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Keeping It All Spinning

Have y’all ever seen those performers who arrange spinning plates on top of sticks? They can have a half dozen plates and bowls, all whipping around, and the audience is just holding their breath, amazed at how that performer can get everything to balance.

Let me say this—every one of us spends every day with dozens of plates spinning in the air and we’re so busy, we often don’t even realize all we’re managing. Compared to balancing the demands of work, spouses, children, extended family, church, pets, and all our other activities? Whirling a bowl around on a dowel looks pretty simple. What’s ironic is, the stakes for dropping a plate are low, but if we can’t keep up with every one of our obligations, it feels like there’s hell to pay.

That’s why today, we’re addressing the notion of creating work/life balance.

THE REALITY OF REAL ESTATE

Take Back Your Me Time

I swear, being a real estate agent can feel all-consuming, most of the time it’s 24/7 for so many of us. But long ago, I learned the hard way the importance of establishing a work/life balance.

I had been on my first vacation in just forever. A demanding client did not care that I was taking a break, and he spent that week calling me about piddly little stuff. He didn’t need anything that couldn’t have been handled by my team or waited until I returned, but this man insisted on monopolizing all my family time. He literally stole my vacation!

A few weeks later, I got him the offer of his dreams. When I called to give him that good news, that awful man told me he was on vacation and this was his family time, and he wouldn’t be dealing with me until he returned home. I was flabbergasted. He was allowed to have balance but I wasn’t? No, ma’am. I swear, my head spun around and snot flew out of my nose. I’m still not sure if I was madder at him or at myself for letting him steamroll me. Regardless, I went to his house, yanked my sign out of the ground, placed his key in the lock box, and fired him as a client.

I don’t want y’all to have to go through what I did. It’s important that you get to rest, spend time with your people, and just enjoy your life; isn’t that why we all work so hard? Now, thanks to my partnership with SignMore, you can do all that without missing out on your next big opportunity!

SignMore has a team of property receptionists by your side, there to help you by answering your calls, capturing your leads, scheduling your appointments, and more, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week! It’s all the benefits of having a full team, without the cost and management. Because SignMore isn’t about to let anyone steal your vacation.

I’m so excited to share a Glennda promo with y’all! Get started with 30% off your first three months on SignMore’s Best Value Plan.

Just visit signmore.com/glennda

_{This post is sponsored by SignMore, but as always, the thoughts and opinions are all mine.}

ONCE UPON A TIME WITH GLENNDA

Get Back in Whack

We’re all seeking balance, right? That’s our perpetual quest, because when we’re out of balance, it feels like driving a car on a flat tire.

The key to finding balance is first about understanding that every day is truly a blessing and your whole life is what you make of it. You are composed of every one of those spinning plates. You have the ability to control your life, control your destiny, more than anybody else, so you need to make sure you’re speaking kindly to yourself. Think about it—you’re the person who talks to you the most. Beating yourself up isn't going to make you believe in yourself and it’s for damn sure not going to help you find balance.

I truly struggled with the concept of balance when my kids were small because I was a single mom. There is no harder job, truly. I have such guilt that I wasn't nearly the parent that my mother was. But I was so worried about not being able to provide for my daughter Victoria that I would work to my detriment. Part of me would love to turn back time and be a better parent to my kids. Yet when I look at my daughter who is now a mother, I think to myself, You can't be too hard on yourself because you've raised an amazing woman. I don't think I can take 100% credit for the person that Victoria is today, but maybe watching me and knowing how much she was loved has given her that infinite capacity to love her own children. I didn’t have balance but I ended up with a daughter who could create her own equilibrium, and I am so thankful.

I was talking with a friend the other day and we discussed what we would do differently if we were raising our kids again. Of course, hindsight's 20/20 but you can't live in the pockets of regret in your life. That is too heavy a burden to bear. All I have is right now, so that’s why I'm putting in a swimming pool so it will lure my kids and my grandkids to my house more than they already are here. When I die, nobody is gonna look back and say, “Glennda lost that listing at 123 Banana Street,” and care. What my grandson is gonna remember is the beach trips and the times that we played Pac-Man and when we colored superheroes. Those are the things that matter. Creating those moments of a lifetime with your family are what count.

Right now, my son doesn't care that I'm TikTok famous. He does not give a hoot about that. A few months ago, I spent three days filming right in a row at my house. One of the ways I try to achieve balance is to schedule everything in big blocks. But in the middle of all this, my son comes upstairs and he's just kind of hanging out and I know he wants to spend some time with me, yet I can't stop what I'm doing and give him my attention. At that moment, I had to reassess. So, I sat down with Denver, my collaborator, and I said, “Look, I can't stack the days like this. It's time away from my family, it's time away from my business, it's time away from my team, and those are my priorities.”

My advice is to block time in your calendar to do your work, but I also want to implore you to block time in your calendar to focus on what's important to you, whether it's your family or your friends or your health. Just whatever is important to you is where your focus needs to be. Don't be distracted from something you should be devoted to because your most valuable asset isn't your time, it's your attention.

Block your time so that you can give your attention to the things that are important to you while you have the opportunity. Oh, my stars, my son is 22, he's not always going to live in the basement. He's not always going to want my attention and once that moment is gone, I can never get it back, no matter how famous I am, no matter how much money I make, I'm never getting that moment in time back.

If you want to achieve that balance, be very clear on what your priorities are. Make time for them. Once you make time for them, you need to be present when you are in that appointment, whether it's an appointment with your work, an appointment with your family, or an appointment with yourself.

Now, sometimes you’ll find yourself in a slow period, and you’re worried that you don’t have enough plates to spin. We just came out of our slowest time in Atlanta, which are those few weeks in the summer before school starts. If you're running a business, you have to spend your time talking to your people, asking questions not only about where they’re winning, but where they’re struggling. Find out how you can help them, as your attention will help them balance. I talked to Elizabeth, who’s on my team, and she was distressed about how quiet it’s been. I said, “Elizabeth, we have this conversation every year in July and August. We already know that nobody is calling about real estate during that period. But what you have is a great opportunity to work on your business, do the operational stuff that you never ever have time to do.” So, it’s not just about spinning plates, it’s about finding the optimum time to spin them, for all of us.

There is a master class taught by the former CEO of Pepsi, Indra Nooyi. She talks about how showing off you're busy doesn't make you important. In fact, the people who are the most productive are the ones who let go of their ego and delegate. No one will applaud louder if you’re spinning more plates than everyone else. The happiest and the most successful surround themselves with people—and services—that they trust to take care of things.

So, sometimes the key to balance is letting a plate drop… and allowing someone else to catch it.

@glenndabaker

What does it really mean to be rich? #GlenndaBaker #RealEstate #AtlantaRealEstate #Rich #Wealth #Happiness #BalancedLife

GLENNDA’S GURUS

Travel with Class

Oh my stars and stripes, y'all, we could not have a better guru today! Because nothing says creating a work/life balance more than being able to travel and get away from it all. (While our calls are still being answered, of course.)

I had the great pleasure of speaking with another Atlantan–Zachary Abel. Do y'all recognize his name and face from TV? If not, you definitely know him as the creator of MonkeyMiles.com and as the author of First Class Travel on a Budget, which are resources that will help us achieve our travel dreams by rewarding us for the money we already spend every day.

Zachary is so inspiring because he made lemonade out of lemons in 2015 when he was recovering from back surgery. That's when he decided to lean into his finance background and help us regular mortals figure out how to achieve our travel dreams for pennies on the dollar. And we're so glad he did! So let's hear what he has to say!

GLENNDAISM

Words of Wisdom