In 1884, King Kamehameha V offered to sell a strip of land running from downtown Honolulu to Diamond Head to Mrs. Eliza Sinclair, a rancher’s widow from New Zealand, for $10,000. She looked at the land and turned down his offer because the land was not fit to raise cattle. Today that priceless piece of real estate is known as none other than Waikiki.
Real Estate is a tricky business. Sometimes good investments are clear and gains are predictable and other times it feels like the rug was tugged from the market’s very foundation. Projections are helpful but each person, as seen in the case of the rancher’s widow, has their own ideas of what makes a sound investment.
Since acquiring my real estate license more than a decade ago, I have had a dream of building a 100% referral-based business. This dream business was born out of my experience not just with real estate, but the multitude of service industries I’ve had the pleasure to own and work in. With each new sales field I realized that what I was selling was important, but even more important was how I ran my businesses.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, traveling through 22 countries with my family, was exactly the move I needed to make to build the business of my dreams. Although it felt like a step away from the business I had worked hard to build initially, it was precisely the global perspective I needed to realize my vision. This business model was something I talked about every day for over 15 years yet I couldn’t see how to achieve it until I stepped out of the race altogether. My courage to make the leap, while embroiled in the day to day, did not have enough momentum.
I had to change my relationship with change in order to change. That perspective made all the difference and could have served the rancher’s widow had she taken the time to see beyond her herd.
As of today, I am officially Senior Partner at Northwest Referral Resources, Inc., and I can facilitate some of the most deliberate decisions people make… Buying or selling a home, from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world and that is a dream realized.
