The siren song every real estate agent hears

There is a scene in the new adaptation of The Odyssey that stopped me cold, and I have not stopped thinking about it since.

For 3,000 years, we have been handed the same version of the Sirens. Beautiful voices. An irresistible song. Sailors turning their ships onto the rocks, helpless to stop themselves. Odysseus, clever as always, orders his crew to fill their ears with wax and lash him to the mast, so that he alone can hear the song and live to tell the tale.

But in this telling, when Odysseus finally hears the Sirens and survives, and he is asked what the song actually sounded like, his answer is not what you would guess. It is not a melody at all.

It is the sound of every life he never lived. Every version of himself he once dreamed of becoming. Every choice he wishes he had made. And beneath all of it, the cruelest note of all: the sound of everything he once had and lost.

That is not a sea monster. That is a voice every one of us knows.

The song is real, and you have heard it

The siren song is the voice in your head that seduces you into believing your unlived life is better than the one you are living. It is the little voice that whispers, “If only I had made a different choice.” And all the while, it pulls you out of your own reality and away from the present. It robs you of the joys you already have. It steals you from the life you are actually building.

Here is what makes it so dangerous for a real estate professional. The song never asks you to do anything wrong. It only asks you to ache. To sit in the “what if” while the real deals and the real relationships sail right past you.

Listen for how it sounds in our business:

• I picked the wrong market, while three neighborhoods you already know cold sit there, un-farmed.
• I should have joined a different brokerage, while the leads already in your database go two weeks without a call.
• That agent online has it all figured out, while you scroll instead of dial, measuring your behind-the-scenes against their highlight reel.
• If only I had started 10 years ago, while today, the one day you actually have, slips by unworked.

The song does not sink your ship with a storm. It simply keeps you staring at a horizon you will never reach, until you forget to steer the boat you are in.

Odysseus did not out-sing the Sirens. He tied the ropes first

Here is the part of the myth we tend to skip. Odysseus did not defeat the Sirens by being stronger than the song. Nobody is. He defeated them by tying himself to the mast before he ever heard a single note.

That is the whole lesson. You do not out-willpower the siren song. You build the ropes in advance.

When the ache arrives, and it will, the agent who is already lashed to a routine sails right through it. The one who waited to rely on willpower in the moment is the one who ends up on the rocks. Here is how the myth maps onto the work:

The agent who wins is not the one who never hears the song. Everyone hears it. The winner is the one who set up the ropes before the ache arrived.

The mast, in your own words

So, this week, when your own siren song starts up, do not argue with it. Do not try to out-shout it. Say these out loud instead, and mean them:

Your affirmation

• I hear the song, and I stay at the mast.
• My life is here, in the present, and I am living it fully.
• I don’t chase the life I imagine. I build the life I’m living.
• The business I have is the business I’m growing, and I work it completely.
• I am present with the people in front of me, and I serve them all the way.

Chances are you’ll hear that song this week. When it comes, remember that you already tied the ropes. You already built the routine. You already know where the boat is going.

Hear the song. Stay at the mast. Sail on.