My friend Katie Lance blogged about the value of patience today and then a post I wrote a year ago today popped up on Facebook. A year ago I was as stuck as anyone could be.
Stuck in the snow, in a town with no friends, one client, a case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, and the only thing I could do was wait for spring.
Here is what I wrote on the post to accompany this photo of a frozen meadow with its message of hope:
I decided to go for a walk before another storm comes in tomorrow..yes another few feet of snow. I’m sitting here under a tree with a nice view into a meadow with a veiled sun setting behind me. One day, I’ll be out here and it will be green and warm again. So I thought, what is needed most to get through a long cold winter…patience.
I bought an online Hawaii real estate course at this time last year with my eye on creating a real estate referral biz in Kona WHEN we got back. I kept posting to my 365Kona page and my “365 Things to Do in Kona” Facebook page which I have patiently been building for almost 8 years. (The Facebook page now has almost 18,000 fans!) I also kept plugging along on an anthology, “Called to the Big Island”, that I have been working on for two years.
All of that work circled around the knowledge that things were going to pop at some point for my husband and I.
If I had given up when I couldn’t see immediate results, or couldn’t see the path into the future, the specter of being financially successful in Hawaii wouldn’t even be on the table. I most likely would be freezing for another winter in Tahoe!
Steve Jobs said you that only after you’re there, can you then connect the dots. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.” And you have to have patience.
The dots started connecting when I began advising Realtors in 2010 to start a lifestyle blog, create a lifestyle Facebook page to amplify the message and a helpful moving guide to become the trusted advisor for their town. I learned much of using these tools for real estate marketing from successful Realtors all over the country, many of whom had created their own 365 pages! No one in West Hawaii had the patience and persistence to keep going! So I did it myself. That decision and the patience to keep going has created deep friendships, numerous opportunities for additional work, the ability to be a published author, changed lives and now is netting a boatload of real estate leads coming in from the mainland.
Looking back on the dots-I see patience played a huge role. (And faith!)
Advice:
Don’t give up when immediate results don’t happen
Keep focused on a goal even if the way to get there is not clear.
And as Katie said today-what you do TODAY is important for what happens 5-10 years down the road.
I have new members of my “365Kona’s I’m moving to the Big Island and buying a house!” group who say they have a plan to buy on the island in 2-5-10-15 years from now..patience says they’ll do it if they stay focused..and when they do-I’ll have some great agents to introduce them to!
(As a follow up-my husband decided to use MY course to get HIS Hawaii real estate license, so we can do referral business!)
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