Direction
I was never been a big meditator. I had done it a few times in the past, but never really could figure it out or felt it helped much. Knowing how challenging it is for me to sit still, just the idea of having to do so was enough for me to never want to try. Plus, my vision of meditating was a room of monks in a monastery wearing red robes and cheap Birkenstock sandals while sitting on a worn-out yoga mat with legs crossed and hands in the universal meditation position. Not a person in their early 40s sitting in the lower level of their empty house on four coach pillows. But this is where I found myself.
After a short pep talk with myself, I closed my eyes and started doing the breathing exercises I had researched. After about five minutes of breathing, I tried to clear my mind and let it wander. This turned out to be a lot more difficult than I had imagined, but after a few minutes, I was finally able to calm my mind. Sitting there in silence, seeing nothing but darkness, I heard something in my head say, “Ok, shut the big guy down.” Then, almost instantly, I felt a calmness come over my body. Like how you feel once the anesthesia kicks in, right before you pass out. The next thing I remember was seeing a tube-looking thing right in front of me. As I debated whether to go into it or not, I heard the voice again say, “Well, don’t you gonna go?” Remembering that I was doing this to try and find what was going on with me, I knew exactly what the voice was saying, so I dove into the darkness.
Although the entrance looked like a tube, I don’t remember actually going down one. It wasn’t like being in a water slide or anything. In fact, I’m not sure what I saw, but I do remember what happened next. I heard the voice in my mind start firing off questions about what I wanted, what was I here for, what I desired, etc. The questions were designed to get me thinking and not necessarily to be answered. This went on for a while as I basically explored the depths of my mind.
I’m not sure exactly how long I had been sitting there at this point. It was almost like time sat still while I went through this exercise. I didn’t feel anything, and the outside world did not exist to me at that time. If someone broke into my house and stole something, I would never have known. This went on for a while as I explored everything. I went down different tubes labeled with names like marketing, hobbies, and selling. I saw things I had not seen in a very long time. Things from my childhood, from earlier in my sales career, relationships, etc. Then, at some point while I sat there, like almost out of nowhere, I remember everything went completely white. White, like when the sun shines into your eyes and you can’t see anything for a few seconds of time.
When the light cleared, I saw everything clearly. It was like walking out onto a stage full of huge flat-screen TVs all showing me my future one at a time. As I saw my future being played out in front of me, I felt the void melt away, and I knew exactly what I was destined to do. No more question marks. No more feeling lost. No more wondering if I would ever find my way out of this feeling. Finally, everything made sense to me. The void I had been feeling was because I believed I was meant for something greater than myself, but I had never been able to figure out what it was, so I always just put my head down and pushed forward. By 2023, the void had finally caught up to me, and I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
Then, one by one, the screens began flying past me, starting with the end (me on stage in front of thousands of people cheering as I spoke to them) and working their way to the present. When the final screen sat in front of me, it only had one thing on it. Looking at it, my direction was crystal clear: I am going to transform the real estate industry by educating Realtors at the beginning of their careers so they don’t have to go through transactions to gain experience at the expense of the consumers trusting them with the biggest decision of their lives.
And it all starts with my book.