Couples Retreat Part 1 | LeadingLane Podcast | Ep 68

So really, like, if we haven't figured this out yet, and maybe. I mean, you guys can agree or disagree with me here, but I think Colton, Ryan, and Ben are awful. A lot alike with one another. Oh, they're gonna awfully alert.

There was a pause there.

Okay. I was like, hold on.

Awful.

No, my bad. I see what I did there. No, like, you guys are three, like, are so close in personality and dynamic and thinking, and I think Ashley, Hayley, and myself are way more. That's bullet point. Like, this doesn't need to be story time. We don't need to. We don't need to know.

Welcome to the Leading Lane podcast for Real Estate Pros by Real Estate Pros, with your hosts, Ashley Frederick and Stephen Burch. If you're looking for an honest, authentic, and raw perspective, you found it.

Ashley. We have some guests today. We figured it'd be fun to bring on a whole bunch of couples that all work together, and we did not prep for this whatsoever. And I can't lie. There's. There is an email with questions that we're supposed to prep out with. I did not read them. So we're just going to see where this can go with so many different personalities. And I think the main focus here, and we'll see where the conversations go, but the main focus is how in the hell do you guys work together? Like, what is. What is wrong with you people and working with your spouse? And I think let's dissect that. But, you know, there's the good, there's the bad, and then the ugly of it. And we all are here with an open heart and open mind and just having a conversation. So, Haley and Colton, I'm gonna start with you. You had the questions.

So what.

What's your first question that you want to dive into?

So my first question was, how long has everybody been working with their spouse? Because that is definitely our number one question we get asked is the. You know, how the hell do you do that? How long have you been doing it? So we are at what, six years? This summer will be six years.

Yep. Yeah, we just. Yeah, we just got. We just celebrated seven years of marriage, so six of them working together.

Y.

And you're still married? Yeah.

Still married. I. Yeah.

Yeah.

So how long have y' all all been working together?

That's tricky. Ryan, go ahead.

So.

I guess technically, we've been working together since 2016. I worked in the office prior to that, like, helping with rental stuff, and they had an agent who did foreclosures. So, like, I Would go put outlet covers and those kind of things on. But 2016 was when I got licensed and then quit my full time job the end of 2016.

So what were you doing before real estate?

I sold cars. I had worked at a car dealership for. I had sold cars for seven years at that point I think.

Oh wow. Well so I mean it was a.

Natural real estate transition.

That's exactly what I was saying.

Ashley, how long have y' all worked together?

Yeah, probably since 2012. So y' all a little, a little bit different in that Ben is not in real estate but very much partner to that is his construction and um, rental properties. So he started Frederick Construction in 2012 and so I started that with him and since then we've been doing flips and spec homes and we have investment portfolio. He's our sign guy. I mean there's that as far as.

Always need a sign guy.

Also also was responsible for both of our remodels on both proper. Our original lease when we opened this office and then our. Our build out of our. Our new office. So it's a lot of. I mean he's basically part of the office. We treat him as one.

So.

Yeah.

Well Ben, aren't you kind of working on a project now that's going to put you guys a little bit more together in the real estate realm?

Oh kinda.

How is that going?

It's going working on some small things there once we we're working on some software stuff. So hopefully once that's all good to go I do have to enter some stuff in hopefully by the end of the week. I put that on my goal list. So that's.

What is that company for Ben? What type of company?

I love your aunt. Questions. The company is for a property management company that we want Dart.

Welcome to the dark side.

So yeah two other couples know funny about.

Apparently we're the the last ones to get into that game here with everyone else. But I think as many rentals as we have I think it would be very helpful for us to keep track of the people coming in, people going out, all the logistics of it. So after that happens then I think would make our lives also a little bit easier. So obviously that Ryan and Steven are helping us with that. So as long as that can come in I am take some stuff off of Ashley's plate more onto my plate and I think it'll be a good solution.

And so I think one of the things too that here, you know, don't. Don't get me wrong working with your Spouse can be challenging because you know them so well, and I really want to dive into that. But is. But then with that being said, too, like, because you know them so well, like, you can see where, you know, on the back end side, at home, on the personal side, where they're really struggling and where there's things that, you know, you know, that you can step up to, to take those things off of your plate. So it really. I mean, a true partnership and the dynamic is. Is sticky sometimes. But, you know, with that being said, Colton and Haley.

Yeah.

What were you gonna. Because I said sticky.

It's sticky.

It's just.

It's just so accurate. We just. Yeah.

I didn't know which direction you were gonna go with, like, you're gonna start being introverted or what you're doing. So with that, Colton, what drives you flipping nuts with Haley?

Nothing.

I.

You know, she took the word right out of my mouth.

Absolutely nothing.

She is. She is beautiful and brilliant.

I love it.

Always does the right. You know, these are all true. It's a. That's a fair. That's a good question, I think. What is the thing that drives me nuts Here?

Let me. Let me reframe.

Let me frame it this way, because I'm walking through a minefield, but walk with me just behind me. It's going to sound like that episode of the Office where Michael's like, I care too much. I work too hard. Her checklists drive me absolutely bonkers. That is not my thing. So that part of, like, the professional world, I like to just kind of, you know, do my thing. And unfortunately, with all the moving parts, you gotta have things to check off. And so that's probably the most annoying thing. On the business side, she'll. I'll be complaining about something. She goes, well, what's the checklist look like? Shut up, dude. I haven't looked at it yet. Leave me alone. Drink your Celsius and let me be.

I, um, Give me all hyped up. So my. My thing is that he doesn't always look at the checklist. And if he. If he would just walk through the checklist, then maybe that thing wouldn't have happened. Um, but I think more early on, there was more stuff because we just started working together, and a lot of that stuff got worked out. Like, at the beginning, there was definitely more things like, oh, my goodness, why do you not do this? Or, how can you not. And now it's just like, stay in your lane. Just use the freaking checklist and everything will be fine.

The Biggest. Really, the biggest challenge for me up front was that I was coming from a different career where I had a master's degree in, you know, clinical psychology, and I knew what I was doing and I came into real estate thinking, yeah, like, it's a new industry. But I passed the test. And, you know, I got it and I didn't have it. And there was a lot of stuff I didn't know, which I think is obvious. And it took me a while to get past that. Like, past the idea that I wasn't prepared for this and I had to lean on her and deal with her coming in saying, hey, what does the contract say? That's the answer to your question. And there's a lot of pride that I had to get through initially. But I think six years in, we're mostly past it.

Yeah.

When we started, we were in this tiny little office together. And then when we moved, we had our own offices because it was like, need to go over there. And now we're back to being in the same office. But that's because he runs property management.

Bless you.

It works. I'm sorry. My hands. I know.

Oh, it's all good. So, Ashley, we talk about this all the time as far as like. So I'm going to reframe the question because I knew Colton would be so diplomatic on his answer. The rest of us, I don't know how that question will really tee up. But really what I just heard you say is that you guys are working towards each other's weaknesses, if you will. Right. Like, or you're working like one party will be able to be working towards their strength and you're going to support them in that. And then that actually may be the other person's weakness. And really, I think that's what can. Once you can identify that and there is a lot of ego and personality and everything and all of the dynamic of a relationship and a business.

Everyone's head just in together.

But you have to really have that open and honest dialogue of saying, I really suck at XYZ and or, hey, Ryan, you really suck at the spreadsheet things. I love spreadsheets. Let me handle that. That's just because it was a recent conversation.

Stephen is a freak in the. That's what we say.

That's right. That's right. But with that being said, so, Ashley, like, your dynamic with. With Ben is coming up here changing a little bit. And, you know, obviously, you know each other very well. You worked with each other on multiple other projects. Where do you see that? Ben can help you succeed most and what your guys goals are.

Yeah, you know, we've been having that discussion a lot lately, and I think probably like with Colton coming from a different industry, like coming from a contractor, hands on out on the building site type of industry, like, you're not really into the spreadsheets or into the online data, data management of people and billing and all of those types of things. And so I think that, you know, I've challenged Ben with becoming a little bit more, we jokingly say, like computer literate. Not that, I mean, it's like the one, you know, like the.

Type really fast with two fingers.

All you need.

Yeah. So, you know, I think that it is just a matter of trying to figure out each other's, you know, weaknesses. And it's not always weaknesses, but I think it's best use of time, which is what we talk about in our own right, as, as realtors, as broker owners, what is the best use of our time. And we have come to the conclusion that the best use of my time is not responding to inquiries on all of our properties and not meeting people there and not, you know, doing those types of things. So, you know, Ben being able to recognize that that doesn't help me. And in my real estate game, you know, I think is where that more or less led to him taking on those types of things. But I think, you know, the other thing is there's probably one in all of our relationships that might be one more of a control freak than the other. I think we all know which one in each relationship. You know, I'm sorry. I think, like, we're. We're so used to doing things a certain way that, like, you like to have it done that way. And, you know, my coach actually was saying the other day, like, sometimes instead of being perfect, it's just, you know, being done is better than being perfect. And so I think we have to kind of.

On my wall, on my wall, it says done is better than perfect.

Literally. Right. And that's a hard thing for me to do even in real estate. So I think that, you know, in the real estate world, we're so compliance orientated, and that's why it has to be quote, unquote, perfect. So trying to move that over, like, into another industry that it's just done is that. But on a just different note, I think the one thing that I struggle with, or maybe we struggle with is when you can see potential in your partner and they can't see the potential. So I think that that is Another area that, you know, it's easy when you're looking back and like you can do that, but they haven't done it before. So being able to see them through that and helping them through that.

Yeah, Brian, you know nothing about that, right? And you know, our roles are changing right now too and Ryan has taken over the supervising broker position and really taking on the leadership portion of the entire company in something like just this last week that if you can share the, the stoplight analogy, Ryan of just in the the leadership styles and understanding and to echo off aware actually saying, I am the control freak. I'm the one that has a little bit of issues with those things. And so Ryan's coach shared this analogy with them and I think it's a great way to look at it and understanding.

Well, I think that like Stephen and I's dynamic is very different. The way he leads and says things and does things is very different from how I do things. And you know, when I was talking to my coach, she was like, you know, you run things more as like a four way stop. Like everyone as far as with our staff, like everyone has their role and everyone's just kind of going, she's like. But sometimes they get stuck and you have to be the stoplight to unstick that versus Steven wants it just to be a stoplight all the time. Like, and I thought it was a great analogy of like two different ways that we both do things. I jokingly said it was Steven's like the Autobahn. Like just no stop signs, no stoplights.

All agree.

He's like, just go, yeah, just.

Yeah, yeah. But I think that's one of the things that we've had to like see is that he can be a very big picture person. I'm the person that like, I want all of the, the steps and like what is this gonna look like? And whether it be reeling him back in or him having to, you know, lift me up to where he wants to be with that. Like we've had to see that that's just the two ways that we do things but both complement each other to typically get to the end result that we want. Be it if Steven has to give some from his controlling side or not.

Yeah, I'm working on it.

I'm working on it.

And I think the, you know, Ashley, Ben, Ryan and I did a call with our coaches and I think the analogy that they also used on that is I'm the kite and Ryan is an anchor. And if I did not have Ryan, I would be flying all over the place and like probably literally flying on a plane all over the place. But. And he's my anchor and if he didn't have me to help pull him up, he would just anchor himself right there and be constantly, you know, secure.

Right.

Right there and be okay. And so I think these analogies that we hear in different phrases and you know, that we, we have to constantly tell ourselves like, no, this is okay, yes, it's uncomfortable letting go of control or yes, it's uncomfortable having to step into a new role, but that is pulling Ryan up and grounding me down as well. And I think it's really understanding personalities and thinking and brain types and, you know, the Colby score is something that is huge that I think that everybody should do. And I know that Colton and Haley, we had a conversation about disc profiles. How do you think that using the disc profile as your Kobe assessment or whatever, these different ones, specifically the disc for you, like, how do you feel like that benefits you when working with your spouse and even in business?

So my answer is two part. Actually, I wanna, I wanna say something to what Ryan and what you were just saying is that I think one of the things that has helped Haley and I is that when we get into those arguments and about the process or the thing or whatever the, whatever the flavor of the day is for the thing that's bothering us, being able to sort of anchor, to use your term, to anchor ourselves back to this idea that we may not want to get there the same way, but we're still anchored towards, directed towards that same goal. And that often gives me a lot of peace when we're in those moments. Because yeah, it may not be how I want to necessarily get there, but ultimately we're still going to get there. And I think it ties into the disc because when you look at Haley and I's profile on the, the diagram, I'm in the bottom right hand corner and she's in the top left hand corner and all of our colors basically create the full picture. And really that, that allowed me some insight to say, okay, well, I don't necessarily need to like, she doesn't always need the line by line detail of what I'm thinking and how I arrived at this solution or the conclusion. And on the flip side, I think she knows that I want to know how we're going to do it. Yeah, sometimes, but usually in a spreadsheet form.

I'm really good at spreadsheets. My profile is kind of weird. I'm like super, super spreadsheet y. Nerdy. And then I'm also like, let's just jump. We'll figure it out. We know we can do it. We've done it before or we've almost done it before. We didn't fail last time. So can we jump? Can you jump with me, please? And he's like, okay, because I love and support you.

The building of the airplane on the way down a little bit.

I think that's our analogy. It's just kind of like we build it on the way down and it still flies.

Yeah.

So, you know, it just. But yeah, we are definitely on the opposite sides. But the disc or any of those kind of things, it's not just you taking it and understanding you, but it's understanding how you communicate with the other ones. That's the power in it. Because I know how to talk to me. I talk to me all the time. But whenever I figure out how to talk to the other people.

Yeah.

That's when it really shines.

And then I get in trouble for talking to myself.

Yeah, you're fine. It's normal.

Steven's like, what are you? I'm like, I'm just having a staff meeting. It's fine.

It really only becomes very problematic and diagnosable when you start answering yourself.

I might be headed there then.

So really, like, if we haven't figured this out yet and maybe. I mean, you guys can agree or disagree with me here, but I think Colton, Ryan, and Ben are awful. A lot alike with one another. Okay. I was like, hold on. Awful. No, my bad. I see what I did there. No, like, you guys are. Three are so close in personality and dynamic and thinking. And I think Ashley, Haley, and myself are way more. That's bullet point. Like, this doesn't need to be story time. We don't need to. We don't need to know. Like, it was so funny the week that I spent. Ashley and Ben's. Sorry, Ben.

There were.

There was multiple times. But there is one time particularly we're talking, and then Ben is going on the story. And then kind of look at Ashley.

Like.

Where did I miss this? Like, where's it going? And she's like, okay, Finn, wrap it up. Let's go. Let's pull it together. And I was like, oh, my God. Bullet points, please. Like, then we do the same thing.

To me, like, he does not. I enjoy telling a good story. Like, sometimes you got to have all the facts to know why it's a good story.

You need to know the back line sometimes why I decided this decision. Like, If I made this decision, this is why.

Yeah.

And I want to make sure everyone in the room understands every. I'm sorry. Literally, yesterday, Colton said, I'm trying to speak in bullet points for you. Like, that was his quote yesterday. Yes.

It's a learned skill, does not come naturally.

So I actually felt a little bad for Ben when Steven was there because I was like, stephen and Ashley are like the same person when they're together, and Ben's got to deal with both of them.

We left him alone.

We did.

I had a little bit of a breakthrough.

You did fantastic.

Well, I'd imagine when you spend time with us.

It was so funny. We were sitting at the island, and this is a different time, but Ben is sitting in the middle of Ashley and I. And Ashley and I were talking, and Ben was, like, looking left, right, left, right. He was like, it's like I'm watching a tennis match here. Yeah. Like, why did you sit in the middle? So something that I did and with the coping assessment is, you know, sometimes. And maybe you guys don't experience this sometimes my delivery is not received well, and I'm really, really trying.

Recorded, right?

It is recorded.

We all heard it, Ryan.

All right.

So I'm working on it. I acknowledge it. I know that I'm a very direct person, and I just want to get to the point. But also, I'm. I've realized that I need to tone it down and especially on who I'm talking to. And not every single person is receiving it the same way or maybe they don't know me. And so, you know, I'm really being conscious of that. So something recently that I did is I took the. For Brandon, his Colby assessment, threw it in chatgpt took mine, and I said, based off of his assessment, Based off of mine, help me rewrite my brain dump here in a format for him to receive it in a positive, you know, manner. And I give it this whole prompt. And I really thought about this with. With you, Colton, because of the disc assessment and everything that you and I talk about, like, how freaking amazing would it be not maybe not invest in the relationship side of things, but for business side of things, that if you know this about a particular person or maybe it is good for the relationship to bring it over onto the personal or, excuse me, for the. The business side of things, but be able to say, hey, this is their Colby assessment. This is their disc profile. This is mine. Help me construct this to be able to deliver it in a positive manner to get us to the end point. Of X, Y and Z. And holy shit. That email was written way differently than I would have ever even. I mean, like, it was beautiful. It is still what I wanted. Right. Like, and also is received extremely well and it helped with our feedback loop. So just throwing that out there that I think that there's great ways and tools that you can bring this in that you don't need to understand every aspect of the disk profile or the Cobie assessment. Use AI to help you generate this to help move things along and not have the battle back and forth.

I feel like my brain's on the floor right now. I hadn't considered that. Ryan, when you got the email, did it.

Did it.

Was it Ryan or Brandon?

Or was it.

That was Brandon. Oh, your email to me was chat GPT 100%.

But did you care? Because, you know when we were all at conference and the one guy is talking about, when do you turn off the AI and when do they not care? And it's like, I don't care that that was delivered perfectly crafted by AI because it was in my language. So I don't care that I did. Yeah, it got us to the result faster.

It was definitely received better by me. I don't think it's a secret. So Stephen does this thing with his eyebrow when he's, like, not happy with something. And so, you know, it didn't have any eyebrow in the email.

No eyebrows in your emails. What a great check mark for you.

Yeah.

Hey, I'm going to take that as a when.

Colton will say that to me too. He's like, oh, your face just changed.

What's wrong?

And I'm like, my face didn't change. I'm fine. He's like, no, your face changed.

I think. Well, and I think. I think we. We could avoid a lot of arguments if I would just learn to ignore things.

But the therapist in him is like, why'd you just cross your arms?

Why are you sitting up when you.

Said that to me?

Yeah, it's tough on my end too, y'.

All.

Like, he unders. He can, like, read the brain and all the things. And I'm like, okay. So if I say very still and I don't move and I try to be monotone, then I can't be accused of getting mad. Yeah, it's hard on both sides.

It's a tough life.

When I think that, like, when there's going to be times where you're upset from a business level, like when Stephen and I were pretty early on, like, I feel like we Would have times where we disagreed and then be that. That I was functioning on an agent level at that point. He was building the brokerage. And so, like, my response to him was as an agent, like, I don't agree with this. And he's like, well, this is our company that we're building, and why don't you agree with me? But then we would go home with that. And then if the conversation continued, then it just, you know, like, wouldn't go anywhere positive. So we had to learn that balance of, like, okay, is this just something that we leave. We pick it up again tomorrow, talk about it, you know, because obviously, it's hard not to talk about work when you're at home. We don't have a ton else to talk about whether. And, you know, other friends or something. But so I think that's just like recognizing, you know, okay, is this something that we need to pause on and come back to when we're not feeling a certain type of way about how it's not being perceived by the other. Received by the other person?

I wish. I wish we had. We had acquired that skill early on. Yeah. Unfortunately, it was. It was born out of.

A lot.

Of very long nights and a lot of very long conversations, you know, arguments about. About that kind of stuff, because you can't separate it. Right.

The.

The closest thing that I've heard it. That I've heard it said was when Stephen said a work life, harmony.

Yeah.

And sometimes some of those keys are a bit sharp and they play longly if you, you know, if you don't. If you don't cut them off. In fact, what we. But we have started to sort of implement is that now if there's something big going on, we have sat in the car in our driveway, and on the way home, we said, look, we got to get out of here. We're leaving the office. We could talk about it till we get home. We're not getting out of the car until it's done, and we're not talking about this again until tomorrow. And that is. Usually you turn the car off, and then in Texas, you only have a certain amount of time before it gets too hot, and you got to wrap up that real fast, your stuff or.

Or you're gonna wrap it up, you know, but.

And that has helped. And I know, like, we. We talk to you a lot. Like, we figure out our whole life in the car. We decided we were gonna get married on a. On a road trip. We decided we were gonna have a baby on a road trip. We Planned all of our big life things. And we've been driving around.

Oh, Ben.

Like right there at that moment, right.

There, you know, it was. We planned it. Okay. It wasn't like a sp.

Stop.

Oh, my Lord. Great conversation. But on that. Which is kind of funny, and it is very. Work with yourselves related. I am the one that made Colton quit his job and come into real estate. So I'm curious about that for y'.

All.

But in our story, he quit his job, we lost the insurance. I got him in real estate, and like, the next week I was pregnant.

It wasn't a very good plan, but.

And because, you know, we thought we'd make a plan of like, it'll take like six months. Like, it'll be perfect. Yeah. No, the next day. The next day it was like, oh, welcome to real estate, by the way.

Yeah.

I mean, that was one of our big concerns. I mean, I was ready to get out of car sales. Like, I was burned out. I wasn't like, I was kind of at that glass ceiling. Like, I was selling, I don't remember how many cars per month. I was, you know, top salesman quite a bit. And there just wasn't like, what was the next step. You can be a used car manager, but the rest of the people in all the positions were nowhere close to leaving.

Yeah.

And so that's when I decided to get my real estate license. And then the end of that year was when I helped my mom with her cancer. And so it was just kind of a transition. Like, I, I can't go back to the dealership now. I've been on fmla and so I was like, I'm not gonna have insurance. And here we go. We're both going to be on a, you know, self employed income and we'll figure it out.

And really, like, that was all within the same. We started the brokerage right.

Of that year.

Yeah, August of that year, your mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. And then here you. Like, there was a lot of issues there at the dealership of if they're going to allow you to take off and not or what. And I mean, you had to be there to be able to help your mom through the treatment. And so that was like, I, I remember distinctly being like, this is the opportunity. Like, look how toxic it is that they're not even willing to work with you. To your mom that has breast cancer and going through all of this and treatment and everything. And you can jump into this right now and let's go.

So my mom was an HR director Before she got diagnosed with ms, way back when. But when I was talking about fmla, I was like, well, they're telling me that, like, I have to have proof of your appointments and that I have to schedule that time off. And she's like, that's not how FMLA works. Like, you can. They don't have to pay you. Like, you can use your time off and everything. So when I did that and they figured out that I could do that and the doctor signed off on everything, I literally came in because my dad is also the service manager there. I came in to talk to him and walked up front to where my desk was. They had already scraped my name off the nameplate, packed up my desk, and I was like, you're not allowed to do that. Like, I have to return in the same capacity. And if you take my name off the nameplate, people think I don't work here. Like, that's hurting my sales. And they didn't, of course, see it that way. So I knew at that point, like, that was the end of it. Yeah, my dad was also, you know, supportive of. You just need to be done with them. And so I wrote out that FMLA so I could have insurance. And I think we went all of 2017 without health insurance. Pretty for sure that that was the year that we did that. But also when I went full time in real estate, it was probably mid-2017 when we had recruited some other good agents. I was producing and, you know, went into 2018 was probably one of my best years in real estate as a new agent, but scary nonetheless that here we've started this company with little to no money or young and don't know all the things and trying to figure out our lives because what, we got married in 2017, 18. 18, you know, so, like, lots of things happened right. In a row, short amount of time. So I think that's where we've also learned in all of this that, like, Steve and I, there's times where I'll be like, all right, I'm going to Kansas City. I'll see you in two days. You know, or he'll go somewhere. Like, you know, we just learned that we have to have kind of part two, because when you do literally everything together, that can be cumbersome as well.

I think with your story, Ryan, a lot of people, like, everybody's story is a little bit different, how they get into it. And, like, as, like, a couple in a relationship, we all kind of went into a different business, like, with real estate and everything. But all have a different story and starting out with, like, nothing. So, I mean, people wanting to get into business whether you're a couple or not. I mean, this is three stories right here where everybody basically got into it with nothing and made something of it. So, I mean, that. That's kind of cool how it all happens like that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So we're. We're coming up on time. We have Haley's 12 page bullet point that I haven't made. I'm just kidding. It's only like four.

There was four bullet points. Okay, let's just. I kept it right in. Okay.

But we. We have so much more to dive into, so we're going to pause this segment and we are going to then restart. So make sure that you tune in next week so you get the second portion of this running couples powerhouse here. So I appreciate you tuning into the Leading Lane podcast and stay tuned for more. It's gonna be some good stuff.

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