Ten principles of new thinking

            About seven years ago I purchased my first home at the age of twenty-two, I was extremely excited that I had the opportunity to make an important investment in my life. I knew that I wanted to get involved in real-estate since I was young and I saw this as my opportunity. I was in the military and at first I knew that this was where my family would live for some time.  Unfortunately I received the news that I would have to transfer to a new duty station a lot sooner than I had expected. I was a bit worried since I knew the home was not ready to sell since I knew it was a fixer-upper and I thought that I would have more time to work on the house.

            I figured that I would take all of the money that I saved from my last deployment and invest it into this home so that I might be able to make a profit when I sell the home. Eventually I figured that I would rent the home since the housing market had crashed and I knew I was not going to get my money’s worth. I found someone who I thought would be the perfect renter; I later found out that I was very mistaken by choosing this person to live in my investment. As soon as I moved out of state to my next duty station she was always late on rent, and I later found out that the furniture that I had let her borrow was destroyed by her cat. Eventually I was tired of her not being responsible and decided to evict her. This is when things got bad, she ended up becoming a squatter in my house and stopped paying rent.

            I was twenty-four years old at this time supporting two different homes and a new born on the way. This conflict was extremely costly, a lot more than I preferred and I eventually had to let the house go to foreclosure. This was a very costly conflict but it was a huge learning experience; if I had the Stewart Levine’s ten principles of new thinking I know things could have been different.

            I think that if I would have believed more in my product, which is my home; I could have sold it right from the beginning instead of trying to rent the home out until the market came back. “Believing in abundance” (Getting to Resolution pg. 47) is one of the ten principles of new thinking. When you believe in your product enough to where yourself and others can get what they need; your product will seem like it is worth much more.

            Another principle I could have used is the principle of “Creating partnership” (Getting to Resolution pg. 47) and “forming long-term collaborations”. These are principles that anyone in the real-estate business should definitely consider. By collaborating with others I could have found a way to get cheaper labor and probably have completed many more projects. If I would have been able to network to a more extensive level then I know that I could have gotten much more value out of my house then I originally thought.

            Throughout this whole process I learned a lot, the ten principles of new thinking require you to learn and be open. I feel that I should have been more optimistic throughout my process, I needed to be more open throughout this whole ordeal. I feel that the new way of thinking is a way to open up the possibilities which many times people in the past might have missed out on. Making decisions and handling conflict can be a lot easier to handle if we can adapt a new way of thinking. Stewart Levine gives us a good map to follow when pursuing a much more successful outcome. 

 

 

 

Reference:

Levine, S. (2009). Getting to resolution: Turning conflict into collaboration (2^nd Ed.).San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.