Create

There are a lot of lessons for me in real estate. I don't know if I am committed to real estate as a life path or anything like that but I am committed to sticking around as long as the lessons are forthcoming and useful. And there is some ego involved in wanting to kick ass at something I find to be really hard.

What I was working on today was creating. Some kinds of creating has to come from the void, from nothing, from loss and emptiness and zero. I have been trying for many months now, to get rid of everything, to let everything go, to find zero and to be okay hanging out there. In order to have something--rich clients, lots of deals, money, comfort, confidence, knowledge--I have to be okay having nothing. It's easy to have nothing in real estate. I should know. I am there. Now I am working on being okay being there.

It's also easy in real estate, to create money from a miracle. It seems that so little of this job has to do with intelligence or diligence. I could go in to work tomorrow and make $5000 before noon. Without doing much or any different than I did today or yesterday or the day before. I could also pass five or six weeks without making a cent. A lot of it is luck and timing and, I think, belief.

Of course I can do things to increase my odds of creating a miracle. Is that even possible? Is that an oxymoronic statement? I can place more and better ads, with increasing specificity in an area and/or type of apartment. Lofts in SOHO and Tribeca for instance. $4000-10,000. I could do this. I am still working on becoming a specialist in an area. I could also, get faster at weeding out the people who are simply not ready to rent. This is more complicated than it seems, since most people looking for apartments don't know they aren't ready. But when it comes to forking over about $8000 to rent a $2200 apartment that is most likely one room, many people hedge their bets and try to find a better deal. And I don't blame them. I would too. But I would also never want to work with someone like me, because I am still of the group that values my money more than I value my time. I was to create customers who are the opposite. Time over money. People who will pay me for the service I provide. Still working on that too.

Any thoughts?