Pauline Donnelly's (realdirection) Blog

I’m a big believer in the power of positive thinking. When you believe you can do something, more often than not, you can. Unfortunately, negative thinking is just as powerful. As Henry Ford put it, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t—you’re right.” So what leads us to positive thinkin...

As a real estate agent, your job is, of course, to help in the purchase and sale of real estate. But when you think about it, there’s another part of your job that can take up just as much or even more time. Your real job—the one that makes it possible for you to work on the buying and selling—i...

As a coach, there’s nothing I like better than seeing a new client come into my office with energy, enthusiasm, and real motivation. These clients are my favorites—first, because that kind of outlook is contagious, and second, because a motivated client is sure to succeed. Right? Well, no, not a...

  I was humbled today by a client who just engaged my services. Let’s call him Bill. Bill has been selling real estate for 25 years, and he’s in the top 30 agents in his marketplace. His annual sales volume is consistently between $15M and $20M, and he’s well-known and well-respected amongst his...

When I first started out as a real estate agent, my managing broker used to say to me, “Pauline, the sky’s the limit.” It’s not that I didn’t believe him, exactly, but I took it with a grain of salt. After all, “the sky’s the limit” is just one of those things people say. Everyone wants to be po...

Competition is a funny thing. For some people, it’s the fire that drives them to do more and accomplish more. It’s the motivation for even greater achievement than they thought possible. It can even be the thing that gives them a sense of purpose they never had before. But for other people, the ...

These days, it seems like everything happens instantly. Take a photo and see it immediately. Click a link and start watching a movie in seconds. Videochat face-to-face with people who, just a decade or two ago, would have been hours or even days away. It’s all miraculous and, for the most part, ...

“Take one single moment to feel sorry for yourself, and then bounce back better than ever.” Barbara Corcoran I’m a big fan of real estate icon Barbara Corcoran and saw her post this on Facebook this week. It’s timely, because recently I’ve had a lot of real estate agents talk to me about how to ...

All agents spend a lot of time working with people, and if you work with people you’re bound to get frustrated from time to time. That’s just the nature of people. I have a client—let’s call her Lisa—who was beyond frustrated with one of her buyers. His goals kept changing. His price range kept ...

Social media has become, and will remain, an essential part of any real estate agent’s marketing arsenal. Even beyond its effectiveness as a marketing tool—which can be great—any agent must maintain a basic social media presence simply to seem relevant and up-to-date. However—and you can call me...