Real Estate Philosophies
I work by a set of values that have never steered me wrong. Excellence, Commitment, Perserverance, and Kindness
Excellence
Excellence is never an accident. It is achieved in an organization or institution only as a result of an unrelenting and vigorous insistence on the highest standards of performance. It requires an unswerving expectancy of quality from the staff and volunteers.
Excellence is contagious. It infects and affects everyone in the organization. It charts the direction of program. It establishes the criteria for planning. It provides zest and vitality to the organization. Once achieved, excellence has a talent for permeating every aspect of the life of the organization.
Excellence demands commitment and a tenacious dedication from the leadership of the organization. Once it is accepted and expected, it must be nourished and continually reviewed and renewed. It is a never-ending process of learning and growing. It requires a spirit of motivation and boundless energy. It is always the result of a creatively conceived and precisely planned effort.
Excellence inspires; it electrifies. It potentializes every phase of the organization's life. It unleashes an impact which influences every program, every activity, every committee, every staff person. To instill it in an organization is difficult; to sustain it, even more so. It demands adaptability, imagination and vigor. But most of all, it requires from the leadership a constant state of self-discovery and discipline.
Excellence is an organization's life-line. It is the most compelling answer to apathy and inertia. It energizes a stimulating and pulsating force. Once it becomes the expected standard of performance, it develops a fiercely driving and motivating philosophy of operation.
Excellence is a state of mind put into action. It is a road-map to success. When a climate of excellence exists, all things come easier.
Excellence in an organization is important....because it is everything..
Commitment
Until one is committed,
there is hesitancy,
the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation)
there is one elementary truth,
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner
of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamed
would have come his way.
I have learned a deep respect
for one of Goethe's couplets:
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
-W.N. Murry
The Scottish Himalayan Expedition 1951
Perserverance
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The slogan, 'press on' has solved, and always will solve, the problems of the human race.
- Calvin Coolidge
Kindness
I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
- Ettiene De Grellet
