One of the pieces of advice that I always give new agents who are just starting out is to visit a local dollar store and buy an old fashion hand mirror. I told a new, younger agent this earlier this week and his immediate reaction was, “Why is my hair messed up or do I have something on my face?”
No the real reason for the advice to make that purchase was so that he/she will have it close at hand whenever they hit a snag or foul-up or dropped ball when trying to pursue a real estate deal. I tell them that at that moment they’ll probably ask themselves, and maybe even say out loud, “Who was responsible to see that this got done?” At that moment, I tell them; they should hold up the hand mirror and behold the person who is ultimately responsible to make sure that all of the things get done to make their deals go smoothly.
Of course we all work with great mortgage reps and wonderful title company people, but in the end it is our role and responsibility to make sure that the things that need to be done to close th deal actually get done. Once the newbie actually thinks about the piece of advice that I’ve just given them they usually understand and appreciate the symbolism of the hand mirror.
In fact there are lots of other moments in business and life where looking into a hand mirror to see who you really need to hold accountable is good advice. Lots of people hire personal coaches for that purpose and pay a lot of money to someone else to hold them accountable. A hand mirror at the dollar store costs how much? It’s also therapeutic and funny every now and then when you hold it up and then realize, “Damn, I can stay mad at that guy, even though he is the doofus who got me into this mess.”
Real estate is a lot like many of the individual sports in which one may participate – there are no teammates to complain about, no one else who isn’t pulling their load on the team; it’s just you. If you hit a bad golf shot, hold up the mirror. If you run a poor race, hold up the mirror. If you take the rapids wrong and bomb out in your kayak, hold up the mirror. I guarantee you that you can’t stare at that wrong-doer for long without getting over your anger/disappointment/frustration and finding a positive way out of your funk. After all that’s really a nice guy/gal that you’re looking at and they really didn’t mean to mess things up; so get over it, forgive the guy in the mirror and move on.
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