POINT OF VIEW: Mansell Report

Time well spent

Why did you get into real estate? If you’re like many NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® members, you saw it as a chance to meet both the financial and the time needs of your family. NAR did a survey last year as we prepared to launch our new FamilyTime DVD; in the survey, 55 percent of you said it’s easier to find time to be with your family than it would be if you were in another career. That’s one of the tremendous benefits of a career in real estate.

Yet I think it’s safe to say that, for every one of us, there’s a struggle to balance business and family commitments. And it’s not just work that forces this great balancing act. Modern society itself—with all its technological innovations—can be one big distraction from the things that are most important in our life: sharing quality time with family, communicating with our children, and giving back in a meaningful way to our community.

If you know anything about me, you know how strongly I believe in the sanctity of the family. Unfortunately, the modern conveniences of our world can make us all feel so self-sufficient that it becomes easy to take our families for granted. There’s no greater gift we can give each other than our time and attention. In fact, I believe that giving time and attention to the people closest to us is the key to our individual happiness and success. That’s why, when I was approached by Million Dollar Round Table, I became convinced that NAR should take a role in updating that organization’s FamilyTime program. I felt the program fit our organization’s mission of serving families through our advocacy of homeownership and community. But I also believed, and still do, that the program had a critical message that needed to be heard, not just by our members but also by a wider audience. Happily, the rest of the association’s leadership agreed, and the result is our new FamilyTime DVD.

So what exactly is this FamilyTime DVD? First, you need to know what it isn’t. The program isn’t intended to promote a certain lifestyle. It’s not meant to preach rules for what type of family you should have, what types of activities your family should do, or how you should interact with your family. Rather, it’s a simple set of guidelines and resources to help you determine how to build a stronger, more stable family.

NAR is making the DVD available to its members for the low price of $5 per copy. Our goal is simply to cover our cost. Every dollar in profit will go straight to the REALTORS® Relief Foundation to help fund emergency relief efforts for our colleagues in need. The foundation recently provided support to REALTORS® in the southeast impacted by devastating hurricanes.

To learn more about the FamilyTime program from Million Dollar Round Table and NAR and to peruse NAR’s online resource, the Field Guide to FamilyTime, visit REALTOR.organd click Library and then Field Guides. I’m confident you’ll come to the same conclusion I did: Investing in the FamilyTime DVD, both for yourself and for your clients and customers, is one of those win-win-win situations we like to talk about in our business: It’s a win for your family, it’s a win for your clients’ families, and it’s a win for the REALTOR® family.

—NAR President Al Mansell, CRB

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
Click on the FamilyTime logo at REALTOR.org—or call 800/874-6500.