WHY NOT Wednesday! with Carrie Traub

There's a certain kind of coach who believes what we believe, who leads people to greatness, who gets people unstuck, who unlocks all of your passion. A coach who helps people discover what drives them to tap into their superpowers. Then knowing your why is the first step to untap potential.

To focus.

To breakthroughs.

A coach who's looking for a better way.

Are you that coach?

Hello, Carrie, and welcome to why Not Wednesday. How are you today?

I'm good. How are you doing?

I am doing outstanding. Want to say hi to our audience, and I want to introduce you to everybody. I'm so excited to share. Carrie, our, you know, one of our New Mexico coaches with Wine Nation. So, Carrie Traub is a qualifying broker and realtor at her firm, which is called Simply Real Estate in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She's been a leading producer and real estate mentor for many years. She's expertise in real estate, real estate mentoring, real estate transaction. Of course, she has a real estate license, and she serves the area of Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, and the East Mountain areas in New Mexico with premier real estate assistance and guidance. She's there from the initial consultation to signing on the dotted line. And, you know, one of the things we know about her with when we find out about her yos is she's there every step of the way. How are you doing today?

I am doing absolutely fabulous. If you could see my view right now, you would see why.

Really? So tell me about your view. Let's explain that to everyone.

Well, I'm out at what is called Mesa del Sol, and it is literally the entire Sandia Mountains right in front of me.

Oh, I love that. That's a great view. So you and I were talking just before the show, Carrie, and I'm in Nashville this week, and I'm at the Opryland Hotel. So my view is of the courtyard at the Opryland Hotel, which you were here this weekend with your daughter for a cheer competition, right?

Exactly. Yes, I was.

I love that. So your daughter is a teenager, and you're doing the. The cheerleading route. You and. And they're. And congratulations. I hear their national champs.

Yep. They won this weekend for sure.

So, Carrie, tell me a little tell. Tell why nation a little bit about you because you've been in this industry for about 30 years. You've. You've been here in New Mexico, and you opened up Simply Real Estate recently. How long has Simply Real Estate existed?

We opened up in August of 2019.

Well, that was. That was not a time at all where a Lot was going on soon after that. Right. You opened a new business. And then in the February of 2020, we had covet. So tell us about that.

Well, actually it was, it was a complete blessing because it gave us the time to, to put the systems and everything in place where, you know, we weren't necessarily out there, you know, grinding, you know, hitting the pavement. But yet we were in the office getting all the systems, the models together. So in interesting way, it worked out really, really well for us.

Excellent, excellent. So what drove you to start Simply Real Estate?

Well, so I got in the business right after college. My mom was a realtor. She became a realtor after we went to college, my brother and I. And so I had sold real estate for about 20 some years and I started coaching at Keller Williams. And I started to realize that was really.

Where my passion was, was in, in coaching and leadership. And one of the reasons why this platform, the Y Institute is, is so important to me is because had I been given this information or, or had the opportunity to discover this why, my why, I think I probably would have gotten into.

But it fell in my lap in an interesting way. And so I started doing coaching for Realtors and I just absolutely loved it. I loved the leadership. I loved helping people to be the best version of themselves. Then I took a job as a qualifying broker at another.

Brokerage and I started to realize that I there was a lot of great pieces to all the different brokerages, but I felt like not one brokerage had all the great pieces. And so me and a couple of my brokers who I coached thought we could take all the good pieces and put it into one brokerage. And so we were real nervous about it and we didn't know what we were going to call it. And I said, I think it just needs to be simple. And we came up with Simply Real Estate and we just went for it.

So Simply Real Estate. You know, we were talking in the pre show about your yos and I always like to start the show with that. So your why is to contribute to the success of others. You're a person who puts other people first. You want to make a difference. You want to make a positive impact. So you're a contributor at heart. That's your why. Your how is to make sense of the complex and challenging. You like to help people solve problems. You're really good at taking complex things, ideas or problems and making sense of them and helping others solve those problems. And your what is to simplify what people can count on from you are simple solutions that are easy to implement. So before you knew your yos, you, your, you came up with the name of your company, Simply Real Estate, to keep things simple. But you mentioned, you mentioned something really important a little while ago. You said you wish you had known this information sooner because it would have. It would have. You would have been in leadership sooner. You're leading a large team. How big is your team now?

We're at about 110 brokers.

So you have 110 brokers in your group. You're the big leader.

Given that information and the ability to lead such a big group. Plus, you're the president of the Greater Albuquerque association of realtors for 2023. So you're definitely jumping in and embracing that leadership role. What would have been, what would the difference have been had you known, let's say, 20 years ago yet that your yos.

Well, I think one interesting thing to point out is that there are.

I'm going to keep plugging the Y Institute because I believe so strongly in it, because I think that so many times we go to these different, you know, seminars and conventions and everybody talks about what's your why? What's your why? And every time I walked away, it was like, I guess my family, I guess my kids, you know, I need to make money so I can put them in college. You know, I never quite understood what my why truly was. And I think that's what happens with most people. They don't truly understand. So if I, I always knew that I wanted to be a part of something bigger and to contribute, but I was never told that. So I just was kind of going along as things would happen and life was, you know, happening and whatnot, I would just jump into the next thing or the next thing. Had I known that that was my bigger purpose, I would have jumped in sooner, which I feel like I could have brought a lot of value and leadership to a lot of people sooner. So not only would I have been on that path as well, I feel like I could have, you know, helped other people to get on that, that path that they want to be on because so many people don't know their why. And so it's just, it's. But, you know, I always believe everything happens for a reason. And, you know, here I am.

I finally know my why you're here now. You know, Gary, Gary was giving a keynote yesterday, and I was listening to him. He talks about the fact that people with the why of contribute tend to be great leaders, some of the most successful leaders. He's worked with the chairman. The former chairman of T. Rowe Price led a company from 2 billion to 56 billion in growth and was very successful and is why I was contributed. And when he. When Gary interviewed him and asked him, so why do you think you're. You've been so successful? He says, I know something personal about everybody that works for me. And he had over 6,000 people that were working for him. What's. What's your key to leadership?

I think that's actually a great. A great way to state kind of how I am. I know all my brokers. I know their personal lives. I know. I mean, I don't have 6,000, but I know a lot about what is going on in every one of their lives, a little bit about them. I. I think leadership, you know, I think you. We use the word leadership and it. And it kind of sounds more like a hierarchy, but I think it's a team, you know, I think. I think leadership come, you know, comes from the top down. But I think that as a team, you know, you set the tone, you set the culture, and when you set that positive culture and you help people to be their best version, all everybody's going to succeed more and everybody's going to do better. And it's just that environment. And so one of my biggest goals is to provide that culture to lead with, you know, integrity, ethics, compassion, understanding. And also, I think this is another big, big piece of it is to be transparent and to show everybody that we all are going through life. We all have things happening. None of us are perfect. And I think that sometimes when leaders try to portray that they have it all together and life is perfect and, you know, they're not approachable. But when you act like a human and you say, hey, I got stuff going on, too, I'm not perfect. I was just teaching a class, and I was. It was a coaching class. And I said, just so all of you know, I'm standing up here telling you all this. It doesn't mean I have it all together. You know, I. I'm still figuring things out with this new path of having my own company and, and, you know, being the president and all that kind of stuff. But that helps them to want to, you know, talk to me more and understand that I'm not preaching at them. I'm just, you know, having a conversation with them to help them be their best version.

Did I lose you?

Are we stuck?

Are you there? I think we might be having a technical issue.

Dan, are you there?

Are you back? Carrie? Yes. Sorry, we lost connection.

It happens when we're traveling. But I hope you were, we were able to keep you on and I know you probably kept answering the question that we asked.

I was just chit chatting. Yeah. So. So basically I think for me probably one of the biggest parts is just trying to show them that I'm human as well. And everybody can have these great successes, but it doesn't mean you're not going to, you're not going to fail. And those failures help you to get up and make the win so much better. And I think that for me would be a big, big part of it.

I love that. So we've had, you know, while I was gone and thanks, you know, everybody, you know, this happens every time we travel. But I want to come in a couple of, a couple of comments that we've had. You know, Dave Sanderson said. That's right, Carrie. Everything happens for a reason and a purpose and it serves you. And he knows about that. I don't know if, if you know Dave Sanderson story. He was one of the survivors or one of the people that helped everybody get off the plane on the, the miracle on the Hudson. He was the, he was one of the, the last person, the last person up helped helped everybody get off. So he's got an amazing story. And then I noticed that Watson, yes, great Tremit industry, got a chance to speak with him at an event in Texas and he gave the opening keynote and he was, he was amazing. Watson has a question for you though. Top reasons a Realtor should discover their yos. What do you think?

I think that a realtor should discover their yos. Well, multiple reasons. First off, I think that understanding your yos will help you to deliver service better to your clients. To understand what? Oh, I just saw my CEO from the board just jumped on.

To better to better understand knowing that I'm a contributor. I know that my goal is to is. Is. Is service to help them, to guide them. I'm very passionate about that. You know, if. If my, you know, my why was to, let's say my why was to simplify, you know, then I, then I know that what's going to help me to be the best Realtor I can be to help them is because I want to help simplify the process for them. I still simplify it, you know, in a different way. But. And I also think that when you understand your, the different whys, you can also help your clients and understand who they are to better serve them. It's kind of like reading the room. Right. And understanding their needs. And so, like, let's say, for example, engineers, you know, they obviously, we can only imagine what their why is. Right. Make sense, simplify all those different kinds of things. Or I guess they could make it more complex. I don't know. But, you know, when you know that about people and you understand their personalities and what drives them, you know, you can better help serve them, and then they're going to have a better experience.

So I. I think that more Realtors need to do that.

I love that you brought that up. And also, shout out to Kent Cravens because he's also one of our YOS certified coaches, and he's giving you the, you know, you were a little modest in terms of the number of people that you lead because you're also as the. I didn't realize how big the GAR association was. Greater Albuquerque association of Realtors, 4, 300 Realtor members. And so love.

That's.

That's a big, big position. And. And he knows because he. He's probably. He knows everybody in that organization. So. Thank you, Kent, for. For chiming in. What's it like to lead that big a group and being. Being the face of the organization?

You know, I think it's. It can be challenging. You know, it can be challenging in the sense of you have so many people, different needs, and, you know, one of the things I talk to my kids about a lot is perspective and how when you're working as a leader, everybody has different perspectives, whether it's right, wrong in the middle. You know, I mean, it's just. And so you're trying to help everybody to, you know, meet their needs, but at the same time, you have to understand that.

They'Re not always going to be happy and they're not always going to see what's going on behind the scenes and whatnot. So it can be challenging. But I think if you have perspective and just understand everybody's coming from a different place, then you could be a, you know, a better leader for sure.

What do you think?

And, you know, I was going to say, what was it? Carrie is the second Realtor I know with a Y of contribute. Every sales creator triple. Yeah, I think contribute is good, but it can also be difficult because I was just. When I was teaching this class earlier, I was saying, I think I've bitten off a little bit more than I can chew right now, but that's kind of what drives me in general. But you have to learn to set boundaries, for sure. Yeah.

So do you. Do you struggle with that common malady that all of us contributes have of saying yes to too many things. Right. You just want to help and so you'll say yes to everyone.

Throw detriment, right?

Absolutely. I've, I've learned at 50 years old now I finally am starting to set some, some boundaries, very little ones. But when you're contributing, you do, you just, you see something, you see a need and you, and you want to help and it can be, you know, funny enough, my therapist and I talk a lot about boundaries. And I said I'd rather be me though, and be a contributor and have to work on boundaries than not be who I am and be a contributor because I love to do what I, what I do. And Dan, that actually goes back again to, you know, talking about.

You know, the understanding your why, when you know your why. And now I know that I'm a contributor. It just all makes sense. And it all comes together and now working on boundaries, it all makes sense. Why I always, you know, do too much. Right.

So how do, how do you attract who's your, who is, you know, your ideal client? Obviously you're someone who's looking to buy or sell a home, right. In terms of the real estate transaction. But your ideal client is someone who's looking for somebody who is looking for a coach that cares about them, which is a contribute side of you. It's going to make sense of the real estate process. I posted about this this morning. You're going to help make sense of the real EST process for them, the selling, the buying, all that stuff that nobody has time to learn, all of that. That's why you hire a realtor and then ultimately you deliver simple solutions. So do you find yourself constantly simplifying things and making it easy for your clients to understand the process and what they're going through?

Yes. It's actually funny that you mentioned that because again, the class I was just teaching or I was coaching was I'm always saying system, systems. I'm always talking to my brokers about system, system, systems because, and again, this goes back to my why is, you know, simplifying it and putting it into systems to help them to better understand it so that the information is in front of them. And, you know, I always talk about, you know, I stay in my lane, I do real estate when I don't, when I'm talking to somebody else that does something, you know, my car mechanic, let's just say I'm not going to sit there and try to tell them what to do because obviously I don't do engines. Right. But when you work with somebody and they don't simplify it, or they just throw a bunch of information at you and just expect you to kind of understand it, that's when it gets frustrating, and that's when you don't trust people, is when they're not simplifying it or when they're not explaining it to you. So, yes, that is. That is a big part of who I am, is simplifying it, for sure.

I love that. Well, like, and then it's the. It's the name of your company, Right? So you. You brought. That's important to you. So how about when you look back, you know, Gary talks about, you know, you can't connect the dots looking forward. But, boy, you know, if I had told you, you know, even five years ago or 10 years ago, that you'd be leading a team of 200 brokers and be president of 4300 members of the Greater Albuquerque association of Realtors, you probably are like, no way that I'll be doing that. So how has your yos played out in your life? Where. Where are times when you said, man, I was happy because I was contributing. I was making sense of things and I was simplifying things?

You know, that's an interesting question. I feel like that's a loaded question.

To be completely honest with you. And again, I'm. I'm going to plug the. The Y Institute is. I. I felt a little lost for a very long time. I enjoyed what I was doing, but I wasn't necessarily where I wanted to be. But I didn't know why. I didn't know what was. What was holding me back from that passion. I knew it was there, but it didn't have the. Again, had I been talked. And this is one of the things I do now with my brokers, and I do this because it happened to me. I pay attention to the things that they're passionate about and try to have conversations with them about it. Because, again, I feel like if somebody maybe would have taken the time to talk to me about leadership or to get to know me a little better, I always kind of, you know, flew under the radar. I just kept my head down. I worked really, really hard, didn't get involved in a ton of stuff. I just. I was just working and grinding. But I feel like if somebody would have maybe taken the time to pay attention to the things I got passionate about, that maybe that would have helped me get to where I am now sooner. Again, everything happens for a Reason I wasn't meant to be here then in my opinion. But I want to help other people to find their why so that they can get to that place of passion quicker, you know, and be doing what they want to do and contributing.

I love that. So, you know, one of the things that you just mentioned, that making a difference is important to you. So you, you, you want to make Simply Real Estate more than just another real estate agency. A portion of what you earn at Simply Real Estate is invested in local non profits to help make a difference in the community which is so important to people with the why of contribute. Why. Why do you think that that is so important to you?

Well, I think first being born and raised here in Albuquerque, we have an interesting climate here. Just unfortunately there's a few things that we're not. We're, we're number one and a few things we don't want to be number one in.

Right.

And one of those is poverty for children and, and it's in homelessness. And one of the things that we contribute to is Feed NM Kids, which is a organization, non profit, where on Fridays at Title 1 schools.

The kids take home a package of non perishable food to take home over the weekend that they can eat while they're at home because they aren't given the food at home that they are when they're at in school. So there's, there's a lot of different things I want to get back to, to New Mexico because we are, we are struggling. But again, if, if we aren't taking care of all of our people and you know, and home ownership is a big part of that. Right. I mean we want to help everybody get into homes and then it's not easy for everybody. So if we don't give back to the community, you know, again, our ultimate goal is to get people into homes and we need to help them to give them, you know, access to food and all these different things to help them to get to home ownership and where they want to be in life.

Excellent. So what made you choose that specific? I mean obviously you have a heart for kids. Who doesn't want to help kids? But what made you choose? There's thousands of charities. Why specifically this one?

Well, we actually work with two. We work with the children's cancer Hospital and Feed in M kids. And both of those kind of came about because of two of our brokers. One thing that we really try to do in our brokerage is support our brokers. So if somebody has a side business or a passion of theirs, something that's very important, a non profit. We really try to support them. And one of our brokers, her son was diagnosed with leukemia when he was a sophomore in high school. And he was actually the same age as my older daughter. And then another one of our brokers and a couple brokers here in town started that feed and m kids. And so that's kind of how it happened. But I think again, when you have kids, you know, here in New Mexico, with dealing with some of the struggles with our school districts and things like that, you really want to help them to have, you know, the things that they don't that a lot of, you know, some kids do, some kids don't. So if we can give back and help them, I think that's where we need to go. And, you know, just health in general, it's just shocking, you know, to see a child go through leukemia. But he is. He is doing great, so excellent.

Well, those are two great causes, you know, and you bring up something, you know, we have to count our blessings, right? You and I were talking about our daughters. Your daughter's 17, just won a national championship. My daughter is a cross country runner and she won her race this weekend, and so we're both proud of that. But, you know, every day there's parents that are struggling with children who have health issues. And so you're taking some of your blessings, which is, you know, abundancy and sharing it with people who can use the help, and you're doing it through causes that are important to the people that you work with, are part of your team. And I saw something when I was doing my. Doing a little bit of research on Carrie Traub. We. I saw that your. Your team put together kind of a surprise party for you. Was that recent? I think it was in 22, right?

It was. It was.

You know, I. It was so special. And I don't know if you saw the video, but I was so taken back to have these people that just put this together. You know, not only do I have these amazing brokers, I have an amazing leadership team. I have two partners, Kiki and Christina Salcedo, who are realtors here in the Albuquerque area. And then my office manager. I have to say their names, Leslie Romero. They are the most amazing leadership group. And they wanted. They saw how hard I'd been working and also going through some personal things on my own, and they just wanted to show the appreciation. And it just. It meant the world to me. But more than anything, it showed me that I am Contributing and impacting people's lives. And that's worth it all on its own. I mean, that's worth more than money to me. I mean, obviously, we all need to make money, but that was just extraordinary. It was a great day.

Spoken like a true contributor, Carrie. So tell us. You know, we've got a limited amount of time, and we want to make sure we ask. The keystone question is, tell us about your biggest why not moment, Carrie, time that you said why not to something, and it's turned out better than you ever expected.

Well, I'm going to tell you a quick funny story. So my husband, at the time, we had traveled to San Diego, and we were just there for vacation, and we had decided we were going to get on these scooters, which I don't recommend, And I was contemplating at that time opening up simply real estate. Well, while we're hanging out and on these scooters, a car pulls in front of me and I go flying off my scooter. And, yeah, it was not a good situation at all. Thank the Lord. I was okay. I was pretty banged up, but I was okay. But that for some reason, that moment, that day was the day I decided. I said, you know what? I don't know what's going on. I just got in this crash. It could have been so bad. It wasn't. And I looked at my husband at the time and I said, do you think I should go for it? And he said, I think you should. And I said, all right, we're doing this. And it was just right then, and it was the best decision I ever made. And it's. It's just a funny story because it's just bizarre how it happened. And then the other funny part of that story is that my partners, she was literally in labor. I call her up after my crash, and I said, we're doing this. And she said, can I have a baby first? I said, have the baby, and then we're opening up simply real estate. And that was the best decision I ever made. And I'm so thankful I took the leap. I was very scared.

Have the baby and then get to work because I need your help. Right, exactly.

And we know the date that we opened because that's the date of her baby's birthday.

Oh, my gosh. That is such a great story, Kerry. Well, tell me about. You know, you. You mentioned the impact learning your yos has had on you. What impact has it had on your personal life?

That's actually a great question, because as I had stated, I had Gone through some personal things, and again, still not 100% knowing. I knew where my passion was, but there was no label on it. And now that I know what that is, I have been able to be a better mom, a better partner, a better daughter.

To understand again, let's go back to boundaries. To understand that I need to have some boundaries. So everything that I've done.

Not. It's, you know, business is very passionate, but it kind of showed me why I'm so passionate about my children. So I have my older daughters at American University in Washington, D.C. and she's. I. I'm gonna have her do the. The. Once I'm finally up and running, have her figure out her why and whatnot. But I have a feeling she's gonna contribute as well. But it's helped me to be a better mom, you know, to. To help them, to encourage them. I mean, I've always been like that. But once you know it, once you know that's your why, it just, It. It just really hits at home and you want to embrace it even more. So it's just made my life better. And I. It's. It's such an amazing. I'm so thankful Gary did this because it. And anybody who's listening to this that doesn't know their why yet, I highly recommend it. It just. It's like the light goes on. It's like you know it, but you don't. And then you go, oh, my gosh, that's it. That all makes sense now. All my 50 years, it all makes sense.

Well, Kerry, I promise I'm going to tell all the listeners. I promise. I did not pay Carrie to say that, but we are thankful for having you as part of the Y family. Thank you so much for being on the show today. And what do you say? We had the show on that question.

Why not?