Character, Courage and Confidence

by Lori Muller, EXIT Realty Corp., International, President U.S. Organization

It does not matter where you are in your business or personal life, these 3 words can impact every decision you make, every door you decide to open or close, and every path you take. When you sit back and look at these three words, you see them always fitting together almost like the 3 magical ingredients of your success. If you try to separate them and you will always fall back on the other two. 

No matter where you are in your career, the foundation for your personal and professional growth is your character. Your character is who you are, but your reputation is who people think you are. The trust that others have in you is the core of your character. Now, you need to ask yourself….  Do they trust me?  When you have a great reputation and an authentic, trustworthy character on the inside, this is when you start attracting others to you from the outside. You start building your referral business, you start having agents call you to join your brokerage, and your phone rings because someone wants to join your team or a consumer wants to work with you!

Now let’s just take a minute and think about courage. We have all had courageous moments in our lives. Those moments that one decision we made had such a monumental change in the trajectory of your life, whether business or personal. 

One of the biggest character-building courageous moments of my life happened when I was struggling with who or what I wanted to be at the young age of twenty. While I have felt courageous many times prior to this moment, I made the decision to quit my life in Wisconsin when I answered an ad in the local newspaper with the headline “Travel the USA- Fun in the Sun”. That was on a Wednesday, by Saturday, I had put all my belongings in storage, quit my job and school, said goodbye to family and friends and my life as I knew it, and hopped on a Greyhound bus and traveled to Minneapolis, MN to start my new adventure. From that point, I traveled the country for almost 10 years selling concentrated cleaner door to door. It was a game-changer for me because I had the courage to just do it!

 Every day from that moment forward I never lacked courage. I did not let anything, or anyone hold me back from where I wanted to go, or who I wanted to be. Don’t let anyone or anything stop you from being courageous. It builds your character! It builds your trust in not only yourself but others and it creates a shield of confidence that no one can ever take away from you. When you are courageous you inspire others to be courageous and this is how we multiply. This is how you build a referral business, your residual income, your brokerage, and your team.  

The exciting part of being a person with a strong, authentic, trustworthy character is that your confidence grows! Because you take the time to invest in yourself, and then, pay it forward and invest in others,  you build their confidence as well. Now confidence comes with empathy, not ego. This is when you take the confidence you have and use it to develop others. You start to attract, develop, and multiply others which will transform your business and your work-life balance. You begin to leverage the relationships you have built to assist you both personally and professionally.

I want to leave you with this quote, “Fear is Temporary, but Regret is FOREVER”.  Be Courageous! Be Fearless! I trust you, I believe in you, now it is your turn to believe and trust yourself. You can do it!

About the Contributor

Lori plays a direct role in supporting, empowering, and nurturing others not only as an inspiring and authentic leader, but as a mentor, giving them insight and bolstering their confidence to believe in their own capabilities. It’s an experience that keeps on giving back as Lori leads by example when she states, “Invest in you, so you can reinvest into others”. 

“Leadership is about listening to people. When you listen, it gives you the ability to impact people’s lives, inspire them, and influence them to believe in themselves,” she says, “That’s what leadership truly is.”