You race to unlock your office and get to the ringing phone just in time, (It's a client with urgent questions about a pending purchase agreement). You intend to get the information quickly and get back to the client, but then the phone rings again with an agent referencing an email. While you're checking that email you decide you might as well check the rest of them. Soon you're onto returning emails and yesterday's calls. Then it's paperwork, floor calls, an avalanche of filing and a buyer's tour. Before long, it's the end of the day and you go home having totally forgotten about the important questions you were supposed to answer from your first call. Sound familiar?

If it does, then you've fallen victim to being overwhelmed and spent most of the day being distracted from where you were and who you were with. It's time to give yourself a little "present."

Staying "present" with our clients and daily tasks is one of the biggest challenges facing busy Realtors®. We are pulled in so many directions that it becomes almost impossible to focus on one thing at a time, yet that is exactly what is required if we are to be effective in looking after the needs of our clients and business. We need to be focused and present with our clients to make sure we understand their needs and respond appropriately. We need to be focused and present when handling paperwork lest we forget an important detail that can harm our client and/or our reputation. We need to be focused and present when planning and executing our business plan or we'll soon find ourselves out of business. Most importantly, we need to be focused and present when we're with our family and friends if we want those relationships to flourish and grow. With ever increasing demands for our attention it becomes ever more important to be able to tune in to this client, this detail and this moment. But how?

One simple tool I use with my coaching clients is the "One Minute Meditation." As a personal coach I have dozens of exercises, practices, and tools I can draw from to help my clients get more "present." These can be very effective, but most require time and practice to produce results. The "One Minute Meditation," however, can be mastered, and produce results, in very short order.

A "One Minute Meditation" can be something as simple as taking three deep breathes and staring out the window, focusing all of your attention on the clouds for one full minute. Watching the wind in the trees, a bee on a flower, or studying a beautiful painting hanging in your office will work. Reading a Haiku or short poem, and reflecting on it for a minute, will also do the job. Anything that gets you focused on something beautiful or inspirational will work, all it has to do is distract you from all the distractions of your day and get you focused on the moment. The trick is to totally let yourself go for that minute, let yourself explore the moment and feel what happens to your body as you relax and find your mind naturally clearing. A "One Minute Meditation" will help you get focused on what you need to be up to for the day, be it a client or paperwork. Really letting yourself go and focusing totally on what is in front of you for one minute will help clear your mind and make you more aware and tuned into what is happening this moment…and this…and this.

The "One Minute Meditation" can be used any time, any place, and as often as you need it without eating up a bunch or time or destroying your schedule. A "One Minute Meditation" can take an overwhelming time of day and make it more peaceful and productive, and the more often you do it, the more effective it becomes.

The next time you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, distracted or forgetful; try a "One Minute Meditation." You might just find it the best "present" you've gotten in a long time.

Published: February 25, 2005

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John Hagerman has a wide range of business experience, but it all fits together around one common theme -- energizing people to fulfill their highest potential. All of his work, whether as a speaker, writer, manager, business owner, coach, non-profit activist, or Realtor®, has focused on helping those around him unleash Natural Energy to better serve their clients, customers, constituents, and themselves. Years of experience as a business manager and owner taught John the value of raising up his employees and helping them learn how to reach beyond what they thought possible. He coached and mentored them in how to build connections with customers and how to release the Natural Energy of those relationships. His employees benefited by increasing their customer relationship skills, and his customers benefited by discovering sales people who were authentic in their desire to make sure they got the solution that served them best…and who were skilled at giving the customer a great experience in the process.