Let’s sweep, it’s Friday! | Packing your parachute

Six,

Windermere Owners Retreat 2016 – “The movement of ideas, information and goodwill between all.” (thank you WRE owner, Peter Hickey for articulating this!). All of this happened this week.  OB, Jill and I are all in the midst of traveling home and dialing back to our day to day focus.  I am inspired and so very grateful for the clarity gained in where to put my renewed energy and focus as we prep for a strong 2016 finish and launch into 2017. A few highlights are my “digestible bites” from this week…

If you ever think you are having a bad day, keep Captain Charlie Plumb in mind. We kicked off the Owner’s event with a visit to Miramar – yes folks, the home of Top Gun. As we sat in the Miramar Officers’ Club Wednesday morning we met and spoke with Captain Charlie Plumb…

…his story in a quick bite-sized piece – Captain Charlie Plumb graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis and went on to fly the F-4 Phantom jet on 74 successful combat missions over Vietnam. On his 75th mission, with only five days before he was to return home, Plumb was shot down, captured, tortured, and imprisoned in an 8 foot x 8 foot cell. He spent the next 2,103 days as a Prisoner Of War in communist war prisons.

I am not often speechless, after listening to Capt. Charlie Plumb – I was speechless. As with any story there are many lessons in-line that we can all pull from. One story I want to briefly share with you was how he described the most important person aboard the naval carrier to which he took off from on that day, on his 75th mission – with only 5 days before he was to return home. He described the person who packed his parachute. You will hear much more from me with regard to this story as I am acutely aware that we have a roll in packing your parachute for your success – whether you real estate career is on the runway (just beginning), lifting off, flying at altitude or looking to land the plane in a mindful exit.  We also realize success looks like this…

Our 4th quarter planning sessions for 2017 will indeed be focused on packing your parachute. Really looking forward to it.

For those Top Gun fans out there…a few pictures from the morning at Miramar – pinch me – it was incredible as in high school I thought I would go to the Air Force Academy – play basketball for them and become a fighter pilot. THAT didn’t happen, but Wednesday of this week did!

***and oh, when I see you next remind me to tell you about our charter bus that didn’t stop at the security gate upon entering the base – oops, not good – but made a good story! A really good story on many levels.

That is a wrap for me this week!  Shout if you need anything – that is the ultimate goal. Time to unpack, ready for a Husky win vs Stanford tonight and another weekend caulked full of soccer fields. I’ll see many of you at the golf tournament on Monday – 18 holes of best ball, networking and raising money for the kids.  Game on.

In continued partnership with you,

Laura Smith, General Manager | Windermere Real Estate Co + Northwest, Inc.