Todd Murphy's (zerocommission) Blog

I've been broke before.  In fact, if I'm really being honest, I'm broke now.  I've got more money going out than coming in. That's what broke is. I've never been poor.  I've never had to worry about whether I was going to be able to eat on a given day.  I've never had to be concerned about having...

I've only been to Vegas two times in my life.  I've never lost more than twenty dollars in Vegas.  I've also never risked more than twenty dollars. I've never been one to take risks where the other guy is guaranteed to win most of the time. On the other hand, I've lost hundreds of thousands of do...

Sometimes, when I'm telling a story to one of my clients, I'll try to make a point about how we often "stick our heads in the sand" whenever we don't want to face a certain reality.  In fact, I usually start out my story with, "You know how an Ostrich sticks its head in the sand, blah, blah, blah...

"You're soooo weird, Dad," my teenage daughter often tells me with rolling eyes.  "I know," I reply proudly. I would rather be weird than normal.  I don't know, for some reason I've always admired people who approach life in unconventional ways. I may not always agree with the methods of their un...

Wow.  It feels good to be back in blogging action!  It's been a long and short road to my leaving the real estate industry to join State Farm.  I'm opening my office in nine days, to be exact. I know, I should be thinking about Christmas gifts, mistletoe and all the other stuff that comes along w...

Today was the first time in over four weeks that I logged on to Active Rain.  I stopped participating on Active Rain because it was becoming monotonous for me - and it was taking far too much time away from result producing activities. As real estate agents, I think we're fooling ourselves if we ...

I'm reading a really interesting book by Marcus Buckingham & Donald Clifton, Ph.D., entitled "Now, Discover Your Strengths."Have you ever been asked about your strengths and your weaknesses?  I've heard a lot of people advise you to work on your weakness upon discovering them.  The authors have d...

The local news recently reported that Alabama is no longer in the top ten party schools, according to the Princeton Review.  Ah, that's too bad.It appears that the UA students may have settled down a bit - Princeton Review ranks University of Alabama at #19 out of 20 schools.  Of course, being th...

Okay, so I didn't mean ALIEN as in U.F.O. alien.  I am referring to blogging in other territories, or "worlds" that you aren't comfortable in, or you simply are new to. I've been so focused on blogging on Active Rain that I haven't really taken the time to read other blogger stuff outside of the ...

I recently made a 2 1/2 hour trip to see the guys over at SimplySold(r) in Douglasville, Georgia.  They have a really neat business model for the real estate brokerage business, and it appears that they are growing and expanding at an admirable rate, given the current real estate environment.I me...