December 20, 2018
This message has nothing to do with getting one’s NJ real estate license or our real estate school or buying and selling houses. Then again, maybe it has something to do with everything we do, both as individuals and as real estate professionals.
As a child, growing up in a Salvation Army family in England, one of those songs our children’s choir always loved to sing began with the lyrics:
Count your blessings, count them one by one.
Count your blessings, see what God has done.
As we end each year and celebrate holidays with our families, it is only natural that we do exactly that: count our blessings.
Where do I start?
I count my blessings to have a wife who loves me and accepts me—after 44 years—with all my faults! Somebody please give that long-suffering woman an award! And I am already counting my blessings at being able to spend Christmas with our son, who is flying home from Los Angeles today. What a blessing to have an extended family on both sides of “The Pond” who love one another without any of the tragic inter-family squabbles we too-often see.
I count my blessings to have had another successful year as a broker-salesperson with Keller Williams, and to be associated with a company with such high standards of integrity and commitment to humanity. And I know I could never had enjoyed such a successful year in real estate sales without the World’s Best Partner, Jim Robinson, who shares all my beliefs in faith, customer service, and veracity.
I count my blessings in having been granted the opportunity to buy Garden State Real Estate Academy in July. I love every minute of my life when I am teaching others, and it has been indescribably rewarding to see students studying for their real estate license who encounter a difficult subject and to then hear them say, “Oh, I get it! Now I really get it!” I recognize that my fellow instructors and I have a heavy duty to not only teach these folks how to pass the state real estate exam, but to instill in them the ethical standards that we owe to our clients and customers once they become real estate agents.
We have been blessed to BE a blessing
I count my blessings at having been able to give back to “the least of these my brethren” in humanitarian service this year. It was truly humbling to have my newest book, A String of Pearls, named “2018 Outstanding Book of the Year,” and to have been able to donate all the proceeds—tens of thousands of 
dollars—to the cause of peace through the Rotary Peace Centers. I stood in the heat of a schoolyard in India in March administering polio vaccine to babies, and in doing so, counted my blessings in having the comfort of knowing that child, whose father loves every bit as much as I love mine, will never have to crawl through squalid, sewage-infested alleyways because polio made them a “crawler.”
And while I recognize and respect the fact that my friends, colleagues and clients come from different faith traditions, most of all I count my blessings at having a God who showers His love on me and gives me the assurance that one day I will be beside Him in glory, not because of merit on my part, but because of Grace on His.
May each of you have the time to reflect this day on your blessings. And as we take stock of the final days of 2018, my prayer is that you will:
Count your blessings, count them one by one.
Count your blessings, see what God has done.
If you feel like counting your blessings, feel free to share them on our FaceBook page: https://www.facebook.com/gsrealestateacademy/
David C. Forward is a licensed real estate broker and instructor and was first licensed as a Realtor® 30 years ago. He is School Director of Garden Real Estate Academy, has won numerous awards for real estate sales, is a much-requested public speaker who has addressed audiences on six continents and is the author of 13 books. David can be reached at Support@GSREacademy.com
