Show Up, Be Present

When you start off in a sales career, you’re probably expecting a few things, like being able to set your own schedule and having more control over your schedule. There are some things that you will discover that will challenge you in ways like never before.
I remember when I sat in for my real estate license course (way back when). The instructor was a funny man who always wore a nice suit and tie and gave a professional yet lighthearted approach to our learning.
It helped put all of us at ease and we moved along in the course, knowing we had a lot to cover but not feeling any real sense of panic, till one nerve-wracking moment.
We were about a week away from our final test and it was prep time. The last few classes were meant to be a review of the material we had learned, and there was a ton of it.
One of these days, in class, the teacher looked around the room and a look of sadness came over him. It wasn’t shock…just a look that gave us the sense something had happened which he seemed to have expected.
He took off his glasses and laid them on the table in front of him and addressed the class.
“Folks, look around this room. What do you see?” He asked.
We looked at each other and then around the room but nothing seemed out of place or troubling, till we began to count the number of people in the class. Our class started out with about 40 people in it. During the course time, about 10 dropped out.  
During our review however, it dropped again to about 15 students. Should we have been surprised? Was this in any important for those of us in class to note? Why did our teacher seem so saddened by this?
When he spoke again, we found our answers.
“I know you see that there are quite a few folks missing from class today and have been all week. Well I’ve been teaching for quite some time now and I’ve been a Realtor/Broker for over half of my life. Every real estate course I teach, the same thing happens. We get to review week and folks suddenly have something more important to do than to attend class.”
He continued as we wondered why we were getting a lecture, after all we were in class, showing up and taking things seriously. We should be getting a surprise dessert or even a pizza lunch for our diligence…but a lecture? Seriously?
Then he got to his point, and our biggest lesson of our entire class.
“There may be one or two of the people missing who will pass the test, if that. Here’s what I need you to understand. Those of you who are still here will have the best shot of passing, I’d say maybe 50%. Of those 50%, maybe 40% will go onto real estate as a full time career. In the first 5 years 80% of that 40% percent will fail. Maybe two of you will go on farther than that.”
“Well what the heck are we doing this for then?” Someone, not me, called out. Actually, it was me. I found the moment very frustrating.
“I’m glad you asked”, he said. “Real estate is an industry where you have to constantly show up and be present every single moment you can. The second you start to think that things will run on their own is the second you start to loose.”
“You are here and present, so you’re chances of succeeding are the greatest they can be and sometimes that’s what will make the difference between a life of abundance and a life of failure. But take a look on the bright side – sometimes when you show up, you can reap rewards that you may never have expected.”
That’s when the pizza arrived. Our instructor had treated us all to lunch, nice guy that he was.
We took that days lesson with a grain of salt because really how can anyone predict what people will do?
I went on to pass my test and have a great career in real estate for many years…myself and one other agent still in the business. He’s a broker/owner now and to this day, he still remembers that lesson, one not of laws or statistics but of the importance of showing up, every time you can.