106 – April 16
“The more you can dream, the more you can do. You are the one that can stretch your own horizon.”—Max Steingard
Now my partners and I were shopping for a house. Our budget for this purpose was small. Therefore, in the Los Angeles area, we were looking in a fairly low price range. But I had a vision of the perfect house and it was a charmer.
I made a list of everything I wanted in our house:
- Three bedrooms, two baths
- A beautiful brick fireplace
- Oozing with charm: beam ceilings, beautiful tiles, rounded archways
- A living room and a den
- A big airy kitchen with sunlight streaming through many windows
- A large backyard with room to garden and lots of trees
- A nice neighborhood
- A swimming pool
Sheepishly, I handed my list to our real estate agent, Judy Washburn. Judy and her husband, Gary, were warm and friendly, a terrific couple who had helped my sister and her husband buy a house. But I was afraid she was going to tell us we couldn’t possibly get all the things on my list in the price range we were looking at. Well, she did laugh when she saw it. When she looked up at me to respond, I forestalled her by saying I said I realized this was asking for a lot, but I needed her to know what I really wanted if we were going to be able to create finding a house that had at least some of the features on the list. She looked at me seriously for a moment, nodded, and filed the list away amongst her papers.
It was just a couple of weeks later that we were looking at some houses she had found, when we drove past a cute house with a for-sale sign on the front lawn. Judy couldn’t find it in her lists, but went to the front door and asked if we could come in. The owners were home, and said, “Sure!” As we walked through this house, I got more and more excited. This house had everything on my list: Rounded archways in a Spanish style, burgundy and flowered tiles in bathroom and kitchen, a living room and a den. It didn’t have a pool, but it had a large lot with ten orange trees on it and oh, I wanted it! Judy had to keep taking me aside and tell me not to get so excited—it was ruining her bargaining power. But the price they were asking was even in our range!
Within a month, the house was ours. When we finalized the purchase agreement, I reminded Judy about the list. She pulled it from her purse and smiled as she shook her head in amazement.
“You were very lucky,” she said. I agreed then. But now I know that I was following the path I was later to identify as 1) Think positive; 2) Send out ships; and 3) Count your money. It worked then and it works now.
What’s on your list?
Today’s Affirmation:
“All my good is delivered to me now!”
It took me awhile to figure out how to use Facebook effectively. So many people have jumped on the social media advertising bandwagon that sometimes it seems just like a television station broadcasting commercials all day long.
I found I wasn’t very interested in reading endless pitches to buy people’s products or services. (It seems that’s all that’s happening at LinkedIn now.)
What was interesting was to engage in conversations about a topic, and too, well, become friends with people.
That’s exactly what worked for me with live networking groups. If all you do is try to sell your products and services, it’s not going to work.
You need to engage with other people and be interested in them and what they’re doing. Read their blog and comment. Share other people’s interesting posts with your friends. Sign up for someone else’s teleclass and send them a testimonial if you enjoyed it. Refer them business if you can.
When you’re interested in others, others will be interested in you. Simple, no?
Happy online networking today, dolphins!
