Most people understand real estate can be a lucrative career, however, few people understand that they are already realtors of some of the most precious space available, their own mind.

There is no more lucrative job than being in control of the management process of the space in our heads.

Our mind is one of our most coveted assets, yet many people do not pay it the attention that they should.
As a society we don’t look at the management of this space like we look at the management of any other space, or individual thing in our body. Yet, it’s likely one of the most important, if not the most important, part of our body.

We can function without a finger, arm, leg and even some organs. But we cannot function without our brain, our heart and lungs and most of the organs in our gut. Yet, we do not treat them equally.

A real estate agent has many options as far as what properties will receive most of their attention, and
it is likely the ones with the highest returns, both financially and from a marketing standpoint, that will receive it. Financially for obvious reasons, and from a marketing standpoint because it will allow them to improve their companies value as a realtor in the market place by listing and selling the most impressive properties.

Yet, as personal realtors many of us do not follow the same principles. There are many reasons why we don’t; however, the end result is that we end up missing opportunities because we don’t follow those principles.

Opportunities for life, for living, for loving, and getting the most of the brief time we have in this world.

Taking care of ourselves seems simple and straight forward, get up, clean up, get out, do good, come home, fuel, rest, repeat. It is fairly simple, but there are so many choices along the way, so many diversions, so many lies and so much pressure, that we are often way off course before we even realize it.

Being the manager of and realtor for our bodies properties, we have to make the choices of who and what will get to own the spaces within us.

Food and fitness are easy to see on the surface as areas where we need to limit and grant access, make better choices and work harder. Not letting things like sugar have a major plot of land within us, or allowing good fats to have a larger space and letting our muscle increase its foot print are all great ideas.

Executing these real estate contracts with your self is fairly easy. (We see this in gyms every January) But the actual day to day management of these contracts is hard. It’s a battle that many people end up losing and before you know it, your well designed, impeccably laid out property is part of the slums.

We know our heart and lungs are important. We know our guts, liver and kidneys are important. And we know that we need to limit access to these areas. Smoke is bad, drugs are bad, cholesterols are bad, trans fats are bad, sugar is bad, alcohol is bad etc.

Most people try to not allow these shady characters to get control of the property within them, but sometimes it happens. Sometimes they stake a claim within you, and begin encouraging their loser friends to come on over and then boom, their goes the neighborhood.

Your brain, and the mind within it, is the part of
our body that we spend the least amount of time understanding, managing and improving out of any other part, yet, it’s the thing that controls everything that happens within us and the actions we take throughout our life.

As a society, we don’t look at the brain like we do
any other part of our personal real estate portfolio. Collectively, we feel sympathy and empathy for those with medical disorders like heart attacks, lung issues, cancers, tumors etc. But we look at issues of the brain differently. We often look down upon them, and hold people with brain function issues in a different category.

Not only do we do this to others, we do it to ourselves. The single most important part of our bodies, we understand the least, and accordingly do the least to take care of it. When issues arise within it, we most likely put off addressing them and are often ashamed or embarrassed at the same time.

Our brain is the premier piece of property within our bodies. Everyone and everything wants a piece of this land. We know this, yet we still put the least amount of time into protecting it.

This has to change. We need to erase the societal and personal stigma of issues within the brain. We need to improve and increase the self-care of the brain that we engage in. We need to understand that issues will arise and it’s OK to manage them. We need to stop looking at people differently because they have a brain issue and get them the help they need both individually and as a society.

Self-confidence, doubt, depression, letting others own land within you, etc. are all problems that each and every one of us has. Anyone telling you they don’t, is simply a liar.

So the issue becomes access to and management of, and for some, taking back the property that is rightfully yours.

You must make some tough choices and decide who gets
in and who owns, as well as whom and what must go. Developing a personal real estate management plan for your body, and specifically for your brain, is vital to your own personal success.

It’s not easy. And there can be issues that are beyond your personal capabilities to manage. If that’s the case, you’ll need to call in help. Talking to someone or seeing a doctor, it’s all ok to do.

Recently, I suffered a head injury in a fall. As a part of my rehab of these injuries, I underwent therapy and rehab for 4-6 hours a day for 5 months. I met with vision and speech therapists, occupational and physical therapists and with a counselor whose job it was to help the head injury patients through the mental health component of this recovery process.

This was the part I was least looking forward to. Why, I don’t really know, but I think it was just because of the fact that as a society we are scared to think that we might have something wrong with our brain’s ‘mind’. We are scared to think that the thing that controls who we are could be broke. In essence, we are afraid of losing some or all of who we are and or the ability to control it.

We have that fear with good reason, because many people, and society in general, treat people with mental health (brain) issues differently. Many are treated as less, or at
the very least, too different to be associated with unless necessary. These actions normally occur when these people need support the most.

So anyway back to my situation. I was not looking forward to talking to this therapist, as I felt that it was unnecessary. But what I found, however, could not have been further from that thought.

This quickly became one of the sessions that I most looked forward too. And it opened up the door for me to seek additional information on how to improve not only my mind and my brain’s function, but to my entire body as well.

These sessions allowed me to better see some of the things that were right in front of me all along. They gave me the ability to understand that it’s ok to have issues to deal with and to continually work to improve yourself, both physically and mentally.

But most importantly, they gave me the ability to understand that it is no one but me who decides who or what owns real estate within my body and especially, my mind.

I encourage you to understand that we all carry baggage, and no matter how much someone wants you to think they are better than you or more together than you, or that you are something less than them. It’s simply not true.

If we are still using the real estate analogy, those negative actions against another person are simply them giving you a property showing of what the issues are within their own property, not yours.

Each and every one of us has our burdens to carry and manage in life. For anyone to tell you otherwise is simply lying to you, and more importantly themselves.

We need to all understand that it’s OK to have and more importantly manage these issues.

The fire service can be a cut throat arena, and it’s unfortunate as we are all, or at least should be, here for the same purpose. That purpose is to serve the public. It’s the only reason the whole damn thing exists.

The second most important thing we are here for is to serve each other. To take care of each other. Who knows better than us what we each go through on this job. We need to better understand that, and better look out for one another. If we are not, then we are not truly who we say we are.

YOU need to take the first steps. Take the steps to manage the properties within your body in a more efficient and productive way. Manage who and what gets into that real estate and especially who gets to own any part of you. Get the help you need to make this happen. It’s OK, we are all in the same boat, whether we admit it or not. If you don’t get the help you need, though, things can and usually will get worse. The longer that goes, the more difficult it will be to regain control.

Once you have better control, then help someone else. Watch out for each other, take care of one another. You trust the people around you with your life every day, allow yourselves to be vulnerable and deal with the issues that come up.

Most importantly, try to understand each other, as we’re all carrying our own burdens and just trying to get to the next day and achieve some level of peace and or happiness.

Be smart, be as safe as you can and DO YOUR JOB!

BB