FEATHERS IN THE WIND
Article by: Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, originally
written 8/16/2006 revised 12/26/2019
Anything in BLUE is a linkable entry
I originally wrote this Nugget
in 2006. Why have I revised it in
2019? Over the Christmas holidays
someone said something to me that in the moment really upset me. The comment could never be justified or
explained away. Some 24 hours later I
find myself still thinking of the situation that created the comment to be made
and what was said. It hurt. Even worse, there were a lot of people who
heard the comment; that hurt as well.
Today I realized I needed to take some of my own advice originally
written in 2006.
This is what I wrote in 2006. Yesterday I received a telephone call from a
woman I had never met who immediately, from her very first word on her call,
began to shout at me and within the first two or three outbursts called me a
racist. Let me repeat – I had never met
her, I did not know her race, religion, or even why she was calling me – yet I
had been labeled a racist.
In brief, she was a buyer of real
estate and she was represented by a broker from Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
approximately 90 miles from our market area.
One of my associates had a property listed that this lady apparently
wanted to buy and which the seller had agreed to sell to her. As part of the negotiations, a buyer creates
a list of discrepancies that the buyer would like for the seller to
address. The seller agreed to fix some
but not all of the discrepancies on the list and the BUYER REJECTED
the seller’s response. Therefore, the
seller requested and received a cancellation agreement signed by the
buyer. This situation happens in
real estate more often than one would imagine and until this moment was
certainly not unusual. The buyer then
recanted her rejection and said she wanted the house and the seller refused to
sell it to her. Race was never an issue
by anyone involved in the sale.
Then came the irate telephone
call. The caller shouted throughout the
entire call and would not give me a chance to say more than a very few words at
a time but none of my words constituted a complete sentence or thought. In her mind my agent and I were guilty of
racism. This Nugget is NOT about the failed real estate
transaction or what could have been done differently – that is not the
issue. The issue is in the name calling.
We have all heard the saying,
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but
names will never hurt me!”
But is
that true?
Anyone who thinks that is a
true statement ought to read
Bob Burg
and Lori Palainik’s
book,
Gossip.
And when you do, don’t skip over “
What People Are Saying About Gossip” at
the beginning of the book (shameless plug).
Bob suggests in his book that words can be just as deadly as any
physical weapon that a person can use.
It was words that caused one soccer player in the world championships to
head-butt another player because of what he had apparently
said.
The following is an excerpt from
Gossip:
A nineteenth-century folktale tells about a
man who went about slandering the town’s wise man. One day, he went to the wise man’s home and
asked for forgiveness. The wise man,
realizing that this man had not internalized the gravity of his transgressions,
told him that he would forgive him on one condition: that he go home, take a
feather pillow from his house, cut it up, scatter the feathers to the wind and
return when done to the wise man’s house.
Though puzzled by this strange request, the
man was happy to be let off with so easy a penance. He quickly cut up the pillow, scattered the
feathers and returned to the house.
“Am I now forgiven?” he asked.
“Just one more thing,” the wise man
said. “Go now and gather up all the
feathers.”
“But that’s impossible. The wind has already scattered them.”
“Precisely,” he answered. “And
it is as impossible to repair the damage done by your words as it is to recover
all the feathers. Your words are out there in the marketplace,
spreading hate, even as we speak.”
It is a belief of mine that if
you were to handle a situation perfectly, you would be lucky if your customer
would tell 5 other people about how well you performed. Yet if the customer perceives that you failed
to properly handle a situation correctly, they will most likely tell everyone
they talk to. Being called a racist is
probably one of the worst labels one can put on another person along with child
molester, sexual predator or spouse abuser.
These labels are bandied about without proof yet they tend to “stick”
upon the individual(s) so labeled. At
this point, as in the case of the story above, the truth has little to do with
the label.
Yes, we get angry when such
things occur. In the situation above
with the telephone call, I instantly remembered a conversation I had with a
former broker of mine Diane Romano, who said that when you find yourself in an
adversarial situation and one party is angry, take a deep breath, gather your
thoughts BEFORE you speak and then when you speak, speak more softly and slowly
that you otherwise would. It tends to
calm the other person down and they have to strain to hear what you are saying
meaning they can not be talking at the same time. In this situation I in fact remained very
calm (surprisingly) and tried to calm the caller down but to no avail. She refused to let me speak; she continued to
spew one accusation after another at me.
The label “racist” came through loud and clear. Without giving her any reason to do so, she
hung up – it was definitely a one-sided conversation from the very beginning.
These things are obvious! There are times, however, when such labels
are not so obvious but can be just as deadly.
Surprise – they come from our own mouths! Well “mouths” may not be technically correct –
rather they come from our minds in the form of self-talk. Our own talk can be just as deadly as someone
calling us a racist. After all, when we
talk to ourselves, who is listening? We
are. When we tell ourselves something is
impossible, we find ways to make our beliefs come true.
I truly feel sorry for anyone who
does not play golf.
In golf, self-talk
is what the game is all about.
As
Henry
Ford famously said,
“If you
think you can or if you think you can’t, either way, you’re right!” In golf this is 90% of the game.
If you think you will hit the ball into the
water, you probably will.
If you don’t,
you think you were just lucky.
If you
think you can make the putt, you probably will. If you think you are going to
lose, you probably will.
It is the same in life and
business. Whatever you think you can or
cannot do, you will or will not do it.
People can call me a racist as often as they like, but in my mind, I
know I am not; therefore, I don’t worry about it. If a lot of people called me a racist, I would
then have to take a look at my language and actions and ask others how they
perceive me to be. But one angry person
in over 27 years does not make me a racist.
That, however, was just ONE
label. How many labels do you put on
yourself and how often to you reinforce them?
Think about it and ask yourself if you have ever said any of these
things to yourself, outwardly or inwardly:
- Why bother, I never win anything.
- They will never want to work with me; I’m new in the
business.
- Why would they want to work with me, they can buy me
10 times over
- My input is not important, just sit here (in this
class) and shut up
- I can’t do that
- That will never work in our market; our market is
different (one of my favorites I oftentimes heard)
- The buyer will never accept this
- The seller will never accept this
- Buyers are liars
- Sellers are liars
- The boss will never go for this
- It’s not in the budget so why bring it up
- I know smoking is very hazardous to not only my
health but everyone’s around me but I CAN’T QUIT!
- I can handle all this alcohol
- I had a few drinks but I can handle this car Okay
- My wife will never know
- My husband will never know
- I don’t need any help
- If I ask for help, I will be perceived as being weak
- No one would ever want to read my book I’m writing
- I will be considered strange if I write a poem
- If I get good grades in high school, I will be
considered a nerd
Let’s get back to being called a
racist.
Terry Cole-Whittaker wrote one
of the most beneficial books I have ever read –
What
You Think of Me Is None of My Business. The
title says it all.
What that irate lady
thought of me really is none of my business.
If she files a complaint, I know I will be cleared so why worry?
Ms. Cole-Whittaker ought to write a book
entitled
“What I Think of Me Is Entirely
My Business.” Or, maybe I should write it.
Another phrase that comes in
handy during times like this is:
“You wouldn't worry so much about what
others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.” Eleanor Roosevelt;
brilliant!
But having said that,
everyone needs to worry about what your internal-self is thinking and saying
about you because that is what is going to control your outcomes.
“If
you think you can, or if you think you can’t, either way you are right!” That’s scary when you consider how much
negative self-talk we engage in every day.
A perfect example of this lies in
writing this Nugget.
Will people think
that I have said the things to myself that I have listed above?
Frankly it doesn’t matter what I think you
may think, what is important is
what I
think and therein lies the lesson of this Nugget.
Learn to “
think in a certain way” (said
by Wallace D. Wattles
in almost every book he has written) and when a negative thought enters
your mind, just say to yourself,
“That’s
interesting; where did that come from?” and then just let it pass and get
back to
“thinking in a certain way”
ala Wallace D.Wattles.
ACTION STEPS
- Worry less about what others think of you because
they think of you very little.
- Realize you are engaging in negative thinking and
then just let it go and move on.
- Think “I can!” rather than “I can’t”
- Read Gossip
and learn to identify when you are engaging in damaging conversations
about yourself and others!
Posts
