Waiting For Your Ship To Come In?

Waiting For Your Ship To Come In?
Article by: Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, June 4, 2008

The radar operator was tracking a contact that not only remained constant it was also drawing nearer. The operator contacted the commanding officer to make sure he was aware of the contact.

“This is Captain Lloyd of the U. S. Navy Air Craft Carrier Ronald Reagan; you are on a collision course with this vessel. We are the world’s largest war ship and I demand you change your course immediately!”

“Captain,” the rather calm voice replied, “this is the U. S. Coast Guard Lighthouse at Rocky Shoals. I would be more than happy to change my course if I could but instead I would suggest you change both your COURSE and your ATTITIDE!”

You and your career ARE on a course, the question is which course and do you really know where you are going? Like Zig Ziglar states, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”

If you are waiting for your ship to come in, you had first better make sure you have water in your harbor. Wishing something to happen will not make it so and as Dr. John Maxwell so often states, “Hope is not an effective strategy!”

It is not enough to just know what needs to be done. This past evening I had an epiphany of sorts. I was reading Jeffrey Gitomer’s book, Little Gold Book of YES!Attitude for the fifth time. Now I know what some people are thinking (certainly not you), Gymbeaux is a slow learner. Let me explain. Gary Keller wrote The Millionaire Real Estate Agent (MREA) and he suggested that the prudent real estate associate (that would be you) should read the book once a month for a year. That the important passages be underlined, pages be dog-eared, and notes be entered in the margins. It is only through repeated study will the pages come to life and have a positive impact on your real estate career.

I believe the same is true of any great instructional book, or course for that matter. If professional knowledge were a potato chip, you could not eat just one. Nor should you read a book or take a course just once provided it has value. You only gain more insight with each reading or course attendance. The Little Gold Book of YES!Attitude is such a book. There are Ahas on every page. True, most of the material you probably heard at different times in your life but this book puts it all together in one resource. It is a course on attitude. The only way someone can change their attitude is to think about their attitude. Most of us (certainly not you) go about our daily lives and give our attitude little to no thought. As Gitomer says, the natural tendency is to think in negative terms. Thinking in positive terms is a labor of love and at times can be difficult considering negative thinking is our most natural way to think.

The connection between The Little Gold Book and The Millionaire Real Estate Agent (MREA) book came to me this past evening while reading the Gold Book. The MREA is a book contains just about everything one would ever need to know to open a successful business of any kind, not just real estate. It provides a “cookie-cutter” plan that if followed should prove to be as successful as you wish it to be. The book helps you to “stay on course” in regards to organizing and operating your real estate business. I had always felt that something was missing in the book and until this past evening had no idea what it was. It takes more than just a course to follow; it also takes a change in attitude to get where you desire to be – your objective – your goal!

Following the MREA requires a YES!Attitude® mindset. If you have not read the Gold Book, a YES!Attitude® is one you exhibit when something happens and you pump your fist in the air and shout YES! If, while reading the MREA you run across an Aha moment, something that stands out from the page, something you truly know you should be doing, consider it a YES! moment. Write it down. Write down enough of these moments and you create an outline for your “success course.”

If you have not as yet read the MREA (of course that would be someone else), I would suggest that you first read The Little Gold Book of YES!Attitude. This will put your mind into the proper receptive mindset to truly appreciate what Gary Keller, Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan have done for you by providing you the proper course (path) to success. The formula is really quite simple (that is why it took me almost 5 years to figure out):

CAREER COURSE + POSITIVE ATTITUDE = SUCCESS
Or
MREA + LITTLE GOLD BOOK = REAL ESTATE SUCCESS!

It is the positive attitude that is the tough part of that formula. Why? Because as stated above, our negative attitudes are the dominant and natural way to think. Who knows who first said it but if you want to change your attitude, you first have to change the way you think (about your attitude and your success). Henry Ford had it right; “If you think you can or if you think you can’t, you’re right!”

To show you how this works, I recently played golf with a friend who shall remain anonymous, who on the very first tee said things like, “I have no idea where this ball is going to go,” “I am the world’s worst golfer, you wait and see,” etc. Then when he hit a bad shot his opinion of his game was confirmed to both his conscious and subconscious mind. It is the subconscious mind that we must first begin to change and to do that the subconscious mind needs food – positive affirmations on a regular basis! Before you can become a good golfer you must believe you can be. Before you can become a successful real estate associate, you must believe you can be. Before you can have a positive attitude you MUST ABSOLUTELY BELIEVE YOU CAN! It starts with the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning and the last thing you think of when go to sleep at night. You do have a choice as to whether you have a positive attitude, or not. Why would anyone ever want a negative attitude? (I would really like to know how you justify that kind of thinking!) Knowing that negativity is natural, it takes hard work and constant work to be ever mindful of your attitude. Ever hear someone say, “He’s got an attitude!” Tell me that and I’ll take it as a compliment not an insult.

ACTION STEPS

1. Read The Little Gold Book of YES!Attitude by Jeffrey Gitomer
2. Read The Millionaire Real Estate Book, by Gary Keller, Dave Jenks, & Jay Papasan
3. Buy a piece of jewelry that you wear because YOU make IT look really good when you wear it but more importantly, every time you see it or feel it, the jewelry makes you actively think of your attitude and where it is and where it needs to be at that very moment
4. Write your goals down, if you do, it has been estimated that you are one of about 3% to 5% of people who do. Without goals, how will you know where you are going and more importantly how will you know when you get there?
5. Take the time you spend in the evening watching television and use that time to work on your career and attitude by reading, listening to CDs or watching DVD’s such as Stand Up For Your Life with Cheryl Richardson, You Can Heal Your Life with Louise L. Hay, The Secret with many featured presenters, or Messages from Water which you will simply not believe.
6. Read anything (or everything) written by Joe Tye
7. Read anything (or everything) written by Dr. John Maxwell
8. Read anything (or everything) written by Jim Paluch
9. Read anything (or everything) written by Jeffrey Gitomer
10.Read anything (or everything) written by Jack Canfield

Remember: To change your life, change the way you think. To change your attitude, change the way you think about your attitude. Okay, to change your golf game, think about the way you think (and talk) about your golf game.

As Dr. John Maxwell (my hero) says:

THINKING FOR A CHANGE!
(Which is also the title of his great book!)

Life Is Like A Colander!

Life Is Like A Colander!
Article by: Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, 5/23/2008

Imagine if you would that your life is like a colander (strainer). As water is being poured into the top, it comes out the holes in the sides and bottom. As long as the flow of water is steady, your life’s colander is capable of handling the input. But what happens if more water enters the colander than can be discarded out the holes? The water begins to flow over the rim and onto the floor.

What does that have to do with life? I thought you would never ask. Before I answer that question, I would like to refer you to the person responsible for this Nugget, Bill Harris at www.CenterPointe.com. If you visit the site, you can sign up for a free Center Pointe newsletter. The site’s primary product, however, involves Holosync technology that I will explain later in this Nugget.

Back to the colander. According to Bill Harris we each have an “internal map of realty” that we created early in life. This map helps us to determine what we believe and disbelieve. We refer to it every time we are faced with a new situation. The map tends to direct the outcomes of our thoughts based upon these beliefs. The problem is that many of these beliefs may be inaccurate but we live our lives and form our opinions on them nonetheless.

Now think of our internal map of realty as being the colander. We take in information and let is swirl around in the colander and then we also let it escape out the holes using what we need and discarding the rest. When the input of water becomes so great the colander no longer can handle the input. We then have two choices, we can either turn off the input (not a good idea) or we can get a larger colander (a much better idea). Using water and the colander, it is easy to recognize that to handle a larger flow of water we simply go to the store to purchase a larger colander. But if the colander represents our internal map of realty, what we believe to be true, how can we enlarge our map to accommodate life’s increased flow (which could be related to stress producing activities).

During a Bill Harris seminar he explained that our “internal map of realty” is much like a real road map complete with color symbols that clearly show us the way from point A to point B. It also shows us such things as camp sites, national parks, historical sites, etc. I found it interesting that he also said that while we know a camp site is present on the map as depicted by the colorful diamond, we cannot camp on the diamond; we just know it is there. What the “map” does NOT show us are the things that life throws in our path such as “bridge out”, “road construction”, “floods”, “snow storms”, etc.

If there is one thing I would change regarding what I have learned from Center Pointe thus far it would be to add two words to the term “internal map of realty” and those words would be “limiting beliefs”. Thus it would read “internal realty map of limiting beliefs” because that is exactly what our internal map of realty truly is – limiting beliefs. Until I began listening and reading the material from Center Pointe I did not realize just how deep these limiting beliefs can be and how effectively they do their work without me realizing just how effective they were.
I find it much easier to teach from personal experiences and then telling my story to others. So let me give you some “for instances” to consider:

#1: Keller Williams Realty International initially said that every local Market Center should shoot for 100 agents; then it was 200 and now there are Market Centers with 300, 400 and even 600 agents working from one office. My internal map of realty kept reminding me that in my local market area there were only 500 to 550 locally licensed real estate agents. To acquire even 100 would have meant that we would have had 20% of the available agents. My “map” kept reminding me subconsciously that having 20% of the total was impossible. Now here is the “cruncher”, if my subconscious mind truly believed that, it would therefore find a way to make it right; and, it was working perfectly without me even realizing it. Now to be honest, it is still very hard for me to fully grasp ever having 600 agents in a Board of Realtors that only has 550 but then I never thought I would be able to have a fully functional computer that would fit in of my hand either.

#2: I have been in some form of personnel management position for the past 35 years and have studied management during that time. Therefore my “management colander” had been formulated long ago and my map firmly entrenched in my subconscious mind. For example in the military they referred to a term called “span of control” and that simply meant that no one person was given more people to manage than the person was capable of managing. Now move forward 30 or so years to the present. I am the Team Leader for 75 real estate agents and 4 employees (well on my way to the initial 100 agents of the original goal). By any military or business standard, being directly responsible for managing 75 people without any help would NOT be considered a good business practice – span of control. Therefore I have two forces working against growing my Market Center to 100 or 200 agents – my internal belief that there were simply not enough agents to accomplish this and more importantly, if I am overwhelmed by managing 75 people why would I want to acquire another 75 or more people before I could expect help?

#3: Prior to Hurricane Katrina we had 72 agents and at least 12 agents on the verge of joining our Market Center. Then when Katrina struck, we lost 15 agents who decided not to return to our area and the 12 that were coming either did not come or at least postponed their joining our company. Although my own personal home was unbelievably undamaged as was the Market Center building, Katrina affected me in other ways. Before I continue I want you to remember that prior to Katrina, my colander was close to the rim with “stuff” in my life. Lots of agents, lots of related real estate problems created by the agents and their business, lots of demands on my time, etc. I realized long ago after reading the book, “Men From Mars; Women From Venus” written by Dr. John Gray, that I was a Mr. Fixit type personality. Bring me a problem and I would fix it. When Katrina struck and I was faced with all the visual images of miles and miles of destruction, and when agent after agent, and customer after customer told me their story of devastation and loss, my colander overflowed and has been overflowing ever since. I realized that there was very little I could personally fix but my internal map of realty did not have a road leading in that direction; I was still on the road from Point A to Point B which required fixing the problems and I did not know how to handle it.

What to do?

I couldn’t run to the store for a larger colander. The only way to turn off the flow was to quit. By the way, quitting was not on my road map either so it was not a choice. I was not aware of it but depression had taken hold of my psychic. Depression in this case was simply having a colander that was not able to handle and disperse all the input it was receiving. I desperately needed a larger colander and that meant changing my internal realty map of limiting beliefs. It took years and years to create my existing map, how do you change it over night? It was not just a case of self-talk – I tried that. I kept saying to myself that I can handle all this stress. It became obvious that this self-talk was not working. Remember it was years and years of self-talk and education both formal and informal that created my map and I had no idea of what was going to change my map at this point in my life. I did understand that nothing was going to change until I somehow changed my internal map of reality.

I knew I had to change my subconscious mind but I did not know how. Again, the self-talk was not working. I am not a doctor, therefore what I am about to tell you is simply my experience. I am relating all this personal information because I know I am not the only one that has limiting beliefs or is overwhelmed by the stresses of life. Maybe this Nugget will help others or at least make others aware of the effect our internal map of realty has on our actions or inactions.

Enter CenterPointe.com. I purchased the program and began religiously following the instructions. It has been about 6 weeks and I have noticed some small but important changes. The stress is still flowing into my colander but I have realized on many occasions that my reaction to the stress has been significantly different than prior to starting the program. Rather than immediately responding to an incident I am actually sitting still, not immediately responding and literally watching my own reactions (witnessing as Harris puts it) and THEN formulating a response.

Center Pointe uses a system called Holosync sound waves that without going into a lot of technical detail causes your brain to rethink itself and create connectors between the left half the brain and the right half. This simply causes your brain to reorganize itself. I prefer to call it reorganization of my subconscious mind or in my terms – purchasing a larger colander. While it has only been six weeks, I believe it is working and while spending one hour a day listening to a CD would not have been on my daily schedule, I have not missed a day. In a life as busy as mine, that is saying a lot.

This is not an advertisement for Center Point and/or Holosync (OK maybe it is). I would prefer to think of this Nugget as an awakening to how to better deal with stressful situations that may seem to be overwhelming you like they have me. Hopefully confession IS good for the soul.

As I wrote this, my attention was drawn to a very large stuffed Monkey sitting atop of my bookcase. Funny, I had forgotten about the Monkey; it was given to me by the Commanding Officer of a Coast Guard Cutter in Texas. He called me one day and said I seemed to be a little stressed out. I explained to him that I was having problems terminating a Coast Guardsman’s career because he used drugs. That one indiscretion was grounds for throwing away a multi-year career. I was not against the policy, on the contrary, I supported it 100%; it was just tough telling a member and his family they are no longer welcomed to serve their country. The next day the Commanding Officer visited me carrying this very large brown stuffed monkey. As he handed it to me he used the moment as a teachable moment when he said, “Jim, I have a policy with my crew. Each crew member is welcome to visit me with their problems (their monkey on their back). But when they leave, they need to take THEIR monkey with THEM rather than leaving it with me!” He gave me the monkey as a reminder of his policy. One of life’s little lesson’s that apparently did not stick as it passed through my colander.

The Lesson. I am not alone. You are not alone. There is no need to let life’s stresses work you over unless you want them to. I chose to use the Center Pointe program because I do not believe in taking medication for every problem I face. Medication tends to treat the symptom rather than the problem. Medication would not provide me with a larger colander; it would have just enlarged the holes. To truly treat the problem, I needed a larger colander and that required destroying my internal beliefs and creating new beliefs. I think I have found the solution in Center Pointe; maybe you would as well.