I had a “notion” of wanting a very nice car one day, but it wasn’t until I went to the Jaguar dealership to meet one of my clients who worked there that the dream took hold in my heart. A client of mine and top salesman there,  George Vie,  asked me to come by to get  his signature on forms  I needed for some work I was doing for him.  It was near Christmas time.  When I arrived he was in the midst of a transaction where a gentleman was buying a shiny red convertible Jaguar for his wife to be delivered to their home with a bow on Christmas Eve.  She didn’t know she was getting it.  Needless to say, that stretched my heart and my mind…a man buying his wife a luxury car and she doesn’t even know she was getting it.  I imagined how thrilled she would be as she looked at the window or by chance seeing the car coming down the driveway with a bow on it. 

 

“People really live like that” is what I thought. Of course George tried to get me to test drive one and I said no way.  He told me I didn’t have to wait for a husband to give me one; I could have one on my own.  He must have thought I was much more prosperous than I was at the time (smiles) and looking back inwardly I guess I was.  Before I left he tried a couple more times to get me to do the test drive.  I don’t know if he was trying to encourage me or to impress me (smiles). 

 

 Ironically our birthday is on the same day.  He insisted that I take the glossy Jaguar brochure home with me.  When I got to my apartment, I innocently tore out the picture of the one I loved and put it on my refrigerator.  I put one of my address labels on the picture to say it would be mine and I put my 40^th birthday as the date.  It still was just a notion, but I did not know how powerful that simple act of faith would be.  Each day when I opened the refrigerator I “saw it but didn’t see it” if you know what I mean.  I went about my daily tasks of putting my life back together again.  Little did I know that this act of placing a picture on the refrigerator would change my life in so many ways!

 

At the time, I was working to regain stability in my life and to get back into the black again.  I had just started my real estate career and all of my accounts had gotten behind because it took me almost 7 months before I made any real income.  I had drawn a line in the sand and promised myself that “this time” there was no turning back. I would pay whatever price I needed to have more than enough in my life. There had been too many lean years, too much struggle and too much not enough.  I was determined to put myself back on solid ground and on a strong foundation that would never be shaken again.

 

I figured out that 11 sales would bring me to the black and I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.  Something miraculous happened because the clients kept coming and coming. I remember the day “I crossed over” and everyone had been paid in full and there was money left over.  It was a day of rejoicing! I kept going until I sold a church, a home to a doctor, and a home to a pastor and they all closed at the same time.  I had literally made my former annual salary within that same month.   I’d found my rhythm, I’d pressed through my discouragement and I had honed a system that produced great results. Finally my ambition, my talent, my personality and my skill had intersected in an industry where I was in the flow of life. Twenty years of trying and finally the tables had turned for me.

 

I had broken through!   The possibilities began to open for me.  I saw how it could be possible to make six digits and maybe even a quarter of a million dollars.  During this time I was stacking money. I had hardly bought a thing.  It had been so very long since I had experienced prosperity and having more than enough, well, I just savored that money.  One time I even cashed one of my commission checks in $100 dollar bills threw them all on the bed and just rolled around to get the feeling anchored in my heart. I had struggled financially for so many years and it felt so very good to be able to honor my debts and have money left over.  The memory of it still feels good even as I write this...

 

That’s when I knew I could go buy a home, but I was fearful even though it was my job to help other people to buy. My income had grown but my fear still lurked in the shadows.   I wanted to buy a home for the same amount of money that I  paid for rent  because fear continued to remind me that I had lost everything once and I didn’t want to ever lose anything  again.  No need to overdue it…stay small.  My mentor told me I should buy the home I really wanted and to just “sell more real estate.”  Whenever I slipped into that thinking pattern about my past or talked about “what happened before” he would not listen to it and continued to quote that phrase “sell more real estate.” 

 

 I purchased my home and after I got settled in, I decided that I wanted to get a new car.  I was driving a new Camry at the time.  I went to the Jaguar dealership to “do my homework” about the pricing, the payment, taxes and insurance.  This would be a new kind of stretch for me and I wanted to prepare myself.  Because I wanted to pay such a low payment, no one took me seriously.  George was no longer there and one salesman even told me that I should consider buying a fully loaded Camry if $500 per month was all I was willing to spend.  I was not deterred; I continued to do my homework to position myself for it. 

 

Then I saw one I wanted.  It was on the used car lot and it was $30,000.  It was beautiful.  I had gone online and checked the credit union payment calculator and thought I could afford this one with payments stretched out to 60 months.  The next day, it was gone!  I was heartbroken.  Since the dealership was still not taking me seriously, I decided to see if I could get a preapproval for the loan with my credit union and then I would be empowered to shop. 

 

I applied for the loan on line and forgot about it. Would they really approve me for a $30,000 car? I went about my business and a few days later received a letter from them in the mail.  They approved the loan!  I couldn’t believe it!  Up until that point I always had to write a letter of explanation or ask for a second review to get approved.  That’s  when I got an “aha” that when you have your affairs in order you just get approved.  I went online to see where the largest and closest Jaguar dealership was.  I decided to take a trip to North Carolina, three hours away, with a friend of mine just to go window shopping.  I really liked the car in white, but “mistral blue” was the color that called my name.

 

When I got to Leith’s Jaguar, I met myself!  David, the salesman was the best and at the top of his game. It felt funny to have someone saying to me the exact things that I said to my clients who were buying a home.  I heard myself talking through his mouth (to me).  He was not going to let me weasel away and he masterfully stripped away my every objection. I had come to window shop and low and behold he was treating me like a client. I wasn’t ready even though I had a preapproval letter in my hand and knew that I could buy any car I liked that cost up to $30,000. 

 

 I felt like I was “in the box” like on the Homicide TV show.  He first told me that the color I really liked was a “new color” that had just come out in 2000. The only way to get mistral blue was to purchase or lease a new car.   He further asked me why I wanted a used car when I could drive a new one.  The sticker on the car was $59,000+ and I thought he was out of his mind! It had taken me a few weeks to get comfortable with the $30,000 and now that number was doubling! I was beginning to feel queasy inside.  Once he found out that was the color I wanted, he put me on the path to leasing which made the payments more affordable.  Still, the credit union had approved me for $30,000 which was a stretch for me.  I could not comprehend paying $60,000 for a car nor the corresponding payment, at least until he used my own words against me…again. He said to me the very same words that I often use in real estate “you must be willing to pay for what you REALLY WANT…it moved you, it called your name because it’s what you really want…the car at the payment of $500 does not do that for you…so if you want it, the only way to have it is to pay for it.”

 

How many times had I have to given the same counsel to my real estate clients?  That made sense but I kept reminding him that I hadn’t really come to buy that day; I just  wanted to see my options. And fear was still whispering in my ear.  He was thinking that no one drives three hours just to window shop.  He finally convinced me to let Jaguar Credit review an application for a lease.  I think I only agreed to just get out of the box and out of the dealership.   He kept wanting me to test drive it and I kept refusing saying that I was already SOLD on the vehicle; I just needed to make it affordable (and of course the words – sell more real estate—kept echoing in my ear).

 

I signed the application and my friend and I went for lunch and some shopping. I told him I was ready to go back home.  He said “you’re not just going to go back home without giving him the courtesy of a call, will you?”  He’s spent so much time with you this morning, you owe him that.”  I told him that there was no way they would approve me for a new car and when I was ready in another few weeks, I would come back and  use my preapproval I already had for a used one.  They didn’t have a white one or another color that I liked (other than the new one).  I had firmly decided NOT to buy one that I didn’t absolutely love the color or everything about it. I was tired of buying the “dealer recommendation” because that was all I qualified for. 

 

  At the end of the evening on my way back home I did decide to call him back and thank him for his time.  Imagine my surprise when he said “Ms. Hobbs, we’ve been trying to reach you!  We have your new car ready for you to drive back to Virginia!”  I couldn’t believe it!  I became very nervous. For one of the first times something I really wanted had come to pass and it was the exact model XJ8-L that was hanging on my refrigerator but with a prettier shade of blue!  I told him I would be back to get it and I drove home.  My friend couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t go back to the dealership, but I didn’t feel I was ready and fear came over me and camped out big time!

 

I couldn’t figure out whether God had blessed me or the devil was tricking me to make me lose everything I had all over again!  Until I had bought my home and now this transaction – prior to that -- life had always been uphill and now life was really opening up its arms to me and saying you can have whatever you want…it took some time to embrace.  I called a Pastor to discuss it and he said “This is God blessing you…go in faith and receive the car.”  I didn’t go.  I had not told my family and only two other people knew - because I didn’t want to be talked out of it or in to it.  I prayed and prayed to get the assurance within that this was God and this was the right timing.  Inwardly I knew my life had changed and it was permanent, but I had to regather my courage to step into this new place, this new level.  The finance manager called me to work out the transaction.  He told me I could put $10,000 down and have the payment I wanted.  But it didn’t make sense to give up $10,000 of my cash to save $400 per month.  The lease period was three years.  So I refused that proposal.  Then he called me back and said, you don’t have to put up ANY money if you are willing to pay the higher payment.  He was literally giving it to me, but I was still not willing to say OK.  The payment would be $833.33 per month with no money down.

 

 On Wednesday I agreed and told him I would come the next day to pick up the car.  I did not go.  On Thursday I told him I would come on Friday.  I did not go.  On Saturday morning, he  called to tell me they would deliver the car to me at 5:00 p.m.  I agreed.  And then it hit me. I remembered how this all began. My mind went back to the day in the dealership when the husband had the car delivered home to his wife.  My car would be delivered to me but (only because I would not  go get it – smiles). And the rest…they say is history!  I leased it for three years and a funny thing happened!

 

 

 

My income doubled after I got that car.  I was the same Sharmaine, practicing real estate the same way, saying the same things, nothing had really changed, but all of a sudden because I drove a Jaguar people perceived me to be different.  Business came out of the woodwork!  Sudden my family had exalted me to this place of “all knowing” when previously some of them weren’t exactly sure how I made a living and that perhaps I might even be selling drugs or that I needed to go get a real job, depending on which ones you spoke to. 

 

 I opened my own real estate company easily and effortlessly and 10 people wanted to come to work for me immediately.  It was a very heady time.  I was so grateful that God had “turned my captivity” so to speak.  He had turned my whole life around and I had what I had always been striving for.  But it started innocently with the experience at the dealership, getting the brochure, putting it on the refrigerator, going to work to get out of debt and restore my credit rating and in the process, this wonderful thing happened for me.  I have a picture of me signing the final paperwork for the car at my kitchen table with the salesman!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So my advice is to get a picture of what you want and put it where you can see it every day whether you realize it or not.  Prepare for it and do the homework on the cost to acquire whatever it is you want and don’t be deterred.  Consider leasing (if you like that option) and set a date!  When you start taking steps towards your dream, miracles happen!  You receive it!