Top 5 Lessons Learned About Leadership

But I thought that since hindsight is proverbial 2020, that it would be a fun idea to bring you on and say, OK, here's what I know now having done this. And I think that it's super translatable to somebody who is leading a brokerage, leading a team, leading their business, leading their family, whatever it is that they want to call leadership. There's some good rules that, hey, you know, it's the old John Cougar Mellencamp song, right? I wish I knew what I know now when I was younger. And so I thought it'd be a fun way to take a look back kind of a year in review. But also, you know, what are the big takeaways of how to be a great leader? Because I don't think there's anybody who would argue you were not one.

So, Chance, you're showing your age there with the John Cougar Mellencamp part there. But I absolutely agree because, you know, I kind of look at this or at least this part of the experience as a learning experience. You know, everybody should everything you do every day, you should be able to learn from whatever you're doing out there. You know, and I kind of look at transactions the same way from every single transaction. I know that I've learned something and and I don't I'm going to I'm going to tell a little bit about myself and my age to hear chance, because I have been doing real estate for 21 years now. I know I look like I'm very, very young, but in those 21 years, I've done over 700 transactions. But you figure that out, especially knowing that I've been a manager or a non-competing broker for about 10 of those 21 years.

So I've had a lot of things to learn from a lot of experience with the transaction part of it. So I'm kind of looking at this as, you know, just another part of the transition of being a real estate professional and learning from everything that I do. I think maybe one of the bonus takeaways from today's show is that somewhere around your 20, you also walk away with the awesome haircut that we share. Exactly. Now, that happened. That happened a long time ago, man. So, you know, I have to owe that to my parents, which the funny thing was or is I promised myself I would never get into real estate. My mom was a real estate broker and I saw how hard she worked. And she actually had a very large brokerage in the town that I grew up in, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

And, you know, when I was a kid, she was always late picking me up and she always couldn't make it to the games. And she, you know, there were things that she had to do to take care of her clients. And I said, you know, when I get into the working field, I'm not going to do stuff like that because, you know, I want to have a different kind of life. And then I realized, man, she provided for us very, very well. This was something that she loved to do. And, you know, when I actually was kind of looking for a job, and if you do the math back, it was right around 9-11. So a lot of us had kind of an epiphany then. I said, you know, what do I know the most about and what can I not work for a major company and have somebody tell me what to do and everything? And then I realized as a manager, and you know this chance, that's all people do all day long.

The people that are your agents and the people that work in your brokerage and everything, they tell you what to do all day long. So I got that whole part of it wrong, but I really love real estate. I think most people that are in real estate can tell you that it is a very rewarding job, if not very financially rewarding, very rewarding for the people that you're working with. And, you know, you truly have the ability to do whatever you want to. If you don't want to work, and we as brokers hope that you do want to work a lot, you don't have to. But if you want to make unlimited potential and money, you know, how much ever you want, you can do that in real estate. So that's what I love about, you know, the fact that I got into real estate, I kind of went full force, I made it my profession and my passion.

And, you know, and it ended up, and I just say ended up because there were a lot of people that had to do with me being the chairman of the board of Texas Realtors last year. And that was not, that was not, I won't say by accident, but it wasn't something that I ever aspired to. It's not even something that I thought about. But people said, you know, hey, you know, you've done a decent enough job here on the local level, you do a decent enough job with your brokerage, you know, we'd like you to throw your name in the hat. And I will tell you, I'm forever grateful to people that had my back in that, and that really propelled me to the place that I was. So, you know, when we get talking about these things that I learned, it's not by accident that I learned these. It's because I truly kept my ears open and my eyes open, and I made sure that this was going to be part of my personal growth thing, too.

Awesome. Well, I think that's a perfect segue into let's jump into number one, which I love. And I think number one and number two kind of tie into each other a little bit. But number one for me is really, I think, one of those deals where once you realize it, but you can say it to yourself, but once you really realize it, it's very freeing. It just frees you up. And so number one on your list is you're never going to please everybody. Yeah, and I'll tell you, Chance, this was a huge learning experience for me because I think as people in real estate, we are people pleasers. We want to make sure that everybody is happy. We don't like it when people don't like us.

And, you know, it's just, you know, I think it's just inherent to making us successful. And that doesn't always translate into being good, successful business people. So I kind of look at this as a learning experience for everybody. And you, I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to please everybody. But once you do realize that you're not going to be able to please everybody, it makes your life so much easier and so much better. And you can move forward with your goals and your plans and be focused on what you really want to do. So I'll tell you a few things that you're going to laugh about because we had a little talk before this. We were talking about professionalism and even something as big as the word professionalism and everybody, and I'm talking everybody in real estate thinks that something needs to be done about professionalism.

And I'm going to tell you, in my position, I learned they were talking about this 100 years ago. That's why the Real Estate Association was formed is to make sure that there was a level of professionalism that happened across the entire discipline of real estate. Well, we're still talking about it 100 years later. We're still talking about professionalism. And so, you know, I go into my position thinking I'm going to be the one who straightens everybody up and is going to be able to take care of professionalism. And that's going to be my main focus. And then I realized not everybody's on the same page, even about professionalism. They like to talk about it, but what is professionalism? They can't even tell you. You know, they can't tell you what they would like to be done, although they can tell you little things, you know, here and there, but really what's it going to take to make those things happen?

So once I go over the fact that we're not even going to be on the same page about that, then you can start taking incremental steps forward and move past the people that may or may not like what you say. And like I said earlier, a lot of us get in this business so that we don't have people telling us what to do. And if I'm there trying to tell you about what you need to do and how you need to be more professional, I've already started off on the wrong foot. So, you know, what I was saying about that is you're never going to please everybody. Don't try to please, you know, don't try. Try to please as many people as you can, but don't sacrifice yourself because of other people. And I'm not even going to get political about this, but everybody can see the divide in the nation. If we're divided about things like professionalism in a professional, in a profession, you know, that will tell you that we're going to be divided about every other single thing, too.

And, you know, one of the things that the association, I think, does best is our advocacy efforts and what we do with government affairs and working with our legislators. You know, I had to take a position where it is good for the greater good type thing instead of what I wanted and what people want and what people are talking to me in my ear about. When you look at it as a big overall arching theme of what we do at Texas Realtors, you really have to take the high road. You have to be as, you know, as comprehensive as you possibly can without stooping to, or I shouldn't even say stooping, without getting out of your lane. And there's always this part that people want to say, well, that's our lane, or this should be our lane, or this could be our lane.

And it really isn't. And the minute that you start veering off of that, you don't have any leg to stand on in your power, and your influence is really diminished. So, you know, that's what I'm saying about don't worry about pleasing everybody. If you know, and you have it in your mind, and you think that it's the right thing to do, and we're going to talk about teams later, and the other people around you are with you, that's the right thing to do. So, when you're leading a team, and when you're in the real estate world, and, you know, people are trying to, you know, get you to do one thing or another, or go one way or another, think about, you know, what you want to do, where you need to be, and how you can move things forward. And so, that's kind of my advice there about, you know, never please, not able to please everybody, because you're not going to be able to, and the minute you learn that, it's really freeing, and it makes you really kind of focused and a better type person and a better type leader, because you really have an end goal, and you can figure that out really quickly.

Yeah, I think the key to success with that, you know, exactly what you said, is you do figure out, you know, what's the north star for you, right? What's the track you're following? And it helps you keep on that path without distraction. I think, you know, if there's a word of warning here, and you kind of touched on it a little bit is, you still have to be empathetic to other people's points of view. You still have to be empathetic to where other people are coming from, because that experience is not only probably different from your own, but it's a great opportunity to learn where other people are coming from, and really be more relatable, I think. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, that's where I was going at the very beginning with this is, you never can stop learning. And this is just as an individual, it doesn't matter if you're real estate, or you're a lawyer, or whatever it is, the minute you stop learning, you know, you may as well just give it up. You know everything, and I will tell you, and you know this too, there are a lot of people in our business that think they know everything. But the minute you do know everything, then you got to start all over, and maybe you should, you know, kind of think about, you know, your position in everything, and why you know everything, and how you know everything. And this is another thing. If you do know everything, please share that information, you know, because there's a lot of us, me included, who truly would like to learn from that. You just have to do it in the right way, you know. And when we're dealing with people that kind of know everything and want to teach everything, there's the right way and the wrong way, and a lot of us will shut down when we're talked to in a certain way.

But I love what you said about empathizing with people, because as long as you understand, and you know where they're coming from, it makes your goals in your life a lot clearer. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. You know, I joke with our agents, some of our new agents, I'm like, listen, in your first six months, somebody is going to reach out to you and tell you, well, I've been doing this for 25 years. And I'm like, usually what comes after that is probably the dumbest shit you've ever heard in your life. Exactly. It's typically rooted in the fact that they've used that experience as a crutch, and they haven't considered everything a learning experience. And I mean, if the last couple of years have taught us anything, this industry is always changing.

There's always opportunity to learn, but it doesn't mean you have to sacrifice who you are. Yeah. All right. Well, that brings us to number two. I said it kind of tied in, but I think that they are unique and different. And so number two is be authentic. And I love this one because, I mean, you've known me long enough and you see me, I'm going to be a jeans and a – what I'm wearing right now is what I wear almost every day. We have this – we have to play this role. We have to be in a suit and tie. We have to have the fanciest shoes or the fanciest watch or all this. And I'm like, but you don't. If you just be yourself, people will agree with you. Yeah, I love this one because, you know, especially in the leadership role, you feel like you need to go in there and you need to act a part and you need to kind of be this all-knowing, all-everything-to-every-person type thing.

But, you know, I always go back to what I learned very, very early in my career is people do business with people they know, like, and trust, right? And if they don't know you, if they don't really know who that person is, if they can't see the person that they want to do business with or they don't like you, for God's sakes, you know, that's even the worst part of it. And that kind of goes with what we were talking about, not being able to please everybody, but if they don't know how to figure you out or you're just, you know, abrasive or that's not how they want to do business, they're not going to do business with you. And the biggest part of this is the person that they trust because in real estate, that's really what we're doing. We are truly being an advisor for someone's probably most important and most valuable possession here.

So they have to trust you and if you are out there portraying something that you're not, if you are, you know, living above your means or you are actually trying to be something different just to get a listing or whatever, people see that through that so quickly. And in leadership, you know, so my role in leadership, I was on 24-7 and you know how this is, Chance. People are watching you, people are criticizing you, people are thinking about, you know, ways to, you know, whatever it is. Sully, your name or whatever that is. So you are constantly trying to think of ways that, you know, you're going to protect your image or you're going to do whatever. I learned very, very quickly that I have to be Russell Berry. There is only one Russell Berry and there's only one Chance Brown and thank God they finally met at some point in their life, you know.

But people kind of really relate to me because I am flawed, completely flawed. I mean, not completely, you know, I have a really good pinky, but you know, that's about it. But, you know, but, you know, they like that. They like to see, most people like to see people like them. They like to know that you're not above whatever or that you're not acting or whatever. And like I said, people will see through that very, very quickly. And then when they see through that, then they don't trust you anymore. Then they don't like you anymore. Then they don't want to do business with you. So, you know, my advice there is kind of get to a point where you feel very comfortable with yourself. And, you know, I get that. That can come through a lot of soul searching or a lot of therapy or whatever it is.

But we have to be comfortable in our own skin. And we have to kind of know who we are, what our breaking points are, when we need to get up and walk away. I will tell you that, that, you know, on the leadership team, we don't always agree about everything. In fact, we hardly agree about everything, anything. But at the end of the day, we all kind of want. That's the kind of leadership team you want to have, by the way. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, and this is great. And this is another part of my great learning experience, too, is to figure out why people think like this and why people aren't thinking like I am. And I love that. I love being a sponge and saying, you know, you know, tell me a little bit more about that and all that stuff. So my authentic part about that is really wanting to be part of the group and part of the team. And, again, if you're on a team or if you are a leader, if you're a broker or anybody who somebody looks up to, the minute they find that you're not being authentic, you've lost them.

And that's a hard time to get back. You know, it's really, really difficult to get somebody back after you broke their trust or after they don't like you anymore. You know, it's pretty easy to get somebody to like you. You buy them drinks and everything's fine. But, you know, it's hard to get them back after you've already lost them. So my advice there, be authentic. Figure out who the real you is. Don't try to portray something else. Don't. Yeah, I'll tell you this other funny story about this. And you brought this up about, you know, maybe driving a car that you can't afford, et cetera, et cetera. I had a listing appointment one time and I drove up in my decent car. I don't even think it was anything great, which is why I drive an Audi right now. And I'm not saying that Audis aren't great because I love Audis. But I had a listing appointment and I drove up in my decent car.

I think it might have been a Lexus 450. It wasn't even that great. But I didn't get the listing because the people thought that I only did luxury homes. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is me not being authentic Russell Berry. You know, I'm driving up and I'm thinking I'm all cool and I'm in a jacket and a tie and I have my decent shoes on. And these people look at me and they say, that's not who we want to do business with because, you know, he doesn't do luxury homes. So my learning experience was there is you can have a car that's too expensive. You can have clothing that's too expensive. You can, you know, portray something that you're really not. Dress for the occasion. Be that person and be present in the moment. And that helps you be really authentic to people.

Yeah, you know, when I was when I was a younger professional and I was working not in I was in real estate, but I wasn't working as a licensee. I was working for for a company that that was in the industry. I tried to be something that I wasn't because I felt like that was the company issue, the company way, the company. I'm going to do it. This I'm going to do it that. And I would sit around and wonder, like, why I wasn't getting further ahead than I thought I should be where I was, you know, that I thought, well, getting further ahead. Than where I thought I should be or where I was. And I realized after I left that role and got my license that the reason was I wasn't being myself.

I was just a guy playing a part. And literally from that day moving forward, I was like, that is never going to happen again. Love me, hate me. This is who I am. And there are a lot of people who love me and they're just as many probably. It's OK with me because the other thing I realized about being authentic is if they're not going to do business with you because of what X, whatever X is. That's OK. Yes. They're probably not the type of people you want to do business with anyway. And, you know, you'll laugh at this chance, but I went into a listing appointment, you know, before I started doing this managing type thing.

And I got to a point in my career where I really didn't need every listing or didn't have to beg or didn't have to portray something. And I went in to, you know, these are a few listings in a row where I was like, I don't really care if I get this listing. Guess what? Got every single one of them because I was truly being myself and I was being honest with these people. And if I didn't get that listing, it was perfectly fine. I got more business by being myself than I did by not being myself every single time. Yeah. There's a there's an element of that candor that I think really our consumers are looking for. They want to be told the truth. They don't want somebody to come in and tell them their house is beautiful when it's not. And they know it's not.

They don't want them to come in and blow smoke up their ass about a price or this or that. They want somebody to tell them the truth because that's why you're there. You're the expert. And you're going to send me down this whole line. But they, you know, a lot of clients, because of the Internet and because all the information is out there, think that they know these things. But I can guarantee you that you are in their house for a reason. They are there because they don't want to or they can't do it themselves or they understand that there are some issues. And that's where you said be the professional. You have to take control of that situation and show them your value, show them your worth, show them why they need to. They're having you right there in their their living room, because that's what they want.

You know, and so many people go in there and pander and say, let's do this and take a listing way too high because, you know, either they don't feel comfortable or they don't. They want to lose this or they really need the money or whatever. And that's not doing any favors to these folks. You are there to be a professional and you're there to make sure that they get what they want and that the value that you provide is something that gets them to the finish line because they have you in their room, their house for a reason. So take advantage of it. Yeah. I mean, you're not doing you're not doing them any favors. You're not doing yourself any favors either. I mean, nobody wants to see your your for sale sign out in front of the yard for months and months and months because you're not selling the house because it's overpriced. Right. Spending money to market. You're doing all these things, man, just go in and let's be honest with folks and sell houses, not list them, which is kind of a fun transition to point number three, which is you're in this position for a reason.

Use it. Yeah. So so I didn't mean to lead right into that. But again, you are the professional, you know, and and I look at this as I got this great opportunity to lead the largest trade association in Texas. And, you know, I could have and and there was times when I thought maybe I'll just try to do no harm type thing, you know, because it is a very it's a lot of weight on your shoulders and every time and everything. But very, very quickly, and this is even before I became the chairman, you know, you realize that you are in that room making decisions. And I was lucky enough and I say lucky enough because people could can think what they want. But when COVID hit, I was on the leadership team and we had to quickly make a lot of decisions that would affect people's life and livelihoods.

And Chance, you know, because of your relationship with the governor and the state of Texas and everything, the governor reached out to Texas Realtors and said, hey, what can we do to keep the economy rolling? What are you guys doing? And very quickly, we had already figured out our COVID addendum, how we were going to let people to come in, whether we were going to do open houses, how this could work for everybody in the state, as opposed to each different county and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I look at that as, wow, I was so lucky to be in the right place at the right time to be able to make these decisions and to help the governor declare real estate as an essential business. With that, I thought, wow, this is a great position because now I understand how it works. I no longer have that in my head to do no harm, to just kind of, you know, get through the year or whatever.

I have an important job to do, and every single day and every single decision I make is important. How I'm bringing this back to people in the real estate field that may not be in my position or may not even want to be in my position, and that's perfectly fine, is you are a professional. You have the ability every single day to make decisions that affect people's lives, including your own life. You know, so you've got to make it happen. Nobody's going to make it happen for you. You are in this position, A, because you chose to be in this position. Nobody made you be a real estate agent. And I know it gets hard. It can be very, very, very difficult, but that's why you chose this. You chose this as opposed to being a doctor or a lawyer or anybody else because you wanted to do this.

So take full advantage of it. Make the money you want to make. You know, if you're not, find the people that are going to help you make that money. Get into coaching programs. Get into something that's going to help you get ahead. Talk to people. Ask, you know, this is the best thing about our business. And Chance, you and I are the best at this. We're all talkers. I mean, we will tell you our life story. We will tell you our good things, our bad things, our ugly things. We want you to learn from our mistakes. We want you to learn from our successes. So talk to people. Use every single resource you can to be successful because I have never met a successful real estate agent that didn't want to be successful. And sometimes we put those things in our pathway or we make excuses or we think that, you know, it's kind of like let's get through this or let's do no harm or maybe I don't like it or whatever.

I'm going to say something that Chance is probably going to fall out of his chair. But if you don't like real estate, get out of real estate. Don't do it. You know, don't do it. There's so many other things you could be doing and maybe this isn't the right thing for you. But most of us love it. And you can love it, too. If you just give yourself, use your abilities, use your chance. This is the time for you to go out there and make as much money as you can. You know, think about your life balance and everything, too. You definitely got to keep it all in perspective here. But you have the opportunity. So go out there and seize the day. You know, not that I was a Marine or anything, but I always thought I should be a Marine. But, you know, seize the day. Make sure that this is something that's going to work for you and make it happen because nobody's going to do it for you.

That's for sure. That is for sure. You know, I look at this as, you know, you have a gift. If this is what you really want to do and you have the gift of being able to connect with people and a strong desire to truly help people, not just make money. You know, I'm a huge believer that if you put money first, you're going to probably fail. But if you put your why and you put the reason for what you're doing first, the money will come as a result of that. But, man, if you just start and that why is big enough, you're always going to find the how behind it. And then you just have to have the discipline to go out and do it day in, day out. There's no silver bullet to this. There's no – we see agents all the time kind of focus on what they think is fun and sexy and, oh, this marketing thing.

Oh, that marketing thing. You know what works best? Picking this thing up and talking to humans. Exactly. And you remember – Boring, non-fun, not sexy stuff. Exactly. You remember the days of knocking on doors. And I'm telling you, people still do that. People are still successful. People still do things like we did 50 and 80 and 100 years ago. It is the exact same business. We may have some different bells and whistles, but that's what it is. It's a people business, and you've got to get out there and make your own way. One of my favorite books for real estate agents to read is Seven Levels of Communication. And if you really want to boil Seven Levels of Communication down, it's what sales looked like before the Internet. Yeah. So that's the funny thing.

The Internet can be a good thing, and it can be a bad thing, too. You know, sometimes and often we hide behind the Internet, or we want to be sitting at our desk all day long, or, you know, the whole idea behind real estate is, you know, crunch these numbers or make the deals happen. But at the end of the day, it is communication. It is getting out there with your folks. It is getting to know people. It is knocking on doors. It's putting yourself out there a little bit, and that's hard. You know, I get that. That's completely hard to put yourself out there, but that's the nature of our business. So, you know, think of it like this. Every day you wake up, you have a chance to make a new friend, to make a new business partner, to make a new deal. You know, and so it's different every day, and every day can be a new start for you. So think about, you know, the ways that you want to make that happen, and it all goes back to the basics, which is what you were talking about with the book.

So it all goes back to the basics, and we have to know the basics before we can get all sexy with all the little crazy things out there that are going to make, you know, make it easier and better and maybe more profitable if we at least, you know, stand on some solid ground with the basics. Yeah, yeah. It's built on that foundation, which, again, we're getting really good at these transitions. I mean, honestly, so part of that foundation, I think, is having a strong team around you, which is point number four for us is making sure you have a strong team around you. And honestly, I think we could do a whole show just on the team, building the team around it. I do want to say that I think when we talk about building a team around you, because of the industry we're in and the, you know, everybody wants to have a team, and it's the hot thing and all of that stuff, I think we need to differentiate between, we're not talking about building a team here from a real estate team standpoint.

We're talking about a support team. Absolutely. Peers, you know, like I said, we could go 15 different ways down this path, but. Yeah, and I'm going to kind of give you some kudos here, Chance, because I don't know if many people know this, but as the chairman of the board, I get to, and one of my prerogatives is to appoint people to be on the executive committee. And Chance, you were the first one that I reached out to, and I said, Chance, I want you to be part of my team. You know, I want you to be on the executive committee. So Chance was my appointee to the executive committee for Texas Realtors for last year. And thank you for the job you did. You know, it is daunting at best to know that that's your responsibility, but you did it because you were asked, not even because you were elected, but because somebody, me, and a lot of other people thought that you would be good in that position, and you did a great job.

It was a really cool learning experience. It's great. I mean, it's a cool thing to have that much responsibility. It's a lot of responsibility, too. So, but really what I mean about a team is that none of us can do this alone. And your team might be your family, and your team might be your support system, or whoever it is around you. But at the end of the day, if we try to do this 24-7 by ourselves, we're going to burn out. We absolutely are going to burn out. And I was lucky enough, and Chance, you kind of know about some of the situations that we had with our team this year. But I will say that at Texas Realtors, because the people are in that position, because they're passionate about real estate, because they wanted to make a difference, because they do have that knowledge, I've always been on the absolute best teams.

And I say been on the teams and not led the teams, because I am just one cog in that spoke there. You have to really look at it, and especially when you are dealing on the high level I am with Texas Realtors, as a team sport. Nobody makes decisions by themselves. Nobody has more say than anybody else. And I'll bring this back down to where we're talking about in everybody's real estate life, is you have to be able to listen to people. You have to be able to understand the needs of your family, or yourself, or people that if you do have a team, or your brokerage. I'm going to tell you right now, the best, and this kind of goes around with everything that we're saying, the best team that you can have is a great brokerage.

It's really, really hard to be a brokerage of one person, or maybe even two people. That is difficult, because you don't have those things to bounce off with. And with that being said, that's kind of how I got involved in association leadership, is when I started my own brokerage way back, when everybody thought they had to be a broker, and everybody had to have their own brokerage. And this was your entire life goal, which, you know, we'll do a whole other segment on that thing, too. But when I was by myself, I reached out to the association, and to be involved in committees, and to be involved in professional development, and to understand my benefits from being a member of this association, so that I could have that family-type atmosphere with other agents.

And that's really where my foot in the door came, is because I needed a team, and I realized really quickly that the people that I surround myself are really what's going to help with my success. You know, it's funny, I had just done basically the same thing you were talking about, started my own brokerage, a brokerage of one, and I was having a coaching call with my coach. And he was like, how are you mixing and meeting with other agents in your marketplace? And I said, what? And he's like, yeah, are you involved in association work? Are you going to networking events? Like, how are you meeting other agents?

And I'm like, why in the hell would I meet other agents? They're not going to buy a house for me. I'm just waiting for them to bring me deals. Bring me deals. And he goes, no, dummy, you're being a secret agent. You need to go, and you need to do this, and you need to. And so literally that, I think the next day, just by happenstance, I got an email from the Houston Association saying, hey, committee applications are now open. And so I applied for a committee, and I got on it, and I went down, and that was the birth of my role in association leadership was just because my coach told me to. I had no idea what to expect when I got there. But exactly the same thing you said, iron sharpens iron.

And when you surround yourself with people who will make you better just by association, just by saying, oh, Russell does that? I'm going to steal the hell out of that and put it into my business. It just gives you confidence. I think having that team around you, and I talk about this with especially new licensees a lot, is if you've got a really great title person that you can rely on, if you've got a really great lender that you can rely on, if you've got a really great whatever you need to have, it gives you so much more confidence when you talk. That's your team, and that's your team, absolutely. And I know you do this too, Chance, but every week with my brokerage, we have our team meeting, our team huddle, or whatever it is, and I share whatever my agents have called me about that week.

And I keep a running total here, and it's hysterical because some of the things I can't even figure out what I wrote down or whatever, but what people call me about, and that is our weekly team meeting, is to learn from each other. Every single deal, like I said at the very beginning, there's something to learn about. But when it comes to PUDs, and PIDs, and inspections, and whatever it is that somebody has a question about, I know that every other person has a question about that. And so we all try to learn from each other, and that's your team. Those are the people that you can surround yourself with, and as long as you're getting great advice, and I'll even put this out there, the Texas Realtors Legal Hotline is a great resource. As long as you're getting great advice, you should be sharing that with every single person on your team.

Don't be the person that just absorbs, absorbs, absorbs. You've got to be out there giving it back, and that's why I think we both brought this up. Being involved in your association and being involved in your industry is super, super important because nobody's going to do it other than us. Nobody's going to police us other than us. Nobody's going to make us better other than us. Nobody's going to take the reins or leave the association other than anybody who's watching this right now. And if anybody has any questions, please reach out to Chance or myself because we will be a wealth of information for you, but you're the ones who have to do this. You know, we're old guys. We have no hair. There's nothing that, you know, we're going to be gone at some point. You guys take the reins and make this happen. Well, and, you know, I harp on this all the time. We hear people, and you know it, we hear people bitching all the time about this or that or whatever.

And my default response is, this is the committee you should apply for next year. Exactly. That puts you in the right place. If you want to make change, get involved. You don't make change by complaint. You just don't. Posting something on Facebook. And that's probably the worst place to post anything because, you know, like, we'll go back to the very first one. You're never going to please everybody, and there's going to be two sides to every coin. So, you know, just make it happen. You know the right things to do. That's right. So that brings us to point number five, which is know your stuff. Yeah, so you'll love this, Chance. You know, I think I know everything. Sure. Now, I really know that I don't know everything.

So five minutes from now, when you get a call and something you've never experienced in 20 years happens, and you're like, what? Wow. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, that's great, you know. But the best thing about that is when you're in a position, especially being professional, especially your clients expect you to know everything. So I always try to be uber prepared. I am like the biggest nerd when it comes to speaking, when it comes to going on a listing appointment, when it comes to even my office meetings. I am so prepared. Oh, my gosh. I have notes. I may not get to them all, and sometimes I want to say more than I'm prepared to say or whatever. But this is a deal. When you walk into a listing appointment, when you walk into a committee meeting, when you walk into any kind of a leadership position, you better know your stuff.

Because the minute you stray off and you don't, people will find out. And, you know, like I said, I am always uber prepared, but perhaps I have shown up to a function that I didn't know I was going to speak at. I have learned to have a couple of speeches put in the pocket just in case. Just in case. Just in case somebody wants you to say a word or two. I don't like to go off the cuff, which I'm kind of going off the cuff right now, although I do have my notes of what I was going to talk about. But you really need to know your stuff. So, when you walk into a listing appointment, you know everything about that neighborhood. You know everything about that couple. You know everything about your job. You know everything about your marketing. You know everything so that you can talk to them as the professional. And we talked about this before.

That's what they want. They don't want you to go in there and, oh, well, let me see. You know, let me look that up. And this is the thing. If you don't know, it's okay to say I don't know. But follow up. Find out the answer. Call somebody. And that's why Chance and I are such good friends here. I'll call Chance. Chance will call me. I know Chance calls every other broker in his neighborhood. I call every other broker in my neighborhood. That if I don't know the answer, I know somebody who does know the answer. Or I know how to find out that answer. And that's the same thing for us. When we're dealing with our clients, it's okay to say I don't know. You know, especially when they give you a real winger. Like, you know, I had recently. I won't go in there because it gets a little off color here. But I had one that I have never, and I was kind of disgusted by it. I've never run into.

And I was like, but let me find out. And then now we laugh about. I mean, this is the funniest thing. And I'll tell you offline, Chance, because I'm sure that you have never run into this. And well, I just want to go into this because then I think you'll lose viewership if you do. But you know you have resources. You know you have a broker. You know you have a team. You know you have people. You know you have Chance and I. You know you have everybody that can help you get this. Don't just go out there and wing it. Ask for the right answer and get it right. And if you mess up, this is the other thing. If you mess up, that's okay. Own it. Own your mistakes. You know, own it. Move on from there. You know, like we talked about people. People like you when you're flawed.

People like to be able to relate to you. And if you mess up, that's okay. If you mess up a lot, it's probably not okay. But, you know, just try to be, you know, try to be very gracious about it and move on from there. Everybody's going to mess up at least once, you know, in their life. I know I did once this week, today, maybe. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, it's okay. That's what I say. But then my wife reminds me that I'm wrong about that. Exactly. You know, there's always somebody who knows more, right? But the thing is, when you're dealing in this type situation, you do need to know your stuff. You need to be that professional. You need to be able to get out there and show them and tell them what you need and be a resource for whatever. But it's okay to mess up. It's okay. Absolutely. You know, I think with leadership, there comes an element of just sort of implied power.

But if you can't back that up with the expertise, that implication of power just goes away real. Yeah. Nobody takes you seriously. And so, you know, my recommendation to, and I'll tell you where actually the strangest, the most unexpected for me, anyway, place that I've been getting a lot of data and information recently. But before I get there, I think a lot of people just need to take some time in your schedule, like make it part of your weekly schedule, your daily schedule to say, listen, for an hour, I'm going to study my craft. I'm going to study industry statistics when my association publishes market stats. I'm going to go out and look at them when I see this or just read, just even if it's scanning, the headlines are going to be better off.

Yeah. But I will tell you, I have never in my life been a fan of Twitter. I've never really understood it. It just seems like a bunch of people barking at things out. Like, it's just like, Hey, here, boom. It just, it never made sense to me. I never understood the community of it. I never really got the, the functionality. And so a few years ago, I deactivated my Twitter account, not because of anything that was going on in the media or politics, just because I didn't use it. And I have, you know, I'm active on all these other channels and I didn't want this other channel just to be like, here's no, here's my big ball of nothing. Right. Yeah. And so I deactivated it.

In the last six or eight months, I have reactivated my Twitter account just to check it out and see if anything had changed. And because of the way that I can build lists, man, I can get a stream of experts across the country and I can digest that in less than 30 minutes. Well, that, and that leads leads to this too. There's good social media and there's bad social media. You know, if you are, if you, and I try to use this and I try to get this through my agents is if you are posting something that you think is the least bit controversial, and maybe it's just off the top of your head. And you saw something on the news and you just want to get that off your chest or whatever, go ahead, type it all you want to read over it, come back to it in 30 minutes.

And if it really, really is something that you have to go for then, then think another time about it and then go for it. But I think most of us, and you know, that's the whole thing with Twitter, I think, is Twitter used to be where you just had to say what's on your mind and move on from there. But there is, and there are a lot of people that say what's on their mind and it's good stuff. It can be good real estate coaching. It can be good real estate tips. It can be good, but you have to weigh the good with the bad and really focus on what you're looking for. If you get caught in, and I'm guilty of this, I kind of got into TikTok lately. My God, I go down some rabbit holes. I can cook a heck of a casserole right now, which I'm not a cook.

I mean, I just, there's some things that I just like, I've got to do this or I've got to buy the things that TikTok made me buy. But if I'm also looking for good tips on lighting for a house or how to market something, I can narrow it down that way too. Same thing with TikTok. I mean, same thing with Twitter and same thing with Facebook. You just have to know the good from the bad. And you also have to be very, very restrictive on what you do and what you say too. Because remember, everything you put out there stays out there forever. That's right. And your clients are looking at you and your clients are judging you and your clients are thinking about what you put on social media, which has to do with them. And if you guys don't match and if it's not a good fit, they may not even call you.

So, you know, think about that stuff. We are in the world of sales and we are in the world of being judged and we are in the world of being a personality. Whether we like it or not, we are now a public figure. And, you know, you have to be very, very careful about that. I published a podcast episode last week that was actually a four-second sequence from The Crown, the TV show on Netflix, of the rules of the royal family when it comes to what they say publicly. And it's, does it need to be said, does it need to be said right now, and does it need to be said by us? And I'm like, that should be at the top of everybody's screen before they go on social media is, does this really need to be said?

Does it need to be said right now? Like, don't be reactionary. Settle down. Take a break. And does it need to actually be said by you or by somebody else? So, I'll give you another one that you can use and everybody can use this is, you know, I am lucky enough, again, to have the best people who kind of look out for you. And we've done a lot of public speaking, you know, seminars and things like that where we have people who come in and tell us what to do. And one of the things I got out of it was Zola. Have you ever heard of Zola? No. Anything you post, especially being in a position of influence, should be the Z, zone of likely agreement. Things that people are going to agree on. Zola. Think about it that way.

If you think that people aren't going to agree on it, don't post it. If it's going to get you into hot water in any way, it's not going to be agreeable, don't post it. So, Zola. Think about it that way. Zola. Zone of likely agreement. I think like 75% of my posts recently have just been bashing the Houston Texans. Oh, I know. Well, I think that's a zone of likely agreeance right there because, yeah, we know what situation you guys are in. Exactly. By the way, the Cowboys are in the playoffs. For how much longer? I don't know. But the Cowboys are in the playoffs. You know. Yeah. Man, this has been great, Russell. Honestly, this is so good. And like I said, you know, we've said it a couple of times during the recording of this. I think, honestly, we could go back and probably record a show on each one of these five and then break them down even more.

But this is good stuff. And I think that it's applicable no matter where you are in your real estate career. If you're just starting out, it's good information to go be yourself, become an expert, build your team around you, all of that. Or you're somebody who's more advanced in a leadership role. It's a great insight of somebody who's been there, done that. So I just want to say thank you for coming on the show today. It was really, really awesome. And thank you if you're watching it or listening. We appreciate you tuning in. And we will be back soon with another episode of Top 5. Thanks, Chance. See you soon. Bye.