Why I’m a Realtor
For years I’ve been writing about real estate but now I’m going to get more personal and let you know why I’m a Realtor and have continued to do this for over 10 years.
Throughout my various careers there has been a common thread – helping people through difficulties and/or to achieve something they want to attain. I’ve done this by learning as much as I can about a specific field that can be complicated or confusing to others so I can assist them when they need help.
This started in my first career as a Chiropractor. I was raised by parents who started their search for answers to their health in the 1960s by reading books on nutrition by Adelle Davis and getting Chiropractic adjustments before it was an accepted health care field. So I grew up taking vitamins, getting Chiropractic adjustments and taking very few prescription drugs (a smart thing especially after nearly dying at age 18 months from a Tetanus shot I was given even after the nurse/doctors were told I was allergic).
Though not my initial choice for a profession, I went to Chiropractic College in St. Louis from 1979 – 1982 and became very excited about what I learned concerning how the body actually functions and what is needed to maintain or regain health. I received my degree as a Doctor of Chiropractic on my 23rd birthday and was looking forward to using what I learned in order to help people who were not getting helping from standard medical care or who did not want to risk the side effects from prescription drugs or surgery when there was a possibility of another solution.
It was very fulfilling to help people who had been to numerous doctors and tried all sorts of treatments with no success and use what I had learned about Chiropractic, Acupuncture and Nutrition to get them out of pain and be able to function normally again. I also spent a lot of time educating my patients so that they better understood how their bodies functioned, how their diet affected their health, why they needed to supplement their diet with vitamins and minerals, what they could do to maintain good health as well as why prescription drugs adversely affected their health and should not be relied upon unless they were truly necessary. This helped me realize that helping people with their problems based on what I knew was only part of the big picture, the other part was helping people understand more so that they could have more control over a part of their lives that they were having difficulties with because of what they didn’t know.
In my next career as a management consultant to Chiropractors throughout the U.S. and Canada I helped other doctors with what I learned from doing extensive training on business management to address the business difficulties they were having so that they could provide quality health care to more people while reaching their professional and personal goals. What I did with these doctors also included an educational aspect so that they understood why I made certain recommendations and so that they would be able to work out solutions in those areas in the future through a better understanding of how those areas worked.
Now, as a Realtor, I get to help people with the challenges they come up against when trying to buy or sell a home, condo or townhouse. I have done extensive training to understand all the different scenarios that can arise in real estate transaction (and continue to do so) and I focus on finding out what each client really wants and needs and then work towards achieving that for them while making things go as smoothly for them as possible.
As with my other careers, it’s really all about the people and helping them by using what I know, learning more so that I’m prepared for anything that can come up and by providing information so that my clients better understand about real estate not only for their current situation for but any future ones as well.
I continue to enjoy what I do and am enthused about it – not because of technology or other such advancements – but because I get to work with a lot of really wonderful people, help them get what they want and assist them in improving their understanding of the buying and selling process. I also like challenges and finding ways to overcome them – another common factor throughout my careers – and I get lots of opportunities in working out solutions for my clients that no one else had thought of (like finding the email addresses of and contacting the senior executives of a major bank to get their assistance on a short sale for my client when the bank’s short sale department was about to derail the deal).
The greatest pleasure for me as a Realtor is seeing someone buy their first home or a retirement condo or a place to live when relocating here that they then gives them years of enjoyment or provides them with a safe and comfortable place to raise their family; or to help someone sell their home so they can be closer to their family or start a new job; or assist someone who is facing foreclosure sell their home and remove the stress they’ve been under.
So my career as a Realtor, like my previous careers, is something I do every day and enjoy doing because it fits with what personally motivates me and because of the people I am fortunate to work with.