- "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
- Courage to change the things I can,
- And wisdom to know the difference." Reinhold Niebuhr
Most of us recognize this. We've got it hanging in our home, or we know people that do. It's a snippet from The Serenity Prayer and understanding its meaning can take us from turmoil to peace.
We never said it's easy to walk the path.
Let's face it. We're not perfect. Life's not perfect. Paraphrasing Forrest Gump, "it happens".
A typical day consists of a mix of face to face interactions, emails, ActiveRain blogs, Q&A section, Facebook, etc. Human interactions both close and distant.
What we all encounter is a series of problems, both our own and others. Now I'll admit as an engineer I just MIGHT just be a bit empathy impaired :)
My natural reaction is to want to SOLVE the problems, or (again periodically being tone deaf) to try to explain why the problem IS NOT really a problem without getting snarky or dropping a "Nice First World problem you got there bud!".
But there are some things I've learned that help avoid some headaches, some specific, others more general:
- Don't put complete faith in the AR blog editor. It is where I write my posts but I'll never hit Submit without first highlighting and doing a right click Copy. I can't count the number of times this simple act has saved me from having a post completely wiped out.
- Don't trust the AR autoscheduler. I know for some it works, others it doesn't. If it's critical to have only ONE post go out, and at a specific time, I'd recommend keeping the process manual to avoid the mass autodump of everything you've got scheduled just in case the scheduling gremlins decide to have some fun.
- Learn who the prickly people are. Not something I have to worry about with few exceptions in ActiveRain, but step into the wonderful world of Facebook and the floodgates are bursting with bad behavior. Whether it's the real estate forums or the "mild" political discussions that quickly become heated, when your jaw is clenched, go back to the quote at the beginning. Is this battle one that should be fought? Is there any prayer that you're going to change a viewpoint? I think mostly it's Irresistible Force vs. Immovable Object isn't it? There ARE times to don the battle armor and wield the battle axe and defend what you believe in strongly. Choose wisely.
- Protect your time. Time wasted in one place takes away from our daily 24 hour bucket, and before you know it you're stressed because you don't have time to do a MUST do.
- Practice your craft and be efficient. Blogging is much easier for me now because I have my tools (picture sources, ideas, etc.). Almost 3000 posts later it's second nature to blog. Have systems in place for your real estate business so you don't have to reinvent the wheel with each transaction or lead.
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Keep your eyes on your own paper. My north of the border friend Susan Emo uses this one frequently. Look, some things that happen in the Rain can be irritating if we choose to allow them to be (e.g. the 100 market reports posted in a row on Saturdays), but how we react to those things is our choice. We can choose to get hopped up and red in the face or recognize we do not have direct control over the situation and adapt. We're real estate agents, isn't adapting what we do for a living?
Pet your puppy or kitty, take a few deep breaths and it might just be better.
Accept. Courage. Wisdom.
You got this!
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help!
Bill of Liz and Bill aka BLiz
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