My Bailout

In today's news we hear day in and day out about the bailouts. First the banks and now the automakers, among others. In real estate, we are faced daily with the experience of working with good people who were sucked into this crazy frenzy of buying homes at ever-increasing prices. They often used liberal lending tools to do so and are now faced with foreclosure and/or short sales. Many of these people are good, hard working citizens who, up to now, have had impeccable credit and long-standing employment. Some have just had bad luck. They bought at the peak of the market and now, due to job transfers or lay offs or whatever, they must sell. Yet they have zero equity or are upside down on their mortgage. They did nothing wrong necessarily - they just simply had poor timing. There are other stories too of outright abuses of lending and money management but let's not forget those people who truly were victims of the "system" that the government is now "bailing out."

It is unfortunate that many people freely lump these folks into one category as "irresponsible" without understanding all the dynamics that came into play in the last few years.

We as Americans have grown up in a culture where credit uses and abuses are commonplace. Need something big? Finance it. Taking a trip? Charge it. But this situation that we find ourselves in today affects even the most conservative of Americans who didn't do those things - who paid cash for trips and goods but simply financed their homes and now find themselves in financial peril. Many of these people did so with little or nothing down but we in the real estate and mortgage industry ushered them through the process with a smile and pat on the back for the great investment they were making. We ourselves believed that to be true!

It is also apparent that many of us in the real estate and lending industry have ourselves fallen upon hard financial times. Our losses don't show up in the unemployment rates or in the job loss statistics - our income just simply dries up. I have seen many a seasoned professional either leave the business after many years or, at the very least, thought about it seriously.

But there is no real estate agent or mortgage lender bailout coming this way - even though licensed real estate agents accounted for 1.2 million Americans in 2006. Yes that's just too many real estate people and many of those SHOULD leave the business. But it leaves those who are in this career field with some hard choices - quit or find a way to fight through the challenges and make it work. There is no free lunch on the horizon.

I don't have the answers to our current economic crisis but each of us in the real estate biz is in one way or another facing our own personal crisis. Our business has been permanently altered. As a result, we must change too and formulate a plan to conduct ourselves as professionals in light of these changes and yet continue to make a living.

So I have decided to come up with my own "bailout plan." If you have read previous blogs then you are probably aware of my search for motivation and meaning in my work and daily life. I still continue to work on those things but in these serious times I believe that we must also focus on our "survival plan." Brian Buffini stated at his Turning Point Retreat that Success in 2009 is simply Staying in Business.

I have elected to stay in business. I want to help my fellow agents also stay in business - those who want to and who seek the best way to continue to effectively serve our clients while also having food with their meals! I see a few simple truths at this point:

1. Things are never and will never be like they used to be. The long-term experienced agents whom I see leaving the business are those that in many cases have been waiting for things to go "back to normal." I do not believe that our "normal" will ever be what it used to be. This is a new economic climate with an uncertain future and we cannot afford to sit and wait to see how it will all pan out. We need to dive in and understand the needs of this new age of client and what resources we can offer them in this financially challenging time.

2. The Internet has permanently impacted the real estate business in such a way that the traditional value of an agent finding a home or advertising a home is no longer the value we represent. The customer can put their own home on the MLS in very easy and inexpensive ways and has access to finding properties freely through the Internet. We need to truly understand our own value and unique selling points in this new age of real estate and lending. Bottom line: we need to add value and communicate it to the client. We no longer have a monopoly on information.

3. The idea that investing in property is a safe and sure bet for a return on your investment is no longer valid. People who are buying now do so because they NEED a house or they are investing for rental income in the long term. We need to better understand how we serve the needs of these buyers and how to serve those sellers who are upside down in their equity proposition. Essentially, we need to become experts not simply door openers and photographers for posting listings on the MLS. This is the age of the professional and wow it's a lot of hard work!

4. Agents need to pull together to share resources, better educate one another, understand the techniques to employ and the resources to rely on to serve today's client best. Let's eliminate posturing and poor business practices that have plagued us in the past. We need to pull together as a community of professionals and re-learn our craft in the best way we can. Sharing of resources, understanding the impacts of the Internet and adjusting our business to this marketplace are just a few of the items we need to consider doing now.

So I ask all of you now to begin crafting your bailout plan too - your success map for staying in business in 2009. Please share your ideas with me and I will share them with others in a future blog or e-mail. Get involved in your REALTOR Associations who lobby for us on Capital Hill, educate yourselves and stay in close contact with positive-minded associates who are really working on being successful and serving their clients well rather than rubbing elbows with those who find it easier to complain and justify their demise.

I have a dream! A dream that the real estate industry will come out of this crisis stronger and with a much more professional impact on our clients than the previous used car salesman opinion that many have had of our industry. I believe that we can accomplish that but only by actually stepping up to the plate as an industry and making the necessary changes. We need to increase our standards for licensure, have better education requirements and take personal responsibility for how we become true experts in our industry to name a few.

My bailout plan is in the works and I would love your input. Please share your thoughts too. May success and happiness be yours in 2009!

Mastering Motivation

How long do you spend each day getting ready for work? 30 minutes? An hour? And how much time do you spend each day grooming your emotional and spiritual health? If you're like me, your outer appearance may be getting a disproportionate amount of attention.

In my recent quest to discover what really motivates me so that I might try to focus my energies on goal setting, I have made some rather simple but important discoveries. First of all, I think motivation and thereafter goal setting is not an event that should be completed once or even once in a while, but rather a daily exercise to focus your mental energies & activities on the things that are most important to you.

I had some trouble lately figuring out what those things were - particularly in relation to my business goals. Not wanting to simply set an empty financial goal that had no meaning behind it, I sought a method to find true meaning in my work & life pursuits beyond what I have done in the past. I wasn't sure where to turn so, as mentioned in my previous blog, I just decided to "sit and wait at that crossroad and see what would come to me." Wow was I surprised! Things started to arrive in many different forms. Messages from friends and associates who were either sharing the same kind of experience (thank goodness I am not alone in this quandary!) or messages with words of wisdom or advice. I drank it in and thought about all that was generously given and about the network of friends that bolster us through tougher times and make the good times so much more enjoyable.

I checked into the suggested reading they offered and also found a few resources on my own as well. Some of those which have been immensely helpful include:

The Bible (good stuff!)

The Secret (watched the DVD again with two people who had never experienced it & with my daughter - we all had a lively and wonderful discussion about it)

Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill (really puts money in perspective particularly if you have a limited mindset about it)

Smart Talk by Lou Tice - always a favorite for positive thinking techniques

Prayer...that stuff works! Who knew! ;-)

Additionally, there have been many other interesting sources on the Internet for goal setting and motivation. Because of all this, I have ended up accidentally forming something of a daily ritual of working on my "inner self" more than the time spent in front of the mirror each day. The investment has been worthwhile.

While I haven't found the absolute meaning to life yet I have found that there is much joy in the daily exercise of pursuing higher goals and bettering yourself. The more information you gain, the more your motivations and goals become clear. Being open-minded to the discoveries you make is important.

Last Monday & Tuesday I attended a Turning Point Retreat with my business coaching company (Buffini & Company). I knew from past experience that there would be a section of one day dedicated to goal setting. I was dreading it with the the fear that I wouldn't be able to come up with any goals. To make matters worse, they added a section wherein you are to list rewards and celebrations for accomplishing those goals. At first glance, I was not feeling too skilled at this exercise.

But the messages, the books, the prayer, the study and the time spent each day just thinking about what motivates me & what's important in life culminated in a very productive experience with the goal setting and rewards exercise! I have some new goals now and subsequent rewards that make the work that's required to get there seem worthwhile. Thanks to Debra, my good friend, I am also going to take the items from the rewards list and build a vision board - a daily visual reminder of what it is I am working towards.

But the biggest gem from the whole exercise is the realization that the daily habit of working on your inner well being is the key. Having a positive mindset, keeping things in perspective, reflecting on your goals and motivations daily and having an attitude of gratitude & expressing it to those around you is a powerful collective experience when done in daily bite-sized pieces. Not every day is great but you can much more quickly pull yourself out from the rubble of a bad day with strength of these tools and exercises. I also realized that I don't have to figure it all out right now.

So in the spirit of gratitude, I want to thank all of you who responded privately and openly to the last blog entry and shared your thoughts and experiences with me. I am thankful for you and your insights and especially for your friendship. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!


P.S. I have sprinkled just a few of my vision board pieces in this blog just for fun. These are some of my "less profound" goals. It's fun to dream!

Sitting at A Crossroad

Did you ever find yourself in a situation wherein motivation is absolutely required in order to accomplish a task or to reach a goal but it seemed to be the last thing you could muster? In my recent move across the country, I have realized the importance of goal setting and especially motivation. I was very clear on the goal: get to Maryland before the school year started. The tasks that needed to be accomplished to get there then became obvious (and daunting) and I had a very deep motivation. Thus the goal was somehow achieved despite many obstacles. Looking back on it all is exhausting but it amazes me how much can be accomplished when we are motivated and have clear goals with deadlines.

Throughout my life, I have found it easy to set goals. Being a "spectrum-global" thinker (as my Heritage Profile from my coaching company suggests) it is supposedly easy for me to set goals that are years into the future. A 5-year goal for example has always been a comfortable time frame for me to think about. I have found that goals are the road map to your future - set them and then your subconscious seems to drive you down that road even when you are not thinking. I suppose this is "The Law of Attraction" at work. Now I am going to sound rather "old" here but life offers us some pretty clear future goals when we are younger. Obviously, going to college, getting a degree, getting a good job, making a certain amount of money, having a family, buying a home are all common goals. But once you have accomplished those kinds of goals, then what do you do?

Through this recent change in my life, I have come to clearly understand that motivation is really the FIRST step in the goal setting exercise. What do we want out of life? What's important to us?

So what happens when you can't decide or discern what motivates you anymore? What then? How do you set goals? How do you create your road map? Where do you focus your time and energies?

This is where I find myself now. Having uprooted myself and my daughter and traversed the country to re-plant ourselves in Maryland has been an experience something like cleaning off a very cluttered desk that was piled with work that you thought would have lasted a lifetime but now it's suddenly all gone. All that stuff that you thought was so important and so complicated was suddenly swept away and in its place - a blank slate is staring back at you. A fresh start...what do you do with it? Before I re-clutter that desk I would really like to think about this. On what do I really want to spend my life? Where should I intentionally spend my time?

This is the first time in my career (and perhaps in my life) where I find it difficult to figure out what goals to strive for - which path to choose. With my "desk" now clean, all options are available. But time is precious and once you start filling the proverbial "in box," it seems your mind gets busy and it becomes harder & harder to see all the possibilities that are available to you in life.

This is a rare and unique opportunity to reassess the whole thing...but damn it's hard. It smacks of deep philosophical questions about the meaning of life and all that "stuff." If anyone has figured that out yet, please let me know! You would save me a lot of time here.

Assuming no one has figured that out, I find myself with a challenging new task - figuring out what the heck it is that's really important to me these days...in my older age. Where do I want to invest my limited time in this life? We spend more time on our work than on anything else in life. Why not make that work a joy and have meaning? Of course, it would be helpful if we can make a decent living too!

I recently attended a meeting of the National Speaker's Association, an organization that I am honored to say that I joined last week. Our speaker last Saturday was Jim Cathcart who is a professional motivational speaker and author. His web site is: http://www.cathcart.com. He also has a great blog at: http://highvaluerelationships.blogspot.com where he talks about Intelligent Motivation. But one of the points Jim made in his speech Saturday was to ask yourself, "Who is glad that they know you?" That question gave me great pause. I think we all desire to be liked, but his point was deeper than that. He spoke of thinking about the impact you can have by enhancing the lives of others. How you can help people achieve their goals, their dreams or just plain feel better about themselves because they know you. How can you connect people with common goals and help both of them get to their desired outcome? Who is glad they know you?

On determining your motivation in life, he spoke about finding something that either bothers you or inspires you. When you find meaning in what you do, you bring more value to what you do.

Lastly, he stated, "How would the person I would like to become do the things I am about to do?" That is a powerful thought. A nice way I suppose of saying "fake it 'til you make it!"

So it seems that I stand at a crossroad and for the first time in my life, I am not sure what path to take - what goals to set. So I have decided the hell with it! I will just sit down for a while and think about it. Hopefully the meaning and motivation will become clear eventually and then the goals and activities should be a snap.

Anyone care to sit and join me a while?