Taking a Holistic Approach to Your Business - Part 1

Welcome back to the Business Freedom Podcast. This is going to be an awesome podcast series. It's called Taking a holistic approach to your business. And this is a gentleman that I have just a ton of respect for who's challenged me in my business, in my roles as husband and father, in my faith. Dave Hook, out of Central PA gives a talk at our intensive workshop a couple years ago that will really change the way you look at your business. And we're getting really good feedback on allowing you guys into our world. So we're just rolling with it here. And again, grab a journal, grab a pen. And this is a three part series and if you love it and you love the podcast and it's really helping you envision what your business and life could look like if you set it up properly, all I ask is for you to share the podcast and to leave us a five star review. It's super helpful to get others to listen to the podcast. And so that is what I'm asking you to do because this is members only material that we're sharing and dig in. Dave Hook, I met him when he did, I think 80 transactions working eight days a week with an administrator and maybe a buyer agent, but he was doing 80% of the transactions. And last year I don't think he Quite got the 300 transactions, but he's been out of production for a couple years and made the complete shift from agent to owner. And he has an amazing team and leaders that are stepping up in his world and doing a phenomenal job. So I'm blessed to know him. Hopefully you feel the same way to get to know a little bit about him and his journey. Much love and respect.

I feel like everyone's getting on stage is just really sort of making me feel really blessed. This next guy has. Man, I get emotional. He probably wouldn't realize this, but he has pushed me in many ways in our business just to build a business that stands for something more than profit in my marriage. Just to show up every day looking, looking for the good in my wife. And he challenged me in the beginning of this year. He's just look for, look for the good in Julie every day. Every day. Find one thing that you love about your wife. And that was just the coolest thing. I didn't know I was going to mention that this morning, but if you guys do that in your key relationships, they will change because you won't be focused on. Man, I really hate when Julie does that thing because you're looking for the thing. That's awesome. About her every day. And it's different every day. So you guys know Dave Hook. Just give him a huge round of applause.

I've been with Real estate B school for about four years. When Lars asked me to do a talk on how to build a holistic business, I had to think about what a holistic business actually meant. So I gave Lars a call and asked him what he wanted me to speak on. And he said, I want you to think about how you've looked at your business, kind of how you viewed it as you build it consistently and methodically and slowly over time. And he always emphasizes slowly with me. In fact, he called me Rain man in front of everybody at the last conference. I'm still trying to find the compliment in that. But I think what Lars means is that he says he's kind of admired the way we looked at the business. And I think what he means is how we've been able to build a business that has the capacity to serve ourselves and our families, enrich the lives of our team members, and on a good day, even have the capacity to give back to our communities. See, the reality is I've built multiple business since the age of 22. Insurance companies, real estate brokerages, investment companies, and a number of things in between. And the truth is that most of those businesses suck the life out of me and my relationships, and they always weren't the most healthy. And so the best analogy I can give as to how I've looked at my business from afar, kind of like Andy Mulholland said the other day yesterday, I've stepped back and looked at this particular business, the most recent real estate team that we've built. And I kind of look at it like an iceberg. If you know anything about an iceberg, you know that on the top of the surface is 10% of the mass, and under the surface is 90% of the mass. All my other businesses, I focused on the part that people can see. I focused all my measurables and attention on sales and top line revenue and gci, the things that made me feel good, the things that boosted my ego. And essentially, when you measure things, what you measure is what you focus on. And what you focus on is what expands. And when I focused on sales and just a little piece of the iceberg on top, I ended up with lopsided businesses without foundations. And so today's talk is going to be a little bit about how to focus on stuff under the hood, the stuff that nobody sees. And so I want to talk about what Gino Wickman calls the three components of a business, sales, operations and finance. And he says that those are the three components of a business. We're going to talk about one more that I would add on that, and that would be ourselves and how we show up in the world. But before I get into talking about how to build a business like that, I want to talk a little bit about Penn State University, a bad drunk bender, 90 hour work weeks, a horrible breakup, and a little girl named Lovely in the country of Haiti. Is that sinking? Can you see my family?

Point it over there.

How about now? So that's a picture of my family, my lovely wife Jenny on my left. Our middle child Henry is four years old. And Sam just fractured his arm. He fell off the back of a gator and broke his arm. He's two years old. And our eight week old Oliver is on my wife's lap. And we look happy and blessed and we are. And the reality is that we weren't always that happy and blessed. The truth is that I didn't always look that happy. In fact, things looked a little bit different between 1998 and the year 2000. So between 1998 and the year 2000, I was at Penn State University and I focused a lot on things that didn't matter. The top of the iceberg that people could see. And when you focus on things that don't matter, you often lose sight of the things that do. And at Penn State University, I was arrested seven times. I was arrested for DUIs, underage drinking, public drunkenness, possession of narcotics and intent to distribute. I lost my license for two and a half years. I was thrown out of any on campus housing, almost thrown out of college. And I was put on probation in Franklin county for a year. One night I was about 20, 21 years old. Between the year 2000 and 2001, I was walking through a park and I was up at Penn State main campus, pretty big school. And I was walking through a park to take a shortcut downtown to go to a party. And I was walking through a park with about 15 other friends and as we were walking it was pitch black. We were just taking this shortcut and we, we had a bunch of beverages in our cargo pants that we were drinking and I had an open beer and I was walking through this park and all of a sudden I heard this little rustling over in the bushes, like a noise. And it was pitch black. It was like 11 o' clock at night. And as I heard a rustling in the bushes, I kind of stopped it, caught my Attention. And all of a sudden, a bright beam of light, like a beam of light from God himself went right on my shirt and it went boom. And I looked down and I heard this voice, and it said, you in the blue shirt, stop. And I looked and I had a blue shirt on, and I felt like God had pinned me. Like, I was like. And my friends ran away. They were scared. And I'm looking down and I'm looking at the light and I'm squinting and I see a police officer climb out of the bushes. I don't know what that police officer was doing in the bushes at 11 o' clock on a Saturday night in a children's park, but that's for another story. As he walked up, I did what any college kid would do. I finish my beer and he asked me what was in my hand and I said, an empty can. He didn't think it was funny, so he cited me for public drunkenness in an open container. There's one thing you can't do when you're on probation in Franklin county is get cited, because then you'll probably go to jail. So I went back and did what a lot of college kids my age would do. I went back to the apartment and consumed every substance on the premises. I don't know what happened that night, but I do know I woke up half naked in a hallway the next morning. And I reached into my pocket and I found the citations. One of many from the night before. And I realized at that moment that the day before I was a fun, loving, party kid that was seeking the approval of others. I always had a narrative in my head that I wasn't good enough, maybe not lovable. And so I found ways to be good enough. And substance abuse is what my peers approved of. So I got really good at that. But I was just a fun, loving kid. And as of that morning, as I looked at the citations, I realized that I was going to have to drop out of school, that I was going to go to jail, that I was going to be a disappointment to my family, my friends and myself. And so I did something I hadn't done in a number of years. And I won't preach it you guys too much, but it's part of my story, so I hope you can bear with me. When I was 16, I heard about a God who died for me. I heard about a God who modeled what it was to really love humanity and maybe did something so sacrificial that it might just catch our attention. And it did. Mine at the time And I learned that I could have a relationship with that God, and I could follow him and learn what it was like to model his love to others. And that morning in the hallway, I realized that as I laid there with my citations, I didn't have much to lose. And whether the God was real or not didn't matter to me at the time. I just hoped. And so I prayed to that God that, look, God, I don't know if you're there or not, but I've been following myself for the last five years. And this is where it got me, to this hallway. And if you would take me, I would follow you. And he did, and I did. And things got a little bit better. Is that thing sideways all right? Well, it actually should be. That would be a good segue. So things got a little bit better for a little bit of time. And this was my girlfriend at the time, love of my life. She was my high school sweetheart. And things were going well. I got out of my probation papers. Actually didn't get to my probation officer the citation I didn't get. Something happened. And so I got let off probation, which was really good. And I changed my major to economics from Recreation and Parks Management, which was a thing back then. And I got two jobs to support myself, and I graduated with honors with an economics degree. And I started a little real estate company in 2003. And I was dating this girl, and things were going well. But I realized as an adult, there was a new group of people to impress and gained the approval of. And they were called other adults. And other adults didn't approve of the same thing that my peers did. Substance abuse. They approved. I learned of success, at least the outward appearance of success. And the thing that modeled success more than anything else was busyness. And I learned very quickly that if I appeared busy, I would get the approval of adults. So I did. And I worked really hard, or at least I thought I was. And people would ask me, how you're doing? And I would say, I'm busy. And they would say, really? How are you doing? Then I'd look exhausted, and I'd go, man, I'm really busy. I slept under my desk last night. I work 90 hours a week. I'm so busy. They'd say, how's business? I'd say, busy. And that's all I knew for a little bit. And this girl, the love of my life, decided that's not what she signed up for. And so she left me for a dentist. Nothing against dentists, but this guy wasn't even in dental school, he just wanted to be a dentist. And so she left me. And I was alone, and I was isolated and I was depressed. And I realized once again that I had been focusing on things that didn't matter that much. And I lost sight of the things that did. And so I prayed to that God in the hallway that I had been following myself, and if he would take me back, I would follow him. And he did, and I did. And things got a little better. The real estate company really blew up, and we started taking market share. I was the operating partner of this company. My name was on all the signs, and I was voted best real estate agent for, like, seven or eight years in a row. And things were really good. I would see the signs in the yards around town and my heart rate would go up. I was really proud of that. And then along came this five foot two Italian woman. She was a ball of fire. Her name was Dawn Sugart, and don't was full of action. And her signs started going up in the same market that my signs went up. And I started to see them get a little aggravated. And then I saw billboards with her name on it. And then I saw a radio. I heard a radio show. Not a radio ad, a whole radio show. And I started to listen to it and argue with her in my head. And then I saw these signs that she put in people's houses. It was like political signs. Like they weren't even for sale. She, like, paid these people to put these signs in their yards, and they were all over town. And she had a tagline. It said, listed at dusk and sold by Dawn. And it was good. It was really good. So I went home and I rolled up my sleeves and I pulled up my computer, my little MacBook. I typed in the search criteria in the MLS to check the rankings. And as I check the rankings, my heart rate goes up, my whole demeanor changes. I get sweaty palms, short of breath. My wife didn't know any better. She was thinking I was checking something else. But I was just checking the rankings. And as the thing went, it came up, and sure enough, dawn had exceeded our market share. And I felt like I got the wind knocked out of me because my identity was wrapped up in market share. And so I did what any real estate agent would do. I changed the search criteria to a little neighborhood I grew up in that I pretty much own. And I could see myself as number one. And that helped for a few minutes, Then went back to my office and I recalibrated my whole Budget for the next year. I eliminated any profit in the meantime, but she had done 300 sides that year, and I think we did 250. So I set a goal to do 301 the next year. And I beefed up my expenses and eliminated profit. And that consumed me for two years of my life. I didn't sleep, I was restless. I had narratives in my head about being beat by dawn. And I prayed to that God in the hallway that I had been following myself and focusing on things that didn't matter and lost sight of the things that do. And if he would take me back, I would follow him. And he did, and I did. And things got a little better. The girl with the dentist, he still hadn't graduated dental school yet. So I started talking to her. See, my brother married her sister, so we saw each other on the holidays. So I had a little bit of inroad on Easter. So I asked her to come back and move back to our town. And I sold her a house. It was the best sale I ever made. And I asked her to marry me. And she said yes. And things got really good. But under the guise of family, in my mid to late 20s, I told my wife that I really needed to. I really needed to focus on building a net worth and a passive income so we could retire. Because see, my dad had a net worth that was high when he was 30 and so I probably should too. So I pursued that with everything I had. When I turned 30, 31, I had met my net worth goals and I was worth a million dollars. Had done three or four hundred sides in our brokerage that I oversaw. Voted best realtor for 100 years since 1902. And I was empty. So I went to the country of Haiti for the third time with my wife. And it was a little bit different this time. I met a little girl named Lovely who was 7 years old, about this tall. And I met her in a village called Kana. And I bent down and I got to know her. And I learned that she wasn't going to eat that day. And she doesn't know any day she wakes up if she was going to eat. And yet her family and her relationships were more faithful and more content and more happy than I was on a good day. So I decided to quit real estate and get out of it altogether and go into some sort of ministry. And I prayed to that God that I had been focusing on things that didn't matter and lost sight of the things that did. If he would take me back, I would follow him and he did and I did. And I'll jump back in that story in a minute. I want to get into what we're talking about, about a holistic business, but real quick. For that 12 year period I had compared my insides, my whole character to other people's outsides, to their 10% that people could see and I didn't know what was going on in their lives. I was just shooting for what I could see. The top line sales and transaction count, what made my ego feel good and it sucked the life out of me. The businesses sucked the life out of me and my relationships and almost killed me at times. And the reality is I didn't know anything about Dawn. I didn't know, and now I do, that her family was a wreck, she lost custody of her kids and she was arrested for fraud in the state of Pennsylvania, lost her broker's license. It consumed two years of my life. My dad is a good man. I love him to death. He taught me a lot. I should have known. But on his insides in pursuit of his business success, which was awesome. He went through three divorces and was working on his fourth relationship. And when we focus on things that don't matter as much, we lose sight of the things that do.

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