Speaker argues team leaders should prioritize observed behavioral patterns and core values (accountability, discipline, hustle) over abstract "potential" when evaluating prospective team members. The speaker suggests probing questions (e.g., about college jobs, sports, extracurriculars, grades) to reveal patterns; uses "Lars" as an illustrative example of someone without evidence of hustle (C average, no extracurriculars, no part-time jobs).
We want to see potential in people. Yet the patterns are like these sirens, these red sirens that are going off like, hey, I haven't achieved anything in my life up to this moment in time, but I'm going to come onto your real estate team, I've got my license in hand, I'm going to come onto your real estate team and all of a sudden I'm going to apply the discipline, the perseverance, the learning ability to become a world class salesperson. You've just got to trust me on it. And I've seen time and time again team leaders, and I've done this time and time again that we want to believe in the person's potential and we want to ignore their patterns. Patterns link right into core values. So to the core values that I've held near and dear in my journey in business growth has been we embrace accountability and discipline and we hustle and work hard. So just think about those two and think about the probing questions you could ask somebody in the context of getting to know them before you go into business with them. And what patterns could you reveal by asking a question, hey, Lars, give me some examples. In college, you know, how you hustled and worked hard? You know, well, I maintained a C average and I didn't do any extracurriculars and I didn't hold down any jobs. Right, so you can actually explore like. So tell me, in college, did you have any part time jobs? Did you play any sports, were involved in any like, and, and not that it, I don't even think that the grade point average is an indication of anything other than the ability to study the right way, but being able to maintain a 3.7 GPA, having working the whole time playing a varsity sport in college and, you know, holding down, you know, doing some internship and doing extracurricular activities, that's somebody that has the ability to hustle and work hard and make stuff happen.
