Bet on Yourself... There is No One Better to Bet ON
Questions of the Week:
What daily rituals do you practice so you always bet on yourself?
What was your biggest leap of faith and what was the final deciding factor that made you do it?
How are you continuing to bet on yourself? Are the odds in your favor?
Are you one who looks for the easy route, or are you willing to put it all on the line to believe in yourself?
When was the last time you did something that scared the hell out of you?
“Worrying is betting against yourself.”
– Terrence McKenna
“You must always be prepared to place a bet on yourself, on your future, by heading in a direction that others seem to fear.” – Robert Greene
Be a Person of Principle
How do you walk away from a stable job in the middle of the worst economic crisis in the United Stated since the 1930’s for the unknown that lies ahead? Simple answer… $300, some hot dogs, and a set of unpurchased office chairs…
“When values are clear, Decisions are easy.” – Craig Zuber
It was the beginning of 2009 and I’d just fulfilled a one-year contract agreement for a position leading and managing a real estate office. If I remember correctly, I resigned on day 366 in my role as Team Leader. Truly, I resigned about six months prior to that and simply completed the terms of our agreement. Being a person of principle means not only to do the right thing aligned with your values, further it means honor your commitments. Stepping out on a ledge and betting on yourself is not easy. The year prior to that when I was originally offered the opportunity, it meant a significant step backwards for what I believed at the time was a bigger future. My girlfriend (today thankfully my wife) and I had been dating for about four months and I was making a moderate living as a Real Estate agent. She owned her own home and was fiercely independent, and since we hadn’t been together long, I was nervous mentioning that I would like to pursue the career opportunity. When she said that she would of course move with me, I knew I’d found a keeper.
“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my love to marry me.”
– Sir Winston Churchill
Sounds crazy now, yet I agreed to a position making 1/3 of what I had the previous year for what I believed was a bigger long-term opportunity. So, we packed up with our two dogs, a U-haul, and moved into a rental house sight-unseen 600 miles away from anything or anyone we knew. Betting on yourself sometimes looks like a bow and arrow. You go backwards, create momentum, then propel forward. Turns out this decision ultimately changed our lives, just not the way we expected. If you have read my previous blog on vision, you will notice some patterns in our journey.
The office I managed was owned by a brother and sister and they were genuinely nice people, we just did not see eye to eye on business principles. I will never forget the day I realized how much who you are in business with matters. After hearing grumbling from the associates at the office about the conditions of the office furniture, we looked at the budget and quickly discovered we didn’t have the money to fund this improvement. We are not talking major renovations here. We simply needed new office chairs where the arms wouldn’t fall off or leaning on the back support wasn’t like playing Russian Roulette and putting your life in unnecessary jeopardy. It is my belief that when you are behind on goals, you do what is necessary to get on goal. Or when you’re operating outside of the budget, you find revenue streams outside of normal income. The best long-term way to increase revenue was by recruiting productive agents. The quickest way to create immediate revenue was by us pulling together as a team and raising the money. The associates hit Sam’s Club and went to cooking hot dogs and hamburgers and served them with a drink and chips for $5. Fortunately, we were on a busy street so one lunch service and we’d made just north of $300. Teamwork does make the dream work! After pricing some office chairs, we had enough to replace half of the broken ones and enthusiastically started planning the next cookout. BOOM! That’s when it all went to hell in a handbasket. One of the owners, who’s primary income was from the profit of the office, deposited the $300 and looked at me as if I had a third eye when I asked how soon we could purchase the new chairs. The response was, “You don’t spend money if you are behind on goal.” Usually, I would agree with that statement. Yet how am I expected to face the associates of this office, who’d just given up their time and are commission based, that the $300 they had just made was going into the bank account of the ownership because we are behind on goal. Sorry folks, no office chairs for you this month. Guess we will have to work harder next month… The only way I can imagine pulling that one off would be pointing at them all while yelling SUCKERS!!! Maybe it’s me, yet I still think of that moment as possibly the dumbest thing I’ve encountered in my business career. Was I wrong for feeling this way? Am I wrong to this day for still feeling this way? It doesn’t matter…. I never got over that moment in time and would teach that as what not to do in Business 101. With my resignation in hand, I walked into the office on that very first Monday after fulfilling the terms of our one-year agreement and walked out of an employed position that paid the bills. Did I mention this was at the beginning of the Mortgage meltdown, with no safety net, virtually no savings with a bet and a prayer on ourselves that somehow we would find a way to succeed. Be a person of principle….
Next week Betting on yourself part 2…
