Ebbs and Flows...and so it goes

Coming up on the end of my second year in this business I have taken this morning to look back.  I remember so clearly sitting in the license testing room with maybe 23 other people and thinking this is going to be fun.  Well, fun it has been along with agonizing, frustrating, exhilarating and exhausting.  On balance, I am loving it.  All my life I have worked to be a team member, a team leader by example and a friend and colleague to anyone who was in need.  I am told by my broker and the several broker's recruiting me that I have skills which is nice to hear, but they are not my target.  What I want to hear, crave hearing is the joy of my clients success. We get paid for our work and that is good, sometimes very good, but working for money is not what drives me.

I want to be the absolute best Realtor® I can be.  I want to know the answers to the myriad of questions that are asked.  I want to be in front of issues that may crop up.  I want to be calm in the storm and be the surge when it is needed.  I want to drive my neighborhoods and see happy clients and prospects succeeding in their lives. I want to give back more, not just of myself but for all the others who will come behind.  I want to continue to grow on a daily basis because I feel that is what it takes to continue a success. The top people in every field take the work seriously and passionately.  I feel those emotions.

I am grateful for the help I have gotten along the way.  I am particularly grateful for all the people who have shown me the ways not to be.  The agents who mail in their work, the users who want nothing more that to suck you dry, the brokers who barely come to work and never have anything of substance to offer.  I am grateful for you.  Watching you do your thing and seeing the results of your "me first" approach has been a guiding light for the real way to practice this profession.

It is all about them.  It is about listening to someone's needs, their dreams, their goals and their limitations on achieving those goals and running with that information to help them achieve those goals.  It is not about me, never was and never will be. It is always about the people you serve and how you serve them.  I wake up each morning wondering what new thing will challenge me and how will I respond.  I go to bed each night being grateful for the opportunity to practice my skills for my clients. Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Active Rain has been one of those guiding lights and always a place where I can find people of like mind.  Thank you Active Rain and I look forward to the Boston Meet-up tonight.  Hope to see all you locals there.