November 2024
November 2024
Happy November everyone. Shout out to my college friend, Steve Aliment, for allowing me to use his gorgeous photo of the red maples at the Japanese Garden at Volunteer Park in Seattle. Steve is a gifted musician and can be found on Spotify. It is wonderful to see someone embrace their passion after a career at Boeing.
I just gave a talk on the power of our words to the Mount Baker Windermere office and how words impact when said aloud, in a certain order, at a specific time in a certain way. It has been fascinating for me to deep dive on this topic since summer and even more interesting to share with those in my profession. Being a good real estate professional is in large part being a very good listener and counselor. It is important to not assume anything and to create a safe space where the client feels safe sharing, so we can do the most effective job for them.
I also jumped into an intense Transitions Coaching Certification Course through Modern Elder Academy and their affiliate in NYC, Coaching.com. It has been a minute since I've had two hour long courses with plenty of homework and pre-work and break out sessions. This will continue through the last week of January. I'm enjoying it immensely. So much of it backing up what I already know and practice in my coaching. But the course will help me deliver what I know in a much more cohesive way. Wish me luck!
Two gentlemen have greatly impressed me this year. One is Chip Conley of Modern Elder Academy. He was involved in the start up of AirBnB and has now recreated himself through MEA. The other guy I follow daily is Sahil Bloom. He is a finance guy but he is also a deep thinker and I appreciate his writing. This month, I am going to share their wise words.
Chip recently wrote an article called Five Questions To Ask In Your 50s. Here is my summary:
1. Ten years from now, what will you regret if you don’t learn or do it now? Last month I wrote about “waiting for inspiration is the opposite of discipline”. The Nike slogan of Just Do It! Is spot on!
2. What are three pieces of advice or wisdom you might offer someone younger & your origin stories for each that illuminate your wisdom finger prints? Wisdom is a social good meant to be shared once you have made sense of it. This is the why behind my speaking to groups of Realtors to share what I have learned that is never taught in the class rooms or traditional training.
3. How might you curate your relational life if you recognized that friendship is a practice? Chip shares with us this beautiful quote by my favorite poet, David Whyte.
4. How are you complicit in creating conditions you say you don’t want in your life? What are you not saying that you need to say? What are you pretending not to know?
I say this so often to my coaching clients. Kindness beats nice every damned time and clarity is kindness.
5. If the first half of your life was resume building, what if you approach the second half as if you were creating your eulogy? What do you want people to say? What kind of R.O.I. (Ripples of Impact) will you have had on others? What three adjectives do you want to be used to describe you? What habits or practices do you have in your life to live up to those descriptors?
The Case for Slowing Down
Every fall for the last four years, I have gone away for three days and two nights with some powerhouse colleagues in the business. We all have very different business models from one another. It has been such an honor sharing and in turn learning from each of them. Our profession is prone to really aggrandizing hustle culture and the mantle of busy. Lots of real estate adjacent business make their money on fanning the flame of that myth.
Yet the beautiful thing is, this year not only were we saying it is overrated but we each turned our backs on it and did things slightly differently, each in our own way. And still the results were extremely impressive. A commission based career brings with it anxiety. The formula I recently learned, Anxiety = Uncertainty x Powerlessness is true. There are many things we do not control; the weather on photo shoot day, the interest rates, the political climate. Yet there are many things we do control and making sure we do not over promise and manage client expectations is key.
Here are my notes from Sahil Bloom speaking on The Case for Slowing Down.
1. More intensity is not the answer. Balance is. Unfortunately in Western culture, balance is equated with laziness. Reframe slowing down as essential to peak performance, other than a reward for effort. When you are constantly moving fast everything is a blur. When you slow down, you gain clarity.
2. Take pride in uni tasking. Do your A work towards one thing vs your C+ to many.
3. Take more breaks. Build them into your day so they don’t escape you. Don’t use a break as a reward for hustle.
4. Take a Power Walk. I admit I am not a walker but even my endocrinologist can show me the positive effect of a walk around the block after a meal on my glucose meter.
5. Embrace the Power of No. If you don’t want to do it now, what makes you think you
will two Sundays from now? Normalize saying no. Being nice to everyone may get in the way of being kind to yourself.
6. Find your garden. Am I talking literally, no. But what brings you peace? Do that.
THE GROWTH YOU WANT IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF STILLNESS.
Thanksgiving tidbits: unique and helpful “need to knows”
~Does anyone else follow Camille Styles of Casa Zuma? She just released her first e magazine on ISSUE. Lots of great ideas to get inspired by. Then Katie, who has the blog of healthy recipes has a printable Thanksgiving Planner that might come in handy.
~Don’t forget the Annual Montlake Turkey Trot that my office is main sponsor for.
~Lastly, call me crazy but what about this amazing Lego Centerpiece. Lego never ceases to amaze me!
Sincerely,
Coach Diane
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