Best Thinking Normally Occurs on the Beach

As Gig Harbor awakens to a new selling season hopes and expectations began to build. Buyers are acutely aware of low interest rates and high inventory. Sellers putter with last minute projects while they attempt to quantify the little town's multiplying attractions.

For a real estate agent it's a great opportunity to start new habits; a New Year's kick-off to consistency and self discipline. Last year was a tough one and that's no secret. But I've always felt that blaming external events for disappointment was making excuses. As I watched my goals slip further away I realized 2008 would be a year of change. Knowing full-well hard work makes good luck I hypothesized smarter could make even luckier.

In real estate working smarter is actually pretty simple, but it's not very easy. Being a good agent means doing many things well, and it requires knowing your own weaknesses. As a newbie I suspected if a person could fog a mirror and sit in class for 60 hours they could probably schlep houses-- somewhere. But I wanted to be a top agent and I needed to feel good about the people I worked with. I picked the top 2 local offices to interview two extremely experienced brokers. I assumed pay plans, office policies etc were pretty comparable, there was really only one question I wanted to ask; "What does it take to be one; what do you see most often when you look at a top agent?"

To my astonishment each broker peeled off exactly the opposite answer: Alison Ybarra at John L Scott told me that exceptional agents tended to be introspective thinkers. Doug Murphy, of Windermere GH, said; "Well, if I had to pick just one trait I'd say it's a person that doesn't normally think introspectively".

I forged understanding and decided to think on it later. And as to the matter at hand: Of course there wasn't a wrong choice-- so I picked one office (and later the other) to hang my new license in. But I wondered for years about the answers I'd been given until finally it hit me: No matter what side of the fence you travel, whether your knuckles drag on the ground as you amble through the profession or if you visit a counselor every week to get rewound; what both brokers were trying to say is this: It's not only about the client that determines your success in this industry-- alot of it is how you deal with yourself.