Change is good...

From the Jack’s Winning Words blog recently came this gem - “I don’t fail. I succeed at finding what doesn’t work.” (Christopher Titus – sent by J.L.) Edison said something similar. “I didn’t fail. I just found 2,000 ways how not to create a light bulb.” If a genius like TAE can fail and still be a success, so can we. If at first you don’t succeed….(You know how it goes.) This seems to fit for a lot of different situations.

Every night my wife asks me the same question, “What have you got on for tomorrow?” Too many nights I kiddingly answer, “nothing, I don’t plan to to anything.” She’s lived with me long enough to know that I cannot do nothing, so she knows that I’ll be busy with something – updating one of my Web sites, doing flyers, working on CMA’s, something. The sad truth is that too many nights I go to bed without a real plan for the next day, without appointments and without a clue what I’ll really end up doing. I, too, know that real estate, like nature, hates a vacuum, so there will always be plenty of busy work to occupy whatever time I have. There always is. What’s disturbing to really think about is whether that busy work is actually helping me accomplish any meaningful business goals for the day/week/month or just taking up time? I suspect that the later is all too often the case.

So, at the end of those days I can truly say that I didn’t fail, I just found things to do that didn’t really accomplish anything towards furthering my business goals. I found another dozen or so ways to stay busy while not selling a house. These days, even when I’m out doing things that really seem to be directly a part of the house listing or selling process I can get done and realize that maybe it wasn’t ime wisely spent. Is showing 40-50 houses to buyers who can’t make up their minds and keep switching their criteria really all that successful? Is weasel wording a weak response to a client who wants to list his house at a price that I know it will not sell at really something that I can call success? Is finding a thousand reasons not to pick up the phone and make a few cold calls something that I should feel good about at the end of the day? I don’t think so. Yet they all happen, day after day and week after week.

So am I like the speaker in the opening remark, just very good at doing things that don’t work? Apparently, I’ve mastered that part and like Edison I’ve found thousands of ways not to list or sell a house. So, the challenge becomes one of finding a way to change – how I do things or me or both. Edison when on to invent the light bulb through sheer perseverance and hard work. But along the way he also changed some things – his approach to the problem the materials that he was using and other things. Change is the key. Recognizing that there is a problem with what one has been doing is a start, but without moving on the step of making change there is no different outcome.

So tonight, when my wife asks me what I’ve got on tap for tomorrow, I’m going to answer – CHANGE! So excuse me, I have to work on my To Do list for tomorrow.