It's very sad when a hero from your childhood dies. While I've never been a boxing fan, everyone knew the name of Muhammed Ali. When he died last week, there were lots of people in Active Rain, on Facebook and Twitter, and all over the world mourning his loss. I think he left us with some immortal words that are my motivation for today's Thought for Thursday.
Muhammed Ali said "It's not the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out. It's the pebble in your shoe."
What are the mountains we have to climb as real estate professionals? We have to get the appointments, the listings, and the inspections. We have to negotiate the deals and manage the certificates of occupancy. We have to smooth the ruffled feathers of the seller who's received a low ball offer and talk the buyer off the ledge when the inspection report comes back.
Those are easy.
It's the day to day little things that are the ones that we stumble upon. We get frustrated when agents don't call us back. We get tied up in knots when a key gets lost or a contract has errors. The sellers with the superhuman attachment to a light fixture and the buyer with the crazed look in his eyes becasue there was a box of old books left in the garage - these are the stumbling blocks that wear us out.
Muhammed Ali was right when he said the mountains aren't what exhausts us. The pebbles in our shoes - those small challenges that slow us down - those are the things that we rant about at the end of the day.
So your challenge for today is to identify the pebbles in your shoe. By noticing them, you diminish their power over you. By naming them, you stop stumbling on them. And then you can tryly live like the champion you know you are.
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