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Living the Lives We’ve Always Imagined for Ourselves

By Jim Gillespie | August 25, 2008

Oftentimes people get into commercial real estate brokerage because they want to make a lot of money. And they usually want the money to allow them to experience a certain quality of life, too. But many brokers just work, work, and work even more, and the quality of life they’re living isn’t exactly what they had imagined for themselves when they decided to get into the business.

With this in mind, what do you have planned that you’re excited about doing in your life between now and the end of the year…outside of working? Do you have any vacations planned in places you’d like to visit? How about a nice 3-day weekend trip to somewhere you’d like to go just to relax and unwind?

You see…if we don’t plan and make sure we’re living the lifestyle we want to live along the way as commercial brokers, we could end up constantly just working and only living a lifestyle that we really don’t want to live. Yes, I understand that the real estate market has changed now. But at least one or two 1-week vacations could be in the cards for you between now and the end of the year if you really just decide to make it happen. Or even at the minimum, how about a couple of 3-day weekend trips?

I’m always looking for another reason to go to Hawaii again, and thanks to a phone call and a special offer I just received from Hilton Honors, I’ve just found it. So I’ll be going to Hawaii along with my family again later on this year.

And in mentioning my family, being a father is definitely a very interesting experience for me. Before I became a father, whenever I’d ask people what it was like for them to be a parent, I never understood what they meant when they’d say something like, “It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done, but it’s also so very rewarding.” But after I became a father I began to understand what these people were talking about.

My daughter Jamie is a wonderful daughter and I feel very fortunate to be her father. Sometimes when I do something like bump my elbow on a cabinet door inside the house, she’ll come running across the room, ask me if I’m OK, and then kiss my elbow. And then there are those times when I’ll ask her to do something, and she gets stubborn about it, and then she has no problem at all going toe-to-toe with me about it in the process.

I can’t help sometimes but think that my father is up there somewhere laughing, remembering the times when I’d play golf with him as a teenager, and I’d throw my golf club down the fairway once in awhile when I’d hit a bad shot. I now realize that I didn’t make him feel that great whenever I did that back then, as we’d usually be walking down the fairway with two other men, oftentimes two men we’d just met that same morning.

But my daughter Jamie is only five years old now, and her teenage years are still years ahead of her. This is all the more reason for my father to be even more entertained when those teenage years finally get here…

But in talking about living the quality of life that we want for ourselves along the way, being a father brings forth some truly incredible experiences. As an example, I took this photo of Jamie at Disneyland when she was wearing her “Belle the Disney Princess” dress, and giving her new friend a hug. And it really touches me to see the smile on her face in this moment, and know that I had something to do with creating it for her:

Click here to see the photo.


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