Fool Me
Sung to the Beatles’ tune of “Love me do”.
Fool fool me do.
You know I’d fool you.
We’ll be so untrue.
So, plee-ee-ease, fool me do.
One morning as I was looking for my razor and I couldn’t find it, it occurred to me that maybe my step-son Darren had been playing with it. This goes back more than 25 years but I remember it like it was this morning.
Darren was young, maybe eight years young. I shouted out to him, “Darren, have you been playing with my razor?”
“No,” he yelled back.
“Darren,” I yelled again, “if I find out you’ve been playing with my razor, I’m going to get very upset. Tell me the truth.”
Darren took a few seconds to think about this and finally he replied, “If you find your razor under your bed near the head board, I don’t know how it got there.”
You have to laugh at this, especially when it’s a story about a kid. It isn’t quite so funny when the story is about an adult and especially a professional.
So, I asked this sales person in my office how she was doing with her calls. “Oh, still going strong,” she replied. “Doing three hours every day.”
“How many people do you talk to in the three hours?”
“About 40.”
“About 40?”
“Well, I leave messages if they don’t answer.”
“So, not 40. About 20, then?”
“Yeah, about 20.
“And how many do you actually speak to during 40 calls? About 5?
“Yeah, about 5. But not every day.”
“You don’t call every day?”
“Maybe 3 days a week.”
“You speak to about 5 people about three days a week? Or, about 20 people a month – 120 people a year? And do you consider this to be doing well?”
“Pretty good, huh?”
“Yeah, great. Keep it up. You should start making some money in about 2 years.”
It felt like I was talking to a kid. Who are they fooling? It’s not me. It’s not their family when there’s no money coming in. So, who then are they fooling?
You can tell yourself anything you are ready to believe. That’s a no-brainer. Try telling it to me and all that will happen is you will be giving me something to laugh about and tell people a story about, like the story of Darren and the razor.
Being accountable to someone is the only way to succeed in business. If the someone is yourself, be hard on yourself. Keep yourself accountable.
Ask yourself this question, “If I hired someone like me to work for me and I have to pay someone like me, how long would I keep me before I fired my a _ _ and replaced me with someone who actually worked for his/her money?”
In the real estate business it is far too easy to lapse and make excuses for doing so. It’s easy to fool yourself into believing that the reasons you’re not working is justified. It takes strength and will power and control and focus and commitment and a whole lot of motivation to not fool yourself.
Try it, and see if you can do it. If you find it too hard, get yourself a manager/mentor/coach to guide you through the process so that you can succeed.
Without it, the fool will always and only be YOU!
Sam Green B.A. Broker of Record / Career Coach / Manager