We all have a history, I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours

November 2010 will be the anniversary of when I started really blogging on Active Rain. I was here for longer than that but was more intent on doing my WordPress blog on my site that Active Rain. One thing I like about Active Rain is that many of you feel like a Seth Godin Tribe to me, and have become much more that just a digital friend. Reading your post I wonder about you. How did you get here, what has your life been like? I know for me, real estate is sometimes a weapon of mass distraction. We are constatnly interupted, we plan a schedule and through no fault of our own it gets changed. We work with out past clients, work to get our current clients closed, and prospect for the next ones. With all this information age overload added to this, I sometimes forget, I have a history and like the line from The Talking Heads song, How did I get here? I want to share a bit of my life with you, and I hope it will entice you to share yours. I really want to know.

Childhood. I grew up in the 1950's in Oklahoma City. During grade school we did nuclear war drills where we took a newspaper out to the playground and put it over our heads to sheild us from the blast, no kidding. I also grew up thinking that the greatest ambition in life was to be President of the United States. Of course I knew that this was a dream only for white males. Give me a break, you really think we would elect anyone else? I also watched special science presentations in junior high about the evil of marijuana. I hadn't heard of it until these shows but I have to thank my teachers for educating me to the terminolgy and exposing me to those nasty jazz musicans who did drugs. I never would have discovered the joys of Miles David without them. Meo to the teachers: Unlike the kid who smokes pot and then hacks up his family with a machete, I later discovered that I was too busy eating pizza and cinnimon rolls to care. I also never missed being at the Baptist Church three days a week. I was so afraid of Hell I felt I needed bonus points. No the Baptist didn't invent Active Rain.

High School. Like many of you high school was a painful time for me. I was extremely competitive and hadn't learned yet that someone else didn't have to lose for me to win. I was one of those crazy driven person who believed second place was failure. Yes, I scored well on IQ test but that didn't make me smart. High school is so much more than being in class and studying the Civil War, or grammar, or math. It is a hotbed of learning new things that hopefully allow us to cope with what the world throws at us. I graudated in 1966 and set my sites on Washington D.C to attend George Washington U. and work for the US Senate. I still had that dream, but scaled back a bit. I was 17 after all.

College. As the Robert Heinlein story would say, I was a Stranger in a Strange land, or as Mel Brooks would say, a provencial putz in the big city. I had no coping skills, learned that there was stuff lots more fun than alcohol, and after working for the US Senate for the first 30 days, changed my major from political science to philosophy. And in those days politics was nicer but to me it was basic sausage making, not what I read about back in the heartland. My stomach wasn't in it, and I was not strong enough to want to do it becasue that kind of strength i didn't want.

Career. back in Oklahoma, I was finishing up college, sort of, and deciding if I wanted to keep going to become a Philosophy Professor. The a friend of mine said hey we both have no sense of direction, we love music and stereos, lets start a retail electronics store and try it for one year and we can always go back to school. So from 1973 to 1989 I stayed a bit more than one year in the stereo business. Then 1982 came and the enrgy industry fell with a thud, I think they called it an energy bubble bursting, and Oklahoma knew what Detroit is feeling like now. For seven years I work my ass off to pay people back. I learned that the old adage of if you owe a lot of money to the bank it is their problem. That works until the bank fails and you negotiate with the FDIC. It was like a Kafka novel. I finally settled with them in 1989, and in my forties. What now?

Real Estate. I entered real estate when Oklahoma City was still like a depression economically. Was I stupid(reference IQ quote in the high school section) but what the hey, I had to do something. I looked a t the market and went what have I done? But through a lucky chain of events I met a couple who were selling HUD and VA repos. 46 repos later I finished 1970 with a bang and never looked back at the decision and I learned a valuable lesson. We should suspend judgment about the market, not call it good or bad, and just say there is always a market, just like 1990. It is yup to us to find where they moved our cheese, not the other way around.

The 60's become the 60's again. In 2008 I was 60 years old and my life changed dramatically. I was diagnosed with cancer and sepnt 4 months in Houston at MD Anderson. I think the fact I have my check up there next Monday caused me to reflect on my life just like I did when they made that terrible call. I will have a two year anniversary from treatment in November. What has this got to do with the 1960's? It is this, in the 60's I experimented, sometimes foolishly, but I was young, fearless, and a little crazy maybe. Now my life is finite again, I won't live forever, but I will be fearless. What was a sin as I saw it growing up is now just a mistake and mistakes lead to change, and change to success. I may be fearless but I ask myself is this what I really want to do? Cancer taught me that I could again believe in the goodness of people. In fact I will tell you that I love the real estate community because when I was down, the outpouring of support even from those of you I have never met was overwhelming and I couldn't have pulled through without you. I went from believing that we care because it is our business to care, to you teaching me with your support and prayers that you are in real estate because you have a passion to care.

Further along. At 62 I wake up thinking what will happen today and with a smile. Life is exciting, I am breathing, and there is so much to know, to see, and to do. I know I can't get it all in and my Buddhist heart looks forward to the next life without stopping my learning here. Everyday is a blessing, every person is a blessing, bad things happen, and I don't want to be the cause of it. For you younger people who may worry sometimes about what is is like getting older I leave you with the words of one of my favorite poets, Bob Dyaln: "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now". Thankt you for reading my Reader's Digest version of my life. I can't wait to hear about yours. Let's get to know each other better.