“I thrive under pressure”, I answered…

“I thrive under pressure”, I answered “I’m all good”.

What a load of horsesh#t I thought, upon reflection. 
What a block. Put up a wall. A nice deflection! 

We all know that a little bit of stress is good for us, it gets us moving and out of bed in the morning. It allows us to build our empires big or small, and try new things. 

But this is actually me under high degrees of pressure:

• Agitated
• Jaw Clenching
• Frowny
• Short tempered
• Impatient
• Distracted
• Not present

Add to that: less exercising, not sleeping well and more eating. I am probably late on some bills and some appointments. The car probably needs a service and likely I need to book in at the dentist. 

That does not sound like thriving to me. It sounds like a perpetual living hell. 

I would much rather be in the flow of work and life, of coping well, living healthy and being mobile and active. Being engaged fully with what I am up to. Always ready to move and respond, but not react from a place of pressure and stress. 

Back to horses. Forgive the cliché, one of my ways to picture freedom from stress and pressure would be a herd of wild horses. Most of the time life is good and it is all about grazing and raising their young. But the herd is in a state of readiness. Ready to run, to fight, and to protect at any moment. 

A group of animals living in constant stress is not able to respond as effectively.
And I am pretty sure that it is the same with us.

We all know how we can reduce our stress and improve our ability to cope when pressure does come on. As we wind up the year and another set of stresses come on us all, I suggest you continue to do what is good for you. 

For me that means keeping active, going to bed early enough and putting limits on work hours. If I do those things, I can cope with pretty much anything that is thrown at me. If I allow what life throws at me to get in the way of physical activity, sleep, and if I start to overwork, then I will simply get into a downward spiral. 
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Maintaining the routines and patterns that work for you is the target. ​​​​​​​
And if you don’t have any of those, it might be time to create some.

I have not done this for a while, but we have been working very hard in the background, and we have a wonderful group of people to welcome to the business. 

Firstly, a big welcome to some friends of mine in the Auckland apartment market:
Marcus Fava, Aileen Wu and Lisa Zhang are all experienced apartment sales people, specialising in various sectors and buildings in the market (you can think of a single building or complex as a ‘suburb’). I have worked with all three of these exceptional operators in the past, and look forward to working with them again. 

East Realty in Tauranga have expanded the team with Karen Wagstaff. It was great to see Karen last week at the NZREC Conference, getting fired up and motivated and picking up all kinds of skills and ideas. 

Renee Vorstman joins us in the Waihi area. Her background is selling waterfront properties and I know that she is working on securing listings now as we head into summer. 

We also have a couple of new branches to welcome:

• Adrienne Douglas created her own property management company some years ago, ‘Boutique Realty’ in New Plymouth. She has now added a sales arm to better serve her clients. Our branch structure allowed her to maintain her branding and embrace sales as well.
• Harry Howe and Helen Cusworth have created H&H Real Estate, developing their personal brand and bringing their high level of service to their clients on Waiheke Island. With their first listings up and positive responses from the community I know that this is a great move for them.