I’ve always been fascinated by those bumper stickers you see on the backs of semi-trucks and school buses that say, “How’s my driving?” and list a toll-free number for aggrieved motorists to dial. Does anyone answer these calls, or is it just an answering machine that collects black marks against drivers for management review? These days it’s hard to even imagine anyone calling the numbers in the first place, what with the instant shame loop available via Twitter videos and the like.

Regardless of how they work, there’s rarely anything approaching the 1-800 complaint line for independent real estate professionals, much less an annual review from management. You’re in charge of keeping yourself accountable to your goals. But that’s why you got into this crazy business in the first place, right?

Still, it’s nice to have a partner in the accountability game, and that’s how we came up with the idea for this issue. As the magazine for the well-informed real estate professional in Chicagoland, we wanted to serve as your reminder to check in on yourself and make sure you’re on track to have a feeling of accomplishment when December rolls around.

In this issue, we chatted with individuals, teams and leaders to find out how their 2019 is going so far and what adjustments they’ve had to make in a changing market. I hope their reflections will not only help you evaluate where you are now, but also give you a head start on your planning for 2020.

That is to say: I hope you’ll play along at home, too. Dig out your business plan, vision board or goal tracker and let me know how it looks so far. You can reach me at meg.white@agentpublishing.com.