15 years ago today I started my real estate business. A week earlier I had decided to become a real estate agent. I took the courses to become an Oklahoma license real estate agent and then on the Friday before Memorial Day I walked in to Scott Douglas Realty in Tulsa, OK and asked Randy Lindemuth to be my sponsoring broker. It was the best work/business decision I have ever made.
So here it was, the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend and I’m sitting at an Open House on a hot day in a full suit and tie. I was so excited. If I recollect correctly, only one person came by that day and that was because he was mowing his lawn next door and wanted to see what the place looked like from the inside. And besides, he could use some cold water. Oy. Here I was talking to a nosy neighbor and my wife and son are over at Beaver Lake enjoying a boat ride with our best friends.
Nevertheless, I had never been more ready to give this business a try. To be sure there have been lean times along the way. Very lean. Like Marie crying because a bill collector was giving her a hard time because I was late on a payment. Not 30 days late, but late nonetheless. There were a lot of macaroni and cheese dinners and there were the brakes to success that I consistently put on myself. As soon as something was going well I tended to get creative…which is almost never a good idea.
Yet with guidance, coaching, determination and a steady habit of reading and wanting to learn more I continued to move forward. Through great highs (making as much in one month as I had the previous year!) and great lows (the Great Recession that cut my new-found income by 37% almost over night). Real estate is a business of “Eat what you kill.” The public thinks we put a sign out on Sunday and collect a check at closing.
But the public doesn’t see the personal toll this business can place on relationships and families. Canceled and cut-short vacations are a running joke in the industry as well as stories of working with buyers, sellers and tenants who don’t understand the fundamentals of personal boundaries. (No, a phone call at 5:30 in the morning because “you’re up” isn’t really acceptable. Do you let your boss call you at 5:30 am?)
Like any small business, real estate has highs and lows. Like any small business real estate can be your best dream or your worst nightmare. People think failure if devastating. What is really devastating is not succeeding and not failing, just existing in that “can I get better or should I quit zone?” year after year.
15 years ago today I made the best work/business decision I have ever made. Not a decision without consequence. Not a decision without challenges. And not a decision that I never looked backed on and asked “What have I done?” But I did make a decision. And I did make it work for me. I’m thankful to a country that allows me, a college drop-out to succeed. I’m thankful for my God who has provided the right people at the right time so that I could make the right decisions. I’m thankful to my kids for their patience as I learned and grew and asked them to go without, at times. And I am thankful to my wife, Marie, who supported me and believed in me when I’m not even sure if I believed in myself.
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