Chris Nichols
By Chris Nichols
There’s an interesting story from the Middle East I want to share with you. A dying man leaves his 17 camels to his three sons. To the first son he leaves half, to the second son he leaves a third, and to the third son he leaves a ninth. Well as the three sons do the math they find that none of their portions divide very well into 17 camels. Arguments ensue and before blood is shed they decide to consult a wise old woman who tells them she’s not sure if she can solve their problem, but instead she offers them her one camel, thus giving the three sons 18 camels. This gives the first son 9 camels, the second son gets 6 camels, and the third son gets 2 camels. Well… 9+6+2 = 17 camels, so the three sons return the 18th camel to the wise old lady!
In real estate, life, and in leadership positions I often find myself searching for that 18th camel. It’s interesting how we as humans tend to focus our time, energy and thoughts on the problem versus the solution. Getting to yes shouldn’t be as hard as we tend to make it on ourselves.
I used to work at The Little Nell hotel at the base of Aspen Mountain in Colorado. This amazing resort hotel is owned by the Aspen Skiing Company and is rated a 5 star/5 diamond property. Guests pay top dollar for just a standard (insert luxurious) room. With that, they expect amazing service (insert treatment). One of the challenges posed to us as employees was to never, ever tell a guest ‘NO’. This gave us the unique opportunity of always finding ways to say yes, or offering different options/solutions that kept us away from the dreaded ‘NO’. Unfortunately, that experience was many moons ago and I have sadly fallen away from the practice of always finding the yes or solution and avoiding the ‘NO’. Continue reading »
Brooke Wolford
By Brooke Wolford
I was recently in a task force meeting for the Minneapolis YoPros. It really got me thinking about the true value of YPN and what I feel it’s all about.
To me, YPN is about bridging the generation gap. Not to stereotype my generation, (which I am not quite sure where I fall…X, Y, Z…who’s keeping track?) but typically the younger generations are more knowledgeable about technology and communications. A lot of us feel like we have ADD and we are constantly moving to the next best thing.
With that said, there is a lot that can be learned from older generations. I thought about an agent in my office. She has been around for 30 years. She knows the ins and outs of the business. She has seen the good times and the bad and she survived.
She recently got her first Facebook account. It was cute. She seemed a little iffy at first. I would constantly see her replying to someone in her status update. It would make me chuckle a bit. But believe it or not, she is workin it! She is now posting blogs, articles and other valuable content to her page. I have been really impressed by her. Continue reading »
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