Introducing Doug Sundheim’s Leading Ideas – Make a Plan B

The Blumstein Team has a go-to life Guru in the form of Monday morning emails.

Doug Sundheim, an organizational consultant with Clarity Consulting, sends out pieces of valuable advice every week to the delight of everyone on our team.  Often we bring a copy to the Monday morning meeting as his insights relate very well to both working with others and working with yourself.  In an industry that requires immense self motivation and cooperation with other individuals, Doug consistenly provides nuggets of illumination that relate to the daily struggles of getting it done.  What is great is that ‘it’  can be near anything as the ideas presented often leave room for plenty of interpretation and widespread application while keeping the underlining meaning relevant.  Often, the messages resonate both with us as brokers AND our customers.  This is why we find his Leading Ideas so enlightening.

Here Doug’s Leading Ideas for this week:

“If there is no wind, row.”
– Japanese Proverb

Consider this:

No matter how well you prepare, sometimes your plans don’t work. You can give it your all and still come up short because of something that’s out of your control. When this happens, the worst thing you can do is resent the situation – that will make it worse.

Take your licks and get back in the game. Plan A didn’t work. Find Plan B. Don’t settle for the excuse that you tried, but it didn’t work out. Try again. The most satisfying times in your life are when you’re figuring out how to succeed. The least satisfying times are when you’re justifying why you didn’t.

Try this:

1. Think of an area of your life where you’ve lost the wind in your sails.
2. Realize this is normal and put aside the past.
3. Create a new plan to invigorate yourself.
4. Put the plan in action and, before you know it, you’ll regain the momentum you lost.

– Doug Sundheim

The most apparent application of this philosophy in our field affects both brokers and their clients.  Sometimes a property you are hoping to secure slips through your fingers for some reason – you were swooped on by other renters/buyers, you financing fell through, the owner decided to take the property off the market.  There are a myriad of reasons for losing a property but in the end all that matters is that it is gone.  So you do your best to dust yourself off and get back in the game.  But as you do so, think about how it fell apart and prepare to approach the next round with the newfound forethought.

– Were you too slow to act?  Have your paperwork and financing in order BEFORE you find the place you are looking for.

– Did your bank pull back their financing?  Get the property pre-approved BEFORE submitting offers, or, if you are straining your limits of financing, contemplate reigning it in a bit and not stretching too thin.

– Did the Owner back out?  Just remember that this is likely their biggest asset and they too have the right to change their mind.  These things happen and you move on.

As Doug says, you can not dwell on life’s many setbacks.  The best you can do is prepare for them and keep a good attitude.

Doug Sundheim is an organizational consultant, author, & speaker. To learn more about his services visit him online at www.clarityconsulting.com. You can also read more of his articles at FastCompany.com