Don't be a no-show in life...

“The world is run by those who show up” (attributed to Richard Winegardt). This looks like at typical quote from my favorite blog – Jack’s Winning Words, but it’s not. This was in an article in the paper today. I tried to look it up the source of the saying and the best that I could find for an attribution was Richard Winegardt, an engineer. There are lots of variations of the saying to be found.

The intent of the saying is the important point. In life as in sports, you have to show up in order to have the chance to play or to win. And those who do show up end up making the decisions and doing the work – running things. There will always be those who sit back at a distance and criticize those decisions or the work that is done, but they didn’t show up, so their opinions are worthless or worse.

Little volunteer organizations, like churches or groups like the Milford Historical Society or the Rotary Club of Milford or the local Optimists Clubs are essentially run by those who show up – the volunteers who do more than sit off at a distance and critique what’s going on. Sometimes those who don’t participate get so upset by things that are going on that they storm off; leaving the group (an event that seldom causes big damage to the group, since they were not doing anything anyway) as a method of protest. If they were financial contributors to the group that can cause temporary pain to the group, but overall the group is probably better off without their often negative input.

In real estate the people who show up are the ones in local offices who are doing floor duty and sitting in open houses on the weekends. They are out hustling for listings or showing houses to potential buyers. There are also those who sit by tut-tutting about how they don’t do those things anymore (if they ever did). Some are fairly successful and have just forgotten that they got that success by showing up for those duties earlier in their careers. The really successful ones never forget those roots to their success and help mentor new comers through those processes and career stages.

So, today, think about the opportunities that are there for you, if you just show up. What things could you be doing in life or in business to be more successful? What activities are there to be done if you’ll just show up and make the effort? Maybe it’s prospecting, maybe it’s doing an open house, maybe it’s following up from an open house or prospecting calls. Maybe it’s just a little volunteer job with a local charitable group. No matter what it is, it won’t get done if you don’t show up. You can run things in your life and your business by choosing to show up.