How I Failed as a Leader Over the Years

Welcome back to the Business Freedom Podcast. Today I want to talk about leadership and self deception. So I have failed. Well, I failed a lot in business. And so I've, you know, almost 4,000 families served at this point, maybe even over 4,000 families served in 12 years. Built the business super leveraged, got to 248 sides, you know, did a single transaction that year, super profitable business model, went on to sell over 400 homes and then went down to one day a week that year. And I've done all that. And the one thing, well, probably more than one thing, but the thing that stands out in all of that and when I look back and any regrets that I could have, relate to my ability to lead and manage my team members, and I don't say this with any bravado, and I'm not proud of the mistakes I've made in leading and managing folks. Nobody ever really taught me how to lead and manage. And it was a trial by fire or fire by trial or whatever that expression is, where I just did my best. And coming from a difficult childhood, I think, you know, I did really well at every stage of my life as a result of having no control as a kid. Alcoholic dad, parents divorced when I was young, just really challenging upbringing. And you know, we, I've heard it said where our business is, the, where we get to air out all of the things that we were messed up with or all of our insecurities, all of our deficiencies, all of our dysfunctions, right. They all come into our business and nobody ever tells you how to deal with it or how to work through it or how to not bring that baggage in. For me, it was a control issue. You know, having those issues. As a kid, I tended to just want to control what was in front of me. So if I had homework to do, I, I would do it. If I had a test to study for, I would study for the test to the point where I knew I was going to do really well. I was always self driven and achievement was the route that I chose as a result of the dysfunction that I had early on. The challenges in business, when you have that control type mentality, you tend to alienate those around you or you tend to micromanage. You don't think you micromanage, but you do to the point where you undermine your team's ability to step up and take over parts of the business that you say you don't want to do. And it just leads down a really slippery slope in terms of your team. Never feels like they're doing enough for you. And that's what I've experienced quite a bit. It's been better in the last know three or four years as I've really, you know, really I was willing to kind of look at those parts of who I am. The book I read, which really just here recently, which is putting some of it, the puzzle together even a little bit more for me is called Leadership and Self Deception. It's like the third edition. I'd never heard of the book. It calls. I'm not going to go into the book. I think it's a good read. So I encourage that you read it. If you struggle with some of what I'm talking about, if you don't, then I don't think you need to. You need to read it. If you're getting into building a team, you definitely need to sort of have this awareness about you so you don't fall into some of the same traps. And you know, I think I'm pretty self aware. You know. When I was in my 20s, I did some pretty interesting therapies. Some traditional, some like totally not traditional. I've done like yoga retreats, I've done like anger therapy. What was the one that I did? It was like not animal screaming, but it was something like a screaming therapy. I mean I've done it all to try to shed some of this baggage that I brought in to, to my business from my upbringing. And I thought I had done a pretty good job at it and I hadn't. And what? Three years ago I had a group that I belong to. It's called C12. They come into your business and they talk to your team members and your spouse. What's working, what's not working? Where are Lars? Blind spots. What could he do better? What's he doing really well, those sorts of questions. And so it was eye opening. I didn't see it coming. I didn't think the feedback was going to be what it was going to be. And you know, I tend to just charge and I tend to not really consider those around me. And that is horrible to say. And in a lot of ways it is kind of true. It is not intentional. I don't feel like I'm a bad person. You know, I'm a good dad, I'm a good husband. I work hard at those things. In business though, I'm so focused on growth, sometimes I forget that it's hard for the team to hang on. It's hard for folks to keep up with me and also just to feel appreciated, which has Them feeling crappy all the time. The one comment that was made as a result of these interviews with the team and these guys are not related, have no vested interest in my team. They're in different industries, they own their own businesses. There's 12 of us in a group and we kind of act as the board of directors for each other. He said to me, you know, it's not broken, but it's really bent. I think that's an exact quote. And I knew exactly what he meant. He said, it's not broken, but it's really bent. And I was like, what? I'm like, here I am, you know, we're super. Having a great impact in what we do with real estate B school. And that really broke me down and opened me up to having like just truly, I say, naked conversations, not physically naked, but just naked conversations with my team about, like, what am I doing? Specifically, how does it make you feel? And, and I think we're just wired sometimes. Business builders are wired sometimes to think that the world is against them. And most of us have this interesting upbringing and something, a chip on our shoulder, something to fight for, something to prove. And when we bring that chip on our shoulder into a relationship with a team member or a spouse or your children, you know, it doesn't leave them feeling well cared for. It doesn't leave them feeling like, you know, they matter, like they're having an impact, like they're part of the thing you're building. You know, we like to think that we could do it all on our own. And, you know, there's no way I could have done what I've done in business and, you know, built a couple multimillion dollar business businesses. I mean, at this point, probably, I don't know, 50 million of revenue combined with the two businesses, you know, there's no way I could have done that without every single team member that was on my team in the journey. Like my first administrative assistant, Tia Wilson, she was with me for seven and a half years, I think maybe not quite eight years. The first person I ever hired, if she hadn't stayed on with me and put up with me, there's no way I could have put the different pieces into place. My first buyer agent hire, Chris Goodwin, if he wasn't willing to trust this stupid vision I had for building this team and to come alongside me and to work the leads that I didn't feel like working in our platform, boomtown platform. There's no way I could have, you know, could have done what I needed to do and have some stability as he was ramping up as Tio was taking over everything administrative, you know, and those first three or four agent hires in 2010, you know, they brought like a 20 years experience into my world and in real estate and I only had like 3 years experience at the time, you know, them willing to trust me with a part of their journey, you know. And I just look back now and I wish, man, I wish I would have showed up and I did. I wasn't horrible, I wasn't yelling, I wasn't like completely disrespectful. I was just very self centered and you know, we, I think we deceive ourselves to thinking that, you know, we, we have it worse than everybody. I wasn't real good. I'm getting much better. I wasn't real good at realizing that they have their own stuff going on. They have their own stuff going on there. They have big challenges in their life, they have fears and they're anxious and they're, you know, they go through seasons, you know, where they have, you know, a challenging marriage issue or their kids are, you know, and I didn't give a lot of grace in any of that. I wasn't very empathetic and it's just been something that has really been coming up a lot for me lately. So I only tell you all of this because hopefully if you're even entering into leading and managing even one person, and by the way, the only way to have a life as a real estate agent is to get leverage in the source of at least one person, at least a couple buyer agents, at least a four person team. There's, you can sell 100 to 150 homes with four people and you as the team owner can work 40 to 50 hours a week. So unless you're willing to enter into this, exposing yourself and being vulnerable in your leadership and your managing of people, it's going to be a tough road. There won't be much freedom. And so that's why I share this is just to know before you get into it. I wish I would have known some of these things. I wish somebody would have slowed me down and taught me how to be a better leader, how to bring more humility and grace into it. And the reason why it is good business even it is being a good human being and it is super good business because your folks will be loyal to you forever. You know, we have a lot of challenges in our different teams right now and I know about all of them and I am empathetic to all of them. And we give grace around all of them. Right. I want to have a 20 year, you know, relationship partnership with our team members and the only way to do that is to take an interest in them as a person. So hopefully this is for someone out there that this was a timely word where you're just struggling with your leadership and management and you can just switch your perception on, you know, maybe if I view this person differently, you know, they're not an object, they're a person and they have fears and they have a life and they have concerns and they're scared and they're, you know, all of those things. So that's my encouragement for you is just to slow down quite a bit. And if this hit a core with you, that leadership and self deception book is it's like from the Harbinger Institute. I think it's definitely a worthy read. So much love and respect. If you're at the point in your journey where you're just struggling and the time, money stress equation isn't really working out all that well in your favor, go to thetimefreedomchallenge.com that's thetimefreedomchallenge.com we get to spend 21 days together. 21 days. I'm going to coach you, I'm going to push you, I'm going to train you, I'm going to hold you accountable. We'll do activities together. I'll give you some homework. It's not a big, big time commitment. At the end of it, I'm going to give you 20% of your working hours back and we'll have live Q and A once a week. It's going to be an awesome, awesome 21 days. So go to thetimefreedomchallenge.com I'm not sure where the next one starts, but it'll be on the site. We'll see you over there. Thanks for listening to the Business Freedom Podcast. If you're getting value from the podcast, would you please leave us a five star review and share it with others who might benefit from the content I'm sharing? 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