The Hogue Group

BOLD is an acronym. As if we need another acronym but for me this one resonates and has brought my business to an even higher level. It means Business Objective: a Life by Design.

How would it make you feel if tomorrow morning you could wake up and have your life become a canvas that you can control by painting it the way you see it evolving. Well that is how I see this program. 8 weeks of homework, affirmations, scripts, exercises, and maybe enough time for a potty break and a quick lunch. All starting at 8:30 in the morning and lasting till 3:30 in the afternoon. This program by the fantastic trainers of Keller Williams International is one that you do not want to miss. Believe me I thought about not going to it and I am so glad that Holly (my wife and partner) and I discussed it.

Jason Edwards is one of the most upbeat instructors I have had in the Keller Williams training system. Not to say that others are boring, because they are not. Jason just puts himself and his dog Chug! into this program from the get go. Every week we would see Dianna Kokoszka in videos and read from her journal. Every week we would make phone calls to perfect strangers and ask them for their real estate business or call real estate agents and ask them to look at what our company has to offer.

In all I guess I made over 900 calls during this class to new people and to old clients using scripts designed to help me build a stronger business. With the guidance of Jason Edwards as our leader, and did I mention Chug!?, we worked through tough times and experienced some very big increases. Not sure if ours was the highest but it sure was great with numbers of contracts and listings soaring each week. Everyday I put my CD in the car and listen as Dianna Kokoszka reads affirmations to me, helping to promote me and what I do for a living.

Also our accountability group has hired Jason Edwards to work with us to keep the BOLD going in our group. Our assignment for this week is to read The Vortex and be ready for our coaching call on Friday and I am happy to say I am 3/4ths completed with this task. Larry Gatti, Noel Harris, Niki Fuller and myself comprise this band of BOLD Adventurers and we look forward to getting together every week.

Look for further updates as our group dives in head first to this great adventure.

Oh, did I mention that I will CAP on Tuesday the 31st of August, which happens to also be my anniversary of 20 years to my lovely bride Holly. Capping means that I have sold 2.3 million dollars in real estate for the year and means that all transactions after this are virtually 100% payout to me less a $25 accounting fee to KW. I also do not start my CAP over till January 1, 2011. I am so excited. Thank you BOLD. Till next time remember, there is an abundance of everything in the world ready for you to ask for it, just be sure you take responsibility for what you ask for and start sculpting your life by design.

In 2006 Beverly Davis, with her good credit and stable job, purchased her first home, a modest three-bedroom ranch in Fairburn, Georgia.

In a tale all too familiar, fourteen months later that stable job was gone. She spent a year underemployed. Then an investment failed. In March, her home was gone, foreclosed by Bank of America.

She did what so many others in this situation have done: She made cornbread.

“The painful adversity birthed some serious creativity and determination. Amazing grace,” Davis told Gut Check via email this morning.

That creativity led Davis to the kitchen and her basic cornbread recipe, which was a staple when she was growing up. The oldest of five children to a mother who died before Davis had reached her 20s, she has always loved cooking.

She tinkered with the basic cornbread recipe until she came up with a bread so good that several neighborhood kids dubbed it “yummylicious.” From there she used the cornbread as a base to concoct the 24 recipes in Homegirl’s Cornbread Sandwiches: Tasty Recipes and Wise Life Lessons, an eBook she’s selling for $10 a download on her website, Cornbread Millionaire. She’s also selling homemade cornbread mix and offering to teach cornbread-making classes, all in an effort to purchase her home when it’s auctioned by the bank.

So far, it’s working. Her venture has landed her on CNN, Consumerist, and Jezebel while her website is filling with comments from people inspired by her story and in love with her cornbread.

And the recipes? They include the savory, like hush puppy cornbread squares with shrimp topping — a cornbread po’boy variation with fried shrimp, the bread infused with the drippings from the shrimp. The sweet, like a layered “cake” of cornbread, sweet potatoes, and marshmallows. And the classics, like her takes on spoon bread, hush puppies and cornbread dressing.

Davis repeats that she likes to dream big and includes a list of places where she’d like to bring her cornbread classes. They include the White House, Buckingham Palace, The Oprah Winfrey Show and the restaurant of another Georgia cook who pulled herself out of hard times with her cooking know-how and entrepreneurial skills — Paula Deen.

She takes inspiration from others who have also used hard times as a means to make life better. They give her “…more strength to stay in the fight until I have my house back. I refuse to sit in defeat. Faith won’t let me.”

As she says, “When life throws lemons, make lemonade, bake cornbread, and SELL it!”

Reprinted from author Robin Wheeler with Riverfront Times