M. Nack’s Blog

I’ve been thinking about this “we’re going to make you a star, Mary Nack!” The assumption, of course, is that I WANT to be a star - or that I’m not one already (at least in my own mind). My best friend, who is a successful business owner and who doubled as a mentor when I owned mine, said something interesting to me the other day. We were talking about his son-in-law and how not everyone has the same definition of success that he and I do: ”you can’t be too thin or too rich”. I find that the younger generation particularly doesn’t share our definition of success. Baby boomers are notorious work-aholics and we are all about chasing the almighty dollar. (I wonder if that’s a result of being raised by survivors of The Great Depression?) The GenX crowd seems to understand intuitively that friends and family are more important. They learned that lesson by being raised as latch-key children as a necessity of us working ourselves into the ground and, at the end of the day, having no energy left over for them.

I’ve learned that I have certain “rules” about what has to happen in order for me to be successful. For one thing, it has to be earned through hard work. If it comes too easily, then it doesn’t feel right. Why should it have to be so difficult? As I get older, I find that I am less willing to work so hard - that I guard my personal time more jealously - and that I tend to get resentful when work intervenes with plans I’ve made in my personal life. Another thing that I find interesting about GenX is that they work hard on things that they are passionate about - otherwise… forget about it! There is much for me to learn from GenX.

The other thought I had was - where did that expression come from anyway - “being a star”?

“All Things With Exuberance!”

mary!

A friend called me out of the blue the other day and said he was writing a book on “The Seven Deadly Mistakes Realtors Make”. He asked if he could interview me. My reply was “Oh! I have a PhD in that subject!” He proceeded to ask me a series of questions and was apparently very intent on writing down what I was saying. I wasn’t prepared to be “interviewed” and so I babbled a bit. I nervously made a few jokes to which he didn’t respond - which only added to my nervousness. Later, I attributed that to the fact that he was furiously writing down what I was saying, but at the time I wondered if I had offended him. In fact, I asked, “You know that I’m kidding, right?” After a few minutes, he says, “OK, Mary Nack! Thanks a lot! You’re very quotable. We’re going to make you a star!” - Click. “Uh - Joe? Are you there? OK, bye!” My first reaction was, “Wow! That was trippy!” - Like the scene in “Pulp Fiction” where John Travolta drives the hypodermic needle of adrenaline into Uma Thurman’s chest. 

I saw Joe this afternoon and chastised him (in a good natured way, of course) for not giving me a little advance notice so I could collect my thoughts a bit. He again reiterated that I was very quotable and repeated back to me some of the things I had said. “I said that!?”  Maybe not being prepared was the best thing that could have happened - otherwise I might have gotten nervous and not been so “quotable”.  When the book comes out next year, I’ll let you know. But it was, indeed, a little trippy!

“All Things With Exuberance!”

mary!