Feeling Better: Slim Shady Please Stand Up

So, a few weeks ago I posted a FaceBook video telling the world that I was sick of feeling sick with headaches and stomach issues. I had to make some serious changes because I didn’t want to go to the doctor again for another issue. I have dealt with horrible allergies for the past 10 years so I have spent a lot of time at the doctor’s office.  And being a mom to two kiddos, I have taken them to every doctor appointment, dentist you name it for almost 15 years. So, I am done with doctors for a while.  Not that doctors are bad, but I knew that I had to try to change some things before I needed medical attention.

I knew in my gut–literally and metaphorically–that I had to change my eating habits.  I was scared. I think, but not completely sure but I think I was afraid to make the clean eating commitment. I normally embrace change and the challenges that go along with change but this one meant I would have to plan, prepare and think about food, all the time. I think about the healthy snacks I should have in the house, the whole foods dinners I will have to make and will my family humor me and try all the healthier menus? I also thought that all this focusing on food will take me away from my business. I actually do think that it could take over, but that is a sorry excuse.  This is just the next step in my journey. Now it is time to work on me.

So, eating clean and wholesome isn’t a new concept to me. I know what is good for me. I just let the excuse that I am so busy take over that I fell out of love with thinking, cooking and planning. My mind was 100% focused on building this real estate business that I just stopped taking care of me.   I ended up in a position where I could care less anymore and just accepted my fate that I wasn’t going to get that Sports Illustrated call to model for their cover.  Even though it would be so cool to check supermodel off of my bucket list, I know even at my age and in super shape, Sports Illustrated still wouldn’t be calling! What I ended up doing is put myself in the position that headaches and stomach aches was a daily occurrence. I was lethargic, I could feel my motivation for my business slow down and I just felt…. complacent.

I am just starting week 3 of my new awareness of what I am consuming. I still haven’t food prepped, but I have shopped and have ingredients for 3 dinners for the week and have healthy snacks ready to go in the fridge for myself.  I did a cleanse during week 1 and man was that fantastic. It was nothing like I expected! I know some people do major cleanses and I didn’t want to have 3 days sitting on the toilet! Seriously, I didn’t want that at all.  So, instead I followed the 3 Day Refresh by Beachbody and had fun with their program and meal and snack ideas. This is when I knew that my mind is ready to move forward with this plan. My head, heart and gut are all ready for Slim Shady to please stand up! I envision myself feeling good every day. Every time I think I need a snack, I check my fruit and veggie choices and grab something from that drawer in the fridge. I am starting to feel my energy come back and feel like the Camille who I really enjoy having around!

I hope you will too!

Camille

By the way, I made a great new recipe last night (new to me) which I found on Pinterest! It is under a board where a pinner lists all these great 21 Day Fix by Beachbody (again!) friendly recipes! Here is the link to my board “Good Eats” if you want to see what I am pinning and making these days! I made the lasagna roll ups last night and they were deee-lish!

Here is the link to my facebook video! 

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fcamille.kooi%2Fvideos%2F10209301993451244%2F&show_text=0&width=560″>

 

*Disclaimer: I do not claim to be a professional writer nor am I am proficient in where to place commas, when to italicize (or is it appropriate to italicize or use parenthesis?) and that my sentences are grammatically correct. I am merely releasing all the thoughts that are in my brain and sharing them with you. If you enjoy my posts GREAT but I know they are written with many errors. Taking a creative writing class or a grammar class is next on my “to do” list. I promise. I also like to use double and triple exclamation points!!!! (Sometimes 4!)

Gettin’ Back to Center

I have been busy this year, pretty much on fi-yah if I do say so myself! I set professional goals and I am knocking them out, one by one, day by day. I believe in goal setting but it has to be a realistic goal. I have been in  many many goal setting meetings from both sides of the goal setting process. Before I started in real estate I managed professional speakers. Every speaker I worked with was YOUGE (think Donald Trump) on setting and achieving goals. More times than not these speakers paid big bucks for a coach to help them set and achieve their goals.  My part in their business was to help them achieve these goals by facilitating their marketing plans, negotiating their speaker contracts, making calls out to their database, writing web site copy, creating print ads and basically do all that I could for them, so they could write their books and go on as many speaking engagements that they needed. So, goal setting isn’t a new concept for me.

But, what was new to me is the real estate industry. I had no idea of how to gauge how much business I could possibly do in one year. I was baffled as to what to expect from myself. After working in the speaking industry for 12 years, I was VERY comfortable in goal setting with and for my clients.  So, new to real estate, I did what felt like a million different things to get myself comfortable in this new endeavor. For starters, I had a WONDERFUL mentor. She literally held my hand on my first couple of contracts. She knew that I was very frustrated with not knowing everything so she walked me through my first transactions which just happened to be for rental clients. Knowing that I am a perfectionist, she knew that I needed to have every “i” dotted and “t” crossed before I turned anything in to her. I learned those darn contracts, disclosures and all the documentation that my clients had to sign because part of being a perfectionist is also the desire to “know” everything. Well, when you are new to any industry, you can not possibly know everything right off the bat, right?!  I was nervous, excited, scared and always felt that I needed to learn MORE!!

My second year was so much better. Once I had a few transactions under my belt, I felt my confidence level go up. I was getting more comfortable with the contracts, found some great industry partners who functioned like I did as far as level of service, and most importantly doubled the amount of transactions from year one to year two.  By the end of the my second year, I thought, well, I certainly could double what I did for 2015! There are still 3 and half months left in 2015 and I am darn near my goal of 18 transactions this year, I believe that I need 3 more to check that goal off, but, the good news is that I will definitely hit the dollar amount that I set out for myself. Now I know for 2016, I will double my earnings and transactions once again.  Hopefully,  I will find an assistant to get me to the next level!

Hitting these business goals is hands down a great, no, such a FREAKIN’ FABULOUS feeling. But what is even a better feeling is doing what I love to do with those I choose to work with. I feel so blessed, lucky, fortunate whatever the word is to have worked with all the clients I have worked with over the years. Each person or couple, whether it was a rental, sale or purchase transaction has taught me something of great value. I work so closely with my clients that when the transaction closes I find that I really miss talking to them everyday! It can be an intimate experience working with couples or individuals at this capacity. Buying a home for the first, second or third time is a major event in most people’s lives and I am so honored to be a part of this experience with them.  I literally go through withdrawals once the transaction closes. So, I try to find the balance of staying in their lives but not driving them crazy!

Stella has found her groove!! (side note: I sometimes call myself Stella) I have accepted the fact that I won’t know everything because once I do know something it will change! I am slowly understanding that I can only have so much control over all the moving parts in the transaction and believe me this is hard to let go of. But, when you have your cross transaction agent, their client, my client a title company, a lender, the home appraiser and a couple of inspectors involved, it is nearly impossible to have 100% control over everything! You have to trust that your industry partners will strive for excellence in their role in the transaction.

In addition to my business goals for the remainder of 2015 and 2016, I have a personal goal of taking better care of my physical being. I will literally take the advice of all the speakers I have worked with and block out times and days for yoga, massage and classes at the gym. Ah, deep cleansing breath. Repeat and I am ready to roll. Getting back to center is really my main goal for 2016. That, and being more “present” with my family. That is always a goal of mine because these darn kids just keep growing and I don’t want to miss anything!!

So, gettin’ back to “center” is what it is all about from here on out on a personal level. Professionally, I will double my financial goal that I set for 2015 and mentally I will seek professional help to deal with the “loss” when my clients are done with me and they have moved into their new house!!

Until next time peeps….NAMASTE!

Camille

*Disclaimer: I do not claim to be a professional writer nor am I am proficient in where to place commas, when to italicize (or is it appropriate to italicize or use parenthesis?) and that my sentences are grammatically correct. I am merely releasing all the thoughts that are in my brain and sharing them with you. If you enjoy my posts GREAT but I know they are written with many errors. Taking a creative writing class or a grammar class is next on my “to do” list. I promise. I also like to use double and triple exclamation points!!!! (Sometimes 4!)

We Can Be a Very Cruel Judgmental Bunch

Wow. Just Wow. I know that I shouldn’t,  but I am really amazed at how mean people and the media are to Kelly Clarkson. So what, she gained weight. She just had a baby. Good GOD. Is there no mercy for a celebrity who gains weight and is well, just, you know, normal? You never hear Kelly Clarkson in the media for any negative behavior. She keeps her hoo-ha covered when getting out of limo’s, she hasn’t been through re-hab, she isn’t a media suckin’ mogul who makes millions for just being…well…beautiful and as far as I know, doesn’t have a sex tape floating around.

Kelly Clarkson is extremely talented and she just seems like a really nice person. Her only downfall and gets reamed for it every time she makes an appearance, is that her weight goes up and down like a real person. I don’t know for sure, but I think she might put her jeans on one leg at a time, just like all those who criticize her every pound. Even if she was a total Diva, pain-in-the-neck performer who is a nightmare to work with, it still isn’t right to have this national conversation about her weight.

Look. I have never been skinny. Big boobs run on one side of my family and hips on the other and no one is “naturally” thin. If there is anyone in my family who is naturally thin I must have blocked that person out because I have no memory of ever meeting him/her.  When I was pregnant with my daughter, I did everything my doctor and nurses told me to eat and drink and I still gained 60 pounds. I was expecting a 20 lb chubby baby on the day she was born, but nope, she was a 6 lb skinny little baby who looked like everything I ate bypassed her and went to my eyelids down to my big toe. That was attractive time in my life. Not. Here I had this perfectly healthy little angelic baby who has changed my life in more ways than I can describe and all I could do was worry how long I would carry this weight. No one made me feel like I was huge, it was me comparing myself to celebrities who are wearing their pre-maternity clothes a week after they had a baby.

There are times I would love to be JLO,  have the guts to get on stage and belt out a song like Kelly Clarkson or have four children and still be a top model like Heidi Klum. I know that JLO has to work her ass off to look like she does. I also realize she has money to get the best plastic surgeons, have someone prepare her meals, grocery shop for her and for all I know, she might have someone who walks along side of her to slap a Girl Scout thin mint out of her hand when she reaches for one.

So, I digress. I am guessing that Kelly has the money to spend on all the same things that JLO and Heidi Klum pay for but she chooses not to. Please, just leave Kelly alone. Let her have her weight gains and losses and really just cherish her for the artist that she is. Let her enjoy her time with her baby and not deal with the whole world telling her that she is a bit heavier this year then she was 10 or 15 years ago when she was in her 20’s. I am sure that she already knows that she has gained weight. Really? Is this really fodder for a national conversation?  For her sake, I hope she can block all the social media haters.

I leave you what I always said to my kids (when they were much younger) as they pointed out a really heavy person to me, usually in Target and not in their “inside or whisper” voice. I would say, ” You know what? That person doesn’t need a naughty little kid to tell them they are heavy. That person already knows and chances are, they already feel bad about their weight. How would you like it if someone pointed to you and said look at that ugly little child?”  That usually shut my kids up pretty quickly. Mostly because they couldn’t believe I called them ugly,  but hopefully they will  think twice before they say anything mean about someone!

Lets just leave Kelly Clarkson the heck alone with her weight gain or losses.  Kelly if you are reading this blog (who knows, she could get her hands on it one day!) please just keep doing you. You are beautiful, talented, and have a beautiful soul. I am glad you are happy, have a healthy baby and a loving husband. Some people should be so lucky.

Until next time peeps…

Camille

*Disclaimer: I do not claim to be a professional writer nor am I am proficient in where to place commas, when to italicize (or is it appropriate to italicize or use parenthesis?) and that my sentences are grammatically correct. I am merely releasing all the thoughts that are in my brain and sharing them with you. If you enjoy my posts GREAT but I know they are written with many errors. Taking a creative writing class or a grammar class is next on my “to do” list. I promise. I also like to use double exclamation points!!!! (sometimes more than 2!)