Karma is a Buddhist term, which says, "For every event that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was cause by the first, and this is second event will be pleasant or unpleasant according to the first." According to Buddha, "our good and evil deeds follow us continually like shadows."
Karma doesn't happen by accident.
It has nothing to do with lucky and everything to do with you.
None of us likes to suffer and sometimes our greatest mistake lies in trying to get through difficult periods as quickly as possible, not realizing that this suffering is usually preparation for better times ahead. Please remember that the hellish moments are preparing you to further evolve as a person of wisdom and strength. This is why we must welcome and accept all circumstances as part of our treasury of opportunity.
All sorts of difficulties in life may draw you into the valleys of pain in order to shock you out of your old and comfortable ways into fresh pathways of thought. in every difficulty lies the invaluable seed of personal growth and spiritual upliftment. You gain inner strength and spiritual evolution from the overcoming of difficulties.
If you want love, give unconditional love. If you want peace, give unconditional peace. If you want business, give unconditionally!
We see it everyday in our own lives and those around us. Karma is the driver who passes you on the highway going 100 mph whom you pass a few minutes later because they are on the side of the road getting a ticket. Karma is also the Loan Officer who wins over a customer before they have even met because of their kind acts of many months or years ago to someone that customer knows.
Please remember that your thoughts and words are also considered as karma. To desire is also a sort of action, so you must be very aware of your bad desires and reject them immediately. Negative emotions such as anger and jealousy are wrongful actions leading to negative reactions, or in other words, your suffering. Therefore, we must always be mindful that each of our physical, emotional, verbal or mental actions have inevitable repercussions.
Tomorrow, how to keep the good karma and discard the bad!
Our minds generate about 60,000 thoughts per day, so to believe that they will be rosy and filled with good karma is Pollyanna thinking. Negative thoughts or disturbing emotions emerge within us every day. A little of this is normal, but if you permit those detrimental emotions to reside within yourself, strengthening them through wrongful actions, evil thoughts and bitter words, then you will be creating bad karma. Your duty is to get ride of those negative thoughts ASAP.
Close evaluation of the scriptures tells us that even Christ and other great souls were not exempt from experiencing downbeat thoughts, fear, anger, sadness, or any other kind of negative emotion, though they were always trying to hastily eradicate those obstacles in their evolutionary process.
So the next time you have a wicked thought, please remember the law of karma because the longer that thought resides within you, the more you will suffer. Tomorrow we will examine good suffering vs. bad suffering.
A homophone is a word with two spellings, two meanings and the same pronunciation. For instance "ant" and "aunt" or "been" and "bin".
"Principal" is another such word with a multitude of meanings. It can mean first in importance, the most important person or performer, a perpetrator, a significant participant, a responsible party, a represented person, or the most common usage; the person in charge of a school who's office most kids try to avoid being sent to.
"Principle" is also a word with several meanings. It can mean a basic assumption, an ethical standard, the means in which something works, a characteristic ingredient, another word for source, or theory. Principle can even refer to God in world of Christian Science.
However, one definition of "principle" that you will never find, is that which refers to the initial amount of money borrowed.
You know the "P" in P & I payment. That "P" is spelled principal not principle.
This mistake is made daily in our business, even recently in literature from Wells Fargo and Mortgage Coach among others. Maybe the funniest misuse of the "P" word though is when it appears right there on a competitor's Good Faith Estimate. What an opportunity for you!
"C" is for charm and make no mistake; charm (if combined with competence) will take you a long way in this business. It is impossible to understate the incredible magnetism brought on by the pleasant karma of charm.
The root of charm is a polite and positive disposition combined with appropriate use of the other person's name. People are attracted to those who are polite, use their name and take genuine interest in them. Aren't you? What more do we really look for in another person?
Charm is easy for some elusive for many because charm can not be faked. For most of us, phony charm is like nails on a chalkboard. We see it, we hear it, we feel it, and we loathe it.
This is the essence of charm. The rest comes with time, practice and the will to be charming. Plus, charm is the finest way to improve your conversion rate with customers (and your approval rate with your co-workers.) A life lived with integrity - even if it lacks the trappings of fame and fortune is a shining star in whose light others may follow in years to come.
"I" stands for incompetent, incapable, isosceles and indigestion. None of which are good for us.
Isosceles means having two equal sides and we all have something on our bodies that is a little different on the left side than it is on the right. And right now you are thinking about that part of your body aren't you?
But enough about you.
"I" stands for integrity which is an adherence to a code of values. Like our body parts differ, we all have somewhat different levels of morality and values but integrity can not be faked. Right is right and wrong is wrong and we all know the difference.
There is no faking integrity. you either have it our you don't.
DO IT NOW! In business, few words are more important than one of the shortest complete sentences in the English language. If you want to accomplish the maximum amount possible with your time, take this short sentence to heart. Do it now!
The benefits are huge. By doing something now that you know you will have to do later anyway, you avoid wasting time thinking about it, writing it down, etc. So why procrastinate when you an do it now??
“What should happen when you make a mistake is this: you take your knocks, you learn your lesson, and then you move on.”
We all make mistakes. From the little ones that don't matter to the gaffes that haunt us for years. Mistakes can cost us dollars, customers and even relationships. The cost of a mistake can be great, but the reward for our mistakes can always be greater. The lessons we chose to learn from our mistakes are what molds us as a person and a professional.
So take a few moments today to reflect upon a mistake that may have cost you a professional relationship. Think about using this great lesson called a mistake to learn and grow from your error and move on.
Better yet, use this lesson to win back the relationship!
Pick up the phone, confess your wrongdoing and tell that person about the lesson you have taken from the experience. You can send all the flowers and candy you want, but nothing will do more to mend the fences than a sincere apology combined with sharing the lesson learned.
We are the sum total of our thoughts.
Our actions, our words and our inner feelings are all dictated by thought. If you think you are going to have a bad day thanks to some insignificant setback, you will. Conversely, if you believe with those same thoughts that you are going to have a great day, then it will be. Despite a flat tire on the way to work, three employees calling sick, a declined loan and a mid day re-price for the worse, you can have a great day. It's up to you.
Our senses of contentment, self worth and significance are all dictated by our thoughts not by what happens to us, our possessions, accommodations or even our net revenue ranking.
So change your economy for the better by changing your thoughts first. On this, there is no shortcut!
Regardless of your profession, frustrations exist and usually the bigger the paychecks, the bigger the challenges.
It is easy, even natural, for people to believe that their job has the world's longest list of issues. In fact, many people will freely admit feeling such jealousy at times, and the rest of the people lie about it!
The grass really is greener... occasionally, but it is usually just plain overrated. Moreover, if the grass really is greener, it probably got that way because of someone's hard work rather than by accident.
But what can we take from these axioms?
Sales is all about understanding people. So it pays to know that almost everyone you speak to will consider their job more difficult than yours simply because it is their job and not yours.
Tomorrow, how to use the grass is always greener mentality to everyone's benefit.
A profession whose challenges are evident to most of us is that of the Realtor or Builder.
However, most of us just think we know what their biggest obstacles and frustrations are.
Why?
Because we have never asked!
So make sure to be asking this question of your referral partners. Very few things will help you truly understand someone else's business and win their hearts than listening to their challenges!
And stay tuned next week to a few outstanding ways you can help your referral partners with their challenges.
Every single job known to humanity has its downside. Despite the appearances of some professions to "have it easy", the fact is that capitalism and reality dictate otherwise. This is ever so important for Loan Officers to be mindful of, since we deal with people of so many different professions.
They all have their obstacles and if you really want to get people to talk about what they do, just ask them about their biggest frustration at work. You may or may not be glad you did, because for some folks there isn't enough time in the day to explain that one!
So please remember to empathize with your customers who in all of their different occupations face a unique set of challenges, just like you!
It has been said many times in this space that helping people is the only true means of success in the mortgage business. Our paychecks are in direct proportion to the number of people whom we help and the quality of that help rendered.
It has also been said there many times that calling your past clients is the most effective, and rewarding use of prospecting time for all Loan Officers.
Put the two together and what do you have? No, it's not that you need to help other people call their past clients and it is not calling your past clients and asking them for help.
Call your past clients and offer help!
They will be happy you called them, it is an easy to make, warm call and best of all there are always a slew of great discussion topics that lend themselves to you helping them and/or their friends and family.
Tomorrow... what to talk about right now with your past clients.
Tact- having or showing a sense of what is fitting and considerate in dealing with others.
It has been said that tact is "the ability to make a point without making an enemy."
In the words of Abraham Lincoln... "Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves."
Tact requires full understanding and application of the golden rule plus one. Treating others as you would yourself is great but tact also requires a subtle ability to treat them as they want to be treated, not necessarily how you like being treated. And yes, there is a big difference sometimes!
Probably the fastest means of developing and improving upon your tact starts with respect. Respecting others, their opinions and their idiosyncrasies will instantly make a person more tactful and improve their relationships. The other element of tact is embedded in one of the oldest adages of all time.
If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all!
Or in the less tactful words of poet Oliver Herford... "tact is the ability to lie about others as you would have them lie about you."
Disagreements will occur in most any relationship of substance be it personal or professional. What great partnership has not had its share of conflict?
Those disagreements and how they are resolved will continually establish the boundaries and substance of the relationship. In order to achieve resolution in such disagreements we can do one of three things.
We can do nothing. The old silent treatment, which usually results in no progress and resentment on at least one side.
Or, we can choose to argue and we know how productive that is.
Better yet, we can choose what's behind door number three. A simple word but a difficult discipline... tact.
Tact will resolve most differences and avoid those dreaded arguments almost every time. Some people are born with a certain amount of tact but most of us had to lear tact literally from the ground up because your first experience with tactlessness on the playground usually resulted in being knocked to the ground,
From that point on, we learn. Tomorrow, we learn more!
No one can deny that behind every argument lies someone's ignorance. This is why the only way to make sure you get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
Arguing rarely changes anyone's mind, but it almost always succeeds in hurting feelings. Kind of life using the back of a spoon to eat cereal, it gets you nowhere, makes a mess and there is a much better way.
So, the next time you want to avoid an argument try silence. It is truly the hardest argument to refute.
And whatever, you do, don't ever argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell the difference!
Next, what to do when an argument is inevitable...
“Anyone who doesn’t think there are two sides to an argument is probably in one.
”
Arguments... they are unfortunate facts of life for most people, (especially for those involved in matrimony) but they can and should be kept to a minimum.
Most of us don't enjoy arguing and the reason is simple. Nobody wins because arguements only serve to confirm people in their own opinions and create resentment.
Check out what Dale Carnegie had to say about arguments in his best-selling book "How to Win Friends and Influence People..."
“Why prove to a person that he is wrong? is that going to make him like you? Why not let him save face? He didn’t ask for your opinion. He didn’t want it. Why argue with him? You can’t win an argument, because if you lose, you lose it; and if you win it, you lost it. Why? You will feel fine. But what about him? You have made him feel infereior, you hurt his pride, insult his intelligence, his judgement, and his self-respect, and he’ll resent your triumph. That will make him strike back, but it will never make himw ant to change his mind, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.””
Tomorrow... how to avoid arguments.
We all aspire to improve our business and relationships, right? If you do, then try this tremendously simple plan... smile more often!
The first thing most people notice about you is not your hair, skin, clothes, shoes or even your eyes. It is your smile!
So try smiling more. Not only will people smile back, but also you will make a great first impression and every impression is better with a smile whether it is your first or thousandth contact with someone!
So use the gift of your smile, it will always make you look better and friendlier plus it will make for a more successful you!
“They who give have all things; they who withhold have nothing. ”
No matter what the religion, the concept of pay it forward, give to live, givers get or whatever you wish to call it, is universal.
How is it working in your life?
If you want more, give more. It really is that simple!
