January 6, 2012
Even if the challenges are immense and the obstacles are many, step forward and live the life you choose to live. Your dreams are worth every effort.
Even if you get knocked down again and again, get right back up and get going. With enough persistence, any goal is within your reach.
Even if no one believes you, insist on being truthful. Keep the power of truth always on your side.
Even if you can’t see all the way to the end of the road, go ahead and take the first step. Each time you make some progress, you’ll find new ways to make even more.
Even if your results fall short of your expectations, keep making the effort. Each new day brings you more experience, wisdom and effectiveness.
Even if you’ve been deeply disappointed in the past, focus on the positive possibilities. For your future is what you choose to make it now.
— Ralph Marston
January 5, 2012
Where is the best place to start, when you’re determined to make real improvements in your life? Where is the best place to start, when you’re totally committed to following your dream?
The best place to start is precisely where you are. The best time to start is the moment you are in.
As difficult and challenging as your situation may be, in that situation is a way to move forward. From where you are right now, there is a path that leads to precisely where you would like to be.
Don’t waste your time wishing for a more favorable starting point. Instead, make use of the starting point you have, and get going.
Rather than complaining about not having enough, use your creativity and imagination to become more and more effective with what you do have. Devote your energy to creating new value in the present, not to resentment of the past.
This is the best place to start, because this is the place from which you can start right now. From here you can literally go anywhere, so go ahead, take that first step and don’t look back.
— Ralph Marston
January 3, 2012
Doing only what is easy and convenient, comfortable and free of challenge, doesn’t get you very far. Chasing after something for nothing ends up getting you nothing of real value.
In order to experience true fulfillment in any undertaking, you must invest yourself in it. It is your active participation and contribution to life that makes it so good to live.
If you continually take the easy way out, avoiding effort, challenge and commitment, you’ll end up being very disappointed. You are made to make a difference, so embrace every opportunity to do so.
You are here to participate, not just to observe. The true joy you feel will come not from meaningless possessions or empty pleasures, but from creating and expressing and experiencing the goodness of life in your own unique way.
Don’t waste your precious time in a fruitless attempt to get something for nothing. In every moment there are plenty of opportunities to create real value that flows from the authentic beauty of who you are.
Your deepest desires and your most difficult problems are challenging you to make a positive difference. Do yourself a big favor, accept the challenge, make the effort, and create the true fulfillment that is your destiny.
— Ralph Marston
A new year is a reminder to celebrate all the things that are good in your world.
The people you love, the places you are a part of and the memories you hold on to.
A time to celebrate those unforgettable moments when you close your eyes and breathe in life with a smile.
May your heart be filled with lots of little reasons to celebrate at the New Year and always.
Happy New Year from Bob Corcoran
and The Corcoran Consulting & Coaching Team
December 30, 2011
Every limitation is nothing more than a situation you’ve chosen to consider as, and to handle as, a limiting factor. Though you often cannot change the underlying situation, you can quickly and easily change the way you perceive and deal with it.
The very definition of a limitation is something that can stop you or hinder you. As such, the reason anything becomes a limitation is because you assume it to be a limitation.
However, you can always choose to make a different assumption. You can decide to focus on the positive possibilities, and to make use of them in moving forward.
Yes, life is very often difficult, complicated and challenging. Yet for every factor that threatens to hold you back, there are dozens of other possibilities for moving forward.
The limitations are not really what hold you back. To the degree that you are hindered, it is because you put more focus, energy and effort into negative thoughts and excuses than into positive possibilities and effective actions.
Sure, life is tough, but you have what it takes to create great value and fulfillment no matter what the obstacles. Remind yourself often of your own positive power, and transform every limitation into a reason to succeed.
— Ralph Marston
December 29, 2011
Just because you don’t know how, doesn’t mean you can’t. There is much you can learn by simply getting started, and you have plenty of ways to learn even more.
Just because it’s difficult and complicated, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. For you are able to make a little progress, one step at a time, then make a little more and a little more, until the goal is reached.
Just because something is standing in your way, doesn’t mean it has to stop you. The fact is, you can take the necessary actions to get beyond whatever obstacles may confront you.
Just because people tell you that it can’t be done, or that you can’t do it, doesn’t mean they are correct. Remind yourself, again and again, that you can do what you choose to do, making use of your commitment, thoughts, and actions.
Just because there is strife and pain and negativity in the world, doesn’t mean you have to give up on life. You can change your own life, and many, many other lives for the better, when you decide to do so.
Just because you’ve been reckless or frustrated or disappointed in the past, doesn’t mean the future has to be that way. Today is a new day, your life is yours to live, and there’s no limit to the goodness and joy you can now create.
— Ralph Marston
December 27, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
No guarantees
Even when you can’t be certain of what it is, you can be sure that there’s a way forward. Even when there are no guarantees, there are plenty of reasons to be confident.
When the situation is far from perfect, that’s the perfect time to make progress. For when there is much to be desired, there is much that can be accomplished.
Adversity does not prevent or preclude achievement. On the contrary, it is when things are not right that there is the greatest motivation to make improvements.
Stop wishing or waiting for conditions to be perfect. Accept and embrace the situation for what it is, and get busy making positive use of it.
When things go wrong, that’s not the time to complain. It’s the time to innovate and commit to making valuable improvements.
When there’s much that must be done, that’s the very definition of opportunity. Make the effort to make things better, and you can make things great.
— Ralph Marston
How Agents Can Capture a Piece of the Second-Home Market
Yes indeed, there is a delectable and juicy sweet spot in the real estate market today and it is growing sweeter every day… the second-home market. If this next statistic doesn’t cause your mouth to water, you’ll want to pursue another profession, nearly 40 percent of total home sales last year came from Americans buying second homes. Yes, 40 percent and yes, second homes. That’s a record!
What is the really good news? I believe this is just the start of a long, tempting and tasty buffet table. Why? The buyers are baby boomers (those between the ages of 42 to 60) who are at the peak of their earning potential. That means this is the first of several scrumptious courses being served directly to you - the broker and agent.
Who can blame these boomers? They’ve learned that their first home, and all its equity, yielded some serious wealth. So they figure, why not go back to the well?
For additional information and guidance on this topic we have posted an article on our website entitled “Home Sweet (Second) Home” for you to review.
Commitment for the Week:
Show us your commitment by commenting with your thoughts, plan and deadline below!
Make A Commitment : I will get familiar with my market’s needs!
Deadline: _________
Bob Corcoran
December 23, 2011
~ The Tablecloth ~
The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to
their first ministry,to reopen a church in suburban
Brooklyn, arrived in early October excited about their
opportunities. When they saw their church, it was
very run down and needed much work. They set a goal
to have everything done in time to have their first
service on Christmas Eve. They worked hard,
repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, etc. and
on DEC 18 were ahead of schedule and just about
finished. On DEC 19 a terrible tempest - a driving
rainstorm - hit the area and lasted for two days.
On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church. His
heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked,
causing a large area of plaster about 20 feet by 8
feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just
behind the pulpit, beginning about head high.
The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not
knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve
service, headed home. On the way he noticed that a
local business was having a flea market type sale for
charity so he stopped in.
One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory
colored, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work,
fine colors and a Cross embroidered right in the
center. It was just the right size to cover up the
hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back
to the church. By this time it had started to snow.
An older woman running from the opposite direction was
trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor
invited her to wait in the warm church for the next Bus 45 minutes
later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the
pastor while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put
up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor could
hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered
up the entire problem area. Then he noticed the
woman walking down he center aisle. Her face was
like a sheet. “Pastor,” she asked, “where did you
get that tablecloth? The pastor explained. The woman
asked him to check the lower right corner to see if
the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there.
They were.
These were the initials of the woman, and she had made
this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria. The
woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how
he had just gotten the tablecloth. The woman
explained that before the war she and her husband were
well-to-do people in Austria. When the Nazis came,
she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to
follow her the next week. She was captured, sent to
prison and never saw her husband or her home again.
The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she
made the pastor keep it for the church. The pastor
insisted on driving her home, that was the least he
could do. She lived on the other side of Staten
Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a
housecleaning job.
What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve.
The church was almost full. The music and the
spirit were great. At the end of the service, the
pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door and
many said that they would return. One older man,
whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood,
continued to sit in one of the pews and stare. The
pastor wondered why he wasn’t leaving.
The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the
front wall because it was identical to one that his
wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria
before the war and how could there be two tablecloths
so much alike? He told the pastor how the Nazis came,
how he forced his wife to flee for her safety, and
he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and
put in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home
again all the 35 years in between.
The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him
for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island and
to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman
three days earlier. He helped the man climb the
three flights of stairs to the woman’s apartment,
knocked on the door and he saw the greatest Christmas
reunion he could ever imagine.
Happy Holidays to you and your family!
December 22, 2011
Today, life is more beautiful and meaningful than it has ever been. Right now, the possibilities for richness and fulfillment are greater than at any other time.
Whatever may seem to have been lost has not really been lost. For the beauty and wonder of it all are still very much alive in your heart.
The frustrations and disappointments are possible only because you are certain of how very good life can be. Life’s goodness is real, and there is no end to how much of that goodness you can continue to create.
Love is your true nature. The more love you give, the richer and more meaningful your life continues to grow.
See the beauty, follow the possibilities, and feel the love as it flows through your world. Remember, again and again, how truly magnificent it all is.
Rise above the petty distractions and live true to the best of who you are. Embrace the goodness and make it ever more abundant.
— Ralph Marston
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