problem -vs- solution

Hello all! I'm sitting here at my desk at work, watching the pipeline shrink by the phone call. I really don't enjoy these phases of the business cycle. The past 8 weeks I have been quite steady with closings, new business, etc. Now that I have closed everything in my pipeline, I am left with househunters, tire kickers and so forth. Loans in the early stages of process. I decided to infuse my slower moving deals with some telemarketing leads so I hired a telemarketer to contact potential clients for refinance. She got me ten and out of those 10 I spoke with 5, looked at their situation and found that 4 of them would benefit from doing a reasonably priced refinance. But, here we go lol one by one they are "going to wait" (with no explanation) or all of a sudden not returning phone calls. This is the part of my job I dislike lol. But, sales is required lol. I have tried to always do my best to present myself in a non-threatening way, simply giving my clients the information on how I can help them, educating them as best I can, providing freindly, professional service and hoping they'll elect to move forward if the deal is a good one for them. When I can't provide them with any benefit or can't beat my competition, I am the first one to suggest they ought to either go with the comp or not do the loan. The thing about a mortgage is that the client simply has to take the best deal when it comes to the bottom line. A mortgage is about money. Yeah, the service and how the loan is closed is important, especially in very competitve situations on the money side. But, bottom line is that the borrower needs to find the best deal possible for them. The thing that frustrates me is when I am able to provide an awesome program at a competitve price and really set my client up well, and they just pass. Man, as a control freak alcoholic, that drives me nuts lol. It's difficult enough to find customers that you can actually help and then beat your competitors, and have great, friendly, ethical, professional service. And still have them not go forward, or go elsewhere. lol That kills me. And so today, I am in the midst of a string of excellent looking loans and one by one they are just not happening. Having said all that, and sounded a bit like a whiny sales guy who's not getting his way, I am going to finish this post, and get on with some prayer, meditation, and go back to the work at hand. But, I had to vent a little bit. I hate losing the momentum I had going, closing loans, getting new clients rolling, etc. I love a pipeline that has loans in every phase of the process. Ah well, enough with the venting. As my friend Dr. Paul O says (I paraphrase) "The more I focus on the problem, the more the problem increases. The more I focus on the solution, the more the solution increases..." I am going to focus on the solution.

Things I love, a form of gratitude

making people smile...
helping people...
feeling the presence of Jesus in my heart...
wealth: spiritual, familial, physical, monetary; all for the purpose of helping others
AA and the fellowship that saved my life...
teaching...
being outdoors in God's Chapel...
blogging...
fishkeeping...
learning...
saying hi (or waving as I drive by) to people on the street...
when people visit my blog, read, enjoy and comment...
watching my son grow...
scratching my doggies belly...
laying in bed next to my wife and watching Frazier every nite at 10:30 pm...
eating ice cream with my wife right before we go to bed, every nite...
talking about The Secret with my wife...
the idea of helping youngsters grow in the Catholic Faith by teaching...
my home group...
my men's prayer group...
music: playing and listening...
gardening...
my trombone...
my blogging friends...
reading my blogging friends blogs...
the pot of Highlander Grog coffee that just finished brewing...
the fact that I run my own business and have the freedom to change what isn't working...
that I am ok with accumulating wealth the right way and for the right reasons...
that I finally know how to be a good steward of wealth of all kinds...
that my wife is feeling better spiritually, emotionally and the back thing is slowly coming along...

ok, I could go on forever! It's terribly important for me to focus on gratitude every day! I have much to be grateful for, and much yet to do in my life. Too much in fact, to sit around and bitch about my pipeline.

Prayer for today...

JC/God/HP, see above, and thank You! Thank You for getting my neighbor through his open heart surgery. Thank You for opening my heart to the magnificence of Your Love through my Baptism and Confirmation this past Easter. Please help me to go out of my way today to be of service to You and to my family and community. Please help me to accept the differences between me and my dad and his wife. Please relieve me of my destructive obsessions today. I pray that those who are out there sick and suffering form this awful disease of addiction find the Grace I found 11+ yrs ago.

peace be with you all!