The Worst Valentine’s Day Ever.

Valentine’s Day, 2009

I am grateful:

1. I have 3 showings scheduled at my new listing

2. I wasn’t badly injured when I fell down the stairs today

3. There might be a medication that can make me feel better

That was it. Those were the happiest thoughts I could conjure that day. I had recently lost what would have been our fifth child and I was feeling angry, sad, and hopeless. The loss was a crushing blow to what was already a pretty miserable existence.  

I had just finished my third lackluster year of real estate in the worst economic climate in decades and was barely making enough money to stay in business, much less pay bills. I didn’t even have enough money to re-order business cards so I went to my mom’s house and took back the stack I'd given her. To try to make ends meet I was teaching fitness classes, singing at weddings, and selling lipstick to my friends and family, but we still didn’t have enough to pay the mortgage. My personal life was even worse. I was tending to a tenuous marriage, raising four kids aged 2 to 15 years old, and grieving my fifth.

I tried everything to get out of this funk: counseling, medication, church, journaling, faking it,... nothing was working. One day I was talking about my troubles with a friend  and I suddenly realized that I was not just talking about my problems, I was complaining about them. Poor me, why are all these things happening to me? This is where I drew the line–I have never tolerated helpless victim-talk well with anyone else, and I was not about to let myself get away with it.

I made a decision on the spot that I would not be defined by what the world did to me (‘the girl who lost her house, the divorced one’, etc.). Instead I would be defined by what I did in the world. And, taking a page out of a Sunday sermon, I set out to be a blessing to everyone I met. EVERYONE. The weird people, the annoying ones, people who intimidated me–everyone.

Whether I thought he deserved it or not, the first person I started with was my husband. I did little things like hold my tongue when what I really wanted to do was jump headfirst into a fight, or thank him for ordinary things even though it felt like I was giving him a prize for just being a decent person. But honestly it didn't really cost me much. And coincidentally, we started to get along better.

That experiment went so well I decided to try it on potential clients and other agents. When an image-obsessed agent walked into a showing, rather than being annoyed by their flexing and name-dropping I would exclaim, ‘Wow, no way–you were at [insert fancy venue] for [insert exclusive event]? That is so cool! How was the view?’ And their demeanor would immediately change. Now they were animated and engaged in telling the story of their fabulous night, delighted that someone would listen. And as I listened more I learned a lot about people and what makes them tick, and darn it if they didn’t become so much more interesting to me than before. Like it happened with my marriage, as I continued on like this with agents and clients it didn’t take long for my business to show surprising improvement.

But what did you DO?

There was a definite formula to what I did:

1. Genuinely smile in their presence 

2. Give a compliment or thank them for something

3. Ask them questions about something you know they are interested in

4. Remember the answers!

So what happened?

1. People softened

2. They were less annoying (and actually kind of interesting)

3. I felt more confident being around anyone

4. I had better relationships and did more business!