HAMPTONS REAL ESTATE, SOUTHAMPTON, NY

A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION???...WHO DOES THAT ANYMORE?

I stopped making New Year's Resolutions because I have never kept one! Gone are the days when I would take great care in picking out a New Year's resolution---I never had any luck in keeping them so I discarded that old idea several years back...

Now, I have one that I have already put to good use and this is it: I AM OPEN AND WILLING TO LEARN NEW WAYS OF SEEING AND DOING THINGS!

In this "New World" that we live in today I am finding that the one constant  is that we need to be open and willing to LEARN at every opportunity...Not just our Continuing Ed courses, but in our everyday conversations and communication with people and in our search for improved ways to get business.

• LEARNING is essential to attract new relationships and new business!
• LEARNING can be done at any moment and can be done all the time if we are OPEN to it.
• WILLINGNESS is the other factor to the learning process--if we are OPEN and WILLING to learn, we are more receptive and more able to absorb new information.

This may seem elementry, however, I know there have been times when I was closed to other ideas than the ones I was currently using. I took a stand that was very solid and it did not bode well for me in the process of seeing NEW possiblities

EXAMPLE: This just happened yesterday at my office.

I walked in the front door yesterday morning and the AA was standing there with a big smile and she said "Look at these new window Photos!" I looked and had an immediate negative response because they looked so different from what we had been doing with the window photos....they were bordered with stark white versus the "Southampton Blue" that was used since 2003!

"I hate them!" I said and I went into my office and sat down....a few minutes later I went back out to the front and looked at the windows where the new photos had just replaced the old photos. Expecting to see a big change and expecting to "Hate" it, I looked at the presentation.

As I looked, I MADE myself turn on my objectivity--I looked and let my mind stop the chatter of "Look at those ugly photos--there is no color, no interesting attention drawing the eye...."

Then it hit me. As I looked at these new pictures, I actually "got" why the marketing department had chosen the stark white for the borders of the photographs.

In advertising, there used to be a mantra: "Lots of White Space is the key to getting your ad to pull" and as I looked at our new photo presentation, that is what I saw! Lots of White Space around these beautiful photos made them "pop" to the observers attention.

If I had not opened my mind and been willing to push against the initial negative reaction, I would not have seen  the change as a postive one---a change that is so subtle yet so dramatic to the way the eye is drawn to the photos.

I immediately told the AA that I loved the way they looked, and why---I also told her I was wrong in the way I had initially reacted and then I told her why... Then, I told her the story that I just told you.

LEARNING is a process, a never ending process of information in and information out--if we do not see the postive in change then we will never be willing to change!

In life, change is a "given"!

ARE YOU OPEN AND WILLING TO MAKE A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION THAT CAN BRING IN NEW BUSINESS AND IMPROVE YOUR PERSONAL LIFE???

LET US KNOW WHAT YOUR RESOLUTION IS FOR 2012!