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A few short weeks ago, our community was rocked by the sudden death of a well-known young woman. A mother of three, she and her husband had just purchased their first home and were settling in to live out the next chapter in their lives.
Her last day began with a very minor injury — nothing abnormal in and of itself, but somehow an infection set in that ravaged her defense mechanisms and, despite the hospital’s best efforts, that evening, during an emergency LifeLine flight to a better-equipped trauma center, she was gone.
At her memorial service this past weekend, close to 2,000 gathered to pay their last respects, to try to provide some support to the husband and family, and to try, somehow, to make sense of the tragedy. Her life was cut short with no warning in its prime; on everyone’s mind were two questions: “How did this happen?” and “Why?”
When answers don’t come
When calamity rears its ugly head and we are all left devastated in its wake, we all want answers. It’s human nature to want to know what we might do to prevent this the next time or at least try to find some meaning or purpose out of our loss.
We need answers. Unfortunately, in this situation, there were none. As an entire room listened to the pastor on the platform, he said something profound that provided a bridge that, for many, led to comfort in the midst of intense grieving.
“We are all looking for answers,” he said. “Problem is, answers overpromise and underdeliver.”
Put simply, we think that by knowing the answer to “why” it will somehow change things for the better. It will provide some meaning. Some comfort. Perhaps some direction.
Unfortunately, the husband is still left without his wife; the three children no longer have a mother; the extended family are left without a daughter, sister, cousin; and the entire community is affected by the loss of someone who had profoundly impacted the lives of thousands.
Regardless of the possibility of an answer, we all still need to get up the following morning and learn how to live our lives in the reality that someone who was deeply loved and cherished … is gone.
Times like these provide a touchstone to reality. In the grand scheme of things, life is very short. Even if we live to be 100, our time on this planet is remarkably brief in relationship to the span of history — a vapor that appears for a short time and then vanishes into thin air.
Art Williams, speaking at an EntreLeadership conference in 2019, stated, “They say the biggest surprise in life is old age.” He went on to say, “You are here in this life for a flicker.”
The question is simply this: When you are gone, how will you be remembered? What type of impact will you have made on the lives of others? What will your legacy be?
Looking around the large auditorium where this young woman’s memorial service was being held, it was clear, by the thousands in attendance, that although she was now gone, she had made a huge difference in the lives of many.
The problem with “answers” is that they leave us with another question; “Now what?” Even though we may understand what happened or even have a glimpse at “why,” the answer leaves us flat because it does not provide a path forward.
We think that once we know the answer, we will know how to cope and make meaning out of life in our new reality. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case.
“Answers overpromise and underdeliver.”
Knowledge doesn’t always equal power
For many, 2021 was an amazing year in real estate. It seemed we could do no wrong. Interest rates were below 3 percent and our phones were ringing off the hook with calls from buyers clamoring for us to help them buy a home before they were priced out of reach.
Then came May 2022. As interest rates began to climb, the real estate transactions slammed to a halt and, in an instant, the market we had known and loved was gone. The problem was that we all knew the reason why. We all knew the answers.
That knowledge, however, did nothing to help us make the changes we need to make to become effective in the new reality. Many of us, used to significant volumes of business, had holes blown through our production large enough to fly a 747 through.
As I talk to agents across the country, many have seen their businesses drop to less than a third of what it was in 2021.
We assumed that by understanding what had happened, we would know how to move forward. But in reality, the answers overpromised and underdelivered.
It was the same after the foreclosure crisis. Agents who had REO contracts and did hundreds of deals a year suddenly found themselves without any sales and, despite the fact that they had been a dominant force in the market, saw their businesses fade off into obscurity.
As I sat in the memorial service, I was reminded of the solemn fact that the widower is faced with some monumental issues. He not only has to do his job as a husband and dad, he now must do his deceased wife’s job as well. He suddenly has twice the amount of work he did just a few short days ago.
He cannot lie in bed and pull the covers over his head hoping things will change. His universe has been unalterably changed, and nothing he can do will bring it back. He is now forced to deal with it; while family and friends have jumped in to help, that relief will be short, and the days ahead will be long.
He needs to figure out how to compensate for the sudden reduction in their income. How to get the kids to and from school. How to handle homework. How to be a mother, especially to his daughter. He does not have a choice. While he might have answers as to how or why his wife died, those answers will do nothing going forward.
He is in a new reality, and if his family is going to move on and survive, he has no choice but to step up and do twice as much as he did before. To quote Art Williams, he has no choice but to “do it.” He not only has to do it today, he needs to do it tomorrow, and the next day, and every day thereafter.
As agents have sat around and looked in shock at their lack of business, an amazingly low number have managed to pick things up and thrive in the current chaos. Few have concluded that if they have fewer clients, they will have to double or triple their efforts to sustain their businesses at the level it was before.
With fewer buyers buying and fewer sellers selling, if agents want to survive, they need to get out there and find clients who want to buy or sell now — and not stop calling or door knocking or prospecting in some other way until they do.
Art Williams has stated, “Your success doesn’t depend on anybody else but you.” So true. He also explains, “I don’t believe people die from hard work. They die from stress and worry and fear — the negative emotions. Those are the killers, not hard work. The fact is, in our society today, most people don’t understand what hard work is all about.”
Just about anybody could make a decent go of it in the years running up to 2021. It is different now. That market is gone. Sub-3 percent interest rates are not coming back. Even as you read this, interest rates are headed back up and the future for buyers is very uncertain.
You have a choice. Whatever you choose to do will not change the current market — the question really is, “Will the current market change you?” In the words of Art Williams, you just need to “Do it. And Do it. And Do it. And do it again. And then when you’ve finished … do it again.”
Want to succeed in the current market? Just do it.
Carl Medford is the CEO of The Medford Team.
