An Unexpected Gift

My word for the year, "Surrender," has been showing up in multiple ways. This time I, sadly, had to surrender my birthday plans. As many of you know, I have a tradition of volunteering on my birthday and inviting my friends to join me. This year I ended up getting Covid and had to let everyone know that I wouldn’t be able to attend. However, I encouraged everyone to still go without me and to my delight, a handful of my friends and colleagues showed up anyway! They took pictures and sent them to me wishing me a Happy Birthday! To say I was happy is an understatement. I was overjoyed!

Not only was I overjoyed … I was humbly reminded of our Vision Statement at Meraki Real Estate which is "to donate our time, finances & resources to local and national nonprofits who support the under-resourced and marginalized in our community for the betterment of our society." Our hope is that our generosity inspires others to pay it forward so that, together, we create a wider, positive global impact.

My gift this year was to witness, first hand, the fruition of our Vision here at Meraki Real Estate come to life. It’s not something we’ve made widely known, yet as I sat at home feeling a little sorry for myself, there were friends volunteering their time to make a difference in the lives of people they don’t know. What a GIFT it was to learn about their selfless contribution and a gift to see our Vision realized.

In fact, everything about Meraki Real Estate was carefully and thoughtfully curated. I, literally, prayed for a name for our brand - something that we wanted to represent who we are and how we do business. The word Meraki is of Greek origin and it means that you love something so much, you leave a piece of yourself in it - your love, your heart, your creativity. We absolutely love our clients and colleagues and, almost to a fault, we give a lot of ourselves to ensure they get the outcome they’re looking for.

The color of our brand, deep purple, is the color of royalty. We always want our clients to feel like they are treated exceptionally well, like royalty. Our logo, although it is reminiscent of a heart, wasn’t our initial intent … the lower case “m” that has a swivel over it represents that we have you covered - when you choose to work with us, you will be cared for. And, lastly, our tagline: “A head for real estate, a heart for people,” is genuinely who we are at the core. We love the business of real estate and we enjoy learning the nuances of the contracts and the legalities of the real estate industry to better protect and keep our clients best interest at heart. We also enjoy learning, growing and mastering our craft.

Above all of that, we love people and the way we conduct business is a reflection of that. We would rather spend our marketing dollars supporting local small businesses and volunteering in the community than spending it on buying leads. Our relationship with our clients transcends the transaction. For those who allow us to be part of their lives beyond the close of escrow (which, thankfully, are many), we become friends. We’re beyond grateful that many of our clients choose to share their lives with us.

So what have I learned? That the act of surrendering often means that things don’t turn out how we’d planned yet, they turn out better than we expected. Instead of looking at the negatives in life, may we all enter into each situation with excited curiosity, anticipating the best outcome. Instead of expecting the worst to happen, may we have a childlike faith of letting go and asking ourselves, I wonder how this is going to turn out?

My birthday didn’t turn out like I envisioned. I encouraged others to keep their plans of volunteering. I let go of my expectation and the need to convince others to still show up even though I wouldn’t be there and I wondered … How is this going to turn out? To my delight people did show up, they blessed others in need and, in turn, I was blessed to see a glimpse of our Vision being realized.

Here’s to letting go and facing every situation with child-like, optimistic curiosity.

Yours in surrender,

Rica