Dealing with Adversity, Irritation and Setback

Dealing with Adversity, Irritation and Setback – it’s a mind game

How do you NOT get halted in your progress by the irritations and setbacks inherent in life in general? And how do you know when you have made it – what is the measure? When will you be satisfied? These are questions that I am posing to myself as I sit and write this email.

I am not sure about you, but my mind is really poor at distinguishing between major and minor irritations and setbacks. My mind seems to be just as disappointed about losing a major agent hire as it does in missing out in a bidding war on a low value item on TradeMe. How about those things that have not even happened yet? My mind tends to want to go into a tailspin when faced with an imagined possible crisis and that has not even eventuated.

One of the most recent lessons that has guided me through these mental meltdowns is these simple words:

Deal with what is in front of you

Matt, I say to myself, you can only deal with what is in front of you.

In this state of mind real clarity comes. Because here are some facts. While you may be great at persuasion and selling, there are some minds that you can’t change. While you can construct, elaborate and beautify arguments and presentations, people will decide to go elsewhere. You can do all you can possibly do, and some things just don’t go your way. The best laid plans can be laid to waste by all manner of events outside of your control large or small as most of us have experienced one way or another over the past year.

I find that when I tell myself that I can only deal with what is in front of me, it becomes a bit more obvious where the path to solve the problem lies. As I said, clarity comes. Dealing with what is in front of me highlights options, other paths, a way forward. Sometimes the way forward is ‘sit tight and wait’.

With clarity, the disappointments of a setback can be viewed in a more concrete, less emotional way. When I look at what is in front of me I have an opportunity to learn and move on from mistakes (I Dad-Joke with my family that I made a mistake once). If something has not gone the way that was hoped, an attitude of ‘dealing with what is in front of you’ looks at the facts. You can say to yourself that this opportunity has passed for now. The chips have landed. The dye is cast. I can no longer do anything about this so rather than dwelling on disappointment I can look at the lessons and move on.

This leads me on to one of the other questions that I posed in my opening paragraph, which is when have you made it? When will you be satisfied?

Real Estate will consume as much of your life as you give it. If not in our nature, it is certainly in the current global culture to continuously want more. I have met with agents trying to break $100,000 earnings who are just as frustrated as agents trying to break $500,000 earnings. I have recently met an agent who earnt $1,200,000 last year and is desperately trying to reduce their stress and workload, but just can’t seem to stop. And this doesn’t even start to get into the investors and developers I know – add a few zeros.

I am really interested in trying to get the balance between growth, success, and having enough and being happy. Being satisfied. We only have one life and as the old adage goes, nobody on their death bed wishes they had worked more. And from a personal point of view, my kids see me mulling and worrying and pushing over my real estate businesses. How does the level of stress that we put ourselves under affect those who look up to us? Does it communicate that this is what life is all about? And so, I am on a mission to try and find a balance. Not just for me, but for others. And a part of finding the balance is to find environments where, to put it simply there are less unnecessary pressures. Weed out the things that are not serving and simplify.

I posted a tile on social media this week. It simply said ‘Culture Shift” and it got more engagement than I would have expected. I did not define the culture shift. I didn’t say anything. But the level of engagement with such an open-ended post indicates to me that there is real desire to see a change.

I am trying to use Independent Agent as a way to help people in this industry – an important industry – to change the way they balance their life, and offer more holistic alternatives to the idea of success. I have always said that this model, what I am doing here, is not for everyone. And I am pleased that so many of you that I have spoken to have achieved balance and are happy, and this is something that we are trying to make a part of the culture of this business. The rule rather than the exception.

So this leads me to…..

WELCOME

Welcome this month to Cecilia Tan and Vanessa Killeen.

Cecilia ‘got the concept’ straight away. Thank you, Cecilia.

She brings a wide range of experiences to her business. She has been in the construction industry for over 25 years and brings with her an outstanding work ethic, plus an understanding of property, insurance, architecture and investment. She is looking forward to selling real estate in West Auckland and focusing on serving the needs of the Philippine community.

Vanessa Killeen also has a varied background, including professions in Marketing and the NZ Police department. Her recent focus has been on selling house and land packages in North Auckland – Milldale to Wellsford. She has decided she wants to keep it closer to home, and work in her local suburb of Stillwater, and throughout Silverdale and the Hibiscus Coast and surrounding suburbs.

I look forward to seeing you both thrive in this environment.

Further announcements next month. Watch this space.

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The Voice of Self-Doubt. Am I doing the right thing?

Here is something I heard that I’m going to try and apply to my decision-making process:

If you take some action, either way you will have some regret.

Of course, If you try something and it doesn’t go really well, you will have regret of why did I do this, what was I thinking, I should have done something else…

However If you do something and it goes really well, you will wish you have done it earlier/faster/on a larger scale.

Either way, there will be some regret. My thought is that maybe this makes taking action a little less fearful.

And some Zen….
If you are doing nothing, you are still doing something.
Doing nothing is doing something.
It is doing not doing.
Regardless, you are always doing…..

Go do it, have a great week and hope to speak to you soon.