Welcome back Thinkers!
This year, the focus of the Doorward Thinking Blog is going to be your journey to work-life harmony, building your lifestyle, and taking care of family whether it’s in real estate or any other field.
We’ve added reflection questions throughout our posts which will appear in bold. They’re designed to help reveal how you can get closer to the harmony you seek.
Let’s get started with what we’re all facing - struggling to not allow the wheel of work dictate our lives and balance everything we have going on.
We’re going to illustrate the situation we find ourselves in with a little fairy tale.
The Brothers Grimm are known for their creepy fairy tales with cruel characters, sad irony, and calamitous endings. There is however, one lesser-known tale with a happy ending.
In The Brave Little Tailor the title character uses wit and cunning to escape dangerous situations and complete impossible tasks before he marries a princess and becomes a wealthy king.
There was even a Mickey Mouse cartoon adaptation by Walt Disney in 1938.
The tailor’s tale has fallen out of favor compared to more popular tales like Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pinocchio and the rest of the bunch.
It’s worth revisiting though because, let’s be honest, more of us find ourselves like the tailor instead of royalty or a wooden puppet.
Most of us have work that isn’t glamorous, and few make it into the ranks of the influencers. We move forward, day after day, earning enough to keep us going and take care of our loved ones.
That in itself can be a very good and beautiful life, but if you’re like me and MANY others, you know in your heart that there is something greater inside of you and something more you can do for the world.
You also probably feel that there is something holding you back.
And it’s true! We all have internal struggles to contend with that no one ever fully sees.
If that wasn’t enough, this world isn’t fair (though good people try to make it so). Some people look out for their own interests. Sometimes they’ll cheat and write rules to their advantage. Others will hurt you and have no remorse. More widely, systems are broken, and to an extent we need to learn how to play these broken games that may drag us down.
In short, there are forces within us and outside us to overcome if we are to be our best selves, to make that desired impact on the world, and to be in peaceful harmony.
Overcoming those struggles makes our triumph that much sweeter.
So how do we become better and achieve more? First, we need to discuss the danger that lurks in wait.
Each of us has something we do as an occupation, or some task where we spend our time and place our effort. These occupations can be either paid or unpaid monetarily, so to homemakers, perpetual surfer dudes, van-lifers, volunteers, and activists, this is for you too.
Ideally, we’d love to live in our own bubble doing what we love for who we love and get the outcome we expect, but a danger lurks out in the world and it can destroy us if we’re not careful.
The evil forces that seek to destroy the good and uncomplicated ideal life are often misplaced pride and greed.
When misplaced, pride seeks to elevate one’s sense of self beyond what is true. Pride often resorts to greed, or excess possession, as the mechanism to elevate oneself. It’s a false metric because no amount of possession can impart a greater dignity to a human person.
Think of the dragon sitting on its hoard of gold. The dragon doesn’t do anything with it - just possess it - and its life wastes away.
And who is subject to the ravaging greed of the prideful? You, me, your children, your elderly mother struggling to make ends meet on social security - everyone.
With advances in human psychology and technology it’s possible for the giants, witches and dragons to take so much from us - dollars, our precious time, even our very thoughts and feelings. How easily we can be influenced by the greedy in an attempt to make a sale.
We know that villains are plotting to take all we have, so what do we do?
Once we recognize the coming doom we have three main courses of action, each of which can be appropriate depending on the circumstances:
1. Escape - We need a place to go and we need to bring the essentials with us. There is a cost to abandoning what we have built.
In seeking work-life harmony, escape often means leaving a job, field, or relationship where the associated hardship or threatens us. We can let our feelings get the better of us and don’t even attempt to stand for ourselves or seek a better outcome. We just run away.
2. Defend - We need to put resources into our defenses, but those defenses usually restrict our ability to interact as freely as before.
Defense in work-life harmony often means becoming so closed to new possibilities that we get stuck in the same old way of doing things. We often stick with the familiar and avoid risks that could yield a better result.
3. Attack - A successful attack will rid us of the danger and may yield additional rewards, but a failed attack could be disastrous.
In striving for work-life harmony, a sound “attack” often takes the form of a win-win where multiple parties benefit in overtaking a shared villain.
You likely use each of these strategies in different situations.
Reflection Questions:
Which of these strategies do you employ most often, and when?
Can you think of a time where changing your response to a threat could be beneficial?
When it comes to growth, attack is usually the best option. Let’s talk about knowing how best to attack.
Going back to the Brave Little Tailor, what makes the lowly tailor’s tale important for each of us is how the tailor became a king. He was given impossible tasks like killing giants, and capturing a unicorn and a wild boar, and each time he succeeded by using his wit.
“Seven with one blow” was his rallying cry, referring to killing seven flies with one swat, and neglecting to share the context of his boasting.
Despite his lack of transparency (shame on you, tailor), he used the confidence he gained in a small success and turned it into an entire kingdom. He attacked the danger with sound strategies and was rewarded.
If only we were so bold.
Unlike the tailor, we can’t always rely solely on our wits to get what we want out of our work and business deals. In fact, we often need to rely on the years of wisdom and knowledge gained by others.
Such reliance and trust is only possible if we adopt an “Attack” strategy, where both parties benefit from working together to solve a problem.
This is exactly the type of success Doorward is working to bring to folks working in real estate.
Doorward helps newcomers and all those in need of real estate management, investment, financial, and legal services to find experts with the knowledge to help them attack their roadblocks and gain the freedom and success they dream of.
No more endless searching for professionals who may or may not be still in business, navigating spam, or wondering what to do next. Doorward is the portal giving you access to the people you need to work with.
Perhaps the most important thing you can do is to find a coach, club or other organizatio that can give you personalized advice. With such guidance you’ll be slaying dragons and reaping rewards in no time!
We’ll deal with mentorship quite a bit as we move forward!
Reflection Questions:
Is there an organization that provides this type of service in your field? If not, what would it take to build one?
How does/would using their service help you attack your roadblocks?
But how do we know the supposed ally is really not just a wolf in sheep's clothing?
We need to develop sound methods of trusting each other, which is easier said than done. We dive into trust and transparency in an upcoming episode of the Doorward Thinking Podcast. Check out our episodes for more on the search for wisdom and building trust.
For now though, the Trust Equation put forth in The Trusted Advisor by Maister, Green, and Galford is a good place to start. You can learn more about their work, and find your trust score and trust temperament on their website.
The basics of trust go like this:
Think about these qualities when you are looking for people to work with. The better they rate on each of these metrics, the more trustworthy that person should be.
Just something to note, we all have strengths and weaknesses. Taking stock of yours can help you improve how others perceive your services and bring you more work!
Reflection Questions:
What aspects of trustworthiness are your strengths? Do you have a weakness?
How can you work on your weaknesses to become a more trustworthy individual?
For the real estate folks, we are building innovative ways to gauge trustworthiness on our platform in an increasingly digital world.
Real Estate has always has always been a referral driven industry where good work is rewarded. Because of that, Doorward rewards members for bringing their trusted contacts to the platform and leaving constructive, valuable feedback. Learn more about our referral program here
Doorward also employs a state of the art rating system with special parameters to help you know who is the right person for the job.
Finding the people you trust is the first step to building those positive work relationships that help you achieve your long term goals.
According to the philosopher Aristotle, wit is actually a virtue - the mean between being boorish or a buffoon. It is the graceful use of one’s intellect resulting in strategies and actions benefitting ourselves and others.
Our tailor friend exercised his wit to his advantage at every step, not shrinking from the challenges in his path.
It’s impractical to solely rely on our own knowledge and understanding. There is just too much to know and too much to do. And when we do go it alone, we often stress ourselves out, even to the point of making ourselves sick with anxiety over responsibilities we barely understand.
It becomes necessary to trust others to help us achieve our goals. We can call this a collective wit, the happy result of many individuals specializing in one small part of an industry and playing their unique role.
Well-assembled teams experience the benefits of having various specialists working together towards a common cause. When a particular task requires the special skills of one team member, the team is confident that task will be completed proficiently so they can move forward as a group.
Reflection Question:
Think of your big project or venture - is the team you work with well-assembled?
Another way to produce a favorable result is to have be part of a well-managed team. Well-managed teams have leaders who understand the strengths of each team member and institute systems to get the most out of each specialist’s skill.
Reflection Questions:
Again, think of your big project or venture - is the team well-managed?
What systems can be put in place to get the most out of each member’s abilities?
Not only do we at Doorward strive to help you find the best team members, we also want to be the best team member we can be in your journey to success. Our contribution to your projects is our suite of features and tools designed to connect you to experts, streamline your interactions, and utilize your resources for monetization.
What makes us different?
Tools like this exist, but sadly, most of the time they are only accessible to those with large portfolios.
Doorward’s tools can be used by landlords and investors with portfolios of all sizes. We’re leveling the playing field so you can spend more time doing what you love and less time manually putting pen to paper and pouring over handmade spreadsheets.
Check out our tools to see all that we can offer you
Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher once wrote, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Finding your guide and putting yourself out there in the group is an important first step, but it is by no means the last one. It takes consistent effort to grow into what we desire to be.
There will be struggles, especially when we try to challenge roadblocks we may have accepted and decided to ‘just live with’ before. The value of a guide and community is that they can support you through.
As we’ve built our enterprise, we’ve met many roadblocks and obstacles, but we’ve always found new partners and like-minded companies who share our vision and want to play a part. We’ve grown from an idea in the offices and construction sites of Cleveland and New York to a platform where connection, commerce, investment and innovation take place at the push of a button, and we’re just getting started.
If you’re interested in learning about how Doorward can propel you to make your desired lifestyle and freedom a reality, check out our early adopter options as a thank you for joining the push to build better communities and happy healthy homes.
And for those of you who are just looking for something good to read or listen to, subscribe to this blog for more thought-provoking content designed to help you seek wisdom and live in peaceful harmony.
See you next time!
Finding Wisdom and Work-Life Harmony seems impossible in today’s fast paced, work-driven world. Taking lessons from a lesser-known fairy tale, Nate explains how slowing down and taking a birds eye view of life exposes what keeps us stuck in the churning wheel of “productivity” and reveals ways to break the cycle while growing in wealth, peace, friendship, and freedom.
This article was written, edited and published by members or collaborators of the Doorward Team. Doorward Inc. maintains a positive outlook on the inherent dignity of each: their singular ability to reason and create, to choose and likewise be responsible for their decisions. We defend their best intentions and affirm each person’s freedom to express their own thoughts and opinions and experiences, and to engage in civil discussion regarding them.
This article is meant to be thought-provoking, and is not intended to be specific direction for the topic of this post. Please do your own research and consult the appropriate people for guidance before making a decision related to the topic of this post.
