Read an Excerpt

Part One: The Eight Essential Virtues

CLARITY
Determining What Matters Most

After I spend three months of learning the basic tools of the trade, Paul Newell thinks I am ready for a referral.  The client is a high-profile lawyer with two teenage sons who has just gotten divorced and is currently staying in a short short-term rental – all the signs of the perfect client – financially qualified and under a time restraint.  When he walks through the door that Monday afternoon, he is so stunningly handsome – tall and lean with dark almond eyes and a bronze-toned complexion – that I almost trip over myself trying to shake his hand.  He has the same exotic look as Omar Sharif in Dr. Zhivago.

I gain my composure and introduce myself. “I’m Paula,” I extend a hand. I wonder if they shake hands where he comes from. Who knows? Maybe he is even from the States. He takes my hand. “Paul Newell tells me you are looking for a home. Why don’t we step into our conference room and you can tell me what it is you’re looking for. Coffee?” I hand him a cup. I notice my hands are shaking. I will them still. “Sugar?” He takes his coffee black. I bet he doesn’t eat quiche. And in the bedroom he… … READ MORE

Part Two: The Eight Potential Vices

IMBALANCE
Learning Temperance

Twenty-five years to the day after I received my first Top Selling Agent Award, I sat down to write this book. I no longer yearned for the bigger sale, recognition as “the agent of the month” or all the other accolades that come with being a top-producing agent. In those twenty – five years I have shown properties to celebrities such as Danny Glover, Nicolas Cage, Michael Tilson Thomas, Bobby McFerrin, Alice Waters, Tracy Chapman, Pat Montandon, Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker, and a few well known sports stars – whose names have escaped me – and a Hong Kong playwright, whom, if I told you his name you wouldn’t recognize.

Some bought. Some did not. During this time I remained a member of the Top Ten Producers in San Francisco, won two trips to Mexico, one to Hawaii, one to Australia and earned three diamond pins, a 14-carat gold bracelet, two designer watches, lots of expensive dinners and numerous gift certificates to Nordstrom, the Ritz Carleton and wine country resorts. I even won a week-long sailing trip aboard an 18th century ship docked in Perth for the America’s Cup! But it is not the perks, it is the people who make doing real estate so rewarding. My days are full of surprises, sometimes very pleasant ones, like the day I held an Open House one damp foggy Sunday afternoon… READ MORE