Back to School - for You Too!

It’s the Beginning.
The beginning of the school year, the beginning of fall. The kids have their backpacks packed, your college students have moved into dorms, registered for classes, hit the books.

What about you? I’m reminded at this new school year, as my own kids open their new books, and don their highlighters and pencils, that I too, need to re-commit to reading a new book. Now is not the time for summer reading, as my wife likes to do.

What Have You Done For Me Lately?
Is your brain asking you this question? It’s time to feed your brain. Once you land that job, attract a new client, complete that report, don’t get comfortable. Even though classroom learning may be over for now, your necessity to learn and grow doesn’t stop. No matter what your age, you should continue expanding your knowledge and your value for your company. In these changing times your ability to contribute and be creative equals value and therefore – compensation.

It’s time to hit the books.

Never stop reading. Never Stop learning.

The last three books I’ve read:
Goals, by Brian Tracy

Trust Agents, by Chris Brogan

Raising a Modern Day Knight, by Robert Lewis

What are you reading or what have you recently read?

What, me worry? Nah! Pass the Prozac, please.

When faced with a problem that keeps you up, has you worrying, and doubting yourself, how do you approach it?

If you’ve been in real estate very long, you have come across at least one, but likely more, of the following: an irrational seller, a pushy buyer, an egotistical agent, or disgruntled client.

It helps to have a methodical approach to dealing with worry, and feel free to use these in your personal life, provided you have need.

Dale Carnegie studied Worry. To begin with, he researched books written about worry and found 189 books about ‘Worms’ and only 22 about ‘Worry’ New York public library. Most of what was said in these books was about the physical problems that can result from worry.
I’m sure by now most of us are aware of the illnesses that can result from a lifetime of fretting.

After spending countless hours with people, teaching, and counseling, and collecting data, he came up with some methods to help nearly eliminate worry in his book published in 1944. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living:

1. Get the facts. Dean Hawkes, Columbia University said that half of the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision.

2. What can I do about it? What are possible solutions?

3. After weighing all the facts come to a decision. Here is what I’m going to do about it.


4. Once a decision is reached- ACT! Get busy carrying out your decision, and dismiss all anxiety about the decision.


By the way, I still think the reward and satisfaction of helping someone buy their first or next home, assisting them to move on to the next phase of their life, still outweighs the problems.

Keep your focus on the big picture.

Ready, Fire, Aim

No, that’s not a typo!
You have a plan, maybe you wrote out your goals on January 1st, 2010. New decade, new goals,new you. You wrote your long term and short term goals, where you wanted to be in a year, month to month benchmarks, the works, and are tweaking it as you go along.

Failure to Launch...
After I get this started, or once I have this much in the bank or if my spouse starts helping more…what has delayed your plans?

Do Something…
The time to Act in NOW! Some of us have the propensity to plan, plan, plan, waiting for the conditions to become just right before we move towards our goals. This stagnancy can gunk up the flow of action, leaving us floating in a pond of scum. Sometimes we over-think a situation. Yes, by all means, plan your financial strategy and in the meantime, listen to a webinar. Take a class, read a book or talk to 5 new people while working your plan.

Some of us have tendency to act first, think second. This may not be a bad strategy – moving in a forward direction, not waiting for all of the planets to align before commencing activity. Your attitude of ‘Do Something Today,’ can propel your activity, leading you one step closer to success. Attitude, Activity, Success. Don’t wait, Act Now.