I've spent my whole life in real estate, whether it's in our hotels or looking at the competition, and it's my curse to walk into every room and not be drawn to the flaws and have the little imperfections drive me crazy - because they didn't need to happen.
A typical day in my writing life starts with looking at pictures of real estate online for at least 20 minutes. If I happen to be actually in the market for a house, I do this for 40 minutes. Then I walk my dog, come back home, and tell myself I can look at real estate for another five minutes.
Quality for me is key, and this stands true in every facet of my business from real estate, hotels, and fashion.
We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for potential.
The ones I love most are the people who the flaws show. I like doing characters that we see the total person. If people get afraid to show the flaws because they think, "Oh, then nobody will like them," then you end up with a lot of products, and everybody wants to be frigging heroic all the time - not what people are trapped in every day, like your skirt being in your panties after you walk out of the bathroom. Being human. Sometimes when people are drawn to your work, they're drawn because they recognize themselves or their loved ones or their neighbor in it.
The business side of real estate investing is fraught with risk. Unlike purchasing mutual funds or savings bonds, with real estate, you can lose money; this is one of the reasons that seasoned real estate investors caution neophytes never to get too emotional about a property and always be willing to walk away.
The trick is finding a person whose flaws don't drive you crazy...you know...someone whose flaws you can live with...someone who can stand your flaws, too.
When you know that something's going to happen, you'll start trying to see signs of its approach in just about everything. Always try to remember that most of the things that happen in this world aren't signs. They happen because they happen, and their only real significance lies in normal cause and effect. You'll drive yourself crazy if you start trying to pry the meaning out of every gust of wind or rain squall. I'm not denying that there might actually be a few signs that you won't want to miss. Knowing the difference is the tricky part.
Maybe this year, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but looking for potential.
To overcome poverty and the flaws of the economic crisis in our society, we need to envision our social life. We have to free our mind, imagine what has never happened before and write social fiction. We need to imagine things to make them happen. If you don't imagine, it will never happen.
I call myself good crazy because I am a crazy normal. But who is normal really? Are you normal? Maybe you are, but I don't think a lot of us are normal. I think a lot of us are scared to say that we are a little crazy. I'm a little crazy that is just the way it is. I look in the mirror now and I like who is looking back at me. I am comfortable in my skin for the first time in my life. I have let a wall down.
Accidents happen, whether they're car accidents, friendly fire, drug overdoses. Accidents happen, and they're tragic. It's like a bomb that goes off and pieces of shrapnel rip into the flesh of the family. It's the families that need the compassion, because everywhere they walk, every day, someone reminds them of their loss.
By 2003, every fool was getting into real estate. The checkout girl at my local supermarket handed me her newly printed real estate agent business card.
It's no good looking to writers for definitions of what constitutes proper writing, because you will drive yourself crazy, and you won't find anything that you can build into a coherent whole.
If you walk into the room, and you're smiling and have a pep in your step, people are going to be drawn to you. If you walk into a room and you're sad and you look insecure, it's bad energy.
I have spent my whole life scared, frightened of things that could happen, might happen, might not happen, 50 years I spent like that. Finding myself awake at three in the morning. But you know what? Ever since my diagnosis, I sleep just fine.
I always say that I need competition, and I need competition every week, and in Spain, I was at an amazing club, but I had four matches a year: Barcelona v Real Madrid, Real Madrid v Barcelona, and after that, we'd win 4-0, 5-0, 4-1, 6-1.