What Ozark Can Teach You about Building Teams (Minisode)

Welcome ladies to The Real Estate Investor Show, providing inspiration, strategies, and insight to empower women investors to live balanced and financially free lives. Now here are your co-hosts, Liz and Andresa Guidelli. Welcome back ladies.

This is Liz and this is Andresa.

Welcome back to The Real Estate Investor Show. Where our mission is to empower women to live a financially free and balanced life. We release 2 episodes a week, which we're very proud of. And this week is all about our minisode. And we're gonna be talking about Andresa. Get ready for it.

Okay.

What is it? What Ozark can teach us about team building. And then Andresa is the only person. Yes. Andresa told me when we were preparing for today that she's the only person, I think she's the only person who's never heard of Ozark.

I asked Liz, in what year was this released?

She's living under a rock. I know many of you have heard and/or seen Ozark, so I'm gonna be getting—

depending on this episode, I'm gonna listen or watch it or not. Let's see how it goes.

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So this episode is all about— I really enjoyed this show. I'm going to tell you a little bit about it because I would need— I'm not going to tell you the whole thing, Andresa. But Jason Bateman directs the show. He also stars in it. Laura Linney is his wife. And it basically is the story of him. He was a financial planner, a very successful financial planner in Chicago, gets into the Mexican drug cartel, starts moving drugs for a Mexican drug cartel. And he pretty much has to relocate to the Ozarks, which are lakes in the United States. And that's kind of how the story begins, where they start the scene in Chicago, and then the story unfolds in the Ozarks. And they bring their two kids there. And then it just goes— it goes in a lot of directions from there. It's very much like a drama, a thriller, very intense show. And I don't like shows like that. I just want to say that for a moment. But I really got into this show because they do such a great job. The writing is amazing. But their character development— and you know when you— it's like The Sopranos. Have you seen The Sopranos, Andresa? Have we heard of The Sopranos? Let's start there.

Yeah.

OK, good. All right.

Come on.

All right. We got something there. Great. I'm glad you've heard of The Sopranos. You know, you watch this show, and these are like gangsters, right? These are like the epitome of a gangster, and they're killing people. The mob, and—

I live in South Philly. I know.

You got it. And you watch these characters unfold, and you see the humanness of these characters. And you see what they struggle with. I felt the same way with Ozark. And I don't like shows that usually show this really bad light of actors. Anyway, the show is about, what, 4 or 5 seasons? And they ended it beautifully. It started well.

Don't tell me how— are you going to tell me how it ended?

I'm not going to tell you how it ended.

No, no, no.

All right.

But I just felt like so many shows start great, and then it's, mm, by the end, you're like, this is so random. So, okay. The show all in all was just a phenomenal show. What I wanna share about team building, you know, when you like a show and then they said, you know, here's an extra bonus, right? There was a Netflix 30-minute TV show called A Farewell to Ozark. So they did kind of like a behind the scenes. So I got a chance, I'm like, oh, this is so fun. But as I was watching, I'm like, I gotta record a mini episode about this. So they unravel it and basically saying that one of the writers, it started with this gentleman, Bill. He's the executive, you know, producer and, and wrote the pilot. And he grew up going to the Ozarks, but he had never done TV before. So he knew he needed to pull in someone who was another writer who had experience doing TV, right? So he brings in this other person, his name is Chris Monday, pretty successful writer. And then they start, you know, kind of unraveling and building the team. So, so many of us do, right? We're building a team. So the fir— the next best person they needed to hire and bring onto this team was a really strong actor. 'Cause it was about a gentleman who's a financial planner, brings his family. So who, who are they gonna have? They asked Jason Bateman, who many people adore, you know, he's been an actor forever, but he said, listen, I'll act only if I can also direct. So, you know, he put his kind of, I love that he put his terms out there. I'm like, that's a good, that's like really good leadership and a really good team building, you know, little tip. Anyway, then they started enrolling a bunch of people, Laura Linney and, and all a lot, a lot of other people. I thought a couple takeaways I wanted to share was when they started to talk about— they started to interview the cast, the crew. I mean, you think about all the people that have to put a TV show together. Everyone interviewed, literally from the people that served the food, the crew that served the food on the set, to the executive producers. Everyone talked about how collaborative of an environment it was. They said, in 20 years I've been working on sets, This was the most collaborative environment that I've ever been on. And I said, well, how do you get that? That's a big statement, right? Break it down. Yeah. Break it down. And so they didn't tell us, of course, but I watched this literally 4 times because I really wanted to get the points.

Now you're going to make me watch it.

I know they said the people that were talking, they started to talk about the main writer. His name is Chris Monday. And they said he was the most approachable, the smartest writer we've ever worked with. So not only did he have so much to bring to the table, but he was open to feedback. He was open to suggestions as a leader. I thought, wow, what a great combo. So as leaders, you're leading your contractor team, you're leading your, you know, your team that's behind the scenes of your own company. Are you approachable? Are you inviting feedback? And do you know what you're doing? Are you prepared? Right? And I thought that's the powerful combination. We could be open to feedback. And not know anything about something, right? That's not a good place. Or we think we know everything. You have to surround yourself by smarter people than yourself and be open to the feedback, but know what you're great at. This guy did that very well. It was very clear. Everyone that was interviewed kind of made, made that mention. Then they talked about Jason Bateman. Jason Bateman directed it. He also act, you know, he's the main actor and they talked a lot about how meticulous He was. Now you think about Jason Bateman. He has been around for how long has he been around? One of the most well-known American actors in our country, right? Someone that's really well, well respected. They talked about how meticulous he was. So that made me think, as leaders, are we prepared as we need to be meticulous in the sense of, do you, you know, are you coming to your meetings? Are you coming to your team? Are you coming to the project? Knowing what your role is. And I don't say meticulous like detail-oriented. If you're not a detail person and that's not what you own, that's okay. But are you meticulous with what your core genius is? Are you meticulous on what you need to bring to the table? And he was really meticulous with, with what he did and how he did it. And she, a lot of the people said he was also very humorous. He really brought humor to everything we did. I mean, it was a very serious, it was a very serious drama. It wasn't like a, I mean, it had some funny moments, but especially Ruth, for those who watch the show. She was hysterical, very new Julia Garner, very new actress, but phenomenal actress. She was very funny, the things she said. I'm not gonna say what she said because she said a lot of not appropriate words, but it's hysterical.

All right, but I preferred words, so not appropriate words, right? But mine, okay, appropriate.

Yeah, but they— this is how they described him as a leader, Bateman. He was meticulous, he used humor, he was well respected, and he's very kind. And I just thought that was very interesting, right? We think about how sometimes tough we need to be, or, you know, especially women, they need to take us seriously or whatever it is for you as a leader, you know, kindness, being prepared, being open to feedback. These are the things that these two key leaders, you know, people, people mentioned about when they interviewed him. He won an Emmy. He won three, three awards. I know way too much information, but he won three awards for his role as director and actor. And he said, this is what he quoted. I'm gonna read it. I can't be holding this award without a whole lot of people that made this show. I'm so lucky to be part of the work, especially as a director. Meanwhile, Bateman orchestrated this. It was very clear, right, between acting and directing and obviously the writers. But he said, I'm so lucky to be part of this team. So as a leader, right, who are we giving credit to? How are we giving credit to the team? I thought that was a very astute thing to say. It's exactly what he said. I also think as we build a culture, it starts at the top. It starts at the top with these writers, this group of 3, and then it builds from the bottom. Something else that they said is they brought in new directors. So, you know, the seasons can kind of get— they wanted to create some new energy, so they brought in some new directors. You know, one of the directors was— what's her— I'm forgetting her name right now, but she's a very successful actor and director. And they interviewed her and said, how was it like bringing your expertise onto the show as a, you know, being part of the team? 'Cause this was a very well-run machine. And she said, I watched the existing seasons 41 million times. She's like, no, I didn't actually watch it 41 million times, but I came prepared. So I studied it and then they welcomed me with open arms. So as leaders in building a team, build that culture starts with you. Are you open to feedback? Are you asking for feedback? Are you meticulous? Are you prepared with what you're doing? However you need to be prepared with your core genius. And are you bringing on some new energy? Because there's always a time and a place to bring on new energy, a new fresh eyes on things, and welcome those people. Because in a really powerful culture and a really— it's like our community, Andresa, what we built with Strive, what we built our community, we want new people to feel welcome. And that's building a culture, that's building a team, that's building a community. And, and, and the woman that was being interviewed, the new directors were like, we were so welcomed. Everyone was so open to what we had to say because they were looking for and open to that fresh eyes or a fresh take on something. So, you know, the bottom line is that building a team comes back to leadership and you're only as good as the leaders as well as the people on that team. And, you know, what's so interesting is that if you go into a contract, you know, a construction team, you go into one of your rehabs and you ask one of the folks that's working on your project about you as a leader, what would they say? 'Cause if they have nothing nice to say about you, I think that's actually a problem. Not that they need to know you intimately, but they need to say, oh, they really show up strong, or they come and really help us with X, Y, and Z. Or if you're leading a team, I don't care how involved you are, they need to know you and they need to see you and see your greatness and also know when something isn't right. And then there's course correction. Of course, that's part of this kind of show like they made. There was tons of course correction. I'm sure that's what I wanted to share. That's a few thoughts that I wanted to provide, and it's a great show, Andresa. You need, you need to watch it.

I will watch it. You're saying that I will give my feedback later on if you guys care about that or not, but I will give it anyway. But what, what I heard this another day, and I think that that's the bottom line truth, that when you're a solopreneur, you have this role, right? That you are involved in many different areas, but as you grow, As you scale, as you build teams, that role disappears. You are the result of your team purely, right? You are as good, you are as successful as your team is. Your role, you're not performing or being judged, or your KPIs are not your own performance anymore whatsoever. So you gotta make that decision. If you wanna be a solopreneur, you, and have a job, for the rest of our life, cool. But if you wanna build teams, you've got to do your due diligence as Liz saying, get prepared, get the skill sets and the people around you to build it because there's no other way to grow without you really sharpening the leadership skills. So great, Liz. I will watch it. I'll watch the extra too. Awesome, ladies. Thank you so much for listening. Let us know what you think. Thought. Share your thoughts about the show as well. Want to hear about it. Ciao. If you enjoyed this podcast and want to receive updates on our next interviews, go to our website, therealestateinvestor.com. There you can subscribe to our show, become part of our investor community, and get updates on upcoming episodes.

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Ciao.