Who are you? It wasn’t until I reached my 40s that I began to get a sense of who I was. How old were you when you had that epiphany? Maybe you had yours earlier than I did. Or, perhaps, you’ve not given the subject much thought, suggesting your epiphany is yet to come.

By “epiphany,” I mean the realization there are things you just won’t do. We learn early in life about laws, rules, and social standards. But these don’t cover the mass of grey conundrums we later encounter in our business and personal life.

When did you start being confident about where you will draw a line in the sand? I remember, in my younger days, being pressured into doing things I would never consider doing now. Group pressure, to a teenager, is very powerful. The want of friendship or just the desire not to have a confrontation can last a lifetime. Knowing what we stand for makes it easier to not “just go along” or rock the boat.

I said as much in a recent BC Financial Services Authority ethics course I was teaching recently. I was making the point that ethical decisions are much easier to make when you know who you are and what lines you won’t cross.

When you realize you have standards more important to you than the consequences of someone being unhappy with your decisions, you’ll be in a better place. There’s a certain relief in feeling the freedom to say no and damn the consequences. Think about the retired people you’ve met who couldn’t give two hoots about what others think. They know where they stand and are all the happier for it.

Benjamin Franklin said, “Drive thy business or it will drive thee.” In your business relationships, who’s doing the driving? We’ve all had domineering clients. Did one ever push you into an uncomfortable place, or give you an instruction that you found uncomfortable or put you offside with your standards, both professional and personal? As agents we must follow our client’s instructions. But only if we want to stay in the relationship. Think about this.

There are still have some long, lazy August summer days left during which we all can think about who we really are, what our standards are, and what we’ll do if someone asks us to cross a line that takes us past our ethical standards. Considering what you would do before that happens will make your decision easier, giving you the freedom to say, “No, that’s not how I roll,” and to be comfortable with the consequences. Choose well, as they say. Or, you could do as Mae West once said, “Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.”

I wish you the best.

Members sometimes ask if the Rules of Cooperation apply to exclusive listings. The answer is yes, except when the Rule is moot.

The reason the real estate boards changed the name of the MLS® Rules and Regulations to the Rules of Cooperation (ROC) was to ensure members understood that the rules are the rules, regardless of the type of listing or practice area involved (residential or commercial). The ROC describe quality standards, conduct expectations and requirements that members agree to when they join a real estate board. So whether a listing is MLS® or exclusive, the ROC apply. And so does the REALTOR® Code of Ethics, by the way.

That’s the global expectation. Practically speaking, there are some rules that refer specifically to requirements imposed on MLS® listings; for example, the requirement to post a surface title search as an associated document. Exclusive listings are not on the MLS® system and, therefore, there is no way to comply with that requirement if you have an exclusive listing. To give another example, an exclusive listing does not contemplate cooperation with other members. Therefore, multiple offer protocols wouldn’t generally apply. But if a member with an exclusive listing decides to cooperate with other members, if there is more than one offer to present, then the multiple offer rule would apply.