Skip to main content

The (Missed) Shot Heard 'Round the World (Posted April 11, 2016)

At last year’s ACC Tournament semifinal (basketball) game between Notre Dame and Duke, the halftime entertainment included giving someone an all-expense-paid trip to the game with the chance to take a half-court shot for $1 million.  Scott Park was the lucky winner, and he and his wife made the trip from Virginia Beach to attend the game and for Scott to take the shot.  When the time came, he took the ball in both hands, eyed the basket, ran to the half-court line, and launched the ball into the air with everything he had.  And it sailed . . . to about the foul line. 

Almost immediately, this seemingly epic failure of a grown man to throw an air-filled leather ball just over 45 feet was turned into vines and videos that littered the Internet.  Comments were immediately flowing like “can you believe how bad that shot was” and “why did that dude even try”.  With the virtual anonymity of the Internet, people can be brutal!

What these anonymous couch potatoes didn’t know was, that for the past eight years, Scott has been through a horrendous medical ordeal that resulted in his undergoing a very rare type of kidney transplant. Since the transplant, he and his wife make a five-hour journey every other Friday from their home to Baltimore for him to receive an infusion of an experimental drug, and then they drive home.  All of this has severely weakened Scott. 

Going into this moment, he KNEW there was absolutely no way he was going to come close to making the shot.  In other words, he KNEW that he was about to have a very embarrassing ten seconds in front of A LOT of people.  He didn’t care.  He wasn’t going to let those ten seconds define him – at least not negatively.  He was just glad he had the chance to walk out on the court under his own power and give it a shot. 

As real estate and mortgage professionals, we meet people almost every day who feel like they have “ten seconds” of embarrassment that has defined their lives – it usually comes in the form of a bankruptcy, a foreclosure, or some other financial reversal of fortune.  The moment we meet these folks, we have an almost immediate opportunity to help them realize they don’t need to let that embarrass or define them.  While the realities connected with a bankruptcy or foreclosure cannot be wished away or made void with a hug, we have a special ken of knowledge that enables us to give them hope and a way to pursue the dream of owning a home again (or for the first time) – THAT is what makes us essential to this process, and we should never tire of letting people know this.


The very people we touch (figuratively) and help then become our biggest advocates and referral sources – advertising and marketing you CAN’T buy.  “You HAVE TO go with my real estate and mortgage folks!!!  They helped me get into this house when I was convinced I would NEVER be able to afford a house IN MY LIFE!!!”  You’ve suddenly become their genie and their fairy godmother all rolled into one.  Don’t take that too literally, though – it’s not a look most of us could pull off. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Naked Truth About Home Buying

It’s highly likely I’ve already written about this, but I’ll try to make it entertaining at least.   There’s a guy who works in ou r office who suffers from kidney stones – and from what he’s described, “suffers” might even be a little too tame a word for it.   As an aside, though, when you ask him how painful the experience is, he gets an odd smile and says, “It’s the most intense pain I’ve ever experienced, but it’s hard to describe.   I’ve heard a lot of people compare it to the pain a woman experiences while giving birth.   To that, I must say, those people are big, fat liars!   I’ve been in the presence of a woman giving birth, twice, and her pain has to be 100 times worse.   They’re passing the equivalent of a Buick.   I’m passing a pumpkin seed.”   He’s always been a colorful fellow. He’s had this wonderful condition for over a decade now, and the stones make their appearance about every 18 months or so.   Up until recently, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Saving Money is Music to Your Ears (Posted January 9, 2017)

For all the “old” people out there, you’ll instantly know the name Daryl Hall.   For those of you who are still on your original set of adult teeth (perhaps because you got your braces off fairly recently), Daryl Hall is a musician (the blonde half of the duo Hall & Oates – the one who DIDN’T have a mustache that looked like it was straight out of an ’ 80s adult film) with a number of albums (albums a re these big, black 12-inch vinyl “platters” that look like a pregnant CD) that have been certified as gold/platinum and hit songs to his credit, some of which he recorded himself and some he wrote for others.   Going back to 2007, he started a show on the internet called Live from Daryl’s House ; in 2011, he took it to cable where it currently airs.   The concept is relatively simple: he has musicians from all genres and eras come to his house to jam with him and his band.   In between songs, they talk about music and memories, and they usually end up eatin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Showcase Showdown (Posted October 17, 2016)

The game show “The Price is Right” – the show where 95% of what they give away is total garbage (fireproof bathmats in the shape of Ecuador, really?) – is probably each child’s first exercise in trying to guess how much something costs.   Admit it, you sat glued to the TV set either screaming at the screen so the contestant could hear you or you were sending out vibes telepathically – either way, you KNEW you were the BEST price guesser in the world . . .   until the very moment the model would reveal the real price of $732 for a set of salad tongs made of Lucite and cubic zirconia (your bid was $17, and you thought THAT was probably a little high).   But that didn’t stop you because here comes that toaster oven that doubles as a brief case – how could anyone put a price on THAT? A recent study published in the Journal of Housing Research (just let the sheer coolness of that name wash over you for a few moments) concerning pricing was interesting.   The r...
Post a Comment
Read more