My dream client

My dream client… communicates openly and honestly with me.

My dream client… is clear on what they want without being rude.

My dream client… understands that at all times, I’m trying to do the best by all parties in the relationship and that even though I work for them (and am therefore trying to get the best outcome for them), I can’t act outside the law.

My dream client… understands that we’re all human (much as I try not to be) and approaches tricky situations with an open mind.

My dream client… wants to build a long lasting relationship based on mutual trust.

My dream client… lets me do my job.

And tonight, I’m beginning to realize that my dream client… might be the only ones I choose to work with in the future.

I’ll keep you updated on how that works out, but my thought is. If I work with only my dream clients, I might have…

My dream… stress levels.

My dream… company culture.

My dream… work life balance.

My dream… team satisfaction.

Just a thought… Sweet dreams. 

By Anonymous with No comments

Goal setting with dire repercussions (make it happen!)

Something a little bit different for this week with a video blog for you instead! Enjoy (and stay fabulous) - Kirsty 

By Anonymous with No comments

The side effects of policing

I was naughty today. I parked in a (very empty) parking lot that clearly had signs up saying I should have only parked there while shopping in the three shops associated with it. Given the (very large) parking lot was deserted – I didn’t think it’d be a huge issue if I walked my pram into the office for a couple of hours while I parked there.

Clearly it was. I came back (to a still deserted parking lot) to find a letter sticky taped to my car telling me that my car rego had been recorded and that I would be reported to the police who would charge me for trespassing and tow my car if I parked there again.

Now let’s disregard the fact that I was clearly in the wrong (I admit it), or that the police wouldn’t actually charge me with trespass or tow my car. Let’s just examine the letter and it’s purpose.

Was it effective?

Sure – I won’t park there again, lesson learned by me.

Were there any other side effects?

Yup. I now don’t want shop there again either and one of the three establishments was a place I regularly visited. It’s not me being vindictive, I just hated the tone of the letter so much that now I get a bad feeling when I think about it. My natural reaction is to avoid getting that feeling so that amounts to me not parking there improperly, but also not wanting to park there properly.

Now perhaps their parking lot was so deserted because they so vigilantly police offenders like myself, but, my thoughts – if they’re going to record my details, a nicer note could have had the same effect without the side effect of lost custom for the shops. 

By Anonymous with 4 comments

Is it Annoying or Important?

I have a vision issue sometimes.

I get “annoying” confused with “important”.

Someone doesn’t reply to an email on time (or at all) – it’s annoying and it occupies my mind constantly sometimes to the point of extreme frustration. It’s clearly annoying to me.

Is it important? Not always. The very fact that I’ve found it annoying has pushed it to the top of my mind even if I’ve got far more important things I should be focusing on.

So what’s the solution? I wish I knew!

My logical brain knows when something is less important, but apparently at times, annoying trumps important. Fury trumps reason. Rage trumps logic.

My solution for today – and I just read it in an email from www.mydailyinsights.com

I’m going to concentrate on the power of two words (neither of them annoying, both of them important).

Those words are: “I am”.

Today – I am…

            …. Going to prioritise important

            …. Going to focus on important

            …. Going to learn to downgrade my attention on what is annoying but not important

What are your “I am”s for today?

By Anonymous with No comments

A Place for Pride

We’ve recently been recruiting at Elephant Property. I both love and loathe recruiting – mostly because I know important it is to find the right fit (culturally and attitude wise). It’s exciting when it works and you recruit someone amazing who becomes like a new family member but it’s always sooo time consuming to find that right person and as we all know, it’s an art, not a science.

I have a stupid name I’ll freely admit it. “Kirsty”, easily spelled incorrectly. “Dunphey”, even easier to miss or change a letter. All applications come directly to me and typically if my name isn’t correct they’ll go into the no pile straight away.

Mean, nasty, cruel of me? Maybe. But 80%+ of our client contact here at Elephant is via email or letter – we have clients and customers with far stranger and trickier names than Kirsty or Kristy.

So this time around during our recruiting I got one application that came through addressed to Kristy. I didn’t disregard immediately and instead read through the application and, based on their (very) relevant work experience I put them through to a first interview stage.

At the end of their interview I asked the applicant how they felt their attention to detail was. “Oh excellent” was their assured reply. I told them that I’m sure it was in most cases, however there was something on their initial email application that almost prevented them from getting an interview, something really relevant when it came to email contact. Their face was downcast, horrified almost, as I knew it was and they assured me they’d go back to their car and look up the email. I asked them just to let me know their thoughts after looking over the email.

That was 2 weeks ago and I haven’t heard a peep from the applicant since then.

Perhaps they couldn’t be bothered looking at the email to find out the issue. In which case, it was an effective screening method on my part.

Most likely – the applicant went, searched that initial email and couldn’t find the issue and was too proud to come back to me and say they’d looked but couldn’t find it.

Sadly, they’ve done themselves a disservice if that’s the case. I get that we’re all human – that we all make mistakes. If we employed this person no doubt they’d make mistakes frequently (as we all do) in the role. What would be inexcusable is if they couldn’t own up to their mistakes.  Either way, I’ve got my answer here.

Wish me luck on our new team member!

By Anonymous with No comments

Bald-faced Bully

Her reaction was guilt, concern and furrowed brow disappointment in herself. She forwarded me an email sent to her by a “respected” and much older industry colleague from another firm.

As I’ve taught her to when she wasn’t 100% sure on something, my junior staff member had drafted a response, but wanted to run it past me first.

As I read her responding email and then scrolled down to read the email that had prompted it my blood boiled in my veins.

Scrapping her response I lit up the keyboard with my own to the bully which said – in fairly plain terms, back down, stop bullying my staff member and do what was asked of you because it was perfectly reasonable.

I haven’t had a lot to do with bullies in my life – I’m lucky for that and in this case, the bullying wasn’t directed at me, but at a young staff member in a (sadly successful) attempt to make her feel bad, small and less than for a perfectly reasonable and professional request that she had made on behalf of a customer.

The bullying was uncalled for, it was unnecessary and I’m dumfounded as to why someone like this person would feel the need to do it to someone 20+ years their junior.

What I’m also sad for – and I have to take the blame for this, is that I haven’t embodied my staff member with enough faith in herself yet to recognise this as bullying and to have come to me straight away rather than feeling bad. That’s a work in progress for me. 

By Anonymous with No comments

One of the best lessons I learned – and I learned it at 10

Not only was she the smartest person in her school, but now, surely the smartest in this room.  Her arrogance knew no bounds.

She was me and I was 10 years old.

I sat in a room filled with other kids my age all of us trying to get a scholarship to a private school. Not only was I sure I’d aced the test, I finished every section first and made it known I was finished. There was even an answer or two (on the standardized multiple choice test) that wasn’t correct in the booklet – not to worry I simply wrote my own. Double checking my answers? No need when you’re sure you’re right the first time.

Not surprisingly I was not awarded a scholarship in that year. And that crushing defeat (I’d rarely been denied anything academic before then) was exactly what I needed.  Had I got a scholarship that year I might have spent the rest of my life thinking as I had done that day.

Instead, the next year, at 11 (grade 6 for those reading in the Australian school system), I sat in the exam room a changed person. I didn’t care about finishing first, or who knew it. I double, triple, quadruple checked every calculation and every answer. Oh – and I figured out that if my answer wasn’t on the multiple choice answer sheet that I probably didn’t have the right answer.

Months later when the results came in my parents handed me an envelope. I remember clearly reading the results and then calmly walking outside Sullivan’s restaurant (on the main street of Deloraine, Tasmania) and screaming as loudly as I could at the top of my lungs as excited as I'd ever been to read something (the screaming was much to my parents horror).

I took the lessons I learned at 10 in with me to every exam and test thereafter and I wouldn’t have learned them without going through some fairly mortifying and crushing defeat. What’s defeating you now to transform you in the future?

By Anonymous with No comments

Multi-tasking, schmulti-tasking

You might hear a lot of people talk about the benefits of "multi-tasking". Me personally, I think it's one of the worst things you can attempt. The only times I truly find myself multi-tasking are when my mind is scattered and I’m latterly trying to do two or more things at once and each one is getting done poorly.

My job each day is broken into about half the day of smaller jobs that take say 5-30 minutes each. The rest of it is longer tasks that may take me an hour or two each – more long term planning tasks. If I try and do any of these overlapping each other, nothing gets done properly.

One thing that works well for me, is the following:

1. Start each day by spending 5-10 minutes looking at all the work for that day (so emails, diary/to do tasks for the day and things in your in tray).

2. Split the above into 2 piles - the first one being things that need to get done today, the other, things that can wait.

3. The stuff that isn't urgent for today, move back into a working on tray on your desk.

4. The stuff that is urgent, put it in order if priorities in one pile and steadily work through that one at a time until it’s all done.

5. As things come in during the day, decide if they need to be done that day and add to the appropriate pile in order of priorities.

6. Once you get through the stuff that needs to be done that day take one thing at a time out of your working on tray and complete as much as you can.

I know it all seems a bit simplified, but the number of people I see with 7 “to do” piles on their desks or having 5 files open and being worked on at once is crazy. One thing, done well, then move on. Sure you’ll get interrupted and need to be able to break away, do something else and come back. But multi-tasking – meh – I don’t think it’s all it’s cracked up to be. I’d take someone who can efficiently work through a big pile of stuff in the best order of priority than someone who tries to impress (me or anyone else) by working on numerous things shoddily. 

By Anonymous with No comments

The top mistakes you could make when buying an investment property

I owe much of my financial security to real estate property investment. Having worked in real estate my whole life (well – since I was 15, so it feels that way!) it’s what I know and it’s also what I love. But it’s not for everyone.

Here are my top mistakes you could make when buying an investment property:

1. Borrowing an amount that’s going to stress you financially to repay. This is the bottom line. People’s circumstances change, you could lose your job, have a/nother child, have an extended period of vacant time, interest rates could dramatically change. Are you prepared for that and will you still be able to (comfortably) afford your investment property.

2. Not having the appropriate insurance. I call a specific landlord protection insurance a “sleep easy” policy. While it doesn’t cover you for everything it sure covers you for a lot more than your building insurance with a tack-on landlord component and is a must – especially for owners with only one property.

3. Having a property manager who doesn’t wait for the right tenants and simply puts in any old tenant. Correct tenant selection eliminates 90% of all future problems and you need a property manager who understands that.

4. Worse still – managing the property yourself. You could do your own appendectomy if you wanted to, but you wouldn’t. Many privately managed properties attract worse tenants, aren’t inspected regularly, the tenants aren’t reference checked, have leases which aren’t up to date and condition reports that aren’t adequate.

5. Don’t listen to the sales agent. With all due respect to my wonderful colleagues in the sales side of real estate – their job is to sell you the home. Confirm any rental projections of any form (projected rental price, likely tenant etc) with a specialist property manager. In the same way that I, as a property manager could tell you what your home may sell for – it’d be nowhere near as accurate / reliable and researched as if you went to someone who did that job function all day every day. 

6. Buying a property and becoming a property investor if you’re not mentally prepared for it. I have clients right now who know they’re not made for being property investors. They’ll sell their homes when the market is right for them and never look back with a moment’s regret. A property investor has to be able to have a good level of emotional distance from their investments. Own a property long enough and you will have tenants who do not respect your investment. Own a property long enough and you’ll have (even with great tenants) damage done to your investment. There will be times when the gardens aren’t done perfectly or the internal presentation isn’t up to scratch (isn’t it this way at your home at times too?) and if you drive past your investment property all the time you will see these occurrences. 

By Anonymous with No comments

Communication – the skeleton key?

A while back I was asked what would be the next big thing to impact on business over the next 7 years. Rather than focusing on some exciting new element of technology I found myself drawn back to communication and my answer was as follows:

Just this morning I found myself enraged at the service provided by two companies I’d dealt with over the internet. One that had taken 8 days to respond to a simple query posted on their website (one of only two ways I could ask them my question) and another that had taken over 5 weeks to perform a task they said they’d do online.

You see, the thing about this evolution of communication and the various ways that we now have to do so is that our customers know the time frames in which it should take to respond to an email, to answer a question posted on a website, or respond to a tweet or facebook comment. It’s exactly the same

With great advances in our communication media there’s an even greater responsibility for the person behind the tools to maintain the service level. Using technology does not give you an excuse to hide behind it.

For my way of thinking, the challenge to businesses eagerly embracing this evolution will be to evolve the way they provide their service to clients through these different outlets that are becoming so much more mainstream.

I’m relieved to see more and more businesses taking heed of this message already.

Take Shoes of Prey as an example. Each pair of shoes they sell online goes out with an individualized hand written note.

Imagine Cruises will happily tweet with you about your upcoming whale watching tour, injecting the same personality through twitter that they do onboard their cruises.

Zappos, another shoe retailer in the US (ok, so I may have a small shoe obsession) known for their service despite having no face to face contact with clients, have 24 hour customer service call lines to put a friendly voice behind the oft daunting process of buying something to wear online without being able to try it on. To top this off they have free returns and shipping to further add a caring factor to the service they provide.

Showing heart in all communication, expressing care even without face to face contact and building lasting, strong relationships over new forms of communication will be the challenge to businesses that want to embrace new media yet still be spectacular in the experience they offer going forward.

By Anonymous with No comments

How to prepare for an award panel interview

Being a former winner of the Australian Young Telstra Business Women of the Year and also being a prolific nominator of other people in awards (I've just submitted my Telstra nominations for this year) I’m often asked what my tips are for performing well at interview panels.

So, here’s what I usually tell people:

1.   Be yourself, have a personality (preferably yours).

2.   Remember they're looking for someone who will be a good ambassador for the program as well as someone deserving – so think about the brand of the awards program and how well you fit into that (presentation wise, aspiriational wise etc).

3.   Know your application inside and out for your interview and (this should go without saying) make sure it’s all 100% the truth.

4.   Be memorable. When my real estate agency was called M&M Real Estate - my application had M&M chocolates inside it, not a bribe, just something to indicate the type of service we offered to our clients in a fun way.

5.   Have a killer answer to the question: “What would change in your life if you won”.

6.     I’d recommend setting up your own practice panel of people you trust / value and preferably a mentor or two and have them ask you all the tricky questions they can think of. If it you’re going out for a business women’s award program be sure to have them throw in questions around: juggling family – balancing act / glass ceiling / advantages/disadvantages to being a woman

7.     And finally – if all else fails, just go with number 1. There’s no point winning any award unless it’s YOU who actually does it. You’ll typically be a representative of that award for at least a year (good lord, I’m still talking about some of my award wins a decade later). That’s a long time to be anybody but yourself. 

By Anonymous with No comments

Email is simple

(work related email that is)

If you want to be known as someone accountable, dependable and on top of their email game.

You get an email and you either:

a)  deal with it (ie: do it, delete it, reply to it)

or

b)  you acknowledge it with a time frame as to when you’ll get it done and you put some sort of reminder in place (whether it’s a diary task, putting the email into a folder, a manual note – whatever works) so that you stay accountable to that time frame.

You do not…

a)  read email

b)  re-read email later on

c)  re-read email and stress about not having done it yet

d)  accidentally file email into a “to do” folder and forget it

e)  keep the email without acknowledging it to the person you got it from

f)  re-read the email (again)

By Anonymous with No comments

10 reasons you should enter an awards program today

In no particular order…

1.     Perceived Credibility – great for new businesses and great for young people in business.

2.     Free Publicity – newspapers, magazines, even TV depending on the award that you win. Winning it means not paying for it and that further multiplies point 1 - the credibility factor .

3.     Networking opportunities – win or don’t win (there’s no losing when it comes to awards) making it to nominee or finalist status gives you opportunities for networking with other amazing people both in and judging the awards program.

4.     Become more knowledgeable about your business – submitting an entry to most business awards is time consuming yes, but can also be an amazing tool to use for your future business planning and can help you get a proper removed view of just where your business sits right now and what opportunities lay in the future.

5.     Business opportunities – point 3 – network = meet amazing people = opportunities for new business.

6.     Something to put on your website / business cards / email signature or blog about– again magnifying point 1.

7.     Ability to open up other side ventures – depending on who you network with (point 3) you’ll be amazed at the business ideas that flow when fabulous people are all around you inspiring you and brainstorming with you.

8.     It gives you clients another opportunity to validate their support in you. I always love hearing that someone I support (or an organization) is being recognized by their peers or an industry award program.

9.     Fancy outfits, fun evenings, team morale – who doesn’t like a fancy evening out and it also gives you an opportunity to treat your team.

10.    You might actually win and then everything above is magnified. 

By Anonymous with 2 comments

Antisocial media

I had to pause for a moment this week and stop our team at our residential property management agency from spamming our social media fans on facebook.

We had a couple of properties that we were super keen to get some extra interest on and we were about to start posting them to our facebook page.

Now – it’s a pretty common strategy by real estate agents – but, with the pages I “like” on facebook for real estate agencies – I’m not typically looking for a property to rent or buy and I bet most of the people liking their site aren’t either (although they may have been at some time). I want to hear about their successes, their fun stuff, their new staff, their awards and their challenges and how they’re overcoming them.

Just today I felt a super surge of pride for Paige Mycoskie whose apparel brand Aviator Nation I follow (http://www.facebook.com/AviatorNation) when she was announced as one of the best new menswear designers by GQ.

The amount of interest we garnering over at Baby Teresa (http://www.facebook.com/babyTeresaFan) about a post on our former baby models and what they look like now, or showing one of our donations overseas is a lot more than we’d get if we were just trying to “sell” another romper by posting a picture of it.

Social media blew up (as did their media coverage) when portrait photographer Sue Bryce (http://www.facebook.com/SueBrycePhotographer) focused her amazing storytelling on Jill’s story of breast cancer with “The light that shines”.

And this classic “miss-take” photo of me at Elephant Property (http://www.facebook.com/ElephantProperty) garnered more likes than almost anything we’ve ever put online (when tongue in cheek said I would submit it as part of a business awards submission if we hit a target!)

If people want to be sold to  - there’s plenty of venues in which they can have that rammed down their throat. I’ve found that people respond best to social media when it’s light, fun, informative and most of all – a conversation.

How’s your conversation going?

By Anonymous with 1 comment

Too late?

This weekend I attended the wedding of a lawyer turned video games producer and an organic chemist turned pastry chef turned food writer.

 

I’m married to a police officer who has just recently turned his attention to starting his own business and to full time architecture study.

 

My father in law was a forestry worker till his 30’s when he decided to become a doctor.

 

My newest business partner in our real estate agency started her working life in hairdressing.

 

Speaking of hairdressers, one of my closest friends now also owns her own commercial real estate agency and started in hairdressing.

 

And another close friend who I blogged about recently started as a hairdresser only to successfully open two salons, become a real estate investor and is now launching into a styling business.

 

“The difference between what you were yesterday and what you

will be tomorrow is what you do today.” - Stephen Pierce

 

I’m surrounded by examples of people that bucked their “every day” and shot for their dreams. I’m sure you are too if you just ask around.

 

What’s your dream?

And before I forget - congratulations to pharmacist turned travel writing Ben (http://www.redrucksack.com/) on his recent wedding (he met his wife while he was setting out achieving his dreams). 

By Anonymous with 5 comments

No excuses

Not feeling inspired enough: http://www.ted.com/

Not feeling like you’re learning enough: http://sethgodin.com/sg/free_stuff.asp

Not feeling happy enough: http://icanhas.cheezburger.com/

Not feeling fit enough: http://www.bodybuilding.com/guides/

The internet has made it so easy for us to get access to almost anything we want for free. Just above are links to world class speakers (free), amazing business learning materials (free), stupid but very funny pictures (free and giggle-worthy), body building and fitness workouts (free).

You know what else is free? Time. Motivation. Energy. It’s free but not always easy to make the time to learn something, to find the energy to do a workout, to find the motivation to start creating your own happiness.

We all make choices every day.

We make a choice to listen to a certain radio station in the car, when we could download a podcast that teaches us a new language instead.

We make a choice to watch the latest episode of whatever television show we find at the end of our remote or to engage in a meaningful conversation with someone who will enrich our lives.

Am I saying I never watch TV or listen to dodgy commercial radio? Of course not. But you’ll never hear me saying I don’t have time to learn. If I have an internet connection I have means, if I have 10 spare minutes I have opportunity, now all I ever need to worry about is motivation.

What’s stopping you?

By Anonymous with 3 comments

The Impact of Little

It was a little thing she did for us - organising a dinner reservation. It was made a little more complicated by the fact that we'd asked her to do it on next to no notice. We thought she'd have little chance of making it happen given the restaurant we were hoping for. And yet, the little smile on her lips told me she'd been able to get it together. 

Louisa was on the front desk of the Quest East Melbourne when myself and 3 treasured girlfriends (and business partners) checked in for our 2 night stay. As we were pulling up I remembered that last time we'd stayed here Megan had told me that going to Press Club (George from Master Chef's restaurant)  was on her "Bucket List". It was Friday evening, 7pm, the chance of getting a table for that evening was slim I knew (and going the next night on our 2 night journey wasn't a possibility due to a pre-existing date we had with Keith Urban).

And yet, by 9.00pm in the middle of a bustling restaurant without an empty seat - we sat a table, perfectly set for 4 little friends, enjoying an 8 course degustation feast and ticking something off one of our Bucket Lists. 

Wanting to make sure Louisa knew the impact of her "little" action - we bought her a small gift and left her a card the next day explaining the power in what she'd done. It's not every day you get to be instrumental in helping someone tick something off their bucket list and in creating a night for 4 friends that won't soon be forgotten. 

Every day in your life you'll have the power to do little actions - you might never know which one of them has had a huge impact, but don't forget that they have that power! 

PS - a day later I got this email from Louia's boss Natasha: "Just wanted to say a huge THANKYOU! You're words really had an impact on Louisa & she called me last night at home just so she could read your card to me. Just a little reminder for her that what may be so simple to her can mean so much to someone else."

By Anonymous with No comments

The Blue Cave

I spluttered in the water, clutching at the pool noodle which had been thoughtfully provided to me. The waves weren't strong, but what was ahead of me was, in short, terrifying. 

I watched as my husband bobbed along like a motor driven cork and dipped down, below the cliff face and into.... nothing. Moments later he popped back out and I could tell from the look on his face that he knew this was going to be a challenge for me. 

Behind the cliff face, so the tiny boat driver had told us was a cave, the Blue Cave. Only, to get there we had to dive down under the cliff face, through the water, from the blazing sunlight and into complete darkness trusting that we would pop up into the cave.  

Now, by way of full disclaimer, although I did get my Scuba qualification last year, I am afraid of putting my head under water and also, of fish (curious given I'm a Pisces). Being 6 months pregnant made me a little more wary (although perhaps more buoyant), but, I doubt I would have felt much more confident at my fighting best. 

I was determined though. I hate letting fear stop me from living. Clutching my husband's hand, he promised he'd hold it and guide me through. We swam toward the cliff face and dipped down, how far I'm not sure, too far I'm told! Half way through my husband let go of my hand. His plan was to push me through if I needed it - only I hadn't been informed of the plan, and panicking I turned tail and swam back to the light. 

On my second go down, hand held (no pushing required) I swam from the light down, down, down and through... into what appeared to be total darkness and popped up into something that can only be described as magnificent. A cave, hidden to those who aren't shown, lit by a single shaft of light from a hole above the cave. Silent, calm, amazing. Beautiful blue clear water lapped at us and we were the only two people in the cave - our own beautiful Valentine's Day moment on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu. It had been described to me as an almost spiritual experience and it's certainly one I'm glad I didn't let pass me by because of a little fear of the unknown. 

Every so often in life - to get to somewhere magnificent and memorable you have to venture into not only uncharted, scary territory, but also into a place where the destination can't be seen and, is often, beyond our imagination. Many won't dive. Many will try and turn back. Some will make it through regardless of how many goes it takes them and they'll experience their own Blue Cave moment. 

By Anonymous with No comments

Sense of Urgency

In sitting here wracking my brain about the best angle to take in writing this blog the best analogy I could come up with for “urgency” was spice.

Now I may not be the best cook, but even I know that adding spices, herbs, flavouring of any kind to a dish is essential. Too little and the dish is bland, too much and you’ve overpowered it. It’s a balancing act. 

So too is knowing when to treat something as urgent.

Without any sense of urgency in the workplace, you convey a dispassionate attitude to your peers and clients that can often be mistaken as one of not caring.

Too much urgency and you’ll burn out, you’ll be a horror to work and your focus will suffer without direction.

So how do we get the balancing act right.

Well – first you’ve got to figure out what in your job requires urgency. For someone in my field (a property manager) something that requires a “sense of urgency” might be an application on a property that’s vacant, maintenance relating to lack of heating or a water leak, a new business enquiry or a customer complaint.

Secondly – you’ve got to be able to act with a sense of urgency without losing your professionalism. There’s no point understanding sense of urgency and when the time calls for it – if you can’t work at your optimum level as soon as a situation goes from “normal busy” to “urgent”.

Thirdly – you’ve got be able to prioritise/delegate and communicate around whatever is just under urgent (or has been pushed to the side by urgent) so that when the urgent matter is dealt with, nothing important has been missed.

I’ve often reflected on that old adage that I’d rather work any day with someone with the right attitude than the right capability – but I’m going to add this right up there onto my list.

I would rather work with someone who understand when to light a fire, when to hop to gear and when to snap into “sense of urgency” mentality than someone who is cool, calm and collected at all times.

When do you require a sense of urgency?

By Anonymous with No comments

Ten years ago…

I joked tonight to a girlfriend that my goals have changed from when I was younger because then I wanted “all the money”, I wanted my real estate agency to transact “all the real estate”, I wanted to travel “all the time” and to “everywhere”.

I’m mid way through compiling a book on my story along with others based on our current definitions on “having it all”.

I know 10 years ago my definition of having it all was really different to what it is now.

Then:

I wanted all the money

Now:

I want enough money so that I don’t ever have to worry about “the money”

Then:

I wanted to transact all the real estate in all the locations

Now:

I want a smaller business focused on providing an exceptional experience and setting news standards for the style of work quality and environment we provide (and I certainly don’t want to manage all the real estate!)

Then:

I wanted to spend every night in a different hotel room in a different city of the world.

Now:

I still want to travel – a lot – to exotic destinations. But I also love my own bed, I love my environment. I want to supplement my life with exciting travel adventures - not constantly being on the road.

Then:

I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a parent, I was just sure that if I did I wanted it to be a conscious informed decision.

Now:

As much as my choice to have both of my children (I’m pregnant with my second right now) was conscious I realize that you can never be fully informed on what the experience will be like until you have it! And now my I so desperately want to be the best mother I can to my kids, while also still maintaining a strong sense of who I am in addition to being their mother.

How are your goals different from ten years ago?

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