I've been a hard worker my whole life. My dad started teaching me the value of earning a dollar and the benefits of a good work ethic by paying me to run. When I was a young girl I had what you might call an attention problem. I couldn't be relied upon to focus on any one thing for very long before my mind was racing and my attention was off to other more important subjects like whether or not my cat needed to be put in the refrigerator because it most certainly had to be hot underneath all that fur. So to help me with my lack of attention span my dad began to challenge me to running contests. He would pay me $.50 for each mile I ran up to ten miles. If I reached the ten mile mark he would then change that $.50 to a whole dollar.
At the time I thought my dad was such a sucker. No way was he smart enough to know he was playing right in to my hands. I was young and filled with endless energy. Didn't he know I would have ran all those miles without even being paid? Every single day I ran up and down my street playing with friends from sun up to sun down. Now he's going to pay me for simply keeping track of the miles that I ran each week? Little did I know his master plan. He was secretly teaching me how to set and achieve goals from an early age. He was quietly instilling in me lessons on how to be disciplined.
As an adult I have built upon that work ethic. I have succeeded in almost every professional avenue I've ever ventured down. But one thing I've learned throughout the years is that people often like to take advantage of those who have a strong work ethic. There are those who will simply ride the coat tails or jump on the backs of the individuals who will put in the long hours and the hard work it takes to become successful. I've been on real estate "teams" in the past where only myself actually carried the weight. I've been with brokers who refused to negotiate a better commission split with me in spite of me being one of the top producing agents in the office year after year. Both of those scenario's caused me to cut ties and move on to better situations that allowed me to actually benefit from all the work I was putting in instead of padding other people's pockets.
But above all, the one group that has taken advantage of my work ethic the most has been investors. I've worked tirelessly and relentlessly for investors who fell in love with the results I produced for them but never wanted to pay me more than a hugely reduced, discounted rate for my services because after all, if it wasn't for their investment dollars and buying power I wouldn't be making any money at all.
I have single-handedly built up entire investment firms who started out as nothing but a group of individuals with a bank account and zero properties, to owners of hundreds of rental homes and fix-and-flip properties. I have overseen tens of millions of dollars worth of investment land acquisitions only to have the investors turn around and use someone else when it came time to subdividing and selling off each individual lot. Last year alone I played an essential role for a group of investors in developing a system for purchasing bulk sale bank-owned foreclosures as a non-profit entity only to have them sever ties with me when it came down to actually buying the properties.
So this year I made one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. I have decided to stop building other people's businesses for them. I know my value and worth in this industry. I cut my teeth in this industry much like many other's who came before me, by getting up every morning and putting in the work. When I got my Brokers license two years ago and started my own firm it was the beginning of my awakening. No longer will I put in the long hours and grinding days so that someone else can win the race ahead of me and take the trophy that should have been rightfully mine. I won't be carrying anyone else across the finish line of a race that I ran. Of course I still take great pride in working hard for my buyers, sellers, and even still investors who I feel will compensate me for what I'm worth. But gone are the days of me building empires only to get left outside of the gates.
Thanks to Grant Schneider for hosting the March Contest: What Have you stopped doing in 2015".
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