Perhaps I’m just a bad sport. Since that fateful weekend when the Chargers bit the big one, I have checked out of the postseason excitement. For me, unless I have a favorite team in contention, Super Sunday strikes me as a New Years Eve redux – Ready, set, everyone manufacture fun.
Yesterday afternoon, Steve (my partner in crime, business and otherwise) was one funny commercial short of dividing the marital assets. With both daughters off to Superbowl parties of their own, I too had abandoned him. I spent much of the first half judging Carnival entries, mapping improvements to our website, staring into space while I mentally strategized my impending world domination, and figuring out just how I am going to pay our first quarter taxes. These were the things that weighed most heavily on me as Prince hit the stage, while Steve was most concerned with the party atmosphere (or lack thereof).
Granted, my husband would watch any Pop Warner match-up with Superbowl-like enthusiasm assuming it was televised and there was the possibility of guacamole. That is largely a guy thing. I, on the other hand, need to feel I have a stake in the outcome. Steve is a highly social animal; outside of work, I am not. As a team, this provides balance. An an individual, balance is something I only dream about.
Greg alluded to it – It’s the geek gene. I wasn’t born with it (none of us were), but I was born with the inclination. Combine the geek gene with a career in real estate, and you have the perfect storm for social alienation. Being the one in the relationship that is geek-inclined, the business of the business, the IT duties, the technology tasks fall squarely in my lap. But, mostly, I love my work, and being that my work is a seven-days-a-week proposition, the lines between work and hobby blur.
For those agents that reach Russell Shaw status, divorcing oneself from the job may come more easily. Yet, I suspect even Russell has found himself drifting off toward business plan thoughts during a half-time show or two. I submit that this state of mind may in fact be the largest distinguishing factor between the successful agents and the just-getting-by agents. In fact, I would argue that any highly successful entrepreneur shares my tendency to be largely consumed with his or her business.
This morning Steve is threatening to relocate to the frozen tundra and live among the penguins who, he has just informed me, would be better company and probably were pulling for the Bears. For the record, he takes our work no less seriously than I, but he approaches it from a different perspective. At moments like this, he would suggest that my tunnel vision obsession is bordering on the unhealthy, and he would eagerly share a domestic vignette from last week as case in point. On my way late one evening to take out the trash, I decided to grab my jacket which was hanging on the back of my home office chair. Seeing that I had blog post comment, I sat down (for only a second) to respond. Thirty minutes later, he found me, large Hefty bag and a larger stack of “recyclable items” at my side, typing away. Seeing his wife knee deep in trash while pounding away at the keyboard wasn’t the provacative image he had conjured a mere 20 years ago at the altar.
For those of you who share my “passion” for the business, you can relate. We are inclined to find our income plus our social and hobby interests fulfilled through our work. In my case, I even dream in full escrow-technicolor. Purple rain. I could become a quilter, I could plant a garden, or I could watch the Superbowl, but I enjoy the hobby that is my business. Don’t misunderstand; I am not without outside interests. In fact, I love running (in that it gives me four to five uninterrupted miles with my real estate thoughts).
Bad sport, geek, or obsessed social recluse? You make the call. On any given Sunday, I believe real estate zealots make the best agents.
(Note: My favorite commercial was the Blockbuster ad with the mouse. Go figure.)
Russell Shaw says:
>For those agents that reach Russell Shaw status, divorcing oneself from the job may come more easily. Yet, I suspect even Russell has found himself drifting off toward business plan thoughts during a half-time show or two
_
I’m not much of a sports buff, so it isn’t half-time, but you are absolutely correct. Every time we choose to do anything we are also deciding not to do something else. At the time we make the decision we may not even be considering any other activities but still we precluded doing them by the act of doing what we choose to do.
The idea that every individual “ought” to be doing certain things every day is arbitrary. Even if that particular “list of good things” is exactly right for someone it may not be exactly right for someone else — or even that person at a different time in their life.
There are many Realtors, for example, who have so much “balance” in their lives that they are still quite concerned about having enough money. Being at the top of any field almost always means not doing what everyone else is doing. Top people tend to see opportunities in situations where an average individual sees a potential problem or a barrier. I can’t say that it is impossible to achieve remarkable success in any given field and, at the same time, “maintain balance” — but I’ve never seen it done.
February 7, 2007 — 9:53 pm
Kris Berg says:
Woo-hoo! I’m not so unusual in my obsessions afterall. Thanks, Russell. I have enormous respect for you and what you have accomplished.
February 7, 2007 — 10:24 pm