It’s 11:21 p.m. and I’m sending listings I meant to send earlier and working on a blog post that technically ought to have been completed hours before. Tonight was a meeting of my shuel’s Board of Trustees and on those days, there’s little time available for much of anything mostly because the day’s spent brooding about the challenges we face.
Except brooding doesn’t help make things better … they’re actually better than they seem when I’m at my most worrisome … which means the entire exercise of worrying and kvetching is counterproductive.
Two months ago, at a time a change was needed desperately, I picked up a copy of Tony Robbins’ Unleash the Giant Within. Without going into too much detail, it was clear within the first 12 pages that the book I had picked essentially at random was the correct choice.
Almost instantly, I was able to let go of most of the worry that had been holding back my real estate career. Carrying that same attitude over to other aspects of life hasn’t been as simple, and a second reading will be taking place in the very near future to implement more of the ideas contained within.
And so, as midnight approaches and post-meeting insomnia takes its toll, I ask you …
- What could you achieve if you eliminated worry from your career?
- If you could stop thinking of the commission, even when there’s next to nothing left in the bank account, how much more successful could you be?
- What productive measures can you take right now to replace time spent fretting over the economy, the market, housing prices, etc.?
- How many years will you add to your life by letting it all go and letting it flow through you, tacking into the wind rather than trying to push forward headlong into it?
- How much more creative could you be? Could you fool people into thinking a series of plastic blocks were actual birds? (Welcome to Legoland, kids.)
Editor’s note: The above title actually is a paean to an established sportswriter who, well, is a bit on the heavier side. One player looked at him, looked at another writer standing next to him and said, “Have you ever wanted to just let it all go?”
Considering said player later apologized publicly for using steroids without actually ever using the word to explain what he was apologizing for … well, you can draw your own conclusions from there.
Ken Brand
December 16, 2008 at 6:28 am
The DNA of success includes “letting go”. It’s so hard, our imagination wants to imagine, usually in the negative.
I tripped and fell into this business as a 22 year old pin head back in 1978. I’m still a pin head, but one of the most important skills a successful and healthy real estate agent can develop is the ability to, as you’ve shared, “let it go.” The only thing we control is what WE do, how we react and respond. We can influence, persuade, follow-up, follow-through and do things, WE can’t control the outcome or other people.
Life, health and happiness are richer is we take your advice to heart. But, it’s HARD…at least it is for me.
Thanks for the reminder to breathe.
Rock on Jonathan.
BawldGuy
December 16, 2008 at 11:00 am
Jon — Been recommending that book to anyone who’d listen for many moons. Robbins uses and combines the principles of Psycho-cybernetics and Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) better than anyone I’ve seen.
It takes the Biblical principle of ‘As a man thinks, so he is…’ literally and to its most effective conclusions.
You may never know how many you’ve helped with this.
Paula Henry
December 18, 2008 at 6:21 am
Jonathan – Letting go is not in most agents vocabulary. We tend to think we can control the outcome.
I came across an interesting concept recently, which has probably been around for years, bu was new to me.
When negativity creeps in, stop, and spell something backwards. Not the actual word “something”, but any word you want. Even if you have to spell a hundred words backwards to get out of the negative mindset. It works to refocus your mind.