Life, Work & Wonder

Tag: real estate

  • The Beauty Of Sunday Work

    We worked yesterday, on a Sunday. Because Larissa and I are real estate agents and working on a Sunday is just part of the job. Which honestly makes me grateful.

    I’m thinking of 2019. I was working on a $4 million opportunity for my company, and on the Wednesday before Easter Sunday I got a call from the Executive Sponsor. They’d decided to go with us, he told me, but before they signed the deal the CEO wanted to meet with our CEO. Could our team (including my boss and CEO) meet with the CEO’s team (including the entire Executive team) in two weeks? Of course we could!

    But here’s the problem. Here we were, on the cusp on a $4 million contract that would make my boss’s team numbers for the year, and he was just so afraid that what was technically a formality (CEO handshakes) would somehow go awry. So he insisted we work over the weekend preparing.

    So Easter weekend that year was spent working on a lengthy word document that we could give to our CEO. Among all the standard details about the opportunity and the company, the document included long profile descriptions (including links) for every executive who may attend the meeting. Want to know where they went to college? Where else they worked at? What hobbies they partake in? Their spouse’s background? It was aaaaaalllllll there. It took hours and hours to put this document together, and that was before we started formatting it, which my boss was obsessive compulsive about in the best of times.

    Oh my gawd.

    It was so frustrating, so maddening, such a waste, to work that Sunday. And I had no control over it since I knew to refuse would probably cost me my job since that was the type of company it was. Of course we won the opportunity, but it had nothing to do at all with that document or its formatting or its creepy detail that we invested an entire weekend in compiling or even with the work of my CEO who was actually painstakingly and shockingly quiet and awkward in that CEO handshake meeting.

    That memory created some pain for me for a long time for reasons that go beyond Sunday work.

    But yesterday was different. Yesterday — and working yesterday — was in a strange way redemption seven years later.  Because yesterday I felt sooooo grateful looking back on that frustrating Sunday in 2019. Because the work I was doing was important for our client(s), who were regular people, and more importantly the work was essential and I was doing it not because of a micromanaging detail-obsessed-on-a-pathological-level boss but instead because I myself was choosing to do it. And there is beauty and tremendous satisfaction when we work 100% by choice.

    So yesterday was Sunday. Much of America was off, especially in lieu that it was a holiday weekend. But Larissa and I worked. And I didn’t mind at all and fact it helped me come to peace (redeem) that weekend in 2019 because I realized how much of a better place I’m in today.

  • So Grateful That I (Literally) Fell Into Sales 25 Years Ago

    It has been nearly 25 years now, but I went into sales for the noble reason that my pregnant now-Ex Wife (”Ex-Wife”) fell down the stairs.

    Previously, I was a high school English teacher. For three years, I woke up every morning at 5am, made coffee, read the paper, got dressed (stylish slacks and a nice shirt), then zipped off to a large public high school where I spent my day trying to convince packs of 16 year olds that Shakespeare was still interesting and viable 500 years after his death. On evenings and weekends I coached debate, and during the summers I worked temp jobs as a receptionist, and all told I cleared less than 35K (in 1999) to support my young family of three.

    Then one evening in March I was playing with my son in the living room when I heard Ex-Wife scream followed by a thump-thump-thump-thump. What in the heck was that??? I jumped up and sprinted in the direction of the sound and found Ex-Wife sprawled at the bottom of the stairs in tears. “I fell down the stairs,” she exclaimed. Then added, “I think the baby is okay.”

    Oh my god!

    We rushed to the hospital and eventually talked to her OB, and we learned that the baby (thank godness!) was okay and although Ex-Wife was okay she needed to be on bedrest for the next few weeks to protect the pregnancy and baby.

    Oh my god!

    Ex-Wife was a self-employed part-time tailor. She never made much money, even before we had kids, but she made enough that with my salary we could (just) barely stay financially afloat. And her being on bed rest meant she wasn’t going to make any income which meant that we were no longer going to stay (just) barely afloat.

    Oh my god!

    I had to spring into action. My first thought was to take a night job to make up for the lost income, but that wasn’t practical because someone needed to keep an eye on our spirited toddler child and also look after now-bed-resting Ex-Wife. So I did something I truly truly (truly!) hated to do: I asked my parents for a loan, just to get us through the rest of the school year when I could look for a higher paying job.

    Then, when the school year ended a couple of months later, I updated my resume and hit the job market. At the time, tech was booming so I thought I’d be able to get into some entry level tech job. Turns out, I was wrong. Companies didn’t want to hire someone off the street with zero tech experience — they wanted to hire someone who knew something about tech. Who knew??? Hahaha. Anyway.

    Just before I was about to give up and ponder other options, one of the tech recruiters I talked to said, “You aren’t a match for our tech openings, but you seem like a natural salesperson. Have you considered looking into sales?”

    To make a long story short, I ended up in sales, partially because almost out of the gate I doubled my earnings going into sales.

    This was circa 2000. It was a different world for me then. Different from my previous world as a high school English teacher. And different from the current world of technology sales, although despite any claims otherwise the basic rules of sales haven’t changed: get someone to listen to me, listen to what they do, explain how we might be able to help, then try to align everything so that they make a win-win-win investment.

    I’ll never forget my first week in training. The job seemed to good to be true. “Wait,” I said to my trainer. “I reach out to prospective clients, get them to listen to my story, get them to tell me their challenges, then align what we offer to their challenges?”

    “Well,” my trainer said, “It’s a little more complicated than that. But that’s the gist of it, yeah.”

    On top of that, I was making nearly twice my previously salary, got a commission every time someone signed something, plus I had an expense account and free coffee (we had to furnish our own coffee when I was a teacher). I honestly thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

    I can honestly say that nearly a quarter of a century later I’m just so grateful for that unexpected change in my life. Where I’d gone from working 50-70 hours per week for more 45 weeks per year for pennies on the dollar to working 40-50 hours per week 47 weeks of the year (including holidays and PTO) for dollars (multiple) on the dollar. Where I’d gone from barely affording my mortgage to actually having (a lot of) discretionary income and retirement savings. And I didn’t have to spend my youth studying computer science or engineering, or spending my free time studying computer science or going to graduate school. I just had to find out what a prospect’s problems were and try to align that to what I was offering. Which, honestly, was a HECK of a lot easier than teaching Shakespeare to packs of 30 16-year-olds.

    NOTE: None of this article was generated or edited using AI. It is 100% organically human written by me. 🙂

  • For Me, The Best DIY Project Is No DIY Project

    Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.

    Spring 2001.

    I was in the midst of a major (and expensive) home remodel which involved improving the basement and actually finishing the top floor of a three story house. In the midst of all this, it was decided to also paint the main floor bathroom.

    I was 33. I had a lot of energy. I had a young family (two young children) with a stay at home parent (their mom) who needed every ounce of savings we could spare. So I decided to take on the painting of the main floor bathroom. It didn’t matter that for four years before this I had tried and failed at numerous home improvement projects that we ultimately had to hire to be rebuilt. This was painting. How hard could it be?

    For two nights, after work, after dinner, after story time and teeth brushing time and putting the kids to bed time, I went into the bathroom and I painted. I’d change my clothes, get the brushes etc.. I taped all the edges, and carefully carefully carefully rolled and brushed the paint on the floor. I don’t remember why it took so long, maybe it was because I put on two coats of paint, but I believe I painted for two days until 1am, perhaps eight hours in total. I’d go to bed exhausted, get up at 6am the next morning, put in another full (stressful) day at work, then repeat the process.

    When I was done, the bathroom looked — terrible.

    Truly terrible.

    I hadn’t taped properly so the paint edges looked like bright dragon’s teeth. There were drips all over the place where the paint had been too think so sweated down the wall. And the paint had been applied spectacularly unevenly where some spots were pretty bare.

    Despite my exhausting effort that cost me probably eight hours of sleep, we ended up hiring someone to re-paint the bathroom walls. In other words, my effort was a complete waste of time.

    I had to admit to myself, that no matter my intentions, no matter how many books I read or videos I watch, I am not a DIYer. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just not good with tools or projects like that, in terms of aptitude, efficiency and skills.

    We like to say, where there’s a will there’s a way. But that’s not true at all. Just like there are lots of people in this world who will never run a 4.4 forty no matter how much they devote themselves to that cause, there are people like me who will never be a skilled or acceptable DIYer. My brain just isn’t wired that way.

    So, for me, I’ve learned that I can waste my time trying, or I can just pay the money upfront. So that’s what I do.

    For all this reasoning, I’d say my best DIY project was that bathroom since it showed me the mirror. But the truth is the best DIY project is — for me — no DIY project.

  • Going To Be A Career Day Speaker

    A week ago there was an email from my kids’ high school looking for adults willing to be a Career Day speaker wherein we prepare a 15 minute presentation about our career and then present it to the students during Career Day. I volunteered to talk about what it’s like being a Seattle Real Estate Agent. Today I learned I’ve been approved and will be presenting. I can’t tell you how excited I am!

    There’s that old joke that more people are afraid of public speaking than death, which means people would rather be the person in the casket than the person giving the eulogy. And time was that I thought I was a terrible speaker and hated giving speeches.

    But I’ve learned in recent years that I’m actually pretty decent at giving speeches when I like what I’m talking about. Following a prescriptive Corporate Powerpoint Presentation with all the typical “look how amazing we are” slides? I’m awful. Giving a QBR presentation? Very hit and miss depending on if I like the team and the presentation isn’t too formulaic.

    But give me a topic I want to talk about, give me some time to ponder how to go about presenting it, and give me an open format to work with, and often I’m decidedly okay giving a presentation and I actually like it and can be relatively funny.

    In late 2019 my moronic manager took my client presentation and tweaked it a short time before I was supposed to give the presentation in person while jet lagged. It didn’t go very well. Partially because he turned it into the same eye-rolling presentation a million other software companies deliver to the poor prospective clients, partially because the last second changes didn’t give me time to prepare the new presentation, partially because the changes ripped apart the flow I’d been rehearsing in my head for a few days before the speech, and partly because of the time I would have been physically (eating) and mentally (breathing) preparing for the speech I was trying to learn his last minute tweaks. When he tried to do the same thing two months later, I ignored his changes and did my original presentation that client presentation went much better (spoiler alert: we lost the first client opportunity and won the second).

    A few months later I gave a presentation to medical students about my experience with a rare lung disease. I had a few weeks to prepare, had an open format to work with, and was passionate about the topic. The result when I gave that speech? It went great! So great that even my ex-wife who was embarrassed by everything I did at the time and was in the audience as a medical student herself even seemed remotely impressed.

    I love real estate. I love being a real estate agent in Seattle. So I’m excited to talk about my career in a few weeks. And excited to talk about my career to a group of high school students who are trying to figure out this career thing. I’m grateful to be given the opportunity and am looking forward to preparing and then giving the presentation.

  • An Average Home (AKA My Dream Home)

    Write about your dream home.

    There was a time when I daydreamed a LOT about my perfect home. Oh my gosh I wanted a perfect home.

    My perfect home was large, of course, with a large yard, of course. It was on a quiet street with a view of the mountains and water. And there was a spacious swimming pool and a sport court complete with a basketball hoop. And everything (!!!) was in perfect condition, not because I was a relentless do-it-myselfer but because I had a staff of people to keep everything in perfect condition for me.

    How much I yearned for all this. Sometimes that yearning hurt my heart. A lot.

    That was then.

    All those things are less important to me now. I’ve learned that I have a lot of friends with perfect houses who I can visit. And that since I have a visual imagination (I’m not a visual person but I have a visual imagination) that I can image living in a perfect home. And that a massive perfect house with an attending staff headspace and energy. And would cost a lot of ongoing money.

    For me, now, my perfect house is an average house. A smaller house. It has a few bedrooms, a couple of bathrooms, an artificial yard that stays green and needs no mowing. It’s large enough that the kids can crash when they need to.

    I love our house now. It has all these things. Plus a lot of trees. Right in the heart of Seattle. It’s Larissa’s house, not my house. But in my lifetime I’ve owned two homes and a fourplex: that is a lot of homes (seven, technically) to manage. So I’m okay sharing Larissa’s house with her, sharing the upkeep with her while allowing her to reap the financial benefits of homeownership (while I myself am invested in stocks and bonds to cover our living costs in retirement). That’s okay with me.

    I really am grateful that life can change us. That once I yearned for bigger things, but now I’m okay with simpler things while also admiring/helping people who want/need bigger things. There’s no perfect answer to a dream home, it’s what works for the person. For me, I’m right where I want to be.

  • Pride Is Folly

    Pride.

    There was a time I had too much pride.

    Waaayyyyyy to much pride.

    It was pride that prevented me from being too open and out there in public. For example, I dreaded sales calling because of pride. And didn’t have social media accounts because of pride. And never ever allowed dirty dishes to be in the kitchen because of pride.

    Pride brought my spirit down when there was a flaw with my house or car. It made me sensitive (and lash out) at criticism (“f— you!”). It made me fret too much about silly statistics, like batting average or shooting percentage or quota attainment percentage. Who cares what I batted in recreational softball??

    It was pride that embarrassed me when my (now ex) wife promoted her business and herself, like that time she stood on the street corner and handed out Halloween candy with her business card on it. I remember having to quietly work so hard to swallow that pride, to let her do what she needed to do without commenting that it was embarrassing seeing my last name being handed out on a street corner.

    And it was pride that drove me to always look my best, to make sure my hair was good and my body was firm and I stayed youthful looking.

    In short, pride made me worry too much about how people perceived me.

    Then lung disease grabbed me in 2011. Put me in a hospital bed. Made me tired. Nearly killed me. Then, by some incredible undeserving miracle, it loosened its grasp on me and retreated, sparing me and letting me not only live but live without an oxygen tank (a 50/50 chance)!

    Maybe best of all, when lung disease retreated, it also took with it my pride. Which I think is a good thing. In fact, it’s a great thing.

    I could care less how people (except Larissa) perceive my career. Or whether they remember me as a good athlete or smart or not. Or see me as attractive or not. Who cares?? What does it change or matter??

    In 2019, when my hurtful ex-wife chose trying to shame me about various things rather than just honestly saying she wanted to move on with her life (i.e. chose gaslighting and shaming rather than transparency), I guffawed at her. “I won’t be judged by you,” I said. “I beat lung disease. What the f— have you done?”

    That was the moment I realized that I was truly confident. That lung disease spared me from the judgement of others. Because when we’ve faced the specter of death, not much in life can scare us after that.

    Now I don’t care how people perceive my career. Or think I’m goofy. Or roll their eyes at my goofy rambling face-book posts.

    It’s incredibly liberating.

    Today I made myself vulnerable. Posted on Facebook and Instagram and my LinkedIn page that I was holding an open house tomorrow. 15 years ago there is no way I would have done that, but today I only felt happy that I could do my best to promote Larissa’s client. It felt good.

    Meanwhile, I could care less if ultimately people on LinkedIn think I’ve had a successful career or not. I know the truth. What do I care how some random person perceives me based on my profile? This also feels good.

    Pride is folly. Because at the end of the day we’re all human and vulnerable and fallible. No matter how perfect we are or rich we are or even strong we are, we’re just a bout with lung disease or cancer away from death. This is humbling. And it’s beautiful.

    Here is to being pride free. And the incredibly luck that is beating terminal illness. I’m so grateful.

  • Had To Make A Difficult Choice Of Choosing One Bid Over Another

    We needed our deck completed, so I sat down one day and called a variety of contractors with good Google reviews, and we ended up entertaining for bids from three of them.

    One of them was easy to dismiss. The person who arrived to build the estimate was a little cynical about everything before delivering a too-salesy pitch that more-or-less touted the saintly qualities of both the company and its founder. Thankfully his bid was twice as much as the other two, so it was easy to sweep that bid aside.

    But the other two bids were terrific.

    Both the contractors had great reviews and were highly experienced while exuding a tremendous amount of know-how as they talked through everything with us. Then as we asked for clarifications and modifications during the decision process, both were incredibly responsive and patient, and basically easy to work with. To top it all off, they were the same price almost to the dollar.

    Who to choose?? And, worse, who to disappoint?

    Sometimes it’s challenging to pick someone because they’re all terrible. But even worse is when there are two (or more) who are sublime, because in the end we only have one deck but two deserving people which means one person is going to be disappointed.

    In the end, I explained the situation to the contractor we didn’t select. And he was very gracious in his response, which I’m thankful for.

    There’s that great line in Amadeus, where he can’t decide on wigs so wishes he had more than one head. And so it was with our deck: I hated to disappoint someone, and wish so much we had more than one deck to build.

    It’s hard in life to be a people pleaser. Because in the end it’s impossible to please everyone. Such is my cross to bear.