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How Workplace Happiness Affects Your Real Estate Brand with Valerie Alexander · Know Like Trust for Real Estate

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[SPEAKER_01]: When I first started doing the personal happiness work, I had people occasionally say, I isn't as selfish to be focused on my own happiness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: One of my favorite quotes from Lao Tsu, the founder of Taoism, is, if you want to eliminate all the darkness in the world, first eliminate all the darkness in yourself.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Regardless, if you are the CEO of a 5,000-person company where if you are a solo-preneur real estate agent, you make the world a better place by focusing on your own happiness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So there are some really simple things you can do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, welcome to Know Like Trust for Real Estate, where I help be craft branding and marketing strategies that align with your unique strengths.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Christine Georgian agents who work with me, grow their business on average by 40% by aligning their marketing with who they are, not what they sell.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm super excited about today's show, because joining us is Valerie Alexander.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is actually Valerie's second time on The Know Like Trust podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Valerie is a speaker, she's an...
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[SPEAKER_00]: author.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, her TED Talk has received as of this date over a million views.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She's also an entrepreneur, she's a screenwriter, she is a lawyer, and she's also an expert on happiness and connection.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And today's conversation is all about happiness in the workplace.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And how important it is, not just for the culture of an organization or a team, but also how that reflects on the outside with your customers and your clients.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely let us know what you think and go ahead
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[SPEAKER_00]: Valerie, welcome back to the no-like truss day for real soon.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I guess I won't go so far back now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of amazing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it feels like I just met you yesterday, but it has been probably seven or eight years at this point.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nine, maybe.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Was it warming up?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I saw you speak at human way back.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that was a long time ago.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then we had lunch after that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, I need to know this woman.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She's amazing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's been such a joy, like getting to do real estate conferences, woman up and in-connect and luxury connect and then all the real estate associations.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's really a field that I find full of wonderful people for the most part.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As long as you and I are in that wonderful group, it's all good, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when for me, it's just one of, like, I have these little specialties with industries that I've got, you know, the industry so well in that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: On the hospitality industry, real estate, law firms, I do a lot of work with law firms, and then medical health care, they have all other specific needs for workplace happiness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it's been really good getting to do all that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're going to talk a lot about that today, the the impetus for getting us together today was you read my son beam newsletter about my pharmacy experience.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And you reached out and said, oh my god, this is the work I do every day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So just in case anybody listening had did not read that sun beam.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Essentially, I'll take a long story and make it as short as possible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had moved all of my prescriptions to a local pharmacy because the big box pharmacy down the street was getting frustrated.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The customer experience was getting frustrated, frustrating.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had a new medication that could not be filled at my local family owned pharmacy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I had to go back to the big box.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I went there and it was one of the most horrible experiences.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like worse than it was when I decided to leave them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I sort of sat back and took my customer head off and just kind of became an observer as I was having this experience.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And what I noticed was, everybody behind the counter in the pharmacy, whether they were staff or pharmacists.
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[SPEAKER_00]: it was like chaos back there, organized chaos, they were running ragged, answering the phone, dealing with multiple people at the counter, dealing with somebody up the drive through the pharmacist at one point through the medication across the back to the staffer because it was easier than having him walk over.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was
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[SPEAKER_00]: madness.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I got zero.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't get a hello.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like I got to go put your information in the in the computer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wrote about this and said, you know, how different of an experience that has been from that, that was then what I had been experiencing at my local pharmacy, which is when I walk in there, smaller pharmacy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite in there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They have soft music on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, they don't have
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[SPEAKER_00]: But all I needed was my prescription.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I walked up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I walk up there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They asked me my name.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If they don't know it, but most of them know my name.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They get me my prescription.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They're kind.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They're, it's just what a difference in the same industry.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so when I, when you responded to that, you were like, oh my God.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to know based on that like,
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[SPEAKER_00]: What is going on behind the scenes that makes such an experience for the customer?
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[SPEAKER_01]: They are not prioritizing the experience of their employees.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That box pharmacy honestly I could spend an hour with them and make everything about that place easier just by asking the employees.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What do you love about your job?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What about your job makes you miserable?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What would you change if you could change it?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And if you think those things in the consideration, you're in and you respond to that and you create a environment where people get more of what they love and less of what makes them miserable.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And some of the changes they suggest are implemented.
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[SPEAKER_01]: you get a work force that feels heard, they feel listened to, they feel value- mood, they are not coming to look in chaos every day, and they immediately use a feel like you can watch their shoulders relax, and then they immediately start taking better care of your customers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, I remember studying this back in grad school.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now we're talking 30 years ago, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And why does the problem still exist?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like it's leveled up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's even worse than it was back in the day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like I remember case studies talking to people in manufacturing jobs and finding better ways
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[SPEAKER_00]: it's worse than it ever was.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
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[SPEAKER_00]: What is happening?
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[SPEAKER_01]: All culture comes from the top down.
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[SPEAKER_01]: All culture comes from the top down, and we have lost the sense of companies being good corporate citizens.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We've lost the sense that you have an obligation to anyone other than your shareholders, which I don't want to spoil the while.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is that you're not so familiar shareholders?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the costs of workplace unhappiness are astronomical.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There, and this has been studied by Gallup for more than three decades.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They just came out with a lindest student of the American workforce report, and the statistics on the costs of unhappiness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Gallup puts it at
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[SPEAKER_01]: or cost the US economy, just US, not global, just the US economy loses $700 billion a year annually, just isolating for workplace unhappiness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so why?
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[SPEAKER_01]: But what the heck?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's like short-term.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it doesn't get rewarded because it's not, we are a really good society at rewarding
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[SPEAKER_01]: were really good at seeing the person who put out the fire and giving them an award, giving them more pay, giving them higher status, making calendars of them if we're talking about actual firefighters.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We don't remote fire inspectors.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A person who prevented the fire from starting in the first place.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Let's know the respect, the reward, or the advancement of the person who put us out fires.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so, if the only people who advance or the people who put out fires, we don't people who are great at putting out fires, and you know what, those people need to look good, fires.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And say, the calm, reasoned planning,
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[SPEAKER_01]: preventive leader who stops anything from going wrong isn't seen as a good leader.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We don't see the alternate timeline.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We won't see the incredible costs and the incredible problems that happen when something that does cause something didn't go wrong because we don't see that it wouldn't have gone wrong.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But who had things gone wrong all the time and you have a leader who's just finding that somehow as a society who started saying, well, that's great leadership.
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[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's not leadership is the one who doesn't have things going wrong all the time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We now live in a world where we've defined great leadership as on the Decider, like the person who decides first and foremost, the person who moves forward with their decision with complete confidence.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's right or not, we would put the who are often wrong, but never uncertain.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And as long as that's happening, we're not going to have the right prioritization in our workplaces.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you prioritize your workforce happiness above all else,
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I imagine there are leaders right now listening, we're heads exploding as it listens.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Come on, I'm not going to pull my workforce happiness as my top priority.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I thought, I thought, we did this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if you don't, please, how to do their jobs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then you give them a sense of accomplishment for doing those jobs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: you're going to show up every day and walks through walls for you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's so fascinating.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about your book, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about happiness as a second language.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I love that book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And you haven't, oh my god, the other one is escaping me because I know you trademarked trademarked as a second language.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was just your trademark on the phrase as a second language because I wrote happiness as a second language and success as a second language and I have authors on a contract to write the other books so we've now published parenting as a second language which is
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[SPEAKER_01]: outstanding Elizabeth Stiff, the parenting expert who wrote it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We published grief as a second language creativity as a second language and mindfulness as a second language and all of others in the pipeline.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I love that all of these are personal self-help books.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind of interesting because I we wrote happiness as a second language and with the idea of the
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you needed to learn how to speak Greek, you wouldn't just read an article about speaking Greek.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, you learned it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: we do approach happiness, success, parenting, mindfulness in that same idea that it takes time and practice and exercise and immersion and a variety of other practices to get good at something.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the, all of the books are structured with anecdotes and lessons and exercises.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So people can do the exercises.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I wrote that I had a personal happiness platform.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then I started doing some deep, I got a certification in the science of happiness from the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I started doing deep dives and I realized the area of happiness that I cared most about was workplace happiness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: wild range of societal problems that are caused by unhappy workforces.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We have insurance costs, we have higher liability.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In medical settings, there are 58% more incidents of medical malpractice when you have unhappy workforce.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In manufacturing, there are 40% more product defects when you have an unhappy workforce because unhappy people don't care.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: People don't pay attention.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I really saw a place to improve that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I wanted to do, and that's why I focused in that area.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So talk about your framework within your book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The book is again about personal happiness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's thoughts, that's for people who, if you write now are just looking at your life and for reasons you can't really pinpoint your not experiencing happiness and this is not about people who are suffering from depression.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you are suffering from depression, you're
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, get professional help and take medication if you need to but if you're looking around it or life and you're thinking, why am I not happier?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm, I'm, I have what I need.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I have what I want.
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[SPEAKER_01]: My, you know, the mass-loves hierarchy of needs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: My basic needs are met.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why do I not have happiness on a daily basis?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why do I not feel like a happy person?
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's the person who should be.
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[SPEAKER_01]: checking out this book and saying, oh, there are very simple things I can do to train my brain to raise my happiness baseline.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to be happy all the time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Happiness is an emotion.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to feel happy all the time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You also feel sad sometimes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You feel angry sometimes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You feel frustrated.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, those all happen.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's natural.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The higher you can raise your happiness based line, the happier you are just as a general, like I said, as a baseline, but also the faster you get back to that happiness.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or that's what the book is about.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's about doing those exercises, so that happiness becomes as natural as the language you speak.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, yes, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The framework for workforce happiness is really basic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There are three things that make people love their jobs.
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[SPEAKER_01]: autonomy, nobody wants to be micromanaged if somebody is skilled and they know what they're doing, let them do it, and acknowledgement, people want to feel seen for their contributions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I could say that right now, it was all great, you know, making it, okay, I will get a accomplishment, autonomy and acknowledgement in my workplace.
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[SPEAKER_01]: they're not inherent instinctive skills.
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[SPEAKER_01]: People are asking like, why is there some much board management?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why is there so much board leadership?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why are people what I call accidental managers?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or it's because those two people fall in one of two categories.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Either they're just naturally great managers, naturally they're good at it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I've had a few natural great managers in my life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And every one of those people doesn't think they're anything special, which means they don't realize that other people are not naturally great managers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Someone else is not an actually great manager.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They need training.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And you're naturally great manager didn't get training, so they don't see why training is necessary.
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[SPEAKER_01]: the flip side is people who are not naturally great managers and they have never gotten any training and they think they're fine.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, or I would try not to be a manager or anybody need to be trained on that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because you just look at it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So it's very hard to have a leader understand.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It is the soft skills of management that need to be trained.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that is the framework around which my work is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'll do, I have large-scale workplace happiness assessments.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Right, come in and I talk to all of the employees, and I find out what are their real happiness pain points.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I'll have five employees tell me five different strolls, but they're all about the same policy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or they're all about the same manager.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Whether all about the same coworker, the things that don't get spotted, this is my definition of consultant based on the work I do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's the person who asks your employees the questions you should have asked them in the first place.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then charge a shoe, a reasonable amount, to tell you what your employees would have told you for free.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So true.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But so true, we don't want to hear the truth sometimes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's exactly, my job is not to ask the questions or to listen to the answers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: My job is to do the person who's not gawafled in the employee.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm saying, oh, but that really didn't happen.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, but did you think about their side of it?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody holds to hear that when you're telling you about some horrible incident that happened in their workplace.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's someone I'm a person who can listen without getting defensive or without making the person who's speaking feel like they're in the wrong.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm also the person who has the freedom to say it to management without fearing for my job, although I like to say without fearing for my job.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I've discovered the happiness assessments, the structure as I come in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I spent two weeks, I speak to all of the employees or a sample work, a sample set, if there's, if it's two larger workforce, I spend a week preparing the reports and then the last week is I deliver the reports to management and we have three bespoke trainings based on their specific pain points.
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[SPEAKER_01]: wonderful platform I actually had to structure my my chart my fee base that I get paid the full amount right before I deliver the results of course otherwise it'll like the results they're not going to can't tell me know how many leaders seem to be bringing me in so that I come in and and they want that expecting me say well everything's great here everyone's happy
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[SPEAKER_01]: I had an uncharted leader.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I killed you not the head of the VP of HR at an organization once when I was giving the report, literally said, some of these people are such winers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's your problem, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to talk a little bit about how this relates to real estate because, you know, I'm a branding strategist and I believe highly and personal brand.
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[SPEAKER_00]: when you're a solopreneur, Valerie, you are your brand, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And what you put forth in the world for team leaders, the people around them are also part of their brand, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: They are communicating out in how they show up and the language they use in their energy, how would you help a real estate team leader see that?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's one thing to, to have, you know, happening happiness, consultation at a large organization, but when you're talking about entrepreneurs, I think, you know, they're especially not skilled at really understanding how to create culture.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And how to understand that the brand that they're projecting
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[SPEAKER_00]: has to be projected by the entire group out to the customer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, it's not cohesive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you help them understand what the value of this is?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And this actually connects perfectly to what we've been talking about, because clarity in your business isn't just about marketing, it's about what's happening behind the scenes too.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a solo pro-nor, you know how this goes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Receipts everywhere, expenses for gotten, and then tech season shows up, and, well, it's just not fun, right?
20:20
[SPEAKER_00]: That's exactly why we built BeKeeper AI.
20:22
[SPEAKER_00]: BeKeeper AI is an AI powered, human verified, conversational, tech-space, expense assistant designed for solo pro-nor's.
20:30
[SPEAKER_00]: No apps to open, no software to learn, no tax season scrambling.
20:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You simply text your expenses as they happen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Bekeeper AI captures them and a real human verifies everything, so nothing slips through the cracks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We're opening early access right now, and I'd love for you to be part of it.
20:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Head to bekeeperAI.com slash waitlist to sign up.
20:50
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the letter B, keeperai.com slash waitlist.
20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: one of the things you mentioned entrepreneurs and team leaders and that's all kind of mixed together in this, but one of the things a lot of leaders and entrepreneurs need to realize is that, after the early days, you know, are your brand like you just said.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But as you grow, you are not your brand anymore.
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[SPEAKER_01]: To your customer, the person they meet when they walk in the door is your brand.
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[SPEAKER_01]: To your employee, the person they answer to is your brand.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you have managers and then if you look in a brokerage, if you have, let's say we're being up brokers that you have in house inspectors.
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[SPEAKER_01]: on the in-house inspectors have to answer to each of the agents separately.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Each of those agents is your brainang to those inspectors.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so if one of your agents is allowed to be toxic to the inspector, one of the agents is allowed to be super demanding or screen or lie or anything or harass.
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[SPEAKER_01]: anything that is detrimental to that employee's experience, that becomes your brand to the person experiencing it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and so these are the things that as a team leader you have to be on the lookout for due dishes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'll share with you an experience I had at a real estate.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Please do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I was a keynote speaker at Woman Up, which is a big conference at the California
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[SPEAKER_01]: and after a lot of the women in the room reached out to me and we arranged meetings to stick together and get to know each other, support each other as women in business, and one of them on their own brokerage and she owned a large brokerage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't even want to say what, where?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Because, yeah, she owned a large brokerage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And we arranged to have lunch and I went, I was in her town and we went out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I went to her office and I was sitting in the lobby.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody greeted me when I walked in.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We'll start with that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm sitting in the lobby waiting for her to come out because I texted her told her I was there.
23:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the agents comes out and he starts screaming at the receptionist.
23:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So apparently,
23:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone had called and left a message and their receptionists had not given the message to him.
23:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Or at least that's the story he was told.
23:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know, maybe that person wasn't.
23:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it was like what I call and I left a message to the receptionist.
23:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Who knows?
23:22
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't bother asking that or questioning.
23:24
[SPEAKER_01]: For self he also was maybe mid 30s and their receptionist looked like she was probably late 50s or early 60s.
23:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's going at someone who is probably the age of his mother, and he's having an absolute bit over having missed this message that he thought she had taken for him and not given to him.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sitting in the lobby.
23:47
[SPEAKER_01]: and they don't know me from Adam.
23:49
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't know what I was there at buy a house or to sell a house or to buy the company.
23:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, no idea why I'm there and this is taking place in front of me.
23:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he in a half-gust leaps.
23:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe, I don't know, five, 10 minutes later, the broker, the woman who owns the entire broker, which comes out, she's like, ready to go, I said, yes, we go to lunch or we're sitting in lunch and I said, I have to bring something up with you.
24:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to let you know what happened in your lobby while I was sitting there and I told her this whole story just like I said it to you and she said to me, well did she explain why she didn't give him the message?
24:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't matter who cares, she didn't mess it.
24:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first I've forgotten to know that she didn't give him the message.
24:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You and the new like there's any memorable reasons he could have been told somebody locked a message.
24:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's so many other explanations for all of it.
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that what would be her first response,
24:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, hold me exactly why that behavior was happening in that program.
24:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, because it's allowed, it was that she wasn't like, oh, my Lord, I'm going to have a conversation with him.
24:53
[SPEAKER_01]: That will more for happening again.
24:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Because somehow if there was some inexcusable reason that she didn't give him the message, then that would justify his behavior and that would be okay.
25:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I will share that behavior is
25:08
[SPEAKER_00]: No, so how did you coach her or how would you coach somebody who's got cancer within their organization?
25:15
[SPEAKER_01]: That one interesting enough I will share it was one of those arenas where I felt like I am not about to step in and tell her how to do this job.
25:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I'm more, more because I was a bending or that wasn't why we were getting together and yeah, I and this is somebody who is very successful in her industry and in all likelihood would not could not be told that you know,
25:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's one of the things I see all the time, this he might have been one of the highest performing agents.
26:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you can charge an organization by how they treat their superstars when they behave badly.
26:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I do think that happens a lot in our industry because if you've got somebody one somebody or two somebody who are bringing in 80 percent or 70 percent of the income for the brokerage, you know, there's a fear that, you know, we.
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: you let them go and you're going to be out of business.
26:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very real fear.
26:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I guess so that brings up the next question, which is, so how do you get over that?
26:39
[SPEAKER_00]: If that, if you're that team leader or you're that broker owner, how do you get over that?
26:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, it's almost like a scarcity versus abundance mindset, right?
26:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and also
26:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to sit here and say, find our superstar if they're being badly right because I know you've stopped around a business, but if you consistently maintain a reputation that toxic behavior is never tolerated in your business, you're eventually going to get all the best superstars.
27:10
[SPEAKER_01]: The superstars who aren't toxic are going to want to come work for you.
27:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, when that word gets out and I maybe it doesn't apply in real estate, I practiced law in the Silicon Valley and my firm had an extremely toxic attorney and we lost so many good lawyers before the firm finally did something about him.
27:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And I only did it on him because he pulled this toxic bull crap on or you lost it from Yale and it was so bad we got banned from recruiting at Yale.
27:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, finally the phone find was like, oh, we got to do something about this guy was like, you know what, did you miss the silks other lawyers who have quit in the last two years because they had to work with him that's a giant expense at a law firm it costs $350,000 to replace a mid-level associate.
28:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
28:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You lost six attorneys.
28:12
[SPEAKER_01]: That's $2 million.
28:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care.
28:14
[SPEAKER_01]: How big someone's book of businesses.
28:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
28:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't lose $2 million with alloyers just to keep one jackass.
28:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because it's not because it's cumulative, you know, okay, so that's what you lost in two years, but maybe that person did have a $20 million book of business.
28:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, as a firm have to decide the costs are too high.
28:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, costs are too high.
28:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So, what if I'm not a team leader?
28:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a solo real estate agent and I might not have a team of people of agents or receptionist or assistants, but I do have contractors who work with me, right?
28:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I do have a transaction coordinator.
29:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I do have a VA, I might have lenders who work with me, inspectors, whatever.
29:10
[SPEAKER_00]: How does your framework and your philosophy fit into someone like that, who's a solo per noir, and is really only working with a team of contractors?
29:23
[SPEAKER_00]: How does that work?
29:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You still need to do of those same three.
29:30
[SPEAKER_01]: workplace engagement outcomes, which is accomplishment, acknowledgement, and autonomy.
29:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So you want the best people in those cat.
29:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It knows the view, you want the inspectors, you want all the best of them to want to work for you.
29:46
[SPEAKER_01]: The very best are going to want to work for you if they have.
29:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
29:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we'll start with autonomy.
29:52
[SPEAKER_01]: How many
29:53
[SPEAKER_01]: students do you know who are just on top of their stage or on top of their inspector?
30:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know when on top of like making sure they're showing up on time that you go back to them through and question what the stage you're did.
30:11
[SPEAKER_01]: That the best stages are not going to work with that agent for you long.
30:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
30:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have faith when you hire somebody that they know what they're doing.
30:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless they've proven that they don't know what they're doing and then you just stop working with them.
30:26
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you have good people who know what they're doing, let them do it.
30:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, yeah, that's one of the best things you can do.
30:32
[SPEAKER_01]: A accomplishment gives people a sense of accomplishment.
30:36
[SPEAKER_01]: If your inspector caught something that is going to save your homeowner's money,
30:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Call that person and say, hey, you did a really good job on that inspection.
30:46
[SPEAKER_01]: That is really helpful to my client.
30:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
30:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that comes back to also acknowledgement.
30:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But everybody, nobody wants to just show up and get a check.
30:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it was, yeah, there are hours for dollars, hours are more valuable.
31:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I was more valuable than dollars because we all had the exact same number of them.
31:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So people want to feel their time is being invested and they want to feel their time is being invested in something valuable in something worthwhile and something that makes a difference in the world.
31:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So look at the people who work for you.
31:20
[SPEAKER_01]: figure out how to give them a sense of accomplishment, figure out how far their autonomy can go, and then acknowledge them for it, acknowledge them publicly.
31:30
[SPEAKER_01]: When you knew, I see real estate agents all the time.
31:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Puzzle, when we got this big sale and congratulations at Bottle Blah, almost all of them, and we're so grateful to this inspector, this mortgage broker, this stinger,
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: those people then become not only loyal to you, then become more NPS.
31:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, become more not promoters because next time, they also know people who need to buy in cell houses.
32:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
32:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And one to be the ones who say, oh, you should work with this agent.
32:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That, yes.
32:05
[SPEAKER_01]: That people remember how you made them feel.
32:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's the Maya antelope, I love it.
32:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, going back to having
32:15
[SPEAKER_01]: all these other VAs.
32:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I will share it in the eye of the world's greatest VAs.
32:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope her.
32:20
[SPEAKER_01]: She is phenomenal at her job.
32:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Really good.
32:25
[SPEAKER_01]: She has a little bit of PTSD from having been in an abusive work situation long before me.
32:33
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a single mom.
32:35
[SPEAKER_01]: She had a boss.
32:36
[SPEAKER_01]: She couldn't leave for that reason.
32:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And that person was fairly toxic.
32:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So she gets a lot of workplace anxiety.
32:46
[SPEAKER_01]: She gets anxiety about things.
32:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I was at a conference, a keynote in a conference in Las Vegas.
32:53
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot of prep materials.
32:54
[SPEAKER_01]: We sent my slides in advance.
32:56
[SPEAKER_01]: We sent my intro in advance, all of that.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all taking care of.
32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: She just that.
33:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I showed up and they didn't have any of it.
33:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would bought my slides on a jump drive, but I didn't put the intro on the jump drive, and then the guy who's going to, it was all the way all winged.
33:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, oh no, you won't wing my intro.
33:14
[SPEAKER_01]: No, thank you.
33:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my intro is very carefully written.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's full of audience, and for my needs.
33:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So I said, no, don't worry.
33:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I can get on love with scent right now.
33:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So I call my assistant now.
33:26
[SPEAKER_01]: The easiest call is, hey, they don't have my intro.
33:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I need you to resend it.
33:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That takes three seconds.
33:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that is not what I said on that call.
33:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But she picked up a phone, I said, hi, it's Valerie, I'm in Las Vegas already.
33:40
[SPEAKER_01]: They screwed up here, you do everything right, but they have lost what you sent.
33:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So I need you to recent the intro.
33:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, making her realize, first of all, knowing what her triggers are.
33:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
33:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And helping her, you know, taking that off the table right away.
33:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So she doesn't automatically feel that angst.
33:59
[SPEAKER_00]: and then still getting done what you need to get done.
34:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And over here's the thing, I would have gotten done what I need either way.
34:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Either, you know, most of your things, she resends the intro.
34:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But in one situation, she resends the intro and she thinks, oh, it's all problem for Valerie, you know?
34:15
[SPEAKER_01]: In the other one, she resends the intro and I promise you the rest of her day is thinking, oh my gosh, is she mad at me?
34:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Do they do something wrong?
34:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, because my house, well, and so she has all this
34:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
34:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I can take that away, she's happy.
34:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You're looking for me.
34:36
[SPEAKER_01]: She and, and, well, let's talk about fear in the human brain for a second.
34:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
34:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to take a big left turn here.
34:44
[SPEAKER_01]: All of my work is based in brain science.
34:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a book called How Women can succeed in the workplace despite having female brains.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because it's about to bring in science behind what we do in workplaces and how we get rewarded.
34:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to talk about the brain science behind fear.
35:01
[SPEAKER_01]: As quickly as I can, fear triggers the amygdala, and the amygdala triggers fight flight or freaks.
35:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Fight flights or freaks are the only human responses to having your amygdala get triggered.
35:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's what releases quote is all in due bloodstream and it releases adrenaline.
35:14
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have to move faster, every
35:19
[SPEAKER_01]: you want from the people who don't feel happen in the prefrontal cortex.
35:24
[SPEAKER_01]: The prefrontal cortex is where we have decision-making and control of emotions and social interactions.
35:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So you want your employees operating from the prefrontal cortex through a triple ceramic dule.
35:34
[SPEAKER_01]: The middle is 7 million years old.
35:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And the prefrontal cortex is only 2 million years old.
35:39
[SPEAKER_01]: The middle is a tough old or a broader in your brain.
35:41
[SPEAKER_01]: The prefrontal cortex is the sensitive of your brother in the brain.
35:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And just like with a real tough old or brother and sensitive younger brother, if there are people with each other,
35:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You tell for all the problems and time.
35:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So what happens is if you are triggering your employees and middlers, they are now capable of fights, light, or freeze, and nothing else.
36:02
[SPEAKER_01]: When the envelope is triggered, it shuts down the prefrontal cortex.
36:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it shuts down your control of emotions, your social interaction, your good decision-making, nobody makes good decisions in a state of fear.
36:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if you are behind your towards your workforce, triggers fear in that workforce, you are not getting their best performance period.
36:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It's impossible.
36:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It always triggers me as a parent because it's, you know, your kids don't have their front to low developed until they're 25 or so.
36:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it
36:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always like, oh, right, like I have to keep remembering that that is it's not fully developed.
36:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm not going to get the best of the person until, you know, they're not going to make a decisions exactly.
36:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I can control their emotions.
36:57
[SPEAKER_02]: No, this is why horror may lose work because we are stupid, we are more afraid.
37:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
37:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to wrap up here, start to wrap up.
37:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love for you to give your best advice to one of our listeners real estate agent, what can that person do today immediately to create a better happier workplace?
37:29
[SPEAKER_01]: When I first started doing the personal happiness work, I had people occasionally say, I isn't a selfish to be focused on my own happiness.
37:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of my favorite quotes from Lao Tsu, the founder of Daoism, is if you want to eliminate all the darkness in the world, first eliminate all the darkness in yourself.
37:49
[SPEAKER_01]: If you regardless, if you are the CEO of a 5,000-person company, or if you are a solo-panner real estate agent, you make the world a better place by focusing on your own happiness.
38:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are some really simple things you can do.
38:11
[SPEAKER_01]: At own point, when you feel any little tension, you feel anything going wrong, you feel your own amygdala being triggered, stop and take three very deep deep soothing breaths and really enjoy those breaths, acknowledge that you're taking three deep breaths and feel all your muscles relax.
38:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Deep breath dissipates cortisol in your bloodstream.
38:35
[SPEAKER_01]: that you truly are a happy person.
38:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't have to be true when you say it, but it's saying it gets it closer to being true.
38:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Maintain happiness in your life and don't rob yourself of your sense of accomplishment.
38:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't get to the end of the day and say, what a nothing don't do today.
38:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't get nothing done?
38:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You recorded a podcast.
39:05
[SPEAKER_01]: You, I have people say to me all the time, oh, I have all this work, and then throughout the day, people keep coming to me.
39:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw all the other problems, and then I got nothing done.
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You're solve all the wrong principles.
39:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, acknowledge what you give yourself that sense of accomplishment, acknowledge what you accomplish in any given day.
39:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Get to the end of the day, force yourself to look back at the end of the day and say, what did I get done today?
39:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it's one, if it's took out the trash, stop the trash, that trash it and piling up on really glad I took the trash out.
39:40
[SPEAKER_01]: on every day with a sense of accomplishment.
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you start to focus on your own value that you bring to the world every day, you will become a happier and happier person.
39:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you become a happier person, you'll be amazed to discover the people who work for you will be having a little more happiness in their lives.
40:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Your family will find a little more happiness.
40:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You will be spending more happiness in the world.
40:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
40:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So true.
40:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It's modeling.
40:09
[SPEAKER_00]: It's modeling.
40:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Really is what it is.
40:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
40:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
40:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Valerie.
40:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Christine.
40:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for inviting me back.
40:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I love these conversations.
40:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, thanks so much for listening.
40:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure to follow Valerie at SpeakCapiness.com.
40:28
[SPEAKER_00]: She's also on LinkedIn, and she has a new profile on Substack, and she writes some really great stuff.
40:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you love this conversation, make sure to share it with your friends.
40:38
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're watching us on YouTube, click that subscribe button and make sure you never miss another episode.
40:43
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're listening to us on your favorite podcast app, make sure to click the follow button and sign up for our newsletter, the sunbeam, go to postobemecreative.com.
40:52
[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to no-like trust for real estate and I'm Christine George.