Being Responsible

I am responsible.  The alternative is to agree that others, that external influences control me.  I am rebellious by nature.  I have figured out a way to avoid wearing my seatbelt.  In my little ways I have taken stances to demonstrate to myself that I am in charge of my life.  I know I know, that is cute and all but what about when you have a car accident?  What about it?   This is not a conversation about the seatbelt this is about choosing.  I choose to be responsible for everything.  I repeat that to myself constantly.  I look at my bank account and I remind myself that I choose to be responsible for everything.  There was a time that I made a lot of money and I was living from hand to mouth.  Now I choose to be responsible and I have a solvent bank account and two savings accounts.  I am responsible for everything that happens to me.  I did some squats and pushups and I pulled a stomach muscle.  I believe it is because I chose to gain back 8 lbs that I had lost.  I am responsible.  I recently had two good deals fall apart.  Deals that would have made these last 3 months much more palatable.  I am responsible.  I could have done better.  This is where the solution is for me. After declaring responsibility only then can I ask my favorite question.  What can I learn from this experience to improve myself?  If I abdicate responsibility and accept that I am a victim to poor prequalification or a meddlesome daughter then I can not ask the golden question that gives me permission to take action.  I am responsible.

Attachment

Being attached means that something outside of our control must occur.   It is a belief that our happiness is subject to external events.  Attachment is ultimate victim hood.   We will only be happy if. . .  In order to reduce my need to control everything I have learned that I must slice my perspective of every one of my desired outcomes into at least two realms.  Things that I can control and things I can't control.   I am certainly less impacted when things don't happen the way I want them to happen if what went wrong was outside of my influence. However, I have found that there is very little outside of my influence and I must be even more responsible and more proactive.   I can be less attached if I have done everything I can and left very little possibility of failure to chance.   This is a daily challenge because taking responsibility for everything is not something I have totally embraced.   I am working on it. I will tell you how in my next entry.  

I don't have anything to talk about

I was thinking through a story that I was going to tell my girlfriend and I realized it was a lament.  I was complaining about some perceived insult or injury or unfairness and my inner champion drew my attention to my self talk.  After much inner debate I decided that I did not want to relate to people based on pointing out how I had been victimized by the universe.  One of the beliefs and credos that I am also working on adopting is that I am 100 per cent responsible for everything that happens to me. If I am complaining constantly about minor inconveniences I am ceding control of my life to forces outside myself.  As I thought through this process I realized that complaining is the manifestation of a contradiction that I don't want to live with anymore.  Today I am choosing not to complain.  This has caused a different problem.  I don't have anything to say.  I didn't call my girlfriend at work today because all I could think of to do was to recite a list of everything that had gone wrong to that point.   She didn't know about my new commitment and when I told her she quickly understood the reason that I was being so quiet.  I am working through it because I believe that there is something good on the other side so I am willing to be quiet until I figure out a way to relate to others in a positive uplifting and personally responsible manner.

Real Estate and the man in the mirror

I am convinced that real estate sales is the greatest arena for self improvement.  If you want to be great you have to decide to be great.  Then you must find an arena to test your ideas, confront your fears and improve your disciplines.  I didn't always feel this way.  In the beginning I took advantage of the fact that I could sell a few houses and make enough money to clothe my children.  However, I hit my ceiling.  Gary Keller has an excellent example in his book The Millionaire Real Estate Agent.  He talks about the Natural Achievement Ceiling.   Natural ability can take us only so far.  No matter how gifted we are we will all eventually hit the ceiling of our natural ability.  I have always been grateful for my natural ability.  Complex systems and tasks are generally pretty easy for me but I hit my ceiling so I adjusted and then hit my ceiling again so I adjusted and hit my ceiling again.  Fortunately for me, even though sometimes I can be a slow learner I eventually learned that I had to figure out how to break through. I had to discipline myself and take on systems and models that were duplicatable.  For a while there I hated real estate as I denied the fact that I would have to change and be a disciplined achiever.  I rejected the idea that my natural ability was not up to the task.  Gratefully I have overcome my ego and I have chosen to apply my natural ability to improving my discipline and systems.  The challenge is invigorating.  I am the foundation to my success in the world therefore I must improve myself first.  That is why I am a member of the 5 am club, I choose to eat by the guidelines of The Primal Blueprint and I constantly look for weakness, lack of discipline and doubt and I attack it.  I am loving my growth and evolution.

I am always reading.  Feel free to contact me for some good book recommendations.

Options are bad

I read an article recently that suggested that in order to accomplish my goals I had to get more disciplined instead of more motivated.  Motivation infers that I need a motive for action.  Discipline is a decision to follow a set of rules and install habits that if done consistently and at a high level will cause me to inevitably arrive at my destination, my goal.  I have discovered however, that if I have an option then I will not be consistent.  An example is that I love getting up early during the week.  So, I am up at 4:50 am on Monday Wednesday and Friday if I am playing racquetball but I sometimes sleep in until 7 or later on Tuesday and Thursday.  Funny thing is that I am usually up by 6 on Saturday and Sunday.  A couple of years ago I learned the concept of the black and white rule.  Another name for it is the All or Nothing rule.  So, in the case of wakeup time, the new rule is I always wake up at 4:50 am.  There is never a reason or excuse that will allow me to sleep later.   The option is what makes me ineffective.  I always exercise, never an option not to exercise.  I always eat primally, never an option to eat junk.  Giving myself the option, I have learned after my short experience on this planet only gives me an out.  It gives me just enough rope to hang myself.  I remember having a rule that I exercised three days a week.  Then I would let my self off the hook if I missed one day, then I remember missing weeks and telling myself that I would start again next week.  I am sure that I am the only one that has done that.  Well now the black and white rule is that I exercise everyday.  My body requires it, I feel better after I do it and I don't always sprint five blocks but I am active and I am feel better.  Black and white rules eliminate options.  Options are bad for self growth, weight loss, health, sales and relationships.

Abandon your Identity for Growth

Who we think we are holds us in place.  This process is so subtle that it is hard to see even when you understand the concept.  Consider for a second that you want to be a better athlete.  You practice and play and compete until you believe that you are good and you begin to beat the people around you.  Well you are still limited by your self image.  The way that you see yourself is your limitation. If you think that you are a good athlete when you can win a certain number of matches then even while understanding that your self image holds you in place, you do nothing to get to the next level.  Why don't you get a coach?  Well, nobody around me has a coach.  Exactly.  Much of our identity is set by the people we surround ourselves with.  I have learned that as a salesman I must make a herculean effort to outperform my peers.  I must be willing to break rapport and not be liked or approved of in order to be a great performer.  I read somewhere that most people will live their entire lives broke because they have to be liked. 

Identity - How do we define identity?  Well this seems like an easy question.  We are who we are because we choose to be that way.  Let's look at this. We define our identity by how we dress.  We define our identity by how we talk.  We define ourselves by how we set goals and how we work to achieve those goals. We define ourselves by our heritage.  Now look back over the last few sentences.  It isn't a  complete and comprehensive way of how we define our identity but I do want you to notice that everyone of those things is determined by outside influence.  We dress a certain way because that is the way our peers dress, and in order to fit in and be approved of and accepted we must maintain a certain level or method of dress.  Tattooed bikers tend to hang out together as do blonde princess types and nerds and vegetarians.   Obviously, I could demonstrate that every way that we act and interact is determined by the way that we are influenced by our environment and more specifically those people we interact with on a daily basis.  

Abandon your Identity - Becoming a super performer requires us to be able to choose our path and breaking with our current influencers.  We must be willing to abandon our current environment and identity if we are ever going to be able to move ourselves and our lives to the next level.  Have you ever gotten into a rut?  Why is it so difficult to get out of that rut?  Because we are surrounded by people that we believe depend on us to remain in that rut.  Destructive habits go away once we abandon our environment.  I once read that there was a high percentage of US forces in Viet Nam that were addicted to heroin because it was such an easy drug to access while in country.  During the Viet Nam era there was a fear that the US would have to deal with a large number of veterans returning to the US addicted to this very destructive drug.  It turned out that the fears were unfounded.  Upon returning the service members returned to lives where that behavior was unacceptable.   They came back to homes where they were loved and they had responsibilities and goals and dreams.  Most returning veterans were able to drop the drug altogether and never return to it.  How is this possible?  Well the soldiers and sailors were in an environment where heroin use was accepted.  When that environment was abandoned, so were all the habits and tendencies associated with it.  Consider for a second that your ruts, self destructive habits and laziness are products of your environment.  We must be willing to abandon that which gives us identity to take our life to the next level.   Are you unsatisfied with your life?  Could you be better? Do you feel like you are nothing but potential?  Do you ever want to live up to your potential?  You must be willing to abandon your identity to grow. 

Most of my posts are just notes to myself.  I want to be able to remember what I have learned and be able to communicate it well.  If this helps you please let me know by commenting.  Thank you for reading my blog.  Rolando

Who should I listen to?

I know the title is not grammatically correct but I hear myself saying this from time to time.  There are so many people that easily and freely give advice.  For the most part I believe that they have good intentions. However, I also believe that there are those that reflexively impart their "wisdom" in self defense.  Not because they are threatened but because their sense of self or self esteem is threatened.  There are occasions when I have  caught myself solving other people's issues and my desired result was that their behavior would have less impact on me.  I have counseled my children so that their lives would look more like I wanted. With love of course but it is easy now for me to see that their growth, decisions and learning are their own.  My meddling can only hurt.  I remember listening to speakers live and recorded telling me not to take advice from anyone.  More specifically, not to take advice from someone that would not benefit from my growth. 

Who should I listen to?  Another problem I run into is that I actually give more weight to advice that sounds like something I would say.  I don't have to tell you, that's not going to help. 

My conclusion is that my objective must be as clear and well defined as possible.  I must listen to the highest version of myself and avoid the whisperings of those that are unwilling to rise to the highest levels.  I am committed to becoming the best version of myself. 

Am I really accountable?

I love real estate.  Not because I love driving buyers around to see houses.  Not because I love knowing exactly what home buyers are going to buy and having to show 20 homes before they self discover what I knew from the beginning.  Not because I love telling sellers that their home is not worth what they think it is.  Not because I love helping sellers self discover that the only offer they have received in four months is a good reflection of what the market will pay.  I love real estate because it is the ultimate self development course.  I love knowing that if I am going to be successful in sales I must overcome all kinds of mental drunk monkey dooka and embrace discipline and accountability.  I love knowing that all of my success depends on me.  Here is the problem.  I have made what I consider to be great and difficult changes in my life to become better.  Most of you who know me will at least agree that I am willing to change.  However, this last week I met with a friend that has 4, yes FOUR layers of accountability to make sure she accomplishes her goals.  I thought I was committed.  I see now where I need to grow.  I am grateful for good examples and I am grateful for Real Estate.