IDL80 Season 2: Give Value, Be Yourself, and Work Hard with Dana Gentry

Why should leaders point thumbs and not fingers? How can you stop your business from becoming the next Blockbuster? Are you focused on running your race?

In this episode, I’m excited to share with you, my friend, Dana Gentry. We met a few years ago at a leadership conference, and we struck up a friendship there and have continued to connect with one another. Today we have a lot of info to discuss, from what is unique about Dana’s ONE Team. We reflect on how to give value, be yourself, and work hard.

Meet Dana Gentry

Dana Gentry has been in the real estate industry for 17 years, from selling as an individual agent to growing a team and focusing on creative marketing for sellers and buyers. Her team, Real Estate Partners 360, currently services Lexington, Louisville, and surrounding counties in Kentucky.

Dana stepped out of actively selling in 2015, to enter into leadership opportunities with Keller Williams. She was a blackbelt team leader and the highest netting TL in the region.

Dana is currently the OP of Keller Williams Legacy Group in Richmond, KY, Keller Williams Consultants Realty in Columbus, OH and Keller Williams Realty Consultants in Jeffersonville, IN. She has formed a ONE TEAM of her market centers that now serves over 600 Realtors.

Dana also enjoys co-hosting a podcast, Everything Life & Real Estate - which you can find on all podcast platforms; and hosts a Wednesday Morning Mindset Facebook Group every Wednesday at 9amEST.

Listen to Dana’s Podcast and connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• Give value, be yourself, and work hard - 04:10

• Perspective - 15:42

• Be willing to change - 20:01

• Dana’s 3 leadership hacks - 26:51

• Dan Sullivan’s 10 to-dos - 40:08

Give value, be yourself, and work hard

Spend time reflecting and working with your mentors and your coaches to figure out what you stand for, and how you can embody that.

Lead with value and lead by example.

You don’t need to overcomplicate it – think about what matters to do, in your personal and professional life, and think about how you can make them central aspects in the way that you run your business.

Even in difficult moments – and they will come – you need to remain true to your values and practice authenticity because people will be drawn to and inspired by your realness.

Perspective

In business and life, adjust your perspective on situations based on the data that has been collected.

Look at the past and the present before you decide on the future, and try to separate emotions and fears from facts.

Be willing to change

Be firm on your values and flexible in life.

Everything is or isn’t going to change, so you need to build your business and structure your mindset to have the ability to adapt.

You can mourn the loss of something that meant a lot to you, or worked well before things changed, but you need to also be open to learning anew and continuing to grow.

Dana’s 3 leadership hacks

1 – Be intentional

2 – Relationships matter

3 – Run your race

Dan Sullivan’s 10 to-dos

You know that you’re successful when:

1 – You can wake up every day and ask, “What could I like to do today?”

2 – Your passive revenue exceeds your lifestyle needs 

3 – You can live anywhere in the world that you want

4 – You’re working on projects that excite you and allow you to do your best work

5 – You can disappear for several months with no impact on your income

6 – There are no whiny people in your life

7 – You can wear your watch for curiosity only

8 – You have no time obligations or deadlines

9 – You wear whatever you want all the time

10 – You can quit at any time

Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:

BOOK | Mark Batterson – Chase the Lion: If Your Dream Doesn't Scare You, It's Too Small

BOOK | Dan Sullivan – Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork

Listen to Dana’s Podcast and connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.

Mentioned New York Times Article

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Email Tyler: tyler@tylerdickerhoof.com

About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast

The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.

Rate, review and subscribe here on Apple Podcasts or subscribe on Stitcher and Spotify.

When you don’t know what you don’t know, then you aren’t exposed to some of those [new ideas].

Dana Gentry

Podcast Transcription

[TYLER DICKERHOOF] Hey, welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This is your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. So glad that you're joining in. Whether you're listening on Spotify, Google Play, Apple Tunes, Stitcher, wherever you listen to podcasts, wherever it may be, or here watching on YouTube, man, I'm so glad you're here. I'm excited today to share a conversation with one of my good friends, Dana Gentry. Dana and I have known each other for several years now. We met at a leadership conference where I attended with my wife and she with her soon-to-be husband Adam. We look strikingly similar as a pair. I'll make sure to share a picture at some point here so you can see that of the four of us together. We struck up a great friendship there, have continued to connect with each other, ask leadership questions, share, she's invited me to participate and share within her Calleb Williams world and I'm glad for her to be a guest here and share with you today. We are packed full of notes. We have a lot of information to share with you, so get ready, get prepared. You're going to learn. I can guarantee you're going to leave this episode. You're going to learn about the what is unique about the one team that Dana and her organization are building. It's really these three pieces, it's give value, be you, and work hard. Man, I love those. I love it. I absolutely love it. Now, before you get into the first episode, I want to say again, thank you for being here, listening. If you're a subscriber, man, I appreciate that. If you've ever rated and reviewed, man, I appreciate that as well. This is what I know is the opportunity for more people to hear from guests like Dana or our previous guests comes from how well we write and subscribe, subscribers and writers’ reviews. That's it. That's proper. So I encourage you to do that. Even if you've done it before. I'd love to know what you thought about this episode. I'd love to know what you thought about recent episodes, or if there's a conversation, there's a piece, I asked this to our leadership round table group just last week, and we are talking about being in the fog. If you've ever read much, Donald Miller, he talks about guiding people through the fog, is where's those next steps? I want to know, I'd love for you to send me an email, tyler@tylerdickerhoof.com. Send a message via wherever you can, social media, whatever. I'd love to know what is the leadership fog that you're facing today. I'd love to find guests that can help us navigate through that. So, again, thanks for being here today. Thanks for taking part. I will say this right before we get into the episode. When I recorded this, I was at a cold. Okay, I'll just put it bluntly out, of cold. Dana was getting over a cold. So there's going to be some times where it's muted because I was sneezing or I was blowing my nose, and that is life. So I'm just warning you beforehand. Again, thanks for being here, and I'm going to see at the end and recap this episode. [TYLER] All right, Dana, thank you so much for joining me. For those of you that are listening, I maybe mentioned this in the intro but I am playing it less than a hundred percent, and I am appreciative. Before you hear Dana, I just want to let you know if there's a little bit of mute, if there's a little bit of cough, she said that she had a little bit of something too. She is going to sound way better than I am. But Dana, thank you so much for being here joining me. [DANA GENTRY] Oh my gosh, I don't know about that, but thank you for having me. I was super excited about this and yes, I don't know what's going around this like allergenic cold thing, but we're going to just power through it. [TYLER] That's right. Just game players play and we are going to play and I'm excited to chat with you. So we got to know each other a couple years ago, as I shared leading up to this in the intro and when I was looking through, it's like, whose different unique voice can I hear? It was yours and I wanted to really just have a leadership conversation with you. I would love for you to share first off, what is your leadership style or philosophy? [DANA] Yep, love it.. when you ask me that, it actually, in the pre-questions it was like the quickest thing to come to me. I have a little bit of a backstory of it, but to answer first it's three things. It's give value, be you and work hard. We have it on every t-shirt and on neon signs when you walk into our real estate offices and they're on laptop stickers and they're on coffee mugs, and it's everywhere. I reset that about a year ago. Funny story, I was working with one of my offices in Columbus, Ohio, and I had an agent who she's a great person and she has great ideas, and she was just questioning if she should be with us or not. She said something to me that I never forgot. Honestly, I spent like the whole quarter of last year working on it. She said, "I just feel like I don't know what we stand for." As soon as she said that, I mean my first reaction was I wanted to be mad. Then I'm like, no, I'm going to point thumbs not fingers, which is what great leaders do. I'm like, Okay, let me just think about this for a few days before I react. And Tyler, I thought, man, okay, from her perspective, we've got close to 700 agents, realtors in in my organization, and like we're going to talk about today, it changes so quickly. Things change constantly all the time. There's crazy competition and I thought I'm the leader and I need to have a really good, not only vision, but philosophy, and people need to understand why they're with us, and they need to know what we stand for. So I did so much reflection and have done, have millions of coaching sessions and seminars and paid thousands of dollars to do all this stuff. I thought, wait a minute, this is, I'm over complicating this. I just need to make it simple and so I really felt like my whole life, if I give value, if I'm authentic to my true self, and I be you, be me and I work hard, not only hardworking in just the work life, but also work hard on yourself, like personal growth and being willing to work on yourself, give value, be you, work hard, to me, it just sums it up and that's how I lead. I think there's a lot that you could talk about with all those three things, but for me, that's it. [TYLER] Okay, so let's take a jump back and say that the Dana that before you had 700 agents, before you had offices in, what, four different states now? [DANA] Yes, 12 locations [TYLER] 12 locations, four states, before all of that and Dana's just getting started into real estate, what was your leadership context at that point? [DANA] I don't even know if I had one. I had never led anybody. I don't even know that I did a good job leading myself really, to be honest. I mean, I've always been a hard worker and that's been it for me. Like, I just know that if I work hard and I build great relationships, I've always succeeded because of that. So I know one of the things we're going to talk about are the leadership elements that were key to me. So I'll go deeper there, but for me, I think if I had one, I would say it was just being in great relationship and working hard. Still the same things, because to me the give value is constantly giving value to the people that are around you, which has a lot to do with building great relationships. [TYLER] So from that and understanding, it's like, okay, that starts to be effective. Then come back to the scene that you painted for us when an agent of yours, I'm like, I don't even know what this place is about. Then to boil it down and say, oh, well that's what's really near and dear to me. We have that concept and for people listening in, how important is it for your role now as a leader to say, actually the thing that I need to do every day is just go tell people what we're about? [DANA] It's very important. So I was thinking, you'll appreciate the story, so right when Covid, when the pandemic started to hit and we were going in shut down mode, I think it was like week two and I was a little bit, not panicked, but just like, man, okay, everybody's freaking out. People are thinking they're never going to make money again. They're scared to leave their house. They can't touch the grocery cart or the gas pump, or like, are we going to die or what's happening, our good friend, John Maxwell started to do Facebook Lives called Leading in a Crisis. It was interesting because I thought, oh my gosh, leave it to John. Okay, perfect. He's going to give us exactly what we need to do. He's going to tell us exactly what we need to do as a leader. He said, the best thing, and I keep telling this to people over and over and I'll never forget it, one of the first things he said was, I want you to get out a pen and a piece of paper, and I want you to write down these five words. So I'm like ready, I'm thinking it's going to be like some great leadership quote and he said, "Here's the five words. I was born for this." As soon as he said that, I was like, wait a minute. So I wrote them down and he said, "Here's the deal. If you are a leader today and you're a person of faith, or if you're not, either way it doesn't matter, but you just need to know that you were born for this and so you are in the spot that you're supposed to be in." Tyler, I took that to heart, and now it's so important for me to get up every day and tell our people what we stand for. I know I'm blessed to be able to lead them. They could choose any other leader that they wanted to, but for me, I want to let them know what we stand for and let them know what they're a part of and why it matters to them, not just why it matters to me, but why it matters to them and to our community more importantly. Because I feel like when you bear that responsibility of being a leader, you're in the spot that you were born to be in. So I think you have responsibility with that to go and do the best job to deliver what you need to deliver to your people. [TYLER] Man, I appreciate you saying that because I think there's an element of so many people that are in leadership positions. Whether you call it imposter syndrome, you're like, I don't know how to do this and understand you're there for a reason and appreciate and accept that. Now sometimes there's some of us, I'm not talking about you, but I'm talking about me, I had to sand off the edges in order that I could be a better leader. I think to put that together doesn't mean I wasn't born for it. Doesn't mean somebody else isn't born for it, but it's all those little points. It's all the little roughness that holds us back from being able to recognize I was born for this. So, go ahead. [DANA] Well, I was just going to say, you just reminded me of one of my favorite quotes of all time, and it's by Craig Rochelle, who I think is one of the best leadership gurus ever. He says people would rather, you'd probably know this if you listen to his podcast, people would rather follow a leader that's real than a leader that's right. I think I've lived by that since the first time I heard it. I think sometimes when you're soothing out the edges or what you just said to me, I think nobody's perfect. I've always, Gary Keller's always said, there's no good two good consecutive days as a leader because you have one great day, and you're like, man, like this was awesome. I crushed it today as a leader. Then the next day it's a craft day or something happens and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm the worst leader ever." But I think about that because I just think even on those days, or even in the hard times, people would rather follow a leader that's real than a leader that's right. I think if they can see even some of the things that you struggle with or some of the edges that you need to soften out and all those things, to me, I mean, I would rather follow a leader that's like that because I don't think anybody's going to get it perfect all the time, especially not in the space that we're in. [TYLER] So let's take from that, with that being helped, and you've had a pretty long experience in real estate, so you've seen some ups and downs and arounds and different markets. How have you navigated through that as you've grown as a leader in telling the truth part? [DANA] Well, so I recently met somebody that I have to connect you to, by the way. I knew when I was going to talk to you today that I was going to get to tell you about him, and maybe you already know him but Ed Mylet just had him on his podcast, and his name's Damon West. He's like probably one of my new favorite people. I talked to him yesterday for an hour and I'm like, ok, he is just, he's the best. He has a quote that he shares all the time, and I love it. I wrote it down so I could tell you exactly word for word. He said, "Intentional positive impact in another human life is the greatest way to show gratitude for the blessings in yours." I love that intentional positive impact and another human life is the greatest way to show gratitude for the blessings in yours. I really like that resonated with me because I looked at that and I thought, okay, when things do change, and we can talk about that in the real estate industry, but being just honest and truthful and being able to bring people value and help make an impact on them and know you love the word impact, and that was my word of the year this year. When I heard him say this, I'm like, man, it is true. Because I don't take for granted the blessings that I've had, and I don't deserve a lot of them, to be honest, but going out and making an intentional positive impact in a true, honest, and humble way with other people, I do think that that's the greatest way to show gratitude for the blessings that I've been given and I think just continuing to model that for other people is important. [TYLER] As I'm thinking about that, and I'm thinking about how that shows up in I'm thinking about being in your spot and again, understanding where real estate is, in my lifetime real estate has this huge boom in 07, 08, we have this massive crash, and now all of a sudden, we come out of it and now all of a sudden, where do we sit now, 2022? Some of our real estate prices, residential real estate prices are the highest they've ever been. I think about someone that you're working with. I think about the agents in your office, or agents in others' office with the context what you just shared I think about how different leaders can frame that. Meaning am I making an intentional positive impact to say, hey, whatever happens in great times, you can add just value in bad market times and vice versa. So I want to give you that rope to run with and just say, say what have you, or what are you doing, what have you done in the last two years where you have agents that probably never made as much money as they've ever made. And what is that, how are you setting the stage for them to have that intentional, positive impact going forward? [DANA] Love it. Great question. I think I have a bajillion answers to that. But to sum it up, okay, the greatest thing about real estate is that we know that it's always going to be around. It's always the safest and best investment. It's interest rates don't stop people from buying houses. They're going to buy them, whether they're two and a half percent, or whether they're 18%, they always have, statistics show that. I think today, I just finished right before this, I've been doing a monthly Zoom on the industry update, real estate industry update. Clients can hop on. It's mostly real tours that get on, not just for us, but for anybody who wants to, because I think they need perspective, because if they're looking at just what they're reading on Facebook or Inman or whatever news channel you watch or any of that stuff you can believe, it's easy to believe whatever that is. But really, perspective Dave Ramsey teaches us is really like, should be driven by data and experience and using the past as a predictor. So I try to really give them just data and make sure that they understand the perspective of things, because the reality is that there's always going to be the five Ds, let me see if I can remember them, of real estate diapers that people have kids, diplomas, people graduate, they get into adulthood. I dos, people get married, divorces, people get divorced and debt, people die. So no matter what's happening in the industry, people always buy and sell homes. They always are going to want it to be a belly-to-belly relationship. Now we have new competition coming in because everybody uses this for everything, their phone. So I think we do as real estate agents run the risk of clients just using an IBU program or letting Zillow come in and buy and sell their house and not use an agent and all those things. I think, I don't think that that will sustain. I think it's real and it can happen, but I think real estate is a relation to relationship. I mean, it's the largest asset of what that most people ever have in their life. So I think that they always want it to be a belly to belly relationship based business. So more than anything, I really just try to instill perspective because it's always a good time to buy or sell real estate. I was actually laughing, I was talking about this last night with somebody, because a lot of people think that in real estate, you have to, the only way to make money is to buy when the market's really low and sell when the market's really high. It's like this, like up and down rollercoaster. When the real experts and wealth builders and investors know that it's more like a straight, I mean, it's a straight line. You buy and sell anytime. As long as you're willing to hold and continue out, the prices don't go down. I mean, there are some right now that are going a little bit. We just learned about the great migration because people are moving out of California, New York, Illinois, some of those states for tax purposes, political beliefs, health but for the most part, the prices really haven't gone down. I mean, and we haven't had rates up. I mean, that's going in the weeds, but at the end of the day, it's giving our agents education perspective and teaching them how to build great relationships. Because if they just do those things, they're going to be fine, I mean, whether we're in the best or in the worst [TYLER] So as I take from that, and again, as I try to attribute that mentality to other industries that see ups and downs, you can get focused on the short term, the volatility, but then lose sight of the long term sustainability. I've experienced that in agriculture, I've seen that in network marketing, I've seen that myself in real estate. You have to like, get perspective and just say, hey, if it makes sense when it's bad, it's going to make sense when it's great and vice versa. So from a leadership perspective, you talk about doing that for potential clients, you talk about doing that for agents. Where do you see the opportunity as we move forward and a lot of times where we have people that are unsure of the career of a real estate agent or of buying and selling to say, hey, I'm here to be your guide. I'm here to support you. Whether that's your individual position as an agency owner or if you're representing clients? [DANA] I think people just want, they want to work with somebody that they like, know and trust. I mean, that's just in general, they want to be with a leader that they like no and trust. They want to work with a realtor for that they like, know and trust. They join network marketing because they like, know and trust you. I think it all boils down to like, know, and trust. I do think though, and I think this is true for a lot of industries right now, I think especially in real estate, people have to be willing to innovate and they have to be willing to change. Especially going into the next six to 12 to 18 to 24 months, they really have to, there's so many factors in that. There are factors that are affecting people in all industries, not just real estate, but technology is a huge one. I mean, people that aren't willing to adapt to technology. I just had a Zoom about this today, if you weren't willing to get on video, I mean, you might as well just get out. I mean there's so many changes now. I actually thought of a story to tell you. I opened two years ago, we were going to open a Keller Williams, one of my offices in Ashland, Kentucky. It's an eastern Kentucky, it's a coal town, very small, but a lot of money there. We went to look at space. I drove there for the day, it's about two hours from Lexington, drove there for the day to look at space. They had like six or seven, some of the agents that we were getting in business with, they had six or seven lined up for us and the first one that we pulled up to, I almost laughed at the beginning. It was this old brick building in a great location, right on the main strip in Ashland and it was a blockbuster building, and it still had the blockbuster sign up outside. We walked through and I mean, there's cobwebs everywhere and bugs everywhere. It had sat there. It was way overpriced so it sat there for too long. But they still had like, the coming soon, I'll never forget, it was like Big Mama's house was the poster on the wall. They still had like, some movies on the wall and like a candy stand. I had like three, honestly, two or three really strong feelings when we walked in. The first one was like nostalgic. I'm like, oh my gosh, remember when we used to like, go rent a movie and we would pick out our candy and it was like a family thing or a date thing and it was just like that cool feeling. Then my next thought was, but man, like how much do I love Netflix? Do I love that Netflix tells me what I want to watch before I even know what I want to watch, I mean, which really is true? I just kept thinking about that and if anybody, I'm sure many of your listeners have listened to the Business Words podcast of Blockbuster versus Netflix, but it's interesting to me to think about, I think a lot of times people, they're not willing to change or they're not willing to pivot because they're so stuck in their ways. A lot of leaders, Tyler, are like that. I mean, a lot of leaders can get in that. I don't know if it's that they're scared to change or they don't know what to do or what it is. But I think that it, so that right, that day really changed me because I thought, man, I don't want to be the, bless you, I know, I'm --- [TYLER] I muted, but that's right. Dana, you saw it on video, I just had the like, massive sneeze again. I'm playing. I'm like you yesterday. [DANA] Yes, that was me yesterday. I think tomorrow's going to be better for you. [TYLER] All right, let's do it. [DANA] Tomorrow's going to be better. So the blockbuster thing that day, I thought, man, like I'm not going to be that leader. It's not going to happen. I mean, I have a responsibility. I was born for this so I'm going to help our people as a leader in our industry understand that we have to be willing to change, and we have to be open to do those things because I don't want us to be the next blockbuster. I actually was listening to a podcast by another person that we met through the John Maxwell Network, Daniel Floyd, Pastor Daniel Floyd, and I think he's awesome. He just did a podcast and he talked a little bit, he was talking about languishing the Adam Grant article, which I think so many people are in right now. It's crazy. As a leader, I see so many people languishing. That's like a whole nother podcast episode we could talk about. Daniel talked on his podcast about change and that the reason that people have such a hard time with it is because there is a sense of loss. So it was like, just how when I walked into Blockbuster, I did have like, that sense of loss, like, man, this was cool. This was like the old times. But then at some point, you have to be willing to give up that feeling of loss for something better. I think, told this great story of he and his wife Tammy, built this new house and they put a ton of money into it, and they made it perfect. They just were so excited about it. It was finally ready. Their kids, it was their first night, and their kids were like, "We miss our old house." They were like, "What? What's wrong with you? This house is amazing. We've got land. We've got a pool. We worked so hard for this." But it was that change that will be better but the immediate loss is hard. I just, I think in our industry, especially that's happening right now. I think leaders just have to be aware of that and I think it can be a struggle. [TYLER] The thought that strikes me there is the opportunity to, John Maxwell has taught us this. You and I have both been in the room when he said, it's like, go to something. Don't just lead to leave. It's, go to something. I think as a leader there's so many people that have been challenged in leadership roles today. We see all these organizations that are in flux. We talk about where the economy is. That's another change that people are uneasy with. One of the things that I really grasp ahold of is when we could go to something and when we can embrace that growth, man, we're going to appreciate it. I hear from you, and again, circling back and reconnecting to the story you shared with it's reminding people, as a leader, reminding them, "Why are we here?" Sometimes you have to do the hard work, like you said, I have to go qualify that and identify it because oh, I can get in the weeds so much. I think as leaders in our world today, and again, everyone is dealing with higher price, food, living, all of those costs than ever, that brings this anxiousness and tension to them where it's like, oh, well maybe I have to go increase the value that I bring to the world so I can compensate for that and that change is hard. So as I give you that thought, what thoughts come to you to say as we move forward and we know that transactions always ebb and flow in real estate, how are you helping your agents say, hey, I want you to bring more value at a time when you know there's more competition than ever? What are some of the things that you're going through? [DANA] Okay, so a couple things, one of the first thing that comes to my mind is a video that I think Jim, it's Jack Welch, it's a Jack Welch video on how to be a leader, three things leaders should do. I can't remember, it's like a very famous Jack Welch YouTube video. It's just a couple minutes. He says on there that all leaders must do three things. They have to tell people where they're going, why they're going there, and what's in it for them. So I really try to live by that. I think that we have, I have to constantly be helping people understand the agents in our offices and even our clients because we still have a team that sells, but where are we going? Why are we going there? What's in it for them? Then I think once they understand that they can, the change can be easier for them but I do think it comes back to a couple of key elements in a leadership style. I have three that I would love to share, if that's okay with you that really, these are just always been the ones that I've lived by. I think the first one is be intentional. That's period. I've never learned that better from anybody than from John Maxwell. But they have to be intentional. I think that once they know their why, Tyler, and they know why they're doing it, they know what their goals are, they know why they're going to continue to do, even if it's not real estate, whatever it is that they're doing, they have to be intentional, after they know the why, they have to be intentional. One of my favorite quotes is bloom where you're planted. I think they have to be intentional with what they're doing every day whether they're someone that's working at a front desk, or you are leading a small team, or you're leading an organization of thousands of people. You have to bloom where you're planted and or be so good that other people can't ignore you. I believe personally that you, because I'm a person of faith, and I know you are as well, but you have to be intentional with, for me, three things, your time, your talent, and your treasures. I read a book, Chase the Lion by Mark, and it's changed my life, honestly, one of the best. I buy it for everybody that I ever come in contact with. Have you had him on your podcast? [TYLER] No. [DANA] I haven't either. [DANA] We need to make that, he's been one we've had on our list. We'll have to make that happen. But I believe that when you are intentional with your time, your talent, and your treasures, and I tell our agents this all the time, then everything else can fall into place. But first and foremost, they have to be intentional and even more so when you're going through a change. Your industry's changing, our world's changing or all those things, you have to be intentional with where you spend your time. Know your strengths, and you have to be intentional with that for sure and then your treasures. The second thing I would say to them, and I say this all the time, our relationships matter. We touched on this earlier. I've been blessed and you have too, to be in a room with a lot of, sorry, my dog is going to scratch the door, been blessed to be in a room with a lot of amazing people. I believe no matter what business you're in, especially in the real estate industry, who you're around, I mean, it matters big time. The relationships that you build matter. This is a funny story, but when I was in school, I worked at a tanning salon and I can't tell you Tyler, to this day, hundreds is really the answer, how many homes I've sold to people who came into that tanning salon. Because I built great relationships with them when I was 17, 18 years old. Then as soon as I got my license and started selling, I would send them postcards or call them and just let them know if they knew anybody looking to buy or sell. I mean, hundreds. That was 18 years ago and maybe 19 years ago, longer than that, actually, and still 20. Oh my gosh, I'm adding up these. Still to this day, I mean, we do business with people that I met there, because to me it's about, I mean, I build relationships with people. I think that that's just one of the best things that you can do. That's advice I would give to anybody that's in any business, but especially real estate agents, because that's their bread and butter. I mean that's it, building relationships with people. Then the third thing, and this is probably one of my most passionate, but I've been telling them this too, and really any leader is you have to just run your race. I think, again, we could talk so much about this, but I truly believe that the fastest way to kill or destroy something special is to compare it to something else. I think everybody, I think, it's human nature to compare. I think social media heightens it like times a hundred now. I really believe, I heard this a long time ago, and I don't remember, it might have been Andy Stanley, I can't remember who said this, but they said comparison makes you feel two ways, either superior or inferior and neither one honors God. When I heard that, I was like, man, that's true. Why even compare? I mean, run your own race because I don't want to feel either one of those ways. One of my favorite Bible verses is Hebrews, oh gosh, wait, I wrote it down, 12:1-2. which is all about looking forward: "The quickest way to lose a race is to look over your shoulder behind you." Always look forward. And Tyler, every time I hear that, and I think about this, and I even have this in one of my classes that I teach when I speak, is that picture of Michael Phelps when he's competing to run. You know what I'm talking about? [TYLER] That's what image is going through in my mind. Yes, I'm with you. [DANA] See, yes. It's like he, and it's Chad, what's the face, the guy that he's racing against, and it's when he's racing to win the 10th gold medal, which would make him the winningest Olympian of all time and Phelps is like straight ahead and Chad is looking right over at Phelps and loses by one stroke. I'm like, what better image to just constantly have in your head of run your own race. I mean, business money is going to, I always say like, if you do good to the world, you can't chase the money. I mean, the money's going to come to you. It just is but I really feel like, especially real estate agents are so bad about this, oh my gosh, they pull everybody's cells and see what number ranking they are and they're like, oh, I dropped this month. Or oh, I'm beating so and so, or constantly looking what everybody else is doing. I'm just, and I used to be that way. I mean, I did. I really believe that it's not healthy. I don't know another way to say it, but I just, I think you have to run your own race because really, I can't run someone else's race and they can't run mine. I mean, I can't run yours and you can't run mine and I can't run whoever's, and you can't run whoever's but we can run ours. I'm just, I'm passionate about that and I think as a leader, more leaders need to share that message with their people because comparison is real. [TYLER] Yes. I want to throw something in there, every Monday through Friday, typically in our business group, I do a Facebook Live. I've done this for a couple years now, which is been tremendous training for platforms such as this or speaking. I come up with a thought of the day that comes from my daily reading, and I share that on social media. I share that in videos. The one that I had about a week or so ago came from that reading time. I don't know exactly which one of the books formulated, but I came up with this is, you'll always win the race that you're running for you. You'll never finish second in your own race. If you run your own race, we finish second when we're trying to run someone else's race. That image of Michael Phelps, what's interesting is I help coach my son's soccer team. As we've been doing running and conditioning, there's times where it's competitiveness. I've seen a couple kids and they stop and they turn to look at other players. So that image of Michael Phelps the last week or two has been seared in my brain. My encouragement to them is just run theirs. Last night, a young boy was running, and I say young, he's 14, 15, and he's looking behind him to see if the guy behind him is going to catch him. I'm like, "Stop. Just run your own." He ended up beating the kids by another five yards because he had more in the tank and he didn't realize it. I think what's interesting is, I relate this back to our conversation, how so much of where we get disenfranchised in our career or what we're doing is when we stop focusing on the first two, and we allow our race to become someone else's. So maybe we focus on being intentional and we develop relationships, but we're so fixated on, oh, I got to be better than someone else, that I forget to just focus on those other two and if I focus on those two, whatever race I'm running, excuse me, it may have ups and downs. [DANA] I love when this happens because I wasn't going to share this with you, but now that I have this quote that's laminated, that I actually have it stuck up on my desk, and I love it, I've had it forever, it just reminds me of what we're talking about. It's my best to Kelly and I have no clue who, I don't know who that is, do you? [TYLER] No clue. Never a clue. [DANA] However, I read it in a book, and this is what it says, "snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things but just look at what they can do when they stick together." Think of what believers could do if we partnered together instead of being jealous, territorial, or easily threatened. What if we became dangerously generous with our resources, ideas, and organizations? People ask me all the time, like, why do you do all these free Zooms? Why do you share all this stuff? Why do you give information away and let people that aren't with Keller Williams to be on there? This is why, I mean, I just don't think like that. I mean I just, I think exactly what you just said too. I think if we can just come together and I'm not worried about what, I know what I'm doing, whether anybody else is doing it or not. I just, I think sometimes we think to scarcity mindset like that as leaders, we can, I've been guilty of that before too. I don't want anybody that's listening to this to think that I'm not like that because I have been. But I think that's a dangerous mindset to get into. I think it turns very me-centered instead of others-centered. I just think the more that you can, like, I love when she says that, be dangerously generous with your resources, ideas in your organization. Because I don't know anybody that gets up and shares all their stuff that isn't successful. I mean, if you, I mean, really if you think about it. [TYLER] Yes, yes. As I'm sitting here and I'm, I'm thinking about Gary V, Gary V has been very much like that and I think he is pertinent in our society for a couple ways. This comes back to a thought that I had, again real estate as within network marketing, as in with a lot of other businesses, you see a lot of people that want to tout whatever they've gained, their big house, their cars, their fancy this or that. I'm like, I'm not shaming people. If that's who they are, then fine. But if you're using that to say, that's what's going to justify my value of what I have to bring to others, man, you're worth so much more. Show people with what comes out of your heart and your mind, rather than what possessions you have. I think as I try to relate that to yourself and you're leading others, you are a prime example of this. You're not a showy person. You are who you are. Yes, you like things, but it's more of getting back to what you said earlier, am I adding value to people? Am I being you and are you just working hard? If you focus on that, man, the rest of that stuff that you have or don't have isn't going to matter because it doesn't matter. [DANA] I totally agree with that. I really believe, I think it was Joe Polish who said this that I listened, I've heard this years ago, he said, "Life gives to the giver and takes from the taker." I believe that, I mean, I believe that just as a human, but especially as a leader, I really believe that life gives to the giver and takes from the taker. I think people, when you're looking at leadership in particular and in anything again, I just, I think you have to a giver. I think life gives back to you. [TYLER] I don't want to take anything away from that. From that, I want to add in, as a leader in real estate, as a leader within Keller Williams, as one of the top leaders, as someone who has a lot of inlet, you have 700 different agents, different offices, all those different things, what's your main directive and why? [DANA] Good question. I just want to add value to people. Honestly, I mean, all I've ever known is real estate. I've done it for 18 years. I mean, I was a sophomore in the University of Kentucky. I never finished college. I don't have a college degree. I got my real estate license the summer between sophomore and junior year and I started selling houses. I was successful and I never went back. To be totally transparent, I've struggled before with feeling like even just being in the real estate industry maybe wasn't as, a lot of people see it as like used car salesman and then, or just another salesperson or whatever and so, to me, I've always had to, I'm not that type of person so I've always had to make it something different than that and I think that's why I got into leadership. I mean, still selling was what led me there, but I just want to help people think bigger and bring them value because I didn't come from a family that we had a ton of money or that I was challenged to think this big life and think abundantly. Not that my parents weren't great, they are. I'm not saying anything negative about my parents. But I just, I didn't even like school. You know what I mean? I just never, I don't know, I think as you, as I've moved into adulthood and doing all this, I just want to bring value to people and I want them to see that there are bigger things. Actually, I had something I was going to ask if you would allow me to read it. This goes right with it because this is my definition of success. I stole it from Dan Sullivan, who is a top entrepreneur, leadership coach. He wrote the book Who Not How, which is one of my favorite books. He says this is the 10 ways that you're successful When, and I just think they're so good. So this ties in with your question, I promise, because I just want to help people think like this and know that it's possible. Number one is I can wake up every day and ask, what would I like to do today? Number two is my passive revenue exceeds my lifestyle needs. Number three, I can live anywhere in the world that I want, which that was a huge one for me over the last couple years because my businesses are all in Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio and my family are in South Carolina. So I was really struggling with that. Number four, I'm working on projects that excite me and they allow me to do my best work. Number five, I can disappear for several months with no effect on my income. Number six, this is my favorite, there are no whiny people in my life. Number seven, I wear my watch for curiosity only. Number eight, I have no time obligations or deadlines. Number nine, I wear whatever I want all the time. Number 10, I can credit any time. Nobody, Tyler ever told me any of those things. I think that we're raised to think that we go to school, we educate, and then we go to work, and then, then we retire. I think after listening to a lot of great mentors and having really great coaches, like I want to live, work, play all the time, that it doesn't have to be in those stages. I just, for me, I want to help people understand that, whether it's the agents, whether it's clients, whether it's people that do, who knows what, that aren't even in real estate. But they stumble upon our podcast or they, I don't know, find you on social media, whatever it is. I just think a lot of people, when you don't know what you don't know, you aren't exposed to some of those things. I've just been very blessed to have been exposed so I want to pay it forward and help as many people as I can. That's a long answer to a really short question. [TYLER] Well, but I think it gives definition and it encapsulates to me the epitome of a leader who's saying today, it's like, whatever challenges come before us, that's fine. You're not going to just jump when I say jump. We're in this together. How can I impart something on your life because whatever you're doing to contribute to, whatever organization we're in, you're imparting something on mine. I think having that relationship and that ownership, I believe is what more people, when I talk to people, when I talk to leaders and organizations that are fired up and say, we don't have a people, we don't have a hiring problem, we have the people that are great. Why? Because they're creating an environment where they have that vision. They're saying, this is what we're about. They're being true, and who they are. They don't have those issues. But what I find is the leaders that are unsure, they lack their own belief, they're a little bit cautious. Maybe they've checked out because they're off doing their other things and they're allowing their organization to just flounder. It's saying, well, it's run its course. I'll just reap off of this and go do the next thing. To me, those are organizations that end up having this amazing internal upheaval. That's languishing this idea of what does it look like to change that? [DANA] You're spot on. [TYLER] I think what you have said that you've committed to, and I wonder now when this point was to say, no, I want to do it different. [DANA] Well, I'll tell you when it was, and you'll remember. We were sitting on a bus and I was talking, me and you and Simon were talking, and if you remember, I was getting hit with some major competition. I mean, major competition coming in, taking our people, writing people checks for a lot of money, a lot. I've been there, and that was a year ago, I guess, or almost a year ago and I really had to do some self-discovery like, am I going to pull up my boots and really get into this or do I have the energy to because I have several businesses and I'm like, okay, do I need to just not focus on that? Sometimes I think like everybody's going to hit that. I think there's parts in your business, times in your business, there's different seasons and I think sometimes when we get in the, oh, what is it? There's like four different seasons. But one of them is like, when it gets good and you think, man, we're good and this is going to last forever. It doesn't last forever. You have to know what's working good to continue to work good and we were good, but we didn't know why. So I think that at that moment it did for me, it took some competition coming in and I was like, what in the world? Then I felt comforted to hear that Simon had been there and you had been there and other people had been there. I think if there are leaders that are listening that are there, maybe even right now reach out to other people and talk to them and see what other people have done. I like to, I don't come up with all these ideas. I'm going to tell you right now, half the stuff we do in our offices, I still come from Steven Chandler at Union Church, because I'm like, the media that they produce is insane. We model a lot of our stuff from megachurches because it's similar and it's not in the same industry, but I've been there and it's not a good feeling, but you have to commit to know that you are the type of leader that's going to push through it. I mean you learn so much from it. I've learned so much from that time and being in with the long haul, like even some people that left, like they've already come back and it's been a year because they, well, I don't know, I think some people are very shiny objects --- [TYLER] Yes, sure. [DANA] Yes, they're like, I'm on it. But I also take a lot of like pointing the thumbs again. I didn't have a clear set vision. I don't think that they could have known that we were there to make an impact in the community and in the lives of our agents and that was our most important thing. We put together impact projects since then in community groups and so many things that I think I took for granted because we were good, we were number one, everything, you know what I mean? So it was just like we were rolling smooth, but that just doesn't last forever. There's always going to be a time where something's going to happen and you just have to recommit to it and then do the work. I mean, we've done the work and it's been hard, but we've done it. [TYLER] There's a part of me that it's like, oh, I'll just ask you this off camera. We'll chat about this text about it. Kelly and I were talking about this last night, but then there's also like, no, there's probably going to be a ton of value out of this. Kelly and I have this discussion teed up, Kelly, my wife, and talking about at what point, let me take this back, I will frame it in as a question to you instead of laying the groundwork. How have you, 12 different offices, how have you empowered the leaders within those offices to embrace what you're about and not be about Dana, understanding if you're not showing up as a leader, then all of a sudden your vision and that collective vision can get lost. So what are you doing to balance that? [DANA] Great question. I've had a lot of coaching around that because it's interesting, and I say this not with any ego or whatsoever, and I let people that know my heart know that that's not how I am at all. But when I come into town and visit the offices, everybody's at me, everybody shows up and everybody's there. When I teach a class, like everybody is there. So for a while we struggled with when I wasn't there, how was the energy? So I love your question because I've worked on this for probably, gosh, four years, very hard now. It's all about the people. I remember the first time that I stopped showing buyers houses. I just went to focusing on selling listings only and I thought, there's no way these buyers only want to work with me. They only want me to show them these houses. They're going to be upset if I team off of somebody else. The reality is that when you find the right person who's better than me, honestly, like now I have Sarah on, well, I mean, I've had several with Sarah, just for example, today, I mean, she's faster at responding. She's quicker. She's out there every single day where I'm not. She delivers the same level of service and energy that I do, but even better and so they're okay with it. They could, they invite her to their kids' birthday parties instead of me now and I think that's awesome. But I think when you're talking about all these different locations, it just comes back to the people. I asked John Maxwell that, when we were at Exchange probably two years ago, I was struggling with finding people. Well, I can definitely be a workaholic for sure. [DANA] Oh, really? [DANA] Not a surprise to those who know me. I mean, I like to work. I mean, I genuinely like to work. I like to be busy, I like to innovate, I'm a visionary. I love all that stuff. So I have to be careful with that sometimes because I could do it all the time. But I asked, I was talking to John and I said, I feel like I'm just, well, I had had a conversation with Gary Keller, long story short, and I'll circle back, but I'd had a conversation with Linda McKissick, one of my mentors and Gary Keller, and Linda said, "I feel like as a leader and as a driver, I walk around like pissed off all the time and I just felt like I'm never happier. I can't, I'm just, I'm annoyed constantly." And Gary looked right at her and I was right there, Gary looked right at her and he said, "Linda, it's because you're an achiever." He said, "Your capacity is so high that your minimum capacity is the normal per average person's maximum capacity. You have people in your life that they don't have the same capacity as you have." I was like, oh my gosh, that's me. Everybody, but not everybody, but a lot of the people I had surrounded myself with, not that they were bad people, I just have a really high capacity. So people that are going to work with me or be in my world, they had to have a high capacity too, or were going to have an issue. I was having people that they were maxed out at what I felt like was my low capacity. So in order to be able to, we're not perfect in all the offices either, I'm looking for talent all the time, but for me it's finding those people, Tyler and just having them be bought into the vision they're bought in, they understand why we're doing this. They have a servant's heart, they're humble, hungry and smart. Those are the main three things I look for in people, if they aren't humble. By hungry meaning hardworking and smart, I don't mean like, what was your IQ? I mean your EQ, if you can be people smart, forget it. But it's finding those people and then having them bought in so that other people carry out the Dana Energy when I'm not there and they're bought in. I think that that is really the only way to do it. I mean, it's just finding those talented people that have high capacity. [TYLER] I think it's really two-edged because it's like you have to have enough. But then I think one of the things that Kelly and have experienced and realized is at what point do you still need to be a visible, visionary leading that vision and not step back too far to where then people get lost? I think that's a balance as a leader and to find that spot and I think that's what has challenged a lot of different workplaces the last couple of years, is the only way to have that proximity is to be in an office with someone. But that can be done as so many people have proved in a remote office sense but you have to be intentional and that comes back to one of the first things that you said is being intentional about it. [DANA] I hate to say this and this sound insensitive because I know the pandemic was so horrible for so many people, for me it was such a blessing, honestly, because I got to learn a new way of doing things and I got to, I had never, I mean, I had Zoomed a few times, but I mean 50% if not more of my day is Zoom now. It allowed me to physically be in another state and still be in communication. Now I think that you have, person-to-person, there's nothing like it. I want to say one thing though, to go back to your question of you and Kelly talking about that, I think it depends on too, like the seasonality of where your business is because there are times during the pandemic, I needed to be more engaged with our people. They needed to hear from me, they needed to see me. I wrote so many handwritten notes. I can't even, like, hundreds, I mean hundreds of them. I wrote 10 every day because I just wanted them to know I cared about them in little ways. I think sometimes there are some seasons when you can pull back. For me right now in my life, I found that I need to be face to face once a month and then the rest typically, like the other leaders can handle it or I can be virtual and on Zoom. I think it's going to change. I think that's because we've been in such a crazy market. I mean it's just been nuts but I think it, I think you have to know your business and your people well enough to know when you need to be more present versus when you cannot be but still be available to them too. [TYLER] Dana, thanks so much for coming and joining today. I'm glad I sounded as bad as I did because you sounded absolutely amazing without anything to do with how I sound. So I appreciate you being here playing at a hundred percent, being such a wonderful guest and sharing so much wisdom. I have probably, and this isn't to take anything away from the guests that I've had before, but probably more notes than I've ever had, so I appreciate that. I hope listeners too. Thank you so much. [DANA] Oh my gosh, thanks for having me. I just love everything you guys do and I love your podcast and all the people that you've interviewed and actually really quick, I mean, you have made huge impact on me, Tyler, and I just want to recognize you for that. When you had Paula Ferris on from Called Out. I mean I quit a job that week from listening to that, another job that I had. I just, I think you are making, I know, not think, I know you are making a huge impact and I love watching what you're doing and thanks for letting me be a part of it. [TYLER] Oh, thanks so much Dana. I appreciate you being here. [DANA] Absolutely. [TYLER] Hopefully you are like me and you're able to take notes during the conversation I had with Dana. She dropped a lot of pearls of wisdom, many pearls of wisdom. I have pages of notes and one of the things as I'm reflecting back as I'm sharing with you here is the three pieces that she left with. That's be intentional, bloom wherever you're planted, is what I wrote down beside it. Relationships matter. I'm excited to have a future guest where we're going to dig deep into talk about relationships, unpack this even more because I think in leadership it is an absolute necessity to focus and develop relationships. It's one of the areas that I believe an impact driven leader focuses on, relational, emotional, spiritual, and physical. Those are the four areas of health. Relations is, one of them. Then lastly, run your race. I love that one. I shared this recently. I talked about it in the episode with Dana about you will never finish second, when you run your own race. You'll only finish second if you're running someone else's race. I hope you keep that in mind. Again, thanks for being here. Here's what you could do for me, for Dana, for anyone else. If you got value out of today's episode, share it with someone. Just put a little note, send it via text, send it via email, whatever it may be and just share this with them. Say, hey, I really learned this. Man, this really helped me reflect, this reminded me of that instance where I learned. When we learn, when we share, we grow. That's my hope that you're a part of this community to grow. As I know, growth is a facet of being an impact driven leader. I thank you for being a part of the community and helping me grow because that's the accountability and the community comes from. Thanks again for being here and until next time, have a good one.