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Last year, on Christmas morning, my two boys, Noble and Steel, awoke full of anticipation for what Santa brought them, and they ran downstairs to see what they would find. BoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoomBoom went their feet down the stairs. But unlike Christmas mornings past, their giddy little voices turned quiet. As I lay in my bed trying to listen for signs of excitement and approval for the gifts that Santa left under our tree, I heard nothing. NOTHING. No “Alright!” No “Look at this!” No “How did he know I wanted this?” Nothing. It was quiet.

I whispered to my wife, “What do you think they’re doing down there?”
“I don’t know,” she said.

In what seemed like an eternity, we soon heard the sound of footsteps again. This time they were coming up the stairs, slowly. Boom……Boom…….Boom…..Boom……Boom, until there were two little elves standing by our bed.

“Dad….”
“Yeah…” I said. “Did Santa come?”
“Yeah…” they said. “But he didn’t put anything in our stockings.”
“What? What do you mean?” (On the inside, I was thinking, “Uh-oh”)
“I mean, there’s nothing in our stockings, Dad.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Not even a piece of coal?” (I could FEEL my wife’s glare through the back of my head by now.)
“NOTHING…. What do you think that means?” they asked in a REALLY concerned tone.
“I don’t know guys. I’ll come down and check it out,” I said, eager to get out of bed before Jean killed me.

On my way down the stairs to check out the empty stockings, I retraced my late night steps in my mind and realized that I never got the “stocking stuff” out of the closet in the basement. NOT GOOD. Not good at all. Not only were my kids disappointed and confused, my wife was noticeably bubbling with frustration and I could feel my 13 happy years of marriage starting to slip away.

I needed a plan, but until I could come up with one, “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of Santa leaving nothing in a stocking before,” was all we parents could come up with.

After a little while, while everyone was busy with their presents, I went downstairs to the basement and pulled the stocking stuff from the closet downstairs. I went out the basement door and I threw all of the stocking stuff onto our front yard and scattered it into our bushes. Then, I went back inside and back upstairs for a few minutes before I announced to everyone that I was going to go outside and check the mailbox. I left the front door open as I walked outside and down the driveway.

“Noble? Steel?” I yelled back to the house in a perplexed tone.
“Yeah Dad?” They said.
“I think you guys should come out here.”
“Why?”
“Mmmmm. Just come out here. Like, now.”
They appeared on the front porch and said, “Yeah Dad?”
“Do you see what I see?” I asked.
And then they erupted…“IT’S OUR STOCKING STUFF! STEEL! IT’S OUR STOCKING STUFF! IT’S EVERYWHERE! THERE’S SOMETHING OVER THERE! NOBLE! THERE’S ANOTHER ONE IN THE BUSHES! WHAT? WHAT! WHAT HAPPENED?! IT MUST’VE FALLEN OFF THE ROOF AND OFF OF SANTA’S SLEIGH!!!! DAD! MOM! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! HE DIDN’T FORGET! WE WEREN’T BAD! IT’S OKAY! SANTA DIDN’T FORGET! IT JUST FELL OFF THE ROOF! OH, MAN! WAIT ‘TIL OUR FRIENDS HEAR ABOUT THIS! THIS IS SO COOL! I CAN’T BELIEVE NOBODY TOOK THIS STUFF! WOW!”

Wow, indeed.

As an active athlete most of my life, I’ve won basketball games in the final seconds of the game; I’ve been involved in baseball teams when we came from behind to win in the bottom of the ninth inning; I’ve seen shoestring tackles on the 1 yard line; I’ve come back from being down 5-2 in the third set to win a tennis match; but I’ve NEVER had a comeback like this. We went from having the worst Christmas ever to having the coolest thing ever to happen on Christmas. The Rawls boys now had actual PROOF that Santa was real, and they felt amazing and special.

“Dad, do you think that has EVER happened before?!”
“I doubt it. I’ve never heard of Santa making a mistake before.”
“AweSOME!” said Steel. “That’s SO cool,” said Noble.
“You have NO idea how cool it is. This is a Christmas we’ll never forget.”

The moral of this little story is that every day we have a chance to turn nothing into something. Every day we forget to do something we should. We don’t always make the most important things the most important things when we should. Our mistakes could be our biggest opportunities to shine. No team has ever lost before the clock ran out. Until the final buzzer sounds, anything can happen. We have to play to win until the very last second. We have to remain focused, calm, poised and competitive at all times. Ordinary people have accomplished extraordinary things in the midst of extraordinary circumstances. It’s never too late to win – not for you, not for me, not for anyone who refuses to lose. Winning is the result of a choice, a decision, and a belief that anything is possible at any time. Anyone can do the things that you are supposed to do to win, but if you don’t believe – if you don’t have the right belief in yourself – if you haven’t made the decision not to lose, then winning would be nothing more than luck. Actions with passion and the right attitude behind them will always yield better results than those without. It’s never too late to win.

I wish you a Merry Christmas.

Your #1 Fan…

Last year I attended an event where a man led us in prayer to begin the meeting. He said, “Lord, we thank you for getting us up today and for giving us the mind, body and spirit to embrace the life and opportunities that you are creating for us.”
 
“Well that certainly puts things in perspective,” I said to myself. And I never forgot the opening to that prayer. “Thank you for getting us up today.” Wow. Ever since I heard that, I’ve been bothered by something in me, something I’ve recently gotten clarity around, and something that I am trying very consciously to improve, to change.
 
On a spiritual level, most of my personal prayers come out of “need” or “help.” I’ve found that many of my personal prayers begin with “Please,” rather than “Thank you.” The reason this bothers me is that I’m a confident, thankful person who finds gratitude every day. However, when I pray, I have not been giving thanks nearly as much as I have been asking for assistance. Granted, I’ve got lots that I need help with. But, I have lots more for which I am thankful and I want my thankful voice to be the voice that I REACT with from an abundant spirit. I always find the right perspective. However, the right perspective isn’t always my first perspective. I believe that giving thanks to every situation before looking at any other side it is the key for me to feeling completely aligned personally, professionally and spiritually.
 
As we slide into the Thanksgiving holiday, I hope that we all find more things to be thankful for than we’ve ever found before. In “The Traveler’s Gift,” Andy Andrews says that “Adversity is the preparation for greatness, and I enthusiastically accept the preparation.” Every one of us has overcome adversity in our lives. And while adversity can cloud our view of the greatness we want for ourselves, it always makes sense on the other side. Once we’ve put adversity in our rear view mirror, we typically say to ourselves, “Oh, that’s why I was going through that!” What’s cool is that the more adversity you face and overcome, the more faith you have going through your next round of it. And the more faith you have going through adversity, the less it bothers you and the faster you move through it. After all, things are only as big as the attention we give them.
 
This is one of the reasons that I love Keller Williams. We have so many resources and mentors to help us build up our mental muscle in order to make the most of every situation we face. We have MREA, MREI, BOLD, MAPS Coaching and Courses, Masterminds and leaders who pour themselves into being a conduit for the success of everyone. Mindset matters, and there’s no better place to get your mindset right than here at Keller Williams. There’s also no better time to kick off a new and improved mindset than now, at Thanksgiving.
 
Let us stop focusing on a few challenges in our lives, and let us start focusing on the many, many, many more things for which we have and should be thankful. Let’s “enthusiastically accept the preparation” for the greatness we are sure to achieve. Without exception, all of us are on a path to greatness.
 
If you are reading this, then know that I am thankful for you. I am thankful for being connected to you and for having an opportunity to make a difference, big or small, in your perspective and in your life. In return, you make a huge difference in mine. I am thankful for the unbelievable network of friends, family and professionals who share my values and interests, and who are committed to making the world a better place by giving more than we receive. Thank you for enhancing my own personal journey, and “thank the Lord for getting me up today!”
 
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
 
Your #1 Fan…
 
Shaun
 
Shaun Rawls
OP – Keller Williams Realty – The Rawls Group – Atlanta, Ga.
RD – Keller Williams Realty – The New York Tri-State Region

“Get your value on”
 
Superstars…
 
In the book, “The Diamond Cutter,” an explanation is given to the Buddhist term, “empty,” which, I, personally, never knew until I read this book. It says that nothing has value until someone places a value on it. No circumstance has value. No product, place or thing has value until someone determines in their own mind that there is a value to them. This inevitably means that different people can place different values on the same things at the same time. One person can deem something worth “x” while another person can value the same thing at more than, or less than “x.” In its simplest form, the concept of emptiness means that each of us has the power to choose what has value in our life, and what doesn’t. It means that we can pay a lot – with our time, our energy, our emotions, our money – or we can pay a little, if anything at all.
 
There’s no doubt that what we give attention to, we give value to. This is precisely why Gary Keller’s recommended response to the question, “How’s the market?” is “Why do you ask?” It doesn’t matter what the market is doing unless you are buying or selling.
 
The whole idea of “value” in this sense is one of the things that I find particularly opportunistic in this market. There is so much information that is over-generalized, misguided and simply bad, even though it may be well-intended. Finding the logical pieces of the information puzzle and sharing it with people so that they can see and capitalize on the opportunities in the market today is exciting because creating value out of logic is a vastly underutilized strategy among Realtors and our clients and customers. When we step back and look at what drives business, it is emotion. In a seller’s market buyers are fearful of not moving fast enough; in a buyer’s market they’re fearful of moving too fast. Fear is the number one motivator of product sales in the marketing and advertising world. Perhaps we should spend more time on helping people be afraid of fearing the wrong things?
 
A wealthy person once told me that he looks at what most of the population is doing and he tries to do the opposite. He said, “Most people tend to do what they feel, not what they should do.” In essence, he looks for the logical counter to emotional moves…and he profits from doing so.
 
I’ve spent the past few weeks in Atlanta, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut teaching logical strategies to win in an emotional market. We’ve been discussing where value and opportunity live and how to make the most of it by coming up with every conceivable way to profit from the “markets of the moment.” What’s critically obvious to me is that too few agents are finding confidence in noticing the opportunities in the market and helping their clients and customers place a “value” on these opportunities by getting off the sideline and getting in the game. There’s a fortune to be made in this business by those who place a high value on the right people and the right things.
 
Too many people are using the headlines of the day to determine their course of direction, rather than employing a long-term, wealth building strategy. Too many inexperienced buyers are deciding not to buy because they are evaluating properties like they are going to buy and flip their home, when they should be focused on the benefits that home ownership will provide them by staying in it for the next 5 to 7 years. Too many baby boomers – who are very much okay – are not considering pulling funds from their healthy nest eggs to purchase investment real estate for cash in order to maximize their returns on their money. Too many of our clients are missing the chance to own more than one home because they are not investors and no one has ever shown them how to or why they should include real estate in their family’s wealth building plans. Too many people are going into foreclosure without ever listing their homes For Sale, when they should be talking to a real estate professional about the many different options that may be available to them. Too many people are idle candidates to sell their home and purchase a bigger home in this market for a financial gain because no one has shown them the advantages that are available to move-up buyers with current home prices and interest rates. All of these are lead generation opportunities that should be valued by real estate agents and buyers and sellers alike. Agents should be bursting with excitement to find these people and share all of the valuable opportunities that are available in the market today. If you place value on these things, you will find clients who do, too.
 
If you are waiting for your clients to come to you because they see value in the market, you could wait a long time. Your clients need you to show them where the value is and how they can take advantage of the logical opportunities that exist right now, in spite of the headlines that may scream otherwise. Move your people off of the sidelines and into the game. Doing so will inevitably make you one of your client’s most valuable wealth determiners!
 
There are winners and there are whiners. Some see the glass half empty, while others see it half full. Some find the logical value In the market, while others find no value.
 
Empty? I don’t think so.
 
Your #1 Fan…