Success Secrets From A $3B CEO - Sharran Srivatsaa | Ep 213

Summary

Podcast Summary: Build with Leila Hormozi – Episode 213: Success Secrets From A $3B CEO - Sharran Srivatsaa

Introduction and Background

In Episode 213 of Build with Leila Hormozi, host Leila Hormozi sits down with her longtime friend and esteemed entrepreneur, Sharran Srivatsaa. Sharran is a four-time Inc. 500 entrepreneur with five successful exits over the past 19 years. Notably, he scaled Telus Properties by 10x in five years, achieving $3.4 billion in sales before selling to Douglas Elliman. Currently, Sharran serves as the President of Real, the fastest-growing real estate brokerage, which is adding over 1,000 new agents monthly in 2024 under his leadership.

Hustle vs. Progress

The conversation kicks off with a deep dive into the prevalent entrepreneurial myth that constant hustle and grind are the sole pathways to success. While Sharran acknowledges the importance of hard work, he emphasizes that without perceivable progress, relentless grinding can lead to burnout and resentment.

Sharran [01:13]: "Hustle and grind works. You know, at some point there's the whole answer to success is you should know what you want. You should have a plan and you should do the work."

Sharran argues that the key difference lies in engineering small wins that provide motivation and a sense of progress, making the hustle feel purposeful rather than exhausting.

Sequencing and Working Smart

A critical aspect discussed is the concept of sequencing—doing tasks in the right order to maximize effectiveness. Sharran points out that many entrepreneurs work incredibly hard but on the wrong tasks because they’ve missed the proper sequence.

Sharran [03:25]: "Most of the time, when people are struggling and not getting the result is you just don't have a sequencing problem."

He illustrates this with the example of running Facebook ads without having a lead magnet in place, leading to ineffective marketing efforts despite hard work.

Building and Iterating: The Shitty First Draft

Sharran introduces the philosophy of creating “shitty first drafts” to overcome the paralysis of perfectionism. By rapidly developing initial versions of projects, entrepreneurs can iterate and improve based on real feedback rather than waiting indefinitely for perfection.

Sharran [05:23]: "If you have an idea, let's get version one as fast as possible. We call it the shitty first draft."

This approach contrasts with the tendency to wait months to create perfect products or plans, advocating instead for swift action and continuous improvement.

The 'Do Better' Question

To foster consistent improvement, Sharran practices what he calls the “Do Better Question” (DBQ):

Sharran [07:00]: "Every night, I call this the dbq, which is the do better question. And I ask myself this question every single night. And that is, what can I do better tomorrow?"

This daily introspection encourages tangible, incremental advancements tailored to individual contexts, making growth more achievable and less abstract.

Managing Stress: Time Blocking and Scheduling

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around effective time management and stress reduction. Sharran shares his strategy of “Creating Tomorrow, Today,” inspired by his father’s disciplined approach to planning daily tasks. By outlining the next day’s objectives each night, Sharran ensures clarity and direction, minimizing morning stress.

Sharran [09:38]: "Tomorrow has to be designed today. Otherwise, I wake up tomorrow and I can't manage the stress because too many things are coming your way."

He further elaborates on time blocking—allocating specific time slots for tasks based on their required effort—to enhance productivity and ensure critical activities receive adequate attention.

Productivity Tools: Sprints and Review Preview

Sharran employs a sprint-based system, similar to software development, where his life is divided into two-week sprints focused on distinct projects. This method allows for structured progress and flexibility in accommodating unexpected tasks without overwhelming his schedule.

Additionally, the “Review Preview” technique ensures that past tasks are acknowledged and future plans are laid out systematically, fostering accountability and preparation.

Teaching and Frameworks

Emphasizing the importance of structured learning, Sharran discusses his “Learning Dogma,” which outlines how people absorb knowledge:

Sharran [25:00]: "When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. But when you document something, you get to learn it forever."

He advocates for organizing information into simple, memorable frameworks—typically limiting to three key points—to enhance retention and application. This method contrasts with the often vague and generic advice prevalent in online entrepreneurial content.

Defining Success: Multidimensional Perspectives

Sharran challenges the conventional, one-dimensional view of success centered solely on financial gains. He introduces a multidimensional framework encompassing five key areas: Money, Relationships, Energy, Skill, and Brand. Each dimension interacts with the others, allowing entrepreneurs to leverage one to advance another, thereby creating a balanced and sustainable path to success.

Sharran [51:21]: "Success is just a trade for what you truly want with what you have."

This holistic approach encourages focusing on building specific assets like skill or brand, which can then be traded or leveraged to achieve financial and relational success.

Mentorship and Support Systems

The discussion highlights the pivotal role of mentorship and strong support systems in entrepreneurial growth. Sharran shares his proactive approach to mentorship, transitioning from generic to “sniper mentors” who specialize in specific areas crucial to his development.

Sharran [72:30]: "I just want to make sure that everyone knows what's going on. My team, I just say, hey, I'm really stressed out."

He underscores the importance of transparent communication with mentors and partners, fostering environments where asking for help is normalized and supported.

Rapid Fire Segment

In a lively rapid-fire segment towards the end, Sharran shares succinct preferences that encapsulate his work philosophy:

• Culture or Strategy? Culture
• Emails or Meetings? Emails
• Fame or Fortune? Fame

These choices reflect his prioritization of organizational culture, efficient communication, and the leveraging of brand fame over mere financial success.

Conclusion and Final Insights

Throughout the episode, Sharran Srivatsaa imparts invaluable lessons on balancing hard work with strategic action, the importance of sequencing tasks correctly, and maintaining a multifaceted view of success. His emphasis on structured productivity tools, effective mentoring, and a supportive personal environment offers a comprehensive blueprint for entrepreneurs aiming to scale their businesses sustainably and thoughtfully.

Listeners are encouraged to implement these strategies—such as the Do Better Question, time blocking, and creating small wins—to build resilient and thriving businesses. Sharran’s insights not only highlight the mechanics of scaling up but also the personal growth necessary to navigate the entrepreneurial journey successfully.

Notable Quotes:

• Sharran [03:25]: "Most of the time when people are struggling and not getting the result is you just don't have a sequencing problem."

• Sharran [08:04]: "What is one thing that I can do tomorrow to make it better than today? That's way easier. That's more tangible."

• Sharran [51:21]: "Success is just a trade for what you truly want with what you have."

• Sharran [77:34]: "Assume that whoever you meet is sent to teach you something."

This episode is a treasure trove of entrepreneurial wisdom, blending actionable strategies with profound philosophical insights, making it a must-listen for aspiring and seasoned business leaders alike.

Transcript

[Layla]

What's up guys? Today we have a very different type of format where I'm actually going to interview my friend Sharon. He is my friend. He is also a 4times Inc. 500 entrepreneur with 5 exits in the last 19 years. He grew Telus Properties by 10x in 5 years to 3.4Billion in sales and eventually sold to Douglas Elliman. Now Sean is the president of Real. If you guys don't know what REAL is, it's the fastest growing real estate brokerage right now. They're adding over 1,000 new agents per month in 2024 because of Sharon. And he is also one of my only best friends. And so because of that, that is why I'm doing the interview. Because he's in town, we're friends, we want to jam. This is going to be jam packed, guys. I'm going to say like listen twice because we both talk fast and Sharon is jam packed with value in terms of what he delivers. And so let me know what you think in the comments. You've mentioned in different interviews an entrepreneurial myth that you want to disp, which is that hustle and grind works. But I know you and you're also somebody who works very hard. So I was curious, how do you dispel this myth while also working very hard? As we both know, I think the.

[Sharon]

Hustle and grind works. You know, at some point there's the whole answer to success is you should know what you want. You should have a plan and you should do the work. And a lot of people just think knowing what I want is going to get me there is the secret or having a plan. I met with a coach and I get there, that'll get me there. But you still have to do the work. But what I believe is that the hustle and grind leaves you tired and resentful because you don't feel progress. And what you and Alex and I talk a lot about is the reason we feel burned out or the reason we don't feel progress is we don't win. And when you don't win enough, it becomes really hard and you feel tired and resentful. So if we can't engineer small wins into our lives, you don't have the courage or you don't have the motivation to go hustle and grind more. You know the craziest part though, right? Is there's nothing more frustrating for an entrepreneur than working hard and not seeing results, right? But if you can work hard and see results, you're like, wait, that works. Let me work harder. And when Someone doesn't see the results, it gets really hard for them. So that's why the hustle and grind needs to be on the back of seeing results and having wins, however small wins they are. And then it becomes a lot easier because then the hustle and the grind feels like it has a purpose. Mm.

[Layla]

So it's really hustling. Grinding works if you're actually moving the ball forward.

[Sharon]

Yeah, totally.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

Yeah. But. But what is the most painful thing for people? They don't feel momentum. Right. If you and I feel momentum, we want to do more. We're like, man, I feel momentum. Man, I feel momentum. Or it's like weight loss. For the first 30 days, you see no change in the mirror. That's why this Ozempic revolution is a really good one. Right. Because they see change right away, and then they can try to wean off of it, but you see change right away. If you don't see momentum, you're like, I don't want to do this anymore.

[Layla]

Yeah. That's really interesting, because I say this one thing to entrepreneurs law. I say most entrepreneurs work really hard on the wrong thing.

[Sharon]

Totally. Totally. And the interesting part about that is when you work really hard and you don't see results, it's almost always a sequencing problem. Like you said, you're doing something in the wrong order. Huh. Instead of. You're like, hey, everyone told me that I should run Facebook ads, but you don't have anything free to give away, so you have no leads. And so you. You miss the sequencing of things. So a lot of times you can just say, oh, wow, if I just had a free offer on the front end and a sale on the thank you page, I would do so much better. And so most of the time when people are struggling and not getting the result is you just don't have a sequencing problem.

[Layla]

That's interesting. I've actually literally never thought about that. Is that the sequencing problem?

[Sharon]

So think about this, right? When a lot of folks watch content.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

Binge on YouTube, watch all your stuff, and they're like, man, I did what Layla told me. Exactly. But then when they come to a workshop and you're like, hey, you just mix step two and one. And all you did was you take your experience and you overlaid the experience and said, yeah, you followed the blueprint. But for your situation, two needs to come before one, and then everything starts to work. So from our experience, all we see is that we can sequence things better, and the sequencing allows us to get momentum faster.

[Layla]

Yeah, that's like, in my. My verbiage would be, you're solving for the wrong constraint.

[Sharon]

Exactly. Right?

[Layla]

Yeah. Okay. That actually makes a ton of sense. Can you think of a time where you were like, I was working so hard for a long time on the wrong thing because it was the wrong order?

[Sharon]

Oh, it happens. Happens every day. Right? It happens every day. So I'll give you an interesting part about this. A lot of times, entrepreneurs want the perfect result. You and I were talking about this just off camera. They want the perfect result. Hey, I'm going to build this book. I'm going to build this course. I want to do that. And instead, what they do is they just wait for six months to do that. I don't know if you've heard this story. There's a story about the 50 pounds of clay. Greatest story I've ever heard. So university professor walks into the ceramics class on day one, and he splits the class into two halves. He says, you are all group one. You are all group two. And he says, group one, your job for this entire semester is to make the perfect pot. Don't do anything else for the whole semester. Your only job is to make the perfect pot. And he said, Group two, your job is to make 50 pounds worth of pots. They call it 50 pounds of clay. Semester goes by, at the end of the semester, they look at all the pots, and all the perfect pots came from group two. Came from the group that did more quantity, came from the group that experimented with resequencing things over and over and over again. So I always tell our teams, hey, if you have an idea, let's get version one as fast as possible. We call it the shitty first draft. How fast can you get a shitty first draft? And as soon as you get the shitty first draft, it's like, whoa, I got something that I can react to. Which is pretty cool.

[Layla]

It's funny because as you say this, it's like you literally just showed me the shitty first draft of your culture book, and it's sitting right here behind you.

[Sharon]

Yeah, it's awesome, right? But that took us a year to build, and I was like, we can't go another year not having a draft.

[Layla]

Yeah. And how long do you think it actually. Cause, okay, here's the theory I have, which is, for example, each quarter I send out a survey to the team.

[Sharon]

And.

[Layla]

And the survey says, tell me the top wins that we've had. Tell me the top places you see opportunity. Tell me what you would do differently if you were CEO. Whenever I sent it Out. I would give them, like, a week, and then nobody ever did it until the last day. So I was like, this is ridiculous. So then instead, I just drop it and I say, it's. It's just now. And so you get like, three hours. Fill it out. It takes five minutes. I get a higher compliance rate, a higher completion rate, when there's a less amount of time. So I'm curious, like, how long do you think that actually took?

[Sharon]

20 minutes?

[Layla]

Yeah. Yeah. I was like, there's no way that took a year.

[Sharon]

Most projects don't take that long. Because the 0 to 1 feels so big. Because we think it's 0 to 10 in our heads, and it's very hard for us to think 0 to 1 because we can't see the result of a shitty first draft. We can only see the result of the perfect thing that we have in our head. And that perfect thing feels so far ahead. But then when you take the first step, you're like, man, I'm already at zero to one. This feels amazing. Yeah, because no one wakes up and says, oh, I want to make a shitty first draft. But if we can condition ourselves to saying, what is the next thing that I can do? It gets really good. I'll give you a crazy story. This generic advice on the Internet really bothers me. It's so generic. Oh, you should work hard. Oh, you should be kind. Oh, you should hustle more. And I'm like, what does that mean? Like, Leila said I should hustle more. Leo said I should work harder. Alex said I should make 400 calls today. Like, what does that mean? The worst that I've heard is this. Well, if you got 1% better every day, you would be 4 million percent better at the end of the year. And I'm like, well, I can do compounding math, but what do you do at noon? You're eating a burger, and you're like, how do I get 1% better? That is so amorphous. That's so weird. Like, the average person, even you and I can't do that. So every night, I call this the dbq, which is the do better question. And I ask myself this question every single night. And that is, what can I do better tomorrow? What is one thing that I could do tomorrow that will make it better than today? So if you ask that question, it's the do better question. What is one thing that I can do tomorrow to make it better than today? And that's way easier. That's more tangible. So I can say, oh, I didn't work out today, I need to work out tomorrow. One thing that I can do tomorrow to make it better than today or I didn't make an offer today. Cool, I'm going to make an offer tomorrow. What is one thing that I can do tomorrow to make it better than today? So that way you're always making your tomorrow better than today, which is insanely powerful. And that's like a tangible thing you can do. And that's also very context sensitive because your 1% better is not the same as my 1% better because I don't know what that means. And a lot of this, like, Internet advice is so amorphous. It doesn't tell you what to do next.

[Layla]

No. I'm curious for you. Can you think of in the last week when you asked yourself that question what something was for you?

[Sharon]

Yeah, totally. So I'll give you an example. Yeah, I love. I've totally fallen in love with AI. I think AI is like the coolest thing. And so I was asking myself the night before, I'm like, I keep thinking about this, I keep seeing ads about this, I keep reading articles about this. How do I get better doing this? I said, every day from now on, I'm going to watch one AI video before I go to bed. So that is the one thing that I can do tomorrow that will make it better than today. So I just built it into my, into my routine now. It's not hard. And so just four or five videos in. I. I feel so much better because I actually did something, did something with it.

[Layla]

That's funny because you sent me some of this stuff too. I'm like, you are doing that?

[Sharon]

It's awesome. My wife thinks it's like the weirdest thing. She can hear me watching like a Claude AI video at night and she goes, what are you watching at one and a half speed? Do you. Are you even listening to any of this?

[Layla]

I just think of her now like, loser, frustrated, dumb. Commenting on your posts.

[Sharon]

100%. Yeah.

[Layla]

That's amazing. A lot of people who watch my content, a common theme that comes up is that they feel like they've been working really hard and they feel burnt out. Or even if it's not the word burnt out, they talk about how they feel really stressed. And for somebody who does everything that you do, I've seen your calendar, I know your schedule. We talk every day. I'm like, I know. And I'm curious for you, like, what have you found to be the top one to three things that you do to manage Your stress. That's actually something I've never really asked you.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

So I was like, what do. How do you do that for yourself? Because I know I have my different ways of, like, mechanisms of managing it. What do you, whether it be like a mental framework or something you actually do out in the world.

[Sharon]

Yeah. The most important thing for us as entrepreneurs is to manage the one exhaustible resource, which is our time. And the crazy part is a lot of people talk about time management and it's just design. The worst thing that any entrepreneur can do is wake up in the morning and says, what should I do today? Like, that's the worst thing. My dad. I'll tell you a great story about my dad. I grew up in a very mediocre everything world, but with extraordinary parents. And my dad's like a purebred entrepreneur. Every single night after dinner, my dad would sit down. We had a one bedroom apartment. My dad would sit down at the dining table and he would open this leather journal. He had opened a new page. He would write the date of tomorrow on it and he would write down all the things he was going to do the next day. And he called that Creating Tomorrow, Today. He did that, Layla, every single day of my childhood. So even now, that's the one thing I took away. Every night I stretch before I go to bed and I sit down and I'm like in a pigeon pose and I've got my notebook and I was like, how do I create tomorrow, today? Whatever is on that list that I make for myself for tomorrow, I do not leave the office until I get those done. It is a pure commitment around that. Because now you're keeping your promise to yourself. Most people are like, oh, I'm going to set an alarm for 5am and I'll snooze for a little bit. It's okay that you snooze, but you just broke the promise that you made to yourself. You set the alarm at 5am Layla didn't set the alarm at 5am for you. You set the goals that you were doing tomorrow, but you chose not to achieve those goals or targets. And that was the biggest lesson I took from my dad. He's like, how do you create tomorrow, today? And so lesson number one for me is tomorrow has to be designed today. Otherwise I wake up tomorrow and I can't manage the stress because too many things are coming your way. Kind of. That's number one.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

The second is a lot of people don't manage work based on how much effort it's going to take. So they put file taxes and take laundry on their to do list. And I'm like, those are two completely different things. File taxes may take you four hours, laundry may take you 10 minute drive. But those two can be on your to do list because you have no idea when you're going to do them. So everything for me is driven by the calendar. If I think something is going to take a four hour block, I give myself a four hour block to do that. That is time blocking and that forces you to work in the time that you have allotted. And we know that whatever time, like you said, gets allotted, the project gets done. I can do a four hour project in one hour if I give myself that one hour to do it. Like how many times have you. And I said, man, I got to live on a trip tomorrow and we get all of it done that day before. Why? Because you give yourself that time to be able to do it right. But I think creating tomorrow today was like a huge shift for me. And I think I got really lucky watching my dad do it. And my dad, there were times where he would not come home until like 10, 11 at night. And I knew that was because he didn't get everything done on that list because he made a promise to himself to create tomorrow today. I'll give you a crazier story. On my team, we have this idea that every one Thursday a month we say, I'm not going to go to bed tonight until blank.

[Layla]

Okay.

[Sharon]

It's a really powerful thing, right? Because you can say, hey, I'm not going to bed tonight until we redo our CRM. So that Thursday night I literally have Mountain Dew or whatever. I am here until this project gets done. So I am not going to go to bed until this gets done. And it's amazing. You think it's going to take all night, but it's not. And we bang through that project and you're like, wow, I made a promise to myself and I kept this promise to myself. You burned the boat. So you said, there is no choice. I am going to wait until I get this done. And that was super powerful. So one night a month, one Thursday a month, as a team, we do, I'm not going to go to bed until blank. And that's super powerful. Like that progress that you can make is insane when your entire team does that.

[Layla]

Do you give yourself permission during a time like that? Like almost. I've heard like another friend of mine talks about like a work vacation. Like today I'm going to give myself Permission to only work on this project. And like, I'm not going to exercise if I don't want to. I'm not going to do. Do you do it like that or do you have other things that go on too?

[Sharon]

No, I'm a dog with the bone kind of guy. So to me, as soon as I have my mind locked on something, everything else falls. I have to get this done. And I've realized that the singularity of focus is a really powerful skill. And I'll tell you, Layla, where I, where I learned that. I learned that because it was all going back to personal integrity. How do I keep the promises I make to myself? I'll give you the craziest story. About 11 years ago, my, I was really sick and my doctors couldn't figure out what was going on. I went into like a sleep study and the doctor said, hey, early in the mornings, your numbers look really good. You should just wake up earlier, just shift your day up. And I go, oh, that makes sense. And he goes, I don't know if it'll work, but just shift your day up. Instead of it being a 8am to 11pm, go 5am to 7pm, shift your day up because your numbers look better. Then I said, wait a minute, No, I have to wake up at five in the morning. There is. I don't want to wake up at five in the morning. So I called three of my best friends and I said, hey, would it be okay just for the next week where we can all get on a call at 5am for five minutes, right? And you don't have to say anything. It'll be my accountability because I need to get better health wise. And they said, sure. So I set up a conference call line and the first day I did this call, it was like a ding, ding, ding. Three people join. I was like, okay. So I delivered some two minute message and they all hung up. The next day I get back on the call and I hear, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I'm like, wait, there are five people on the call. I don't know why there are more people on the call. The next day the dings were like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I go, wait, third day and there's like 15 people on this call. I go, okay, I'm just going to keep going. I realized at the end of that week there were 20, 25 people on the call because they had shared these numbers. And that's when what I call. Now the 5am Club was born. It's a five minute call. At 5am Every single morning. Because I made a promise to myself that I was going to wake up at 4:45, 5:00am every morning. And now when you have this group, I'm going to let this group down. So we've been doing this 10 years. I've got 3,000 plus calls. I've woken up 4:45am for 10 plus years because I have an accountability group of 9,000 people, like roughly 4,000 to 4,500 people show up on a call every single morning at 5am Pacific time for five minutes.

[Layla]

And have you ever given yourself permission, like today? I'm not doing it. I'm gonna vacate. It's like something.

[Sharon]

Only when the time zones where I am doesn't work, I get a sub. So if we're in Hawaii, yeah, that would be like 2:00am Pacific Time. It's 2:00am Hawaii Time. And I'm like, hey, can someone sub for me? But I've taken the call in Europe, I've taken the call when I was in Asia, like whenever there's. Yeah, it's a normal schedule. I do the call every single time. I'll tell you the craziest part. We have a couple of billionaires on the call. We have two members of Congress on the call. I have one head of state, as in a president of a country, that is on the call. It's thousands of entrepreneurs on the call. Because I can see the call log.

[Layla]

That's so cool.

[Sharon]

Yeah. It's five minutes at 5am Every single. Every single morning, 365 days a year.

[Layla]

Wow. It's interesting because, like, I asked you the question about, like, have you ever missed any for any reason? Because something I've realized is that I don't know if this resonates with you or not, but, like, I'm very good at setting rules for myself and following them. And I think where a lot of people struggle and I've struggled in the past is like, when do you know it's okay to break that rule? You know what I mean? When do I set that list? The night before? And then something. Does it make sense that a thing occurs that I say it doesn't actually make sense to complete this list?

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

Do you struggle with that or is that something you figured out?

[Sharon]

No, of course I do. And. But it's nice to give yourself a rule. To break a rule. So my rule is really simple. It's okay to suck, but it's not okay to skip. So I can go to the gym. I'm like, hey, I go to the gym. I'll do five minutes of elliptical. I'm out. I sucked, but I'm not skipping. So it's okay to suck, but it's not okay to skip. So if I'm reading a book and I'm saying I'm going to read 10 pages a night, maybe I'll read one page that night. Yeah, it's okay to suck, but it's not okay to skip. Because when you start skipping, it's really easy to fall off skin. People say, hey, you can't skip more than two days in a row. And things like that. To me, I'm just like, hey, it's okay to suck, but it's not okay to skip. So I just try not to skip. But here's the cool part, though. To do great things, we must do fewer things. And the reason why a lot of people do a lot of things is because their main hustle is broken.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

The reason why people have side hustles is because you don't have a good main hustle.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And that's so you don't need a side hustle. You just need a good main hustle. And so I always think about, why is this person skipping or why is this person missing? It's because they just have too much on their plate. If you only have four priorities, it's way easier to keep those priorities and way easier to keep your promise to yourself based on those priorities.

[Layla]

How do you set priorities for yourself given the position you're in now? Do you allow other people to have say over your priorities? Like, hey, I want you guys to tell me like, as well? Like, do you think this is where I need to focus given the business, like, given the size of the business that you're. You're over, or is it something you completely decide autonomously?

[Sharon]

I think it's a blend. So I think we're tracking like a, you know, we're a $1.2 billion business today and it's, it's wild. We have 22,000 plus people, but we have a. They're very clear goals. So the goal says we need to do X.

[Layla]

Cool.

[Sharon]

What are the teams that are going to do to help us get to that goal? Hey, what's Sharon's role to do that? So I wake up in the morning and I'm like, hey, my job is to do one of these strengths. It's growth, culture, influence. That's all I do. And so if that means if I'm not doing something related to growth or something related, drive, culture or something to influence somebody, then I'm probably underperforming what I'm doing. So thematically. So I call it just thematic weeks. As long as my weeks are thematically the same, I'm doing the right thing. So over time, you will compound on that. But there's some days where you and I will talk about, hey, there was a fire today.

[Layla]

Right.

[Sharon]

And so everything gets shut down, and you. You solve the fire. Because that fire is going to then affect culture later. But the teams have a very open dialogue of telling me, hey, can you help me with this? Can you help me with that? Which is really good. I'll. I'll tell you a one thing that I do with all my direct reports. It's very simple. At the end of the week, it's a, hey, what was your highlight for the week? What was your low life for the week? How can I help you next week? So they just send me one bullet point each. And it's really powerful because it's the same format that happens every week. It's easy to do. And so I'm like, oh, he's asked me for help on that project for three weeks in a row. I should probably help with that. So you start to see some patterns around it. But if we don't know what we have to wake up and do, something is wrong with, you know, the promises that we made to ourselves.

[Layla]

Yeah, no, it's really interesting. And it's actually so powerful, like, just in having, like, our friendship. When I'm like, hey, you've been where I'm going, and you are above a larger company than I've ever been above. Like, is it okay for me to be, like, still handling these fires? And you're like that. And it's funny because it's given me almost, like, permission to work on things that I know are important because I'm like, if I solve this the right way, this fire. Correct. It makes it better.

[Sharon]

Yes.

[Layla]

And it shows everybody the importance of the culture. And that's actually saying that I would love to ask you, which is like, do you see ever business leaders, like, delegating too much of, like, the shit work to other people because they don't see that opportunity?

[Sharon]

I think it varies based on skill level. And I think a lot of folks sometimes are like, oh, that's a tough conversation. Can you have it? Can you have it for me?

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

Or that's a comp conversation. Can we just have HR have that conversation?

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

So sometimes based on tough conversations, people will want to either backpedal from it or not have it. And all I tell my team around that is if you feel like you're delegating something, offer support in the delegation. So if I was saying, hey, Jimmy, on Jimmy on my team, I said, hey, Jimmy, I'd love for you to make sure that our event looks great next week. And he's like, man, I'm really struggling about these two things. Hey, could I. Do you want me to help you in this conversation with the vendor? Do you want me to jump on the call now? Jimmy feels a lot a sense of support around it. What we as leaders should not allow is when Jimmy says it's better for you to have that conversation, I'm like, no, no, no, that's not. I will coach you to have the conversation. I will support you to have the conversation. I will jump on the call with you to have the conversation. But there is no scenario where you delegated back to me. Like, that does not work. So I think us showing up for them is really powerful. Give you a super cool story around this. Our last company, which I've told you about, when we were selling to Douglas Elliman, which is a publicly traded company, we were pitching the board in New York City. And so my partner Peter and I at that time, we would wake up early and we would walk Central Park. All we would do Layla was role play. And so he would say, we'd walk in Central park for three hours, 5am to 8am right? We're walking Central Park. And he goes, okay, so Sharon, what would you say if they asked you blank? What would you say they asked you about ebitda? And then I would answer it. He goes, no, do it again. No, do it again. No, do it again. No, do it again. Right? And then I'd say, hey, but Peter, what if they asked me about this? He's like, let me try. Then he would do it. And I was like, no, do it again. No, do it again. You're missing that. No, do it again. Let me do it. And so we would role play back and forth. So we role played like four or five days pre board meeting. And so when we got to the board meeting, the board asked us a question and we had already rehearsed a question. We look at each other and we smile. Cause they're like, I got that one right. Cause we were already prepped for that. And I think the crazy part is when leaders delegate, they don't role play. So instead of saying, hey, Jimmy, go have that tough conversation. You're like, hey, Jimmy, are you cool? Having the conversation, or would you like to, like, do a fun role play between us just so we can get comfortable? And we call that the gift. Giving people the gift of going second. Right. There's no pressure around that. You give them the gift of going second. Roleplay is, like, the coolest, easiest thing to do because they hear your language patterns, you hear theirs. You've already said it one time, so the second time is easier. I don't love the word delegation. It's the empowerment associated with it. But I think the empowerment has to connect with a transfer of skill and confidence in some way. And the transfer of skill and confidence is only going to come from you sitting with them or role playing with them or coaching them through it. So as long as the culture of the organization is, Jimmy should come to you and say, hey, Leila, I know I have this tough conversation. Is it okay if I just role play with you? Or can you just coach me through it? What would you say if you were me? Or how would you start the conversation if you were me? Hey, if it goes sideways, I'm kind of nervous about this. How would I bring it back to this? Those are the conversations they should ask us, because now we get to lift up leaders, which is really powerful.

[Layla]

I love that so much. And it's. It's funny you say that, because I was literally. When I've had a lot of people I've had to coach on a tough conversation lately, I'm like, all right, let's hit record. You're recording me on a zoom or on the phone if we're in person and, like, listen to the tonality, because I'm sure you've seen it. It's like most of those conversations go wrong not in what they say, but in how they say 100%. They're freaking out and they're nervous, whatever. But what I have seen a lot of in just actually my content that goes out there about this, and then what people say is basically like, when they're teaching other people to have hard conversations, it's not that they are showing them, but that they are telling them.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

And then they're like, go ahead, go fire that person. Go ahead. Go give someone feedback. Go ahead. And I'm like, they're abdicating. Right? They're not actually teaching. It's actually a theme that I've been talking about with our leadership, too, which is show, don't tell.

[Sharon]

Yes.

[Layla]

Show them what you're going to do before you tell them how to do it. You know, it's like the framework of Demonstrate document, duplicate.

[Sharon]

Oh, so good.

[Layla]

Yeah. Me and Alex came up with in terms of, like, how you get people to learn things. But I love that you're saying that because it's something that I just feel myself, like, continuing to beat my head into the wall of, like, guys, I swear, I know it feels like a lot, because it is. But, like, we have to show them before we can assume that they know how to do it.

[Sharon]

Totally along those lines. I wrote this thing down maybe a few years ago, and I call it the learning dogma. The learning dogma is how people learn, right. With our employees, with our friends, whoever, with our children. So when you discover something, you get to learn it once. So someone heard you on a podcast and they heard the framework, they're like, oh, when you discovered something, it's cool. I heard that from Layla once. When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. But when you document something, you get to learn forever. It's good, Right? But, you know, it's super powerful. Right. So a lot of times when you don't have recall.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

It's because you just don't have a framework around it. Yeah.

[Layla]

That's so interesting.

[Sharon]

If people want mastery, people leave mastery in a very unachievable way just because they think, I've learned it and I can teach it. So I'm a master at it. But what most people don't realize is when you listen to something, you get to learn once. When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. That's a Jim Quick quote, by the way. And when. But when you document something, you get to learn it forever. So when you have a framework, you walk into a conversation. Like when you're doing your workshops and someone asks you a question, you can draw a pyramid and say, here's how I. The levels of this overall. Right? And that's super very fast. It can get your thinking into their thinking very quickly.

[Layla]

Do you have a framework for teaching people frameworks? Because when I first met you, for example, I remember. Yeah. For everyone who doesn't know, I knew nothing about real estate. We had just sold our companies, and I was like, okay, you understand business, but you also understand real estate. So I trust you. What do you think of all this stuff and all the frameworks that you taught me? I was like, damn, you don't just know business and real estate. You also know how to break things down so people can understand them easily. I'm curious, like, have you distilled that into a framework?

[Sharon]

I have, and I learned that through from this guy named Richard Green. So here's a story for you, okay? Elon Musk and the Jeff Bezos of the world will get on camera and say, oh, if I can do it, you can do it too. And that's a bold faced lie. Elon's half alien, so there's no way we can do what he does. Bezos, there's no way that their experiences, their skill sets are completely different than ours. So I always thought, well, why do they say that? Well, they say that because they can't say, hey, Sharon, you can't do what I do. Because that would be egotistical to say. And then I was thinking, well, but there's got to be a way for you to unlock the inner Elon and you. For me to unlock the inner Bezos. And how do I do that? And so my theory was, what is Elon's support system? What is Bezos support system? What is Tony Robbins support system? And then I said, wait a minute, Tony, by the way, freakonature, amazing speaker. I said, well, I can never be like Tony, but what if I could hire Tony Robbins as speaking coach? So I hired Richard Green, Tony Robinson speaking coach, for $50,000 for three hours. Yeah, probably the best. All my speaking was up until the time I met Richard Green and everything after. And he, he shared this one idea with me, and I'll put it in my words. He says, hey, Sharon, what you're trying to do is you have all these experiences, knowledge, ideas, skills, experiences, and you're trying to take those experiences and put it in the audience's head. But you're trying to do that with charisma. You're trying to show up on stage with charisma, tell a great story, be animated, you know, have, have great media, and you're telling the story, but it's all charisma. You're trying to take your charisma and shove it into the audience's head. So when they leave, they're like, man, that was such a good presentation. But they have no recall. They can't remember anything. How many times you and I gone to a presentation, we're like, that was awesome. But I don't remember anything.

[Layla]

I have no idea what happened.

[Sharon]

Right. That's so weird. But, but you enjoyed, you were entertained for that time. So that's just charisma. He's like, sean, you are really, you have great charisma on stage. But I don't remember anything that you said. I was like, how do I fix this? And he said, it's about organizing your thoughts so that you don't put the charisma in their head. You put a framework in their head. And so I came up with this idea of organizing, operationalizing, charisma. How do you operationalize that charisma? So now you have this learning dogma. I put that into a little box, and then I can put the box in their head. So now they have a recall, and that becomes a lot better as well. So the framework is, how do I take something where I can organize it into something so I can put in someone's head? And the easiest way that I found for myself is rule number one is one, two, three too many. One, two, three too many. As soon as you get to the fourth, you're like, I forgot the first three. So it's 1, 2, 3 too many. And the second is, can it somehow be established on a simple geometric shape, A circle, a square, a triangle, so that the brain can take a snapshot of it and you know, which goes in what box? As long as it's 1, 2, 3 too many, and I can come up with a geometrical shape, I can just remember a lot more things.

[Layla]

I so fucking agree with that. Because with our values, people are like, there's only three. I'm like, I just feel like I can't remember more than three.

[Sharon]

One, two, three, too many.

[Layla]

If I'm on an interview and I have to recall our values, and there's six, I'm like, all right, let's check off these, right? I'm like, on the side. I'm distracted. I love that. That's so good. My main piece of feedback I give people when they show me presentations, I'm like, I love this, but put it into a visual. And they're like, how? I'm like, a shape.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

And then people are like, why?

[Sharon]

I don't.

[Layla]

I don't. I'm like, it's just easier to remember.

[Sharon]

Totally.

[Layla]

It's like something with the brain. It's easier to associate that with something.

[Sharon]

Well, well, think about. Think about this. In the olden days, what did people do? They transferred knowledge in the walls of caves through diagrams.

[Layla]

That's fair.

[Sharon]

Well, that's how we're wired. By the way. There's an amazing presentation mechanism that was actually created by a kindergarten teacher, and it's called format. What format is if anybody use this, it will help people structure the ability to deliver anything. And it's the why, what how? Now there are four frames. The why frame is why is this important? Why is this important? Right now. Hey, I'm talking about. I'm talking about global warming. And it's important right now because all the rainforests are dying. Why is this important? Why is it important right now? The second is the what frame. The what frame is, well, there's four pieces that affect global warming. And then I say piece one, piece two, piece three, piece four. That's the 10,000 foot view. Great. Now it's the how frame. Let me tell you how each of these pieces are affecting you. Here's piece one. Here's everything about piece one. Here's piece two. Here's everything about piece two. Here's piece three, everything. And then now I've given you the why, the what, the how, and the next one is the now or the next. So what do I do with all this information? You don't have to remember anything that I said. All I need you to do is to turn off your air conditioning at 6pm that is the one thing. It's, it's what is the one domino that I kicked. Any presenter, if they use the why, what, how now frames, then you transition people through that process and they feel so much more engaged with you because they're like, oh, yeah, he's answering every inbuilt objection that I have. Like, why should I listen to her? Oh, because it's important. Oh, what is this all about? Oh, it's got four pieces. Or how. How do I actually do that? Oh, he just told me, man, this too much. What do I. What, what should I do? Oh, just do this. Why? What, how now? And it was actually came up with by a kindergarten teacher. I love it because that's how they teach kindergarten. It's called format. I didn't even come up with it. I use it in all my presentations.

[Layla]

I'm like, I'm about to transcribe this podcast after we're done, so I can. Because I'm like, I need to use these to teach people. I love that. That's fantastic.

[Sharon]

Yeah. And then that way you're also not. You don't feel pressure to give them 30 things to do. At the end, you say here's right, here's, here's the first domino. The next is. That's the first domino. Well, here's the first domino, right? And that's super, super helpful when you, when you could do that.

[Layla]

Wow, that's really cool. You know, actually transitioning because misconception about you that I would say from when I first met you, right. Because I'm snobby, right. And so I Was like when anyone has a big social media, I think people, and this happens to me. So this is why I assume it happens to you. But they see the social media and they're like, oh, I don't know, do you actually, do you know business? And it's like, oh, no, I'm only the president of Real Brokerage, the fastest growing brokerage, you know, that exists. But it's fine, you know, I'm just a social media face. Right. And something that I deeply respect about you is like how one like your depth and breadth of business knowledge, like you literally know every department, you know how to build a company from every level to every level and leadership. You're the only person I can really talk to about most of itself. I think you know that because most people, it's like one or the other. I think the fact that you can, you understand both and you have experience in both is what makes you so good at what you do. One thing that I wanted to ask you actually is you have scaled from 300 million to 3 billion. Fricking insane. And something that I've actually never asked you is can you remember the challenges from scaling from that level, like from going to a couple hundred million to a couple billion. I'm curious if there's like one to three top challenges that you faced or maybe transitions that you went through internally.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

To get there. And this is selfish because this is what I'm looking to do right now. You know what I mean?

[Sharon]

Yeah. The crazy part is most people don't know the story. I'll tell you the story. So there was a company called Telus that we had invested in. A couple of our friends started this company. It was a real estate business in Beverly Hills, California. When we invested in it, it had like 10 agents in Beverly Hills. I didn't know anything about the real estate business that well. I kind of bought some homes, so I know that process. And we, we were just passive investors in this. And what happened was I would get financial statements every quarter and I actually read financial statements because I think your P and L is your business. It looked funny. So I called the CPA and I'm like, hey, what's, what's wrong with this? It looks kind of funny. He's like, let me do some research. We found the then CEO was embezzling. And I was like, man, it's a one page P and L. Bury your like embezzling somewhere else. It's not even that hard.

[Layla]

You can't even embezzle.

[Sharon]

Right. So, so I Took a leave of absence from Goldman Sachs as a banker. I moved to California just to, like, relieve the CEO. Most people don't know this. I didn't have that much money at that time. So I reverse mortgage my house to buy out the CEO.

[Layla]

Wow.

[Sharon]

The entire job was buy out the CEO, find a new CEO, go back to banking. I had to put a new deck together. I had to figure out what the new business plan was, et cetera. My spreadsheet. This is going to sound really dumb. My spreadsheet had 300 million in it. I hit an extra 0 to 3 billion and the entire spreadsheet changed. I was like, wait a minute. We would make this much money? How did this happen? And what it did is it gave me a bigger and better future. It let me see something that I never saw otherwise. All I saw was a shitty first draft. I didn't see level 10. And that was super powerful. And I was like, wait a minute, if this is really true, I should try to build this. And that was the overall reason. So I went to the board and I'm like, hey, I believe that we can 10x the business in 5 years. I don't know how to do it, but I'm going to come up with a plan to do it. I will take no comp. I will steer the ship to doing this. And they're like, well, if you're going to take all the risk, go for it. And that's how that process actually started. Because there was no opportunity to even operate this business. I had randomly put an extra zero and the economics changed. And, Layla, here's the hard part. While you're going through the grind, it's very hard to capture the lessons. The only thing that I was able to do, I was able to learn in retrospect.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

You can only connect the dots in background. Right. Or seeing looking backwards. And I came up with three things that we struggled with a lot of things. I came up with three things. The first one is, you're so distracted. There's so many things on your plate.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

When you're building, because growth is just like, do this, do this, do this, do this. It doesn't allow you to say, today, I'm only going to work on this. There's always so many things to do. So lesson number one for me was singularity of focus. What can I do that will always allow me to push the business forward? And for us, we were in the sales business, so getting highly motivated salespeople was the number one thing. So recruiting great talent was the number one thing that was the singularity of focus. So I told myself, I may not be able to do everything, but I'm going to dedicate half my day to this activity. So it's really simple. My single area focus is growing the business from a salespeople perspective. I need to go recruit the best salespeople. I have half the day. It may be in the morning or in the afternoon. I was always dedicated to this thing and that one thing made it so much easier. So that was lesson number one. Lesson number two is the cadence of accountability. Accountability, no one likes accountability, no one likes to be told, hey, here are your numbers, here's what you want to do, etc. But what makes accountability easier that I found is if you do it in a group. I'll give you the practical example. We had 11 sales managers that would hire our top agents. They would go out, meet with agents, hire agents, and if these 11 sales managers didn't have appointments, they wouldn't get agents.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

So we had a 10 minute call every single morning, the huddle. And everyone would report two numbers. How many appointments did I have yesterday and what am I committed to doing today? So they would say, Layla, you're up 3, 0. Seth, you're up 2, 2. Sharon, you're up 0, 0. Alex, you're up 1, 1. That's how the call would go every single day. And we would write it down. Nobody ever said 3, 0. And they came back the next day and said 0, 0. Because they said 0. And they're like, man, I can't do a double bagel day after day. They can't do that. Right. And so all that they did was if they were in isolation, they would have been okay with sucking. But when they were in a group and they had to say 0, 0, and they had to come back the next day and say 0, 0. And they had to come back the next day and say 0, 0. Now they were on the bottom of that pile. That cadence of accountability, that one 10 minute call grew the business. That one 10 minute call, because all that the call was was like great. Layla. 0, 0. Sharon. 1, 0. Seth. 8, 2, 8, 2. And now you started seeing aspiration, motivation, all of that associated with it. So that was a huge, huge lesson for us. That's number two cadence of accountability. And the third is good process. And good process alone drives good results. It is super hard for people to believe that you don't have a system to drive something. Because the crazy part is no one's going to buy Your company, they buy your system for running the company. That's all it is. Otherwise, you have so much founder risk associated with it. We were able to sell our business and rebrand the entire business in under six months, and I was out. So the business that we built ran completely. It still runs completely autonomously without me because the systems drive everything. So we say systems drive success. And if you can't show somebody the system, you don't have a system. Blah, blah, blah. You talked about it. I'm like, that's great, bro. Show me. And like, we do this, we do this. When this happens, we do this. Cool. I like that. That's a good system. So those three things are the biggest things that I learned. Singularity of focus, cadence of accountability, and good process. And good process alone drives good results, man.

[Layla]

It's funny because it's like resonating me through right now, and I'm like thinking to myself, where am I lagging? And I'm like, you know, I've got the focus piece. I have that time to focus, but I focus on different things.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

Because it's like, oh, there's these five big things. And I'm like, oh, man, I've got to dial back into what the one each day is. Because I'm like, all right, well, these five things across the company are what drive? But the question is I have to force rank them so that. Yeah, anyways, just pulling myself.

[Sharon]

No, but that's good. The other thing also is you asked a question about productivity, which is super interesting. I run my life in sprints, just like software development. So I run my life in two week sprints.

[Layla]

Okay.

[Sharon]

And the two week sprints are these two weeks I'm going to do these projects. And so someone says, hey, Sean, can you work on this presentation? No problem. That is next Sprint. Now, I don't have to feel this. This tension of me having to remove something or add something more so that I have to stay up later or what have you. I have this level of effort that I can give to this print. I got two weeks. I'm traveling for one week. That means I only have half a sprint this week. I'll give you a crazy example. We are just onboarding with a family office. And the guy was like, hey, man, I need all this data. I'm like, I got to pull offshore trust. Trust build. I'm like, dude, this is going to take me two weeks. And he goes, when will you have it to me? I said, October 15th. He goes, why? How are you able to tell Me, that date, I go, that's my sprint. So I just blocked that off as my sprint. And I was able to deliver on that because good process and good process alone drives good results. So when you tell somebody you have good expectations, you make a promise to yourself that you're going to do it on that sprint. You make a promise to them that you're going to do it on that sprint and they don't bother you anymore. Otherwise they feel like they have to keep checking back in with you. Which is the most annoying thing ever.

[Layla]

Right? That's fascinating. So then do you keep like a backlog for.

[Sharon]

Of course, yeah. Yeah. So we call them sprint candidates. That's just for me. Anytime I have an idea, I just put in the sprint candidates and we do something called the Review Preview. The Review Preview. Something like you do. You do it on Sundays. So every Friday evening before I shut down, I look back at the weekend and I go through every meeting on the calendar.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And I say, okay, I met with Layla. What is the follow up here? Nothing. I met with Seth. What's the follow up here? Oh, I owe him blank. So I just write all the followups down from the past week. That's review and the previews look two weeks ahead. Do I need to prep for review, Preview, review, preview. So I just do that. It's a 10, 15 minute exercise on a Friday. And then when you're done, you're just settled, then you can keep your promises to yourself.

[Layla]

It's so funny because I've heard you say review, preview before. I never realized it's my look back, look forward.

[Sharon]

Exactly.

[Layla]

Same shit.

[Sharon]

Same exact thing. I used to originally do one week back, one week forward. Now I do one week back, two weeks forward because of travel. Like, I'm like, oh, I didn't book that trip or I need to build that keynote or I need to turn those files in this week. And so now even my assistant, she does the same thing. She's like, hey, Sharon. So I have her doing two weeks back, two weeks forward. I want her to be ahead of me.

[Layla]

Yes.

[Sharon]

She's like, hey, we didn't book these tickets or what have you. So that's been super helpful. Review preview and sprints give you like containers to work. So if you said, I have five priorities, you could say, I'm going to work on these three in Sprint one and those two in Sprint two. So you still know they get done this month and you keep your promise to yourself.

[Layla]

So let me ask you, when you define the sprints and Then you look at your calendar and say you have a bunch of meetings on your calendar that don't have to do with those things. Are you like, cut them?

[Sharon]

I try. I try to renegotiate.

[Layla]

Renegotiate, okay, Renegotiate when they occur.

[Sharon]

Correct. I'm like, hey, Leila, would there be an opportunity for us to do this, do it in two weeks as opposed to this week? I just try to renegotiate or I'll batch all of the things that are not into like one Thursday morning or one Tuesday afternoon. So I don't have chunky things taking over my time. So most people don't realize that it's totally okay to renegotiate priorities that you've made to with other people as long as you do it kindly and as long as you do it with enough time. It's unfair if I come to you the night before a podcast and be like, hey, I can't do it tomorrow. That's not cool. But if you do it two weeks ahead, you're probably saying, man, I would love the extra two weeks to prep for that anyway. So I am totally cool with renegotiating commitments as long as you do it with some time and with some grace.

[Layla]

I appreciate you going in depth to that too, because, like, a lot of the people who follow me, I think, are very good at structure and following rules, but almost to a detriment, which is like, is it even serving you anymore? And I know that's something I've had to work a ton on is like, what are my levers of flexibility? So it's like, so fascinating to hear yours because I think a lot of people think like, okay, I can't cancel those meetings though, because then it means that I'm not reliable. It's like, okay, well, what's most reliable is if you grow the business right.

[Sharon]

I'll tell you the biggest shift that happened for me. It's. It's amazing how when the world puts you in difficult positions, you have to adjust to meet those needs. And so when I got really sick, it was really hard to get doctor's appointments with my schedule. So what I told my assistants, like, I said, hey, for the rest of the year, block off all Fridays. You can literally put all appointments on Fridays that way. I know that on Fridays I only do health related stuff. And so she had this easy cadence of just booking appointments. After I got better, I left the Fridays blocked. I still work on four day work weeks. I still go to the office on Friday, but my Friday is a really good buffer day. And that allows me to plan, to think, to do projects that I'm interested in, to catch up, et cetera. That way you don't take the stress into the weekend. Now there's no weekend for us. Like, I work all the time. Whenever you have inspiration, you work. But since we have a family, I have to be somewhat respectful of that. I don't want to come in and say, man, I'm going to work all weekend. I'll work chunky times, but I don't want to walk in stressed. So that Friday buffer day has been insanely helpful. And I would have never done that in my schedule unless I was sick internally. We call it 80% equals 100% because it's 20% off. So we only work 80%. So 80% is only allowed to be scheduled. So 80% equals 100%.

[Layla]

That's fascinating. And it's. It's really reaffirming because I think you know something that, you know my friend Trevor Cash, he looked at my schedule and he said, you have no buffer. I said, what do you mean? He's like, well, if. If I said, I need this three hour meeting and we need to do this thing, where do you put it? And I was like, there's nowhere to go. Yeah, right. And he was like, yeah, you work with no buffer, which is fin. Fine. He's like, but you just know that you're gonna have to constantly be do. And then I was like, oh. And so that's when, you know, we put in place here because a lot of times we have events on Fridays, but we put in a Wednesday quiet day.

[Sharon]

Yeah, good.

[Layla]

Which, like the team, you know, everyone, obviously there's sometimes where there's something going on that is on Wednesday. But like, for the most part, almost every single Wednesday is completely blocked for me. And it's like, I will fight for that Wednesday with my life. It's like, it has to be just like the most important reason in the world that something's going to happen on a Wednesday because I'm like, I need that time because there's. It's not that I'm not working. It's that all these things have spilled or popped up and it's like, you need time to work on them.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

Yeah, that's great.

[Sharon]

My doctor said something super interesting to me. He said, hey, did you know that most entrepreneurs who are men have heart attacks on Monday mornings?

[Layla]

I've heard that.

[Sharon]

I said, well, okay. And he's like, why do you have a smile on Your face. I was like, I'm just gonna take Monday morning off. I was like, you can cheat death. He goes, dude, you can't. It's not that easy. And I'm like, but maybe it is. And I actually don't think it's about the Monday morning being the stressful time. I think it's about the bleed over from the week into the weekend that's actually not managing this right. So I actually will believe the reason why entrepreneurs get stressed and have heart attacks Monday morning is because they don't have buffer days on Fridays. So if you just manage that, you know, how you prepare shows just how much you care. Right. And so having that makes it so much more important. So it's not the Monday morning that's the problem. That is just the manifestation of the symptom. The problem is that you hammer the week all week, and then you go into the weekend like you have more time. So you use the weekend as your buffer and then you're stressed on the weekend, Then when you come back on Monday, you're like, man, I made no progress. And that's when everything starts to hit.

[Layla]

You know, I do the Planning process Monday R1 and it's like watching teammates start doing it because it's always the people who say, like, they're like, I'm just always, you know, there's so much going on, I can't get ahead. It's like, you can't get ahead because you haven't made time to get ahead.

[Sharon]

Right, Right.

[Layla]

And I think you and I both know that. It's like, we more on our plates than anybody. If you're not proactive, you spend your time just fixing crap.

[Sharon]

I've been talking a lot about just how to manage the stuff that's coming at you. Slacks, dms, pings, dings, bings, email, all of that. Right. We work in a email centric culture. Like, I do a lot of email. I stay on top of my email. And it's just, it's easier for me to manage email because with text, you can't loop another person in, you can't hit forward. So I run all my life on email. No one was ever taught how to manage email. And so they don't know how to manage email. They've or they don't have a framework for managing email for themselves. And it's not about how you organize your email or your Gmail inbox, et cetera. It's like, how do you approach email? How much email do you do? When do you delete, when do you not delete? And I always teach my team this. I said whenever I look at email, I'd only do 10 unit blocks. So I walk into email. If I'm checking email, I only do 10 things. I only do 10 emails at a time. Okay, I deleted four, I forwarded two. I replied to two. I'm done if that was 10. And then I'm done. And then the next time I come back to email, I do 10 more units. Next time I come back to email, I do 10 more units. So I only do 10 units of email at any given time. So email never feels heavy. So now you like. Otherwise, you can just sit in front of your email for three hours and you'll feel like as soon as you send one, you get one back. Then it's like you started with 10, you replied to nine, but now you have 24. But instead, if you're like, hey, I only. I do this 10 unit blocks. I always just manage 10 unit blocks over and over. So even if I'm at my son's soccer game, I do 10 emails. And then I put my phone away. And so it makes it a lot more approachable. So small things like that allow you to still stay light, still stay focused. Because otherwise you do three hours of email, then you're just tired. So the more I can manage my energy and stay light, the more I can be inspired, the more I can be present, the more I can kind of be where my feet are.

[Layla]

It's funny because when you say that, I think about it, I equate it to exercise. I could work out three hours in one day instead of twice a week or three times or four times a week. But if I work out 45 minutes every day, it keeps my energy up, of course, and same things. It's like, I see people that are like, I'm going to dedicate this data. I got to get back to all my asana tasks, because we actually use asana as the main. So I would say, like, your email is my asana. I come in, there's all these tasks in their projects, et cetera. And people say all the time, they're like, oh, I've really got to go in. And it's like, you've created this daunting task because you. It's a thing that you should constantly be looking at because then it keeps it easy and light.

[Sharon]

Exactly right.

[Layla]

Versus, like, this one. Okay. I'm putting this whole effort. It's like, it doesn't need to be that it's actually more effective if you do it a little bit multiple times a day.

[Sharon]

The crazy part is, I'll give you an analogy, what a knowledge worker is to asana or Asana is to a knowledge worker like us.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

Is a hammer to a contractor? It's a tool.

[Layla]

Yes.

[Sharon]

Does the contractor like, what do I do with this hammer now? Does he walk around? No. He does. He's like, I need a hammer. I'm going to go use the hammer. I'm always going to use the hammer. It's in my. It's in my bag. Asana is a tool. You can't let it run your life. And then it's not approachable anymore. And then asana now becomes this dark blob that you have to like log into. You're like, oh, I don't want to do this anymore. Right. But if you have a framework for handling it now, it becomes a lot easier.

[Layla]

That's so fascinating. I also love how you geek out over this stuff too, because, like, you're the only person I can talk.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

And emails in the sauna. It's like.

[Sharon]

But the greatness is in the granularity. Right. That's why these online influencers are strange to me. Like, with the online advice is really weird. They give you the why, work harder, be kind, have grace. And I'm like, okay, well what does that mean? Then you have the what? Hey, here's a strategy. Cool. But like, how do I do it?

[Layla]

Yeah. Like no idea.

[Sharon]

Yeah. And most people don't talk about the how at all. And the how. I do it differently today than I did 10 years ago because I've learned over time. And I wish someone had taught me that. School doesn't prepare us for this. Here's something super important. Our educational system does not prepare us for success. And the reason is because they don't define success. Well, success is defined as a one dimensional thing, which is money. But success is multidimensional. In fact, it has five dimensions in. In my opinion, you have money, which is one. Relationships, energy, skill, brand. I'll tell you what I mean by that. These five things, you and Alex and I talk about this all you can horse trade, all of them. Right. When you have money, you can buy skill. When you have relationships, you can get money. When you have energy, I just mean time, effort, health. Now you have time to work. And if you have a skill, if you are a soccer player, if you can run ads, if you can do podcasts, you get paid for that. Or most of all, if you have brand and most people don't know what brand is. To me, it's like trusted distribution. You put something out, people trust you for that. And fame is the most efficient business model. That's. That is the one ring that rules them all, right? The reason we have not been given a framework for money is because we've only been told, hey, take this course and take that course. We made success sequential. And you're like, oh, you got to do this. Then you got to go to college and you got to go to grad school, Then you got to get a PhD. Then you got to do a postdoc. I'm like, how much are you going to do? And then, so what is success now? Then success becomes one dimensional, which is, if I don't make money, I don't have anything else. What people don't realize is that you can have one of those five. You can have brand but no money and still build something pretty cool. You can trade that. You can have skill, but no brand, but you can trade that. You can have time, just energy, and you can trade that. Or you can have a network of relationships and you can trade that, or you get money and you can buy all of it. But the cool part is when you realize that success is just a trade for what you truly want with what you have, you start to realize that you can't dabble anymore. People dabble because they have a little money, they have a little relationships, they have a little time, they have a little skill, and they have a little brand. I'm like, you're not going anywhere because you dabbled all of it, right? But instead if you just focus on one, like, I just worked on my skill. Like Alex always says, hey, go learn ads for 30 days. You're now the master at it. So you have a skill now. You can trade that skill with the marketplace. As soon as people realize that success is multidimensional and you can take one and trade with the other, it makes life so much easier as opposed to thinking money is one, just a one dimensional part of success.

[Layla]

So then let me ask you this. When you were growing Telus versus now at real, did you use the same framework at both? Or have you changed, like, with the dimensions, like how you grow each business by trading different, I'll say, assets.

[Sharon]

Yeah, totally. When I started real, it was, you know, we had roughly like 5000 ish agents. When I started a real, and we were growing okay. And I said, well, what is the dimension that I need to use?

[Layla]

Yeah, exactly, right.

[Sharon]

I was like, well, if I had the money Say we did. What would I spend it on? I would spend it on ads. I'm like, okay, well, that doesn't help. Do I have relationships? Okay, I have relationships. So I have something there. Do I have time? Yes, I have time. Do I have skill? Yes, I have skill. Do I have brand? In our little world, I'm king. No one knows that, but in my little tiny universe, right? But because of that, we were able to grow. So it literally, it was operationalizing brand to grow this. But it goes a little deeper, though, because you can get tired and resentful because you're spending a lot of time doing that. And the big theme for us was how do I operationalize generosity?

[Layla]

Okay.

[Sharon]

Because when you turn around and I said, hey, here's my business model. If I just give everything away, then one of two things happen. Number one, they love us and they want to come join us and they we grow. Or second, they love us. Yeah. Either is a great win.

[Layla]

Yeah. Either is a huge win.

[Sharon]

Yeah. So one is money today. The second is growth tomorrow. And so I was like, well, then the plan is to just operationalize generosity. Because I told our team, it's way easier not to get content. It's way easier to invite everybody to the Zooms. It's way easier to run events where it's open to not just the company, but everyone else. It's actually a lot easier. Can you imagine instead of going and finding a member's area or, like, going. Putting something on school.

[Layla]

Yes.

[Sharon]

You could just put it online.

[Layla]

Online.

[Sharon]

It's super easy to not get things. Like, it's EAS to not gate things. If you just operationalize generosity by not gating things, that's what really helps. So to me, the dimensions were like, what is the theme? Operational generosity. What can I use to do that? Let's just use brand. Let's use skill. So I just use brand and use skill to use operationalized generosity.

[Layla]

Man, I love that you always say, work hard behind.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

How do you operationalize that in the company?

[Sharon]

Just by this one sentence. Assume that whoever you meet is sent to teach you something. Just assume that whoever you meet is sent to teach you something. Because if I did that, then I don't show up snooty. I don't show up. Like, I know more. I don't show up. Like, why am I taking this meeting? I don't show up anyway. So I just say, whoever I meet is sent to teach me something. And that forces me to say, hey, gonna honor this person, this meeting me or may not go somewhere. So that's cool. But this person was sent to teach me something today. When you do that, it's like, I'm gonna work hard to, like, stay focused and listen. I'm going to be kind to allow them to teach me something today. And that one thing just, it reframes expectations, right? You're like, why am I here? What am I doing? It takes away from all of that saying, man, I'm meeting with Layla. This is so cool. Like, I'm going to learn something today. Like, that's really, really positive.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And that changes your approach to any scenario, any situation.

[Layla]

It's funny because now I'm thinking, like, when I met you, because Alex, I remember, got off with you and he was like, no, you need to meet him. I feel like you're like, really? You're going to love him. And I was like, he never says that about anybody. You know what I mean? And because I have such high standards, because, like, it's funny because I remember the point in time in which we met, which was a time where I told Alex, I was like, I feel very alone in the business world. And he was like, well, why? Is it because you're a woman? No, it's not. I was like, it's actually because we're surrounded by all these people who have monetary success and that are making all this money, who I can learn from, but I don't want to because they're not the nicest people. They don't treat their team well, they don't actually care about their customers. And it's funny because I started thinking maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe, you know, we didn't grow gym launch to be a billion dollar company because I'm just like a naive idiot. And then I met you, and you had grown a business to be worth billions. And you were so nice and so generous and so kind and you affirmed so many of the things that I, like, wished so badly to be true in the world. And I was like, oh, it exists. Thank God, because otherwise I don't want to do this anymore. You know what I mean?

[Sharon]

Thank you. I think this one dimensionality of success is the thing that affects most entrepreneurs. And that is everything is the barometer of money.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And if you can just realize that, man, I don't have that right now, but I can trade forward later.

[Layla]

Cool.

[Sharon]

If I don't have that now, how do I trade relationships? How do I trade energy? How do I trade skill? How do I trade time to brand if I just do that now I know I can go build one of those. And maybe that's where the calling is in a lot of ways. Like, I. I'm not money motivated. A lot of people do the disc profile and things like that. I'm a 99D99. I'm a 99D99. I'm like, I'm weird. Right. But my adaptive disc, which is when I'm stressed, I'm a lower dn. Higher. I'm a more people person. When push comes to shove, I'm not a capitalist. When I push custom shove, I'm a teddy bear.

[Layla]

Got it.

[Sharon]

And so I just realized that about myself and I go, okay, well, then how do I stay true to that version of me that makes me comfortable in my own skin? So will I be a Bezos or a Musk? No, I don't want to. And I'm comfortable with that because I want to wake up in the morning and be with people that I love. And I'm like, man, if I can get a day with Alex and Layla, that's a good day. I don't. I don't care about anything else. And who cares about making money? I'm fortunate that I've had a decent, decent financial success. But afterwards, you realize, what are you going to do? Like, buy one more taco? Like, I don't.

[Layla]

Yeah. Get guac.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

It's not.

[Sharon]

Most of the things that we need, we have, but if you can realize you can horse trade, it makes it really fun.

[Layla]

Yeah. Because I was going to ask you because, you know, I was thinking about it and we met when you were at the time where you weren't. You didn't have anything. So it's so interesting to see, like, Sharon then versus Sharon now for me.

[Sharon]

And what do you like? What's the biggest difference that you see? Because that's. I'm curious about that, too.

[Layla]

You seem happier now.

[Sharon]

Oh, just being in the. Just being in it. Yeah. Alex said that.

[Layla]

More energized.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

Happier. More certain of yourself. Confident. Like, it just seems like you're doing what you.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

You're doing things you're good at with people that you like doing it with.

[Sharon]

Yeah. Well, it gives you purpose. Right. You wake up and you have purpose. You wake up and you have something to do. This whole being retired is interesting, but you wake up and you have nothing to. You have options. You have nothing to do. And you're like, that sounds great. It doesn't. It's really bad for high driver personalities like ours. I always want to do something, but you don't want that something to be out of alignment.

[Layla]

Yes.

[Sharon]

And then you get tired and resentful. Finding something that you can sink your teeth into is super positive.

[Layla]

I'm curious for you, because I think when you say you're not money motivated, I'm the same way. Which is like, I'm just thinking about. I don't know how else to verbalize it other than, like, I want to build an excellent business, One that makes customers lives better, employees lives better, you know, but also can achieve financial success so that people actually listen to me when I tell them that this is how we did it. Right. When I wake up every morning, the first thing I'm thinking about is my team and my customers.

[Sharon]

Right?

[Layla]

And it's like, those are the two things that are top of mind. And then usually the question I ask myself is, where can I support people and where can I support the business? And this was something I had to, like, reflect on. Like, okay, this is the first thought I have when I wake up. And it is a default to the people first. Like, who do I need to support in the team? And then the business. Do you have something that's, like, it's what you think about that kind of directs you, that you indirectly grow the business financially because you focus on this thing.

[Sharon]

We all should have that, because otherwise it's very. You fall off the wagon super quick because distractions hit you. Like, we have 16,000 commercial messages hitting us every single day. They're all forcing us to get off the path that we're on.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And that's why the sprints really helped me as, like, I'm committed to doing these things. These sprints are thematic. They're got to do with goals, growth, culture, and influence. I call it gci Growth, culture, and influence. And if it's not gci, I'm like, why am I doing that? If it's not gci, why am I doing that? So that allows just. Everything is thematic. And that's been super helpful. I'll give you the big lesson that I learned. I hired my first coach when I was 21. Craziest story, which you will not even believe. I was talking to my dad on the phone. This is our first company. And my dad said to me, he goes, dude, you just need help. Like, you need somebody to talk to. And I was like, dad, I'm fine. No one can understand what I'm going through. And he's like, where are you going? I'm like, I'm going to this event. It's like 20 people. I got invited. So I went to this event, put my hoodie on, sat in the back, right? I'm like, what am I doing here? Yeah, I got stuff to do. Like, what am I doing here? And then this lady comes on stage, just 20 of us in this room, and she starts talking. I was like, all right, I'm here. I might as well pay attention. And every time I had a question that popped into my head, it felt like she read my mind. And she just answered that question. And I was like, wait a minute. So I had this question, and she answered the question, had this question. She answered question. So my drive home back, I called my dad. I said, dad, you won't believe what happened. And he goes, seems like you need somebody to talk to. So I said, well, I don't have the money, and what do I do with her? She's like. He's like, he can be a great mentor. And I go, dad, like, it feels weird. She never met me. And so this. I wrote her an email, and I said, I was in this meeting. You did great. I said these words, I would like to offer you $10,000 as a symbol of my seriousness. I will never forget that line. I do not expect any meetings. I do not expect any phone calls. I just hope that from time to time, when I write you an email, you'll prioritize my responses. That's all I wrote. She writes back saying, is this a joke? And I was like, no, I didn't know how else to reach out to you. And she said, write it up. I assume she meant a contract. And I had no idea. I was 21 years old. So I hit print on the email. I signed it, scanned it, and I sent it back to her. I don't know what else to do. And she's like, here are my wiring instructions. I wired her $10,000, and she became my first coach. And amazing, amazing lady. Still talk to her even today. She told me something which was really cool. And she said, shawn, you want to think about thematic decades. She's like, what do you want to do in your twenties? What do you want to do in your thirties? What do you want to do in your forties? And she goes, when you turn 20 or 30 or 40 or 20 to 25 or 30. But thematic decades are really powerful because it allows you to become the best version of yourself in that way. I'll tell you the crazy part. In my 30s, all I cared about was energy. Like, I want to beat this sickness, beat this illness.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And it was a dark time for us. And all I did in my 30s was just get healthier.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And that was my. My goal in my 20s. I just wanted to prove myself. I was like, I am good at what I do. I need to show the world. So there was all 20. The 20s was all about proving to myself. Now I'm in my 40s now all I feel is mastery. Like, what is one thing that I can become best in world at? Like, the text message I sent Alex are, dude, I just want to be best in world at something. He's like, of course. You know, philosophically, he's like, you don't need to be best in world at that. You are best in world at three things. He goes off philosophically about that. But my. My thematic decades are in my 40s. I just want to become best in world at something. And that shines this light on mastery. And so when you wake up every morning, you're like, if I run my week this way, is it getting me closer to that? And so it allows you to at least recalibrate. You're like, okay, this week's a fire week. It's not going to happen. I'm going to go do it next week. But it allows you to recalibrate in some way. So these thematic decades have been like a really nice North Star.

[Layla]

That's so interesting. So, like, when you stepped into real, for example, do you think to yourself, like, how this is a path, that.

[Sharon]

Yeah, I just want mastery. Like, I was like, how could I run like this? Is that my next billion? We did a billion once, let's do a billion again. When we started, we roughly had a $200 million market cap. In 18 months, we grew that to a billion dollar market cap. And I was like, that's my next billion. I want to get mastery at this and that. When you do that, you keep your promise to yourself.

[Layla]

Yeah, you do. A side note, but I obviously know about your wife and your kids and all that, and I'm curious, like, what role do you think having support has played in you being able to have all this success?

[Sharon]

I think the hardest part is us not believing that our partners, our spouses, our friends, et cetera, will support us. Most people are just like, oh, they won't understand me, they won't support me, et cetera.

[Layla]

So they never give them the chance.

[Sharon]

They never give them the chance. My wife and I have a very open relationship and we tell them. She's like, hey, if you need to work, just tell me. You need to work. And so on the weekends, if I need to work, I don't have to ask for permission. I'm like, she knows that if I need to work, I understand where priorities are. And I just tell her that I need to work. And there are times when I'm like, hey, I got a bunch of stuff going on. I'm going to leave early and be back late. She's like, just give me a heads up.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

She knows that Sharon without purpose would be a bad husband and a bad father. And I'll tell you the craziest thing. If I come home cranky or down, she look at me and she goes, can you just go sell something? You'll feel better. Just go sell something. And so she knows me so well that she's like, you didn't sell anything today, did you? I'm like, no. She goes, can you just go sell something? Write an email. Go sell something. You will feel. You will feel better. And I've seen her on weekends saying, if I'm short with the kids or what have you, that she will say, hey, you're being short with the kids.

[Layla]

Do you.

[Sharon]

Do you need to work for a little bit? And it's great because she understands that. I tell you. The second thing, though, is I've realized that a lot of entrepreneurs will say they put this undue pressure on themselves that when they're home, they have to be there with their children, et cetera. I'm like, they also learn from your work ethic.

[Layla]

Yes.

[Sharon]

So my children see me work, and so they know when they come talk to me, they're like, hey, dad, can you take a break from work, or can I talk to you later? Like, they'll do the sorting question. It's really good. I'm like, hey, I need five minutes. And they'll say, well, is it like, real five minutes? Or, dad, five minutes, Right? That's a joke. But it's okay. But at least they know that I'm working. And so now they don't bother me either, because they're like, you're working. And it's a really positive thing. So the work is not a. Work is not a stressful, negative thing in our household. It is what we do. It's. It's how we move the ball forward. It's our expression of our humanity. It's our expression of our purpose. So my children know that they want a life of work, and it's super cool. My son wants to work with me, and that's, like, the greatest compliment you could ever get. I really believe that you get a successful support system if you can be truly, deeply honest with your support system, saying, this is how I'm wired. This is how I work. This is how I think. And when you have that, it doesn't break. And so the more of that exists, the easier it is. You know, people talk about, like, work life, integration, work life, harmony, et cetera. I don't know what that means because it's really. It's just this amorphous idea.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

To me, it's just tell everybody that you're what you're working on and be really honest about it. And if you have to work, go work. If you don't want to work, don't work. Like, just be really honest about stuff. But so my. My work and my life are, like, super. They're in and out. And I. My dad always used to say, you know, he's like, I work 80 hours a week. I just choose which 80 hours I work.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

Which is super powerful, right? Yeah.

[Layla]

It's actually affirming because it's something that's been top of mind for me. And. Me and Alex actually just did a podcast together. We were talking about, like, having supportive spouse.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

I think it's good to hear from somebody who, like, isn't in the business with their spouse, but I've seen how supportive she is.

[Sharon]

Oh, yeah.

[Layla]

Because she doesn't take it personally if you're not great, because you need to work on something. I think that what I've seen a lot recently, especially with younger entrepreneurs and people that are, like, very ambitious young professionals, is they might have somebody, but that person takes it very personally that they want to work a lot. What I think that person doesn't realize is that it's not about the work, it's about the growth. And so by selling them that they can't work, you actually prevent them from growing as a person, and then that person will eventually resent you, and then nothing's going to work.

[Sharon]

It's not about the work, it's about the growth. So good.

[Layla]

Isn't it, though?

[Sharon]

It's so good because you know that it's so good.

[Layla]

It's like, you don't need to work. We could just invest in real estate and call it a day. Right. I could invest in real estate with you and call it a day. Not with myself, that's for sure.

[Sharon]

It's not about the work, it's about the growth. That's so good. That's true, though, right? That's so good. We don't Give our partners and our spouses and our friends enough credit. They're not dumb. They love you for a reason. They know you.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

They know you're weird. They want to support you with doing that. Be more honest with them. Tell them those things. If for some reason it's not working out, just say, hey, here's who I am. Can you help me figure out a path that. I don't want to insult you. I want to be there with you. And they'll tell you, hey, whenever you're with me, and when you're at dinner, don't check your phone. They'll give you the rules. And then just work through those. Right. You just tell them. I think that all progress starts with telling the truth. It's just easier if you tell the truth. You don't have to remember lies. Just tell the truth because you're so.

[Layla]

Good at just communicating what's going on. Like, Alex will call you, and then I'll be with him. You're like, hey, I'm with Neil. Talk in a couple hours. Hey, I'm. I'm with the fam. Like, it's just clear. Nobody takes offense to anybody. Just, like, telling them the truth of what's happening.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

Like, hey, I'm in meetings. Can't talk. Like, the other day you called me because I was like, oh, my God, just fucking shit show. And you were like, I called you twice. And I'm like, I'm still in the shit show. You know, it's like, you just tell people what's going on.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

And I love. Because I've seen just how much you've brought the kids into it and, like, how knowledgeable they are of business and how young they are. It's so freaking cool. I'm just like, I want more people to do that. I can't say, because I don't have kids, but I'm like, if I ever do have kids, then I want it to be like that. Where it's like, you know, you and Neil were looking at investing in land, and he's looking at buying land. He's like, dad showing you properties. And, you know, like, she wants to start a unicorn. You have the unicorn on because she has the unicorn business. Like, so cool.

[Sharon]

My coach told me. He said, hey. She said, you should have one thing with your son and one thing with your daughter that's just your own.

[Layla]

Okay.

[Sharon]

And that was her recommendation. And I said, well, why? They're like, well, you just build a different bond doing that.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And my son and I had nothing we didn't build a business together, but my daughter and I built this, you know, dropshipping e commerce company together. And so every weekend we have a board meeting. She's the CEO and she's like, dad, how much did you sell this week?

[Layla]

Right?

[Sharon]

It's, it's hilarious. Like having a 12 year old tell you that, 8 year old tell you that. But it's cool because now she knows that that's what work is. And, and when we are talking about it, she doesn't care about the rest of the world. She doesn't care about mom and dad. She didn't care. I'm her partner in that. My son, who's 12, Neil, who's 12, he just invested in his first piece of real estate as a 12 year old. But the cool part, Leila, is any conversation that's not confidential, I just leave it open in the car for him to hear. So he sees how I handle things. But what people don't realize is with my son in the car, it makes me a better entrepreneur. It makes me a better father. I'm like, I can't get mad at this person because he's going to learn from my tonality. So it forces me to be a better person. So I put him on the speakerphone. It gives me accountability to be softer, to be kinder, to operationalize generosity more. Because otherwise then he'll learn to speak like me. That made us get a lot better. So now even he'll say things like, hey, dad, I want to ask for to play volleyball and not basketball in pe what should I do? I'm like, just talk to your coach. He goes, no, but do you have a script? It's amazing that he asks you that, right? Yeah, it's amazing. The reason he asked me that is because I told him a story at 39 one on one interviews to get a job at Goldman Sachs. 39 one on one scheduled interviews to get a job at Goldman. Right? This is not including lunches, dinners, phone screens, nothing. 39 individual one on one interviews. I walk into one of these interviews with this managing partner. He shows up all frazzled. He puts like this big leather binder on the desk and he says, you're a hot shot. I see hot shots come through here all the time. He goes, see if you can set me up a meeting. You got skill. See if you can set me a meeting. So he hands me this binder. He's like, no, no, go ahead, open it. Okay. So I opened the binder. It has, it says, lea Horiz phone Number, right? And I was like, would you like me to call her? He's like, yeah. I said, sir, I'm happy to call her. Do you have a script or something? Because I just want to represent you. Well, he smiles, he packs up his stuff, he puts it in his bag, he shakes my hand. He's like, you'll do great, kid. And he walks out. And then I saw him at the cocktail party and I said, I'm sorry, that interview was like 46 seconds. Yeah, what did I do, right or wrong? He goes, I've been interviewing young hotshots coming to want to work at Goldman Sachs for years. And you were the first person that didn't just pick up the phone and want to prove to me that they're a hot shot. You asked me, hey, can you give me some guidance on what to do here? Because that made me believe that you're coachable. And I told Neil that story. And so now every time he's stuck, he's like, so can you give me a script for that? And I said, you say, hey, coach, I really love volleyball versus basketball. Would it be okay if I played volleyball this year? And he goes, really? Can I say it? I'm like, yeah, go see it. Role play right now. He gets confident saying that because I told him that story up front. I would have had no idea how to call this person. Like, what do I say? I call and say I'm at Goldman Sachs. Like, it's weird.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

So, but if it gave me a script, I would have just read it. And I don't think people ask for that stuff. It makes life so much easier, I think.

[Layla]

Ask for help, right?

[Sharon]

Yes.

[Layla]

It's been a theme I've had lately with people. I'm like, I'm going, and I'm in a one on one, for example. And then it's like, it's like resistance after. And I go, wait, do you not know how to do this? And then they're like, no, wait, just ask me for help. I have a sop, I've got a video, I've got a this. I'm like, what? Just you got. But you gotta tell me. Cause I don't know.

[Sharon]

But you know what I have found is that most people don't ask for help because they don't know how to ask for help. Not that they don't want to, they just don't know how to. And I always tell our team, here's the language pattern. Could you please help me understand blank? Could you please help me with blank? Could you please role play with me about blank. Could you please Blank.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And they're like, oh. So now you'll see them frame their language around it. Hey, Sean, could you please help me? I'm like, yes, I'm a true believer that people want to ask for help, but they just don't know how to without it affecting their self esteem.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And so if we can just give them a language pattern to help with their self esteem, it becomes a lot easier.

[Layla]

It's funny because I. I made a podcast on it the other day, and the. The one piece I also. The frame I gave people is like, everyone always says that they. They're like, I don't ask for help because I don't look stupid. I'm like, well, you're definitely going to look stupid when you fuck up so bad. And I actually was looking at, like, the highest performers on my team. They're able to ask for help early because they're like, I will fail here if I don't get help. Can you help me? Otherwise I will eat shit. And so they never actually look super stupid because they don't allow themselves to fail because they bring in all these other people to help them succeed.

[Sharon]

Of course.

[Layla]

You know what I mean? And so it's like, once I explained that to a few people, they were like. It was like this light bulb went off. They were like, oh, my gosh. So I look like an idiot because I don't ask for help. And I was like, yes, you look like an idiot when you don't ask.

[Sharon]

Well, the crazy part is, like, it's not about being Tony Robbins. It's about getting Tony Robbins support system.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

Like, it's all about the support system. If we could somehow figure out, Imagine this. Imagine if you and I had Tony Robbins support system in our corner. Imagine if you. If I was Rocky Balboa and I had those people in my corner. That's what wins. Right. And so I want to make all this money so I can stack the support system in my corner. I just want to be like, I pay you, I pay you. I pay you, I pay you. You advise me.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And that's so amazing because you. You can just outsource all the pain to the mentors.

[Layla]

It's fair.

[Sharon]

As opposed to having to deal with it yourself.

[Layla]

Do you, at this point, like, have trouble finding mentors or people that you can listen to?

[Sharon]

I do. However, I've flipped from having a generic mentor to a sniper mentor. Right.

[Layla]

I have such a similar frame. Yeah.

[Sharon]

And so, hey, who's somebody really good at this. I'll give you an example. I met two guys who run this amazing media agency on Madison Avenue. They want, they were pitching for business, I've got to know them, et cetera. And I said, hey, I would love for you to be my mentors. They're like, we don't have a model for retainer. It doesn't work like that. We do like million dollar projects to make you a logo. Like that's how they work. And I said, same exact phrase. I would like to offer you blank for a symbol, as a symbol of my seriousness. You don't need any calls, you don't need any meetings. It's a one year contract. You can quit it at any time. I'll still pay you for the rest of the year. All I want is that I will text you. And it would be great if you prioritize your text back to me. And so now I have two media moguls from Madison Avenue that I can just text. I'm like, hey, I'm thinking about this for my brand. It sucks. Don't do that. I'm like, great. Thank you. It's so amazing because they're, they're so good at their, at that field. Right? I love that and my health coach. His name is Justin Rothk, chauffeur. He was a head coach for the Anaheim Ducks. On the, on the strength side, super sharp. And he knows my personality inside out. He knows I have type 1 diabetes and I can just text him. So I hire him. I'm like, you're my sniper mentor on energy. That's all I care about. And if I have more energy, more capacity, that's my mentor. So anytime I can find somebody that is so good at what they do, and I've been talking to this guy who's amazing at AI. I'm like, hey, man, could you just be my AI coach? He's like, well, not really. I'm like, no, I'll pay you. Just. I just want somebody to text when I have a question.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

So the idea of just putting these sniper mentors in your corner so when you have a question, you don't have to be like, let me go to YouTube. Let me ask somebody who's already solved all of this. So I think money is a really important thing with this. I, I hate this whole pick your brain thing from people. I just want to offer people like a, hey, let me just pay you.

[Layla]

Yes.

[Sharon]

Right. Because it's a symbol of seriousness. And I actually believe there is a karmic Balance of all of this. Right. So Leila spent 15 years working on this, and she's going to give you one piece of advice, and you're not going to take it to heart.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

But when there's a karmic balance, it's like, oh, you are offering something for all that you have endured for the 15 years. You don't need the money, but it's a symbol of seriousness. And that's the karmic balance where you can just say, let me just write the check, because we all feel good about this.

[Layla]

It's actually funny because when you remember when we first met, I was like, man, I have so many questions for him. And I remember telling Alex I was like, I need to pay him money or something, because I can't. I can't just, like, for free, ask for all these things. Yes, you did.

[Sharon]

And, like, I still feel weird about that right now because it was so long ago. Yeah. But I'm like, oh, by the way, I will tell you this. And I have not told Alex I knew this off. That is the one thing that bothers me so much, because I love you both so much. You're my. To my best friends in the world. And I'm like, Alexander paid me. Like, I feel so. I can't believe I took money from them.

[Layla]

Why?

[Sharon]

Like, you're my best friends now.

[Layla]

Well, I remember what happened. He was like. I was like, I have so many questions. Ask. Run. And he was like, then ask him. And I was like, no, I don't feel comfortable with that. Like, I have to pay him money because I don't know him that well yet. We've only talked, like, twice. And then we became friends. You know what I mean? I feel like over and it just. And plus, like, I mean, you spent some time explaining real estate, explaining deals. Like, I didn't explain any of it. I was like, all right, I know you just went over all of that. I don't know what that means.

[Sharon]

Like, can you help me understand?

[Layla]

Yeah, exactly. And that was when you were. That was also when you weren't actively working.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

So it's probably much easier. I can't even imagine you doing that right now. Some of our phone calls were so weak because we were selling the business.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

You were not over in. Act actively in any business. And so we all had way more time.

[Sharon]

Oh, yeah. It was great.

[Layla]

Funny to think about now, like, years later, like, we're all so busy. It's weird.

[Sharon]

I can't even imagine. Like, that was such a blur.

[Layla]

I know.

[Sharon]

Of not having. That also goes to when you tell people this is. If you're not working on the things that are fascinating and motivating to you, you will get burned out. You will win less and you will forget the thematic decades. Like, weeks would just go by because you're like, oh, I'm just going to sit down and eat bon bons and play Xbox. Like, that's interesting, but it's not fascinating and motivating to you. We are built for growth. And like, we as humans are built for growth. And that's why when people start working out, they have this drug to, like, want to work out more. Because you're built for growth. When you learn more, you want more, you built for growth. My goal is, can I just activate growth? The feeling of growth in people. You can never look back, you can never go back to that person that you were once you've seen what it can do for you.

[Layla]

Now you can't unlearn. You can learn new things, but you cannot unlearn old things.

[Sharon]

Yeah. I mean, you said it. It's not about the work, it's about the growth. Like, I'm not going to. Not going to forget that.

[Layla]

No, it's so true. I have a few rapid fire questions. I see that people do these on podcasts and so I felt that I would, I would rapid fire you some questions. What's more important? You can only say one word. Culture or strategy?

[Sharon]

Culture.

[Layla]

Emails or meetings? Which one? I love how you're stuck on it because I was like, I don't know what I would say.

[Sharon]

Email.

[Layla]

Force.

[Sharon]

Because you should just start with an email. And if we can fix it, I'm sure we can take it to a meeting. The opposite would be terrible because you're like, dude, this could have just been an email.

[Layla]

Yeah, that's. I was like, I feel like this one will stress him out.

[Sharon]

Go to productivity tool Paper planner. Because when you write it out, you can just design it out and see where spaces and things look like. I still write out a lot.

[Layla]

Everything. Last one. Fame or fortune?

[Sharon]

Fame. Because fame is the most efficient business model.

[Layla]

I loved it, dude. Thank you. This is so much fun. I love this.

[Sharon]

So let me ask you this to. To finish this off.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

While. While you were listening, like, what do you remember that we talked about what was. What was interesting for you?

[Layla]

The biggest frame shift that I had was the sprints and the focus with the time that you have each day to actually get your work done. Like, if I look at the discrepancy between like, what does Layla have to do to continue to level up as an operator? What's something you do that I don't do? I think that I am too accommodating of things that come up each week in terms of like, rather than, like, I can do that in two weeks or three weeks or four weeks. I'm like, no, I could do that this week or in two days or three days. And that is something that I will immediately implement and stop doing.

[Sharon]

It's going to change your life. Because I believe. Yeah. Because you'll get chunkier time to work on more important things.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

You'll do better. Because what we have is if you're working on something and, you know, the other two more things, it's lingering.

[Layla]

I. I know, dude. And that. That's actually, like, this whole week, something's been lingering. And I'm like, I need to solve this problem. And then I was looking at next week, and I was like, when do I solve it? Next week? And then I was like, fuck this shit. What are you doing? I need these dedicated sprints, and I think it actually. I could probably plan my whole quarter in sprints.

[Sharon]

Yeah.

[Layla]

Because I know what I need to work on. Yeah.

[Sharon]

Everything is two weeks long. One week feels too short. Because especially if you travel or you have something come up.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

Two weeks feels long enough. I'm trying to add those Thursdays on one Thursday per sprint, which is. I'm not going to bed until blank. So Niti will say to me, it's. Is it your Thursday? And I'm like, yeah. She's like, all right, I'll talk to you in the morning. And so I just sit there, put my headphones on, and I'll just work till I get it done.

[Layla]

There's something so exciting about that, too. I don't know why, but, like, working late, like, it feels like nobody bothers you.

[Sharon]

You just work. And you're. But you also know you are committed. You burn the boats. You're like, I am not going to bed until this gets done.

[Layla]

That's fair.

[Sharon]

At that point, when my head hits the pillow, the feeling of accomplishment is so high. Yeah. It's like I feel good about myself. And very rarely. It's like, when you're done with that tough workout, you're like, man, I can't believe I did that.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And that's super powerful.

[Layla]

I think that will change how I work from here forward is really, really insightful. I know that maybe some people listening to that, they just gotta even just plan the night before or the week before or things like that. But like, for me, I'm trying to get those like, incremental improvements in my schedule and how I manage my time.

[Sharon]

So I mean, it's for you, a 30 minute block could add millions of dollars to the business.

[Layla]

I know, yeah.

[Sharon]

So it's a small hinge that swings a big door if you have it planned or at least have space for it. You know that's literally what Trevor was saying. Right. You just have no, no margin. And if you have no margin, you're just going from task to task to task.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And switching is like super hard too.

[Layla]

It is. You know, it's funny, is like, even when me and Alex like take a day off, it's like I like working in the morning and so it's like, I don't actually like taking a full day off. I like working for a couple hours and then taking time off. It's just interesting. I think there's just so much stigma right now, especially in like the social culture around like working too much and all these things. And like, so I see all these people who are like, they have spouses or significant others or whatever who are like, stop working. And I'm like, dude, if the person that you're with is like telling you to stop doing the thing you really like doing, like, I don't care that you work here. I care. I have a problem with the fact that somebody tells you to stop doing something you love.

[Sharon]

I actually think that. Yes. However, but that is on us. We didn't communicate that. Right. It's not on the partner. The setting of the partner has no idea the partner. Like you didn't say, hey, let me explain this. When you say this, it makes me feel like this and let me tell you why.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

What about this bothers you? Oh, is that I'm not home on time. When I say at 6 o'clock, I get at 6:15. Does that irritate you? So you just ask what it is and you just fix that. Yeah, Most people, most people are single issue voters. Most people are just irritated by one.

[Layla]

Thing, one little thing and you just.

[Sharon]

Have to fix that one thing.

[Layla]

Yeah. Like maybe it's like you don't text me while you're at work.

[Sharon]

That's it. Exactly. Right. Like my wife is really irritated if I say I'm coming home at 6 and I don't come home at 6. She's like, Listen, just do what you say you're going to do.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

And then I said I was home, I was Standing outside, taking a call. She goes, that means you were not home. And I'm like, you're right, you're right. So now, hey, if I'm home at 6, I'm like, I gotta go. There's no plans. She just said you would be home at 6. And I said, well, we were doing nothing. But she said you said you would be home at 6. So I planned my thinking around that.

[Layla]

Right.

[Sharon]

I'm like, but did we, did I do anything wrong? She goes, no, but you said. I'm like, there's just way too many single issue voters. And most of the time when we talk to our partner, our spouse, it's literally one thing. It's like, hey, you leave early and don't come back late. Or you play, you know, you go play golf. Or like, you always go get a massage, or like you just need to run, or, you know, you prioritize your work more than home. And like, well, why would you say that? Well, you always take calls at night. Oh, so you prefer that I just don't take calls at night? No, no, it's okay. But just tell me you're gonna get a call. Yeah, okay. So like, these tell you that. Yeah, it's. Most of this stuff is not. It's these unspoken expectations, become resentments or something, whatever. That quot that's fair. That's all that is.

[Layla]

And I've never had to really communicate it because it's like, I'm like, duh, you're working. I'm aware we have so much going on. Like, please keep working.

[Sharon]

Even you, you're like, leave me alone. I got, I got stuff to do. Right?

[Layla]

Oh yeah. I don't even need him to tell me because I already know what's going on enough that I'm like, I can predict what's going to happen for the next few days or week or whatever. Whereas like other people, it's like if they don't communicate to them, that makes a lot of sense.

[Sharon]

I want to just make sure that everyone knows what's going on. My team. I just say, hey, I'm really stressed out. I just tell them straight up, yeah, I'm really stressed out. I may be short. The one thing that we didn't talk about is the idea of empower. When you empower people is you don't tell them what or how to do it. Do the thing. You just tell them, hey, whatever decision you make, I'm good with it. Just make sure you have a rationale for it. So then I say, hey, Seth, why Did you do that or what was the rationale behind it all? It's because these two people wanted a refund. And they are. They have been with us for four years. And I thought that if I just refunded them these two, then they'll be clients for life. Great. Good rationale. Now if for some reason I didn't agree with the rationale, I'm not mad at Seth. I re coached the rationale it's about.

[Layla]

To do, not the who. So much easier.

[Sharon]

Exactly. So I'm like, hey, so can I give you a different way that I think about it? And then I give him the different way. He's like, oh, that's cool. He got perspective. The next time he's got that rationale. And so you don't have to coach anymore because they just don't know how you think. So now you're never coaching the person, you're just coaching the rationale.

[Layla]

Does that also help you identify if somebody's doing something based off emotional logic? Because if you don't have a rationale, then you have no logic, which means you're just going off your emotions, which is probably not a good.

[Sharon]

And you don't know how to coach them. You don't know how to. You don't know whether you have to solve emotional strength. You don't know whether you need to build skill. You don't have. No idea. And. But then you also just give them grace and say, hey, you make a decision.

[Layla]

Cool.

[Sharon]

Just. Can you walk me through like your thinking process on why you did this or because of this, this and this? Oh, dude, that's 90% great. Can I give you like a little 10% difference around it? This and this? What do you think about that?

[Layla]

Cool.

[Sharon]

Awesome. Could we do that going forward? Amazing. Thanks. See you later. So now you just coach the rationale. And he didn't feel bad at all.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

Which is the truth. You. No one wants to make anybody feel bad. So you just keep coaching rationale. And that's so much easier because now before they do something, they're like, Leila's going to ask me my rationale on this. Let me just stop and think and have a rationale. Oh, crap. That doesn't sound right. I'm actually operating. So they'll fix it themselves. They'll self recalibrate.

[Layla]

Interesting.

[Sharon]

And so you just give them the, give them the growth necessary to do that. Yeah, it doesn't work all the time, but at least it's a, it's a good start.

[Layla]

Well, it helps you also identify.

[Sharon]

Oh, yeah.

[Layla]

If they have one.

[Sharon]

Totally. The hard part is when someone did something that was off.

[Layla]

Yeah.

[Sharon]

It's a very delicate conversation to bring it up to them because you don't know whether their cat died the night before. You don't know anything. Right. But then if you're just saying, hey, that was awesome. Can we talk about, like, a different way of thinking about it? Like, with the team? I don't say I disagree anymore. We agree to disagree. Hell, no. Like, agree to disagree in my world is, like, really bad. Because now you're saying you have a different viewpoint. I have a different viewpoint. I win. No, like, that doesn't work like that. So I just say, hey, I think about it a little differently. That just means do it my way. Right. That's all that means. But you just. You don't. You don't say, I disagree with you. Do it my way. Just. Yeah, I think about a little differently. Can I share that? And now they give you permission. Now there's a different way. Now they can kind of integrate those two ideas together. So small little words don't trigger them as much.

[Layla]

Okay. I love that. It was really, really insight.