Broker's Corner with Tanya Chappell April 2020
Secure Investments Realty and Management
The title of this letter is "April Broker’s Corner" but it feels more like "COVID-19 Broker’s Corner". However, I think we’re all pretty sick of hearing about COVID-19 and all of the advice and ways on how to deal with it.
The beauty and the curse of social media is the availability of content on any particular subject matter, and for it to be drilled into our brains over and over and over. It is a very interesting time. Testing and teaching us all on being more self-sufficient and self-motivated and creating stronger family ties. We’ve all had to make big changes to our daily work and home lives and for a lot of us learning how to make them coexist at the same time with kids being home has been quite the challenge. That is for those of us lucky to have jobs that allow us to work from home. Change is hard for a lot of people mainly I think because of fear of the unknown. But the reality is we could probably all get better at change and need to in order to not only survive but to thrive.
For me, this "Social distancing" has felt like a little “pause” and has been a wonderful learning, bonding, and teaching time. I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying having my granddaughter with me almost 24-7. She has watched me continue to do business as usual for the most part. My office has always been a remote office with all of us working from home or at properties, so we were already set up technology-wise and procedurally to be able to handle remote working. My duties as a Florida Realtor Instructor, Director on Gainesville MLS and Board of Realtors and various committees in my Realtor world all continued through Zoom and Webex meetings.
I think for Alicia (almost 8-years-old) it seemed pretty normal then for her to also meet up with her friends on Facebook video chat and play online games like Roblox and Minecraft together in the game world while video chatting. She is super active and athletic, so she moves back and forth from playing online to jumping on the trampoline and swinging on a rope. She loves watching how-to YouTube videos, so I showed her the Marines Instructional Video on how to climb a rope and before the video was even over, she was climbing the rope to the top. What a sponge!!! I love it. We created her own private YouTube channel and she made video messages for her friends and we sent them the links through their parents' Facebook messenger. I think I'll upload other videos I have of her to her new channel. It's all private of course and can't be accessed without the link.
Her schooling moved to I-ready and because it was on her "beloved iPad" it held her interest longer than the paper schoolwork ever did so we breezed through homework. It wasn’t as easy for Jason, my teenage grandson who ended up having piles of work with no instruction. He is mainly an "A" student and loves online games so the online part was not the problem, it was the lack of the teacher also being online teaching it. They apparently just sent homework but didn't provide the teaching to back it. However, I am sure the schools now see where they need to get better at their online schooling techniques so I am sure this too, in time, will end up having changed for the better.
I’m sure when we look back and dive in and dissect all of the statistics of this, we will learn a lot and become more appreciative and compassionate people for it.
Most of the properties that we had listed for sale were vacant, so those sales moved along very smoothly. We did have one owner take their property off the market due to it being tenant occupied so we did not have to disturb the tenant during this crucial quarantine stage of the pandemic. For us, it was almost business as usual being we are all very accustomed to working remotely either at our properties or our homes and having all of the technology in place to be able to support that type of atmosphere. If anything, it strengthened our connection through weekly video chat Zoom meetings. Just like I say in my Yoga class "When you practice it (whatever it is) it becomes second nature. So, in a world that was already moving quickly into remote everything, we probably all got a little better at video calling and can use that more often to stay close even after the Pandemic has passed. I know I for one will be doing a lot more video calling in the future. It really is the next best thing to being there. It feels live and in person- but just in a little box....lol!!!!
After a little prodding from my students at Gainesville Health and Fitness, I finally started teaching my Yoga and Pilates classes once a week on Facebook Live (links below). I had been procrastinating on creating the page and putting some videos together for my students for way too long.
It was the best medicine for me because it made me stay true to my practice. Otherwise, I’m sure it would’ve been very tempting to slack off and stay in my pajamas all day long! Although I admit there were many days like that that I cherished completely. I’m very fortunate in that I live on the Suwannee River and we have Jetski‘s and boats and four-wheeler equipment so it never really seemed like quarantine to me being a boat or a Jetski distance away was sufficient to still be in quarantine. We took an amazing ride down the river to Fanning Springs on the Jetski‘s and a fun adventure filled Golf cart trip through bike trails and back roads north to O’Brien.
There have been many days of pulling the grandkids around on the tube. All in all, for us it was a heartwarming experience that I feel very fortunate to have been able to enjoy. However, I am well aware of how fortunate and blessed I am and am very thankful for it daily. My heart goes out to those families that struggled with the loss of loved ones or the fear and anxiety that comes with not knowing what your financial future will hold.
In the first five minutes of my yoga classes, you’ll hear me talk about the energy that you put out to the world will be the same energy that lifts you or sinks you. You make choices first with your thoughts then with your words and actions. Choose your thoughts wisely. It’s the tough times that define us. It’s easy to be at your best when times are good but it’s when times are bad that we grow, learn, and mature or we react and lash out. Your choice. Choose wisely. Your family follows your lead. Thoughts hold vibrations that permeate 6 ft around you like a forcefield. You can lift or lower a person's mood simply with your own vibration. Do be kind to the world by first being kind to yourself. Lift yourself so you can lift others. Take time to practice doing something that lifts your mood and mind. your welcome to join me anytime for a Yoga class on my page even if it's just for the first 5 minutes of breathwork. Until next month, stay safe and stay positive!
Psssssttttt!!!
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