How Losing My Mojo Helped Me Become Successful

A few (several) years ago I hit a wall. Not a physical wall. A mental wall. I had been in sales and business development ever since I finished school and because of a number of personal reasons, I had to move back to my hometown to be closer to my parents. Now I had been very good in my professional career for a long time and thought things would continue as such with my new company. Unfortunately it didn't. The company I decided to work for went bankrupt. Unbeknown to me, their financial situation was not as flourishing as they had made it to be. 

This is where I lost my mojo.

Up to that point I was extremely confident in my sales and business development abilities having been successful with a couple business ventures and other projects. But with all the turmoil happening in both my personal and professional life, I completely lost that confidence and ability to close the deal. I also came to that point in your life where you ask yourself "What do I really want to do with my life?".

So I decided to do a lot of soul searching to figure out what my passion was and what type of career I really should be into. After almost a year, I came to the conclusion that real estate was it for me. I decided to become a real estate agent. On top of that, after having researched the ins and out of residential real estate and how to be successful, I decided to focus my business in a single target market, downtown condos. The reasoning behind this was that I wanted to stay true to myself and my passions which were the downtown lifestyle, unique architecture, local businesses (I believe in buying local products and services first and foremost) and the fact that I was better able to connect with young professionals then any other demographics because I was one of them.

So I set out to become the #1 downtown condo agent, against my broker's advice (you should do business with everyone and not limit yourself to 1 market he said) and against all odds achieved that feat within 2 years. 

There are 3 reasons why this happened:

1) I found my passion. My real passion in life at this time was discovered when I realized that I needed to match my talents, natural skills and passion with the right environment. See I had been really good at sales, networking and closing the deal but I never did it in an environment I was actually passionate about. I sold products I didn't really believed in. I did it for the money because I had to at that time of my life. Once I got into real estate and started talking to potential buyers about the downtown lifestyle, the amazing building architecture and it's history, showed them the local coffee shops and restaurants and introduced them to business owners, community leaders and the architects behind the projects, because I was so passionate about what I was talking about (thus never had to sell it), they instantly became fans and clients.

2) I stopped doing it for the money. We all do it for the money at the beginning. It's normal. And most of us are not lucky to realize this early enough and go through life living paycheck to paycheck with no sense of purpose. I was fortunate to be able to hit that wall and change my life when I did. Once I stopped working to make a buck, I started becoming successful and eventually the money came. Trust me there were hard times before and after but it did get better. Much better.

 3) I learned from the best in the business. This is the most important thing I did when I started my real estate career. And this is applicable to all facets of your personal and professional life. Once I knew that I wanted to focus my business selling downtown condos in my market, I decided to learn from the best downtown condo agent in the world at that time. He and his small but highly successful team of agents were the #1 selling office in their market year after year (we are talking multi-million dollar revenues) so I decided to call him up and ask him how he did it and learn as much about becoming a top agent in my market. Of course he didn't give me the time of day right away. It tool several calls, emails and others to finally be able to get his attention but I did and learned a great deal from him. I knew that if I was going to be the best at what I wanted to do, I should not listen to the many failed wannabe agents or the ones just scrapping by. I wanted to hear it from the most successful agent out there.

A couple notes about this...I did become successful at selling downtown condos and loved every minute of it. But I'm not doing it anymore. And this is because of another topic that I will discuss in further detail in another article which is: As you grow as an individual and realize that there are things you like more and other things you like less in your day-to-day life, you should follow through and explore those new passions. For example I since discovered that as much as I love the downtown condo lifestyle, I am not as young anymore and my priorities have changed. I realized that I love mentoring younger people and feel that I can help making a difference in people's life by helping them discover their passion and find their ideal career.      

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JF Ratthé specializes in helping individuals discover their purpose, passion & talents and matches them to a career where they thrive and succeed. He helps companies find that needle in a hay stack that will help them grow and prosper without having to repeat the same mistake over and over.