Pause

One of my mentors, Jeff, says, “Sloooooooow down.”

I have heard him say it so many times I often don’t hear it anymore.

The last two days I was participating in a group workshop he was leading. On Thursday we spent one session working through a particular topic - one that required people to stand up and share a specific instance and reflect on what was present for them in the moment. After the fourth or fifth time, something obvious hit me, but I had not noticed it before.

As people stood up to share, they often rushed right through the story, missing the insight they were looking for.

Jeff would stop them and say, “Sloooooooow down. Pause.”

Then they would start talking really fast again.

Jeff would say, “Sloooooooow down. Pause.”

You know, like stop for a moment and take a breath. 

They would pause. They would look for a moment, and then come up with something totally new that they didn’t see before. 

Pausing usually doesn’t take more than five seconds. 

Watching Jeff interact with these participants was incredibly illuminating for me.

Fast forward to the following morning, when - before day two started - I was leading one of my group coaching calls.

A participant was sharing a situation from the week, and we were role-playing/rehashing it on the call. We got through three-fourths of it and stopped. It was apparent that he had missed the point because he was...rushing! Rather, he was not pausing. He was not stopping to take a breath - literally. Had he done that, he would have seen that he was off course.

As you are reading this, it likely occurs as, “So what?” You might even be thinking that none of what I am saying makes any sense. On the other hand, I had an incredible epiphany (and I think the others on the call did, too). PAUSING is a secret access to listening!

Here is what I have come to believe:

The quality of your business will never exceed the quality of your relationships.

The quality of your relationships will never exceed the quality of your conversations.

The quality of your conversations will never exceed the quality of your listening.

Most people are not as good listeners as they think they are. And, if you are rushing, anxious, worried, or upset - you are probably not pausing. If you are not pausing, you are not looking “newly.”

How do I know?

If you are moving fast, you are referencing what you already know.

If you don’t know something, you almost always have to pause to inquire.

As I said a few weeks ago, the moment you say “I know,” game over.

I am absolutely convinced that the work I have been doing this year with my clients is making an enormous difference in the quality of their business. Most of the industry is chasing more; my clients are getting better.

Back to the course I was at. While it was not specific to real estate, a few agents were there. 

I was speaking to one of them about the goals we were setting for the next six months. They said to me, “My goal is to make the phone ring.” I replied flippantly, “That’s not how that works.”

They looked at me, huffed, and said, “I am doing it anyway.”

Sure.

Real estate is a relationship business. You can do everything to avoid this fact, but ultimately, if you want to be better, and if you want to move faster, and if you want to charge more, and if you want to do your business with less effort - it is the quality of your relationships. You have to be the one to be responsible for the quality of the relationship. You have to be willing to reach out and care.

This same agent told me that they coached with a well-known coach, and that the coaching works. Right. It works if you go around and chase and convince and manipulate and do all the other stuff. It does work.

But it does not fulfill. It does not satisfy. There is no quality in that chase. There is no authentically trusting relationship when there is a pretense of caring. There is no authentic trust when the game is to get someone to “sign on the line that is dotted.”

Right before I had that conversation with that real estate agent, I was on the phone with one of my wife’s friends (during a break from the course). He has been struggling to sell a home for almost two years. He was unsure what to do about his current agent. We had an incredibly authentic and transparent conversation. 

After about 15 minutes, I said, “Schedule a time to talk to him. Have a conversation to see if he is 100% committed, excited, and enrolled in getting this home sold (finally) before the end of the year. If you don’t get that he is 100% on board, or that you can't trust him implicitly to guide you to the finish line, then you know your answer.”

He said to me, “Wow, I never thought about that. That is great counsel.”

I know. 

(By the way, that is not what most other coaches and trainers would instruct you to do - instead, it would be all about getting the seller to drop his agent and sign with you right now.)

But seriously, isn’t great counsel the point? Real estate is hard. Or, as Robert C. Solomon and Fernando Flores wrote in Building Trust, “An authentic trusting relationship can withstand all sorts of mishaps and disappointments with no diminution of trust.” Real estate is nothing but mishaps and disappointments. It takes commitment and skill to preserve the relationship. It takes being a different kind of professional. Being that kind of professional is distinct and separates you as someone worth hiring.