Crossing The River of Change

CROSSING THE RIVER OF CHANGE

By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, April 8, 2019

Based on an excerpt from You Are The Placebo by Dr. Joe Dispenza

“Crossing the river of change requires that you leave the same familiar predictable self-connected to the same thoughts, same choices, same behaviors, and same feelings-and step into a void or the unknown.  The gap between the old self and the new self is the biological death of your old personality.  If the old self must die, then you have to create a new self with new thoughts, new choices, new behaviors, and new emotions.  Entering this river is stepping toward a new unpredictable, unfamiliar self.  The unknown is the only place where you can crate-you cannot create anything new from the known,” from You Are The Placebo

To demonstrate this principle, consider the man who marries a young woman.  The woman prepares a meal consisting of a baked ham.  The young man watches as his wife cuts off one end of the ham and then puts it into the oven.  Over time he watches this same procedure whereby his wife’s mother cuts off the end of the ham before putting it into the oven.  When the husband asks why she does this, she replies that is how her mother taught her as being the best way to cook a ham.  When he gets the opportunity he asks his wife’s grandmother why she does it and she explains that is what HER mother did.  At the large Christmas family gathering, his wife, her mother, and her mother and her mother were all in attendance.  That is when the young man asked his wife’s great grandmother why she cut the end off the ham before cooking it.  That is when she resolved the issue when she said, “Oh, that is the only way I could get it to fit into the pan.”

There are two lessons in this story, probably more than just two but here are the two that stands out to me.  If you never think outside the box, you will always get what you have always gotten.  Secondly, if you NEVER question why you do things the way you do, nothing will ever change.

That is what Dr. Joe Dispenza means in the excerpt from his book above when he writes:  “Crossing the river of change requires that you leave the same familiar predictable self-connected to the same thoughts, same choices, same behaviors, and same feelings-and step into a void or the unknown.”

I highly recommend reading You Are The Placebo by Dr. Dispenza.  It is an amazing read. 

I spent over 33 years in the real estate business first as a licensed sales person, then as an office manager, then as a Director of Broker Services for a mid-size region of franchised real estate offices, then as a co-broker/owner of a franchise office and finally as the Broker/Team Leader/Trainer of a Keller Williams Realty Office.  Why do I explain this?  Because during those several positions I have had the opportunity to meet and more importantly train hundreds of real estate agents.  I cannot speak for people in other businesses but I would be shocked if some of the same attitudes did NOT exist in whatever business you choose. 

In all those years, I was shocked to discover that very few of those hundreds of agents ever attended a course on real estate OTHER THAN the annual courses REQUIRED to maintain a real estate license with the state.  Oftentimes a course from a noted speaker would be given in the town in which their office is located and they still did not think the course was important enough to possibly increase their real estate sales and ultimately their income from their real estate sales.  I was also shocked to learn and this was reinforced by a study which I unfortunately cannot reference because I no longer have it, where less than 5% of people in sales EVER read a book on sales.  Think about that and think about that one sentence by Dr. Dispenza again, “Crossing the river of change requires that you leave the same familiar predictable self-connected to the same thoughts, same choices, same behaviors, and same feelings-and step into a void or the unknown.”

As my agent’s real estate broker and in-house trainer I felt an obligation to always be at the top of my game when it came to all matters relating to sales and legal real estate issues.  My goal was to provide my agents with the best training I could give them while at the same time give the training and information that would hopefully keep them out legal trouble with the Real Estate Commission.  How did I do that?  It could not be any more simple:

1.      I read books and articles relating to sales and real estate legal issues

2.      I attended courses either in person or on line involving sales and real estate issues

3.      I then incorporated what I had learned into the classes that I taught in-house

The problem?  Agents did not always attend the courses being offered.  Why? Same old reason, “I don’t have the time.”  What I took away from the lack of attendance was NOT that my courses were not beneficial but instead that most agents felt that they already knew all the information that they needed to be successful in real estate.  To me this attitude and this belief described agents that in the words of General Russel L. Honoré of Hurricane Katrina fame, they were “stuck on stupid!”  There is no other way to describe this behavior.  Why would you NOT want to advance what you already know to heights as yet to be achieved?  It made no sense to me even to this day some 40 years later.

Look around at the employees and ownership in the office/business you work at.  How many have a plan to develop their own personal skills to be the best they can possibly be?  How do you know?  Have you asked them what they are doing to improve their skills?  It is widely accepted that if you want to play better golf, you play golf with golfers better than you.  Keeps you sharp and keeps you mentally in a learning based environment.  Failure to remain learning based usually means that not only are you NOT advancing your career and your business, you are not even standing still.  You are falling by the wayside and you have not paid sufficient attention to realize that you are falling behind.  Then one day you have an awakening to realize what could have been if only…..

I can assure you that relying on “if only I….” is not an effective plan for future success.  I hate to continually repeat the message of Dr. Dispenza but…“Crossing the river of change requires that you leave the same familiar predictable self-connected to the same thoughts, same choices, same behaviors, and same feelings-and step into a void or the unknown.”

My advice to everyone regardless of what business you are in would be:

TO READ, AND READ OFTEN, READ MORE THAN YOU EVER HAVE

But read books that will improve your skills.  Do not read just for the sake of reading, have a plan.  What skills are you deficient in now?  Making Bifracated Twidgets!  Read how to become better at making Bifracated Twidgets (in case you know who might be reading this, there is no such thing as Bifracted Twidgets, it is just an example).

Make a list of what you do now.  Grade yourself.  Have a discussion with your immediate supervisor and have your supervisor grade you.  You might be surprised that there is a disconnect between what you think are your best and worse skills and what your supervisor thinks are your best and worst skills.  Oftentimes we really don’t know ourselves.  If that is the case, you may choose to work on the wrong skill at the wrong time.

If you really want to become better at what you do, form a small group of no more than 5 people to work together as a mastermind group.  They do not have to be in the same business and in fact it might be better if they are not.  Meet for about an hour on a weekly basis for coffee.  Let nothing deter you from making this meeting.  Then at each meeting you review what you said you were going to do the previous week, explain why you didn’t do what you might have said you were going to do, and then define what you are going to do the next week.  Let everyone in the Mastermind Group do the same thing.  That is why it is important to form a small group where you can meet for an hour over coffee.  You put it on your calendar and you let nothing stop you from attending – nothing except for maybe your own death.  It is that important.  You will see if you just try it.  Tell your group where you feel you need to improve and what you are doing to improve.  Also tell them what may have stopped you from making those improvements.  Keep in mind, if you truly want to “cross the river of change”, you MUST make some changes otherwise you will get what you have always gotten.  Is that what you want?