Gary Woltal's Blog

I overheard more than once many people with slowing and challenging economic times saying they were going to cut back on their decorations for the holiday season. While on the surface this seems practical I would relate to them from a past severe financial difficulty I went through, that lighting one candle provided me great hope for the future.

Why? Because

One Candle Casts Out The Darkness.

Darkness, and being downtrodden can not fight the power, the LIGHT of even one candle. Your candle is your spirt, your hope, your promise for a better tomorrow. The year that I went through this enormous struggle I decked out my front yard with lights. The heck wiith the electric bill. It felt so good.

I was on a mission of hope.

And you know what?

Things got better eventually. I knew they would. I not only lit up the world with my candle. I kept that candle inside of me burning brightly.

I have seen lives transformed by giving your light to others. It warms the heart of man.

So this holiday season, think twice before severely cutting back on decorations, especially anything involving light. It is the season of light, and we need all the light in our lives we can get.

Darkness cannot withstand the light of love.

I had earlier in life had terrible listening skills as far as listening to conversation and paying attention. Working with more and more clients now I ask my open ended questions and just sit back, shut up, and pay attention. This weakness was offset by a GREAT ability I had with listening with my heart. What I have found with the topic of forgiveness is people can fairly easily forgive others. But, I find them having great difficulty in forgiving themselves.

Forgiving ourself is the healing of wounds caused by ourself. Things we should not have said, things we should not have done, poor choices we have made along the way.

In essence, there is a little voice inside all of us we need to work on. It loudly screams out to us that "I'm not OK, You're OK." If you are old enough or read the book on Transactional Analysis from 1969 this was the most common life position. Ideally we all want to be "I'm OK, You're OK.

With this forgiving yourself you have to accept your past, an LET IT GO. I have found it greatly helps if another in your life REMINDS you that you are ok just as you are. They need to reach out and touch you, ideally physically, and pass this message on to your inner core. The physical touching can serve as a reminder to your emotional inner core but sometimes the words written or spoken to you can suffice.

There is no ONE particular magic wand to get the healing accomplished in forgiving yourself and KNOWING you are OK. Making mistakes are just being human. You need to know you are not perfect but still loved. You need to know unconditional love is real and available in the world. Not only from our pets but from people and God.

Life is full of detours and all the talk about perfection in life, relationship, career, your image, health, wealth, etc. is more illusion than anything else. The broken person is the real person. We can all relate to the broken person because looking in the mirror it is us.

Working through forgiving ourselves for whatever shortcomings we may have accumulated in our life and landing at the spot called, I'm OK," just as I am, is well worth it.

It will give you a STRONG sense of self worth. From that point on you can EASILY go out in the world and help others. You will need to continually rejuvenate yourself with "I'm OK" messages because you are not through making mistakes.

But being imperfect is a good thing. Once you figure that out, you're on your way!!

I am convinced I have become a resident contrarian in almost every aspect of my life. I think it has to do with this natural ability of seeing what every one else misses. The weakness for me is overlooking the obvious, and missing what everyone else sees. So please help me out on that blind spot when I have chocolate on my face from eating a Reese's. Don't let me go out in public like that.

That being said I have been reading in blogging about how we should be taking a look at dominant bloggers and copying all their wonderful techniques and following their wise ways.

Well I naturally say "hockey puck" to that hoo hah thought.

Sometimes a Dog Has To Let Go of A Bone and a Parrot Needs to Wear A Hat.

With my convoluted thinking let me explain that one to you. YOU, people, HAVE GOT to be you. If you don't care about Search Engine Optimization, but care about the roses growing at the house you are listing, talk about roses.

You need to let go of that bone that blogging is only about Localism or finding referrals or finding buyers for your condos in Jackson, Wyoming and you are the best agent or stager around those parts. Sure that is important, but it IS NOT the be all, end all in blogging. People want to know the heart of you. WHO are YOU??

They can tell from your words. They can listen to the rhythm of your words. Your humor. Your tone. Your integrity. They can even pick up if you are arrogant.

A parrot needing to wear a hat refers to your human side. Life is not made up soley of market statistics in a geographical area. How many bar chart statisticial post cards go out in a neighborhood? Typically instead they are the warm and fuzzy cooking recipe cards.

What floats your boat? What kind of parrot hat are you wearing?

Mainly, why do you blog? I am interested in your reasons.

Following a week in which I saw too many upside down smiles in person from those around me, and from reading blog posts from those under stress, I thought I would write just a few reminders to those that find this post about

       Knocking Down That Wall Of Worry.

There is no doubt one of the stress items in a downturn in the economy is money. The bills keep coming in whether the income is there, is diminished, or has dried up. 

Sometimes when the stress and worry pile up in your life it feels like someone is literally trying to choke you. The air is getting sucked out of your lungs. You feel like you have been punched in the stomach. You can toss and turn in your sleep. You can get night sweats.

Some ideas for knocking down this worry wall:

With tension, don't let technology and the fast pace of life overtake you. Breathe deep.

Technology and all those computerized gizmos around you are tools. Machines to use and not overwhelm you.

Make time to relax, despite your circumstances. Good rest, a massage, intimacy with your partner, whatever it takes, find SOMETHING. It will clear your head.

Spend time outdoors, in any fashion. Be in the sunlight, feel the wind on your face. Spend time in nature.

Spend time with pets if you have them. They will provide you with unconditional love.

The #1 reminder in knocking down the wall of worry is to spend ample amount of time around "supportive" friends, family, associates, and business contacts that can see you through the crisis. Emphasize supportive. You want to feel good and be with people that provide you "solutions" not just add to some pity party you may want to wallow in. Foreclosures can be overcome, broken relationships can be mended or transitioned from. Answers are there.

Finally, best as you may through the storm clouds, SMILE EACH DAY. This too, shall pass. Fake it to you make it. Count your blessings. Try and laugh a little. I have this little motto about No Frowns Allowed. Hang around others that uplift you. I am trying for you here. : )

But seriously, when things are down in the dumps, troubles are greater than things going good for you, all is not lost. You can find a beautiful blooming rose on any old thorny rose bush. It is the nature of life. The beauty and the enjoyment is right there in the midst of the prickly thorns. So work on a few of these reminders to keep all that wasted energy of worry out of your life and knock down that wall.

The sun really is shining very brightly above those clouds. Bring that sun inside. Inside your heart.

There's no question that with the boom years most recently in the 2003 to 2006 timeframe more Realtors continued to be added to the mix in addition to those added in the 1998 to 2001 timeframe. Estimates are now that the market pie we all have to live off of needs to shrink from    1. 3 million in number back down to a saner 700,000 Realtors.

With low barriers to entry to enter the profession and the lure of a quick buck many in real estate that got into real estate should not stay in real estate.

We've seen the carnage lately as well in the affiliated housing jobs with the downturn in the real estate market, namely mortgage professionals. What about the market needing less title company officers, inspectors, building construction workers, appraisers,, stagers, and design consultants?

It is inevitable with less pie, people will have to find work ELSEWHERE to either supplement income or have some survival strategy in place to weather this storm.

I would be interested from YOUR perspective, do you think this thinning of the herd is good for real estate?

You too can be homeless.

No, I don't mean starving Realtors thrown out on the street after a bad year or two, although that does happen. I mean in life we all are a cast of characters. We play various roles whether subjected unto ourselves by our environment, fortunate or unfortunate circumstances, our own choices, or just our plain stubborness to change for the better. So often the power to change roles lies within us DESPITE our circumstances.

That phrase, there but for the grace of God would I be, is so true. Look how lucky you may be to live in the USA or Canada and not a third world country.

I see the low income people on side of the road with broken down beat up cars. There, but for the grace of God again...

My point in this cast of characters thinking is

    We Are All In This Together.

We need to help each other, homeless, middle class, or upper income and well off.

Kindness and understanding towards ALL people is always good for the world. They say be nice to the people on the way up because you might see them on the way down.

Love all not matter their status in life and give them a high five today to uplift them. It certainly will brighten their day.

When it comes often to figuring out your best route to getting something done, the path to get there is not immediately obvious. Sometimes early in the day for example, you know by the end of the day at least by mid afternoon you have to start working on a critical project say for example April 14th working on your taxes, and get THAT done. I am amazed when you keep that critical project top of mind, take a deep breath, and practice creativity to the max, things just somehow fall in place.

Practicing creativity to the max involves many techniques. Clear your schedule with delegating. Use your brain to think of multiple paths to get things done. Practice thinking out of the box. Have no box.

Above all have no fear with your idea generation. In a brainstorm kind of way do not judge your ideas. Ponder each idea as a valid possibility.

I have even tried this with blogging sometimes in trying to create a blog post as quickly as possible. Oftentimes it comes out as one of the best.

This I don't understand other than some of us work best under pressure. It's called blitz blogging. And you might want to try it and see how it works for you.

Use your creativity to the max to wheel and deal the trivial many work items you have each day out of the way to get the main thing you want done for the day. Somehow the noise level items fade away or take care of themselves and what you hoped to accomplish (the BIG rock in the jar) gets accomplished.

In working with a client the other day where another woman Realtor was involved it amazed me that the client talked about some personal troubles concerning her family and this other woman kept her focus on business at hand and didn't acknowledge this area of the client's concern.

     Don't Become A Heartless Wonder.

Sure, we all want to stay focused on the purchase or sale of a property. But don't get so involved in the science of real estate that we forget the art of real estate. Know that this is, first and foremost a people business, with emotions, real lives, and real consequences of decisions made.

It is a talent of a balancing act by the REALTOR. Using one's head, staying calm among all sorts of stormy seas you find yourself in, but allowing you heart to shine through as well. How is the client feeling today? How has their day gone up to the point of meeting with you? What would they like to accomplish on this house hunting day? Are there others involved in their life that need to be in on this decision that we need to get involved early on?

That saying about people remembering how you make them feel when all is said and done is very true. The heartless wonders out there don't know it but need to be educated that they are making clients feel cold and ignored. And that is something all good REALTORS do not want to do. Especially if they want to be good, if not even stay in this business!!

Have you ever seen these types that seem to have deaf ears to these little feelings that pop up with clients in conversations?

One can never acknowledge too much another's feelings.

Sometimes in looking around the world of Active Rain at the friends and family I have acquired, I say to myself what an "interesting bunch." Well I probably say motley bunch, me included, but you didn't hear that. Such fun loving people I have attracted here with diverse shapes, opinions, backgrounds, and outlooks on life. Some have posted pictures of all their friends. I am more into symbols.

Kind of like a Sesame Street bunch all gathered around the trash can I put out by the curb. There must be something that draws them in. What is it? Do they like the comfortable feel of the dented garbage can? The hairstyles of Bert and Ernie? They know that Grouches who have political rants really deep down have golden hearts?

What do you think draws Active Rain friends together? Maybe that we all let each other know it's ok and that we are not alone in looking at the world?

With the turning of colder weather and more rain toward the winter months for many of us, have you carved out comfortable places in your life? Seattle folks have coffee houses. Some wives say their men have man rooms with the big screen TVs. Some have "happy places." Reading rooms or formal living rooms that are quiet may be an option. What about basements for refuge in the northern states? I like to think people stop by here as a little oasis in their day.

WHAT ARE YOUR OASES OF COMFORT IN YOUR LIFE?