Coaching Businesses and Life, a view from Long Beach

More Of The Same For Real Estate

The real estate news is still as frustrating as it was a year ago... Nothing much is happening, prices are continuing to drop and many sellers are still hiding their heads in the sand.

So the question is what will it take? We are stuck at an incredible point in time never witnessed before. Sellers want to sell high in a downturn market, buyers look for a bargain, lenders don't want to lend money when prices go down and get stuck with overvalued homes, and Realtors try to stay afloat. What will it take?

You can watch here on Calculated Risk, Robert Shiller talking with Bob O'Brien of Barron's about the changing psychology of homebuyers. It's interesting because Shiller is pretty much neutral although he has attracted the ire of those overly optimistic in real estate.

Wish For The Next Star Trek Series

Ah, Star Trek... guilty pleasure or hope of a better future?

It's funny when people see I like Star Trek, they always say: "So, you;'e a Star Trek fan!". It's a strange question because what automatically comes to my mind when I think of a Star trek fan is someone who has a uniform in his closet. Well, I don't.

I like Star Trek for its positive vision of the future, both on a technical aspect but also on a philosophical one. Can you imagine a society with no money? A society where we work for the betterment of ourselves. Complete responsibility. A society where you work according to your aspirations and worth instead of a regular 9 to 5 job that pays taxes and rent. Tantalizing!

I grew up on the Original Star Trek so seeing a Vulcan near command of a starship is a must. That's why it took me a long time to warm up to The Next Generation. Even though I loved Voyager, somehow I feel we still need a Vulcan at the side of a calm, cool and collected human. Deep Space 9 was up to a good start with some pretty far away esoteric stuff.

So my wish for the next Star Trek series is the mix of human culture of the first series, the mix of extraterrestrial race of the Next Generation, the cool in control, non-emotional human Cpt Picard and the bonding of the Voyager crew. I never got into Enterprise too much because humans are portrayed as over emotional. Last I checked, those people who walked the surface of the moon were pretty collected and together. And since the next series should be an evolution, let's throw in some spirituality like Deep Space 9 started but never captured. It gave depth and character.

So Hollywood big wigs, are you listening? I'm no normal fan, I just love future thinking philosophies that portray a better tomorrow. It gives us hope and something to strive for when the only alternatives are low human quality reality shows and negative news. Thank you in advance.

ROI On Coaching

I found a great study on the return on investment on coaching.

168 companies were surveyed by Boston-based Clear Rock, and found coaching to be the second-most-used
strategy for retaining middle managers. For employers, improving leadership may be the primary focus of coaching programs. Executives also expect that coaching will increase productivity and aid retention through employee development and increased job satisfaction.

A Gallup survey found that companies with coaching strategies have attained higher profits (27%) and a 50% greater possibility of lower turnover, with a 56% improvement in customer loyalty.

A report from International Personnel Management states that workforce training with coaching increases productivity by 88%.

And…

One executive coaching firm found that coaching programs delivered an average return on investment of 5.7 times the initial investment in a typical executive coaching assignment. Among the benefits to companies that provided coaching to executives were improvements in:
Productivity (reported by 53% of executives)
Quality (48%)
Organizational strength (48%)
Customer service (39%)
Reducing customer complaints (34%)
Retaining executives who received coaching (32%)
Cost reductions (23%)
Bottom-line profitability (22%)
The benefits to executives who received coaching include improved:
Working relationships with direct reports (reported by 77% of executives)
Working relationships with immediate supervisors (71%)
Teamwork (67%)
Working relationships with peers (63%)
Job satisfaction (61%)
Conflict reduction (52%)
Organizational commitment (44%)
Working relationships with clients (37%)

"...coaching programs delivered an average return on investment of 5.7 times the initial investment..." need I say more?

Source: "Executive Coaching Yields Return On Investment Of Almost Six Times Its Cost, Says Study"
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 4, 2001

So Which Numbers To Look At In Real Estate?

The debate over numbers, indexes and median prices still rage on.

Statisticians use numbers and manipulate them to say whatever they wish. Whether it's hyping a down market, as in the case with NAR or giving a more positive twitch from the OFHEO, one thing comes to mind, figures don't lie but liars can figure!

In this post, Matt Blackman over at Seeking Alpha takes a look at different indexes. He takes a pretty accurate snapshot of this industry that is desperately trying to regain some balance.

"Median prices are subject to the many vagaries of changes in the market. For example, when a market begins rising, median prices tend to be skewed lower from the sales of a greater number of lower priced starter homes as first time buyers enter the market. Conversely at the tail end of the bull market and as it begins to deteriorate, the luxury home market is generally the last to roll over skewing median prices higher. As the market has broken down, median prices have rapidly declined as the sales of the more expensive homes began to fall in earnest."

This passage explains very well how we cannot consider median prices as an accurate reflection of the market. It is a median price, no more, no less.

Hi, What Do You Do?

I get people to think outside the box.

I get people to a place where they can stop, raise their heads outside their framework and see other alternatives they might not take into consideration. Have you ever called a friend or someone when you have a problem or a dilemma to bounce ideas off of? That's what a coach does to a certain extent, coaches like me are professionally trained to be neutral and only concentrate on your highest aspirations, not the goals themselves. It sounds tricky and subtle but it is really all about you being the best you can be, not the achievement itself.

I had to explain to someone in less than a second what I do. I help people think outside their boxes. I get them to stretch their boundaries and look at their situations from a different perspective. I listen to business owners and their problems. Then, I ask questions and together we find solutions. After that, creating strategies are easy.

That's what I do, I stimulate people to think outside the box.

Accountability...

It's funny how that word elicits different feelings for different people.

When it comes to accountability, people come in two flavors, those who want it and those who fear it. Yet, accountability is a normal part of life and a healthy function of any society.

Many of my clients come to me in order to be pushed and be held accountable. They don't have the time to push themselves. They turn to a professional like to me to nudge them forward, to push them, to ask more of them. Accountability is part of any session with a coach. I will ask you do something big in the coming week. And the best part is that you do the work, not someone else. It's your private triumph!

For some, accountability is a scary word. Yet, once you look at it, it really is about being yourself, doing the "right thing" and moving forward. We all chose, one way or another. We make mistakes and learn. Being accountable helps us gage our motives, our reasoning and mostly our integrity. How together are you really when you make a business decision? How aligned are you with your aspirations and integrity are you when you commit to something?

Working with a coach can be a gentle way to get over the fear of commitment and accountability. A while back, I was stuck and frozen. I couldn't go forward for fear of making more mistakes and taken on consequences I didn't want. I had backed myself to a wall and was gripped by fear. I couldn't stand to have yet another failure and have to own up to it. With my first Coach Donna Schilder, we worked on this in a gentle way. I soon began to build my confidence up and accepted again that life is a learning experience. I just started to dive in again and it was the best thing I could have ever done.

There is a saying: "When at a crossroad, just take it!". Accountability gets better and better when you are aligned with yourself, your principles and are in integrity. Accountability then becomes reward.

The Middle Road... Less traveled

When do you put your foot down without going overboard? When do you let things happen? When do you let things go and others not?

These are good questions to work on with a Coach. As I am going through my advanced classes, we not only learn how to incorporate these questions in our sessions with clients but to also go through them. After all, if you have resolved these things, it becomes easier to work on them with others.

I had two great classes this month, a personal questioning and a business oriented one. The personal was about understanding your boundaries, defining them and setting standards. It's not only interesting to learn this but also to learn how to use them in my sessions. Best yet is I actually have to work on it myself. It is a great insight into yourself. The business class is very interesting because we look at live cases.

So we find ourselves in front of this tricky question, when is enough enough? When do you say stop to a person or a situation? What is your toleration limit? What great questions to work with a coach.

So I ask you, why is my title called the middle road, the one less traveled? The first one who gives me the correct answer will have a month of coaching on me.

We're Such A Polite Society...

Boy, we can pride ourselves on being such a politically correct society.

After reading this post on CR, it made me smile at how scared we have become of facing truths. There are a slew of words we cannot use, description for objects and people and situations we cannot name so as to not offend sensitive minds. The latest one that makes me smile is the big R word. Yes, recession. A recession is normal. Anyone living under the idea that everything always goes up is delusional... no wait, I forgot about taxes :)

With the exuberant years we witnessed in real estate where prices went so far up it crashed our economy, people are afraid to use the word recession. Recession, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary means:
noun, 1 a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.

I will quote this ancient philosophy again, the swing to the right is accompanied with the swing to the left...

I wonder what have we become? Surely I wouldn't want to see racial slurs being used anymore but I feel we've become over-sensitive, over politically correct. We don't have problems anymore, we have "issues". Half a dozen of this or six of that is still the same. So I guess in the meantime, in order to avoid panic and a reality check, we will use synomyms. It's funny when you look at it this way.

Oh and p.s., bravo for this Realtor to say enough is enough. When I walked in a house for sale, I made sure my clients asked not only how long have this house been on the market but when was the last time it was on the market.

Is California Ready for the Days Ahead?

So is California doing everything it can to avoid what many people are hushing... the R word?

According to Calculated Risk the Governor is doing something. He ordered additional cuts across the state bureaucracy that will slow down state hiring and nonessential service contracts. This could save $100 million by June 30.

Hum, what I would do with $100 million...

It's good to see some politicians acting up. The last thing I care to see are unprepared officials.

The Fine Line With Personal Property

There is a fine between protecting and invasion. This article chilled me.

The article mentions how some people have had their laptops taken away from them at customs before leaving the country. Some people have been forced to give away their passwords. As you can imagine, many professionals feel extremely uneasy if they have sensitive files in their computers.

No doubts we have crooks in our society and we need to protect ourselves. A better solution would be to have a stronger education system so that we should do away with most deviances. The other important question is: Should everyone be assumed guilty?

The strange thing is that there are so many technological solutions to this, such as USB thumb drives to store your information when you travel or establishing a VPN (private secure connection to your home based computer) in order to work from anywhere.