Work Hard on Your Business, but Work Harder on Yourself!

As a Realtor, I work hard.  Really hard.  I’ve been helping prospective buyers and sellers like you for years. It takes hard work, commitment, and perseverance to manage a transaction from beginning to end. You may not realize it, but sometimes months, even years, go into helping someone achieve their real estate goals. To a large degree, my job entails a whole lot of counseling, advocating, managing and encouraging. When people buy and sell real estate, it’s usually because of life changing events. Maybe you’re getting married or about to have your first child (or your fifth). You might be going through a divorce or perhaps you just inherited a sum of money. I’ve worked with people going through the gamut of experiences that life throws at us — illness, loss, financial stress, bankruptcy, downsizing, upsizing, and everything in between.

What I’ve Learned

And, this is what I’ve learned. I’ve learned that working hard on my business is important, but that working even harder on myself is key. Key to being someone who possesses the character to say and do the right thing regardless of any personal gain or loss, time or trouble.

Hiring someone who is representing you in one of the most important transactions of your life is an important decision. A decision that impacts the entire process and your outcome. Who represents you matters. It matters in the negotiations and throughout the whole process of buying and selling a property.

You can certainly find many good agents who have the competency and skills to effect a successful transaction. But, when I personally look to hire a professional to handle my own affairs, I look for more than competency and experience. I look for someone who possesses strength of character. Someone with integrity and someone who works hard on self.

What Do I Mean by Working Hard on Self?

I mean that you constantly have to look at your skills and do whatever you can to improve them. You can read books, listen to tapes, attend seminars, and have conversations with those you want to learn from and emulate. But, it’s so much more. You have to be willing to go hard. To do the hard things that make you stronger and better. You have to be willing to challenge yourself, your ideas and beliefs, and your mindset. Does what you believe line up with your actions? You need to be accountable, transparent, and open to constructive criticism. Working hard on your business and your goals is incredibly important. But, working hard on yourself is even more important.

Part of working hard on yourself includes accepting the fact that things typically get harder. The better you get, the more challenging things will be. As your skill set improves, so does the complexity of the situations you face. I can’t explain why that it is the case, but I know it to be true. Why? Because the workload and the complex situations I am faced with regularly were not within my skill set to handle 40 years ago when I was a newer agent.

So, if you want to succeed, to grow, and to improve, work hard on yourself and learn to handle hard well. When you are willing to do the hard things and when you learn to handle hard well, you become better. Better at everything.  Your life will be more meaningful. More purposeful. You’ll contribute more to the world around you because you have a growth mindset and because you are committed to becoming a better person.

If you don’t believe me, just listen to Kara Lawson, Duke University’s Women’s Basketball Coach. She has a few things to say about doing hard well and I couldn’t agree with her more…