Darryl Halse recently wrote about New Year’s resolutions. I agree with his concluding observation that in general, if something is worth doing, what’s wrong with starting today?
In fact, I began my journey to a new career back in July 2009. I had been thinking about different areas of specialty for my consulting business. I had originally set my sights on newspapers as a place that could use content management and social media project advice. But traditional media seemed so set in its ways that I was having difficulty with most of the conversations I was conducting with people in the newspaper business. And to be honest, I wasn’t getting to the decision makers anyway.
Fortunately I met with a friend of mine who had made a partial leap from software development into real estate. He was very enthusiastic and I started to see another industry that could benefit from information technology advice. So, in an effort to increase my expertise in the business, I started taking the real estate licensing courses. As I learned more, I realized that I was already surrounded by people who, in one way or another, are enamored of or involved in the real estate business. (For example: My daughter is hooked on interior design and loves the idea of staging homes. My wife loves analyzing the MLS and getting ideas from HGTV.)
So I started to see myself as a full-time real estate sales representative, with maybe a little IT consulting on the side.
Heeding Darryl’s advice: my New Year’s resolution is to continue down the path of becoming licensed to trade in real estate in Ontario. I write the big “final” exam on 6 February 2010 (final is a relative term, since the education never ends, but it is the last exam before I can start to trade).