you're wasting a lot of time on things that don't actually move the needle. And a lot of times,
unfortunately, in real estate, these things come with recognition, right?
Rachael Novak:
[6:52] Tell me more about that, Michael.
Mike Novak:
[6:54] Like going and teaching other agents how to do stuff for free, like going and speaking at, you
know, different seminars and things like that, like jumping on, you know, Zoom calls with different
vendors. Like I've certainly done some of these things. These things feel good, but they don't
actually make you any money. Like, let's be super clear about that.
Rachael Novak:
[7:12] I was going to say like industry coffees or lunches with lenders or any of these things that is
taking you out of the modality of revenue generation or business building in order to network
without a very clear objective as to what that meeting is going to produce, right? Like, I've gotten a
habit now over the last year or two years where when somebody asks me for a meeting, like, hey,
can I can I buy you coffee? I go, you know, I say this is what I say. I say I am absolutely open to
that. If you can kind of give me like three different frameworks as to what we're going to accomplish
in our meeting together.
Mike Novak:
[7:49] My response is 10.
Rachael Novak:
[7:51] They do not know. They have no. They're like, oh, OK.
Mike Novak:
[7:53] My response is coffee is a thousand dollars an hour. Bring your credit card. And then we can
talk about whatever you want. So, but yeah, I think when you get things thrown in your direction,
like it's tempting to go do these things because it feels good or it feels like recognition, which is
what people, they want that, you know, that's like a human nature thing. Like they want to feel
recognized. They crave recognition, but they don't realize that these things actually make them
zero money.
Rachael Novak:
[8:18] Absolutely. So, I mean, that I think ties into the point of like, how do people. Entrepreneurs,
real estate agents in the space, how are they lying to themselves about what actually builds
business, what actually drives revenue?

Mike Novak:
[8:34] Well, I think a lot of agents get caught up in whatever is hot at the moment. In the last two
years, I think it's been YouTube. There's been a lot of lies from different people saying like, hey, if
you just build a YouTube channel, you can sell 50 homes a year, never make a cold call again,
never use the phone. like it's just going to fall on your lap. And so like looking for things like that
tends to be a big distraction for agents. And it's all in the attempt to avoid pain, right? Like making
phone calls is painful for them. So it hits a chord with them when they get marketed to and say,
Hey, you don't have to make phone calls anymore. Do this instead. And this is easy. Just go make
videos and feel like an influencer.
Rachael Novak:
[9:13] Exactly. I was going to say.
Mike Novak:
[9:15] But I don't know anyone that's actually made great money off of YouTube to be totally honest
with you.
Rachael Novak:
[9:19] Well, and I was going to say like listing videos listing walkthrough videos hey i have a new
listing let's walk it like that that if you're doing it for the seller right for marketing that's cool and as a
seller it's like yeah it's really cool to have that footage to see my house that way and being
marketed but unless you're actually driving that video in front of people and paying for it to populate
into the news feeds of the actual demographic of people who might actually be in their buying cycle
it's completely pointless. It's completely fruitless. And you've just wasted an entire day of shooting,
editing, paying somebody to edit, to have a cool 300 view reel on your Facebook page.
Mike Novak:
[10:03] Yeah, that you have no idea to actually get exposure to.
Rachael Novak:
[10:04] Exactly.
Mike Novak:
[10:05] So, yeah, well, so let's get into the solve on this. And I think like to frame the solve, you
know, we said why a reflection is a weapon, but I think reflection is really a recalibration of focus.
And I want to look at it from that lens. And so the rhythms that we use that we coach our clients to
use, we'll just share them with you. And hopefully you can do these on your own. Of course, if you
want help with them, you can reach out to us or get into one of our coaching programs and we'll
give you the frameworks and you can use our app and tools for these. But let's walk people
through the reflection rhythms that we use and how do we keep these things from taking up just an
abundance of our time and preventing us from taking action? Like, let's talk through that. What are
the actual rhythms that we do?
Rachael Novak:
[10:47] So there's a couple of different ones. We utilize in our warrior app, we utilize weekly wars,
we utilize monthly missions, and then of course, foundational fact maps every quarter. And that

allows us like... Where it's a forced slowdown to really see and look back over the last week, over
the last month, over the last quarter, where am I at?
Mike Novak:
[11:09] Yeah, let's take these one at a time because it's going to sound really overwhelming for
people. So the one I'd like to start with is the last one you said, the fact maps reviewed quarterly,
right? Why do we do this and what is it? Like this is a process of really examining what are the
facts of each one of my domains as of right now, Because in our process and in our system and
what most people do, they set annual goals, but they fail to recalibrate those goals based on what's
working or not working on a quarterly basis. And that's why fact maps are so invaluable. They take
like an hour and a half per fact map to do, but it gets very, very granular to help you distill what's
working, what needs to change and what ultimately you need to do to create alignment from where
you're at to still hit your annual targets.
Rachael Novak:
[11:53] Yeah, exactly. So by slowing down every single quarter, like this gives the opportunity for you
to get really real with yourself, like hold up a mirror, look in that mirror. Am I in full integrity with the
trajectory that I was trying to be on for this year? Am I doing the activities consistently? Am I
prioritizing the things that I need to in my business, in my calendar, in each domain, right? Am I
prioritizing my marriage? Am I prioritizing my kids? Am I prioritizing revenue generation? Am I
prioritizing my fitness? And by getting really real and raw with yourself, that is an incredible tool for
transformation because it forces you to look at yourself and look at your life objectively as opposed
to going off of a fleeting feeling or a mood that you may be in when you have those days of feeling
like things aren't working. Or feeling like this one activity like you can't keep up like we all have
those days where we like cannot catch up we we do not feel like we're accomplishing anything we
don't feel like we're doing anything well and then conversely we have those days we're on on a
peak and we're absolutely fucking crushing it and we're we're accomplishing a ton of things but if
we're making decisions in those moments of emotion as opposed to stopping and actually
reflecting on the facts of each domain that you're going to be led astray unintentionally so.
Mike Novak:
[13:20] Write these down what do i need to stop doing what do i need to sustain doing what do i
need to start doing, Right. And then I would go a little bit further and ask myself what is working and
what's not working. And I, and I'd look at these from all four domains. So body being balanced
business, I'd go write these questions out and answer them quarterly. And I think if you give
yourself half a day to do this, that's a half day, very, very well spent. Like pull out your annual goals
and really do a checkup on where are you at and are you actually on track and what recalibrations
need to occur? That one thing alone could be the difference between hitting your annual goals and
not because it brings that recalibration of focus, right?
Rachael Novak:
[14:01] And to piggyback on that, right? There's, of course, the, what do we need to stop, sustain,
and start doing? What's working? What's not working? And then what adjustments do I need to
make in each domain?

Mike Novak:
[14:13] Yep. And then we take it a step further and we do a lighter version of this monthly. It takes
about an hour, right? Like it's pretty quick, but this is just aligning, you know, what are we going to
do this month that is going to set us up for our annual targets. And again, that start, stop, sustain
framework kind of on just a lighter, quicker review. You know, if you're doing the fact maps each
quarter, that's your deep dive and analysis. The monthly missions can be much quicker, but in our
monthly missions, we're going to set targets for each one of our domains as well. So it's helpful to
do some reflection at that point. About an hour is all it really takes. And you mentioned weekly
wars. How much time commitment is that? Obviously you're doing this every week.
Rachael Novak:
[14:52] Yeah honestly i've gotten my weekly wars down to where it takes me 30 to 45 minutes max
being able to reflect on the last week did i get these things done did i win this war did i do all four of
these things and that's something i'm checking on every single day right i'm checking on what what
do i still need to accomplish that i put in my war what what do i need to do that i haven't closed a
loop on yet and then for next week what is what do i need to accomplish and do in each of these
domains to continue moving the ball down the field.
Mike Novak:
[15:20] Yeah, exactly. So quarterly, monthly, weekly, and each one scales down as far as the time
commitment goes. What else would you say is really important people to consider as they look at
reflection as a weapon and as a tool?
Rachael Novak:
[15:34] Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, having a daily practice, we call it stacking in our world. And
in the warrior app, we utilize a tool called stacking. There is reactive stacking and there's proactive
stacking or reactive stack or journal or reflection time would be that you're experiencing an emotion
and you need to kind of distill where that emotion came from, what triggered it, what the real cause
of that potential emotion is, what you need to do to change, what action steps you need to take out
of it. And then the proactive stacking or reflection journaling is what.
Rachael Novak:
[16:09] What do I need to learn and implement what you know we use bible verses or stoic quotes
or ideas or you know discoveries to kind of break down what what can I learn from this passage
what can I what can I implement from this what what is this how does this apply to my life or the
season that I'm in right now and to be able to really weaponize that reflection time you want to kind
of go through like similar questions right like what is what am I seeing when I read this passage Or
what is really like the root of this irritation? Is it fear of something? Is it anger towards someone?
Rachael Novak:
[16:43] And then moving into, okay, what life lesson am I learning right now? What life lesson is this
teaching me that I can take and apply into my life? What's a revelation? What's an insight that I can
kind of have an aha moment with from reflecting on this journaling session? And then, of course,
the most important part in order to weaponize that reflection time is what actions am I taking
tangibly from this session to implement into my business body balance or being domain that's

actually going to change something and make an adjustment and transform? How can I rewrite this
story that I've been telling myself for 25 years and now I'm recognizing that this is a trauma
response or this was a preconditioned false belief that I've been holding on to for a really long
time? How can I now change that story? What story do I need to tell myself and what actions do I
need to take to actually make that my new reality? That's how you weaponize reflection.
Mike Novak:
[17:44] Very powerful so we've given you kind of a framework for quarterly monthly weekly and even
daily if you really want to stacking is hard to do without our app but you could do some kind of like
version of journaling so i think like the most important thing like the the thing that this can help you
avoid is that mindset of i'm going to just keep doing things because i've always done them yes you
know what i mean i think that if you can like take that away from this podcast you're going to really
be winning even if you don't implement any of this other stuff that we just shared with you guys i.
Rachael Novak:
[18:13] I read a quote a couple weeks back that said specifically about this this quote that you just
mentioned that if you have the mindset that's i'm doing it because that's the way it's always been
done or that's the way i've always done it or that's just who i am you are completely stunting your
own growth and transformation to become a better different version of yourself.
Mike Novak:
[18:38] Yeah. And in business, it's super dangerous, too. I know that I probably piss off our team a
lot, especially our leadership, because I'll pivot really fast. I'll be like, why are we doing this? Like,
this worked two years ago, and it hasn't yielded any fruit in the last year. We're just literally wasting
our time.
Rachael Novak:
[18:52] Well, I mean, I was just having that conversation with my partner just literally half an hour
ago about, you know, hey, we actually are constantly evolving. We are constantly updating SOPs.
We are constantly changing the cadence of communication or the modality of communication when
we're trying to get a hold of people. We're constantly testing new theories, new ideas, new actions,
because the market changes, the economy changes, people, you know, consumer behavior
changes. And if you continue to do the exact same things, when consumer behavior is changing,
the market's changing, and you have no control over either of those things, and it doesn't work
anymore, and you're not stopping to reflect and see that it's not working anymore, you're going to
get way behind.
Mike Novak:
[19:34] Yeah, you need to be adaptive.
Rachael Novak:
[19:35] Yes.
Mike Novak:
[19:36] Adaptive is the most important thing. Like human, like we're not robots, right? We need to be
able to intelligently look at a situation and have a process and an operating system to determine

and distill if what we're doing is actually worth the time and the energy we're putting into it. If we
don't do that, like that's really what this is. Right. And that allows us to get more out of each day, out
of each month, out of each year. So we ultimately produce a lot more fruit, have a better life.
Rachael Novak:
[19:58] Exactly right.
Mike Novak:
[19:59] We just stopped wasting time and spinning wheels like i don't know about you but i don't
want to work 60 hours a week and have 30 of those be completely unfocused and untargeted to
anything that i've got planned for the year.
Rachael Novak:
[20:09] Right i couldn't have said it better exactly right i think they're like you mentioned before if if
people do not pause and reflect and look at their schedule and look at what they're spending time
on and see that like 30 of the hours that i quote unquote worked or felt busy this week actually did
nothing in my business. They actually did nothing to progress my personal development. They
actually did nothing to progress my fitness. In fact, I chose activities that possibly put my fitness
way behind or my business way behind because I'm sluggish or slow because of like going out for
drinks or whatever. Like without that stopping and reflecting, you can get behind in every domain
very, very quickly. And that is what creates this feeling of inadequacy. That's what creates a feeling
of disconnection from purpose. This is what creates a feeling of being burnt out and not enjoying
what you do anymore because you stop winning, right?
Mike Novak:
[21:05] That's a great place to end this, I think. So powerful today, like really simple. But if you take
this and you run with this, this could really change your life. It's hard to explain until you actually
experience it. But I would really encourage you to do some digging into this one.
Rachael Novak:
[21:21] Get it into your daily time block. Like mine is first thing in the morning. I make my coffee,
have my lemon water, sitting down. And that's when I journal. That's when I even go on a pro tip. I
go and chat GPT and I have a project in chat GPT and I say, hey, chat, bring up four or five Bible
verses and four or five stoic quotes about X, whatever kind of subject is on my heart, on my mind,
in my psyche, what I've been thinking about, what I'm pondering on, what I'm feeling. And that's
how I create kind of the focus of what my journaling is going to be is it's then going to provide me,
you know, 10 to 12 different verses and stoic quotes for me to be like, wow, that one actually hits.
What do I see when I read that? Then you dissect it and we do what we talked about. You know,
what's the life lesson? What's a revelation or insight? What are action items that I can implement
into my life? And I tell you what, like 30 minutes a day to gain that clarity and, build that perception
and create an action item for yourself for transformation in any domain will absolutely catapult your
success and catapult your trajectory even more. So it's worth, it's worth that extra few minutes
every single day.

Mike Novak:
[22:31] 100 awesome we will see you guys next week of course reach out to us if you're looking for
guided implementation on any of this and we can talk through our coaching programs and find
them that's a good fit for you.
Rachael Novak:
[22:43] Have a great.
Mike Novak:
[22:44] One guys.