I had a great Christmas this year. I was able to catch up with my family, and got to see some family members that I haven’t seen in a long time. Lots of good food was eaten. Although I am generally against the overcommercialization of Christmas, I did receive one amazing gift that you guys should know about. The printed version of the NLP Encyclopedia, or as it is officially known, “Encyclopedia of Systemic Neuro-Linguistic Programming and NLP New Coding” by Robert Diltz and Judith DeLozier published by NLP University Press. This consists of two huge books, about 1000 pages each. This is the most extensive and comprehensive volume on NLP that I am aware of, and it is absolutely amazing. Before attempting to read it, you should probably have a basic understanding of NLP, or it may not make much sense to you. Check out my previous post about two great books to read if you want to learn about NLP.

The NLP Encyclopedia is also viewable online, for free, but in a limited form.

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With the new year just around the corner, I have been spending time getting my 2008 goals in writing. Many books and many successful people say that you must have your goals in writing to be successful, and I am a believer in this concept.

The basics of goal setting are that the goal you are focusing on must be as specific as possible, and measurable. You need to have a definite way of knowing if you have hit the goal or not.

There are really two separate (more…)

I spent much of my day today taking a class to get my Real Estate Broker’s license. There are two types of real estate licenses, a salesperson’s license, which I have had for several years and is what most Realtors have, and a broker’s license which is more involved and will allow you to work independently or open your own real estate office.

For Massachusetts, you need to take a 24 hour class to get your salesperson’s license and you need to take a 30 hour class to get your broker’s license. When I originally got my Salesperson’s license, I went to AREA in Waltham because they had a Friday, Saturday, Sunday “crash course”. It was pretty good, and I learned a lot at the time. AREA also has one of the best books for studying for the exam (they write their own book, where basically everyone else uses an off-the-shelf textbook).

I decided last week that I wanted to get my Broker’s license and I wanted to get it as soon as possible. I found out about Harris’s Real Estate School. They have a series of video tapes at many real estate offices throughout the state. You sign up for the class, and go and watch the videotapes at your own leisure. For the broker’s class, there are 10 tapes which are 3 hours each. I have been watching these at Coldwell Banker in Franklin. It would be nice to take a live class, because a lot of good networking happens at the real estate classes I have attended. That being said, the videos seem to be the cheapest, quickest and easiest way to get your real estate salespersons or brokers license.

I am an avid student of NLP. I have been brushing up the past few days by listening to Chris Howard’s NLP Master Practitioner Training. Being a student of NLP has improved my life exponentially. If you don’t know much about it, two great books that I read when I was getting started are “Unlimited Power” by Anthony Robbins and NLP for Dummies.

Do you have any old friends that you haven’t talked to in awhile? Do you think it would be weird to call them and meet them for lunch? I thought it may be uncomfortable, but I have been making it happen. I have been discovering that people have been very receptive and very happy to hear from me. I have been finding a lot of common interests with people that I never knew existed.

Here are two quick communication tips that I use when talking with old friends or acquaintances:

1. Be a good listener - people will be interested in you if you show an interest in them first.
2. Open up to people, and tell them what you really think. I find that people usually agree with me, and even if they don’t, the conversation takes on new depth.

I challenge you to pick up the phone and invite someone out to lunch. Someone you’ve lost touch with or someone that you don’t know very well. I am sure that you will be pleasantly surprised with the results, as I have been.

I have been reading a great book on networking lately, “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi. This is something I have been consciously working on lately. The book talks about how the size of your network and the people you associate with are in direct proportion to your income. The author makes the point that this is one of the central things that separates the successful from the unsuccessful. Another interesting idea from the book is “…the more speeches one gives, the higher one’s income bracket tends to be”.

I have been reconnecting with a lot of old friends recently. I had sent out an email to many people a few weeks ago, and ever since, I have been getting emails and calls left and right from people I haven’t talked to in a long time. It has been great. Today, I spent most of the day meeting with old friends and setting appointments to meet others for lunch and dinner for the remainder of the week. I am learning that a lot of business and a lot of success is staying in touch with people, listening to them, and letting them know what you are doing. It’s always a fun time at the least, and additionally, sometimes business can be done, and it is mutually beneficial.