• Columnists

Shep Saltzman and Barbara Balsamo

COLUMN = REAL ESTATE

Shep Saltzman has been working in the real estate industry since 1985. He began his career at the Mortgage Investment Corporation, where he became a partner and worked until 1999 when the firm merged with Access National Bank (now Access National Mortgage).

He also worked as an real estate agent with RE/MAX before becoming a loan officer and consultant with 12th Street Mortgage, which specializes in conventional, FHA, and VA residential loans.

In 1993, Saltzman and his wife, Barbara Balsamo, co-founded the Realty Investment Company. He is the principal broker, and the couple specializes in representing buyers and sellers of residential real estate throughout Northern Virginia.

For more information, visit www.realtyinvestmentcompany.com.

Do not be afraid of mistakes, providing you do not make the same one twice.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

– Charles Darwin

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
 what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make Me Feel Important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.”

– Mary Kay Ash

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’”

– Brian Tracy

I have spent a good part of my life convincing people that a blank sheet of paper is the greatest opportunity in the world, and not frightening at all.”

– Marty Skler, executive vp, Walt Disney Imagineering

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.”

– Byron Katie

A man without a smiling face
 should not open a shop.”

– Chinese Proverb

A truly forgiving person is someone who experiences all the anger merited by injustice and still acts with fairness and compassion.”

– Martha Beck

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

– Thomas Edison

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”

– Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

Are you willing to help other people succeed even when it’s not a requirement of your job to be of assistance?”

– Steven Schussler

The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. The greatest failure is to not try.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

I’m not afraid of storms,
for I’m learning to sail my ship.”

– Louisa May Alcott

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

– Albert Einstein

Part of your destiny is to live in the zone of maximum satisfaction.”

– Martha Beck

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.”

– Christopher Morley

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.”

– Ray Bradbury

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

If you were independently wealthy and never had to work a day in your life, would you still choose to spend your time attempting to become a successful entrepreneur?”

– Steven Schussler

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
, you cannot tell it about other people.”

– Virginia Woolf

Success is about finding a livelihood that brings joy, self-sufficiency, and a sense of contributing.”

– Anita Roddick

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in your room.”

– A wisdomism

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve come to confirm that one’s title, even that of president, says little about how well one’s life has been led. No matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, to learn, and to achieve.”

– Barack Obama

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen.”

– Sarah Ban Breathnach

With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.”

– Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton

4oz tequila + 1oz TripleSec + 2oz lime juice + 1oz simple syrup (sugar=water), 1 cup crushed ice. Shake + dance around the kitchen.

– Avenida Margarita

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

– Dalai Lama

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?”

– Eve Ensler

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

– Jesse Jackson

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. 
Now put foundations under them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Do you believe it is important to give back some portion of your wealth to support charitable causes?”

– Steven Schussler

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

– Winston Churchill

Change is a math formula. Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change.”

– Alan Webber, author, "Rules of Thumb"

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

– Henry Miller

When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

– Audre Lorde

Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

Don’t follow your dreams. Chase them.”

– Richard Dumb

You don’t love someone because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song only your heart can understand.”

– L.J. Smith

Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost.”

– Robert H. Schuller

Let us seize the day and the opportunity and strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.”

– W.E.B. Du Bois

I may not be able to change what takes place, but I can always choose to change my thinking.”

– Michelle Sedas

The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

– Groucho Marx

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.”

– President Calvin Coolidge