Being afraid or pessimistic is deadly!
ARE YOU STRUGGLING TO BE PRODUCTIVE IN BUSINESS?
TAKE A LESSON FROM MY EXPERIENCE IN SHARK INFESTED WATERS.
At age twelve I nearly washed out to sea after falling asleep on a tiny bright red air mattress in the Gulf of Mexico with a storm coming in AND not one single person on the beach. At first floating fifty feet from shore in relatively calm waters, I woke up an hour or so later when my face hit the water on that brand new raft that sprung a leak, which most likely had just been tagged by a curious shark. Sharks routinely brush up against anything unusual in searching for food.
On that early evening an hour after arriving in Florida from Ohio there were eight foot waves all around breaking hard, eventually pushing me completely under the surf every few seconds. Imagine laying on your floor at home and waves higher than the ceiling, and you were a little kid one half mile or so out to sea. The undertow was taking me out way faster than I could swim with the raft. I could have sat there playing the victim with the last of the air quickly running out waiting to die from drowning or worse shark attack while wasting precious time thinking I deserved better.
If so, there is no doubt I would have been dead in a matter of minutes. Within moments of realizing the shore was getting further away, I took a leap of faith and left the raft (my safe zone) and swam steadily without splashing, cupping my hands taking long strokes in the water, not panicking, seeming swimming forever towards land with something in my head telling me over and over...don't kick your feet, don't kick your feet, don't kick your feet!
I was a strong swimmer from our half acre lake at home and many summers at Berlin Lake a few miles from where I grew up. Still, even now I cannot imagine how anyone could have made it back alive. Olympic swimmers would have been chancing suicide to swim out there. God was surly watching over me that evening as the sun was beginning to set.
In those fifteen or twenty minutes I never grew tired, never slowed down, looking straight ahead only, with my eyes squinted at the waves hitting me, almost scared to death to look back in case there were sharks around me. I did look back once, only once during that long swim, almost drowning in the powerful undertow. Half the time I was under water when the waves crashed, timing my breaths between those countless waves with the beach getting slowly closer. All the while not knowing there were indeed sharks all around me.
The next day as fate would have it my parents took me out on the quarter mile long fishing pier nearby which I was hundreds of yards past and maybe two hundred yards south. On the farthest reach of the pier we saw an eight foot long shark hanging up. It's jaws were larger than my entire chest and was caught during the storm...the night before. Those braving the storm caught several other sharks, possibly even bigger that were already removed. Needless to say I was not real happy to discover I was by no means alone in the water.
One fisherman told us how storms drive schools of fish and sharks in closer to shore, not to mention they were chumming the water off the peer and bait casting. Every time I think of these events it is humbling to know how close I came to being the bait myself or simply washing on out into the Atlantic off the coast of Fort Walton Beach Florida. No one would have ever known what happened.
On that near fatal evening, not allowing myself to dwell on how bad my circumstances were enabled me to concentrate on the only goal that mattered, reaching shore and getting in out of the pouring rain. Yes, it was raining, overcast, getting dark and no one on the pier ever noticed that little red dot on the horizon was me. Funny thing, I never told my parents or older brother we were visiting who was stationed at the Air Force base nearby. I thought they might never let me out on the water again or worse yet, treat me like a little kid.
Perhaps we can all take a lesson from this. I am still trying to learn from the genius (when awake) I once was. It is all too often that we let set-backs and distractions get in the way of our success in our business and personal life. I’m as guilty of this as anyone because I never live up to my goals, regardless of the many successes. I still want everything to be perfect, the contracts, the signage, advertising, information sheets, showings and still kick myself for words said in person or on the phone that later seem lacking in substance even after twenty-five years in commercial real estate.
Join me. Let's get out of our safe zone, relax in doing our jobs and stop over-analyzing every little thing we do or how others might interpret it. If not, we will sit at our desks accomplishing nothing, waiting for something to save us from our circumstances. Trust me on this. If we fail to act on things we know need done, we are all washed up even before the next wave hits. This is unthinkable and potentially a waste of our lives and careers.
Fortunately we can both recreate the branding of our business and relive the best days of our lives, even the ones when all seemed lost. You know the saying. All is well that ends well. Get moving, don’t look back. You have competitors (sharks) swimming all around you, but you are in good hands, God’s and your own. You both determine your destiny at sea, in the boardroom and at home.
Competition, no problem. Don’t be cynical or pessimistic, they can be deadly to anyone in business. The future is yours to make if you have faith, are patient and work steadily towards your goals. And when you reach them, set new ones just a little further ahead. If this little kid in the picture above can do it against all odds, so can you!
Most sincerely, Jerry Blake, Broker/President of Blake Commercial Realty LLC
4501 Hills and Dales Rd N.W., Canton Ohio 44708
[email protected] 330-327-3869