As some of our agents at Century 21 United Realty Inc. know, in addition to a coach and manager at the company, I am a student (though lately, not such a good one…that’s another story) of iaido. Iaido is a Japanese martial art involving drawing and cutting with the sword.

From the Wikipedia article:

The term “iaido” approximately translates into English as “the way of mental presence and immediate reaction.”

Over the years since I’ve been involved with this study, I’ve moved more and more from the pure technical side of the art to the more philosophical side. The physical training is always the basis of training, but the other more esoteric parts are increasingly important to me.

As I continue to learn and experience iaido, I see more and more how it affects my day to day life and can be reflected in so many parts of life and business.

Recently, my sensei’s sensei wrote a piece that he shared on his Facebook profile about restricting choice and how, in the long run, it might actually be beneficial to our ability to respond to a number of situations. It really got me thinking about how agents routinely look for ‘magic’ scripts as though knowing yet another script will make their jobs easier.

Taylor Sensei has previously granted me permission to reprint his essays and articles, so I present here his article (emphasis added by me) and below that, my take on how it relates to real estate. I would love to hear your thoughts!

Restricting Our Choice – Kim Taylor, 7th Dan, Renshi, Iaido

First published on Facebook on Nov 4, 2021

Last evening in Jodo it suddenly struck me that the kata are not there to expand our choices when attacked, they are there to restrict them.

Musashi says “strike from the void”, and others say Mushin (no mind) or Fudoshin (free moving mind, immovable mind) but what happens when we walk toward our opponent with no thought at all, relying on a technique to show up.

It usually shows up for me.

But I play with the Pamurai (Pamela Morgan, 5th Dan, Iaido), and she’s highly trained. Her attack comes expertly, in an accurate line to a vital spot. In other words, it comes like the kata, like what I expect. Not which attack, but once it happens, in a way that is familiar to me. I pick a response from amongst a limited number of responses. And then I declare, “see, like this, don’t get in your own way”.

But I sometimes follow up that first movement with any number of techniques I have picked up over 40 years of Aikido, Jodo, Tanjo, Western Cane fighting and other things that are so far back in time that I’ve forgotten. Not the techniques, they appear, but their names.

And sometimes these techniques run into each other, especially if Pam doesn’t do anything to trigger a reaction from me. In other words, I look for a technique and I find too many of them. Which do I pick? This is not mushin, this is not the void, this is hunting around in a library for something to read. Too much choice.

Hence my sudden thought last evening that the kata are designed to strip that library down to a small few books on a shelf. Pick one, they are all good books, and you can start reading instead of aimlessly wandering, picking up and putting down too many books in search of the one that is “just a little bit better”.

Musashi, at the end of his life, settled on five techniques which are usually called by their initial kamae (stance). Chudan, Jodan, Gedan, Hidari Waki, Migi Waki. These are middle, upper, lower, left and right sides. What else is there? You can combine them, upper right, lower left if you wish, but the kata do that. And the kata, they are repeats of those first kamae. Start with chudan, avoid the strike to your sword, go to Jodan and counterattack through to gedan, then finish by going through hidari waki gamae to cut upward into the ribs or the wrist.

It’s a simple method, uncluttered once you figure out how to wave two swords around independently but coordinatedly. Practice long enough and you will have a “good enough” technique appear at need. It may not be the best, most elegant technique ever developed by man, but it will be good enough.

I teach the same way when I teach cane self defence, KISS, Keep it simple, stupid. The last thing you want to do upon being attacked is to get fancy. What if your attacker doesn’t do what you need him to do to apply the fancy move. Better to just hit him hard. Musashi happens to agree with me, he told us that no matter what we are doing, defending, adjusting, whatever, never forget that the goal is to hit your attacker. So hit him.

But simple techniques applied well sounds like boxing or Kendo, we want the fancy stuff right? We want more and more complex kata because they are amusing. I am as guilty of that as anyone else, I did my kata collecting, that’s how I ended up with so many choices. It wasn’t a bad thing, it taught me that there is always something you can do. After all, if there was a single, unbeatable attack or combination of attacks, we would all be practicing that. But knowing a hundred kata, three hundred, just taught me that I knew five different variations on a single kata, that they weren’t five kata, just one, even if there were five names and they were from five different schools. KISS.

And so I had my fun, and so I sometimes go off into strange places, and so the students say “But that isn’t the kata” before I get to say it.

There’s a balance between knowing hundreds of techniques and the fun that gives us, and knowing that what we really want is to be very good at smacking the opponent in the head. Hard.

Relating This To Real Estate And Objection Handling – Doug Lytle, Real Estate Coach and Manager, 2nd Dan, Iaido

When every new real estate agent gets their license, they (should) go through some additional, intensive, training. They don’t really teach new agents how to run their business, set goals, deal with showings, how to make a presentation, or how to deal with the inevitable objections that we get.

That’s where I come in. My job as a coach and manager at a large real estate company is to make sure that every new agent we hire gets the very latest training from either me, or another member of our management and admin team. After that, they need ongoing coaching and updates to their training.

When it comes to objection handling, I think there’s a lot of confusion about what it really means. We can’t, and shouldn’t try to, convince someone to buy or sell a piece of real estate, that’s not our job. When we begin a relationship with a new client, we assess their needs and put together a plan to help them achieve their goals. 

Their goals; not ours. We don’t convince them, we help them get to their own stated goals. Along the way, however, there will be objections. Let’s be clear: objections are almost always unanswered questions. We sometimes haven’t demonstrated our value or our process well enough yet, and we need to use ‘objection handling techniques’ to better inform our clients. Not ‘make’ them sign a contract that they didn’t want to sign in the first place.

Here’s where I start to compare Taylor Sensei’s musings to real estate. Just as kata are a way to practice potential responses to dangerous situations with the danger removed, role playing objection handling techniques is a way for agents to practice scenarios before they happen. Wouldn’t it be great to know the exact secret phrase necessary to calm a would-be client so that they magically understand what your value is?

The reality is that no such thing exists. I know – crazy right? There are literally thousands of books out there that purport to teach exactly this. ‘Learn my secret phrases and you too can make millions in real estate!’ But, in practice, it’s nearly impossible to learn all of the scripts and know exactly how to implement the perfect response in the moment.

You need to develop Mushashi’s philosophy of attacking from the void. There are really only about 6 objections we hear. There may be variations, but every objection is some form of:

• We want to sell it ourselves.
• Will you lower your commission?
• The other agent said the house was worth more.
• We want to wait.
• We want to fix it up first.
• We have a friend in the business.

And there are literally thousands of responses to these 6 objections. Do you need to know them all? No. Really, all you need to know is how to position your responses.

Practice your kata enough times, collect enough of them, and when you’re attacked, you stop trying to find an appropriate counter-technique. You simply respond from the void and hit him on the head. 

Practice the process and the scripts to handle the limited number of real objections you’ll hear, and when you’re faced with one, you won’t have to hunt your memory for a response; you’ll respond from the void and the handler will simply be there. 

As Taylor Sensei said: There’s a balance between knowing hundreds of techniques and the fun that gives us, and knowing that what we really want is to be very good at smacking the opponent in the head. Hard.

PS – Interested in learning how you should be handling objections? Give me a call and I’d be happy to chat with you.