World Cup Real Estate

by Teri Lussier

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

Time for blogging is often hard to find. Most posts are begun on one day and finished some other, and usually it’s for the best. I started this post yesterday, and it got a bit gummed up. Nineteen hours and one Kris Berg post later, and I’m good to go. And there are important things happening in real estate, but sorry Greg, there are no big thoughts in this post. This is simply my entry for the Dumbest Post of the Week category. 

Kris uses chicken soup, my unlikely source of inspiration and motivation comes from rugby. Yes rugby. That is the sport of kings, isn’t it? Well then, it’s the sport of titans.

I discovered rugby last Sunday and now that I know the truth, and I’ll step up and say it- rugby is the greatest sport invented. I don’t know the rules. I don’t know the terminology. I don’t know the teams or the players, but sitting in front of the big plasma TV, none of that matters one bit. Here’s what I see: Two teams of grown men completely driven to play a sport that is both brutal and strategic, physical and mental, dependent on both teamwork and individual skills, and requiring both tactical knowledge and gut instincts. And it is beautiful to watch.

There is a ball, of sorts. It’s thrown, kicked, pitched, or carried toward a goal. Players get tackled and men often pile on top of the ball. In a football game that would be where the play ends. In rugby? I don’t know what happens. Sometimes the play ends but often, just when you think it’s over, you are waiting to hear a whistle. You wait for a referee. You wait for the players to unpile themselves and…It doesn’t happen. Seconds pass. What is going on in that pile? Where’s the whistle? Where’s the ball? You are waiting, willing something to happen. Then, from the bottom of the mound of players, the ball comes flying forth to be kicked or pitched or carried forward once more! It’s such thrilling madness! Who would play such a sport? What would motivate grown men to participate in such an intense spectacle of sheer aggressive determination? Oh. Um…I’ll take a stab at that.

I may not know the rules, the strategy, or the terminology of rugby, but the entire thing seems very similar to real estate. Indulge me a moment. All the prep work, all the training, all the experience- every single day we are living, eating, and breathing real estate, until the time comes when you take everything you know to the table and use it to keep a contract together: Teamwork and strategy, both tactical knowledge and gut instincts. It’s typically not a battle, but there are times when it looks like everything has piled on top of a contract and the deal has ended. But just then something unpredictable happens and now we are going forward again. And regardless of how difficult it may have been, no matter how much blood sweat and tears you shed to hold everything together, the very moment that you leave a successful closing, you get into your car and reflect on the thrilling madness of it all and can’t wait to do it all again. It’s rugby. And it’s real estate.

So now I’m a rugby fan. I’ve done some research and New Zealand is the odds-on favorite. Here’s a diary entry from the All Blacks’ Dan Carter “Dear Diary, my alarms woke me up this morning at 8am. I’m a bit paranoid that I’m going to miss a meeting or somewhere I’m meant to be so I set two alarms. I haven’t missed anything for a couple of years so it’s working.” That is a man who is completely dedicated to what he does. How can you not be inspired by that?

Think what you will, watching rugby motivates me to work harder, reach deeper, push farther today than yesterday. But if you got something better, I’d certainly like to hear it. 

And thanks Kris, now I can get back to work.