The journey that led Bernice L. Ross to write The PQ Factor began when she was 17. She dreamed of majoring in psychology, but her father, who had hovered near death for six weeks and had just been released from the hospital, insisted that she major in English so she could “learn to write.” She reluctantly agreed even though she found writing to be difficult and had little interest in it. That detour set her on the path to earn her B.A. and M.A. in English and to later receive her doctorate in Educational Psychology. During that journey, she met the many mentors and teachers whose wisdom is the foundation of this book.
When Bernice purchased her first condo, the college where she was teaching cancelled summer session leaving her without the ability to make her payments. Rather than going back to checking groceries that had allowed her to pay her way through college, she decided if she could sell one or two houses that summer, she could make ends meet. Her first month she sold two properties and the second month she sold eight. For the next 25 years, she balanced the demands of being a full-time Professor of Psychology with a career in real estate.
After sustaining over $100,000 damage to her home from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Bernice decided to move to Texas. She founded her company, RealEstateCoach.com which specializes in real estate training, coaching, and consulting, in 1996. She met her husband Byron Van Arsdale in 1997 who also later became her business partner.
Bernice began writing an online weekly newsletter to build her business in 1998. When she heard of an opportunity to have her articles published on Inman News (Inman.com), she submitted several of her columns for consideration. Since that time, she has published over 1,000 articles and five books including Going Where—Ancient Wisdom for People Today, No More Lame Conference Calls, Real Estate Dough® Your Recipe for Real Estate Success, Waging War on Real Estate’s Discounters, and Who’s the Best Person to Sell My House? In fact, the overwhelmingly positive response to her July 2015 column on Inman News “Why the “PQ Factor” Is the Secret to Real Estate Sales Success” prompted Bernice to draw on her psychology and coaching background to expand that content into a comprehensive self-help book.
Bernice’s life has been a study of choosing to persist rather than to resist, looking inward while also constantly seeking the wisdom of others. The result of that journey is this book, something she could never have envisioned when she was 17 and her father insisted that she learned to write. We hope that The PQ Factor will support you to persist in pursuing your dreams of having a happy and fulfilling life.