Gratitude. It’s something we all should work from.
I’m still reeling from our company’s Inspiration Awards Brunch yesterday. I couldn’t help but feel the energy in the room of my peers as the award winners were announced. I’m two years in to this career and certainly did not expect to win an award, especially since we have so many talented agents in our roster.
Sure enough it happened.
The #7 Top Individual Agent for our Oxnard office is…Sam Benner.
I tried to play it cool, but on the inside I was overcome with excitement. I made my way to the front of room, snapped a picture with our Team Leader, and looked back at my colleagues in the room. I felt every smile, thumbs up, and cheer like a cool breeze on a hot Summer afternoon. Yes, it was pretty darn cool.
It would have been very easy to have my head suddenly grow in size and commence in a furious self back patting session. Surprisingly that didn’t happen. Even though I attentively listened and celebrated the top agents ahead of me that received their awards, my mind wandered in the brief moments in between to the people that made this award possible. Flashes of triumph over tragedy, inspiration through perspiration, and true love came over me.
My Mom
I may be my mom’s son, but I’m certainly not the only person she’s helped on life’s journey. I’m simply very lucky that I have a direct line to her attention, an attention that doesn’t begin and end with the school year. She’s given her life to the education of young people with many years as a teacher and now as a principal. Her story is still being written, but there are some chapters that are etched in my every day life that push me beyond measure. She lost her husband, my father, to a heart attack almost 20 years ago. Our family makeup was instantly redefined.
Tough times don’t last, tough people do.
There were tough days, painful holidays, and tender moments of hope those first few years after he passed. Every morning, however, whether she slept or not she got out of bed, got in her teacher uniform and hit the classroom.
When things got hard she’d go out to the garage where the washer and dryer was, put her hands on each side of the washer, lean in, and look up at a poster that hung on the wall above. The poster was a frog that was being swallowed up by a bird. The frog refusing to go quietly into that digestive system has its hands firmly around the bird’s neck, squeezing the life out of the bird trying to eat him. The caption above the photo reads, ‘Never Give Up’. Literally words to live by. Words she has shared with me many times to keep me going through many life challenges. She is and always will be what it means to be a rock. An exemplary example of how to overcome the challenges life throws at you, even when you feel like you are being swallowed whole. Thank you Mom.
My Coach
I am one of thousands of local kids who have been lucky to be under the tutelage of Jon Mack. Yes, he’s a football coach and well known throughout the community as having one of the greatest football minds this area has ever seen, but he is so much more than that. I’ll never forget meeting him as an 8th grader and thinking instantly, ‘I want to play for that guy’.
St. Bonaventure High School Football in the early 90s was not the well known powerhouse program it has come to be over the last couple of decades. Many of my fellow Pop Warner teammates were going to Buena and thought I was throwing my promising football career away at a place where no one would see me play. At our meeting he pulled me aside from the crowd of prospective students at Open House Day and said, ‘Sam, I think I can build a team around you and you will get a great education in the process’. It was a match made in Heaven.
As the mind perceives, the body achieves.
After many battles on the football field together I was fortunate to have the attention of college football recruiters from around the country and it came time for the combine. My mom, dad, sister and yes, Coach Mack piled into the car and heading down to Oceanside High School.
A combine tests you on many athletic standards like the vertical jump, shuttle run, and the 40 yard dash. I quickly knocked the first two out of the park, but the 40 yard dash was going to be my make it or break it moment. For a defensive end in Division 1 you had to run it under 5 seconds, period. I had done it a few times during training, but certainly not every time so my confidence was a little shaky and being a 17 year old pup on this grand of a stage my negative thoughts were getting the best of me.
You get two tries and they take your best time so I had no margin for error, no step could go off line. We are talking about tenths of a second here. I lined up for my first attempt, put my hand down to the grass, and took off like a freight train. Feeling pretty confident from my other two events I lined up at the starting line, exploded off of it like a freight train. The multitude of officials yell out your times. 5 flat. 5.01. 5 flat. 5.02. ‘Crap’, I thought.
Coach Mack saw the gloom come over my face and ran over to me as I made my way back to the starting line for my 2nd attempt. ‘Sammy’, he called me that, ‘you are going to run a sub 5 40 right now. You are going to do it. Stop thinking you can’t. Don’t look up when you go down in your stance. Keep your head down, take a deep breath, drive your arm through, and explode off the line. You are going to win a Division 1 scholarship right now.’
He broke through right at that moment. I went from being an unsure kid who didn’t think he deserved to be in that group of promising young athletes, to a young man who was there to get what was his. My mind wasn’t in the way anymore, it was in the driver’s seat.
I lined up, put my body in the right position, and instead of exploding off the line it almost felt like the world went into slow motion. I thought about every step, heard the wind whistle in my ears, felt the grass kick up against the back of my legs.
I motored down and quickly turned around to hear the officials yell out my times. 4.93! 4.94! 4.9! I did it.
There have been many more times in my life since where I had to overcome an obstacle. Guess who’s voice I hear? Yep, it’s Coach Mack out on that field saying ‘you are going to do it’, my mindset shifts, and I get through it. Thank you Coach.
My Wife
I know I don’t see myself the way my wife does. She looks at me like popcorn in the pan, ready to pop at any moment, even when I’m feeling like those discarded kernels that never do.
I’ll never forget meeting her for the first time. She’s electric. Her eyes draw you in and her smile and laugh are infectious. Safe to say she had my attention from the start. When we first took up together it was apparent to me immediately that she wasn’t a ‘yes woman’. She pushes me.
It’s time for you to be a REALTOR® honey.
My first real job was working for First American Title as a sales representative (coincidentally where my wife and I met) where I successfully built out 2 sales territories, and then the market crashed. ‘Maybe you’d should be a real estate agent babe, you’d be so good at it’. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ I’d reply.
I then went on to help build an online marketing company for small businesses. I worked on some amazing projects, co-founded an business seminar and networking event, and was invited to speak all over the state to speak about marketing. I loved it, but there was still something missing. I’d get discouraged, figure out another revenue stream which was met with great support from my wife, however she would again throw out there, ‘maybe it’s time to get your real estate license’? I didn’t know that an incredible opportunity was just around the corner.
It was Thanksgiving Dinner three years ago that a breakthrough happened. My aunt, who happens to be a real estate broker, and I chatted about life as we often do. My aunt shared with me the challenges and the amazing potential that career has given her and the other agents in her care. It wasn’t new information, but I suddenly flashed to all the conversations my wife and I had about this very topic, instantly realizing how right she had been.
Stuffed with turkey and new hope my wife and I laid down in bed together and instead of ‘I told you so’ she said ‘it’s time’. I signed up for real estate classes the next morning, Black Friday. And just like the many shoppers out there that day, I had my face pressed against the glass of my real estate career whispering, ‘open, open, open’. I had found my calling.
My wife didn’t stop pushing me to be successful, even though it took me a while to come around. She kept the heat on, moved the pan around, and waited for me pop at the right moment. My real estate career has not been without challenge, but it sure is amazing to live a life with her, with extra butter, about to watch a movie of our bright future ahead. Thank you Honey.
My Clients
Would I have been #7 without you? Absolutely not. I can be the greatest agent in all the land, but if no one would place their trust in me I wouldn’t be called to front of a room to accept an award. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for bringing me in to your lives and allowing me the opportunity to work with you to achieve your real estate goals. I think of each of you often and take a moment each day to appreciate what a big deal that is. Thank you Clients.
If I can be of any help to you, your family, friends, or colleagues, I’m here and I’m grateful.
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