Demi Lovato - Confident (Official Video)

Lisa Ekanger Your Hometown Realtor!

From the Coaching Wisdom of Dianna K -- Things to Consider as we Complete Q4

You've gotta be willing to take risks and make mistakes -- experience is not the best teacher, evaluated experience is the best teacher. The leadership of Santa Clause: Give your gifts and ask for nothing in return Build a wonderful workshop, have a vision and make it your main thing Choose your reindeer wisely, they make a vision a reality Make a list and check it twice Find out who is naughty and who is nice and ‘catch’ them doing something right! Focus on the plan and work it day in and day out Santa always has a plan and gets it done on time every time! Listens to his elves, and walks in their shoes Sees where they are and speaks to them and beings them to where he wants them to be Ho Ho Ho -- have fun but push hard and finish strong in 4th quarter Give the gifts that last a lifetime -- knowledge and skills First you make the choice, then the choice makes you Change brings about greatness! You cannot solve a problem at the same level it was created Share the milk and cookies Order a cute or catchy item like a pen and make it a goal to give out 10 a day -- each accompanied by a compliment Be good for goodness sake, model the behavior you expect from others -- you have to exemplify it more than others to be a true leader Anything you do that's worthwhile will scare you at first AND it will help you discover your big why What made you great, will make you greater -- stay consistent and it will pay off Dont ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and GO DO IT! Remember, as you help others, you help yourself too Growth gets you to be R.E.A.L (Relationships, Equip, Attitude,Lead) Opportunity only shows up when you are ready to seize the OPPORTUNITY! Leaders must believe, empower, share and trust John Maxwell talks about the 6 C’s of massive team growth: 1) Communicate 2) Create an environment to grow one another 3) Collaborate -- leaders slow down and let everyone cross the finish line together 4) Concentrate -- your 1 Thing! 5) Consecrate, give yourself 100% to your team 6) Celebrate together! The only way you can get better tomorrow, is by getting better today When youre in over your head, it doesnt matter how deep the water is Before you speak and judge a leader, make sure you understand the reality of that leader Sometimes a leader has to slow down to speed up Light yourself on fire and people will come to watch you --the one with the most passion wins! Facts: 75% of the world has a cell phone -- 200,000 texts are sent worldwide per second -- email has a 3 day response turnaround time -- a goldfish has a 9 second attention span, our is 12 seconds -- it changes to 12 min 8 sec if we focus Every leader is a multiplier or a diminisher -- to lead you add pressure, not stress! Empower others, challenge others and expect more! Lisa Ekanger Your Hometown Realtor!

A Message from Gary Keller for Real Estate Agents on the Shift Sept. 2016

1. Lower your expenses every month for the next nine months. Make it a game and acknowledge and reward those who help. Reducing is not a one time event. You review everything every month from now til next march. You'll be surprised at what you miss each time and how once you drop something, you then realize the next month you can drop it even lower... 2. Double your lead generation efforts. Sit down with your plans and make strategic decisions right now and execute quickly. Be lean, mean and move fast. 3. Triple your focus on lead conversion to appointments. Again, sit down with your plans and make strategic decisions right now and execute quickly. The battle will be for the truly motivated buyers and sellers and there will be a fight for them. Win that fight. 4. Increase talent recruiting effort. There is a lag between when the market drops and when agents drop out! You will notice for the rest of the year that the people entering the business won't sinc up with the market slowing down. Why? Because people have already committed to getting into the business and so they just continue on that path. you'll see the slow down on new people getting in start to show up towards the end of the year or by the first of next year. So, you hit it doubly hard right now and stock up for the winter with the right people. I'd guess that 70% of the agents currently have never seen a shift down and don't know what it looks like. It's an opportunity for you to pass out the "shift" book and start the dialogue early. Trust me, you will look really really really really smart to them over the course of the next year. 5. Increase training effort. You think you're doing all you can do, but then the market shifts and you realize there is more to do. Just quadruple what you've been doing. Not kidding. Just load up on it and watch what happens. You teach lead gen, lead conversion, pricing-marketing-price reductions on listings, customer service and follow-up. You have work sessions with your team, get everyone into bold,.etc..... 6. Be very visible and communicative. Let them see you and know you're working your tails off and you expect them to do the same. You're already doing it, but you now want them to really see you working. This is an opportunity. Won't seem like it, but it is. You watch. You get way out in front on this with tons of energy and on the back side of this you will see new heights you weren't sure how you'd get to. Shifts make this possible. It just hurts in the interim! I'll see you at the top! Onward.... Gary Lisa Ekanger Your Hometown Realtor!

People Ask Me, Why Do I Do IT?

Here's Why I do It... People often ask me "What is it like to be a KW Team Leader?". They’re curious as to why I do it. I've heard things like "isn't it hard, like herding cats?" or "how do you lead in a fair way with so much commission on the line?" As a coach and trainer, I have been blessed with meeting many people from different parts of this great country. I’ve had the privilege of helping real estate agents realize their full potential. My goal is simple...to help them become the agents they intended to be. I say through the BOLD laws and the with the MOST amazing real estate training in the world, I have been able to this because I put coming from contribution first. I sometimes hear “it must be hard with all the repetition -- the hitting of reset from day to day! So, I would like to share a story to help better illustrate how I feel. Once upon a time a boy went into a pet shop, looking for a puppy. The store owner showed him a litter in a box. The boy looked at the puppies. He picked each one up, examined it, and put it back into the box. After several minutes, he walked back to the owner and said, “I picked one out. How much will it cost?” The man gave him the price, and the boy promised to be back in a few days with the money.“Don’t take too long,” the owner cautioned. “Puppies like these sell quickly.” The boy turned and smiled knowingly, “I’m not worried,” he said. “Mine will still be there.” The boy went to work-weeding, washing windows, cleaning yards. He worked hard and saved his money. When he had enough for the puppy, he returned to the store. He walked up to the counter and laid down a pocketful of wadded bills. The store owner sorted and counted the cash. After verifying the amount, he smiled at the boy and said, “All right, son, you can go get your puppy.” The boy reached into the back of the box, pulled out a skinny dog with a limp leg, and started to leave. The owner stopped him. “Don’t take that puppy,” he objected. “He’s handicapped, he can’t play. He’ll never run with you. He can’t fetch. Get one of the healthy pups.” “No thank you, sir” the boy replied. “This is exactly the kind of dog I’ve been looking for.” As the boy turned to leave, the store owner started to speak but remained silent. Suddenly he understood. For extending from the bottom of the boy’s trousers was a brace--a brace for his disabled leg. Why did the boy want the dog? Because he knew how it felt, and he knew it was very special. Why do I do it? Because I know how you feel. You see, for the past 9+ years, I too was in real estate, I went through the ups and downs and everything in between. Lord knows, I know what agents are going through...good and bad. I know in my heart that this has helped me become a better teacher, trainer, coach and leader. I’ve seen so many lives transformed, because of the mindset of positive thinking that is KW. This......is why I do it. Until Next Time, Lisa Ekanger Your Hometown Realtor!

28 of the Best Things I Ever Did

28 of the Best Things I Ever Did — from My Bedroom to My Business 1. Started treating my office like it was a real room that was worthy of my best treasures, not the “spare room made into an office”. 2. Drinking hot lemon water in the morning. Great for digestion, skin, alkalinizing. 3. Admitted that I don’t like managing people, and therefore I am not excellent at managing people. Good news is, I’m an excellent leader. 4. Took voice lessons with Awilda Verdejo — It changed.the.way.I breathe. And if you change the way you breathe — your relationship to your power shifts. 5. Got a hot tub. 6. Stopped bringing clothes to consignment stores. The money is rarely worth the time and hassle (and mild humiliation. “What do you mean you don’t want to re-sell my parachute pants?”) It’s way more gratifying to give or trade clothes with friends or donate to a charity store. 7. Put my bed on the floor. You want better grounding, grinding, and good sleep — lower your bed. 8. Got light-darkening shades in my bedroom and removed anything that blinked or flashed. Sweet Lord Jesus circadian rhythm happiness. 9. Downloaded the whole Deva Premal library, began studying mantras. And then…actually used them. Om gam ganapataye namaha. 10. Invested in a Sonicare toothbrush. 11. Kicked gluten. 12. Found a wonderful local food fairy to make me delicious dishes every week. Promptly decided to not feel guilty for having a food fairy. 13. Went through with the divorce. 14. Self published the first edition the The Desire Map. I put the book out in a few months rather than the few years it would have taken with a traditional publisher, and I made full profit. That gave me solid ground on which to negotiate when a publisher I adored came along. We created a really unique deal for book production, distribution and sales. Triple win. 15. Stopped trying to have a NYT Bestseller and just did my own thing. It worked. Over 75,000 copies of The Desire Map are in print. 16. I became harder to get to so I could have more ease in my life. If it impinges on my creativity or being home when my kid comes gets back from school, I’m a No, Thank you. 17. Put up serious boundaries with people who took great pleasure in not taking my boundaries seriously. 18. Got an elliptical. Used it. 19. Decided to bag the parenting books and to just be really honest all the time with my kid. 20. Got my boy a guitar and filtered through guitar teachers until we found the one who said, “Forget scales. What song do you want to learn to play today?” 21. Started taking my work with the healers in my life more seriously — treated it as essential and ongoing learning, rather than a “fix” when I was in crisis. 22. Got a financial planner who is a Feminist. 23. Started going to spin class. Hooked. 24. Went back to a vegetarian way of life. Tho’ I make guilt free concessions for really crispy bacon and grass-fed cheeseburgers. 25. Started working out with two other girlfriends. Holy motivation. And sweaty, lung-burning laughs. 26. That danger zone between 11:30pm and midnight — where I get my third wind of the day…I stopped pushing through that to check more email or start another project — and I shut ‘er down. If I’m in bed before midnight, I fall asleep right away. If I pass the danger zone and stay up — I get re-wound and it takes longer to unwind for sleep. Anything I think I need to do after 11:30pm can wait until the morning. For. Sure. 27. I let the pain soften me. I let the joy soften me. I let the desire soften me. I let the pain soften me. I let the joy soften me. I let the desire soften me. 28. Stopped responding to text messages immediately just because they were “text messages”. Remember when not that much was urgent? — Danielle LaPorte

Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today 2 get through this thing called Life!

Dearly Beloved, I was 17 when Purple Rain was released. It was the soundtrack of my high school class; the class of 85! I was lucky enough to know about this person called Prince, a couple of years before the P.R. mania happened, a friend of mine (I was 16, she was 17) told me about him and brought me to a show at First Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. This little guy performed his act in a G-string and a rain coat. He was preforming songs from his first album, Dirty Mind. I don't remember that night being ALL that wonderful. We had semi-bad placement in the crowd and the acoustics weren't memorable either. I never thought that only a few years later, after his meteoric rise to fame, I would meet him face to face. Purple Rain was new, unique, tragic, innovative and wildly eclectic, just like the man who created it. As teens, we thought we were the coolest things that ever arrived on the earth because we had Prince and anyone older than 20 didn't! We got him! Raspberry Beret was also one of my favorite songs, instead of singing my boss was Mr. McGee, I would sing, my boss was Corey Tracey (my McDonald's manager at the time). As the years went by, I spent my fair share of time at First Avenue, always hoping to get a glimpse of his presence in the upstairs V.I.P. lounge. Never being beautiful, rich or well-connected, I guess I just hoped luck would somehow be on my side so I could meet him one day. That one day happened in 1991. The four of us decided to go to ladies night at The Pacific Club in downtown Minneapolis. The evening was pretty run-of-the-mill until a small man in a pale robins egg blue custom suit sauntered to the back corner booth. He was wearing matching spike blue leather boots and his double breasted jacket had a ruffled neckline. He had his signature curly hair swept to one side of his face. I wont admit to how many whisky sours I had consumed, but lets just say it was a plural amount. Oh wait! I forgot to mention an important piece of the story! The night before, Prince was to perform on The Arsenio Hall show. I was exhausted and was struggling to stay up for the 11 pm late night show, so I laid down to take a short nap. Regrettably, I didn't wake up in time and missed the show, and what a show I missed! Prince had worn a pair of ___less chaps and turned around after his performance to share his assets with the world! DANG! I was so mad at myself...that was on a Friday and ladies night was the very next night. So, yeah, in my state of delirium (from the drink) I decided to approach Prince by pushing my way through his body guards to state, "I missed your ___less pants show!" He stared at me with a complete poker face; the face he is famous for. Serious, dead serious! We locked eyes for a split second when two of his body guards reached down and lifted me up over the table and escorted me to the back of the club. Then a few months later, one of my best friends cousins' (who was his business manager) agreed to take me on a private tour of Paisley Park. It was beautiful and amazing and that was my conclusion with my fascination with Prince. I more or less forgot about him until Lotus Flower was made in 2010 -- at which point, I found a whole new appreciation for this gifted artist. I was super sad to hear of his passing, and yet I had to remind myself that Prince had discovered his one thing -- and poured his heart and soul into it. He created an amazing life by design and that was nothing to be sad about; that was something to celebrate! I am inspired to live a life by design because of people like him. Thank you to your Purple Highness for your amazing contribution to our lives! Dearly beloved We are gathered here today 2 get through this thing called life Electric word life It means forever and that's a mighty long time But I'm here 2 tell u There's something else The afterworld A world of never ending happiness U can always see the sun, day or night RIP PRINCE💟💟💟💟💟💟 Lisa Ekanger

Her Beauty Secrets...

Hello! Here it is: 1) Eat Mediterranean 90% of the time 2) Eat till you're 80% full only 3) Allow a 12 hr fast every day 4) I never eat past 6...and I get up at 6...so there's where my 12 hr fast happens. 5) Drink red wine, not white -- contains antioxidants. Food list veggies: -spring greens -peppers -olives/onions/mushrooms/garlic -tomatoes -cucumbers -spinach -cabbage/asparagus/Brussels spouts -broccoli -pickled beets -artichoke -pickles -green beans Food list protein: -fish -shrimp -chicken -turkey -eggs -lean red meat -peanut butter -all nuts but raw is best Food list dairy: -2% milk -goat cheese -feta -greek yogurt Food list fats: -olive oil -canola oil -coconut oil -butter -avocado Food list fruit: -blueberry -strawberry -raspberry -blackberry -cherries -red grapes -apples Food list starches: -rye crisp wasa -brown rice -rice crackers -red potatoes -basmati rice -yams/sweet potatoes -black beans Food list juice: -pomegranate -sour cherry -concord grape Food list No No! -pork -bread -crackers (unless rice) -pasta -most potatoes -carrots -iceberg lettuce -chips (except baked) -fried food -fast food -pop/diet pop Food list in moderation: -orange juice -bananas -melons -pineapples -sour cream -cream cheese -figs/raisins/dried cranberries Food list spices: -curry both red/yellow -turmeric -ginger -paprika -cinnamon -nutmeg Drink 3 tall glasses of water each day..I drink one glass at bedtime (especially in the summer) in the winter I run a warm air humidifier in my bedroom each night. I use roc.retinol day cream and roc.retinol eye cream every other night -- and every other night I use oil of Olay glycolic acid all over my face. I also use a product called frownies..google it! I get facials twice a year and massages 4x a year. I walk 30 minutes every other day on my treadmill. Thats about it! I also wear sunglasses every day! I allow a light tan to happen but never just bake in the sun. Laugh alot, meditate and train your brain for positive mindset! I take vitamin c and d oct-may..and a prenatal multi vitamin 2-3 x per month and a baby aspirin every third day of the week! Hope this was clear! Lisa♡

HOW TO FIND YOUR PURPOSE BY ANSWERING ONE QUESTION

HOW TO FIND YOUR PURPOSE BY ANSWERING ONE QUESTION BY TANCIE LEROUX January 18, 2016 It seems like every time you turn around, someone’s talking about purpose. Why are you here? What is your passion? What are you meant to do during your time on this earth? Those are the hard questions. Most of us aren’t entirely sure. We didn’t just slide out of the womb knowing what we were supposed to do for the rest of our lives. Figuring out your purpose can be a challenge and it often changes as you grow and evolve, but I've found one question that helped point me in the right direction when I didn’t know what I wanted. It put me in touch with what I value and why. If you had to leave your loved ones with three of your truths, what would they be? Let’s look at mine and what they mean to me: 1. Your relationships are the key to a happy life. There are a lot of things I can live without these days but my relationships aren't on that long list. They truly are the reason I’m glad to be alive. The people I hold dear to my heart fill me up with happiness and I want nothing more than to love them good! Whether we like it or not, we’re all in this together. We're not always dealt the family we wished for and sometimes our friends get on our last nerve, but they're our tribe. These are the people we share the journey with and the love and support we give each other can elevate our lives and bring us meaning. When I leave this world, the memories with "my people" will be lasting, not the things I accumulated along the way. 2. Kindness is the right choice and should be used often. When my husband Mark was ill, we took a trip to San Francisco to see a specialist. The kids came along so we could enjoy some family time while we were away. When the examination and consultation were complete, the doctor looked at us with sorrow and said he couldn't provide any additional help. My strong and amazing husband probably had five years to live. We left the office and it was all I could do to keep my composure and not collapse to the floor. The kids had no idea what had been discussed and I didn’t want to frighten them by losing it. I wanted desperately to stay on my feet and make a plan for the rest of the day... but I was dying inside. When we got on the elevator, an older woman caught my eye and somehow SHE KNEW. I don’t know if she sensed I was in pain or if she was an angel sent to help me, but she knew! She put her hand softly on my shoulder, looked me straight in the eyes with incredible love and said firmly, “You have a beautiful family and everything is going to be okay. It's okay.” I wanted to burst into tears but managed to hold it together. I squeaked out a thank you and we got off the elevator. That simple act of compassion changed me. It connected me deeply to someone I’d never met before and made me feel like I was being looked after. I don’t think I could have gotten through that day without her kind words. Don’t underestimate the value of the kindness you put out in the world. Don’t underestimate the small, sweet gestures you offer others. They heal. You never know when a few simple words will make someone feel safe or turn their day around; even change their life. It’s up to us to take care of each other. 3. Laugh whenever possible and don’t take yourself, or anything else, too seriously. Laughter is healing. It can diffuse the pain of a difficult situation and open your heart again. When all was going terribly wrong, it helped me step back, take a breather and look with new eyes. It comforted me. It lightened my load. As far as I’m concerned, everything's up for grabs and no drama is safe from my ridiculous and sometimes dark humor. A recent conversation with my daughter went like this... Annie: I can’t believe I have to pay for my physical therapy out of pocket because my deductible’s not met! That’s a lot of money! Me: I know, but it’s just money. Annie: But I need weeks of PT! My ankle hurts! What if it takes a long time?! What if it doesn’t work and I spend all that money for nothing?! Me: We’ll figure it out. It’s just money. No one dies. It always works out... except that one time when your dad kicked the bucket... Okay, it ALMOST always works out. So close. Annie: (laughing) So close. Good relationships, kindness and humor. I can’t think of anything better. How does that direct me to my purpose? It tells me what’s important to me and why. My purpose is to create and lovingly support beautiful relationships with family and friends, put kindness out into the world every chance I get, and fill the air around me with the sweet sound of laughter. I have the power to make my life and the lives I touch better by being loving, kind, and funny. I can operate from that “purpose” in infinite ways. What are your three truths? What’s important to you? What do you value and why? Give that some attention. That’s where you’ll find your purpose. SHARE THIS ARTICLE: 10.2K 44 - See more at: http://www.tut.com/article/details/227-how-to-find-your-purpose-by-answering-one-question/?articleId=227#sthash.Do5NELBd.dpuf Lisa Ekanger Your Hometown Realtor!