Chris Nichols
By Chris Nichols
We all remember the New York Times best seller, “Who Moved My Cheese.” Published in 1998, it’s a great book by Spencer Johnson about change in the workplace and in life. A couple days ago I popped into a Borders bookstore, I was drawn in by the 50 percent off signs, as this was one of many stores that was being shut down as part of their bankruptcy. The irony wasn’t lost on me when one of the first books I saw had a cartoon image of a rather large cat on a lazy boy with the title above it, “Who Moved My Mouse!”
We see it all around us, Borders is just one example of a company that didn’t see the change coming as more and more consumers have switched their purchasing habits from actual books to ebooks. We are seeing similar transitions in our very own industry, the cheese has definitely moved, and the cat is trying to find that mouse searching for the cheese!
I’m in San Diego right now at a real estate conference and had the opportunity to listen to Troy Hazard tell the interesting story of the Asian financial crisis that impacted his business in the 1990s. His message was simple, as he asked us only to remember three simple words – “Change or Die.” Troy hit us over the head when he said, “Stop buying in to the dream that things are never going to change. Things ALWAYS change!”
Some key suggestions I took away were:
1. Take responsibility, the first step with most things in life!
2. Stop thinking you don’t have the time. We choose where, when and how we invest our time.
3. Eliminate all the things you can’t change or influence. Don’t worry about what you can’t control.
4. Don’t use the excuse “It’s different for me” – It’s NOT!
5. We’ve all seen corporate vision statements, what’s your personal vision statement?
6. Want to be more successful? Build better relationships!
Now go find that mouse looking for the cheese that moved!
Chris Nichols is a full time REALTOR® with Prudential Utah Elite Real Estate in Orem, Utah. Learn more about Chris at: buysellinvestutah.com, utahrepro.com or @utahREpro
Comments 4
excellent chris! excellent!!! thank you SO much for your leadership my friend!!
Wonderful Chris !!!!!! really motivated me and taught me to make the dreams into reality
Chris, That was excellent post. I live in a relatively small town and I would so that 70% of our current Realtors (or real estate agents, since most are not NAR members) are 60 and older and do not see the need to change some of their practice habits.
yawn. More coach babble.