Sometimes it's easy to forget how young America really is.  Our nation is so vibrant and full of promise that optimism sometimes hinders a mature grasp of reality.  America is the land of the Free and the Brave, the nation in which cowboys ride into the sun speckled range and the Rocky, though bruised and bloodied, always manages to win the sparring match in the end. 

It is that irrepressible enthusiasm that gives us the strength to recover in spite of horrifying setbacks and defeats and to will things to go our way even when the deck of cards is stacked against us. 

The fact that America has been able to do this so successfully is a testament to her relative youthful vigor amongst the sisterhood of nation states. 

When you look at ancient civilizations in Africa, the Middle East and the Far East, you appreciate the fact that a few hundred years is youthful against a backdrop of many centuries.

In some ways we're like teenagers; not really believing that certain types of mistakes have the capacity to change us on a fundamental level.  A teenager may experiment with drugs and sex not realizing that the wrong needle or partner could fundamentally cost him or her their life.  Teenagers are young and naive enough to be willing to roll the dice and hope that they can get away with it.

However, the dice of life is unpredictable.  And youth rarely calculates the odds of a catastrophe.  The recklessness which has precipitated the crisis on Wall Street is a reminder of the fact that our collective actions can have ramifications far beyond our limited perspective.  The thing about experience is that it forces you to grow up.  A kid who impregnates his girlfriend becomes a father by default...readiness for the responsibility is not the criteria...the ability to have sex is.

In recent years, our ability to access easy and abundantly available credit has been about Availability, not Responsibility.  Through every crisis, our country has learned something and we'll learn some lessons this time too.  That's guaranteed.  The real issue is if we'll learn the lessons which we need to learn to help us to mature and grow up.

Here are 5 Lessons Which I hope that this crisis will force us to grapple with.

1.  Using Credit for Disposable Items Never Makes Sense

I'll never forget the exact moment I saw someone whip out a credit card to pay for a grocery purchase!  It was about 15 years ago and prior to that time, most stores in my area only allowed cash or checks.  I remember wondering WHY someone would be buying groceries which would be gone in a week with a credit card on which the balance could last for years.

I remember discussing this with an associate who told me that it was merely a matter of convenience; most people would pay off their card at the end of the month and furthermore this action could accrue points to be used towards the gain of free stuff.  That was such a crock.  Whether it was groceries or meals in a restaurant, the vast majority of us are still paying for meals we ate a long, long, time ago.  Meals which have long exited our systems.

2.  If you can't Pay For it...A Credit Card does not change that fact

There's a type of security which comes with having a plastic magic wand in ones wallet.  I didn't know how strong this power was until I tore up my credit cards in my early twenties.  As I prepared to walk out the door, I realized that I was nervous and shaky...I didn't have the security of my cards.  That was a huge wake up call for me and it changed my life.  I realized that I had believed a lie in thinking that just because I could charge something meant that I could afford it.  So, not true.

3.  Creative Accounting does not make a big Fat Zero disappear

Asset valuation became a game of pretense that was so extraordinary that in the last stages of our demise, we began to totally imagine it.  Just imagine you make...X Dollars.  Just imagine you're worth X amount.  If you say so, we'll believe you.  In fact our bankers started imagining with us and giving us money which we could not prove that we could repay.  Imagining things is a great childhood game.  Grown ups deal with reality.  Less fun, but far safer when it comes to financial well being.

4.  Consequences are Real and Don't go away Quickly

The thing about a Consequence is that it tends to stick around.  That's not necessarily a bad thing if one understands that the reason that Consequences exist is to teach us the Lessons of Life.  Since youth tends to gloss over important lessons, the message that Consequences are sent to teach us almost always require time and repetition. 

5.  Being Mature requires having the Courage to take Responsibility for your Mistakes

This one may be the hardest lesson to swallow.  Watching or listening to any news or media right now is to watch the 'Blame Game' in full swing.  Everybody is blaming someone else and pointing fingers.  No one seems willing to take responsibility. 

Witness the specter of a government which refuses to focus on solutions for fear of being blamed for taking action.  Immaturity plays out in the world of nations in much the same way that it does in our personal life.  We ignore stuff that we need to pay attention to, we hope that it goes away, we continue doing things that we know are not healthy and then try to find anyone to blame but ourselves. 

The sad truth is that until we come to terms with our actions, we can't move on; we remain mired in the sticky mess as we wallow in self pity.  True Maturity means having the courage to say, " I was Wrong, I made a mistake and I will do what I need to do to take care of it." No blame, no finger pointing, no accusing, no hiding...just plain old fashioned transparency. 

picture is courtesy of respres photostream on flickr

Copyright 2008  Audu Real Estate  All Rights Reserved

A familiar ritual at the dining table as a youngster involved being reminded time and time and again to mind my P's and Q's.  What was commonly referred to as Table Manners were a set a rules that adults felt we needed to know to avoid embarrassing them in polite company.  Thank God their persistence helped to ensure that we didn't become little hellions.

Rules of engagement are a necessary part of social interaction as well as business.  As real estate professionals explore the online world, it is often difficult to clearly understand what the rules are because the context changes so quickly.  It was barely a decade ago that the most progressive agents were those who had a website.  Today, a blog is a pre-requisite for the web savvy practitioner.

Therein lies the confusion.  Do the rules really change just because the context does?  Are there some things that will not change regardless of how drastically technological advancements redefine the business landscape?  I would argue that YES, there are foundational issues which will not change inspite of the shifting sands which continually realign various aspects of the real estate industry.

The first foundation is the Code of Ethics, a standard which defines the rules and practise of professional behavior for real estate practitioners. 

The Code of Ethics stands alongside the laws of each State to support the ethical conduct which should define every real estate transaction.  Although the Code of Ethics is modified from time to time to encompass new arenas such as the Internet, it remains the bedrock solid foundation which defines the conduct of the well mannered agent.

As new agents continue to funnel into the business and more experienced practitioners find themselves working in unfamiliar territory, there are some additional qualities which will continue to provide solid guidance for success.   I refer to these as the Three P's of Priority, Perseverance and Patience.

Proper Priorities

Knowing what your priorities should be is the biggest single factor which determines success or failure for many agents.  There are only a few things that actually make money for a successful agent.  These are: listing or selling a home, prospecting for new business, following up on leads and asking for the appointments necessary build relationships and build our business.  Everything else that we do, including attending closings, is a result of the above activities.  When we loose sight of this and spend little time on these basic activities, our business is bound to suffer.

Perseverance

Persevering involves keeping on, in spite of, not because of.  The old saying 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going' is true.  Many agents give up far too quickly.  This is where it can be helpful to talk to other successful people or read their books.  One will quickly discover that everyone has struggled in one fashion or another.  It's a fact of life.  Persevering is a pre-requisite for success because it proves that you are willing to do what it takes to get the prize...your goal of a successful career.

Patience

Patience develops character.  I'm often amused to hear the term 'overnight' success.  To the individual who supposedly achieves this feat, it most often feels like a very long, long, night!  We tend to refer to the achievement as an overnight success because we are unfamiliar with the journey that enabled someone to gain the status that they now enjoy.  Upon closer examination, it is often revealed to have been a far longer more involved process than a cursory glance would suggest.  Patience is what enables what you are doing to mature to the point where it becomes a fruitful endeavor.

A wise man was once quoted as noting that 'there is nothing new under the sun.'  Knowing HOW to do something is as important as having a clear understanding of WHAT one should actually be doing.  Regardless of how quickly technology shifts our business, the solid foundations of a business built on Right Priorities, Perseverance and Patience are the tools that a determined professional will need to cultivate in order to thrive and succeed.

Copyright 2008  Audu Real Estate  All Rights Reserved

Most of us emerge on planet earth with all the stridency that our 8 to 9 pounds of flesh can muster.  So much so that the infant who emerges without a lusty yell is promptly  spanked on the rump to produce one.  After all...one has arrived.  Say so!

Sideline living is against the grain of human ego.  A newborn baby in a household quickly demands just about everyones' waking and non-waking moments. 

Babies need to be fed at regular intervals, burped, changed, bathed, soothed, entertained...in short, paid attention to at all times. 

While we relish the joy of observing the expansion of new life in a newborn, this quickly becomes old by the time the child hits the terrible twos.  Who can blame the toddler?  Relinquishing prime real estate territory at 'the center of a universe of ONE' cannot be easy.

But, I suspect that the inclinations of the toddler do not fully disappear.  In most of us, they simply retreat underground; temporarily masked by the need to adhere to social norms but always eager to assume center stage if and when the opportunity arises.  A silent witness to the most debilitating form of human suffering...the deep yearning to be given permission to live life with gusto.

Several years ago, I wrote a devotional which I shared with some staff members at a local church.  The mediation was entitled "Living in the Margins."  At the time, we were attending a church which had gone through a number of significant transitions which had left many feeling somewhat fragmented emotionally and spiritually. It was a feeling of disconnection and disorientation...a struggle to regain ones' footing; to reclaim ones' place.

It was around Easter and I was drawn to the story of the Crucifixion of Jesus from a perspective that I had never considered before.  I began to study the sideline characters in this well known narratives ...the possible stories of individuals  who garnered few eloquent sermons.  These ordinary folks whose contributions remain on the sideline of of the most important titanic drama in human history. 

It was their stories that engaged the imagination of my mind...

I started thinking about what it must have been like to be merely passing through Jerusalem and then suddenly conscripted, without the benefit of hire, to carry the cross of a man who was stumbling to His the death like an ordinary criminal. 

Then there was Pilate's wife, a well to do lady.  She had a nightmare about the man her husband was about to sentence to death.  This nighttime terror haunted her soul's dreams and forced an urgent entreaty to warn Pilate about her apprehension. 

Witness the women who were considered as little more than chattel to be owned by men...following at a distance, and watching the last gasping breath of the Son of God. 

I thought of a rich man who gave up his burial plot for a bruised body to be laid...a body which had been publicly scorned by passersby.

As my thoughts wove around the potential stories of these individuals, I was struck by the remarkable experiences that were only available outside the crowded confines of the scriptural text.  Lives whose contributions emerged within the margins and not on the central stage. 

Women whose minimal status in cultural life was elevated by God to witness this transforming moment in history after all the strong men had bolted in fear. 

A black man who was not paid for his forced labor but allowed to carry the burden of God on earth and be rewarded with eternal glory. 

A  man of immense wealth and privilege who went against the grain of society and gave up his own burial place not knowing that his body would one day occupy the space in which a Resurrection took place.  Wow!

It was their position at the sidelines which afforded them the benefit of these unique and extraordinary moments.  But, why is it that so often we yearn for the extraordinary but strive to find it within the crowded confines of the norm?  The middle place, the popular position, the cursed bane of compromise which robs us our uniqueness while promising us safety in numbers?

It is in this place of false security that we pay with hands outstretched the price required for our soul. Unaware that it is the one thing for which there is no earthly compensation is large enough to ransom. 

In this trade, the devil laughs at our naivete, knowing that we have not outgrown the proclivities of that tempestuous toddler, we have merely traded the newborns scream for a dull, blunted roar. 

A harsh return for an immortal life which entered the world unfettered, knowing that the cry which brought it here was never meant to be imprisoned within the limiting confines of mediocrity and conformity.

And inside, the scream continues unabated...unheard by human ears, reeling with staggered desperation within the human heart.  For it knows that it was sent on a unique mission; one which has now been traded for a pittance of pottage.  The scream bears silent witness to the inner desire to complete our unique mission in life with integrity, knowing that we enter into this life alone...and we we are all destined to leave it in the same fashion.

Picture of baby courtesy of jessicafm's photostream on flickr.com

Mouth picture courtesy of Phineas H's photostream on flickr.com

This entry is part of a larger series entitled..."What it Means..."

The story of the Crucifixion can be found in the Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke & John

Copyright 2008  Audu Real Estate  All Rights Reserved

In yesterday's sermon, my pastor juxtaposed two 24 hour periods which coincidentally occur next to each other at the beginning of this week. This past Sunday was the Sanctity of Life Sunday and today is the Celebration of Martin Luther King Day which commemorates the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. who was born on January 15th. In his sermon, our pastor mentioned these two significant dates as he shared his thoughts regarding what it means to Become A Child Again...and what it means to Receive and Release the Grace of Forgiveness.

After the service, I was in conversation with a couple who were probably in their early twenties during this turbulent period in the 1960's. As they shared their experiences of what that period was like, the elderly white man fought to choke back tears. He said.."Why do people have to hate so much...Why?" Then he turned to me and asked..."So what does the Celebration of Martin Luther King Day mean to you?"

It's interesting that this sermon and this conversation was taking place just after what has been termed "The Most Segregated Hour in America." I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan which has more churches per capita than any other city in the United States. If that remarkable statment by Dr. Martin Luther King is is true, that means each week, for a couple of hours, I am in a place in which the dark cloak of religious observances obscures an even deeper darkness within the human heart. For you see, today...almost 40 years after Martin Luther gave his I Have A Dream Speech, only 7% of churches nationwide are integrated!

Grand Rapids, Michigan is home to mega churches. Mega church is a term descriptive of congregations above 2,000. In fact, some statistics indicate that mega churches are the fastest growing churches in America. Yet even these colossal structures struggle to integrate their gigantic audiences on Sunday mornings. In Grand Rapids, we also have access to Christian TV. Invariably, a quick glance at the screen reveals who is speaking by the color of the audience.

So, I've been thinking about it. What would the workplace look like if business followed the same rules that have continued to dictate the norms of church goers? What would our universities produce in the way of scholarship and academics if people of color were excluded? What would happen to our hospitals if doctors and nurses from other countries were limited to a paltry 7%? Who would clean our hotel rooms and harvest our produce if the 7% rule combined with the brown paper bag test to determine eligibility for work? And where would our military be if bravery was restricted to what you looked like instead of what you were able to do on the battlefield?

Today, in all aspects of American life, integration works because it has to. To compete on the world stage, we can't afford to negate our talent and intellectual wealth on the basis of the color of the skin. But, in the place where it counts the most...the heart, Americans still struggle. Prejudice, by the way is not an American thing...it's a human thing. It's that dark side of the human psyche that urges separation, disdain and disregard for another human being. It's the small part of i which must step on another in oder to feel significant enough. It's the cowardly side of me which fears what I do not know or understand.

And...it is a taught thing. No baby comes into the world possessing it. Children have to be socialized to absorb the fear. And then life's experiences reinforce the mistrust. I grew up abroad. Yet, I went to school with a lot of white kids. From time to time they would forget that I was a different color and talk frankly about Africans. Now, these were missionary kids. Children whose parents were on a mission from God...to save lost souls in a foreign country. In exasperation one day I said..."Don't you guys realise that you're talking about me when you say these things?" They looked at me in surprise. It was then I understood another powerful revelation about prejudice.

Prejudice is largely an unconscious evil. We have to be deeply separted from the intimacy of the human experience to blur recognition of ourselves when we encounter another human being. This poison seeps so deeply into the human soul that many of us can no longer touch it or acknowledge its control in our lives. In prejudice we entertain a deep level of absence from who we are created to be.

We may be largely unaware that our choices are determined by a perverted guidance. We may never have questioned it and so it remains largely unexamined. So, that is why, after working all day in environments in which we meet all sorts of different people, some of whom become friends...we retreat to our private domains. And none so fiercely as the cloistered ranks of Sunday Morning Church.

On Sunday evening, ABC News carried a broadcast about a small largely black church in Ohio which has determined to close it's doors once a month and go to visit it's neighbors in their churches. When Pastor Biggers was interviewed he spoke about "Closing His Doors" and "Opening His Heart." Pastor Biggers understands that prejudice is as much a black thing as it it a white thing as it is a red thing or whatever color you want to put on it. He gets it...Its a human thing.

And that's the crux of the issue...the condition of our hearts. So when my pastor spoke about forgiveness yesterday and the need to become like a child, he was absolutely right. We can never truly honor the sanctity of life and understand what Martin Luther's Dream was all about until we forgive each other from the heart. It is childlike humility and openess which allows the scars of the past to be exposed to the light and the power of forgiveness which enables us to reach out and touch our brothers and sisters without malice. And the truth is...that we must do this for ourselves. Because avoidance dehumanizes and dimishes all of us like it or not.

So, what does the Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther Kings' birthday mean to me? Well, it is a call of personal and communal affirmation. It means that once again the nation remembers its' higher calling. It is a reminder that our deepest connection is a spiritual connection which transcends all the divisions which superficially separate us. It is a stark reminder that we will know that our nation has truly begun to heal when Sunday Morning begins to look like the rest of America does during the week.

* As an additional note, An Event is being planned for June 29th, 2008 called Missions Sunday. This event is aimed at encouraging congregations of different races to visit each other. The goal is to have 1000 churches participate with their members across America .

*These pictures were forwarded to me by fellow Active Rainer Carol Smith from Toledo, Ohio. Thank You Carol. I hope this article portrays the Spirit in which you sent them.

Copyright 2008 Audu Real Estate All Rights Reserved