The winter Solstice happened – yay! Our house is coming off of an epic string of hosting the holidays. In the coming days, while our teens are home until the classrooms start back up, I’m personally hitting pause, recharging, & resetting before we ring in the New Year. In doing so, this post will share a few things I’m digesting within my quiet, curious & still moments. Heck, I even deleted my social media apps for the month of January to give me the very best shot at focus & creativity.

New Interactive Pending Data Reports Now Available. If you haven’t checked out these new interactive reports, consider joining me. The NWMLS data has been aggregated and anonymized into interactive Pending Data Reports. In theory, I’m hopeful these reports provide NWMLS brokers with real-time insights, such as pricing trends, the frequency with which sellers are receiving multiple offers, and the use of escalation, inspection, and financing addenda. You can compare today’s pending listings with pending listings from a selected date range and market area. What insights might this data provide our clients? Let’s dig in and find out! I’ll be asking you all for your insights into how to best use this in practical application.

This week I really enjoyed Simon Sinek’s A Little Bit of Optimism podcast – Ep. 155 – “Trevor Noah Makes My Brain Hurt.” In his latest episode of 2024, Simon invited comedian Trevor Noah to his mic and chatted about ditching the small talk (or not) and went deep into the paradox of choice and why the human experience might be defined by constraint. At minute 33, I loved the story of the shoe salesman – the “2 not 3” story. I chuckled, thought deeply, and critically questioned everything all at once. I love this stuff – truly living the human experience – messy and beautiful. Full episode here.

Up next on my “listen list” is Windermere’s Ask a Coach podcast on Cracking the Code: Unleashing the Power of Buyer Broker Representation for Sellers. This will be a repeat for me, yet getting my mind clear heading into the new year on topics we’ve been navigating for almost a full year – legally! I’m interested to see what insights I pick up on now that the topic is no longer new. Full episode here.

From my coaching corner on FWL, a reminder and a rally cap for coming up with a word that can be used as a guidepost throughout the year ahead. I have mine; do you have yours? For me, my 2025 word for the year is alignment. With clarity and focus, decisions and direction will be in alignment with what is true for me, for who my best self is, how I show up, my interactions, and my purpose. I am clear. I am ready. Need help with this exercise? I’m happy to give you prompts to assist. I have found having one word to guide my year is a business plan in and of itself! Happy to help; the ultimate goal.

I’ll leave you with one question as my last FWL post for 2024. As I write, podcast, plan, host meetings, gather us, think, coach and operate a real estate brokerage one question that will be a guiding force in 2025 is this: where is the opportunity? I’m ready to turn the page on 2024 & sharpening my pencil to begin again in 2025. Cheers to everyone! 🥂 I’m looking towards creating remarkable with you. – Laura

And a reminder on the real estate front – when computing time for purchase and sales agreements, please regard Wednesday, January 1st as legal a holiday.