Condensed from the original post published December 12, 2016 by Rob Hahn at Notorious-ROB.com. Through a friend, I was introduced to Mark Manson, the self-help guru. Normally, I think of self-help gurus the same way I think of used car salesmen and religious cult leaders… but Manson did write a few things that resonated with me. I thought I’d share one of those things, which he himself calls the “best post to start with to understand the underlying philosophy of my work.” That post is The Most Important Question of Your Life and it’s worth reading in full. The key graf: A more interesting question, a question that perhaps you’ve never considered before, is what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out. I think it really applies to every aspect of our lives, but I thought it applies with special force to this crazy industry we all call home. It explains so much of what we’ve seen, what we see, and what many of us struggle against. The Struggle Is Real The core concept of Manson’s post is that everybody wants the same result, but that doesn’t actually matter very much. What matters is what struggle we want in our lives. What pain, what annoyances, what we actually enjoy that sucks. What determines your success isn’t “What do you want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?” The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life. We’ve all heard this from coaches, from teachers, from parents, peers, mentors… and it seems like a no-brainer. Where Manson introduces something somewhat unique is that he thinks that wanting the suck is actually wanting the result. Otherwise, it’s just a fantasy. Do You Really Want to Be a REALTOR®? As should be obvious by now, this principle of wanting the pain to want the reward applies with full force to the real estate industry. As an industry, we highlight and honor those who are successful. The top producers. The “thought leaders” who get to be on stage at industry shows and who get interviewed for their stories. But we typically do not talk about the struggle, the pain, the suck of being a real estate agent. And there’s a lot of suck to embrace. We really don’t do a lot of talking about the need to embrace the suck. Whole sub-industries have risen up within real estate by telling real estate agents and brokers that they don’t need to embrace the suck — this magic bullet will deliver the results you want without the struggle you hate. I can go on Facebook right this minute and find ad after ad about “Leads Delivered to Your Inbox!” and “Get More Listings Right Now!” and some such. Go to any real estate conference, and the most popular sessions are going to be one where some guru or another gets up and tells the audience that they can generate leads without too much effort if they do Facebook/blogging/Instagram/Pokemon Go/Snapchat/video/whatever. And the vendor area is filled with companies promising results without the effort. It’s natural, of course, because human beings like efficiency. It’s Okay Not to Want It My final thought here is that it’s totally, 100% fine to not want something. What we want is different for each one of us. I don’t want to be a rock star. I don’t want to be a corporate chieftain. I don’t want to be President. That doesn’t make me better or worse than those who do; it just makes me different. Maybe our problem as an industry is that we don’t discuss, don’t encourage, and don’t make clear that simple idea: that it’s okay not to want to be in real estate. Doesn’t make you a failure or a loser or whatever. It just makes you not suited for real estate. Because to want something isn’t to want the result, but the process. To want something is to want the struggle that defines that job, that business, that industry. To want something is to want to embrace the suck, not to want the awesome that comes at the end. Those who are successful in this industry are those who embrace the suck of real estate. They want to wake up unemployed every day. They want to make phone calls and door knock and deal with rejection. They want to “waste” hundreds or thousands of dollars each month on mailing and advertising and portals. They want to not have free weekends and get phone calls from clients at all hours of the night. They want to be nervous going on vacation. They want the chaos, the ups and downs, and the hustle. They want to drive a buyer around for two weeks, and have them just go, “We decided to rent!” Ok, maybe they don’t want that, but they’re willing to tolerate it as part of the deal. This is the business we’ve chosen. It’s okay not to choose this business. It might even be laudable to choose some other business. But if we’ve chosen this business, then we ought to, indeed we must, embrace the suck. Read this post in its entirety at Notorious-ROB.com.