The Pursuit of Happiness
Did you have a great weekend? Are you feeling happy? I think everyone wants to be happy. But for some, happiness is an elusive, fleeting state that can only be captured for a brief moment, before it floats away like dust in the wind.

The truth is that, as human beings, almost all of our forward momentum is driven by the pursuit of happiness… or of something better. Even the desire to socialize, to love and to connect with other human beings is driven by our desire to be happy. The pursuit of better jobs, higher status, more wealth; for many, it’s a constant pursuit of what we think will bring happiness.

Of course, this certainly doesn’t mean that everything we chase will bring us happiness. In fact, a big part of our struggle with life is figuring out what makes us happy and, perhaps more important, what makes us consistently happy.

You can read about happiness and how others achieved happiness in their own life, but the path that leads to real joy and satisfaction in life is different for each person, and it’s a journey that each person must take on his/her own.

Happiness is a combination of many things: spiritual fulfillment, meaningful relationships in all areas of your life, a sense of accomplishment in your chosen field, knowing that you’re making a difference, a sense of contentment and a variety of other factors. You can’t buy happiness.

I once saw a bumper sticker that read, “Those who say you can’t buy happiness are shopping at the wrong store!” Yes, most people dream of winning the lottery and what it would feel like. Strangely enough, though, many who win the lottery end up miserable. I know, you want to experience it first hand just to be sure. Me too!

“Things” feels good for a while, but then they fade into the wind, and you find yourself buying something else for that brief moment of happiness. True joy, true happiness is found within. When you’re happy, others are happy when they’re around you, bringing you even more happiness.

Something to Think About
The best things in life cannot be bought. What are you most thankful for? What brings you happiness?

Weekly Challenge
Start a journal, and write three things that you are thankful for ¬¬– that bring you happiness – each day.

Words of Wisdom
“It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit.” – Denis Waitley

“Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” – Guillaume Apollinaire

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” – Cesare Pavese

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” – Soren Kierkegaard

Monday Wake Up Call: Your Motivation, Inspiration, & Direction for the Week Ahead

1,440 Minutes! Did you have enough time this weekend to get everything done? How many times do we find ourselves saying, “I wish I had more time!”? The funny thing is that we all get the same amount of time. We might not have the same circumstances or the same level of assistance to get things done, but we all get the same 1,440 minutes every single day. The difference between your life and mine or anyone else’s is defined by what we choose to do with those minutes. Let me ask you this: What’s your dream? What’s your goal? What’s the thing you’d really like to achieve this year, this month or even before 5:00 p.m. today? Maybe it’s weight loss or learning a new language. Maybe it’s writing a book or spending more time with your family. Are you actively taking steps to achieve your goal? Not just talking about it, but actually doing it? Because here’s the truth about that person you admire – the one you see jogging down the street every morning or fighting his/her way through a master’s program online while holding down a day job and raising kids: That person has the same 24 hours you do, but he/she is choosing to spend them on his/her dream... not on excuses for why it can’t be achieved. Sometimes there are justifiable reasons why you might not be able to focus on your goal, but ask yourself: Is it truly justified or just a roadblock of your own making? Here’s the truth... you have to choose. You have to want something bad enough to get up an hour earlier, to turn the TV off, to play Legos with your 5-year-old when you’re exhausted. You have to make the choice and keep making the 1,440 minutes of every 24-hour day count! That's how you get where you want to be... that's how you become whom you want to be. Something to Think About We’re all given the same 24 hours in a day. What you do with it, how you spend it, invest it or let it sneak away is up to you. What most people fail to realize about time management is that it’s not about structuring your time ¬– it’s about structuring your values and priorities. When you know what’s important to you and why, and how to say no to one thing so you can say yes to another, then you will discover how easy it really is to manage your time productively, wisely and easily. Weekly Challenge This week, examine your life. What area of your life would you like to change or improve? Choose to do one activity consistently all week long to bring about that change, and see what happens! Words of Wisdom “The bad news is, time flies. The good news is, you’re the pilot.” – Michael Althsuler “Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.” – John C. Maxwell “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flown. How did it get so late so soon?” – Dr. Seuss “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln

Open House Staging Tips to Make the Yard Beautiful

Planning for an open house is often an exciting process for sellers. I know that lots of questions come up, particularly about how to stage the home to make it as attractive as possible to potential buyers. Curb appeal is an important part of the process of selling a home. The first glimpse a buyer has of a residence can make or break the deal.

What is Curb Appeal?

Curb appeal is simply the appearance of a home from the front curb. A house that is neat, uncluttered, and well-maintained will usually deliver a favorable impression. In fact, positive curb appeal often makes people want to see more of a property. Negative curb appeal could make people keep driving to find something else.

The Importance of Staging

The open house is an important part of selling a home. The people who arrive to tour a home will be looking at every detail carefully to determine whether they could envision themselves living in the residence.

Staging Tips

One of the first steps a seller should take when staging a yard is to eliminate clutter. Kids’ toys, gardening tools, bicycles, and random objects need to go. Landscaping should be next on the list. Sellers need to clean out gardens and flower beds, remove debris and dead plants, and lay down fresh mulch. Adding seasonal flowers, shrubs, and plants can brighten up a yard, too. While you're at it, don't forget about the porch; A welcome mat on the step and a potted plant on either side of the door is inviting. Owners should also ensure that the front door is bright with a fresh coat of paint, if necessary.

Selling a home may go much more smoothly when the front of the property is properly prepared for open houses.

Monday Wake Up Call

Monday Wake Up Call: Your Motivation, Inspiration, & Direction for the Week Ahead.

Ode to St. Patrick! 
This week promises to be fun for many as we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. But do you know the story of St. Patrick? It’s definitely an interesting one. 

One morning, a 16-year-old boy was kidnapped from his house by a band of knife-wielding thugs and taken to another country to be sold as a slave. The year was 401 AD. He was made a shepherd. Slaves were not allowed to wear clothes, so he was often dangerously cold and frequently on the verge of starvation. He often went months without seeing another human being – severe psychological torture. 

But during this time, he received his greatest blessing. He used his solitude as a time to meditate, to learn to control the mind and to explore the depths of feeling, something almost impossible in a normal life. He had never been a religious person, but to hold himself together and take his mind off the pain, he began to pray so much that "...in one day," he wrote later, "I would say as many as a hundred prayers and after dark nearly as many again... I would wake and pray before daybreak – through snow, frost and rain..." 

The young slave prayed for six years, until one night he heard a voice tell him he was going home. He was to find a specific ship that would take him home. He walked 200 miles and, when he got to the ocean, there was a ship preparing to leave for his homeland of Britain. He got aboard the ship and went home to reunite with his family. 

This 16-year-old boy had changed. He was a holy man who had visions. He heard the voices of the people of Ireland calling him back. He eventually left his family to become ordained as a priest and a bishop so that he could return to Ireland and convert the Irish to Christianity. At the time, the Irish were fierce, illiterate, savage, Iron-Age people. For over 1,100 years, the Roman Empire had been spreading its civilizing influence from Africa to Britain, but Rome never conquered Ireland. 

Patrick decided to make these people literate and peaceful. Braving dangers and obstacles of tremendous magnitude, he actually succeeded! By the end of his life, Ireland was Christian. Slavery had ceased entirely. Wars were much less frequent, and literacy was spreading. 

How did he do it? He began by teaching people to read, starting with the Bible. Students eventually became teachers and went to other parts of Ireland to create schools and teach others, showing them how to turn sheepskin into paper and paper into books. 

Copying books became the major religious activity of that country. The Irish love words. Monks spent their lives copying books: the Bible, the lives of saints and the works accumulated by the Roman culture ¬– Latin, Greek and Hebrew books, grammars, the works of Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Homer, Greek philosophy, math, geometry and astronomy. 

As Ireland was being civilized, the Roman Empire was falling apart. Libraries disappeared in Europe. Books were no longer copied (except in the city of Rome itself), and children were no longer taught to read. The civilization that had been built up over 11 centuries disintegrated. This was the beginning of the Dark Ages. 

Because our slave-boy-turned-bishop transformed his suffering into a mission, civilization itself, in the form of literature and the accumulated knowledge contained in that literature, was saved during that time of darkness. He was named a saint – the famous Saint Patrick. You can read the full and fascinating story in the excellent book How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill.

Something to Think About 
“Very interesting,” you might say, “but what does that have to do with me?” This young man, at the onset of his manhood, got a ‘raw deal.’ But therein lies the lesson. Nobody gets a perfect life. The question is not, “What could I have done if I’d gotten a better life?” but rather, “What can I do with the life I have?” How can you take your personality, your circumstances, your upbringing, the time and place you live in and make something extraordinary out of it? What can you do with what you’ve got? Weekly Challenge In this crazy, fast-paced life, we sometimes get so busy that we forget to slow down and have some quiet time for ourselves. It’s easy when you’re a shepherd on top of a mountain, but what about when you’re a busy, successful REALTOR®?

It’s said that the best time to slow down and clear our minds is when we are the busiest. How crazy is that? Who has time to slow down when we’re busy? But many recent studies show that not only will you make better decisions, but you also will have more energy and be more effective if you take time in the middle of the afternoon to get quiet and meditate for 20 minutes. Try it for a week, and see what happens. 

Words of Wisdom 
“We can choose to be affected by the world or we can choose to affect the world.” – Heidi Wills

“When you wake up every day, you have two choices. You can either be positive or negative; an optimist or a pessimist. I choose to be an optimist. It's all a matter of perspective.” – Harvey Mackay

“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” – Wayne Dyer 

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” – Carl Sandburg 

“It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” – Mother Teresa

Market Update Report as of 3.7.16