All posts by Bettina Settles

My clients appreciate my compassion, empathetic nature when dealing with them and their transaction but more than willing to educate in a simple way to make a complex transaction understood. Being accessible and cooperative when it comes to dealing with clients and cooperative agents has earned me high praises from both. They have learned that I am dedicated, honest, and knowledgeable and can become very persuasive when it comes when working a transaction for my clients.

commitment, Communication, Inspiration, organizing, planning, Team work

Planning for the next stage

March 20, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

Just had an interesting article called “When I Hire You, I’m Hiring Your Mentors’ Judgment” written by Adam Bryant and he interviewed Ilene Gordon, CEO of Ingredion for this article come over my desk and it hit home.

Standing at the crossroads I can see that I have to tackle what I do with a team and see it as a project and count on that Plan A might fall through and Plan B, C or D needs to be in place and to have someone I could lean on and consult with when the Plans are falling apart.

Needless to say I don’t have my team in place and that is the first thing I need to get back into place. A team I can consult with and who knows me better than I do. What I already have is a potential target list of companies I am considering to contact to work with as an independent contractor.

I can see now that I have put the cart in front of the horses. I need to get my horses into place first.

That hard part will be….who to ask and where to start….

Looking in my tickle file of articles I have kept over the years I came across and article written by John Warrillow titled “How to Pick a Mentor: Take a Cue From Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt” that gave me some great tips.

Here comes the challenge to find the individuals who do or have done successfully what I would like to do in the future.

education, Inspiration, planning, Team work

Standing at the crossroads

March 19, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

This year has been already a roller coaster ride of ups, downs and sideways movements and again I am standing in a fork of a road.

I am actually very excited while looking at the fork in the road that has been presented to me this time. The hardest decision will be what road to take. Any of the roads I will take will be just fine and that is the exiting part.

At this time I actually feel like a kid in the candy store.

Overwhelmed by all of the goodies that are presented to me and having mom in the background urging you to make a decision. This time that mom voice in the back has been silenced and time for a decision has time and will come later.

Anyone who was standing at the fork in the road knows what I mean with the mom voice in the back.

There comes a time where it is ok to listen to and do what the mom voice tells you to do. Sometimes there are times where the voice has to be silenced and you have to reach deep to discover your own voice and passion, compare of doing what you think feels right or everybody expects you to do.

commitment, education, Inspiration, planning, Team work, tips

Think outside the box

March 5, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

How many times do I hear individuals voicing their concern about not being able to “get anywhere” either in their personal or business life?

In this fast pace world we are in it sometimes feels like that we are taking two steps forward and three steps back.

Most of us never take the time to celebrate or see the small successes we had. In some cases some of us just don’t see the tree from the forest and maybe overlooking some of the small or large opportunities that are presented to us. There are also some who have been given the “big opportunity” and the mindset has set in that there are set for “life” and don’t have to look outside the box any longer for new opportunities.

Zig Ziglar has a great quote: A lot of people quit looking for work as soon as they find a job.

Now other will tell me….but the economy is bad, the area we are in struggles…..let me throw another one of my favorite Zig Ziglar quotes out to you.

I’ve always taught that a poor economy is the best opportunity for salespeople because the naysayers and grumblers have already given up, leaving more territory, more opportunities to be successful than in a good economy when virtually all salespeople are out there, giving it their best.

Now how to we get past the brain freeze and start again thinking outside the box?

Let me throw two more Zig Ziglar quotes at you:

I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.

You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.

Communication, education, Inspiration, planning

Transition

February 28, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

Watching a historical moment unfold, for the Catholic Church, today on TV! I was thinking back on the day of his election and placement as head of the Catholic Church 8 years ago and I am amazed on how peaceful any transition has been over the centuries.

My first thought moved to the small word: Transition

We could learn a great string from the transitions in the past. Many of the heads of states or Companies transitions are not as piece full and fluent.

We in our personal and business life have many transitions we face on a regular basis. Some of the obvious once are birth, graduation, marriage, death, divorce, job change just to name a few obvious once.

How well do we deal with any transition is all up to us, our personal preparation and attitude we bring to the table. Any transition is emotional no matter how good we prepare and it is ok to have emotions.

My favorite saying is: “We are humans and not robots.”

I ran across a great article from the CharmingHealth.com called the “Transition Phases During Life and emotional imbalance” where I found some great Ideas and tips on how to deal with life’s transitions we all have to face.

Now you are asking what this would have to do with our business life.

I am thinking a lot.

When we are not prepared ourselves to deal with the life’s little emotions that might come our way how can we help our contractors we hired or employees we have with their emotional crutches they keep.

buying, commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, planning

Are you ready to hit your personal reset button?

February 19, 2013 Bettina Settles 3 Comments

Within the recent years many of us have taken the road many traveled. Some would call it we failed and others would say we just took a detour to the goals we would like to reach.

Denis Waitley said it best:

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” Denis Waitley (American motivational Speaker and Author of self-help books. b.1933)

I took my personal detour and had decided to hit my personal reset button and take my personal detour. During my scenic travels I have learned a lot what I now can utilize in my daily Real Estate business.

The Real Estate market is starting to return to a new “normal” and is ready for the buyers who have hit their personal reset button a while back and now are ready to buy for their personal investments. This market is best for the investor who is a cash buyer at this time. Who has either has personal experience in rehabbing properties or has the cash flow to hire a contractor to help with the rehab.

Sure, currently the interest rate for a mortgage is low right, but why are you wanting your investment to pay someone else but you? I mentioned this in my blog called “Are your investments paying you or do your pay for them?”

There will be always good deals in real estate even later, when you are not at the point to pay cash for any investment you would like to buy today.

Here are some Ideas on how to get you to the point to pay cash for a real estate investment:

Pay off your credit cards, house and toys.
Save for your emergency fund and when you have kids start their college fund if needed
Start saving for your investments plus keep the repairs and upkeep and other expenses like taxes insurance in mind when creating the fund.

Will you have your bills paid and your funds in place over night? No!!! This will take time and a bit of personal sacrifices.

commitment, Communication, education, organizing, planning

Are you prepared for the unexpected?

February 16, 2013 Bettina Settles 6 Comments

Had a moment the other morning to watch the news and low and behold they had a flash mob wedding because it was Valentines. In short for the once who don’t know what the flash mob wedding is. The wedding is about an hour after the proposal.

Immediately my thoughts when to how prepared would I be when I would have the unexpected sprung on me.

My mind wondered over to the subject personal or business property or information loss.

Sure I carry insurance for both personal and business and I have all of the information backed-up triple times to prevent information loss but what else do I have missing? Do I truly know what I own and what items I have in my house?

Is the emergency plan for personal and businesses good enough or did I miss some important information? Do I have this information stored in a secure place and who will have access?

Thinking about all of this could drive you crazy.

This reminds me about the “Are you ready for a disaster?” Blog post and I am not sure if I truly took my own advice. I maybe should take the advice of Cindy Hartman with Hartman Inventory, LLC she posted in her ”Be prepared for the next cat!’ Blog or from FEMA as they have outlined in their “Are you ready?” guide.

Mother Nature may be forgiving this year, or next year, but eventually she’s going to come around and whack you. You’ve got to be prepared. “Geraldo Rivera”

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, Team work, tips

You never know what will motivate you.

February 15, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

Just taking a few minutes to read some of the posts on the Affiliated Women International (AWI) – The Connection Station and Linda Fitzgerald’s post about “Beware advice givers” reminds me of the post I have written about “ I m and expert…”

How many time have we ran into the “experts” in a field or to the handful of individuals who love to give their unsolicited active about something.

Two quotes come in mind.

A quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

Advice is like snow – the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper in sinks into the mind.

And the other one is from Denis Waitley:

Never become so much of an expert that you stop gaining expertise. View life as a continuous learning experience.

How well put by both of them.

What has this now to do with motivation?

Simple….. Samuel Taylor Coleridge tells me that when I want to give advice to be very selective on what and how much I am saying and Denis Waitley reminds me never to call myself an “expert” because an “expert” has most likely stopped learning and is ready for the “rocking chair”.

That alone is motivation enough to never stop moving.

commitment, Communication, Inspiration

You have to be kidding me….

February 14, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

Sometime I am amazed at people and overtime when I think I know a person I am baffled how quickly they can change.

For years I have known this person. During this time I thought of this person to be of high ethical and moral standards, until just recently.

A situation came up where this person showed their “true colors” and I was more than floored. My first thought was….you have to be kidding me…..

I personally had all kinds of thoughts and feeling including being disgusted, hurt, mad, and over all disappointed. I never expected this action from this person.

This quote came to mind after I calmed down:

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. ” Potter Stewart”

In our personal and business life we are sometimes faced with that decision and we all have to decide what road we will go down.

commitment, Communication, Inspiration, organizing, planning, tips

Too much information

February 14, 2013 Bettina Settles Leave a comment

Have you ever attended meetings, seminars, webinars where the presenter just kept on talking and talking and talking about the same topic but tried to explain it in different ways over and over again?

Just recently I was in such meeting.

A question was asked and it could have been answered with a short, sweet and to the point but the presenter choose to user up to 10 minutes to answer this simple question. I am sure the presenter felt great about being able to fill the room with all the information he knew about the topic but I am sure that most of the room was lost after 2 minutes.

I need to admit I am the last person to give meeting advice but even I was off to another dimension to occupy my time and to wait out the long winded present to move to the next topic.

Lighthouse Consulting had a great article on how to keep a meeting on track called Six Tips for Holding Successful Meetings with Staff Members. I think this could easily be translated into any type of meeting. I also found a great meeting article from the Norwood Business Portal called Tips on Holding Online Meetings.

No matter if you have a face to face meeting or a online webinar you need to keep your audience engaged and interested and some questions just need to be answered in person or with a personal phone call.

Don’t be long winded with any topic or when answering a question.

Andrew Jackson said it best:

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. – Andrew Jackson –

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, Team work

Every problem has am opportunity

February 12, 2013 Bettina Settles 1 Comment

Inside of every problem lies an opportunity. “Robert Kiyosaki”

Many focus on the “but I can’t” rather looking at an issue or challenge as an opportunity to stretch their wings and taking a new path maybe one less traveled. We should see the issue as a new challenge that needs to be concord to see what is on the other side and not view it as a road block to where we want to go.

When we cannot climb over it let’s find a way around it.

A simple example is when I see a vacant home in the area. This vacant home begs to be listed and when I would just focus on the “but I can’t” side of my brain I would just give up finding the homeowner after a few tries.

My more adventurous side of the brain will not give up that easy and many times I do track down the homeowner who left their property vacant and I do get to list and sell the home.

When I would have listen to my “I can’t do it” side of me I never would have found the homeowner and never either listed and sold the home but also would have never met this homeowner who can be a great referral source for me in the future too.

So …quit listed to your “I can’t do it” side of the brain and get your more adventurous side of the brain in gear and moving forward. You never know what you will find at the end.