In a continuing series of slightly abridged excerpts from my book, The Happy Agent – Finding Harmony with a Thriving Realty Career and an Enriched Personal Life, I offer various insights based on lessons learned and philosophies adopted during my extensive realty career. I hope that by sharing, the reader may continue to progress along their life path toward achieving success in our industry, and more importantly, discover the happiness that already lies within them.
In your perpetual hunt for happiness, are you driven to acquire ever more stuff? Do you often think about what you don’t have? Are you envious of someone who seems to have it all? Do you covet another’s lifestyle? Such thoughts and behaviour not only demonstrate a life of ingratitude, but attract more scarcity.
Is it wise to believe you’ll be happy after you finally acquire them? If you consider that we’re temporary custodians of our possessions, is it wise to connect your happiness to owning things that can disappear anytime – along with your happiness?
Since true wealth is what you have left after all your material possessions have disappeared, would it not be more prudent to be in the world and not of the world, to adopt the belief that less is more? Wouldn’t this lead to feelings of gratitude for whatever you have in every moment – all the time? An attitude of appreciation for all your blessings, as meagre as they may be, can manifest in you a sense of innate happiness. When you show appreciation, you’ll attract positive energy. Why? Because you’re in higher spirits. Gratitude will make you happy.
[quote_center]“Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” — Eckhart Tolle[/quote_center]
Setting professional and personal goals – and feeling grateful for the freedom and opportunity to work toward realizing them – will help you achieve not only the income level you wish, but also help reduce your stress. You’ll find yourself worrying less and rejoicing more. Since your life will be more harmonious, you’ll feel healthier – physically, emotionally and spiritually – and others will enjoy your company. You’ll relate more effectively, which in turn will generate even more business. Mid-way through the year, you might reach a point where you have to increase your goals or create new ones.
Around every corner are sales trainers who rightly profess that business productivity is directly related to attitude. Here’s a small popular exercise with a big message. Apply a numerical value to each letter of the alphabet with A equalling one, B equalling two and so on. Then, apply the resulting numerical values to each letter in the term “hard work”, then the word “knowledge” and finally to the word “attitude” with A as one, T as 20 and so on. Go ahead; do it now and express the result as a percentage. It’s those percentages that apply to life in general when it comes to the importance of attitude about anything and everything. Whereas hard work and knowledge will certainly contribute in a big way, it’s attitude that will drive you to the finish line.
Life is short. You never know when your time is about to expire. If you were told you had only a week to live, what would you change about your life? What would you do differently? I submit that you’d not likely spend your final days sitting in your new sports car or playing on your new technological wonder. If you have good health, a loving family, a warm hearth and secure roof, food on the table and a serviceable car in the driveway, then you have much more than the vast majority of our fellow Earthlings. Be grateful for everything in your life – and your attitude will soar.
[quote_center]“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston Churchill[/quote_center]
Ross Wilson is a retired real estate broker with extensive experience as a brokerage owner, manager, trainer and mentor over a highly successful 44-year career. His book, The Happy Agent – Finding Harmony with a Thriving Realty Career and an Enriched Personal Life is available where print and e-books are sold, including the TREB, MREB, RAHB and OMDREB stores. Visit Realty-Voice.com.
