#you start off and it costs you hard-earned lessons to /not/ kill someone really early on. to /not/ kill it costs you extra

[miamicommune]

thinking abt how nemesis kind of sets up what should be the most thematically interesting ambition in FL and how quickly that fades as it goes

[doginshoe]

The Draconian Huntress XI

summary: In a time where there is an impending war to come, Lucy sets forth to find the draconian people in order to shift the tides against the demon King Zeref that threatens to take over Fiore.

part 11 of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10

read on ff.net here

Natsu vs Gajeel

Lucy couldn’t believe just what was unfolding before her.

It was unbelievable how many people had filled the colosseum in such short notice - like this was a common occurrence in The Draconian Kingdom.

The roar of the crowd was deafening, even as people still filed in through the large gates, as the ominous drum beat thundered throughout the arena.

It called the people in as the match drew closer to a start - the anticipation becoming so thick that even the archer was being swallowed by it. Her heart rate picking up as a knot formed in her belly and her hand clutched at the fabric of her skirts.

“Nervous?” Laxus called, and Lucy looked up to the tall blonde Commander by her side. He stared her down, almost a look of pity on his face.

She looked away from him, her brown eyes being drawn back to the grounds below - the Sanguis Pit. They washed over the grounds, mainly the gaping holes that littered the open space and the blood stains that were splattered across the large stone walls that stretched high above the fighting pit. It looked as if two armies had clashed here… Large armies with Giants and Orcs amongst the battalions.

The destruction was too chaostrophic for meager duels between men. There were even scorch marks that ran up the wall and even into where the civilians sat in the lower levels.

Her stomach twisted again.

“Just what sort of fight is this?”

She deflected his question with one of her own, yet that already gave Laxus her answer. It wasn’t often that outsiders beared witness to a Draconian pastime that dated back to their early ages. It was carnal and savage, just as if they had reverted to the dragons that bestowed their powers upon them. It was why he had asked for them to leave their smaller companion behind to wait with their Healer Grandeeny. He knew she had the wits and care to make sure the little girl was distracted.

“De provocatione ad Throni,” Laxus spoke in the old draconic tongue. “The challenge to the throne,” he paused as he looked to his princess who’s eyes were nearly burning holes into the ground and the dark haired male who looked uneasy beside her. “It’s a battle to the death.”

The winter sprite looked up, disbelief clear in his eyes as Lucy’s shoulders stiffened.

“You’re really going to let someone kill the King?” Gray piped up, exasperated, “I mean I don’t like either of them, but to have a death match with your own King… that’s insane.”

Laxus didn’t even bat an eye at Gray’s ignorance, his expression like stone. “The King is the strongest Draco, only second to his chosen mate. If the King is killed in combat then he was not fit to lead to begin with. That is our way.”

“Even I took up arms against Natsu,” Laxus added, which earned him an even wider eyed stare. “It was when Layla had ran with you and King Igneel had disappeared. Natsu, by expectation, was raised to the throne.”

He gave Lucy a pointed look before he turned to look at ‘The Blood Pit.’

“He was a boy and I was just a few years his senior. It was foolish but I fought with him. Yet, I never challenged him to the Sanguis.” He paused as his blue eyes stretched over the arena, taking in the destruction that marked it’s exterior and gave an opening to the pain and death that had wrecked the old colosseum.

“If I had then, I wouldn’t be standing here today.” His voice held weight with the last line, the blonde commanders eyes pulling away from the pit.

“That’s-” Gray started, but Lucy had cut him off. Her voice interjecting in a loud hiss that sent the winter sprite taking an innocent step away from her.

“It’s barbaric.” She looked back to Laxus. “I’ve known people to be cruel, but slaughtering those around you to get to the top? It makes me sick.”

“Those words ring a bell,” a croaky voice joined in, “I believe they were the same one's your mother used when she had first been let into the Sanguis to witness a proelio mortem between two drakes.”

The trio of warriors turned to the old man that entered the royal tier seating - the Advisor.

Laxus bowed his head, yet Lucy and Gray remained still - apart from the displeased look growing on the archer’s face.

“Lord Yajima,” Laxus greeted, but the old man waved him off.

“It has always been ironic; the history of the Heartfilia’s and the Draconians  - bound to us by an old oath, yet always disappointed in our actions.” Yajima walked slowly to the edge of the balcony, his eyes connecting with Lucy the whole way. “It is almost as if their predecessor cursed them to live a life of misery rather than saving them as she intended.”

Lucy’s thin brows pulled down. “What do you know about the history of my family?”

“I’m the advisor of the Kings and Queens. It’s my duty to know the Kingdom and its history. In fact, I remember teaching it to you when you still ran about these castle walls.” He spoke before halting by the large rail that surrounding the top tier and slowly raised his hand, bringing the entire crowd to a hush. “But, I’m afraid I can’t retouch on our lessons right now. There is much more important matters at hand.”

The drums slowly faded to a low beat, the dull thud repeating in a monotonous rhythm that slowly declined in octaves.

“Wait-” Lucy called and reached for the old advisor, but a large hand captured her shoulder, halting her movements. She looked up to Laxus and he shook his head.

“It’s not time for that. Natsu is the one who needs you right now.”

Lucy’s face contorted into one of anger. “What? Get off-” she yelled as she threw herself from his grasp but Laxus only pulled her back again.

“When you’re Queen you’re going to find out everything you want to know,” Laxus voice turned into a quiet hiss, “but if Natsu loses today then that’s not going to happen.”

Lucy's eyes widened as he turned her to the arena.

“You’re his mate - his life - as he is yours. Haven’t you sensed it? Feelings that aren’t your own.”

Her mind flashed to when she had first seen Natsu. The excitement and flush that had first dawned on her before her fear finally took over.

“When they step into the arena, your faith in him alone can be his strength. It’s all up to you if he wins or not. That’s why he ordered for you to be here.”

The drums died on a quiet thump and the silence fell over the colosseum, yet it barely lasted a second before Yajima pulled his hand down and the first gate crashed to the ground. A figure walking out in a steel suit of armour - but it wasn’t like any of the knights she had seen.

The steel was jagged, like waves, and consumed nearly all of his face. The thick metal stretched over his arms where the waves carved out more, the edges beginning to glint like sharp swords all the way down to his hands that were left free. However, Lucy could tell it wasn’t a vulnerability in the armour as it gave way to the scales that climbed up his hands and the claws that extended from his fingers.

Gajeel let out a roar and his black wings expanded from the space where his armour didn’t reach, where it then wound down to make thick shields for his legs. The only place on the armour that wasn’t made of steel was on his stomach, where it became a crystallized form of the black stone; the material that the walls were made from.

He looked to be impenetrable. Yet, Lucy knew that it was weighing him down. The only fault of such quality armour that seemed to defend as well as attack, and while Gajeel looked strong, there was only so much movement he was allowed.

He planned to finish this quickly.

The archer felt the twist in her gut again as the crowd boomed out a loud cheer. The drums picking up as Gajeel stepped further from the gate and into the centre of the blood pit. She flicked her eyes to Laxus again and he only gave her a stoney gaze that Lucy couldn’t decipher. She noticed he wore it often.

When she turned back to the crowd it was growing quiet again and she took a step closer to the rail, her hand coming up to tight around the bar as she kept her eyes on the other gate. If what Laxus said was true, then she needed to give her strength to him. Not only to get her answer, but for the war that was to come. It was Natsu who agreed to fight against Zeref and if Gajeel were to kill him now then there wouldn’t be any assistance to aid Erza.

Not to mention she doubted that the Lieutenant would even keep herself, Gray and Wendy alive.

Natsu had to be the victor and so Lucy swallowed hard.

“Try not to be nervous,” Laxus spoke up from behind her. Yet, Lucy couldn’t help it bubbling up in her stomach as her knuckles turned white from her tight grip.

“He’s right,” Yajima added and she jerked her head towards the older man that was by her side. “You are twined together. Everything you feel he feels. Everything you sense, he senses. Natsu can even feel the beating of your heart at this moment. Although, it might not be as strong for you, the drake is completely overwhelmed by their mate when their in close proximity.”

“Your anxiousness will become his anxiousness, so try not to let the feelings overwhelm you. I’ve seen Draco’s fall in this arena from a distressed mate.”

Lucy shook her head, “but how can I? His survival is dependent on everything.”

“Draw it from him.”

The blonde looked down as the hum of the crowd began to fade. There was uneasiness coursing through her entire being. Just how could she stop it by drawing it from something she hadn’t even been aware of before?

Her brown eyes look up as Gray leaned on the railing beside her, his hand reaching out to rest on her arm.

“If anyone can do this then it’s you, Lucy,” he encouraged. “Even if you can’t feel whatever they’re talking about, you’ve seen and fought in battles that had cost everything before. Just breathe.”

Gray smiled and Lucy couldn’t help her lips twitch up at the corners of her mouth. With a soft nod she turned her eyes back to the gate before closing them, her chest heaving with a deep breath as the colosseum died to silence once again.

When she opened them again, the gate dropped - the flare sparked and Lucy felt a rush of adrenaline fill her veins.

The audience took a collective gasp as Natsu leapt from the darkness of the passage, his wings expanding in a fiery display as he kept himself stationed in the air. With each beat of his wings, Lucy found herself resembling them to a burning flame - the chaotic reds and oranges, streaked with an angry purple becoming a bonfire of colour.

His abdomen was dawned in a golden array of metal covers that came all the way up in a point to his solar plexus where two chains then stretched out to join with the metal that garnered on his chest, and then flared out to create heavy padding on his shoulders. His gauntlets carried the same waveform as Gajeel’s armour, the edges also sharpened to a deadly blade and capped with the dark stone. On his lower half he wore loose beige pants that met shin pads much similar to his gauntlets.

Lucy noticed his head was left unprotected, as two horns rose out and curled like a demon. His face was nearly completely covered in dark lilac scales and that stretched over his arms and down his back where they met his wings. When his eyes met hers they were golden rather than his usual olive green.

They nearly took the air from her lungs as he stared down at her, his gaze looking savage and wild before he turned it to his opponent. The entire arena stayed in silence as the two drakes glared at each other - the anticipation in the blood pit turning to tension as they locked gazes. It wasn’t until Gajeel let out a short laugh that the arena could stop holding their breath.

“What’s wrong, Salamander? Lost that fire of yours already, Ghi-hi?” the drake sniggered as his own wings expanded behind him. The jet black colour a stark comparison to the array of warm tones amongst Natsu.

Gajeel stretched out his arms as he grinned, “Or maybe I just haven’t hit the right nerve yet. He rolled his shoulders, the steel clanking against steel as he shifted his position before leaping into the air towards Natsu.

“I’m sure this will fire ya up,” he yelled and pulled back his fist that came barreling towards the King at unimaginable speed.

Lucy’s mouth dropped as Natsu pulled to the side, the punch just barely grazing his shoulder, the armour scraping all the way up Gajeel’s gauntlet. It wasn’t possible, she thought. A man of that size with all his armour to move at such a speed… It wasn’t human!

The crowd roared as Natsu spun in the air as he turned, his leg coming down to deliver a blow to the top of the dark haired male’s back. Yet, he made no signs of even feeling the kick as he twisted and aimed another blow to Natsu’s head - the punch inches from his face before he grabbed hold of Gajeel’s hand.

“And to think I thought ya were going easy on me with that first hit,” Natsu grinned and his eyes glinted as he squeezed down on the other drake’s hand, steam rising from where their skin met.

“You bet I was. Thought ya weren’t paying attention to me cause you’re too busy staring at that Lady Heartfilia, Ghi-Hi,” Gajeel smirked as he pushed his fist harder into Natsu’s grip. “Is only right for me to give my opponent a little wake up call.”

Natsu brought up his own fist and swung it toward the dark haired draco, who caught it just as swiftly. “Watch yourself, Gajeel. I mean, we don’t want this fight to end too quickly, now do we?”

Gajeel knocked his forehead against Natsu’s - a trickle of blood beginning its descent down to their eyebrows. His lips twisted into a wicked smile as he gave his snarky reply.

“No, I guess we don’t.”

[eviewolff-blog]

intro.

Born to an immigrant mother, Hana Keun had only heard stories about her father, akin to fairytales where her mother was the damsel in distress and her father the dashing knight who rushed to her aid. Over the years, Hana had heard many different excuses for his absence: “he had to leave us for our own safety” or “he’ll come back some day, I promise, yeon-in.” She never got a solid answer as to why he wasn’t in her life in the first place, just that he wasn’t. It was never enough to satisfy her curiosity, but Hana could tell it hurt her mother whenever she brought it up, so eventually she stopped asking.

Growing up, she’d been the freest of spirits, always the first on the playground and the last off, skinning her knee on the blacktop or banging her elbow while pretending to be a pirate on the jungle gym, a bird standing atop the monkey bars and spreading her wings to fly or an astronaut about to be launched into orbit from the see-saw. Her imagination always got the better of her and she’d often spend more times in daydreams than paying attention during her early years.

Middle school saw her get wild in the good way, slushies from 7-11 and guitar lessons and skateboarding until curfew, all while her mother struggled to really make ends meet. Yeah, they were okay but they weren’t comfortable, not the way that Hana had seen her classmates be comfortable, or people walking down the streets when their wrist watches alone cost more than her entire outfit. She got angry, but not at their fortune, but at her own misfortune. If her father hadn’t left, they might not be in this position. If he had been around, maybe things would have been different

It was then she’d decided at the young age of fourteen to seek out her father. She’d snooped around in the house until coming across her birth certificate and found her father’s name. Simon Wolff, one search had opened up a world of possibility. Not only was he famous, richer than God (an actor with another family to boot), he lived close enough that she was able to get a bus ticket and wait around until he entered the coffee shop closest to his house. (some would have called it stalking, Hana called it clever.) She went by her middle name, introducing herself to him as Evie and “such a big fan” and asking for a picture. When he agreed, she pulled out her birth certificate, holding it up and surprised him. Simon Wolff knew he’d had a daughter out there, one that he’d abandoned, and in order to save himself the publicity scandal, he’d offered her anything: acting roles, a new house, anything to keep her out of the spotlight, but Hana only wanted one thing: money.

As it turned out, Simon was willing to give her quite a lot in order to keep her name separated from his. She’d even negotiated a deal: in addition to enough money to keep them comfortably afloat, she wanted ten percent of any earnings he made from any movies, and in return, she wouldn’t tell anyone that she was his child. He hadn’t wanted her, so why the hell would she want him? With all of it recorded as proof of their deal, they went their separate ways, and that was the first, last, only time Hana Keun had ever met her father.

The struggling to make ends meet turned into a better school for Hana, extra guitar lessons and when she showed an interest in singing, vocal lessons. Sent to a private high school, where only the wealthiest made the cut, Hana felt powerful. Powerful enough that she started going by Evie, took her father’s last name, and started up a band. She’d gone from the space case on the playground to the idealist who created a band her first year of high school, won battle of the bands the second, and got a record deal the third. By senior year, she’d gone on tour, taking a tutor on the road. People screamed her name, took pictures with her, and her concerts sold out in minutes. The Clovers weren’t the next big thing, they were the only big thing.

With an album and a tour under her belt, Evie graduated high school as valedictorian, if only because she worked hard even while on tour, taking online tests during the opening acts and studying well into the hours of the morning. The classmates at her private academy couldn’t say the same. There were more drugs going around there than there were being offered to Evie on the road and Evie only rarely partook. She’d have time to mess around when her education wasn’t on the line. Besides, her father wouldn’t be blackmailed forever and she needed to prevent a burn out that could ruin whatever chance she had at caring for her mother. Take care of yourself before you take care of anyone else. In case being a musician failed, she’d have a good education and glowing reviews as  a safety net.

It was sometime after graduation and before the next tour that Evie finally approached the Sanctum. She’d heard whispers about them for years, always catching the tail end of one conversation before someone noticed her looking. Black heart and blacker intentions were hidden under the bright, smile, the wide eyes, the look of sheer naivete of her personality, but she’d sought them out. Being a rockstar was all well and good, something that she wouldn’t give up even if this came through, but she wanted more than a career with a sometimes fickle audience. She wanted promises and assurance that her mother would be taken care of even if she stopped making money, if she wasn’t around anymore. So at the Sanctum, she’d asked for two things: Change her father’s will to leave all of his assets, his homes, to her mother. Of course, Evie wasn’t heartless, she’d asked them to leave enough for his current wife and their three kids to survive comfortably, but not much more than that.  Then, for the second thing, she asked them to kill Simon Wolff.

With her mother taken care of and her father taken care of, Evie was free to continue life as she pleased and the cheery optimist remained despite it all. She felt no remorse for what she did, not even when the news broke two weeks later that Simon Wolff had committed suicide. No change came about her, as if she was completely unaffected. And why wouldn’t she be, Wolff was a common last name, surely there wasn’t a relation. The only difference is that now, the Sanctum knew her little secret and they were keeping her tethered to reality.

as of right now, i have no wanted connections but i’m sure we’ll figure something out through plotting and simply figuring out how our characters interact with each other!   

[tirtalks]

A Glance of: Ego is The Enemy

The book Ego is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday is filled with cautionary tales of those who experienced ego at each of their stages in life: Aspiration, Success, and Failure.

This is not about ego in the Freudian sense, but the ego we most commonly see that goes by a more casual definition: an unhealthy belief in our own importance. Arrogance. Self-centered ambition. It’s the sense of superiority and certainty that exceeds the bounds of confidence and talent. The need to be better than, more than, recognized for –that’s ego.

Ego is the enemy that separates us from every direct and honest connection to the world around us. That’s why this book comes to help us to be humble in our aspirations, gracious in our success, and resilient in our failures.

To whatever you aspire, ego is your enemy

Don’t Talk, Talk, Talk –Act!

The more difficult the task, the more uncertain the outcome, the more costly talk will be and the farther we run from actual accountability.

So what is scarce and rare? Silence. The ability to deliberately keep ourselves out of the conversation and exist without any need to be validated. The only relationship between work and chatter is the latter kills the other –particularly early on in any journey.

To Be or To Do?

If your purpose is something larger than you –to accomplish something, to prove something to yourself- then suddenly everything becomes both easier and more difficult.

Easier in the sense that you know now what it is you need to do and what is important to you. The other choices washed away, as they aren’t really choices at all. It’s about the doing, not the recognition. It gets harder because each opportunity –no matter how gratifying or rewarding– must be evaluated along strict guidelines. Does this help me to do what I have set out to do? Does this allow me to do what I need to do? Am I being selfish or selfless?

To be or to do –life is a constant roll call.

Become A Student

The art of taking feedback is such a crucial skill in life, particularly on harsh and critical feedback. The ego avoids such feedback at all costs, whatever, ego is the voice that tells us we’re better than we really are. Ego dislikes reality and prefers its own assessment.

To become what we ultimately hope to become often takes long period of obscurity. Humility is what keeps us there, concerned that we don’t know enough and that we must continue to study. Become a student to place the ego and ambition in someone else’s hands.

Don’t Be Passionate

It’s all about passion. Find your passion. Live passionately. Inspire the world with your passion. Because we only seem to hear about the passion of successful people, we forget that failures shared the same trait.

Passion typically covered a weakness. Its breathlessness, impetuousness and franticness are poor substitutes for discipline, for mastery, for purpose and strength and perseverance. You need to be able to spot this in others and in yourself. While the origins of passion may be earnest and good, the effects are comical and then monstrous.

The critical work that you want to do will require consideration to pursue the purpose. Not passion. Not naivety.

Follow the Canvas Strategy

The Canvas Strategy is about helping yourself by helping others. Making a concerted effort to trade your short-term gratification for a longer term pay-off. Whereas everyone else wants to get credit and be “respected”, you can forget credit. You can forget it so hard that you’re glad when others get it instead of you –that was your aim, after all. Let the others take their credit on credit, while you defer and earn interest on the principal.

Once we fight this emotional and egoistical impulse, the canvas strategy is easy and the iterations are endless.

Restrain Yourself

Our own path, whatever we aspire to, will in some ways be defined by the amount of nonsense we are willing to deal with.

Up ahead there will be: Slights. Dismissals. One-sided compromises. You’ll get yelled. You’ll have to work behind the scenes to salvage what should have been easy. All this will make you angry and want to fight back. But don’t! Take it. Endure it. Quietly brush it off and work harder. Restraint is a difficult skill but a critical one.You will often be tempted. No one is perfect with it, but we must try.

Honestly, many paths would tolerate only restraint and had no forgiveness for ego.

Get Out of Your Own Head

Our imagination is dangerous when it runs wild. We have to rein our perceptions in. Otherwise, lost in the excitement, how can we accurately predict the future or interpret events? How can we stay hungry and aware? How can we appreciate the present moment?

Living clearly and immediately taking courage. Don’t live in the haze of abstract, live with the tangible and real circumstances, even if it’s uncomfortable. Be part of what’s going on around you. Feast on it, adjust for it.

There’s no one to perform for. There is just work to be done and lessons to be learned, in all that is around us.

The Danger of Early Pride

Actually, pride –even in real accomplishments– is a distractions and a deluder. Pride blunts the very instrument we need to own in order to succeed: our mind. Our ability to learn, to adapt, to be flexible, to build relationships, all of this is dulled by pride. Most dangerously, this tends to happen either early in life or in the process –when we’re flushed with beginner’s conceit. Pride takes a minor accomplishment and makes it feel like a major one.

Receive feedback, maintain hunger, and chart a proper course in life. We are still striving, and it is the strivers that should be our peers –not the proud and the accomplished ones.

At the end, this isn’t about deferring pride because you don’t deserve it yet. It isn’t “Don’t boast about what hasn’t happened yet.” It is more directly “Don’t boast.” There’s nothing in it for you. 

Work, Work, Work

Fac, si facis. Do it if you’re going to do it.

Work is finding yourself alone at the track when the weather kept everyone else indoors. Work is pushing through the pain and crappy first draft and prototypes. It is ignoring whatever praise others are getting, and more importantly, ignoring whatever praise you may be getting. Because there is work to be done.

 To whatever success you have achieved, ego is your enemy

Always Stay a Student

As we first succeed, we will find ourselves in new situations, facing new problems. But, with accomplishment comes a growing pressure to pretend that we know more than we do. To pretend we already know everything.

No matter what you’ve done up to this point, you better still be a student. To be the humble version of you who don’t assume, “I know the way”. If you’re not still learning, you’re already dying.

Don’t Tell Yourself a Story

Whatever we do, instead of pretending that we are living some great story, we must remain focused on the execution –and on executing with excellence. We must shun the false crown and continue working on what got us here.

Because that’s the only thing that will keep us here.

What’s Important to You?

This is how ego works: we’re never happy with what we have, we want what other people have too. We want to have more than anyone else. Ego sways and can ruins us. We started out knowing what’s important to us, but once we’ve achieved it, we lose sight of our priorities.

On an individual level, however, it’s absolutely critical that you know who you’re competing with and why, that you have a clear sense of the space you’re in. The more you have and do, the harder the maintaining fidelity to your purpose will be, but the more critically you will need to.

Find out why you’re after what you’re after. Ignore those who mess with your pace. Let them covet what you have, not the other way around. Because that’s independence.

Entitlement, Control, and Paranoia

The problem lies in the path that got us to success in the first place. What we’ve accomplished often required feats of raw power and force of will. Achieving success involved ignoring the doubts and reservations of the people around us. There are legitimate stresses and anguish that come with the responsibilities of our new life. But, ego will always be the worst enemy. Ego sways and can ruins every single pieces of our life.

We don’t have any entitlement to overstate our abilities. In other way, we need to control ourselves to don’t ever force anything to be done our way –even little things, even inconsequential things. Learn to trust people so paranoia won’t get us down.

Once our path lead us to success, we have to regularly remind ourselves of the limits of our power and reach: entitlement, control, and paranoia.

Managing Yourself

As you become successful in your own field, your responsibilities may begin to change. Days become less and less about doing and more and more about making decisions. Responsibilities requires a readjustment and then increased clarity and purpose.

It is not enough to have great qualities and abilities to do everything in our own field, we should also have the management of them.

Beware The Disease of Me

The Disease of Me begins once we think that we’re better, that we’re special, that our problems and experiences are so incredibly different from everyone else’s that no one could possibly understand. It’s an attitude that has sunk far better people, teams, and causes than ours.

Let’s make one thing clear: we never earn the right to be greedy or to pursue our interests at the expense of everyone else. To think otherwise is not only egoistical, it’s counterproductive.

Meditate on The Immensity

At least once in a lifetime, we would experience what the Stoics would call sympatheia –a connectedness with the cosmos. A sense of belonging to something larger, of realizing that “human things are an infinitesimal point in the immensity.”

When we lack a connection to anything larger or bigger than us, it’s like a piece of our soul is gone. No wonder we find success empty when we’re exhausted. In that moment, ego stands in the way. By removing the ego –even temporarily– we can access what’s left standing in relief. By widening our perspective, more comes into view.

Feel unprotected against the elements or forces or surroundings. Remind yourself how pointless it is to rage and fight and try to one-up those around you. Go and put yourself in touch with the infinite, and end your conscious separation from the world. Reconcile yourself a bit better with the realities of life. Realize how much events came before you, and how only wisps of it remain.

Let the feeling carry you as long as you can. Then when you start to feel better or bigger than usual, go and do it again.

Maintain Your Sobriety

In most cases, we think that people become successful through sheer energy and enthusiasm. We almost excuse ego because we think it’s a part and parcel of the personality required to “make it big.” Maybe a bit of that overpower is what got you where you are. But, we have to stay sober and control our ego.

Sobriety is the counterweight that must balance out the success. Especially if things keep getting better and better.

 To whatever failure and challenges you will face, ego is your enemy

Alive Time or Dead Time

According to Greene, there are two types of time in our lives: dead time, when people are passive and waiting, and alive time, when people are learning and acting and utilizing every second. Every moment of failure, every moment or situation that we did not deliberately choose or control, presents this choice: Alive time. Dead time. Which will it be?

Dead time is revived when we use it as an opportunity to do what we have always needed to do. Think of what you have been putting off. Issues you declined to deal with, systemic problems that felt too overwhelming to address.

In life, we all get stuck with dead time. Its occurrence isn’t in our control. Its use, on the other hand, is.

The Effort is Enough

In life, there will be times when we do everything right, perhaps even perfectly. Yet the results will somehow be negative: failure, disrespect, jealousy, or even a resounding yawn from the world.

Depending on what motivates us, the response can be crushing. If ego predominates, we’ll accept nothing less than a full appreciation. With the right motives we can still pursue our success. With ego, we’re not.

Do your work. Do it well. Then “let go and let God.” That’s all there needs to be. Recognition and rewards –those are just extra. Rejection, that’s on them, not on us. Doing the work is enough.

Fight Club Moments

We surround ourselves with distractions, with lies about what makes us happy and what’s important. We become people we shouldn’t become and engaged in destructive, awful behaviors. This unhealthy and ego-derived state hardens and becomes almost permanent. The bigger the ego, the harder the fall.

In fact, many significant life changes come from moments in which we are thoroughly demolished, in which everything we thought we knew about the world is rendered false. But change begins by hearing the criticism and the words of the people around you. Even if those words are mean spirited, angry, or hurtful. It means weighing them, discarding the ones that don’t matter, and reflecting on the ones that do.

Draw The Line

People make mistakes all the time. We take risks. We messed up. We fight desperately and only making it worse. Ego kills what we love. Sometime, it comes close to killing us too

Let’s say you’ve failed and let’s even say it was your fault. Things happened and trouble is in anywhere. But most of them is temporary, unless you make them not so. Recovery is not grand, it’s one step ahead of the other. The only real failure is abandoning your principles.

Maintain Your Own Scorecard

This is the characteristic of how great people think. They don’t really care much about what other people thin, they only care whether they meet their own standards. And these standards are much, much higher than everyone else’s. A person who judges himself based on his own standard doesn’t crave the spotlight the same way as someone who lets applause dictate success.

Reflecting on what went well or how amazing we are doesn’t get us anywhere, except maybe to where we are right now. But we want to go further, we want more, and we want to continue to improve.

Always Love

We all have stuff that pissed us off. The more successful or powerful we are, the more protection we will need in terms of our legacy, image, and influence. There is only one best response to an attack or a slight of something you don’t like: love. Because hate will get you every time.

In failure or adversity, it’s so easy to hate. Hate defers blame. It makes someone else responsible. It’s a distraction too. Does this get us any closer to where we want to be? No. It just keeps us where we are –or worse.

Meanwhile, love is right there. Egoless, open, positive, vulnerable, peaceful, and productive.

Epilogue

Every day for the rest of your life you will find yourself at one of those three phases: aspiration, success, failure. You will battle the ego in each of them. You will make mistakes in each of them. You must sweep the floor every minute of every day. And then sweep again.

[occupyscifi]

Procedurally generated empathy

It was after a hard night of doxing, hating and botnet swatting that Harley James awoke annoyed the find that despite her best efforts the girl she hated more than anything in the world except cancer  hadn’t yet killed herself

“I mean, she should have done it by now” she gassed to her girlpals as they rode to school on the self driving bus. All of them had dressed in their matching KillerPorn themed co educational onesies as dictated by Harley  “we’ve been attacking her for months. Like actual, real, months”

“even Betty Hardwicke had hung herself by now” sighed Anastasia Kirkpatrick, her fingers twitching as she navigated an ancient sim on her e-glasses with a vacant expression on her face. In front of them on the bus assorted nerdboys were suffering through the various stages of puberty. Behind them the cool kids acted like they didn’t live in the safest society on earth “I dunno what we need to do”

“go nuclear” grinned Harley, paging through the options on her e-glasses. In another viewing window the poor victim’s social media history was waiting, ready to be dissected and weaponised against her. It was a treasure trove of hatefuel- endless threads of do goodery, of loving the wrong memes at the wrong time. Of cringy gawk and unintentional hilarity. It wasn’t possible to even look at the girl’s life without instantly hating her so viscerally that Harley could quite happily have torn the girl apart with her bare hands. Luckily she didn’t have to. The hungry AI’s of the post google age were practically begging her to ask them for help. It was the work of a moment to do what they wanted “let’s see her survive this” said Harley, tapping in the air as she selected the girl’s fate.

It took double maths, a French lesson and an impromptu fire drill before Harley got the ping she had been waiting for.

“oh yes, girl” she cried, high fiving Anastasia and earning a rebuke from a teacher whose only qualifications was that he’d agreed to be paid less than a security guard for doing effectively the same job “read it and weep” she swiped the message to her gasping friends and surfing the wave of laughter as it came “threw herself under a train this morning!”

As the laughing and cheering rang around the gym hall Harley reflected that it was probably a good thing that the girl she had driven to suicide was not someone she knew personally. Or indeed someone who had ever existed at all.

It had started when computer technology had reached the point where it could crate convincing fake faces. Algorithms in the early part of the 21st century had been able to create convincing unreal pictures of people from data sets very easily. Then it was just a short leap to creating convincing video fakes, and the porn industry collapsed overnight as celebrity fakes flooded the world. This was followed shortly by movie studios  re-creating digitally every actor since the golden age of Hollywood and ruthlessly using plotting algorithms  to create a nearly infinite spooling reel of movies. Of course ninety nine percent of the went unwatched, not least because passive entertainment was as popular with a late 21st century audience as epic poetry would have been to a 20th century one. People wanted interactivity, they wanted to be part of the story. They wanted to vicarious thrill of being able to shape a narrative themselves, or indeed to destroy it.

Which explained the creation of the fake social media profile industry. This had first been spawned by advertisers who realised that paying real people to shill their products wasn’t as nearly as cost effective as just creating fake people who could be relied on to loyally boost a brand without ever going off script or being caught doing something they shouldn’t that might reflect badly back on the brand. They could be relied upon to sell the quasi dictatorial services offered by the social media companies who had realised what they craved wasn’t bringing people together but rather trying to control their every waking thought

Thus the ad industry created entire fake lives, flooding social media with people who had never  existed, families and towns of people who had never lived. All of them culled and mixed from the petabytes of data greedily hoovered up by various social media companies over a near century of recoded behaviour. However since most real humans lived off the ad revenue gained from shilling on social media in order to pay for basic goods like food and shelter there wasn’t any tangible difference between the product placement by humans and by algorithms. If anything the bots were a little less clumsy or needy. This was hardly surprising as having ad revenue was often the only thing staving off malnutrition for a hefty section of the population.

So for a while  it looked as if the noble experiment in fake people had been nothing more than an esoteric and depressing  philosophical / art project, when a bored researcher in the bowels of a silicon  valley content farm discovered something. Fake people generated as much hatred as real ones, if anything they actually engendered more.

“so what I was thinking” recalled the researcher, now raised up into the light and allowed to use the various playrooms and chic amusements given to only the hallowed princelings of silicon valley “is that people online love to hate other people, and we as responsible social media companies” the researcher had paused to allow her bank account to swell that little bit more with some good old company loyalty coin “have spent time and efforts to stamp out abuse, with little real success. So I concluded  essentially that jealously and cruelty must be an innate  part of human nature, and rather than trying to eradicate cyber bullying and online abuse we needed to redirect it. In this case to the fake people we had created”

The system was an instant success. Freed from the guilt of knowing they were destroying the lives of innocent people hordes of teenagers and the elderly flooded their hate mail towards the fake people generated by AI. Indeed the fake people now created were aimed at causing the maximise self righteous rage in all good thinking folk.  Trumplike hatemongers incited the left whilst snowflakey woke types enraged those who leaned right. For teens like Harley it was even easier, since all she ever wanted was to turn the tidal waves of jealousy and insecurity she felt into anger and hate.

In response to allegations that the social media companies were in effect encouraging hate crime the algorithms were adjusted to have the fake people respond realistically to the abuse they received. The fake people demonstrated real emotions, showing at first concern and then as the abuse increased gradually spiralling into depression, self harming and suicide. However instead of being a sobering reminder that victims had real feelings and spurring empathy in the abusers it only made them try even harder. Hence girls like Harley priding themselves on driving into suicide as many fake computer people as they could, safe in the knowledge there would never be any consequences. Or at least that was what Harley thought.

 The story of the fake girl’s suicide buoyed Harley through the rest of the deadly dull day. It got her through the chemistry class where, due to some even more dull political dispute between brands, they only learned about the properties of hair care products. It also got her through the bus ride home with her pals as they desecrated the social media site where the fake bereaved relatives left fake messages for their fake deceased daughter. If any of the practice had been designed to provoke empathy in girls like Harley then it had failed utterly. All it had done was make her glow with power and pride, a feeling that lifted her and took her out of her anxious little existence for a little while. As if she floated above the mere mortals she shared her life with. It was a feeling that lasted until she entered the echoey hall of her parents house and the ticking of the housekeeping bots, and the silence welled up and she felt very much alone. Alone with only her self hate, her anxiety and the crushing knowledge that she would never, ever be happy.

But this was a familiar feeling, and she had the cure in her bedroom. Gratefully she sank into her chair by the window, pulled on her comfy VR integrated onesie and prepared to find her next target.

“maybe some posh girl?” she mused as her skin felt the tickle of social media updates “or, like, an old fashioned hate crime?” they had been studying the golden age of online racism at school, in the days when social media companies had naively believed that the internet savvy user would be free of any prejudice beyond which operating system they used. Harley had been practising her anti semitic meme skills, and was pretty sure she could stitch together a decent conspiracy theory blaming any number of religious or ethnic minorities.

However all thought of whose fake life she would really ruin next was driven from her head when she flicked on her social media profile and saw what had happened.

“the fuck?” she exclaimed, scrolling through the various walls, feeds and posts that made up the ecology of her online presence. A place that should have been a carefully curated garden of bright flowering selfdom now ran riot with dangerous weeds “what happened?”

Harley scrolled through her feeds, feeds that should have shown posts she was tagged in that were mostly just bad recursive memes now in their second generation, or shout outs from her friends – both real and virtual. However now they were awash with poison. Every picture she had posted came tagged with its own tirade of abuse from dozens of different users. Her videos detailing the more dull aspects of her life had been spammed by messages, links to takedowns of her and threats so varied and bizarre that Harley wasn’t even really sure what they meant.

“oh, you dumb bastards” she said, feeling a surge of triumph run through her as she paged through the endlessly negative comments. The user name and ident tags of her abusers glowed red and she felt the throb of gleeful, righteous rage “you dumb, dumb bastards” she looked at the comments, at the ridiculously  over the top hurtful things that they were saying “I guess you don’t know a little something called the User Protection Act” with that she swiftly highlighted all the usernames that had abused her, and copied them to the User Protection Bureau “well, you’re about to get schooled, bitches” she hit send with a laugh “as in actual prison sentence banned from social media kinda schooling”

The User Protection act had been brought in shortly after the appearance of fake people, for the simple purpose of preventing actual real people being harmed online. The thinking went that since fake people could now take the brunt of the rage hate of humanity any real human facing abuse should have some legal protection. Thus the User Protection Bureau was set up, dedicating to protect real people from virtual hate. The Bureau itself was simple a semi sentient  algorithm  that you reported hate speech to, and if the user was found in breach of this law their social media presence was erased  until they had shown sufficient remorse. If this did not work the every hungry US prison system was happy to take people to work off their debt to society. But  since for many people it was their only source of income  online discourse had become considerably more polite, and few people ever needed to be told twice.

Unfortunately the bureau’s rules only applied to real human users, something that Harley was about to discover.

“what?” she said, when the User Protection Bureau Avatar appeared in front of her and smilingly told her that no action would be taken “but I am a real person” she waved a hand at the hate screeds that were defiling her social media presence “and I really, really am angry and upset about all this”

“you are real!” said the avatar cheerfully, as if she was congratulating  Harley on the observation, or perhaps even the state of being. The avatar was a genderless being in Harley’s virtual view, its face combining the caring and yet stern façade required for representative of what was left of the Federal government  “but unfortunately  the other user are not. All these comments are written by non human individuals”

“what the heck?” said Harley, looking at the abuse being levelled at her “you mean these were all written by fake people?” her forehead creased in thought “I guess that’s why they keep calling me a murderer” she looked again “hey, since when have fake people started abusing real ones?”

“well, its not my place to say” beamed the avatar “but I suppose if they can be attacked like real people, then they can do the same to you” the avatar seemed to be peering over Harley’s shoulder “and I have to say, they do really learn fast. Wow, that is some really nasty stuff!” the avatar made to vanish.

“hey!” shouted Harley, still sitting in her onesie in her room.  “what are you going to do about this? How do I stop it?”

“I don’t know” shrugged the avatar “how about you be a better person?”

“you useless dumb shit piece of software” yelled Harley losing her temper “you’ve got one fucking job…”

“now remember Harley” said the UPB  avatar “if this starts to get you down you can always talk to one of our counselling bots…”

“get me down?” said Harley “seriously? As if I’m going to let a bunch of computer code and crazy ass algorithms tell me how to feel. It ain’t nothing I can’t just ignore”

 It was precisely seventy two hours later that Harley climbed onto the roof of the school gym and made her way to the edge, ready to end her life by jumping off it.

At first it had been a joke, seeing all the fake people getting so angry at her.

“dude, they’re ridiculous” she said, scrolling down the comments whilst she and Anastasia were meant to be doing Yogalates in the school gym “as if I’m going be all sad cause ‘Chad_KroegerRULES69’ calls me a heartless fat bitch who deserves to die of Herpes”

“and this one” chimed Anastasia, looking at the feed as she completed a flawless downward dog. It helped that her parents had been giving her a cocktail  of vitamin supplements so potent she was practically an Olympic gymnast “says you’re so ugly your parents should have strangled you at birth, can you imagine? And it says your nose is way too big and…” she trailed off, unable to make sense of the fact that Harley’s face had gone red. For a moment Anastasia thought it might be the strain of the Yogalates, after all the virtual teacher was buffering again mid stretch and hadn’t told them to breath for several minutes. Last time that had happened three junior high students had been hospitalised. It was only after several seconds that she realised that it was because Harley was trying not to cry.

“they’re just fakes” said Anastasia quickly “like you said, bunch of computer code and shit. Why would you care what they say?”

“because they’re right!” Harley had howled, bursting into tears and running out of the hall. The virtual teacher strobed for a moment and called after her. Except instead of using her real name she called her fatty.

“I can’t believe there aren’t any laws covering this” sighed Harley’s mother, having been informed by the school of what was happening. However as most of the school staff were of course themselves virtual algorithms they didn’t seem terribly sympathetic. Indeed the virtual Principal had called her a whore of satan, but that might have just been his Christian preacher programming glitching again.

“s’ok mom” Harley had said in a small voice “I guess I deserve it, after all I kinda dished it out…”

“no, no I won’t hear of that” said her mother, the pair of them sitting at the kitchen table. Behind them the food fabricator hummed as it emitted the aromas of home baking, without actually baking anything. The bread substitute it would eventually extrude would look and taste like the real thing, but would take more calories to digest than it gave in return.  “You’re a super star Harley, you’re a girl with a real heart of gold. That these software sons of bitches are attacking you is just cause they’re jealous. They’ll get bored of it soon, just you wait”

Twenty four hours later even her mom had to admit that last part was not true.

“they ain’t got nothing better to do” she had said, sitting on the edge of Harley’s bed whilst the girl herself hid under the duvet inhaling ultra absorbent kleenex “they just exist to make snark and pick holes in other people’s lives. Imagine dedicating all that time and energy into being so nasty” she shook her head “what kind of creature does that?”

“I do” snivelled Harley from under the duvet. She hadn’t been back to school, not since the incident in yoga class. Not least because most of the school software wouldn’t let her anywhere near the gates without loudly announcing she was menstruating, or by digging out from the archives less than flattering yearbook photos that by rights should have been long erased “I did, I mean… that was all I did. Bully and pick on people till they lost their minds and killed themselves”

“oh, but they weren’t real people, were they?” her mother responded, patting the duvet in concern since her daughter hadn’t emerged from under it for several hours.  If it wasn’t for the smart material she wore in her onesie then she’d have started to stink “they were just software. Not real at all”

“they seemed real” said Harley “seemed real when I was ragging on them. Felt like they were real people when I treated them like shit, and it feels real now that they’ve all turned on me”

“well, maybe that’s your answer” said her mom, stroking the duvet in a way she’d seen moms do on old TV shows “if they’re like real people you could appeal to their better nature. Try being honest. Say you’re sorry. That you’ve changed. That you’ll treat people better from here on in” her mother smiled “I’m sure even a bunch of software would understand a sincere apology. I’m sure it will make things better, if nothing else they’ll respect you more”

“you think?” said Harley, her tousled head and tear stained face emerging from under the duvet.

“darling, I’m sure. Sometimes an apology is the best thing”

It wasn’t. If anything it made things even worse.

“I mean, I don’t know what she’s playing at” confided Anastasia to her closest subscribers as she walked about school the next day. The thousand or so followers she had guaranteed perfect discretion to, unlike the tens of thousands of other global viewers she shared most of her every waking thoughts. In an age where the average Chinese teenager could pull in a million hits for little more than wearing a short skirt Anastasia didn’t even register “apologising? Admitting that she was wrong all those times she drove those software people to kill themselves? That isn’t like her” she paused as several of her subscribers pointed out that there had been many, many times that Harley had said sorry in the past “okay, she does say sorry. But only in, like, a tactical way. A situation like this you never say sorry. Oldest rule in the book is never to show weakness. Whatever you’ve done, no matter how bad, you double down on it. accuse your opponents of doing what you’ve done. Go low when they go high. Play the man, not the ball” she nodded to herself, her mother was a leading member of the church of Trumponomics and had taught her well “I just don’t know what she’s going to do next”

She was answered by a scream from the campus in front of her, several girls in the grade below her pointing up to the roof of the gym. Anastasia squinted up into the bright light and saw a figure up there.

“well, I guess that answers my question” she muttered, and began running. All of her talk of PR strategy  was forgotten. Her best friend was going to end her life.

Harley had been up on the gym roof before, but only to film a mock suicide piece to make fun of some virtual boy they had bullied to death. However this time instead of mockingly singing the theme from Frozen (the steampunk live action version, of course, which Harley and her mother both considered the definitive best one) she was going to go ahead and end it all. She wiped the tears from her eyes, stepped up to the edge of the roof and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, okay?” she muttered, barely loud enough for the floating beecams around her to pick up and livecast to everyone in the world “I thought it was okay to pick on people cause they weren’t real. I didn’t realise that it was me being mean because I feel bad about myself and I’m lonely. I thought it was harmless, but it was making me into someone I’m not. I don’t wanna be that person no more. So I’m not going to be” with that she lifted her foot, ready to plunge herself off the roof.

“well done” said a voice behind her “you’ve passed the test”

Harley whirled around, nearly losing her footing on the roof and almost falling  to the school yard below. Behind her floated the avatar from the User Protection Bureau, its impossible face so carefully imperfect that it was beautiful

“what?” said Harley, squinting in the light. The avatar only existed in her e-glasses, but had come under its own power “what test?”

“why, the empathy test” beamed the avatar “you passed it. you showed you were a real human being, with real feelings and the capacity for change”

“but… what? How?”

“you suffered the online abuse you used to dish out. You did what they did. To no avail. So you were going to end your life. That’s how we know you are sincere in your apology”

“you….you did this to me on purpose?” said Harley, shock showing in her face

“I am sorry” trilled the avatar, in a way that suggested apologies were for other people “we had to intervene more seriously. We tried showing you what happened to another being when you drove them to the edge, but that didn’t do anything because they were only virtual. And because your generation has become desensitised, like the previous one did growing up watching Youtube beheading videos  or Epic Deadly Fails. It wasn’t enough to watch someone hurting to make you feel real empathy. You had to go through the pain yourself. Do you understand now?”

Harley nodded miserably, feet right on the edge of the school gym roof and an open mouthed crowd gathering below. There wasn’t a single one of them that would forget the lesson, not one who wouldn’t feel like Harley did.

“now, remember you still have friends” the hologram gestured to Anastasia, who had burst out onto the roof and hugged Harley tight, pulling her away from the edge “and that every life matters, whether it’s real or virtual”

With that the avatar smiled and vanished. With it all record of the online abuse vanished too, the legions of angry software people melted away. Harley’s social media profile now resembled a perfect garden of harmony and supportive uplifting commentary. Gratefully Harley fell into Anastasia’s  arms, who lead her from the roof into a corridor. The door closed, cutting off the floating beecams that had been livecasting the event.

“oh, oh honey what were you thinking?” whispered  Anastasia as Harley clung to her “doing something like that….to think that you needed to…..” she swallowed hard, the image of her best friend plunging to her death would be etched on her mind forever. The idea that someone close to her could feel so bad they could only think of ending their lives, well that was if anything even worse.

“I was thinking I could get a hella sponsorship deal” said Harley, wiping her eyes and stashing away a small vial that caused the tears in the first place “and go on a full spectrum  repentance tour. The way I figure it I can milk maybe six months out of this empathy for others shit”

“umm, what?” said Anastasia, watching Harley morph from a wrecked and broken figure into the girl she knew, admired, but really never liked “you knew this was a test?”

“course” said Harley as they walked towards the stairs. The police were waiting at the bottom, but for no other reason than to take selfies and loltag some meaningless phrases about all lives mattering “I mean, you don’t think I just decided to through myself off a building? No, I carefully researched how to take my own life? Well every time I did I found out that someone from the Bureau always turns up to try and talk them out of it. Course it doesn’t always work because some people really, really want to kill themselves” she added, her face looking quizzical. Even now she couldn’t quite understand why people wanted to kill themselves to try and make themselves feel better. They could always just take out their feelings of resentment and self pity out on other people.

“so, like, you faked this?” said Anastasia, not sure whether to regard this as an excellent career move or proof of what she had privately suspected, that Harley was a psychopath “Why?”

“you know, bots can do a hell of a lot of things” said Harley, checking in her e-glasses that her makeup was smudged just so “but they can’t fake being sorry like a human being can. I’m gonna work being a recovering suicidal teen so hard it’ll put me through college” she smiled, her teeth bright white and her eyes artfully red and teary “thank the lord for online abuse”

[garynsmith]

Low budget, no experience, no clients: How one Denver broker found his way

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Freedom and the ability to make money? I became a real estate agent because the idea that if I worked harder I could earn more was appealing to me, as I’m sure it was to many of you.

The job I was in before that was a standard customer service job, and I felt I worked hard enough for a whole team! I kept thinking, “I’d kill it by myself with no one holding me back — just me making money!”

In real estate school, they said it’d be about six months on average before I saw my first sale.

“Not me, I’m above average!” I thought. I knew, I’d crush it right out of the gate.

Little did I know, I was stepping into the most over-saturated, under-supplied market Denver had ever seen.

The challenges

You see, (according to the public record) the last time Denver had a healthy, even market was between 2011 and 2013. The best of those months boasting roughly 35,000 transactions per month!

Growth lessons for brokers and teams from Henry Ford

Adopt early, innovate constantly, leverage automation READ MORE

When I started? An average of 2,500 to 4,000 transactions per month! No one told me that until I had my license!

The number of agents? Yeah, that wasn’t good either. After completing my classes, I started noticing articles that said things like “Denver has more real estate brokers than real estate listings.”

If ever, you have seen a bad omen, that’d probably be it!

So I should have given up, right? Conceded defeat and went back to the drawing board?

Of course not! Unfortunately for my wife, it’s not in me to just give up and get back in line.

But when all the chips are stacked against you, what can you do?

I had a low budget, no reviews or experience, no web presence or knowledge and no customer base. They say to use your circle of influence, but a lot of times, even those people won’t use someone with no reviews!

The prescribed method

I started at a big chain brokerage. I tried to get as much information from my assigned mentor as possible, but he just wanted to stack me with fees, and my mentor had his own focus.

He did give me pointers, and he had me bombard all of my Facebook — and real life friends — with basically spam.

“Collecting emails” was another big priority there. But it was more spam. I felt like the people I was working with were a little behind the times, using spam and aggressive tactics to get sales.

And I just wasn’t about that.

So I decided to make a change. I packed up and moved to a different brokerage. A small one with about seven agents.

Here, the managing broker and a couple of the senior agents really took me under their wing and taught me a lot. And they gave me their best ideas for lead generation!

Oh man, I was excited! I couldn’t wait to get back out there.

Trial and error

The first one was the old meet-and-greet. I basically loitered anywhere there was people. Middle of summer, outside,  sweat dripping down my face — I was just trying to kick up conversations with people.

Though I did succeed in kicking up some conversations, and I did get some feedback, this didn’t work. And it didn’t work for a simple reason: people weren’t there to talk to a broker.

When you approach people, it had better be for something that will help them out, or they just don’t care.

Especially when considering the state of the market in my area, most people already knew a broker and just saw me as a weirdo.

Back to the drawing board.

I tried mailing people offers and even giving each one of them a handwritten opening sentiment. That was just a substantial, hand cramping waste of time! Not to mention the cost of postage and envelopes — those things can really add up! But in the end, I’m sure all of them ended up in the trash.

I tried everything. At one point, I was hitting expireds every day!

For those of you who don’t know, an expired is a listing that has recently passed the end date on the contract. These can be great leads, but it’s a very competitive market.

I would stay up until midnight printing up all of the components of my “expired packet.” Basically an opening letter describing myself, a CMA and a call to action.

Then, I’d wake up at 3 a.m., print off the list of expired homes that didn’t go back under contract, and I’d hit the road.

I’d try to get to the first one right at 8 a.m., then I’d nock on the door, introduce myself, talk their property up to try to seal the deal.

In reality, almost everyone was at work, and the people who were home had just gotten out of an unfulfilled contract with another agent and were not generally very happy.

Even being as early as I was, I was never the first person to contact them.

There were a couple more things I tried too. But nothing was working. Nothing I was doing gave me any sort of progress.

What finally worked

I spent some time reading online and trying to find new ways to build my business. After doing a ton of research, I found a great concept: niche marketing.

What is a niche market? It’s basically a small subset of a larger market. Like a category. It’s narrowing down the whole market and trying to cut out a small piece of the pie for yourself. Or becoming an expert in something.

The niche of the smaller brokerage I joined was property management, but I thought that being a property manager was a waste of time, so I shied away from it.

Until one day it hit me what my niche was.

I’m young for real estate. In fact, I haven’t met any agents yet my own age. This helped me define my market even more. It took a little while, but it finally hit me. My niche is helping people from my age group start investing in real estate and rentals at a young age.

That niche has a long, clunky title. So I just tell people, “I help you net more you.”

At first people had a hard time getting it, but when I started making a little more money, I launched a website around it. And it’s really started moving.

So what does this all mean? How does this help you?

Well, there was a time when you would get business as a real estate agent just by being in front of people. You’d just send them mailers and email to maintain constant contact, and they’d be your customer for life.

But the internet has changed society enough to affect that.

It’s not about being in front of people anymore. It’s about being what they need.

We all know that people will drive past a McDonald’s to get to a Starbucks for the better quality. And people use reviews and online information to help them make an informed decision before a purchase — especially one as big as buying a home.

So what I’m saying is that in order for you to get more business, you need to have high-quality customer service and a winning game plan. You need to be out there making a name for yourself — not just showing people your name.

Most importantly, whether buying, selling, investing, etc. — you need to add value to whatever your clients are doing.

Luke Phares is a property manager and associate broker with CityScape Real Estate, Metro Brokers in Denver. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter. 

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