The Drunken Dictionary

It was a Saturday night around 1987.  The folks in my real estate office had a celebration in someone's home. It was getting late. About 75% of the people had already left. I was still there. More than a little intoxicated. And my friend Jorge, was probably also more than a little intoxicated. He leaned forward, looked me in the eye and said, "Do you know what they call you behind your back?  They call you the dictionary.  You have all this knowledge, but you do nothing with it."

Talk about a wake up call. It did cause me to make some changes. Both in my work and my personal life. I won't give you all the back stories on all the lessons (after all, you don't really want to read 86,000 words do you?), but I will give you some of the core lessons I developed.

"The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your communication. Both within yourself and with the outside world." That quote came from Tony Robbins. Many people think it means learn to know what to say to clients so that they do business with you.  However, there is a far deeper lesson. The quality of the communication within yourself. For instance, when I walked away from real estate in 1994. I did so because I blamed real estate for my first divorce. Years later, I realized the divorce was my fault, not real estate's. So, I had bad communication within myself.  Now when I face a failure, I ask questions like, "What role did I play in causing this?", "What can I learn from this?" and the most important, "What new habit or rule can I create to keep this from happening again?"

Not long after the drunken dictionary evening, I developed a new business outlook. I decided I no longer wanted to be mired in mediocrity. Just because everyone else was doing around 2 transactions per month, didn't mean that I had to. So, I accelerated all my prospecting. I went from knocking on 100 doors per month to knocking on 600 doors per month. I started an organized phone calling campaign. My record was 342 people telling me "no" in 1 day (and this was long before "dialers"). By increasing my efforts I started doing 5 to 7 transactions per month. With out even realizing it, one day I was surprised to see that I had risen to the top 5% of all Southern California agents.

My focus shifted to serving others. I looked for ways to give to others. Not to trade this for that or expect anything in return, just to give to others. Like Zig Ziglar said, "You can get anything you want if you help enough other people get what they want." Now, two pillars that are a part of this are 1) Integrity - I do not give my word unless I know I can keep it. I underpromise and overdeliver. One customer of mine recently looked into about a dozen areas across the country to buy his next home in.  He tells me often "Rocky, you are not like other agents - you ALWAYS keep your word and exceed what you promise." and 2) Building others up. I make it a habit when dealing with clients, agents, or whomever to build them up and make them feel important.

I realized that I may not be in the happiest of moods, so I developed core beliefs like, "If I'm walking, I'm smiling", "Frustration leads to inspiration", and "There is a positive lesson to be learned here".  These keep my spirits high and empower me to do more both personally and in business.

"Put your hips in it". One night I was at this country bar and a lovely lady came up to me and said, "let's dance!". Well, we did and about 15 minutes later, they played a line dance called the Cupid Shuffle. I had never danced it before. I learned by mimicking her. I noticed on the final 4 count of each round she ground her hips in a circular motion.  I later noticed that most folks did very little compared to her moves on the dance floor.  I mentioned it to her and she said, "Honey everything in life is much more fun when you put your hips into it.  So, that is how I dance to this day. She passed away 13 years ago, but I still remember her every time I "put my hips into it".

Finally, the ultimate lesson. Love like there is no tomorrow. Love more, forgive more and express it more. You never know when that person may be gone.  Or maybe you will be.