If you celebrate too much, it means you weren’t expecting it.
I talked awhile back about why brokers aren’t paid by the hour.
I told a story about spotting a land sale opportunity. A buyer was quietly blocking up acreage in an area I watch. I noticed it, called a friend who owned a tract on the other side, and asked if he would mind if I ran his property up the flagpole.
A couple calls and a few texts later, there was a closing.
A good one.
Of course I was happy about it. Maybe I should even celebrate those moments a little more than I do. Sometimes I think it might be healthy to stop and enjoy them.
But there’s something about celebrating too much that bothers me.
If I get too excited and throw out my shoulder patting my own back, what I’m really telling myself is that the success was unexpected.
And in a narrow sense it was.
But in a broader sense, it wasn’t unexpected at all.
The way I operate is designed so that things occasionally “just fall into place.” I spend a lot of time watching land sales, tracking who is buying what, and paying attention to how different players are expanding their positions.
Because of that, sometimes the right situation shows up.
I can’t tell you exactly when it will happen, or where it will happen. But I can absolutely tell you that I expect it to happen from time to time.
That’s the whole point of operating this way.
So sure, maybe I’ll take my wife out to dinner when a deal like that closes and enjoy the moment. But the next day I’m back at it doing the same things that make the next one possible.
Reminds me of something I heard about Nick Saban.
During his run of championships with the Alabama Crimson Tide football, someone asked him how long he allowed himself to enjoy winning a national title.
His answer was something like, “about a day.”
Then he went back to work doing the same things he does every year.
A lot of people hear that and think it sounds miserable. They think he should celebrate longer.
You’ll also notice that most of those people aren’t as successful as Saban.
Maybe they’re right and maybe they aren’t. But the reason Saban operates that way is simple: the success didn’t surprise him.
He expected it.
And when you expect something, there’s no reason to act like it was a miracle.
You just go back to doing the things that made it possible.
You might not think that’s the best way to live a happy life. I think you’d be wrong, but we can disagree about that.
But when you’re making a decision as consequential as selling your land, there’s a more practical question.
Who do you want working for you?
The guy who is so surprised by success that he shuts down for a week?
Or the guy for whom it’s just another day at the office?
P.S. If you own land, chances are you’re not planning to sell it today. That’s perfectly fine. But having current information about where the market stands is never a bad idea.
That’s exactly what the MBR Land Reality Check is designed for.
It’s a straightforward Broker Opinion of Value based on current listings, real sales, development activity, and the buyers who are actually active in North Texas land right now.
And it’s free (at least for the time being). No obligation and no pressure to list.
P.P.S. If you don’t need the Reality Check today but enjoy this kind of thinking, you can get posts like this in your inbox whenever I publish them (usually daily).
