Rob Foglia

This Saturday, I’ll be running in the St Jude Half Marathon in Memphis. (BTW, I’m raising money for the kids at St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, if you feel compelled to support. 😊) Now, this isn’t my first half marathon. I love running. I’ve done about 30 or so half marathons in my life, as well as 3 full marathons over the years.

Even with years of experience in the sport, I had what I’d call a mental breakthrough while training this year that I thought I’d share, as I think the lesson applies to both running and life in general.

Recently, as the weather started to turn cold, I began not wanting to get out and do my long runs. I’m a bit odd, as I love training when it’s warm out (give me 85°, hot, humid, and sunny over an overcast 40° Nashville grey day 10 times out of 10). And despite pushing through in the past, this year, I noticed a bit of pushback. This was mental pushback; nothing physical other than endurance training fatigue. But then, I realized the following:

The most important runs are the ones on the days you don’t feel like running, but you show up anyway.

Since I knew what runs I needed to do (since I was following a program), I decided to trust the process. Show up, give it my all, even if I thought my all was less than I wanted it to be. Some runs were less than stellar, yet progress kept coming.

Progress through consistency.

We might hear similar messaging in this industry. Things like “progress over perfection” and “consistency compounds” are phrases that come to mind. And, this is true from a sales standpoint. Show up, put the work in, and results will follow. But we don’t hear this message enough when it comes to our lives.

Real estate is our job. But, every single one of us has other passions and a larger purpose that we should be striving to fulfill. There might be days when we question our progress in our larger purpose. Days when we question if we’re strong enough to keep pushing through, pursuing that passion we have despite not achieving the outward success that we might want.

And yet, when it’s a passion that means something to you, that’s when you’ve got to show up the most. On the days when you question if you can, that’s when you have to show up and keep going.

I’ll show up this Saturday. Regardless of whether it’s a cold, rainy day, if I didn’t get as much sleep the night before in a hotel room as I would’ve liked to, and even though it’s an away game, so to speak, I’ll show up and give my all for the kids at St. Jude. Because it matters to me. Because they matter to me.

I want to encourage you to do the same where it matters to you. Sure, some of that can be business. But, more importantly, find those areas in life that stand out to you. The places that will matter more than 5 minutes from now. The times that you’ll look back on in your twilight years as some of the most important events in your life. Show up. Be Irreplaceable.