Real Estate of a Dream

It's tangible, it's solid, it's beautiful. It's artistic, from my standpoint, and I just love real estate.- Every day, you'll have opportunities to take chances and to work outside your safety net. Sure, it's a lot easier to stay in your comfort zone.. in my case, business suits and real estate.. but sometimes you have to take risks. When the risks pay off, that's when you reap the biggest rewards. Donald Trump.
My mother owned a real estate agency when I was a teenager and young adult. My first job was with that company and I learned a lot from my mom and that industry that is still relevant to me today. I got to thinking today about real estate and dreams and found some metaphorical similarities that I wanted to share with you.

Does your dream have property? You make your dream more real when you have something tangible, touchable about it. Do you have a website? A product that you can touch? An office location? Any one of these things show that you are serious enough about your dream to have invested in some actual property.

Does your dream have sweat equity? If you are working hard, putting your heart, blood sweat and tears into your dream, then you are serious. All of that work will come back to you. It is your sweat equity into your business. When you put hard word into maintaining a real estate property, it comes back to you in increased financial value. The same is true of sweat equity. Keep working at it and it will come back to you.

Is your dream a sought after commodity? Real estate increases its value over time. The properties that increase in value are those in prime locations that are in excellent condition. They are desirable, sought after commodities. Listening to your customers and offering exactly what they say they want will increase your dream businesses value over time.

Do you love your dream enough? People that love their properties invest in them. Do you love your dream enough to make the necessary investments in it and in you to make sure that it not only survives, but thrives? Keep learning so that you can fuel that passion and be able to overcome adversity. Keep reminding yourself why you had this dream in the first place. Are you and your dream worth it?

‘Owning a home is a keystone of wealth.. both financial affluence and emotional security.”’- Suze Orman. So, is bringing your dream to life!

Bring your dream to life in November. Check out the Leadership Anatomy Retreat in California http://bit.ly/IY8Cp

Practice Strategic Listening

“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force...When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life...When we listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other...and it is this little creative fountain inside us that begins to spring and cast up new thoughts and unexpected laughter and wisdom. ...Well, it is when people really listen to us, with quiet fascinated attention, that the little fountain begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising way.” Brenda Ueland

Twelve to fourteen years ago, I was part of a major collaborative project. We were trying to get 24 individual nonprofit agencies to become one integrated system of services. It was a survival intervention. These small nonprofits were losing their funding and they needed support and an infrastructure to stay alive, so linking them together to make them stronger was the plan. People were afraid and resistant to say the least. The project was listening boot camp for me. I think I learned more about listening in those two years than I had my entire life up to that point.

Did you know that you learn more about yourself by listening to others, if you really try? If you aren’t careful, you can miss the best stuff. Here are some of the things that I learned from that experience:

People hear what they want to hear. We all have a way of filtering out the stuff we don’t want to hear, or just missing the parts that are not familiar to us. One of the strategic marketing assignments that we gave the leaders of the small nonprofits was to go out into their communities and interview key stakeholders. They were supposed to ask a few questions. What is your biggest frustration? What service that doesn’t exist now, would you pay to see developed? And how are we doing and how can we improve our services to you? Do you know what happened? In nearly every case, the leader came back with the message ‘We are OK and they want us to do what we do already’. Really? Seriously? We did some more training, sent them out again and this time they heard some different messages. Those second round interviews lead to the development of 84 new services and $5.4 million in new service revenue. Were the answers different the second time? Probably not. The leaders just heard them the second time.

It takes multiple washings. You may have heard this old trainer’s adage: Tell your audience what you're going to tell them. Tell them your message. Then tell them what you told them. If it’s bad news, then repeat. You may need to send your message 7 or more times for people to hear it. The tougher the news, the more often and the clearer you need to send the message. So, if it takes multiple washings to send a message, it’s going to take multiple washings to hear a message too. Ask them to tell you again, paraphrase to make sure you heard them carefully.

People fill in the blanks with worse than the truth. Truly listen and respond to fears and concerns. If you don’t know something, saying you don’t know but you will find out is a more comforting message than leaving people to their own assumptions. The biggest mistake you can make is to not address a fear that you hear. Meeting people where they are validates that you are listening. You can’t move someone forward without meeting them where they are first.

People will like you if you listen to them. Liking is a key principle in persuasion. People tend to do things for people that they like that they won’t do for people that they don’t like. When you truly listen to someone you are relating to them. Relating makes you more likable.

"It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen." Oliver Wendell Holmes. Practice strategic listening.

Contagious Enthusiasm

“Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait: The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas. : Henry Ford. Last week, I visited my mom in a rehab nursing facility. She’s recovering there from a hip replacement surgery. There was a man playing piano in the activities room and he was fantastic. But, there was someone there that made me smile even more than the piano man. She was dancing with the biggest beam on her face, remembering. She was also in a wheelchair. She was moving her feet and gliding that wheelchair dancing circles around all of the other spectators in that room. You could tell that she was in a magnificent place and time in her mind. The whole room was uplifted by her. Her happiness was contagious.

That beautiful lady made me think about how we should be about our dreams. Are you contagiously excited, hopeful, happy, determined and noticeable about your dream? Maia Beatty calls that kind of enthusiasm ‘powerful presence’. It’s when a person’s presence grabs your attention in a powerful and positive way.

Having contagious enthusiasm not only blesses the people around you, but it blesses you. Norman Vincent Peale says of enthusiasm; “Life's blows cannot break a person whose spirit is warmed at the fire of enthusiasm. If you have zest and enthusiasm you attract zest and enthusiasm. Life does give back in kind.”

People with contagious enthusiasm filter life through the ‘can do’ lens, not the ‘can’t do’ lens. They don’t define themselves by their limitations, but instead stretch themselves to reach their wildest dreams. Perhaps one of the very best examples of this is the example of Nick Vujicic. He has no arms or legs and it hasn’t stopped him in the least. Check out his inspirational story http://bit.ly/aGJesF.

Do you inspire people with your enthusiastic can do attitude? Do you make people want more of what you have because you are so positive and optimistic? Be absolutely contagiously enthusiastic and watch what happens around you!

The Power of Incubation

“Learn to pause, or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you.” -Doug King. Have you ever worked so hard on something or thought so much about it that you felt nearly paralyzed? I have. It can feel like the momentum is sucked right out of you. In cases like that, I know it’s time to step back and let the power of incubation take over.

When we work things too hard using our left brain, or more logical side, we can stifle our right, more creative side of our brain. So, when you feel stuck, tired, or like you are losing some steam, step away from your work and let it incubate. Stop thinking about it, adjourn your meeting for a later date, and take a shower, a nap or a jog. Allow your mind to think about other things. This wakes up the creative part of your brain to begin working on it when you aren’t even aware.

Sometimes the solution comes when you least expect it. Have you ever had a dream where the solution is right there? Or how about you’re driving down the road and you see a sign or site that clicks something in gear for you? That’s the power of incubation. Don’t lose those opportunities. That’s your brain’s way of telling you that it’s time to get back to it. Wake up or pull over and take some notes. Don’t lose that opportunity if you can help it.

There are also ways to keep you from getting stuck in the first place. One of the biggest culprits is to expect too much from a single meeting or thinking episode. To expect a team, for example, to come up with a new idea and figure out how it should be implemented in one sitting is asking for a meltdown. Chunk your work into manageable bites so that you can make steady progress. When working on mission statements, for example. I always ask the teams to get the gist of the mission down, then we purposefully step back, let it incubate and edit for eloquence at another meeting. Having a break from it clears your mind and helps you think about it again with fresh eyes. ‘Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone. – Alan Watts.

I regularly design incubation into my consulting and coaching process. Pace out your work and allow it to have a steady amount of energy. Remember that greatness takes time. “There is a moment of conception and a moment of birth, but between them, there is a long period of gestation.” Jonas Salk. So, let your ideas incubate, your brilliance is waiting!