Life Is Like a Box Of Chocolates...

I've heard people say that losing faith in God (or whatever higher power you believe in) is the worst thing ever, but I don't believe that's true.  It's bad, yes, but even worse than that is losing faith and trust in yourself.

Are You Trustworthy to You?
When we make bad decisions or when things aren't going our way, we often begin to question whether we are capable of choosing wisely.  We wonder whether we can be trusted with the important decisions.  And since it's our life, not being able to be trusted in those decisions becomes a problem because without it, we are left with two choices: 

1. Rely on others to make our decisions for us (leaving us at the mercy of their opinions, beliefs, limitations, and more).
2. Do nothing because we are too afraid to choose unwisely again.

Not Making a Decision Is Still Making One
The problem with not making a decision is that choosing to stand still (even if it feels like unwanted paralysis) is still making a choice.  It's a choice to not use our gifts and talents for fear of not being received or being sabotaged by ourselves or others.  It might even be a fear of being incredibly successful and then being afraid of the very public fall that could come after success is met.  Whatever the fear - it's real and it's keeping us from getting where we want to go.

Letting Go Of The Past
In order to have a successful new beginning in our lives, we need to be willing to let go of what no longer serves us.  We need to be willing to make space in our lives in order for something new to arrive.  The old MUST fall away - no matter how comfortable or friendly it might seem.  We have to step out on a limb and risk it breaking beneath us.

Choose A Direction - It Doesn't Matter Which Way You Go
When you are standing in valley with no knowledge of what lies outside of the valley, the only way to determine the path out of the valley is to start climbing out.  When you reach the rim of the valley, you'll have a new perspective that will tell you which direction to go in from there.  But if you insist on knowing the "right" direction before you set out when there is no way to have that knowledge, all you do at best is go walking around in circles, at worst you sit on your hands and claim to be a victim of circumstance.  So pick a direction and start walking.  The way will become clear as you get further up the hilll.

Course Corrections are NOT Mistakes
When you get to the top of the ridge, you may find that your new perspective tells you that it would have been faster to go up the opposite side of the valley.  Oh well.  You know that now, but you had no way of knowing it then.  There is no need to rebuke yourself for choosing the "wrong" path.  Instead delight in the fact that you have a better idea of which way to go now and at the worst, at least you are out of that stupid valley.  Airplanes on autopilot make constant course corrections.  Did the computer make a mistake to put it off course?  Of course not!  The winds blew, the earth moved, and the environment acted on the plane.  We cannot control the outside world - only ourselves.  So course corrections should be assumed to be part of the process.

What If I Don't Like The Rim?
You can always walk back down into the valley.  But usually, we find that there is a friendlier valley over one of the edges - larger and with more resources.  The exploration is usually well worth the effort.

Mistakes are NOT Bad
We have this horrible habit as adults of expecting that we have to know everything and get everything right the first time.  Somewhere between childhood and adulthood - my guess is during adolescence - we forget that there is a learning curve and that mistakes often come with unexpected benefits (the glue used for sticky notes, for example, was a mistake made by someone trying to make a super sticky glue).  In short, stop giving yourself a hard time.

Make a Decision
Are you stuck in a rut?  Do you not know which way to go?  Stop trying to figure it out and just try something different and keep trying new different things until something works or makes you happy or both.

Do you like the posts on personal growth and development? 
Would you like more?  I only post a few of these on my real estate blog, but you can find more on my personal blog at www.TuneInSite.com.  Subscribe there for regular doses of motivation and insight.

Remembering The Past
There's a pricing convention we all have that few realize where it comes from.  Being old, and having been in the business forever (since 1993), I remember.  You see many years ago, there was something called at "listing book".  It was a printed version of the MLS.  Most agents didn't go online to look up properties, they looked in the book.  Subsequently, agents started listing their houses at $499,999 instead of $500,000 so that they would be the first house the agent found to show. 

But All That Has Changed
In the intervening years, most (if not all) MLS services have discontinued the listing book in favor of online searches.  But, we didn' change our pricing conventions because agents knew that prices would be listed just below the even dollar mark, so we adjusted our searches to compensate. 

Here's The Problem
Buyer's just aren't (necessarily) that smart.  Today, most buyers are starting their own searches online.  They are using search engines that prompt them to choose even dollar numbers.  Therefore, your listing which would be at he bottom of the price range (and therefore most desirable) for the $500-$525K price search is now invisible because you priced it at $499,999 - oh what a difference a dollar makes.

Price On Even Dollar Amounts
This is why it's more important than ever to get your pricing right.  In his highly competitive market, you want people to find your listings.  Make sure they do by pricing them at the price points they are searching for.

I love learning new things, don't you?  Today I have been working on expanding my network for my new Twitter account that tells people about the Free Real Estate Training Blog and as I was following realtors and trainers across the country, I learned something new.  (I love this business!)  You see, I wanted to make my Twitter background interesting.  I tried uploading a photo, but it looked, frankly... well... lame.  So in reading what the other Tweeters were saying, I learned about a new (to me) application called TwitBacks.

Twit Backs

Using this program, you can create a custom background choosing from a variety of templates.  If you use picniks too, you'll be able to add text, stickers, do special effects to your photo and more.  It's a whole lot of fun. Oh, and did I mention, it's free?

So I have updated my Twitter background on my Free Real Estate Training Blog twitter site.  I guess it's time for me to upgrade my KelleSparta account too now.  I'll see you in the virtual pages!

Have you heard of Oodle?  It's a free classified for listing homes, cars, and other things online.  (Seems they are trying to compete with Craigslist.)  Regardless of whether they are going to be successful or not, putting your listings on Oodle gives you several benefits:

1. If you put a link to your website (and you'd be crazy not to), then it improves your SEO. 
   
2. Drives traffic to your website.
3. Is one more piece of evidence for your sellers that you are advertising everywhere possible (without breaking your budget).
4. It integrates with Twitter, so you can automatically tweet your listings making less work for you in the long run.

Check it out!

Are you terrible at keeping secrets?  FAAAAABULOUS!
Because this shouldn't be kept a secret!  If you've been following my blog and my tweets, then you know that I've been hatching a secret.  Well, it's finally fully hatched and I can tell you all about it. 

Real Futures
A few months ago, I called my friend Charlie at The Real Estate Training Center to ask him about helping to promote a series of free training programs for agents.  He said he'd been wanting to start something like that for a couple of years and within minutes, we had an agreement to work together on it.  He made a call to Stefan Swanepoel at RealtyU and to RIS Media.  I called my pal, Dorothy Boyer, at Agent Direct News and we were off and running! 

Getting People Involved
I've been having a great time getting people to come out and contribute events to the program.  I've been on the phone with many of the top trainers in real estate.  The conversations have been stimulating, the connections rewarding and the results are phenomenal.  Here are just a few of the people we've got on board with the program:

• Dirk Zellar
• Darryl Davis
• Carla Cross
• Verl Workman
  
• Amy Chorew
• Jennifer Allan
• And more...
  

What This Means to You
This means that you're going to have a brand new source for real estate training - free training.  All you have to do is subscribe to the Free Real Estate Training Blog and you'll get notified each time a new event hits our program list.  Plus, you'll get articles from the top trainers in the industry - all at no cost to you!

There Are Already Events Scheduled!
Come out to the Free Real Estate Training Blog to find out more.  Subscribe to the blog and get all the goodies for free!  Oh, and did I mention that starting in September, I'll be reviving my podcast and it will appear on this blog?  We'll be podcasting the best of the best programs.  You'll want to sign up for that too....

A friend of mine recently asked me about how I find peace in my world when things are falling apart.  After writing my response to her, I realized that you guys might appreciate reading it too.  Here it is...

When I have a lot of breakdown happening, I just remind myself that it's "breakdown before breakthrough" and instead of looking at what I'm losing, I start looking at the spaces that are being created and imagining what great manifestations may be coming in to fill the spaces the universe has so kindly created in my world. (After all, if my life is too full, there's no room for anything new and cool to come in.)

Sadly, I often find for me that those times when I have been most desperately feeling the need to be close to people are the same times that the universe has left me sitting alone in my house. I believe that the purpose of these moments was to show me that while I may desperately desire someone to be with me, I don't need them.

In fact, if I allow myself to be still and to sink past the panic that I am feeling in those moments, I find the peace lying in wait, quietly, patiently waiting for me to notice it. The key, I have found, is not that I have to find peace. The key is for me to stop running from it and thinking that I lost it in the first place.

Reasons Why We Move
Agents often think about switching companies when there is pain hitting them in the face.  The pain could be that their broker is taking too big a cut on their commissions and can't be moved to take less.  Or it could be that their broker picked up or dropped a franchise.  Or the agent wants to hire an assistant and the broker is going to make it difficult for them to do it.  Or, it could just be that the market is stale and the agent is looking for something to make a change.

Learn From My Experience
I've moved for many of these reasons and more.  I moved twice to partner up with someone too.  All in all, over the last almost 20 years (can it really be that long - oh, I'm getting old), I've worked for almost all of the major franchises.  I've moved companies five times and been party to the moves my friends have made.  I learned a lot about what to look for, what to ask, and where you can get bitten in the butt if you're not really careful.

Interview With Justin Zimmerman
I was speaking with my bud, Justin Zimmerman (Good Morning Real Estate), the other day and we were discussing all of the things that I learned over the years.  He suggested that we do an audio interview/teleconference about it.  I thought it was a great idea!  So we're doing it tomorrow (7/1/09) at noon (ET).  It's called "How to Avoid Losing $20,000 when Switching Brokerages".  I had so much to talk about, that I told Jason that we would have to have a MINIMUM of 60 minutes to cover the topic.  I'm warning you now - we may go over.

Two Ways To Attend
You can either purchase the event alone for $50 (and it's SUPER cheap at that price for the information you'll receive).  Or, you can subscribe to Jason's Breaking Grounds training program for only $29 per month (one month minimum - you can cancel at any time) or $197 for the whole year and get a whole host of new training programs every month. 

Can't Make Noon Tomorrow?
Don't worry if you can't make it to the call at noon, we'll be recording it, so you'll be able to review it at your leisure.  And those who are on the call can get a copy too (you'll want it unless you take really good notes because I'll be covering a lot of ground here).

If you want something more personalized - I also offer one-on-one coaching sessions to help those in the process of deciding to move to make a good decision.

Listings are the name of the game – but only if they sell!

This market has changed dramatically, and because of this, agents find themselves with several challenges, including those sellers who still want more for their house then what it’s currently worth.

This free, 30-minute webinar from top trainer Darryl Davis is the answer to helping agents service their sellers and get their listings sold as quickly as possible.

Learning Objectives

In this market it is more important than ever to make sure you price your properties to sell. By attending this free, 30-minute session, attendees will learn the following:

• How to explain to the seller how the market has changed
• How important it is to price their house correctly
• How to properly present price
• How to get price reductions on current listings that are not selling

Agenda

Advantages Of This Market

• Why sellers need us
• How to generate listing appointments with FSBOs and Expireds
• Additional ways to generate listing leads

How to Educate the Seller on Pricing It Properly

• Powerful visuals to show the seller how the market has changed
• How to use MLS statistics to show a seller new pricing trends
• Using the Appraisal Technique and other dialogue

Bonus Material: Specific Tips & Techniques to Getting Listings Sold

• Creating a system for staying in communication with the seller
• Using the Guaranteed Ad to generate more showings
• How to motivate more agents to focus on your listings

About The Presenter

A top producer himself, Darryl Davis has taught thousands of real estate agents how to improve their careers. A trainer for almost 20 years, Darryl speaks with a commitment to the success of others.

Sign Up For This Event Here:
http://www.retrainingcenter.com/showWCDetails.asp?TCID=1006050&st=

Cannot Attend The Live Presentation?
This presentation is also available on podcast after the initial broadcast.  Follow the link above for more information.

The “paperless” listing presentation allows YOU to close listings on the first—and only—visit!

Verl Workman, master motivator, speaker, and sales guru, will take you step by step through the paperless listing presentation and show you how you can Master the Art of the One-call Close. Mr. Workman, who is a seasoned agent himself, has been doing “paperless” listing presentations for more than seven years and can’t imagine going back to a paper CMA!

“Can I have a copy of that?”
“We need to think it over.”
“I’d like to sleep on it before I make a decision.”

All great objections to not signing your listing agreement on the first appointment. Stop being an order taker and start taking control of every listing appointment!

What’s In It For You?

It’s simple. This FREE seminar will teach you how to win every listing. Verl will share with you simple, proven techniques that are working for hundreds of his coaching clients worldwide. After listening to Verl, you will discover that you don’t need paper CMAs any more!

After Attending This Powerful Seminar, You Will Be Able To:

• Stop creating paper CMAs
• Meet with your clients once and win the listings
• Maintain full commission on every listing
• Learn how to avoid the “Be Back Bus”
• Price your listings right the first time
• Discover how to turn every listing into 1½ closed buyer transactions

To be successful in this high-tech world you can’t just be a master of technology, you have to know what to use and when to use it to make the greatest impact. It is not rocket science, but there is a listing system that you can follow step-by-step from pre-listing to closing to ensure you will close every listing. Now is the time to focus on your systems and really get them dialed in.

About the Presenter

As a long-time technology consultant, entrepreneur, and coach, Verl speaks from experience. A seasoned real estate professional, he has delivered more than 800 seminars and has helped thousands of agents worldwide reach their goals through his fun, empowering presentations, technology tips and tools, and personal coaching programs.

Sign Up For This Event Here:
http://www.retrainingcenter.com/showWCDetails.asp?TCID=1006123&st=

Cannot Attend The Live Presentation?
This presentation is also available on podcast after the initial broadcast.  Follow the link above for more information.

Want More Free Real Estate Training?

  Subscribe to the Free Real Estate Training Blog

There's FREE TRAINING TODAY!!! 
Here are the details and how to sign up.  Check it Out!

Real Estate Agents and Mortgage Professionals looking for a way to sell homes have a new tool for their arsenal: showing clients how to purchase real estate in an IRA.

Essentially, your clients and prospects use their exising IRA, 401(k), or other retirement funds to purchase real estate.

And what better time to buy real estate than today, where you can easily buy properties for 25% or less than their selling price of two years ago?

Perfect for people who are tired of stock market uncertainty or who understand the opportunity today’s real estate market represents – using retirement funds represents an excellent way for real estate agents to sell significantly more homes!

Learning Objectives

With the current stock market woes, most homeowners have seen the value of their stock market portfolios drop by 30% or more.

And since homeowners already understand the value of investing in a home – and are familiar with the process, it is an easy, receptive idea to pitch – and one that will help agents sell lots more homes.

By attending this free, 90-minute audio conference, you will learn:

• What is a Real Estate IRA
• How it benefits you and your clients
• How to “pitch” the concept to my clients and prospects
• Low and no-cost ideas on how to generate new business using an IRA LLC
• What opportunities today’s self-directed investors are capitalizing on

About Your Speaker 

David Nilssen, Founder, Guidant Financial

Guidant Financial Group is the leading provider of Self-Directed IRAs and helps thousands of people use their retirement funds to make investments outside of the stock market each year.

To Sign Up for the Event

http://www.retrainingcenter.com/showWCDetails.asp?TCID=1006103

More Information / Get FREE Marketing Materials
For more information, including free marketing materials, go to www.RETrainingCenter.com/Real-Estate-IRA.asp

Cannot Attend The Live Presentation?
This presentation is also available on podcast after the initial broadcast.  Follow the link abov for more info.

Overdone and Processing Heavily
I'm hearing a lot of people telling me that they are overdone.  They have tons of good things happening and they are running like mad, trying to say "yes" to everything while it's still there.  This is all well and fine for most times, you have to strike while the iron is hot after all.  But this time around, I'm also seeing people doing a LOT of personal growth work on a core level at the same time as they are running themselves ragged.

Rote Memory Dump
Did you know that when you are processing really core-level stuff (usually stuff from your childhood), that it can delete your short-term memory and mess with your routines?  Those things that you do so much by rote that you could do them in your sleep are suddenly disrupted for no apparent reason.  It's like you get lost on where you are in the process.  And don't even think that you're going to remember the time you settled on with your client for lunch or the location unless you write it down.  And make sure when you write it down, it's not on a random piece of paper or you'll forget where you put that too.

A Day In My Life
For example, after spending a week with my mother after her hip surgery, I've had some revelations about my upbringing and it's putting my life into a whole different perspective.  I'm questioning how I deal with some of life's most basic issues.  As a result, I'm finding that some of my basic habits are being disrupted.  I have done my shower routine exactly the same way for 30 years and yet, for the last two days straight, I've completely forgotten the conditioner until I try to rinse it out of my hair and realize it's not there.  Basic stuff, right?  But this is how it is.

Why Does This Happen?
I don't know the scientific theory on this, but I will tell you from years of personal experience and as a coach working with countless clients, what I have found is it seems that the brain only has so much RAM (Random Access Memory - like a computer).  This is the stuff that we can hold in active contemplation - both consciously and subconsciously.  Usually, our conscious RAM is taken up by what we're doing for the day, keeping lists of who we've talked to and appointments we have.  Our subconscious RAM is used by our rote systems for things like our shower routine, or how to get to work everyday, or how to make coffee in the morning.  I've seen people stare at a computer screen trying to spell the word "what" and having typed "wat" and not being able to figure out why it looked wrong.  Their subconscious mind was busy processing the latest revelations and had no room left to engage their basic spelling routines. 

What Happens When We Really Change
Many people will tell you that they're going to change something in their lives, but few actually follow through.  When you do actually make a change in your life, something inside you shifts too.  Some changes, like giving up soda or giving up your car in favor pf public transport will have superficial effects and will cause some distress in the conscious mind as you have to constantly shift your thinking when dealing with these issues.  Temporary change comes when you change your choices.  True change isn't achieved until the new choices become thought habits. 

Deeper, Core Level Change
Some changes are faily benign, others run deeper.  Changing your entire perspective on your life or yourself can mean a fundamental shift.  In these cases, it's as though your brain needs to go through a rebooting process.  For some people it's a hard-core reboot where the system has to shut down entirely and rest before being brought back up.  (This is what happens when people have breakdowns.)  Many others, however, can find relief in periodic disc defragmentations. 

Defragging Your Brain
For those not fabmiliar with basic PC maintenance, a disk defragmentation is when the computer takes all of the fragmented files and moves them to a larger space on the disc and puts them back together again.  It then compresses all of the used space into the same area so that the free space is continuous so that new files don't get fragmented.  The end result is that the system works faster and more efficiently.  The more disc memory you have, the longer the process takes and the rest of the computer really shouldn't be used while it's happening.  What I mean by a disc defrag in the case of your brain is that the brain shuts down certain functions to allow space for the maintentance cycle to do its work. 

What Happens When It Happens
For example, let's say that you've suddenly realized that events in your life that you had allowed others to categorize as failures for you were, in fact, just things that you had never actually commited to doing - you had just humored others in doing them.  You had succeeded in everything you had ever wanted to do, but others had minimized those successes because the items weren't on their agenda for you.  If this were true, you would have spent your entire life believing that you were an abject failure at anything important.  But if someone came along when you were open to the idea of reassessing your past and pointed out that you had been extremely successful at the things you wanted to do and not at the things you didn't and that you seemed to be a complete and utter success to them, that might cause a brain defrag moment.  In that moment of revelation, you would sit back and nothing else would exist as your brain went back in time and reindexed all of the events of your life to put them into the new context.  Now imagine how different your life would look once this reorganization of your memories took place.  Do you think life looks different for someone who believes themselves to be a failure than it does to someone who believes themselves to be an unparalleled success?  You bet it does.  (For the record, this experience happened to a friend of mine at the dinner table one night.  He checked out entirely for the remainder of the main course and we sat in silence through dessert as his brain reindexed his entire life.  He would start to speak and get a word or two out and then stop as the next memory came up to be reindexed.) 

Awareness Is Key
This is fun to think about in theory, but in practice it can be quite disorienting.  Imagine, for example, that your brain is rebooting on a core level and instead of not getting your shower routine right, you forget how to drive by rote.  Suddenly, you have to pay incredible attention to the road, like you did when you were just learning to drive.  (Ideally in this scenario, you'd let someone else drive until your brain was done with the reboot.)  But these are things that we do unconsciously - how do we notice when they are off-kilter?  Trust me, you'll notice.  I mean, it's disconcerting to find yourself trying to rinse out conditioner that isn't there.  The challenge is in whether you pay attention enough to realize that the change in your rote patterns is a symptom of a deeper issue.  That's where the awareness becomes more important.  After all, it's easy to just say "oh, I was distracted"' and move on.  But you're distracted all the time while doing rote functions - that's the definition of what makes them rote - you can do them without having to pay attention to them.  It's important to notice when they go awry.

How To Know If It Is Happening To You

• Are you getting forgetful? 
  
• Are you feeling overdone? 
  
• Are you more tired than usual? 
  
• Are you finding that rote tasks aren't getting accomplished in the right order or at all?
• Is your brain turning into fuzzy mush?
• Are you looking at your life differently as the result of a change in perspective, a revelation about your present/past, or a choice to treat yourself and/or your world differently?

Any one of these symptoms can be attributed to any number of issues.  But the last one combined with any of the others is likely to indicate a defrag/reboot period in your life. 

What To Do If It Is Happening To You 

• Clear your plate as much as possible. 
  
• Put things off that can be put off. 
  
• Say "no" to other things. 
  
• Sleep more - a lot more - than usual.  Sleep is the best time for the brain to defrag - it's not trying to do anything else at the same time.  
• Be kind to yourself and don't plan to get too much accomplished on the outside - you're already doing a TON on the inside.
• Say "yes" to people who want to take care of you or do things for you.
• Give yourself quiet time, without the TV, the radio or the internet - time for your brain to not have to process new input.

Most of all, don't judge yourself - there is nothing else you should be doing.  This is temporary.  It will pass.  In the meantime, enjoy the cycle and the downtime.  And remember, if you're rebooting, you're growing.  And that, according to my definition, is the true level of success.