Quit Being The Hero: Our 2026 Family Reunion AHAs Leadership Edition

Summary

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TheUPside Podcast

Ep: Quit Being The Hero: Our 2026 Family Reunion AHAs Leadership Edition

Host: Theresa Flood
Guest Co-Host: Tommy Flood
Date: March 10, 2026

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Overview

In this value-packed episode of TheUPside Podcast, Theresa Flood and co-host Tommy Flood share their top leadership takeaways from the 2026 Keller Williams Family Reunion in Atlanta. Pulling from keynotes and sessions featuring thought leaders like Will Guidara, Jay Shetty, Valerie Burton, and Donald Miller, they break down actionable lessons on building people-centric businesses, cultivating resilience, and shifting from “hero” to “guide” in leadership. The discussion is candid, practical, and rooted in real-life leadership challenges and strategies.

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Main Discussion Points and Insights

1. We Build People, People Build the Business

(Starts at 04:10)

Key Insights:

• Success comes from investing in people, not just products or systems. Leadership is about creating a clear vision and empowering others to execute it.
• Inspiration from Will Guidara (author, "Unreasonable Hospitality"): The number one restaurant in the world succeeded not just because of food quality but due to a leadership culture focused on "unreasonable hospitality."
  • Example Story: Staff overheard guests regretting missing a classic New York hot dog; the team procured one and served it—in a fine dining setting. Memorable moments are made from listening deeply and caring enough to act outside of protocol.

Notable Quotes:

• Theresa: “His [Guidara’s] success…had nothing to do with the food…it was about his leadership when it came to a really, really clear vision.” (07:08)
• Tommy: “Leadership is teaching people how to think… they never added their definition of experience to the customer, it was the customer’s.” (08:59)
• Theresa: “How do you teach and train your team to think that’s an opportunity to get unreasonable?” (08:51)

Practical Actions:

• Audit every touchpoint in the customer’s journey. Ask, “How do we elevate this experience?”
• Systematize emotional impact—don’t leave “magic moments” to chance.

Memorable Moment:

• Champagne Story: Guidara gifted a champagne bottle live to an audience member who, years before, was overlooked—a demonstration of systematized surprise and delight. (11:25-12:30)

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2. Cultivating Resilience as a Leadership System

(Starts at 18:10)

Key Insights:

• Resilience isn’t white-knuckling through stress; it’s a personal system: habits, training, and recovery practices that prepare you to adapt, recover, and thrive.
• Cited by Valerie Burton (“Resilience is a personal system that enables you to adapt and recover from stress and thrive in challenge.” –19:48) and Jay Shetty, who reframed resilience as intentional, proactive preparation.
• Training > Toughness: Daily healthy habits create the capacity to look resilient in tough situations.

Jay Shetty’s T.I.M.E.S. Model:

• T – Thankfulness: Daily, specific, and spoken or written gratitude (24:32)
  • Video/text a thank you before starting your day (Tommy’s example)
  • “An anxious thought and a thankful thought cannot coexist in the brain at the same time.” – Jay Shetty (25:46)
• I – Insight: Continued learning and feeling progress; doesn’t have to be huge. Listening to the same inspiring speech daily was Shetty’s approach.
• M – Mindfulness: Set morning and evening check-ins with yourself for clarity and progress reflection. (29:34)
  • “Have a meeting with yourself…what’s the most important thing you did? Then at the end of the day, what did you do well?” – Tommy (29:34-30:42)
• E – Exercise: Physical wellness underpins mental resilience.
• S – Sleep: Rest is essential, not optional, and fights burnout. Top performers must value recovery as much as hustle.

Practical Actions:

• Establish daily gratitude and check-in rituals.
• Prioritize physical well-being as a strategic advantage in resilience.
• See periods of plenty as the time to prepare for challenge (“top producers win quarters, culture builders win decades” –43:43)

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3. Be the Guide, Not the Hero: StoryBrand Leadership

(Starts at 34:17)

Key Insights:

• From Donald Miller’s ‘StoryBrand’ (presented at Family Reunion): In leadership and marketing, you’re not the hero—your client or team is. Your role: the wise guide.
• Being the hero is exhausting and limits impact; empowering others creates true, lasting results.
  • Great brands and cultures are story-driven, with the team as protagonists.
  • “Do I want to be impressive or do I want to be impactful? Heroes are impressive. Guides are impactful.” – Tommy (38:09)
• Leadership check: Focus less on “here’s what I’m building” and more on, “Here’s what you can achieve with us.”

Story and Example:

• Vision Breakout with Keller Williams Bulgaria:
  The operating partner aimed for 50 agents but, more importantly, wanted to transform real estate ethics in an unregulated market—not by imposing rules, but by building a company with integrity-driven agents. The vision attracted team members as co-heroes, not just employees. (42:03)

Notable Quotes:

• “It could be very easy to sit down and talk about our vision…If you want to talk about being the guide and not the hero, it’s ‘Hey, when you join us, this is what you can do.’” – Tommy (41:16)
• “A hero focuses only on results. A guide is building a culture that results come in…top producers win quarters. Culture builders win decades.” (44:10)

Practical Actions:

• Audit messaging and leadership stance: Are you making others the hero in your organization and casting yourself as the guide?
• In every interaction, ask: where can you step back, spotlight someone else’s growth, and offer wisdom instead of answers?

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “Excellence gets you invited to the table, but it’s the emotional impact that gets you remembered.”—Tommy, 14:10
• “Resilience is a personal system that enables you to adapt and recover from stress and thrive in challenge.”—Theresa quoting Valerie Burton, 19:48
• “Real leadership is how do I empower someone else to save the day.”—Tommy, 39:55
• “Top producers win quarters. Culture builders win decades.”—Tommy, 44:10

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Action Steps for Listeners

(Wrap-up: 44:22 onwards)

• Audit Customer/Client Touchpoints: List every interaction and brainstorm one way to surprise/delight/elevate each point.
• Implement Daily Resilience Habits: Gratitude in the morning, progress reflection at night.
• Shift Your Leadership Narrative: Review your communication—are you positioning yourself as a guide? Where can you lift others to hero status?

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Final Takeaway

When you invest in growth every day, the returns are exponential. Shift from being the hero to being the guide, invest in resilience as a system, and build a business—and a life—centered on people and purpose.

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Notable Segments & Timestamps

• Recap of Family Reunion / Purpose of Debrief – 02:01–03:10
• We Build People & Unreasonable Hospitality – 04:10–18:10
• Resilience: Personal Systems & TIMES Model – 18:10–33:58
• StoryBrand & Guide vs Hero Leadership – 34:17–44:10
• Action Items & Episode Wrap – 44:22–End

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Keep living on the inside. Subscribe for more actionable insights at teresaflood.com.

Transcript

[A]

Calling all leaders. Today's episode is for you. Welcome to the Upside Podcast, where we help you get unstuck in life and business by elevating your thinking and provoking meaningful change from the inside out. And today I'm joined by my favorite co host. Yes, not guest co host today, Tommy Flood.

[B]

Well, thank you for having me, Theresa.

[A]

All right, awesome. So we have just gotten back from Keller Williams Family Reunion.

[B]

It already feels like it was a couple weeks ago.

[A]

I know. So we're recording this on Friday. So the crazy thing about the way they did the schedule this year is we started on Saturday and we were done on Tuesday. So we flew in Friday night. No, Tuesday. Oh, we flew into Atlanta on Friday night.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So if you're not familiar with Keller Williams Family Reunion, it's our big annual national convention that we host every year. It moves locations. This year it was Atlanta and not Hotlanta.

[B]

This year, though. No, it was definitely cold then.

[A]

So cold. I made the joke. It was so windy. I made the joke that I was really glad that I had not lost any weight this year because it might have carried me away. I was walking to lunch on Sunday and I felt unsteady on my feet. The wind was so strong. It was insane.

[B]

Yeah, it was. I think the first morning I left, it was 15 degrees in the morning when I left. It was the wind chill.

[A]

It was so cold. Yes, it was really so cold. It was colder outside than it was in a convention center. And if you're familiar with conventions, you know how cold convention centers typically are. So anyway. And then it was done on Tuesday.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

So it was a crazy slap in the face reality because we got back on Tuesday night and it was still three days left of the work week.

[B]

We weren't even at top day yet.

[A]

No, no. And. And so anyways, we're recording this now on Friday afternoon and I'm not going to lie. And pretty much pretty happy it's Friday.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I'm ready. Ready for some weekend.

[B]

But it was a very good conflict.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

I mean, it was so packed. And I. I'm glad we actually took a couple of days to have this conversation because I. I'm still feel like I'm only half. Half unpacked as far as.

[A]

Totally agree.

[B]

Mental load that I bought home.

[A]

So we're doing so much in the market center to debrief on this and to really dig deep because I feel like so many times you do conferences like this and you spend all of this money and you take all of these notes and Then you come home, you stick the notes on the shelf and you just move on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I said this year we're not going to do that. So we're filming two Upside episodes based on the content we received at Family Reunion. Our Market center is doing three weeks of huddles with different speakers sharing their AHAs. We're doing an an event next Wednesday at the office for people to share. I mean, we're just doubling down on it because I feel like there was so much rich content that I want to really learn it, absorb it, and then most importantly, implement it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So my thought for you and I today, because again, we're not going to be able to debrief on the entirety of the entire convention, but I wanted us to take three main themes that we came out of Family Reunion and really tie it back into leadership.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Because so many listeners of the Upside are leaders or they are people who are growth minded and they're growing their leadership.

[B]

Well, we're all leaders.

[A]

Well, that's a great question.

[B]

I mean, whether, whether we are official leaders, all our self leaders. Even if you do not view yourself as a leader, I will tell you this, that everything that anyone wants in life is completely tied to how much they develop themselves as a leader.

[A]

I totally agree with that. So we're going to dive into three kind of big ideas and some of these are going to reference particular speakers, maybe a little bit more than others. But we're going to talk about how we build people and people build businesses. Then we're have a whole conversation on resilience, which I thought was one of the best themes of the entire convention. It came up in multiple speakers. And then I want to dive in as a conversation around being the guide and not the hero of the story, but really tie it in specifically to how we do that from a leadership perspective.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Not just from a sales, marketing, social media perspective.

[B]

I have no guarantee that I will stay on topic, but let's go.

[A]

Okay. I'm going to do my best to wrangle this one in. Okay.

[B]

So there's just too much. Originally you told me I'm not supposed to mention anything from CEO Summit because you're going to do another episode.

[A]

No, I'm not going to do that now.

[B]

So you can say I'm all over the place.

[A]

Okay, well, and I, I joked because I have more of my little cheat sheet note cards for this episode and the next one than I typically do because it's just so much. But anyway, so we're going to, we're going to tame it down. We're not going to go too long. So. All right, so let's talk about the first concept of we build people and people build the business. And one of my favorite speakers of the entire week. And, and actually he was one. He was on day one in CEO Summit. And so I feel like I started kind of talking a lot and thinking about the other speakers that were more towards the end. But then again, as I was going through my notes, I'm like, no, I remember this guy was absolutely incredible. And it's Will Guidera who is the author of Unreasonable Hospitality. So listeners, if you don't know his story, it's a great book. I believe it's a great book because I heard the keynote, so I will go read the book. I haven't read it yet, but he owned a restaurant that he took to become the number one restaurant in the world.

[B]

And I'm pretty sure that he took it to number one as a vegan restaurant in New York City.

[A]

I don't know if it was vegan. I don't remember.

[B]

I know it was vegetarian.

[A]

That's terrible.

[B]

But it was either, which I think. But now here's the thing. I think that's even a bigger deal. I mean, you would think in a city like New York City, that many people and all of the options are out there to take such a. And I, I'm sorry if I, if I'm. It's either vegan or vegetarian. I. So it's it for him to take something that is such a niche conversation, although that may be a growing demographic trying to make it the number one restaurant in the world is impressive, especially coming from a meat eater.

[A]

Right. Well, what he says is it's, it was nothing to do with the food. Now the food was again, this is a very fancy, high end fine dining restaurant. Yeah. And arguably you could say the food was some of the best in the world. But he tells a story, first of all, how the first time he was invited to. I forget what it's called. It's the world, the world's 50 best restaurants, I think is the. As like the whatever that you. The contest. It's not a contest, but you understand what I'm saying anyway. And so they get invited to this event. All 50 of them are there. And so you basically are just waiting for your name to be called. And so you don't want to get called first because if you're called first, you're 50th. So you're like, again, it's A huge honor to be invited there, but you're the worst in the room. And so you, you want to get called later in the game. And so the first time he was invited there he was 50th, literally the first name called out of the gate and then eventually was named the number one restaurant in the world. But what he talks about is this mentality of unreasonable hospitality. And as I looked at at him as a business owner, as a CEO and as the leader of his company, it was so clear that his success, really, it wasn't about the skill or the quality craft of the, of the restaurant. It was about his leadership when it came to a really, really clear vision.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That we're going to provide unexpected, unreasonable guest experiences. We're going to differentiate. Differentiate ourselves in this way. And then he trained a staff and a team to execute because when you. So the idea was they would do just all these outrageous things, right. To. To create guest experience. Well, you can't possibly teach everything in the moment. So one thing they did, for example, okay, so it wasn't a meat restaurant, but they overheard guests talking about how they had visited New York City. And the one thing that they hadn't experienced was a New York ballpark. Not ballpark, hot dog, whatever it is, I don't know that you buy in the stands.

[B]

Hot dog cart.

[A]

There you go. And they hadn't gotten one of these yet. And they were disappointed they were going to leave New York without having one of these. So their team goes out and gets a hot dog and brings it back and serves them the hot dog. And they were raving, not about the fine dining food.

[B]

Now there's nothing luxury about a hot dog cart.

[A]

I mean, talk about not being on brand. And yet how completely on brand do you think as a leader, you have to teach and train your team to think in such a way where they heard that and thought that's an opportunity to get unreasonable. Right.

[B]

Yeah. I think when you look at that and you just like, from a leadership perspective, like you were saying, it's that concept of, we always say leadership is teaching people how to think.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And to teach someone to think with that kind of unreasonable hospitality, to teach someone to think with that level of excellence, while at the same time, you've got to have some constraints. I mean, you've got to have some guard nails that are there. You've got to stay in line with who you are. You've got to stay in line with what it is. And yet they made it all about the customer, all about the Consumer all about what their experience was. They did not. What I thought was interesting and what I took away from that was they'd never, they never added their definition of experience to the customer.

[A]

Oh, I love that.

[B]

It was the customers.

[A]

No one on staff cared about having a hot dog.

[B]

They probably all had done it before. They're probably all sick of it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like. And yet you have to get taught outside of your definition of upscale dining. You have to get out of your definition of hospitality. You have to get out of your definition of fine food to say, I got an idea, let me go get them a hot dog.

[A]

Yes, well. And he talked about how do for one what you wish you could do for all, but it's also one for one, meaning it's a unique individualized experience. And there's this tension, I think, as business owners and business leaders, of always wanting to make sure our systems scale. Right. I'm reading Science of scaling due to your recommendation and wanting to make sure that it scales. And his concept was go do these unreasonable acts of generosity, wow the client, and then figure out what aspects of it you can scale. So he gave the example of, you know, so this was the greatest moment. So he, he asked everybody in the audience, how many of you got engaged, Right. At a restaurant. You'll remember this. And a lot of hands went up. They got engaged at a restaurant. And then he asked, you know, the. It was somebody close up front in the audience. He said, dim, did you get a bottle of champagne? When he. And the guy says no, and he goes, are you kidding me? Like everybody gets a bottle of. And it was kind of the joke that, you know, he didn't even get the expected standard of whatever. So he talked about how everybody gives champagne. And so what he did is he went to Tiffany's across the way, bought these beautiful champagne flutes, made a deal with Tiffany. So they had em all in the back and then customers would leave with their first toast. Champagne flutes.

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

Okay. So that was a scalable opportunity that happens over and over. Okay. This was the most amazing thing. So he gets done with his speech, right. And all of a sudden the J, I think it was Jay Papazan was up on the stage introducing the next speaker. And Will comes back on the stage and it was kind of like he was interrupting. It was kind of awkward. He goes, I'm sorry, sorry, I just have one more thing. And he brings down a bottle of champagne to the guy in the audience. Right. Who didn't get the champagne when he got engaged at the restaurant.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But here's my thought going back to the previous point. He didn't go get that champagne. There had to have been somebody on his team that thought, like, he thought that is constantly looking for ways to create magic and thought, oh, this is an opportunity to go, wow this individual person, but the entire audience and show. This is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about doing unreasonable things and out of the box things and creating moments for people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It was so beautifully demonstrated. And there's no way he personally could have gone and gotten that champagne.

[B]

Nope.

[A]

So it was just. It was such a great example of true leadership and then building team around you that that has the vision and the culture of the company.

[B]

Yeah. Well, and I think that that, I mean, that that's such the big deal. And I love you said it on there. Right. Like, it's a. It's a system that they can follow. I think sometimes we believe that an emotional experience needs to be on the spot and not systematized. And realistically is. I mean, I remember when our girls were young and first started going to school, I scheduled time once a month for each of them to wake them up 10 minutes before the other one. Right. And I would wake them up and go, do you want to come help daddy do lunch? Do you want to. You want to get up? I want to help Daddy do this. And to each of them, they thought, I just randomly selected them because they were young. And they decided, oh, I randomly woke them up early today because I want to spend time with them. When in reality, I was probably in the middle of trying to finish my cup of coffee and my phone dinged and said, go wake up Jet or go wake up Bean. And so, like, I think that we have to realize that there is a way to systematize it. As a matter of fact, you can. You can make anything a process. And I think that that is. How do you take that level of unreasonable hospitality? How do you take that level of emotional impact? And I. And I think that's one of the key things in this that he does so well. And it's not just about excellence.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's about the emotional impact. And, you know, excellence gets you invited to the table, but it's the emotional impact that gets you remembered so good.

[A]

So what they did, and this is something that I'm coming back and going to sit down with our team and go through the same process. Um, but he took every point in the customer's journey from the time that they booked their reservation all the way to after they left the restaurant and looked at all of the touch points, and I think they came up with 130 touch points. So everything from checking in to get your reservation, to walking to the table, to ordering an appetizer, to paying your bill. I mean, every single one. And said, how do we elevate this experience? And so one of the things they did, even with paying the bill, which they said, is an awkward time for a waiter because you. You bring the bill too early and people feel rushed. Nobody wants to be waiting on the bill. And so they poured. And again, this is a very fine dining place, but they poured a small cup of bourbon. Glass of bourbon. Cup would be the right word. Shot of bourbon, essentially, for everybody. And just. And then they put the bottle of expensive bourbon on the table and just said, here's the bill. Take, you know, pay it when you're ready. I wanted to bring this bourbon, you know, a sample of it for all of you. And if you decide you want more, it's on the house. Yeah. And they said, hardly anybody. They're stuffed at this point. Like, everybody's ready to go their stuff. So hardly ever did anybody take them up on that. But it created this incredible moment of the awkwardness of the check.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And turned it around.

[B]

Not rushed at all.

[A]

Right. It turned it into this great experience. So looking at. Okay, in our businesses, how do you know, sitting down with our teams and saying, what is. Every time a customer interacts with us or has some kind of change in the process, and how do we do something that just creates an unexpected experience?

[B]

Well, and I think you see that, like, I think at first, that begins with real estate. And I think it doesn't matter what industry you're in. Right. Whatever industry you're in, you're actually in the human being business.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. And that's kind of where we have to come with this. Where. Where we happen to. To be in the human being business through a industry called real estate. But it. I mean, my interaction in real estate is not about contracts and listings and buyers and sellers. It's more about leaders. Right. So it's a human business. Our agents are. It's. It's not about. It's not just about their listings or their contracts or their commissions. It is about human beings. And so having that slowdown to realize that we're still. Because again, I go back to. It's that emotional impact that people remember.

[A]

So, last point I want to make on this, just because I love the huddle so much. And he stood up there and he said the number one thing that we did as a restaurant is that we would do a pre opening huddle every single day. It was non negotiable, it was high energy, it was clarity, it was creative. We cast the vision every single night. And he said the number one thing you can do as a leader with your teams is a daily huddle. And you know, of course you and a lot of people know how passionate I am about our market center daily huddle. But I can see that, right. Of just the power of the consistency of that and having your team on the same page. So I felt very validated, very validated in that moment about something that really I've already experienced. Right. The power of that.

[B]

So I just think leaving off, if we want to jump off this subject, I think leaving everybody with this, this concept, it's not about are you good? It's about are you unforgettable?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[B]

And I think that's where if, if that's the question to ask not are we good? Are we great? Are we unforgettable?

[A]

So good. Okay, so second theme I want to talk about is the idea of resilience. Because and somebody reminded me how quickly we forget. At Megacam, Gary Keller was talking about the idea of being antifragile and he taught on the concept of what does it mean to be antifragile. And you know, for us in real estate, it's a challenging business. All entrepreneurship is challenging. All life is challenging. Let's be real. I've named me a human being that doesn't have challenges. But you know, the last few years because of market combined with economics, combined with industry disruption have, have been exceptionally challenging in a lot of way. There's, there's not been, there's not been much that has been low hanging fruit or just easy business. You know, you're selling homes almost twice to get to the closing table, all kinds of things. And so resilience has been an important trait I think for anybody who's, who's going to succeed really in anything. But Valerie Burton, one of the speakers at CEO Summit, defined resilience as a personal system that enables you to adapt to stress and thr and recover from stress and thrive and challenge. Okay, hang on, I'm just gonna read it. Cause I watched that totally resil. Resilience is a personal system that enables you to adapt and recover from stress and thrive in challenge. And then I believe it was Jay Shetty in the keynote really challenged the idea that resilience is not about white knuckling something. I think we. I mean, I have thought resilience as.

[B]

It's all about grit.

[A]

It's all about grit. Like, just grin and bear it. You know, Punker down, try harder, double down, hustle. This very kind of agonizing approach.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And both speakers. And then other times throughout, Gary Vee talked about it. Gary Vee talked about results.

[B]

Talked about it like it was. It was all through.

[A]

Yes. It's all throughout.

[B]

Jimmy Wood called it about courage, but it was the same thing, same conversation. Courage is about practicing it right. And going.

[A]

So thinking about resilience as, okay, what is the personal system that I'm creating so that I can be resilient? So Ryan Leak, who moderated Social Con, which was the social media focus day on Sunday. I'm a huge fan of Ryan Leak. And he talked about how his wife. I don't. I don't think it was a marathon, but she did some big voice.

[B]

Makes me feel good, like, once a week. Because he personally texts me.

[A]

That's so weird, because he must personally texts me something different.

[B]

No, I think he probably personally texts a couple million people.

[A]

You should get on his. Ryan League's personal text. It is. It's gonna make you feel good. But his wife ran. I don't know if it was a marathon. It was something anyway. And, you know, he. He joked. He's. He's very funny. And so he's talking about how he's holding up the signs or what have you, cheering her on. And, you know, and he thought running, not running. Yeah, he was not running. She was doing all the hard work. And he said, I'm so proud of my wife like she was. And I had the thought, she's so resilient. And he said, but here's the reality. The resilience was just a byproduct. She showed up resilient. Everybody else saw resiliency, but it was the byproduct of the fact that she got up early every single day and trained, and she adjusted her diet and she did a bunch of hard things, but there were. And she rested and recovered, and she did all of these things to prepare for that. And so then all of a sudden, to the whole world, it looks like resilience, and yet it was really just daily habits that made her look resilient. Right.

[B]

Well, I think it's interesting because when you look at that and realize, like, I even wrote down kind of thinking about this. I don't know where I heard this. It was in my notes somewhere, but it said, resilience is a toughness. Resilience is training.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right. And it is about, it's about, I think real resilience comes out when you are actually training before the stress hits.

[A]

Yes. Right.

[B]

Jay Shetty talked about it. Right. Is it's training for when it, it's. It's almost intentional resilience versus reactive resilience. Right. Reactive resilience or what we normally think of. Resilience is all right, I. When this, when stress hits me, I will be.

[A]

Then I'm going to.

[B]

I'll go do it. Whereas intentional resilience is. I'm going to go ahead and train for it so that it may never hit me, but if this does hit me, I'm already ready to handle it.

[A]

I think sometimes we think that challenge and opportunity makes us stronger. And it doesn't always, like, just because we have challenge, sometimes challenge breaks us, sometimes challenge defeats us. Challenge in and of itself, itself does not make us stronger. In all challenge, we have the opportunity for it to make us stronger.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But so much of that resilience is built in the good times. When, when things are. You look at a farmer who has, you know, years of great crop and harvest, they're storing away for the years of drought.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There was a lot of us in real estate who maybe didn't store away provision financially from the great times. Those who did have resilience when the market shifts and is bad. Right.

[B]

Kind of like the story of Joseph in the Bible, Right?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Egypt became the most powerful country in the world because Joseph had a vision that there was going to be seven years of famine after seven years aplenty. So when there was seven years aplenty and everybody was just living in excess, he told the pharaoh, we need to take a bunch of this and store it away. Seven years later, the famine hits and. And all of a sudden the rest of the world who had been living it up in the good times and many of them were going to survive. But true resilience isn't about survival. True resilience, it is about expansion. True resilience is about expanding your capacity. True resilience is about creating a new you.

[A]

So Jay Shetty's model for resilience, and he talked about the five habits and it was the acronym times.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So the T was for thankfulness.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And talked about daily practice of thankfulness being specific and spoken or written. Right. Not just thinking it, but really actively participating in thankfulness.

[B]

I heard Edmont once on his podcast share. You have like 10 practices you do before you start Your day. And one of those was to send someone a video text telling them, thank you. Jay kind of said the same thing, right? He said, pick somebody personal, somebody in business. He. And I don't think it really matters, but he said, you can sit down and type it out. You can. Whatever it took. But I just remember Ed Millett. I've actually implemented that in my life. Some people probably watching this have gotten that video text.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes. It is a system, and if you haven't gotten one, you're on the list. Don't worry, it's coming. But you.

[A]

You.

[B]

I actually sit down and video it takes. The only problem is I'm supposed to do them, like, before my day starts. It means my hair's a mess.

[A]

So you kind of.

[B]

Kind of go that route with it. But I do it. I think that I loved that piece because I do think. What was it that Jay Shetty said in the thing? He said that an anxious thought and a thankful thought cannot coexist in the brain at the same time. I think it's powerful.

[A]

So good. And then the eye for insight and the idea that we need to constantly be learning and growing, and that creates resilience and the feeling of learning and growing.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Not just the fact that you are, but that you're consciously aware of it, and you see the progress creates resilience. I thought that was really good. And so it doesn't always have to be reading an entire book or it can be meditating on one scripture or on a quote. We're obviously listening to the Upside podcast.

[B]

Well, what was interesting was, he said, if you remember, Jay Shetty said, I listened to Steve Jobs commencement speech.

[A]

Oh, this was so good.

[B]

So like, 90 days in a row.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You're gonna stop that. And I. It wasn't. It wasn't like he said, you don't have to read. You know, it's a podcast.

[A]

You can.

[B]

But it wasn't for him. Just he listened to it. And then another one. I don't remember what the other one he said was. It's in my notebook there.

[A]

But I think it was Matthew McConaughey. Oh, it was.

[B]

It was Matthew McConaughey's acceptance. Be the one where you just say, just keep on living. And he said that he listened it for 30 days in a row to create that insight and feel the progress of it. Because I do think when you do something consistently like that, you do feel the progress so many times. There's a great book called the Gap in the Game by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. And one of the key parts of that is we, we. You can look back on what's happened to you, but whenever you look, when you can look back, but if you look, if you're always looking at, I haven't made it to the goal yet, rather than look how far I've come. Yeah, like the. Look how far I come on. Look at this. Even the small progress. When you, when you recognize progress, your human mind immediately goes into action. It begins to want more progress.

[A]

So I can't remember what, where he attacked. Maybe it was under the next one, which is mindfulness. The m of times is mindfulness. And he told the story of hospital cleaners. And that's one of the hardest jobs in America is cleaning hospitals. And certainly underappreciated and very invisible, yet so key and crucial. And they had two groups that they interviewed, and one group described their job as they were low paid, low wage workers.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the other group described themselves as healers.

[B]

They were. And they were, by the way, they were both the hospital janitorial staff.

[A]

Right. Same job, same pay, same hours, no difference except for how they viewed their role. And those who viewed it as low paid, low pay, low, low skill work, weren't real excited, didn't love their job, low fulfillment experience, burnout. And the ones who viewed their job as healers, meaning they attached the purpose every single day to what they did. They said, you know, when we keep a clean hospital, it enables our patients to get well. When we clean a hos, a clean hospital, they're not getting infected with new infections and bacteria. When we have a clean hospital, their family wants to come and stay and be with them longer because it's a beautiful place to be. So they attached all of this meaning to their work and it created resilience. Valerie Burton talked a lot too, about vision being so connected to our resilience. If we're not real clear on the why we're doing what we're doing, it's very easy to give up and it's very easy to quit. Um, but the mindfulness he talked about specifically setting a daily appointment with yourself. Do you remember that?

[B]

Yeah. You talk. He said, set an appointment with yourself in the morning. You're just going to check in, check in with yourself on what the most important thing you get done that day is like, what's the most important thing I do not what's the most important task I accomplished? What is the most important thing I do? And then at the end of the day, you check in with yourself and figure out what you did well, and that's that progress piece, right? That's that setting yourself up or, you know, the, the next day, the, the biblical verse, you know, don't let the sun go down on your anger. We've long talked about that as being. It's, it's not that you, you want to have your mind clear of the junk of today so that your unconscious mind begins to prepare you for tomorrow while you're sleeping. I thought about that when he was talking about the meeting with yourself at the end of the day, because I look at that as when you sit at the very end of your day, you have a meeting with yourself and you check in, what did you do good? You are going to sleep on the fact that you've made progress. So your unconscious mind is setting you up to make more progress tomorrow because

[A]

you're rewarding it and you will always do more of what is rewarded. And then the last two, I mean those first three, the thankfulness, the insight and the mindfulness are really internal mindset type attributes.

[B]

And honestly, probably you could do in like two minutes. So fast, like.

[A]

Right. This is not hours of your day committed to resilience.

[B]

The reason I say that is the next one can take a little bit longer.

[A]

Right. So the next two is exercise. The E is exercise and the S is sleep.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so that's the physical component of resilience. And I just think this is so true because I know for me personally, when I'm tired, when I'm wore out, when I physically don't feel well, it is so much harder for me to handle things emotionally. It is so much harder for me to deal with discouragement or conflict or disappointment or frustration. It just. Not that it can't be done, but it's certainly a lot harder. I mean, you're, you're climbing an uphill battle. Whereas if I'm rested and my energy is good, you have more energy than.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To put towards that. And so, and just thinking too, as we're talking about investing for the future, you're also the healthier you are now. Even if you get sick, if you start healthier, you're better, you're still better off. Right. It creates even physical resilience.

[B]

Well, and he, what I think was great about adding those last two into the first, first three, because you think of resilience as being a mental fortitude. You think of things like thankfulness and mindfulness. Right. And learning that there's all mental, but there's such a connection between the physical and that Mental side. And I think one that's not even on there is like, there's this. Right now, they're finding how literally there are nerve channels and neuropaths that go from your gut to your brain directly. It does not pass go. It does not collect. 200. 200. It goes straight to your brain. And they're beginning to call the gut the second brain.

[A]

I've heard that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

So when you look at that, I think it's Jim Quick that kind of talks about that. But when you see that and you realize, okay, there's there. There is so much sleep, exercise, diet, all of that is added to how our mental brain tackles tough things.

[A]

And to circle back to the beginning of this, where we said resilience isn't about white knuckling. It's not about pushing harder. It's not about hustling. To think of sleep, rest.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Rejuvenation being one of the key component components to whether or not you're a resilient person. I think for a lot of top performers, that goes against their natural tendency. There's sometimes guilt involved with sleeping. If I'm not sleeping, you know, if I'm sleeping, I'm not making money. If I'm sleeping, I'm not getting anything done. And so there really has to be a shift if you're gonna do this long term and it not just be a wham, bam, amazing year. If you're gonna have a great career and you're gonna, you know, really stand the test of time. It is rest that it's such a key component. And so I think that's. That's so good. Okay, so let's move on to the third one.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So the.

[B]

I find it funny as we were talking about this right before we started.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You said that the third one was the one that you had the least on.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's probably my favorite.

[A]

I just. I just thought maybe I would have less to say around it, but we'll see.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Okay. So the third concept. Donald Miller wrote a book called Storybrand. And actually he has a lot of books and classes.

[B]

Simple. No way back to Blue light jazz. I've been a Donald Miller fan for a couple of decades now.

[A]

Yeah. So he's been around a long time. And his story brand book was really what he was speaking about at family reunion, specifically during social con.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it's the idea of.

[B]

I think it's because they gave it all to us too. They gave us 2.0.

[A]

Yes, I know. I have one. I'M excited to read it. So the idea is that everybody loves a story and we've got to get really, really great at telling stories.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And so that is most of the time. And really how he was talking about it was from the perspective of social media and of marketing, which is a obvious correlation. But I also was looking at it from the perspective of leadership.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Because his main point in this is that so often we try to be the hero. Our client is the hero. The person we're leading is the hero. The people we're investing in, they're the hero. We're the guide. And we position our. We take on the wrong role, essentially. And we hear all the time, we gotta tell our story. We gotta tell our story. And leaders. So much of leadership in creating culture is about telling story.

[B]

Oh, absolutely, right.

[A]

What do you want people to believe? That's how you create culture. And I think it's very easy to slip into thinking we have to be the hero, which is an incredibly exhausting responsibility as a leader, but also positioning ourselves in that way and really losing the plot.

[B]

Well, it's interesting you say that because I do. The thing about being the hero and to everyone out there that we're looking at this, if you look at a true story, the hero's actually a weak character. And you think of all great movies you had a guest on, he's a friend of ours, Dr. Tony Bridwell. And he taught. He came and spoke to our group of leaders and he talked about that process of story. Right. And it was. It was early 19, 1900s, and a professor at a major university way back and studied every great piece of work and the Iliad, the Odyssey, all these things. And there was like these certain process, these three phases of the certain process that everything. And that every story had. And there was a hero was the main character in it. And one of those things is a hero found a guide. But if you look at like. And probably in our world, if you're a Star wars fan, George Lucas hit it with Star wars big time. But if you look at the entire nine movies of the Star wars world, there's three different trilogies. And each of those trilogies is about a Skywalker, and the Skywalker is the hero. But every one of them, I mean, I remember as a kid, we used to laugh because Luke Skywalker was just whiny, right? And he. But he was the hero, and the hero is weak, but yet the hero

[A]

has to have a problem or there's no story. But it has to go wrong. They have to need help. They have to have an issue. Otherwise you really don't have a very exciting story.

[B]

But we all, you know, who we all loved? You know, in the 80s, we all loved Obi Wan Kenobi. We all loved Yoda. Right. They were the guides. Right. They were the wisdom. They were the. And I think in leadership specifically, we all have. We all come to a point, we have to decide, do I want to be impressive or do I want to be impactful?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Heroes are impressive. Guides are impactful.

[A]

That has been a question that I don't remember the first time I really heard that or who I heard that from. But that has been a framework. I, I ask myself that question every time I'm preparing for a podcast episode. I ask it every time before I go teach or speak in front of a room.

[B]

When you're speaking, it's do I want to be entertaining or do I want to be effective? Yeah, it's the same concept, but it's, it's, it's just when you're talking leadership, it's do I want to be impressive or impactful? When you're speaking, it's, do I want to be entertaining or do I want to be effective?

[A]

Yeah. Well. And I don't want to get into this piece of it a whole lot. However, he also talked about so many times, we try to sound smart, and by trying to sound smart, we completely lose people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because again, we're trying to be impressive as opposed to really getting clarity on who that. Who we want that main character of the story to be. And I think as leaders, if we can get really clear about not being the main character of the story, that keeps us humble, that keeps us leading in service leadership. It's about the people that we serve. We're not the main character.

[B]

The difficult part about that is whether you're in sales and you're selling to a person, you're in leadership, whether you're an influence online. You know what? It feels good to save the day. Yeah, it really feels good to save the day. And I believe in that conversation that it's the hero's job to save the day. And so there's. Sometimes we just feel like, especially top producers matter. If you're going to get something done, I got to do it myself. Real leadership is how do I empower someone else to save the day? And you've got to be in front of. You've got to be thinking that way long before the day needs to be saved.

[A]

So good.

[B]

And I think even in, like, such If I can go on, I think even in, like, casting vision, I think that's one of the world. Because a lot of times when we cast vision, I think that it's easy to slip into hero mode because we say little phrases like, here's what I'm building, here's my vision. Right. Or sometimes even, here's what I've done so far. Whereas if you're going to be the trusted guide, as a real leader, you want to pull people in that it's about, here's where you can go. It's about, here's what's possible for you. Like, I look at that when I'm talking about hiring leadership in our organization. And when I'm. When I'm out attracting talent, that's recruiting talent, talking to that, trying to get people in there, it's not about. It could be very easy to sit down with them and talk about our vision and be like, here's all the things we do at the GO Network. Here's all the stuff that's there. We've done this. We go back to 2016 and talk about where we've. And the fact that we close all these, you know, 25, 30,000 units a year. But the reality is that if you want to talk about Donald Miller's story, Brad, you want to talk about being the guide and not the hero, it's, hey, when you join us, this is what you can do.

[A]

Yeah. And this is what people just like you have done.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Here's Apron.

[B]

Now stepping into.

[A]

So I had a cool experience when Smokey and I were teaching at a breakout session. We, Smokey, our operating partner at the GO Network, and I spoke on attracting team leader talent. And we were talking about vision and just how the importance of having vision for your organization. It really starts with, you're never going to attract talent if you don't have clarity on vision. And there was a. We have Keller Williams now in Bulgaria, and the operating partner of that entire region was there. And he. We were asking people to share the vision for your. For your company. And he said, we want to be at 50 agents by the end of the year.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I was like, that is awesome. I mean, they're starting with nothing, and nobody even knows who or what Keller Williams is in Bulgaria. And as I started to ask him, you know, tell me more about that. Well, once we really got into why that matters. So in Bulgaria, you don't have to have a real estate license to sell real estate. It's completely unregulated. So there's A lot of problems. Right. In the real estate industry because it's completely unregulated. I mean, you just imagine anything that's unregulated. You're going to have people doing nefarious things. And his whole heart is to change the entire landscape of the real estate industry in Bulgaria, by country. The entire country, by having a real estate brokerage that puts culture first, that creates win, win. That's integrity. Do the right thing. It's not about that he's going to go try to get it all regulated. It's. He wants to go build a company and attract people that are full of integrity, that want to do the right thing and put the consumer first and all of this. And it's literally going to change the landscape of what real estate looks like in this country. It was so. And I thought, I want to go be a part of that. Yeah, right. And. But it wasn't about what he was doing. It was about what they were going to accomplish together. And I mean, it was. It was just a really powerful moment. And it made me think, am I really clear enough on my vision and how it's making a difference for people? And why does this really matter?

[B]

Well, I think it's interesting because you said he's going to change the culture. And. And I'm going to say something that I am, you know me, I am all about results. Everybody that I lead directly and have as a direct report knows that I'm about results. Right. What I will say is that I think one of the biggest difference between a hero and a guide is a hero focuses only on the results. A guide is building a culture that results come in and, you know, top producers, they win quarters. Culture builders win decades.

[A]

And it goes back to resilience.

[B]

And it goes back to resilience because it.

[A]

It takes time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So good. Okay. Any final thoughts on that?

[B]

I think I got all in, all out.

[A]

Okay. All right, everybody. Well, that was kind of our. Our big leadership takeaways. So hopefully that was insightful to you. Sorry, I'm flipping through my note cards right now, and I apologize. I have so many note cards, I can't even remember where I was going with this. A couple action takeaways that I'm going to encourage you to do. Number one is to do your audit touch points. Look at your business. Every time a consumer interacts with you, take a moment to do that audit. As far as resilience goes, create a daily thanksgiving and gratitude practice and set the morning meeting with yourself. What's the most important thing that I accomplished today. And then what is did I do well right at the end of the day? And then the third action item off of story brand and being the hero is where in my organization can I make somebody else a hero and step into the position of the guide and really kind of ask those questions?

[B]

Love that. I'll just say that guide concept is where you find clarity.

[A]

So good. Love it. Okay, I think that's a wrap, everybody. As always, thank you for tuning in. And we know that when you invest in your growth every single day, it is going to yield you great returns. Don't forget to [e-mail] and I send you bonus material there as well. Appreciate you tuning in and as always, keep living on the inside.