Personal Leadership 101: If Your Goal is to Lead a Team, You Have to Be Able to Lead Yourself First

Welcome back to Real Estate Team Builders. Lars Hedenborg here, the founder of Real Estate B School. And today we're going to have a conversation about personal leadership. And it's not going to be a sermon or me preaching. I have made all the mistakes that you could ever make in growing and scaling a business. If you missed the conversation we had earlier this week on the podcast with Greg and Stephanie Sisson, you definitely want to go back and dig into that conversation. This podcast was inspired by someone that has played the game and continues to play the game of real estate at the very highest levels and their business, which is 425 sides or something like that, I think 414 sides. It is the natural byproduct of what happens when you commit to being the best in the world at something and when you lead yourself in such a way that you're super intentional about where you need to spend your time in your business. And so part of their journey, they get to work together now, and they have this thriving team. But when I look back on Greg's journey before Stephanie, his better half came into the picture, it was a commitment to be the best in the world at the core skill set or skill sets revolving around sales and real estate sales. And I just think that is lost in our current climate where everything has to happen right away. So it's this instant gratification that we're falling prey to as an industry, and our growth doesn't come out. It's not organic, you know, as a byproduct of us doing good and building momentum in our business. Folks get into the business and they instantly set their sights on someone like the Sissons. And they're like, I'm going to sell 400 homes. And they start spending money on home search leads, and now these referral seller leads. And they have no idea about economic model. They're not going to commit themselves to getting good at lead conversion. And so when they bring agents on their team, they're not good at anything related to real estate sales, and they have nothing to coach for the most part. And I'm generalizing, but I'm trying to make a point here. They have loose skills and they bring people into their world. And now the whole business is running with a massive amount of inefficiencies and no accountability to the money they're spending or the people that they're leading. And so I want to wind the conversation back to what does it mean to lead yourself? And this could be in the area of business or this could. This could pertain to any area of your life. It could pertain to. Pertain to your marriage or how you're showing up as a dad, or, you know, your physical body. Right. A lot of times in real estate, we get so busy that we neglect our physical body. The physical body is the tool. It's the, the tool we're given by God to execute his plan in our life. And even if you don't share my faith, it still comes down to if you don't take care of your physical body, you're not going to be able to, to lead yourself into anything good. And so I have a few points here that I want to go through. And then I'm going to give you a challenge, and then I'm going to give you a very specific way that you can reach out to me. And I'm going to share a document called the 66 Day Challenge, which we've been definitely didn't create it. It was a study, I think, like London School of economics. It's not 21 days to change a habit. It is actually 66 days. But let's break this down. So personal leadership, the first thing I think we need to wrap our heads around with. And I know when I've been out of balance in different areas of my life and when my business has been out of balance, it's because I really wasn't being honest with myself. Meaning, you know, I can say that, you know, I want to, I want to be a good husband and I want to be a good dad, yet I'm working all sorts of crazy hours, or I want to succeed in my real estate business and be a good dad and be a good husband, yet, you know, we're consuming two to three to four hours a day of social media or news or Netflix or whatever. So we have to be able to just see the reality of our situation and not beat ourselves up over it. Because if you think about, you know, let's use watching tv, for example, this is my vice. This is the thing that trips me up the most and seduces me into inaction in a way, because I'm investing time in Netflix and it's tripping me up in other areas of my life. So if you could see the painting behind me there, there used to be, if you go back to prior episodes, like maybe two or three months ago, there used to be a blue, a beautiful large blue and dark blue and light blue and just really pretty painting. And if you're listening to the podcast, then you've got to jump over to YouTube but I finally got to the point where, like, I can't keep telling myself that I, that I want to achieve another level of engagement with my kids or engagement with my spouse or in my physical body or my spiritual journey or in my business and businesses, right? I can't keep telling myself that I want to achieve at a higher level. And then come 8 o' clock or even 7 o' clock when it's time to connect with my wife or, you know, spend time with my children, the only thing I want to do is numb and sedate in front of the tv. And so I had to be honest with myself. So the painting is now hanging over the TV in the bedroom. We do not judge. We shouldn't have a TV in the bedroom anyway. My wife, I was probably the one not probably, I am the one that we mutually sort of got into this rut, but it for sure was me needing, quote unquote, to check out at the end of the day. And there's good stuff on Netflix. And I mean, we're watching. I mean, probably we have like three or four subscriptions. They're all like 10 or $15 a month, right? So there's really good stuff out there. And you could argue that, you know, it's, it's not going to really do that, that much harm, right? Everybody's watching Netflix or, um, you know, everyone is on social media, everyone's watching the news or whatever, or they're watching sports or, or whatnot. But here's the thing. If, if you're not wanting to be like everyone and then you're wanting to provide a level of freedom for your family and a life that they never thought was possible, that was my initial motivation when I left corporate America and I was willing to entering an industry I'd never. I had a brief stint in high school selling newspapers. Outside of that, I had never sold anything before, never built a business before, never set up any marketing systems before. But the reason I was willing to do it is that I wanted to provide a life for my family that they never thought was possible. And that requires over and over and over again me being honest with myself and, and checking myself in terms of my emotional wellbeing, my physical wellbeing, my spiritual wellbeing, and even where I'm investing money, right, my financial wellbeing. And so that's, number one, to be honest with yourself. Number two is a concept I think, that sort of settled in about. I'm 15 years into my marriage and this was probably five, six maybe. Yeah, five or six years ago, I, I would guess I was listening to a podcast by Andy Stanley and I forget. I actually tried to find it recently. I couldn't remember. It's a really good podcast. It's on leadership. And in the podcast, he challenged the listeners, you know, in, in this way. So it was about leadership. But what would a world class leader do in a given situation? So you're having a challenge with, maybe there's a function in your business that's not performing, and you've got to have a difficult conversation with a team member. What would a world class leader do in that situation? And you sort of think like a world class leader would probably look at, like, where have they failed this person? Where, you know, did they give them the tools and resources? Was there any system set up? You know, did they properly support them or meet with them regularly? Like, so you approach these situations way differently when you ask yourself the question, what would a world class. And then Andy Stanley told, told the listeners, what would a world class blank do? And he just went through some examples, you know, what would a world class husband do? And then that was like, holy cow, talk about convicting me in terms of where I was at that point in my marriage and in my business. Like, I just had a lot of heaviness and a lot was going on and. But at the end of the day, what would a world class husband do when he's tired at the end of the day and he just wants to zone out and do his own thing or, you know, not engage with the kids or not, you know, spend time with his wife and he just wants to watch. A world class husband would, would check all of that at the door. So a world class husband would mentally make the shift from, okay, I've done business long enough today, right? I've done business long enough. And now I'm gonna, I'm gonna shift gears and I'm gonna be present with my family, you know, from 6 to, to 10, 6 to 8 with the kids and 8 to 10 with my wife. And what would a world class father do in a given situation? A difficult conversation with a child. A world class father would step into those difficult situations. We have things going on with our children now that a world class father, when given the opportunity, and this was just Anders and I the other night, I felt myself drawn to, want to just check out. So Kendall, my daughter, was away at a sleepover and Julie was spending a few days away. I had sent her away for a rejuvenation retreat. And so it was just Anders and I, and it was like 9 or 9:30, and I just felt the draw of like, I just want to check out. Um, it was a long day. It was a, it was a weekday. This was a Thursday. Um, and I really just wanted to check out. And I, I, I knew a world class dad in that moment. I made the decision to be present with my son and we ended up talking. I'll probably get emotional here for like two and a half hours about some really, really challenging things that he's going through right now. And, but, but, but the draw to, to, to not be in that moment, to be selfish and, and to not even that. I didn't want to be with him necessarily. I just wanted to be selfish and to go and watch tv. And it must have been Friday because it was one of the nights where we're only allowed to watch TV two nights. So if my bride Julie's listening to this, I did not, I don't think I, I cheated on Thursday and took the painting off of the tv. I don't think I did. But anyways, anyway. So what would a world class father do? World class father would be present with his, with his son. It snowed here the other night, and this was one of the same nights. And my son was all about the snow. He was going to stay up. He did stay up. The snow started, started at 1am it ended at 6am he did not go to bed and he went to get me up. And a world class father, a regular father would be like, you know, Anders, you can stay up, but I am sleeping. A world class father would get out of bed. And we have these, I got the kids these vehicles. They're Segways, but they go like 25 miles per hour. They're called Ninebot, and it's in a go kart. So you hook the Segway into a go kart and it is so much fun. A world class father would get out of bed, get on this Segway race car thing and go out of the neighborhood and just spend some time with my boy. And it was the day after we had that long conversation. So we were just riding slow, you know, it was total silence. It was snowing. We were just talking, right? So a world class father would, would do things differently than, than a regular father. And I'm not preaching at you because I've done all of it wrong for many, many times, and I still slip into selfish ways. In terms of personal leadership, though, and the questions that we need to ask ourselves, they need to be different. If you Want to play the game of life and business at a higher level. And the other thought there, and I think this came out of this podcast with Andy Stanley, is that I remember in my marriage, you know, maybe during that time, maybe six, seven, eight years in, it was very much like 50, 50, like, how are you showing up? How am I showing up? And like this weird dance. And I don't know if you felt it in a marriage. And I made a decision in that moment around this. What would a world class husband do? What would a world class father do? What would a world class leader do? To give 100%, 100% of the time. And I fail every day. So I fail every day because I do not give 100%, 100% of the time. Yet my intention most of the time is to do that. And it's very different than like trying to keep score with someone. How are you? Are you giving more? Am I giving more? Like, hey, you're never, you know, quite doing what you should be doing sort of mentality. So I made that shift to 100%, 100% of the time, and it's made all the difference in the world. So the last thing I want to cover in terms of personal leadership and why, you know, business people are able to achieve at a high level in business and they're able to achieve at a high level in the other areas of life that matter is just a realization that there's freedom in structure. You know, I see so many real estate team builders and so many real estate agents that have zero handle on their calendar. Zero. Like there's no order, there's no structure whatsoever. And they say they want to achieve at a high level in all these different areas of life and business. Yet if I didn't have my calendar and I didn't tell myself in advance and I hadn't made the commitments in advance about where I needed to be at what time. Where we spend our time, though, that's our priorities. There's an expression in C12, this Christian business owners group that I'm a part of. It says, priorities are what we do. Everything else is just talk. Priorities are what we do. Everything else is just talk. So we can say, you know, I want to do this, I want to do that, but what are we actually doing? And what we're actually doing is premeditated. We have to decide in advance what we need to do to move our business forward with. To decide in advance what we need to do to move our relationship with God forward or our marriage forward or our relationship with our kids forward. And so you're not going to make the right decisions when you're like you're not going to get out of bed at 5am knowing that you have, you know, you have a morning routine that takes a couple hours that sets you in the right place to be able to do everything else. You're not going to get up at 5am if you haven't pre meditated or pre committed, you know that, that, that you're actually going to do it. And, and you won't go to bed at 9:30 so that you can get up at 5am if you don't pre decide. Right. I have an alarm on my phone now that goes off at 9 11. Every lately 911 has been coming up on my phone. I look at my phone like once or twice a day and there's only twice a day that 911 occurs. And there's some scriptural things that I find out about 911 and I actually joined exp on 911 of 2020 which is kind of crazy, but it's the freedom and structure. So now I just remind myself every day if I'm going to get up at 5:15 in the morning, which I do so I can have this magic time, this 90, a good 90 minutes of no one else being, being up, even the dogs. I have to commit to the structure and the cadence that allows me to lead myself in these different roles. And so my intention always here on the podcast is to never come off as like I have everything figured out. I have made all the mistakes. I have failed in every area over and over. I continue to feel like I am failing in most areas on most days, especially with the challenges of having an 11 and a 14 year old and a bride that I want to stay close to with all the insanity of the kids and the dogs and businesses and you know, not overextending myself in the business, the businesses so that I can still do all these other things. So here's my challenge we put together and this was in the book the One Thing by Gary Keller. It's based on science. I think it's like the London School of economics or something. 66 days it takes to instill a habit that will move you forward in business and life in a meaningful way. And so I've been doing this a little bit lately. Send me an email, a personal email. Lars, at Realestate B School we've done this exercise in our boardroom group which is a million plus businesses, very regularly, regularly. And I feel like you always have to have a 66 day challenge. I feel like you always have to have a 66 day challenge. Something that you're working on. The current one, if you can see on the YouTube, here for me is two meaningful conversations a day with folks that I know I like and hopefully they know like and trust me about the platform that I'm building. This new venture that I've been working on since 2020. It's built on EXP, but it's real estate B school powered by EXP Realty. People still misunderstand EXP. They still want to believe it's not doing what it's doing. So I've committed to have two meaningful conversations a day because left to my own ways, I don't have these conversations. They're not always easy. People still misunderstood, misunderstand exp and they still might not understand my motivation for reaching out to them. Right. So without this commitment, I'm not going to do the thing I need to do to move one of my businesses forward in the most meaningful way. And I've got multiple challenges, multiple commitments that I've made. So you may decide after emailing me at Lars realestate B School, you may decide that there's one personal and one in business for you. Maybe just straight up meaningful conversations with buyers and sellers because you're struggling in your core real estate business. For some of you, it may be sleeping seven and a half hours per night no matter what, or working out for 30 minutes a day or drinking a gallon of water or something, spending 30 minutes eyeball to eyeball with your spouse to repair your marriage. Maybe there's some separation there. Or spend five minutes with your children. Right? There's all. Or spend, you know, 15 minutes in the word, whatever it is. There's something that you need to challenge yourself in in terms of a little step you can make toward leading yourself. That's what this conversation was about. So if that's you that needs to do the challenge, email me at larsealestate B School and if no, I'm going to leave it at that, I'm not going to go into any kind of other offers. So Lars at Real Estate B School and my hope is that you can slow down, you can be honest with yourself about where you are without guilt, without shame, without regret, and just know that you could move forward from where you are now and you can accomplish. Maybe you're not where you thought you would be at this point in your business growth journey, but you for sure can decide that with everything you've been through all the experiences you've had. Good, bad and ugly. We call it research and development. That's all. Research and development for everything that is to follow. And I believe the best is yet to come, my friend. So we'll talk soon. Be good.