As many of you know, I just completed a yachting race across the Pacific from Victoria to Maui. We won our division! It was extremely difficult conditions with the wind on the bow much of the way, high winds and wet stormy cold weather. For most of the race we were tired, wet and uncomfortable and the top three boats were all very close.
The race took 15 days.
On day 9, we were in the lead and our competitors were fighting hard to catch us. Our team coach, Roger Friesen, sent us a message extolling the necessity of being relentless in our pursuit of excellence. His timing was bang on – It was exactly what we needed to hear. It’s easy to take comfort as the leader and ease up just a little. By then, out fatigue was palpable which also leads to performing below peak performance. With six days left of tough sailing, it would be easy to give this win back to our competitors.
But we had trained for hard, not for easy and this timely reminder from Roger was critical in our win. We wrote it out on tape over the companionway where we would each see it a hundred times a day.
“The relentless pursuit of excellence”.
And what it takes to win in yacht racing, is the same as it takes to win in anything.
Being excellent is essential and being excellent is hard. It’s not a place you arrive at, it’s a mindset that drives you to learn and excel and overcome whatever shows up that can get in your way. It’s about being really good at what you do, being really committed to always getting better and being really open to learning, not just more but learning more deeply. Learning not just what is right in front of us, but the things that are the most important and most challenging.
As each of you reflects on your real estate business during these times of technology disruption, market volatility and a continuous increase in competition, be relentless in your pursuit of excellence. Get better at what you do – and then get even better at it. Understand the complexity of the market, pursue the highest level of negotiation skills, have your legal and financial skills totally honed, continuously grow your emotional intelligence and professional empathy and have a strong working knowledge of the technology tools that are emerging.
The emerging world of real estate will have room for REALTORS who are excellent at what they do and technology will replace the rest. To ensure your continued success, make a commitment to pursue excellence, relentlessly.
On that note, there are two spots left in the Advanced Negotiation Workshop. A CNE designation is a pre-requisite. And we have all of our negotiation courses for the fall posted on the site. In addition, I will be starting an elite coaching group for the fall focussing on professional empathy. Let me know if you are interested in being a part of this pursuit of excellence.