It started with a 66 day challenge. According to Gary Keller’s book “The ONE Thing”, it takes 66 days to build a habit. This challenge was introduced to my office as a way to help Realtors achieve the discipline necessary to build the desired habits for a successful business. The discipline I chose to address was that of reading and writing in my journal (journaling is still not a recognized spell check word no matter how many times I try to make it up – yet emailing is… soon, very soon).
Throughout my life I have been an avid yet spontaneous reader and journaler (yeap – that is not a word either). As I have coached others to reflect over their business past and identify activities that have helped them climb out of slumps, I too identified mine – read and journal. The funny thing is even though we know what we need to do, we still don’t always do it. Therefore, I made the commitment to myself to read and journal every morning and only on business days. As a measure of accountability, I posted my journal entries on Facebook and sent them to my office (230+ people) via email. This was way outside my comfort zone because I do not consider myself a writer, nor do I have the best grammar. I write feverishly and with passion about what I am learning and how I am growing. As a business professional and leader of one of the most successful real estate offices in the state, putting my bad writing and grammar out to the world was a big way of showing my flaws and yet here they are – imperfections and all for the world to see.
The first few weeks were pretty boring and lame. I was reading 2-3 different books about business, focus, leadership and listening to books on mindset and execution. I read. Something inspired me. I wrote about it. Typically just quoting the book and author.
Then something weird happened. My writing changed. It was no longer a quote from a book and a heavy question to contemplate. The posts became more personal. The books I was reading pushed my thinking and I wrote about how I was personally dealing with the same thoughts, struggles, challenges everyone deals with in business and life. And the people started to respond!
Emails, replies, notecards, text messages, Facebook likes, personally thanking me for the post that morning and how it was right on target with what they were experiencing. I was exposing my personal thoughts and relating to people at a higher level.
All of this journey over the 66 day challenge has pushed me farther than I thought possible in such a short period of time. I have grown so much personally. Business opportunities are coming to me. And most importantly, I am seeing the impact on the lives of others.
This blog is a testament of my journey. It is a sign of my growth.
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