Sometimes an apparently unsolvable situation can be solved by looking at it from a different angle. I don’t mean getting more data about it, necessarily, but really having a different viewpoint or angle of observation. This is a concept that I have known for a long time, but it came back to me during a recent trip a did with my family on the water.
Aside from the spectacular view of Clearwater Bay, looking a the town from the water rather than vice versa made me understand a lot more about its real characteristics and potential as well as viewing in a new light the personal and business life I am living.
A bird sanctuary in Clearwater Bay.
I have seen for example that there are infinite ways to merge business and entertainment. The boat we were on is operated by some spin off of the Clearwater Aquarium. It’s part of the Aquarium’s duty to check on the wild life in the bay area and see what fish is present where and at what time. They want to make sure that certain species are thriving and that the bay can support wild life in general.
At a recent presentation by another real estate investor who is also devoted to extreme marathons a concept struck my mind and stood there waiting for me to fully understand how it applied to my life. The rest of the presentation was not very informative, but one sentence stood out: When you do an extreme marathon you start slow and then slow down as you progress along the competition. The speaker told actually that most of the winners of this specific marathon where people above 50 years of age and mostly women. Younger men would charge into the race and be gone much before reaching the middle of it. Also women seem to have a much higher resistance to pain, in addition to having patience and good sense.
Today, while spending some time with my family, I realized how much we have gone through and how much pressure I have put on myself and them as a result of all the projects that we have done in the last 13 months. Changing continent, language, house, business and culture is a heck of a change and the fact that we have all been pushing to achieve immediate and top results right away added additional pressure.
My sons Alex and Stefano jumping in the sky on Clearwater Beach. Slow down for then soaring high. Read the rest of this entry »
Me and my wife Maria just had an unexpected encounter. We were out doing some shopping in a produce store and we had just bought some broad been, a type of vegetable that is typically Italian and very much liked in Rome, the city where my wife was born. We were approached by a lady who wanted to know how my wife was going to cook them and explained she had Italian origins: her father was from the area of Messina, in Sicily.
After a short conversation on recipes, she insisted in inviting us to a community that apparently is over 170 members strong in the area where we live here in Florida and that is composed of American ladies who have Italian origins. The also have a site, named liado.net, where LIADO stands for “Le Italo Americane Di Oggi” – The Italian-American Women of Today.
Le Italo Americane Di Oggi, associazione fondata nel 1993
They have weekly meeting not too far from where we live and this lady, Mary Jane, said she would love my wife to come over so that they could learn again some Italian as they are loosing it.
I will be able to also go in some special occasion: this is strictly a women-only association. It felt like we had found a little piece of home in America. It sounds kind of strange and one would imagine this kind of feelings not be exiting in a modern age, but indeed it is pleasant to find people who have taken the time to network together and build a stable association on some solid roots, their original family roots.
It has taken me half a century to find the right people for walking the road to my personal success. In all this time I have met many friends and colleagues, relatives and other church members. Everyone brought something in my life, but on top of everything they brought the understanding that I could never make it alone. No matter how good you are, how powerful or resourceful, you simply can’t. Period. This world isn’t built that way.
But you can’t team up with just anybody else. Like it happened to me, it can take you a very long time before you are certain to have hit the final combination, the mix of people that will bring you all the way and that will allow you to make a big jump.
And usually this will come with some experience. You can’t really tell who and what you want until you have established precisely who you don’t want. I always build relationships with full a commitment and I have found out that the wrong people, usually, go away by themselves.
Stefano, Maria and Alex showing proudly the potato dumplings they have prepared themselves and that are ready to be cooked for dinner.
You can tell when you are on the right path by things getting simpler and the right people coming to you spontaneously. Life is all about people and business is part of life. No system will do the work for you, and the right people can always figure out a right system.
So since I have been in the US I have always been searching for the right people to team with. And I am happy to have finally found the first key resource for our American operations. His name is Terry Ogburn and he is an all American business man who has a long term experience in running and establishing several type of companies and who has a special knack at teaching and coaching people. His current title is business developer for Century 21 Grant Realty of Florida and he is helping us putting together a very advanced training project that will empower the agents of this brokerage firm with all the Web 2.0 tools they will ever need to be much more effective in their real estate selling career.
Introduction of the presentation I did at Century 21 Grant Realty with Daniele Bogiatto, with the support of Terry Ogburn and Karen Selby.
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