Happy Spring!
daffodils blooming in the snow

Time for Space Clearing!

Finally, after a long and challenging winter, it’s spring, the season of rebirth, renewal, and new beginnings.

Many people mark the season with spring cleaning, but I prefer to celebrate by spring clearing — making space for the new.

Just as you can’t plant seeds in a flower bed that’s overgrown with weeds and garden debris, you can’t create something new and meaningful — a thriving business, an expanded network, another income stream — if there is no room in your physical space, in your schedule or in your head for fresh ideas or new ventures.

Here are a few ways to embrace spring clearing:

Space clearing

If your office, desk, closets, or car are cluttered with items you no longer use or need, schedule focused time to declutter and get organized. There are really only four actions you can do with your belongings: keep, recycle/trash, sell/donate/give away, or move to another location.

Amazon lists over a thousand books on decluttering, so if you need guidance, start with one and go from there – or hire a professional organizer to help. By eliminating the old, worn or obsolete, you create space for new opportunities and draw in fresh energy.

Schedule clearing

Are you juggling too many projects?

Do you attend meetings when issues could be resolved with a quick phone call or email?

Do you say “yes” to social engagements when you’d rather say “no” and stay home and relax?

Do you long for free time during the day when you can sink your teeth into a writing or marketing project without being interrupted?

Take a close look at your calendar. It might be time to evaluate how you are spending your time and to pare down commitments. Perhaps you want to block off a two-hour period every Tuesday for concentrated work during which you cannot be interrupted. Maybe you want to take an afternoon off each week to pursue a personal passion or spend time with your kids. If you have control over your schedule, prioritize what truly matters and eliminate what doesn’t.

Also, learn to delegate wisely. This will free up your schedule and make room for the new and the important.

Head clearing

Clearing your mind requires a commitment to creating new habits that will support your bigger goals. And the reward is more clarity, energy and time to focus on what truly matters.

Whether it’s space clearing, schedule clearing or head clearing, I encourage you to choose a few strategies from above and make room for the fresh, the new and the important.


Ready to clear the path to your success? I offer one-off laser coaching sessions – focused, powerful and effective. We can talk about your business, your goals, and how you can accelerate your progress.

28 Things to Do When You are Are Not Busy

That Will Help You Grow Your Business and Build Momentum for the Future

Get More Organized – Financially

actions to achieve goals

Organize Your Office Space

Update Your Systems and Learn New Technology

Get in Touch with Past Clients

Create a Client and Customer Contact Program

Expand Your Sphere of Influence

Research Professional Continuing Education Courses

Update Your Marketing Materials

Expand Your Social Media Presence

Self-Care



I hope you will choose a number of these things to do to grow your business during this slow (for some!) time in the market. 

I have created a business plan template for 2025, based on the exercises in Beyond the Sale—for Real Estate Agents. Contact me if you would like a copy. The feedback has been great. It’s fun and easy to complete. 

If it’s time for a change; if you want to try something new but aren’t exactly sure what that is; if you want a new perspective and support to make 2025 a big success, contact me. Together we can make 2025 your best year—ever! By the way, I’m not a “cookie cutter” coach. I’m a master coach, and I offer personalized coaching. Call or email me to see if we are a perfect fit.

How to Prepare for Upcoming Changes to the R.E. Industry

The ink on the $418M NAR settlement is barely dry, and already real estate experts, economists, podcasters, and journalists are weighing in with dire predictions, speculation and misinformation.

Here are just a few of the headlines from the past week:

I’m guessing that the CEOs of most real estate brokerages have already met with their cadre of attorneys to figure out how to proceed in the face of the settlement.

We’re definitely in a period of uncertainty, confusion and misinformation. Some say housing prices will fall, as will commissions. Others say things will stabilize and that this is “no big deal.” The truth is: no one really knows what the fallout of this landmark settlement will be.

How can you, as a real estate agent, prepare for the future?

Here are a few ideas:

Boroughs & Burbs

Boroughs & Burbs, the National Real Estate Conversation, presents Episode #121: “Beyond the Sale, Life You Love.” Join us for a show that is relevant for all agents, entrepreneurs and sales people who are putting together a business plan for 2024. Are we being strategic about our plans for growth? Are our business plans transactional, focused mainly on counting up the sales and hoping for a higher number? Jerri is an author and coach, while Ken has managed agents for decades towards a sustainable work-life balance. We thought January would be the perfect time to talk with these two experts on crafting a better plan for 2024!

Two Powerful Exercises

Happy New Year!  Wishing you a joyous, prosperous, and peaceful 2024! Traditionally this is the time many of us make long lists of New Year’s resolutions. Often, however, only a fraction of these promises to ourselves is achieved. 

Instead of making the usual resolutions — which are often lists of obligatory “shoulds” and time-worn plans that we really don’t feel like starting, much less keeping (such as “lose weight,” “clean out my closets,” “give up caffeine,” etc.), how about creating a goal that you will actually enjoy working on? Here are a few exercises to help you create new and meaningful goals for 2024.

Download
Wordle, The Middle East, and Inner Peace

This morning I sat down to write a blog post about new ways to create more momentum in your business, but all I could think about was the war in the Middle East, the ongoing suffering and the devastation to come.

wordle teach peace

So, to distract myself, I scrolled through my emails until I came to a short podcast by Mel Robbins, a motivational speaker who I like. The podcast was called “Renew Your Spirit: Five Ways I’m Finding Hope and Strength Right Now.”

I listened to the podcast and found it to be very helpful. The message was quite similar to a blog post I wrote nineteen months ago (in March of 2022) when Russia invaded Ukraine. Today, as the tragedy in the Middle East unfolds, these words resonate again. I hope they will bring you comfort and hope during these dreadful, challenging times.

As I began to write this piece I found myself in a state of avoidance: first doing the daily Wordle puzzle, then scrolling through Facebook, then walking into the kitchen.

I’m sure you’ve had a similar experience—distracting yourself in order to avoid what’s really going on….in this case the pain of watching the news about the Middle East and the feeling of sheer helplessness as an American living in comfort so far from the tragedies of war.

I’ve donated, meditated, cried, prayed, and ruminated about the situation. I’m sure you have too.
What else can we do?

Two different messages popped up in my emails this morning: One was titled “Being OK with Not Being OK” by Laurie Santos, Yale professor and creator of the Coursera course, “The Science of Wellbeing.” The other was called “Strategies for Cultivating Inner Calm” by Gretchen Rubin, author of “The Happiness Project.”

Both of these messages resonated. It’s OK to feel sad. It’s psychologically healthy to be honest about our feelings, to confront our sadness, and to express our emotions, whether by journaling or by sharing our feelings with a friend or family member.

And there are ways to cultivate peace within, to make us more resilient during these challenging, troubling times.

  • As a coach, here are a few recommendations that I have made to clients and friends:
  • Limit your consumption of the news. This is probably the most helpful tip, and may be the most difficult one for many people. It’s important to be aware of what’s going on, but a steady diet of news broadcasts and social media feeds is not going to help your inner state of being, nor can it change the situation.
  • Connect with others. Call friends to whom you haven’t spoken in a while to say hello. Make lunch or dinner plans with others. Reach out to your clients to see how you can best help them. Social connection is one of the keys to happiness.
  • Practice self-care. Meditate, pray, walk in nature, take long baths, get a massage, eat more salads. Only you know the best way to take care of yourself.
  • Do something to help. Volunteer with a local organization; raise money for a humanitarian relief group; participate in a peace vigil. Each of these actions will be impactful and meaningful.

Yes, these are challenging times. We cannot distract ourselves from the pain, the sadness, and the suffering. And we owe it to ourselves to do whatever we can to cultivate peace within and to help in whatever ways we can.


“Do not get pulled into the darkness…and forget to love one another and help one another in need. Do what you can to help yourself and to help somebody else see the good in you and in them. If you really don’t know what to do, just smile at people.”
—Mel Robbins

Love, Work and Red Threads

I recently read a new book by Marcus Buckingham entitled Love + Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life. Buckingham is one of the creators of the renowned StrengthsFinder assessment and a leading researcher on strengths and human performance.

Love + Work book cover

I’m a business coach who often works with people seeking career changes and with entrepreneurs wanting to transform their businesses to regain the joy and passion they once had. In reading Love + Work I was struck by the author’s concept of “red threads.” These are activities that we love and that we are either mastering or have mastered. When we are engaged in them we disappear. We totally lose track of time. Red threads are our superpowers, and because they come so easily to us we often downplay their significance. But when we are performing red thread activities, we are in the flow.

This concept is fascinating to me, because, as Buckingham has found, if you are engaged in 20% red thread activities during your day, “you are far less likely to experience burnout…(and) if you have a chance to do something you love each and every day (even if you aren’t good at it yet), you are 3.6 times more likely to be highly resilient.”

It seems that finding love in what you do is the key to happiness at work.

Here are a few questions from Love + Work (p. 78) to answer to help you discover your own red threads:

“When was the last time…

From Love and Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life (hbr.org) by Marcus Buckingham. Harvard Business Review Press, 2022.


Once you’ve uncovered your red threads, see if you can incorporate them at work and at home. If there are no red threads at work, maybe it’s time to reassess your career.

One of my red threads is helping clients get to the essence of a situation or problem quickly. Another is helping people generate new, creative solutions in areas in which they’ve been stuck.

If you are ready for coaching, contact me. I’d love to have a conversation.

Happy Summer
planning for a great summer

Many years ago I read about a woman who made a list of 40 things that she wanted to do one summer. I have no idea what they were, but the fact that she came up with 40 was very impressive to me.

Now that opportunities for travel, gatherings and socializing have opened up, it’s the perfect time to design the perfect summer.

This can be anything from making a list of places to visit (vacations, day trips, museums, restaurants and the like), to choosing friends to reconnect with, to taking on a special project such as beginning a Tai Chi or yoga practice, purging your closets and cabinets, or learning Italian.

You might also choose one or more words to represent themes you want to embody over the summer. Examples are: “celebration,” “fun,” “novelty,” and “adventure.”

If you are so inclined, take a few minutes and answer the following questions. Your answers just might inspire you to take new steps towards creating a spectacular summer!


List a theme for the summer:

List three new places to visit:
1.
2.
3.

List five new experiences you want to have:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

List three friends you want to reconnect with:
1.
2.
3.

List three things to say “no” to:
1.
2.
3.

I’d love to know what you’ve discovered! If you’re stuck, or if you’d like some coaching to help get you started, please contact me.

I’ll be picking flowers and tomatoes in the garden, eating fresh raspberries and peaches, checking out some of the markets in Santa Fe, and maybe even traveling again. Please contact me and let me know what you’re up to! I’d love to connect.

Summer Reading

If you haven’t read Beyond the Sale for Real Estate Agents: How to Create a Great Business and a Life You Love now’s the time to pick up a copy and do the exercises. It’s a great project to work on this summer. It can change your business and your life.

Here’s What I’ve Learned About Chatbots and Coaching

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the chatbot, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that is akin to Google on steroids. You can ask the bot questions, and voilà, get robust answers within a minute or so.

The three most well-known bots are OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s BING, and Google’s BARD. ChatGPT is available now for free, with a faster Plus version that costs $20 per month. BING chats are free and are limited to five questions per session and 50 questions per day. BARD was just recently offered to the general public.

Issues with Bots

Much has been written about both the accuracy of the bot’s responses and the ethical issues involved. For example, in a front page New York Times article, tech columnist Kevin Roose had a two hour conversation with the BING bot in which it “tried to convince me that I was unhappy in my marriage, and that I should leave my wife and be with it instead.”

life coaching with an AI bot

As quoted in The Verge, a tech news website, “BING chats are now limited…after the search engine was seen insulting users, lying to them, and emotionally manipulating people.”

There are a host of other issues raised by bots: Users can unknowingly plagiarize; a lot of the answers are rife with inaccuracies, mistakes and misinformation; and there are built-in biases that people discover as they go down the AI rabbit hole.

AI bots mimic sentient beings that have human consciousness. However, they are really just machines that rapidly gather, process and spew out information.

 The Usefulness of Bots

AI is great for generating ideas and images, researching topics, and improving one’s writing, including changing the tone, proof reading, and making the piece more concise.

Some of the best uses of AI for business are creating copy for social media posts and blogs (in various voices such as professional and casual), editing and captioning YouTube and other videos, creating attention-getting email subject lines, and writing top ten lists.

On the home front, people have used AI to solve common household problems, to plan parties, to create weekly menus and shopping lists, and to write songs and poems for special occasions.

AI tools are also being developed for coaching and for therapy. These are in their infancy and will require a lot more research and development before they can replace professionally-trained, certified coaches and licensed therapists. On the other hand, bots will be cost-effective and more accessible to large numbers of people who cannot afford to hire professionals.

Personally

As an experiment, I recently signed up for two coaching sessions with a chatbot. During the first session the bot ended the conversation midway after I accidentally chose the wrong response. (Do you want to continue on this path or do something else?) It took about five minutes to get back on track, and then most of the remaining session consisted of the bot repeating my answers as questions:

Bot: What is the next step you could take to move in the right direction after this exercise?

Me: I have no idea. I am stuck.

Bot: It sounds like you’re feeling stuck right now, and that’s ok.

During the second session I brought the same issue to the bot and this time it responded with Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats Technique. But again, all the bot did was ask a question and then mirror back my responses. There was no time for me to think about the question and arrive at an answer before the bot moved on to the next question! I did come up with one tiny action step, but all in all, the session was a waste of time and definitely not great coaching.

During my next foray into AI, I asked the bot,“What are ten reasons that a professionally trained coach is better than a chatbot coach?” Here I got some great answers:

Personalization: A professionally trained coach can personalize their approach and tailor their coaching to meet the unique needs and goals of each individual client.

Emotionally Intelligent: A professional coach has the ability to recognize and respond appropriately to emotions that a chat bot may not be equipped to handle.   

Insightful: A professional coach has the ability to ask insightful questions that help clients gain deeper insights into themselves and their challenges.

Experience: A professionally trained coach has years of experience working with clients and helping them achieve their goals.

Customized Support: Professional coaches can offer individualized support to their clients to help them overcome obstacles and achieve their goals.

Accountability: A professional coach can hold their clients accountable for their actions and help keep them on track towards their goals.  (Note: A chatbot can also do this.)

Goal-Oriented: Professional coaches help clients set specific and measurable goals, and work with them to achieve those goals.

Trust: Professional coaches build trust and rapport with their clients, which helps them establish a stronger connection and achieve better results.

Communication Skills: A professional coach has strong communication skills which they use to establish an open and supportive environment for their clients.

Flexibility: Professional coaches are flexible and adaptable, and can adjust their coaching strategy based on the client’s progress and feedback. Chat bots usually have pre-set responses that may not be effective for every individual.

These are all great reasons to hire a professional coach!


In sum

Chatbots are here to stay. They can automate a lot of routine tasks. They can foster the creative process. Bots, however, will never replace humans, especially in professions that require personal connection, empathy and intuition, deft listening skills, and an understanding of context – all important in management, law, coaching, therapy, and other professions. Still, it’s useful to learn as much as possible about what AI can and cannot do, so you can use it to streamline your work, save time and effort, and generate better and more creative solutions in both your business and your life.



Is it time for a change? Do you want to try something new, but aren’t exactly sure what that is? Or are you ready to move to a new level of success?

If you’d like to work with a real human – a professionally trained master coach – give me a call. Let’s have a conversation and see if we are a good fit.

How to Create Business During the Holidays

Even Though You’d Rather Be Shopping, Eating, Drinking, or Relaxing.

Actually, You Can Do It All!

The holidays are fast approaching. For most real estate agents and other self-employed individuals, business slows down as people focus on preparing for the holidays or going on vacation.

This is a great time to create business for 2023. While most agents are in holiday mode, taking time off to go shopping and socialize, now is the perfect time to:

  1. Call/text/email or DM all of the people in your sphere of influence. Set aside an hour or two every morning, sit down with a cup of coffee, and contact everyone with whom you’ve done business, everyone who has referred you business, and everyone with whom you would like to do business.

    The number of contacts can range from hundreds to thousands.  

    Leave a message saying, “Hello.  This is ________ from _______.  I’m calling to let you know I’m thinking of you and to wish you and your family Happy Holidays.” 

    Or, “Hello. This is ________ from _______.  I’m calling to thank you for your business and to wish you and your family Happy Holidays.” 

    Make each call short and upbeat. It’s a reminder of your relationship with the people in your business life—not an opportunity to prospect.
     
  2. Send holiday cards (and perhaps small gifts such as chocolates, cookies, candles, or paperwhite or amaryllis growing kits) with personal, handwritten notes to people with whom you are working as well as past clients and customers.
     
  3. Send holiday gifts to your top clients and customers and to those who have referred business to you this year. Bottles of wine, flowers, custom gift baskets, and gift certificates/cards to fine dining restaurants are always appreciated. Stay away from branded gifts like pens, datebooks and calendars.
     
  4. Schedule holiday lunches or drinks with people in your sphere to thank them for their business.
     
  5. Plan a client appreciation party for top-referring clients.
     
  6. Stay in business mode while others in your office are in holiday mode. You may get clients whose agents are on vacation and receive calls from buyers who have more time to look at properties.

    While there is less inventory this year, sellers who have listed their properties are more motivated, as are buyers. And listings look great when decorated for the holidays.
     
  7. Finally, schedule time off to enjoy the season. Have a midweek massage, go shopping first thing one morning (after you’ve made your holiday calls), have a special night out with your partner. You deserve to take care of yourself.  

Yes, you can do it all!  Just don’t neglect your business during the holiday season. It’s the best time to reconnect with and thank the people who have contributed to your success. And it’s the perfect time to set yourself up for a terrific 2023!


Make 2023 Your Best Year Yet. I have a limited number of coaching spots left for my program, “Make 2023 Your Best Year Yet.”  It’s a series of two private one-hour coaching sessions over the next two months. Together we will create a detailed business plan based on what you actually love to do and what you are willing to do to grow your business and create a life you love in 2023.

This is not a “get up at 5 am and ‘crush it,’ one-size-fits-all” program. It’s personalized coaching with a master coach who has coached top-producing agents for over two decades.

Call or email me and we can discuss the details and see if this program is perfect for you. 

(505) 988-5533


Wishing you a wonderful holiday season!