By Phillip Greenberg<\/p>\n
I became an avid reader as a child, a habit that I still have today.\u00a0 Sure, as a kid, I was outside playing when I had the chance.\u00a0 But there was no Xbox and I had no interest in watching soap operas and game shows when I got home from school, so if there was nobody to play with, I\u2019d get lost in a book.<\/p>\n
Thirty years later, in the 1990s, I was reading books to my daughters, hoping to instill in them the same love for books I developed as a child.\u00a0 And one day, reading to them from one of my favorites, I discovered that so many children\u2019s books teach not only great life lessons, but great business lessons.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take one of my all-time favorites, The Phantom Tollbooth<\/i>, by Norton Juster.\u00a0 The Phantom Tollbooth<\/i> is a story of a little boy who has so much to do that he doesn\u2019t know what to do first, so he does nothing (sound like you at the office?).\u00a0 He never had a plan, and never really did anything.\u00a0 One day, he got a gift of a tollbooth that took him into a new set of lands, where he learned the value of managing one\u2019s time, setting goals, and making things happen.\u00a0 Today, I coach people on doing the same thing!<\/p>\n
There are a couple of quotes from the book that I find highly poignant.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s bad enough wasting time without killing it.\u201d\u00a0 I love this one.\u00a0 Time keeps going, and we all have to live by the same standards.\u00a0 There are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same for every person in every part of the world.\u00a0 Why are some people more efficient and effective with their time? Because they manage the way they use it!\u00a0 Time is the one commodity you cannot replace, cannot buy more of, cannot turn into something else.\u00a0 Use it wisely by having a plan and working the plan.\u00a0 Don\u2019t kill it!<\/p>\n
Another great quote: \u201cIf you only do the easy and useless jobs, you\u2019ll never have to worry about the important ones, which are so difficult.\u201d\u00a0 This is an easy one to demonstrate: one of the hardest jobs in Real Estate is prospecting.\u00a0 However, if you don\u2019t prospect, you won\u2019t have to worry about being busy because there will be no business!\u00a0 To be successful, you MUST make an hour per day to prospect.\u00a0 Business starts with the difficult parts, not the easy and fun ones.<\/p>\n
Finally, one more quote: \u201cExpectations is the place you must go to before you get to where you\u2019re going.\u201d\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have a business plan, written goals, and a set of expectations, your business is going to stand still, or just keep going in a circle.\u00a0 Your business is a boat and the plan is the rudder; no rudder, and you\u2019re at the mercy of the wind; no plan, and your business is at the mercy of the wind, as well.<\/p>\n
Most parents want their children to live by some of the great advice they get from children\u2019s books.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s time we all took those lessons seriously for ourselves.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Phillip Greenberg is a Coach and Consultant for Corcoran Consulting and Coaching.\u00a0 He has been in the Real Estate Industry for over 25 years and coaches dozens of very productive real estate teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Phillip Greenberg I became an avid reader as a child, a habit that I still have today.\u00a0 Sure, as a kid, I was outside playing when I had the chance.\u00a0 But there was no Xbox and I had no interest in watching soap operas and game shows when I got home from school, so…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n