The Highs & Lows of Entrepreneurship (Jen Hope podcast)

What's up? Real estate business builders. This is going to be an interesting conversation. Jen Hope has a background in digital marketing before it was even called digital marketing. So a high level executive in the marketing space for a bunch of high growth startups and her gifting and her passion at this point is how, and I'm going to let you say it in a better way, Jen here in a second, but the way I heard it when we were chatting before we went live was we have a tendency to build our businesses in a way that is very triggering to people around us and probably not exactly the way we want to sort of present ourselves in our businesses and to our teams. But Jen, give a couple three minutes about your background. Why should we lean in and listen to this conversation today?

Yeah, so this business came to be when I was working, like you said, in a marketing executive role in a couple of high growth startups here in the Seattle area and, and was sitting, watching folks around me, also in leadership positions and startup organizations, really doing like what you're talking about this leadership from reactive places and seeing that these folks really needed support. Right. You know, the folks who are listening to this podcast are in leadership positions and we know that position. We know what it's like to be leading an organization and we have the folks around us who are our team and they're there to be a support system. They're also there as a teammate. Right. We can rely on each other, but some of the depth that we needed support and you know, raising my own hand and I think we probably all did this, you know, early in our career when we needed support, maybe didn't have it. Right. And there were folks in my field out in the world talking about burnout, talking about depression, talking about the highs and lows of entrepreneurship in a way that resonated with me and resonated with what I was seeing around me. And I had, I studied psychology and marketing in school, I had this business background and I had this servant service heart and was sitting in a meeting one day and said, and we were talking about the same spreadsheet that we had talked about for like 48 weeks prior. And I said, I cannot, I will not have my butt in a seat talking about the same spreadsheet again, like in the next iteration of this life. And that very startup was acquired by Expedia and given the opportunity to say, like, okay, I'm going to jump into this behemoth thing and look at a bunch more spreadsheets for a bunch more weeks in a row. I Was like, I'm out. I had been coaching as a side hustle and the passion of the folks that I was working with, VP of marketing and a super high growth startup and was doing this as a side hustle. So it gives you some indication of like the passion behind what I was doing to do this at the same time. And so I made the leap. And so having been there, having made a lot of mistakes, hopefully that's why. And having a passion for this really, you know, a service based heart. Right. And a human based heart and a knack and an appreciation and an excitement about the business world. That's what brings me here today.

Awesome. That is, that's amazing. Part of me just wants to dive into marketing, so I love marketing so much. But we're not going to go there because you're. The reason you're here is around. Let me ask the question this way. I know in my journey, you know, you do the right things in business so you get busy and then you're forced to surround yourself with people. And for me it wasn't like this. And it's probably in a startup world as well. It's not always as thoughtful. You know, it's like you go do this, you go do that and you're triggered all the time cause you're overwhelmed. I had two young kids at the time when my business was really scaling, you know, and newly met, married and you're trying to figure all of it out and it's complete chaos and insanity and like let alone like falling into bad food behaviors and you know, all of the numbing things we do. So talk about in the environment, you know, where you want to grow and scale. What are some things that you should mind or watch out for as you're putting yourself in a leadership or management position and you could just start to unpack your frameworks and just do your thing. But I know selfish, selfishly for me I still fall into these old trigger patterns, you know, so I haven't solved it yet. So. So yeah, so answer that question. So. So how would you kind of take us through?

So I mean there's a couple of frameworks but I find also story resonates for folks too. So I'll go framework by story if that's okay. So I think of, you know, two folks, somebody in real estate, you know, landed in my coaching practice and came to me and is very high performer, landed in my chair, I think really thinking. I'm not really sure how coaching is going to help me but I, you know, it can Help me X, Y and Z and I'll outperform what I've previously performed. And in unpacking with this person, what we found is that they had perfectionism. Like, perfectionism at a level where it created performance. Yes. And what their request was, their goal in coaching was, hey, how do I perform? Even better, right? And if you go and you look at the numbers, this person is performing at, like, a 96 most days, and they're trying to close the gap from like, 96 to 100. Right. On, like, truly using, like, behavioral habit tracking platforms. And really, like, you know, I didn't do the thing. I didn't meditate for 18 minutes. I missed it that one day when my kid was vomiting. You're like, whoa, dude. Like, holy moly. Like, how did we get here? Right? And this is that, like, reactive, right, that you're talking about and getting into proactive to say, what is balance? What is composure? What does it look like to be in a place where we can look at that individual and say, okay, perfection is getting in the way of good. Right. Like, and for this person, what we were able to actually unpack was that this was their almost numbing, right? This was the way that they controlled their environment. This is the way that they did what they did. But it came at this cost. And this cost a lot of times was their mental health, right? Where they were the one who was, like, beating them themselves over the head for, like, the 4%. Right. And what we were able to do, and, you know, this is why I'm so passionate about this work, is this person was able to find a ton of peace and perform at a better level because what they have is capacity, right? They have. And this is one of the things that I, you know, I talk about so often is the capacity to manage when things are bumpy because they are, right? And being an entrepreneur and managing what we're managing incoming as a parent, as, you know, as an executive, there it's wavy. There's. It's going to be. There's going to be highs and lows. And what we create in coaching is more capacity to withstand that distress and get back to our baseline, right? So that rebound time is so much faster. If when we hit struggle, we say, like, oh, buddy, I'm sorry this is so hard. Like, today was really rough. And I can get it. And this is what we're telling ourselves, right? The thing that, like, our best friend would put our arm around us and say, like, oh, that day sucked, or that moment or that thing or this period of time is it. If we're able to do that, we rebound faster. And that. That I hope is, you know, is. Is, you know, is what I see folks do in this process is evolve from that. Okay? This is how I control it. This is what I've known. This is how I got to where I am today. And when I scale is when I use kindness, is when I take a breath, is when I pause, is when I look at myself with the same compassion or the compassion that I, you know, that I hope to bring into the world, into the external world. Same thing with drive. The same thing can happen with drive where we put off the thing that we need to do, mental health, boundaries, spending time with our family, doing the thing that fills our cup. Because, oh, it's this moment. I have to get to revenue. I have to scale to X percent. You know, I have to. It's the next board meeting. It's always the next board meeting. It's always the next hit, the next milestone in a place and working from a place that's truly not sustainable, right? Where we've got Lamborghini engine, bicycle brakes, effectively, it's not sustainable, right? Yes, we can do that for a period of time. Yes, we can have our foot on the gas for a period of time. But drive is kind of a solo mission. When we're driven with that kind of ambition, it's often like, you know, I have folks think about themselves with, like, a superhero cape. That doesn't scale. You don't scale. We don't scale as an individual. We scale when we're strategic and relational and collaborative. And that's. Those are specific paths right where we were. You know, I see folks move from this reactive place, drive and ambition, to collaboration, to vision, to strategy. And that's how the framework, you know, shows itself in my coaching practice.

That's awesome. And so because we're so hard on ourselves, we are really hard on others, you know, so we have very low empathy for our team members when we know we could do it better, do it quicker. We have 10 times the capacity. Like, we think all of these things, and they're always the things that are holding us back. And I've struggled with this, you know, over 15 years. So. So what are a few of the things, you know, how would you coach someone that is at capacity? You know, so they're putting in real estate. If you're a top agent, you're putting all the hours in. You know, you may have someone in your world that you need to delegate or you Know, push stuff to. But a lot of times you're just fearful that they won't do it the right way. So how would you guide someone through that process when you know you're so achievement oriented and you're so driven you can never turn it off? What are the few things you'd have them sort of think through? Or is it mindset? Is it like tactical sort of daily routines? What are some of the things that we could do?

One of the first things that I do is actually write a job description for someone. So when we know like what our role is and what our role isn't, that can be really helpful for folks to say, okay, if these are my, you know, intentions for, you know, goals for the year, what is my actual job? Because if our job is everyone else's job, you know, unrealistic. Right. But also what is my job for this year or what is my job for the next six months? And having clarity about our role, I find really relieves anxiety for folks to say these are the things. And if we're an ambitious person, we're going to make that job huge anyway. Right. We're going to make it probably bigger than we actually can achieve. Cool. Hopefully as the coach, I'll be able to help folks scale back enough. But really writing that down and saying, this is my, this, this is currently my role and this is what is realistic through an ambitious lens of what's possible. Right. So starting with something that is, is fairly tactical. But what is my job as CEO today? What is the business need in my role as CEO today? And then trying to be held accountable to, to sticking to that and making our day to day look aligned to that plan. That's one of the first places I start and find folks find relief from, from the overwhelm of I'm going to do it all myself versus this is what my job description says for the moment.

Yeah. And is it getting that capacity or that margin in your day that allows you to have more empathy? Or is there something I, I struggle in this area most high performers do with empathy. How do you talk through that challenge? How do you, you know, have someone slow down? I think you call it self regulation, but talk about that a little bit. You know, how do you bring out empathy when it's not your natural sort of mo?

We teach. I mean, I teach it quite literally. I have to, you know, I tell a story a lot how I learned empathy. I had a coach who would wake up every day and, and like, mind you, this to me at the time and still a lot today, I'm like, wow, this is a banana story. But she would wake up in the morning and throw her arms around herself and say, hey, honey, I love you. I hope you have the best day ever. And I'm just rooting for you and I just love you so, so, so much. And, like, mind blown that we could imagine a world where this is how we started our day. Or, like, this was even taught, right? Like, that's not how I grew up. Like, I, you know, I grew up. I was born in the seventies of a Gen Xer, right? So, like, to me, it was a lot of like, quit your crying, go away. You know, come back when you're done. You know, is this kind of. This was the style, right, Of. Of that generation and so really helping fol understand, like, where some of this comes from, right? Like, if we were not shown empathy and empathy wasn't a value or a skill, really, that was taught to us in our younger years, even in, you know, in schooling, in the systems that we're a part of and our families, that we really don't know what it looks like. We don't, we don't. And there's no judgment about that. We just don't know. I had never heard in, you know, 38 years of life that somebody could wake up in the morning and throw their arms around themselves and tell themselves that they love them and to have a great day. And if they did, it was hokey. Like, what is happening? And so some of that.

It's.

Some of, like, okay, what really would it look like if we had empathy for ourselves, right? And it starts there. We're not. Our capacity is limited by what we can do for ourselves, right? You're not going to be more kind to someone else than you really are at your deepest level to yourself. We're limited there, right? So if you wake up in the morning and you're like, hey, man, get it together. If that's our attitude toward ourselves, or you wake up. And again, you know, this is my bias, right? But, like, I don't. I think we wake up in the morning, we throw the covers off, and we're like, I'm gonna do my best today. If we wake up thinking, you know, this other person threw off the covers and was like, man, I am gonna blow it. Oh, I am gonna, like, really do a pretty crap job today. If that's our head space. Like, we probably think the same things about ourselves. And that's what I work on, folks, is like, hey, if we woke up Today and said, I think I'm gonna do my very best. The people around me are doing their very best. It changes the playing field. It's kinder, it lowers the energy, it lowers our aggravation, it lowers even our own blood pressure. If I think you're doing your best and even if what you're doing is so annoying, I still know that you're doing your best. It changes the game, it changes things for folks. And I've seen folks be able to soften to both themselves and to others in that process.

Yeah.

What do you think of that? As I say that? What are you thinking?

It brings up, you know, me knowing my parents did their best. Even though there are like major things like divorced at 4, like dad not present to 15. But I really think they did their best. And it wasn't very great at times, but it was their best. And I think when we get triggered with our spouses it's the same thing like they are doing given their DNA, how they show up, how they're wired, they are doing their best. Like I don't think they're out to get me. You know, a lot of times we think people around us are like out. Like it's us against them, you know, versus like hey, we're all in this together. That's really good. And with my kids too, you know, I tell my son a lot. He's 15 and I tell him like, buddy, I'm on your team, you know, like this way that you're talking to me and like thinking that I don't know anything and like I promise you I am your biggest, I can cry thinking about it like I am your biggest fan. Like so know, let's just skip this part where you think I'm an idiot and everything I'm saying is to, to hurt you, but just also giving him empathy and remembering what it was like to be a 15 year old, you know, and how everything wasn't perfect and you know, so I really love that. Talk a little bit about communication styles as they relate to leading or even, you know, in your family or whatever. How do you, how do you help? Because my style is you should know exactly what I'm thinking back to me, do it in bullets. I don't care if you're a wordy person. Right. It could be a 10 second conversation or it could be, you know, so I'm not an expert at this but talk about communication styles.

Okay, I, well I'm going to start with. Can I ask you a question? Have you done disc. Do you Know the disc disk. Are you high dominant?

Super high D. Okay. I don't think there's an S. I don't think I'm one on the S.

And I love it.

I'm a dc.

Okay. I love it. It's so great. Obviously I use disc a lot, you know, but I love disc for this purpose, right? So we. I know, right? And I can. And I'm guessing this is the same for you, but, like, if we're sitting in a room full of folks high dominance, I'm starting a meeting, right? I'm about to start a meeting and I'm going to give folks a minute to, like, get settled. I'm going to welcome them. I might say to someone across from me, like, how was your weekend? So great to see you. And the folks who are high dominance are, like, sitting on their hands, like, why was this not start. If somebody, like, starts to turn red or you notice, like, splotches on their neck, like, these are my high dominance folks, right? Like. And I know. And I know that there's somebody who's also like a high influence person who's sitting across the table from me and wants to chat with me about their dog and wants to tell me about their kids, a little league and wants. And so this. This to me is like a human decoder system where I can know, hey, what's important to this person sitting across from me? How do they want to be communicated with? And I give. I use this with teams all the time. I teach workshops on disc specifically because I can know that to you sitting across the table. For me, it is going to feel stressful for me to go slow. For me to slow it down and have conversation that is light or fluffy or relational. When it is task orientation time for Lars, right? Like, get it done. Get it done five minutes ago. I'm gonna, like, bulldoze the conversation if I have an opportunity. Am I right? Is this. Does this sound familiar?

My wife Lear, about the disc, because she's not a business person, but she's like, yeah, the D stands for something else. Like, when that comes out, you are being a complete D. So, yeah, so that is so on point. And disc is really popular in the real estate world. Yeah, I think people will understand that. So how do you deal with that? Like, if you're an I, There's a lot of real estate agents that are successful because they're high. I totally. But then they have these C personalities, you know, administrators that come along. SC personalities. Any more advice you'd give us, give to Us when we're like scaling with others around us and how to treat people, is it in a way people's like we all know our own personalities.

So it's. So there's a couple things, right? One is kind of that thing we talked about earlier where you understand that this. We'll give the example, right, of the high dominance, right. It's typically a, it's a, it's a task oriented, fast paced orientation, right. So if you're, you know, if you're looking at four quadrants, you're in a very specific quadrant, right? Fast paced task orientation for our INR high I folks, very fast paced people orientation and knowing that there is actually a physiological aspect of that trait happening when we're doing the opposite. For example, the folks who are sitting on their hands because we're high dominance and we're not moving fast enough for them. Right. That is, it is actually feels stressful to you, right. And it may feel annoying to the person who is needing to go as quickly as you need to go, right. To get to have it not feel stressful to you. There's a slower paced person opposite the table from you who's saying I need meticulous information to be able to onboard the task that you're trying to delegate to me. I need those high compliance folks. Folks. I'm going to need to know the ins and outs and the details and the programmatic and the systematic way that we're going to do X and Y. Thank you for coming in and swirling through with that tidbit of information. But I'm going to need a lot more than that from you to get this thing done and to take it off your plate. So if you're going to delegate it to me, slow down bro, and come have a conversation with me and get me what I need to be able to actually execute on the thing that, that is. So you know that as you know as a leader is so important for you for me to get done well. Right? So it is an understand about that and it is a, it is a encouragement of the differences that I think creates the empathy. Right. You need those folks, you need the folks who are going to slow you down. You need those folks that while it may feel like nails on a chalkboard to talk through the thing and all the details. Right. And to hear someone out. We need that. We need that. If, if that's the case, that's what you're getting, you're likely getting something that is more balanced and less biased toward your style.

Yeah, that's I'm, I'm smirking because I literally have a slack thread up over here.

Yeah.

Like probably a five hour project on my most competent sort of backstage person. Super high C. Like 175C out of 100. And I did it in like seven words. Like that's all you need because it's all. You should understand me at this point. And she came back with all of these questions that completely annoyed me and this. And I know all of it and I've been through this training and you know, and it still is like I'm in a day, as I shared before you hit record, where I'm just super off schedule and I have to, I've had to compress things and I've got a funeral and I've got two volleyball things I've got to coordinate, you know, and so this never goes away. Right. So this sort of slowing down and just being a little bit aware of how to sort of serve the people around you. It's, it's so. I just think it's awesome because it's just a good, good reminder. Let me ask you this. Let's. I've got like a rapid fire questions that I want to take you through as we end. But one more question. You talk about waterfall habits and you know, the ment. Mental and sort of emotional, physical value of some of these habits. Talk about that a little bit.

Yeah. So waterfall habits. What I found is that we all have a place where if we wake up in the morning and check a box, it starts a process of success, momentum. Right. For some of us it's, you know, we make our bed. For some of us it's drink 8 ounces of, you know, lemon water in the morning. A workout. Right. Whatever, whatever that thing is for you. Some of us it starts the night before. If I put my phone in the other room and you know, make sure that I'm off of it before I go to sleep at night, it starts a process of success momentum that, that overflows. And this is the waterfall part of it where it overflows into other parts of our lives. And if we can start by making that commitment to ourselves, it starts this process. For me, this is a process of meditation. So if I meditate for, you know, X number of minutes in the morning, I'm setting myself up for a day that is likely going to check more of the positive boxes. It's a vote in the positive direction for the person that I want to be, for the leader that I want to be par partner, you know, Business owner, coach. And I think what I've seen working, you know, with leaders in the same, with the same tool is that folks find the thing for themselves that waterfalls into the other categories of their lives. Do you have one of these, Lars? Do you know like the thing that if you do it, it sets your day up for success?

Oh, yeah. So it's guarding. I have like a two hour time block where if I can, you know, well, even before that I probably have other things. It's definitely. I don't feel right if I put meetings in my morning when I know I want to protect a two hour time block to work out, out and do my infrared sauna and just watch a little bit of brainless YouTube while I'm in this like sauna. That to me is like all I need is that like 90 minutes to 120 minutes and then everything else is good in the world. So that's probably it for me.

Yeah, it's a capacity. And this is, you know, going back, bring this back to capacity. This is one of those things that's a capacity builder, right, where that two hours gives you enough capacity, brings our stress level down, brings the cortisol down, brings, gives us, you know, if, you know, we have say from 0 to 100 to be filled with stress or stress, it brings us into that tolerable range that says like, yes, I'm a human being, yes, there's stress, but I can manage in that like 30 to 70% range where above and beyond, we're reactive, right? We're firing off emails that we wish we never sent or you know, having a slack conversation that we wish we had a tiny bit more patience for. It can happen, right? It happens to all of us. It happens to like, you know, get, get in the car to your kid where you're like, wow, that was not how I do over. Like it happens to all of us. And I'm raising my hand because, you know, we got to go, we're late like 25 year olds. It doesn't, that doesn't work. So yeah, yeah, it happens, it happens. So the capacity builders, right? That's the waterfall habits. That's the, that's the checkbox for who do I want to be what? You know, what, what am I doing? That overflows into the positive for some folks. This is, you know, I go to church once a week or I spend time in community and that really changes things and fills me in a way. Yeah, just some examples of how you started.

I love that visual too. Because a five year Old in some ways is the same as a team member. They don't have a concept of what's important to you or, like, time, you know, and here you're getting annoyed. Like, what's a schedule? Like, how are we late for something? Like, you know, they're, they don't even have the ability to think through things the way you are thinking through things and everything with the entrepreneur who seems like they're taking on all the risk and they have all the bills to pay, you know, it's this, this sense of urgency that is, nobody else has the sense of urgency that we have.

You know, we can't. Yeah, can't. Can't know what's on the line, right? Yeah.

That's awesome. All right, so because you are this interesting, your background is just awesome, and I love what you're doing, and at the same time, you're willing to go out and kill your own meals every day, you're an entrepreneur. I want to ask you a few questions about your business. Just lightning round questions, you know, first thing that comes to mind. So what keeps you up at night when it comes to your business?

Marketing. I left marketing because I didn't want to do marketing anymore. Now I still have to do marketing. Right. So really? Yes and no. And like, what is marketing these days? It's like running a media company. So still doing it? Still doing it every day? Yeah.

What are you most afraid of when it comes to building your business?

Oh, I don't even have an answer to that. What am I most afraid of? It used to be letting people down, but it's not that anymore. That I don't get to do it forever. Maybe that, like, it's someday I'll, you know, not love it the same way.

Maybe. What's the best advice you've ever received about business?

The journey to overnight success is seven years. Right? Like, for every overnight success you see, it took seven years in the making. Yeah.

That's awesome. I love that one. You shared some of this, but what about your personal. Is there a personal daily or weekly habit that you love that you want to share with us?

I walk three miles every day. It's my favorite, like, hour of my day. It's the time that either I, you know, stick in a podcast smart list for, you know, I don't podcast nerds out there like me. I, I, you know, that for me to laugh, for me to think, I do retreat with myself. I, you know, I'm sure this is something that your folks, you know, know about and use as well, but for, you know, time for self and to think and to be away. CEO time. Some of like the baseline, I think like you, I carve out time. So I have Mondays, I don't see clients on Monday. And that's my time to, you know, now in post pandemic life. You know, back to sitting in a Starbucks with earbuds in my ear and doing the things that need to be done and the systems piece of running and running a business.

Awesome. How about like, is there an app or Internet resource that you'd want to recommend to us?

Absolutely. I use the Calm app daily. They have something called the Daily Move. It's like seven minutes of movement every day. And for somebody who has a busy brain, I really like that one because it's mindfulness. But you don't have to park your booty on a mat to do that one. Absolutely love that one. Kim Scott's book Radical Candor is way up there on my favorites. It's the number one thing that I send to clients when we first kick off. And then obviously disc and disc for teams would be probably the next are online resources for it. But disc is way up there too.

Awesome. That was my next question literally, if you could recommend one for our listeners, what would the book be? Radical Candor, probably.

I mean I've thrown the Brene Brown books across the room so many times I'd have to pick one of hers because they're so good. But the one that guideposts her guidepost book, I think it was the first one I think is up there in my favorites as well. Just because it's so good. Like teaching us the opposite of. So many of the things that we do naturally are kind of innate based on how we were raised. It's like, wow, like we're teaching people to rest and play. Like what? Like that was a, that was a mind blowing early learning and personal development for me.

Awesome. So as we wrap up, you know, agents, the market is just really squirrely. So there's like no inventory. Agents are having to work like five times as hard to get a deal right now. Team leaders are stressed in a way because there's not as much business to feed their teams. What advice would you give someone, you know, in that sort of environment, heavy pressure environment that you haven't shared with us already? Some encouragement.

It's a moment, right. It's a season and nothing stays the same. Right. Like as much as we can get caught in our minds with, it's always going to be this way. Like we have the evidence. And you've been doing this long enough to say, like, this is a moment, and there are going to be highs and they're going to be lows, and there's stuff to be learned here, right? This is a time for systems. This is a time for being able to look at the things that we didn't have time to look at when it was wild and squirrely in a different way. And so this moment of slowing down, it is a time to breathe. It is a time to rest and to allow ourselves that we're in hustle culture, particularly in this industry. It's hustle and to do the opposite. I imagine it like this. If you had a coach who was standing next to you while you were running on a treadmill, there's the coach that you need to bump it up, you know, 0.2 on certain days. And this is the coach who's. Who's challenging you to go endurance, right? Like, stay with it, be with it. It's going to be high, it's going to be low. There's going to be moments where we're going to freak out, but, like, we get to use this moment to stay regulated, to stay calm, and to know we're going to ride it out. You know, this is always. It's forever changing. And this is also a season just like the other seasons we've seen.

Awesome. I love that. So, Jen, what's the best way someone could get in touch with you if they've just totally vibed with your message today? What's the best way someone can connect with you?

I'm at. Hey, Jen. Hope it's. Hey, H E Y-J-E-N H O-P E.com Backslash Builders.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. I would definitely recommend if you are sort of not naturally. I don't think anyone's naturally gifted to lead people anymore, and you've triggered in the ways that I am, you know, all the time. I would definitely reach out to. Jen, thank you so much for your time today. This has been awesome. I love the work that you do, and I hope we keep in touch.

Thank you so much.

All right, be good.

Take care.