Who do You Want to Be?
I am sitting here with Hank Van Joslin of the prestigious Van Joslin Real Estate Company in The Woodlands, Texas. Today we are talking about who do You want to be: God Has Your Plan.
Hank, no doubt you have done very well in the real estate brokerage business, however, there is more to you than what most people realize. You have quite a story of “overcoming” that is truly inspiring and why we wanted to include your story in Stepping Stones for success.
Yes, thank you. And yes, we do a very good business in Houston / The Woodlands, Texas, Cap Cana, Dominican Republic and in the Mexican Rivera, Mexico. We enjoy what we do and love meeting the interesting people we get to work with. However, there is more to life than just earning a living. And every day that is what we bring to the table so to speak. Our clients are our friends. We know that buying a home is for many the single-largest investment they will make. Moreover, we also know we are dealing with human beings. We know each family has their own issues, their own goals and challenges. We take each client, each family, and each couple and try our best to serve them.
Is this due in part to the traumatic events you have conquered in your life that you see things with greater compassion?
I believe most successful business people have one thing in common, they care. But to be great at what you do you must also understand people. And, well, I can identify with the pain and suffering of some folks. Right now we are living through interesting times. In some parts of the country, people are still having financial difficulties. Some are having to scale back, some are declaring bankruptcy or have in the past, yet they need to be invested in their life. Some people feel stuck in life. I know a little something about feeling stuck, not being able to move!
You have overcome great obstacles in your life and encountered those at the pinnacle of your career at the time. Some might have felt that God is a cruel God, but you have a different approach to adversity. Can you explain your beliefs about adversity?
So to say I know a little something of adversity may be an understatement, but also, and I have to add this, there are people that have gone through far worse things than I physically, spiritually and/or emotionally; far greater trauma than I. I happened to be the one speaking to you right now, mine is a small example of conquering great odds. What we all have in common is that God created each one of us and there a plan for everyone. So no matter the adversity, one must believe that somehow, that too was written on their blueprint.
It is true that at the height of my youthful “career” I incurred an injury that left me paralyzed for a year and a half. I don’t wish that experience on anyone, but I am grateful that today when I see that someone is stuck in life, and I’m speaking to issues greater than home-buying or business investment decisions, I can empathize with how they are feeling mentally. They just can’t move past something.
I know that in my plan, people are put in front of me so that I can give them encouragement and hope. I have a lot of those kinds of moments.
Many people are looking for explanations as to why certain things have happened to them. Sometimes there simply isn’t that explanation, it is just life.
You know it seems like we look at things and say when is this ever going to end, or why is this happening to me. I was very fortunate that 45 years ago during my time of extreme physical suffering the message came to me that this was a temporary inconvenience; this was something that would pass. If I was lying on the floor taking a class or if I was hobbling to move about or unable to do something seemingly simple, there were still other things I could see and benefit from. That’s what I draw from. There is always an opportunity. There is always something that is good out there for us it is a matter from what perspective we’re looking at it.
So what you are saying is that everything happens for a reason?
Yes, but sometimes we don’t know it at the time. Like a bad day. You might think yesterday was a bad day, but then realize because of the events yesterday, you were moved to a much more compelling place today. That, in essence, yesterday was a good day because you learned something more or were moved to a different place in your mind. That’s just it, a person has no idea what today really means. So all we have to do is live today to the absolute fullest. Let each experience become a teaching moment. Just go for it! Three months from now you might realize that what you did today paved the way for something grand to happen in your life. And I do believe that is how life works. We are set up for grand things to happen. Then when something terrible happens, we focus on that and hold people, places, things, or God accountable for our misery? I’m here to tell you misery is optional. If you live every day as an exclamation instead of explanation, then you are going to have some superior “wow, I can’t believe that just happened” days in front of you!
There are times in our life that we are expected to wait. To everything, there is a season. So I actually resigned myself while in college that my timing was to wait. I can remember everyone around me than living their life. I didn’t feel cheated or slighted. I found great significance in waiting. It was a positive thing. And just because I was waiting didn’t mean things weren’t happening. Like the farmer who plants the seed. Just because he doesn’t see the seed in the ground doesn’t mean that something isn’t happening. When that seed does sprout and grows to become the crop he has planted, then he realizes that there was a necessary time to wait.
So I would talk to my body and use the time wisely while waiting. I wanted to make sure I was planting good seeds. Likewise, if I am talking positively to myself I am expecting positive results. The seed I planted and cultivated was for my vertebras to fuse together, giving me back a strong and stable spinal cord. And yes it did happen!
Do I feel we draw those bad things to us, no. Do I think God is going to use that for our good, yes. And I don’t mean to get preachy and hope you don’t perceive that I am, but I think it gives people a great sense of relief to know that no matter what is going on in your life, all our experiences are to meant to make a difference in our lives.
I can only share from whence I have been.
I went from being paralyzed to competing in all facets of my life. I couldn’t have done that just drawing on my own strength because at one time I was physically weak. But in faith I was strong.
What do you have to believe about yourself to have turned your life around? Can you tell us what your experience was?
I had to believe all situations can be temporary inconveniences. Now defining temporary can be a challenge since today we all seem to be looking for immediate gratification.
For my personal situation, temporary was many years, from lying on the floor and always being in pain to running, jumping (2-3 inch vertical only, but it still is jumping) and now with much less pain.
I was 17 and the only American on the Dominican Republic National Motocross team. I had no fear! I had a formidable will to win! Such is the optimism of youth!
I was riding my motorcycle to school the day after the race, a photo of me leading the pack was in the newspaper. It was a good time to be me. Then suddenly, a truck pulled out in front of me and I broadsided the truck on my bike. I could actually hear and feel my back go “crunch” then my bike and I was thrown three lanes over landing on my head. Although I had my helmet on my head cracked just above both my eyes. I was laying in the road, blood gushing when a classmate and his father saw me, put me in their truck and rushed me to the hospital.
The neurosurgeon that operated on me was world-renown. I knew I was in the best of care. During the operation, the physician made an 8” incision and pulled out all the pieces of vertebrae and discs shattered in the accident. They felt they had gotten everything.
They also thought I was going to lose my left eye. It was horrible, to say the least. Certainly not the worst of what others have gone through, but for my family and me, this was very traumatic.
After the operation, I was on an IV drip and was strapped down to my bed because I wanted to get up. I remember my friends coming into my room and me telling them that I just needed to fix my bike and that I would be back in time for basketball season which was just starting. They just looked at me like “there is no way!”
I had a broken back, my head was busted basically and myriad more maladies, however; when I woke up I was still “me”. That was the blessing. I woke up and was me.
Not only did I not see myself as a victim, but even back then I did not want any special treatment, I was not an invalid, I was just suffering a temporary inconvenience.
The talk in the hospital was that I was paralyzed and would never walk. But my dad had another vision.
We actually left the hospital very late one night, long before the doctors were “willing ‘ to release me. We had our own plan “God’s plan” for my recovery. What I would later find to be one of my biggest challenges was to ask people to help me. Today I feel that is a noble thing to ask for help as it gives others great joy to be of assistance.
I was to play football for University of Tampa. I know I could have felt a victim through all this, but why. What good does it do? Even at registration I “stood” – actually laid, in line for eight hours. Although I was told that there was a handicap line for registration that I should have used, I did not because that was not for me. I did not consider myself handicapped, just temporarily inconvenienced. While at the University of Tampa I ate meals with a girl who was born with deformed arms, not only could she use a knife and fork with her feet, she actually sowed a “colorful” (back then called psychedelic) trim on the bottom of a pair of my jeans, she did so with her sowing machine using her feet. Just shows you that just when you think you have all the challenges … look around – you will see someone else who is facing much bigger challenges.
However, I share all this to say, if you know you can have it all someday, would you be patient and do what you could today? Of course, you would. This is what you must believe in; it will pass but only if you give it time and listen to your messages.
You have to believe that you are still who you are regardless of whether you’re wearing a red shirt or a green shirt; whether you are temporarily on crutches or walking around just fine; whether you are happily married or newly divorced; fact is, you are still you! Whether you’ve just suffered the biggest let down in your life or the greatest glory in your life; you’re still who you are. And God does have a plan for your life. Allow good things to happen in your life despite what is going on in the environment that surrounds you.
In essence, you have to believe that not only are you capable of having, doing, being what I want, but also that you are worth it. I am worth living a great life. To you reading this right now – YOU are worth living a great life!
Yours is a fantastic story Hank of overcoming that I do not think you could have achieved without that firm resolution in God as you have talked about. Did you always have a strong faith?
The first thing is to believe in God. If you listen carefully you will realize that He is offering guidance all the time. Listen to the messages. You must know that just as things can change and become a mess overnight, so can they change and become great overnight. You must trust that all messes can and will get cleaned up as long as you have patience and perseverance. You must believe that you too have the ability to overcome. Decide to make your messes temporary inconveniences. Once you decide this, then be patient and allow yourself time to figure out what you need to do to clean up the mess. Take this in steps; don’t think you must tackle it all at once.
Once you believe it is a temporary inconvenience you are on your way to getting out or over it.
It is easy for me to believe that God has a plan for me because of my overwhelming struggle. However, mine could be considered slight compared to what other’s have gone through, still, anyone who has conquered any great feat knows that we could not do this thing alone. Out of life’s contrasts, we find what we are seeking. Sometimes we don’t see it.
My upbringing was that of a God-fearing and God-respecting family; I think those beliefs have created hope in me. As the years go on, I become so much more aware of what really is the blessing that has been given to me and what I’m capable of offering to others in my own small way. Yet, for me, it is huge because I can see it and feel it in a manner that I guess as a youngster I just didn’t realize was there yet it was happening all around me at the time.
Was there a point in time where everything changed for you?
Yes, for me it was 13 days after my 1972 accident; I had been conscious for several days and my friends were coming in and out of my hospital room visiting me, however, no one stayed very long (not because of doctors orders) but because I would tell them to not worry I would be on the basketball court (we were going into basketball season) before the season started and would be in the next motocross race. It became obvious to me that none of these people believed what I believed, that I would play sports again and be normal. So one afternoon right after my motocross teammates had left the hospital room with teary-eyed faces, I suddenly just stopped thinking of moving and getting well and laid staring at the ceiling. That evening my father came to see me like he did every day after work. He walked over, lowered the railings on the bed and told me to put my arms around his neck (now keep in mind, I was not to be moved and was still on intravenous. I dangled from his neck (dad retired Marine Corps colonel was 6’5” strapping marine even in his 50s) feeling nervous that I was floating in the air and somewhat nervous that I could not feel anything in my legs and knew they would not hold me up.
He took three steps from the bed, the tubes with my nourishment and medicines dragged behind me. Our bodies were like one connected at the torsos, I looked up at him as he firmly told me “you will walk”. He took several steps back to the bedside and carefully, but with force and placed me back in the bed, looked me in the eye with his piercing blue eyes and I knew that I would walk and have a normal life.
In many cases it takes a big jolt for most of us to realize what it is we need; to realize it’s time and opportunity to move on, to better ourselves.
These are those self-defining moments that spur on the motivation to succeed and thrive in life. Not everyone has a support group around them. I realize that there are so many others going through challenging times and they feel they are sinking. That is precisely why I am writing this book. If you don’t have a support group around you, then consider me your support group. I want to encourage you just as I was encouraged.
I look at you and hear your story and then feel heartache for those that have gone through similar experiences, but can’t seem to dig themselves out. What really is the difference between people when one can rise above and the other digs further down?
For me, and I can only speak from my own experience, is that I did not try to rely solely on my own power. There was no way for me to do so. I had to rely on a greater power through faith to lift me up. So for those that are able to rise above situations when others can’t, they too are relying on something greater than themselves. For some it is God and for some, it is the belief that there are meaning and purpose to their life. I do not think a person can single-handedly conquer great challenges on their own nor do I believe that we were meant to.
For others, there is always a reason “not to overcome”. For me, there were only reasons why I should. Tiny steps make the overall change to be sure. The thing is, if one is compelled to do something – then do it! Furthermore, do it because you know you’re supposed to! That is how I felt. I was compelled to walk again because I knew I was supposed to. Today I walk only aided by a foot braces. Only recently did I stop running (not very fast) but it was such a joy just to have my legs moving me in a direction I choose, just like God continues to move my life on the course he has for me.
What I like about what you have to say is that people don’t have to be perfect, pedigreed or otherwise acclaimed to achieve greatness. Greatness is available to everyone isn’t that what you are saying?
Yes. Why would we be created with anything less than “greatness”? Fortunately for us all, we are all endowed with talents and gifts and that is the good news. What is so wonderful is knowing that no one person has more of that divine spark than someone else – again it is what we do with what we have, both negatively and positively. Our gifts might be different, but we all have that endowment so to speak.
You also talk about how a person must decide who and what they are. So this is more than just ideas on goal-setting. This is about redefining who a person is and what they stand for, isn’t it?
When going through a difficult time the question is never “what am I going to do” but rather “who am I going to be”. That makes a huge shift right there. When we decide who we are going to be through that experience, then we get very creative on how to push through.
Some decide that they want to be the victim. Well, if that is the decision, they are not going to get very far. They already decided who they are going to be in that experience; to be a defeated person.
But if someone decides that they are going to be a conqueror of whatever plagues them, then they have already moved that mountain through their intention. See how powerful that line of thinking is?!
You are what you think about. Deep down inside each of us knows what we want to be. Just some need a little encouragement and support to help them realize that dream.
Do you ever stop to think about the gift you are giving to people to live lives greater than what they thought possible?
I believe the gift is already in them, but what I am hoping is that through sharing my story of adversity is that there is nothing too big for them to overcome and there is no plan too awesome for your life.
Yes, I sell real estate, but I don’t just sell real estate. What I do is meet people every single day of my life. And I decide who I am going to be to that person and what I am going to model. So if I decide that I am going to be the face of God to that person and I am going to model to that person that type of benevolence, then that person is going to have an awesome experience with me. Does it mean that everyone is going to buy a home from me? No. Nor is that the expectation.
I rely on my faith for my strength and courage. I know there is a plan for me and it is unfolding each day. It is up to me to take the good and share it while managing the not so good. I am to give encouragement, a friendly face, a smile, or simply someone to listen. So every person that comes into my office is not a prospect or a suspect, but a real, live, human being.
What do you believe about people Hank to want to reach out to them in this way with your book, your message?
It’s just simple. Honestly, what would the world look like today, what would business look like today if everyone adopted a spirit of giving and caring? I don’t think we would have a lot of the financial heartache that so many are experiencing from the greed of others. Something to think about.
Practical application of my belief though is that every day I try to center myself around “who do I want to be today” and respond to my successes, my adversities, my triumphs, my learning lessons around that. Somehow it keeps me in check!
I believe there is good in all of us. There is a plan for all of us and it is goodness, and it is service, and it is to be kind and helpful and to be caring and considerate. We are all striving for success, but success in what I ask? I feel successful in life, not by making my primary focus that of striving for success in business, but by simply succeeding in being a person who shares and gives to others. The business comes as a tremendous by-product. Where I feel I have succeeded in life is that I know how to love and to appreciate others. This is how I define success. I know and appreciate God. If that is how one can define success, I would say one would experience success far more often than if I defined success and a monetary figure or a number of widgets I had to sell.
What is the ultimate for you Hank? What needs to happen for you to feel you have succeeded in life?
In all ways I am blessed. Not to say that I don’t have my challenges, but fortunately, I have been able to turn around many areas of my life. To be an example doesn’t mean that I have it all figured out. Who knows what tomorrow may bring. What I can be though is a resource for hope and an example of faith. So what else is there?
Life is the continuing journey and with God’s Grace, my journey will continue. My future goals are to simply appreciate more, to love more, to care more, to be more considerate, to always find the gentler side of me, and I want to be able to share that with others.
Thank you, Hank, what a great conversation. I really appreciate you taking all this time to talk with me and answering all these questions today, I’ve sure learned a lot about overcoming adversity and who is really in charge.
David thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation with me, I want to wish you and everyone there in your organization the very best, I think that what you do to help get these messages out is something that is extremely important.
Today I’ve been talking to Hank Van Joslin, of the Van Joslin Real Estate Company in The Woodlands, Texas; a man who has overcome tragic and traumatic events in his life and has decided to help others by writing the book series “God has Your Plan”. I think he’s got someone on his side that is probably more powerful than he is, at least he thinks he does and so do I, and I hope our readers will see this too.
Hank, thank you so much for being with us today on Stepping Stones for Success.
Thank you David and God bless you.