Episode #79: Kindness Elevates Entrepreneurs with Skye Michiels

[00:00:00] Who you are is your superpower. And that is something that if you, this podcast, you guys, this is you. It's so powerful. If you're listening to this and you feel like you're not enough, you got to kill that voice in your head right now. And you got to recognize you are enough. And all you got to do is be you. And that's how you build big businesses.

[00:00:20] I think, too, if you challenge yourself, you said something about that voice that's saying, oh, if I send this text message, they're not going to remember me or like challenge yourself, do it for, you know, 30 days, 60 days and see what the response is. And I guarantee that if you get into doing it and repeating it and doing it over time at six months, you're gonna be like, why haven't I been doing this?

[00:00:53] Welcome to the podcast dedicated to real estate insurance and building your business. Join us as we take you along our own business building journeys with additional wisdom from our network of local and national experts. Welcome to bricks and risk. This episode is brought to you by property management redefined. PMR is not just managing properties. We're creating partnerships that build long term success for property owners.

[00:01:23] John and his team can be reached at manage at go PMR.com or by phone 267-753-6005. Tim. Yes, Sean. Who's a good client for PMR? Property management redefined is looking for property owners who value three things. Accountability, reliability, and results driven approach.

[00:01:49] You want to maximize returns. You want to maximize returns, but still provide client and tenant satisfaction. There's a lot of property managers out there. Yes, there are. What does PMR do really well? Biggest thing is they're seamless and they're worry-free. So with that approach in mind, it allows the property owner to put their trust in PMR and know that the results will be there.

[00:02:11] The other thing I think a property owner is really going to value because they do it so well is that they have a local expert team, boots on the ground, managing your properties and your tenants' expectations every day so that you feel good about your investments. We have millions of listeners out there. Tens of millions. If they want more information, how do they find PMR? Right here, guys. Reach out to John Sachs and his team at Property Management Redefined. We'll take good care of you.

[00:02:40] Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Bricks and Risk. I'm Tim Garrity. And I'm Sean Munny. Today, Sean, we have another amazing guest. We have Sky Michaels, founder and CEO of With Heart Coaching. How are you doing today, Sky? Doing great. Come on in. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it. So a little background, Sky. He wakes up every morning practicing healthy, selfish habits and happiness.

[00:03:06] He's an award-winning real estate leader, coach, and nationally recognized motivational speaker. Sky brings a human approach to everything he does, believing in the power of kindness, motivation, and accountability to transform lives and businesses. With over 23 years of experience in real estate, Sky has held various impactful roles, including his most recent corporate position as the national head of coaching at Compass.

[00:03:34] In this role, he led the training initiatives for 30,000-plus Compass realtors, emphasizing the importance of leading with heart in their teams, businesses, and personal growth journeys. He's from Syracuse University, BS, and an MS in education and history. Yeah, yep. Fantastic. Master of Arts, Liberal Arts and Sciences. Is that correct? That's right. And you're a dad to two amazing kids. That's right. All right.

[00:04:03] So you're a helpful, thoughtful guy. Your relationships and even your coaching company's name, in my opinion, says it all. So what is it about motivating people with kindness? The number one thing that is misinterpreted around kindness is that it's a form of weakness.

[00:04:31] And the reality is kindness is actually one of the most powerful things you can create inside of people is to lead with empathy and kindness. When you think about even take our current world today and you look at the politics or the tenor of the world, not just Democrats, Republicans, there is such power struggles being put forward with force.

[00:04:56] As opposed to you think of someone like Martin Luther King or a Gandhi who led with empathy and love and kindness. And they significantly changed the world, not just like a country or a platform.

[00:05:10] And when you think about how we want to approach life, when you think about the things you want to change and influence, when we come at them with strength and power and like real harsh masculine energy, it really often creates more problems than it does solutions. Yeah. When you think about approaching a problem or a situation with empathy and kindness, that's where beautiful things get created. And just take it on a basic level of your children. Yeah.

[00:05:40] You know, your children do something wrong. He's got three. I only have one. Okay, good. I have two. One, two, three. Yeah, yeah. So if I go to my kids, they do something wrong and I yell at them. They cower, they cry, they go to the room, whatever it might be. You know what they're thinking in their head? They're pretty angry. Nothing has actually changed or shifted. If anything, it might have gotten worse. Instead, they do something wrong and I actually, you know, I punish them, but I do it in a way where there's kindness and empathy.

[00:06:08] What happens is they actually have an opportunity to learn a lesson versus create more negative energy. Yeah. And I think it's one of those things that when we, I think we often lead with like, you know, force and like, I'm right. And, you know, anger because it's easy. Empathy and kindness is so incredibly hard. It's difficult. Yeah. Why? Because you actually have to kill your ego. You actually have to think about the other person and what they're experiencing and what

[00:06:37] they're bringing to the situation instead of what you are bringing to the situation. Yeah. And that is when you think about creating impact or you think about creating change, you think about creating companies, you think about creating teams. We don't want to create alone. We want to create with other people. Yeah. Yeah. Because of the fact that when you lead with ego and you lead with arrogance and you lead

[00:07:07] with force, so to speak, unfortunately, you usually go backwards. Yeah. When you lead with kindness and empathy, that's when you create at unbelievably high levels. There's a great book I read, uh, 2X is better or 10X is better than 2X. Yeah. And when I think about the things in my life I want to do, you know, if you want to create a 10X product, company, team, family, life, health, et cetera, you have to lead with kindness

[00:07:34] and empathy versus strength and arrogance, so to speak. When you give that kid's example, the first thing that came to my mind was the child's reaction is tuning you out over time. Yeah. Right? Like the, the, the effect initially might have something, but you do that same approach over and over and over again. It, it just goes through them. That's right.

[00:07:59] You know, and so I think impactfully, you know, coming to it with empathy is going to be received much more than that brute force. That's right. And the mis, misperception or maybe the trap you got to be careful of, um, it's not to say you don't have standards. Yeah. And it's not to say you don't have boundaries and it's not to say you're walked all over. Sure. That's not what leading with kindness and empathy is. Because leading with kindness and empathy, actually having those standards and boundaries

[00:08:28] and things you uphold actually is kindness and empathy. Because kids actually crave knowing. What kids don't like is when the bar changes, the unfairness, right? Like if, if I uphold a standard to my daughter and I don't do it to my son, that creates a lot of issues. So actually me being kind to my kids or, and again, you could extrapolate this into business with your team, right?

[00:08:53] If I'm treating one team member this way and another team member that way, you know, that, that, that's not actually being kind to, to, you know, myself and the team members. Right. Now here's a, so I think one thing I extrapolated from that and that I practice this myself, I'm a pretty patient guy. Yep. And I do think leading with kindness, leading with empathy requires a lot of restraint.

[00:09:19] Like you said, it's like the ego and the emotions just want to pop out, out of all of us. Like when you get fired up, your kid does something, just like, why did you do that? That's like the first thought that goes through your head. One, you got to realize what age they are. Yep. And two, you got to kind of take a little bit of a step back and say, I know why you did that. You're four years old or you're 10 years old or you're 18 years old or whatever it is. And then being more patient, I think calms down the emotions.

[00:09:48] And then it allows you to kind of go at it a little bit more logically. It's like, okay, we both agree that you did something wrong. Why do you think you did that? Yep. Like I get a lot of Instagram stuff. My wife is constantly sending me stuff. What's up, honey? And we're trying to look at different ways. Like our daughter's very strong-willed and she's only six. And we're like, when you're strong, your strong-willed kid, it says, is the one that wants to touch the hot stove. Yes. That's part of the process.

[00:10:17] Touch the hot stove, figure out, okay, I don't like hot stoves. Yeah. So if your kid is strong-willed, like how do you deal with that? And it's really what you're saying is trying to lead a little bit more with patience, with empathy. I understand. Can we talk about it instead of being like, why did you do that? Get up to your room right now and no explanation. That's right. That's right. Well, all right. So here's a good question. Where did that come from? Like how did you learn this aspect?

[00:10:46] So this is actually, if you're listening at home or for you too, I want you to remember this line. You're not responsible for your first thought, but you are responsible for your second thought and your first action. That's really good advice. And it explains a lot of what you just sort of talked about, right? Your first thought is anger, is I'm going to tell you what's right. I'm going to, right? That's your first thought. Yeah. So you got to give yourself, again, extend kindness to yourself. Give yourself grace. Yeah. You are a human being.

[00:11:16] You're going to feel that. But then you got to remind yourself, I'm not responsible for that thought. What's my second thought? And then my first action. And when you can slow the process down like that, it allows that ego to be, you know, it's going to rage. Right. But then immediately you put it back in the cage and then you sort of extend that kindness and empathy with standards and boundaries, right? To go forward. And I learned this. This is not something that I had all throughout my life. Yeah.

[00:11:46] And I've learned it through lots of therapy. I've had kindness all my life and I learned it. A lot of my kindness probably extends back to my mom, you know, and she was the definition of love. You know what I mean? That's cool. Is a definition of love. Like there's not a ant on the sidewalk that she doesn't love. Right. And she's just this person that exudes kindness and love to all beings. Yeah. So I learned it early on from there.

[00:12:14] But the extension of creating like boundaries and standards and also the detachment from that first thought is something that I practice to this day. And that's through I've learned that through lots of therapy, reading books, listening to podcasts. And this concept of you in the intro, I truly believe that we need to start every day learning about ourselves or growing or being healthy, selfish.

[00:12:41] So picking books that allow you to learn, listening to audible, you know, listening to a podcast like this or any podcast that's going to help you. Going to see a therapist, right? Digging into your own shit is so incredibly critical. And when we turn the mirror on ourselves, it's a, it's really, really difficult to do, but that's where the growth happens. Our natural tendency in this world is to point the finger.

[00:13:09] And again, not to talk politics, but they, right? Those people. Yep. How easy is it to say those people are the enemy? Right. That person is doing something wrong. It's because they're doing that. That's why this is happening in my life type of thing. And this concept of ownership is where it comes back to, you know? So I own my life, but I have to have a practice around building that.

[00:13:35] If I don't have a practice, then, you know, you're going to succumb to the ego, to the anger, to the, you know, that those sort of animalistic emotions you do have as a human being. Yeah. If you develop a practice, that's where you start to elevate out. And one of the things right now, I have a meditation coach and we work really, really hard on detaching that the voice in your head is not you. The meditation coach for you. For me. This is you getting. Yeah. This is me getting coached. Cool. Yeah.

[00:14:04] Because meditation is one of those things that a lot of people are interested in it, but they say, all the time I hear people say, I can't meditate. I can't do it. I struggle with it. All this stuff. Me being one of them. But when you come back to the simplicity of health and wellness, we breathe 80,000 times a day. We breathe 80,000 times a day.

[00:14:27] What if we actually just took five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes to actually key in on this vital thing of what makes you a human being, which is breathing. And actually, what are the downstream impacts of this meditation? And one of the biggest things is being able to detach from the voice that's in your head. Yeah. The voice that's in your head is your brain and you're this thing that is constantly just trying to keep you alive. And it's doing it, unfortunately, in fucked up ways. Yeah.

[00:14:56] We can curse in this. Sure. Finally. Sorry. The fuck we can't. Tim's six-year-old daughter's listening. Right, right, right. What did he say, Luke? Right, right, right. We'll release the clean version. Last podcast ever. But that voice in your head, like all your brain is doing all day is trying to keep you alive. And it does it in ways that, you know, resist being, putting you in vulnerable positions. Right? It creates anxiety. Yeah. It creates fear because of the fact it's just trying to protect you.

[00:15:26] Right? If it was up to your brain, you'd just stay in your bedroom all day. Yep. But that's not healthy living. Right? Yeah. In order to detach from that voice in your head, you have to become really, really present with your soul and who you are as a human being. Yep. And that's for me, that's, you know, working at meditation is one of the biggest things because of the fact that as I meditate every day, all of a sudden it's amazing the impact that's having and the calmness. How long do you meditate a day?

[00:15:55] So my goal is 15 minutes a day. That's good. That's really where you can, you really start to see the impact around 20. So I'm trying to push it into 20. I do five minutes, three times a week. That's it. And a minute is better than nothing. Yeah. Right? But I'll give you an example from this morning. I was in LA yesterday presenting at a conference. I took a red eye last night. I landed at 7.15 or 7.30. I had an eight o'clock call. So I just did it from the airport. And then I get to my car, you know, it's a red eye.

[00:16:25] I can't wait to get home. And I have a flat tire. No. Yeah. So the reality is I meditated when I was, you know, before the call, I just, I sat there, I stared out the window, the sun was rising. You know, I literally just had this beautiful presence of gratitude. And I mean, I'm doing something I love to do. I'm having impact. I had amazing experiences over the last few days. So when I got to the flat tire, my reaction was to laugh about it. Right?

[00:16:55] And be like, oh my God, this is crazy. And there's not an ounce of anger in me. Do you know what I mean? And ironically, a guy was driving by. He's like, oh, are you leaving? I'm like, oh no, I have a flat tire. He's like, oh, call airport security. They'll come fill your tire up. I was like, what? So literally. Get out of here. Did it work? They came by with an air tank, filled up the tire and I drove off.

[00:17:20] And it's an example of how I could have been like, oh, yeah. But the irony is as you calm down, as you detach from that, that voice in your head, because my voice did, was pissed. Sure. Sure. Everyone's voice would be pissed. My soul was not. I had a beautiful last couple of days. I had a beautiful morning. Right? And I got to that flat tire and I was like, I laughed about it. Not my first thought. I don't know. I don't know if Mooney would have been as patient.

[00:17:49] No, what I was going to say was like, the ironic part of that is if you're sitting there cursing and screaming and this, and maybe you fly off and you're like, I need to go for a walk. You might've missed that guy. That's my point. Right. Exactly. That guy probably wouldn't have stopped if he's so many. Ground in yourself. And a lot of what you're saying, I personally believe in because there's a lot of, your attitude is yours.

[00:18:15] So you wake up with a crappy attitude, you're likely going to have a crappy day. That's right. You wake up with a positive attitude, you're likely to have a positive day. Now, don't get me wrong. I wake up lots of days with crappy attitudes. That's right. But it doesn't mean I can't take five minutes, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, which is what I do before I exercise in the morning. I use simple habit, shout out to simple habit. And I usually throw on something that's just music. Right.

[00:18:43] And it's like a calming meditative music that I just sit there with my AirPods on until it's over. And then literally, you know, it allows your body to kind of like melt a little bit so that as soon as you're done, you're, you're very loose. Your mind is relaxed and you can, you can change any day with that. And it's literally five minutes. Um, and there's different ways to do it. Like there's no right or wrong way, but it brings me to another question I had for you.

[00:19:10] So a lot of your coaching is around like a happy, healthy lifestyle. That's right. Now I'm in real estate. Most people in real estate are promoting volume, sales, numbers, growth. More. More, more, more. How do you get more people on your downline? How do you buy more real estate? How do you get more doors? Like, and don't get me wrong. That's all fantastic. I do a lot of that.

[00:19:36] But what drives you to be a little bit more geared toward how do you become happier and healthier to get toward those other things in your business life and your personal life? So I'm a big believer that this hustle culture that we've been fed is just fucking bullshit. It's bullshit. We are, we were not born to work and die. Right. And that's what we're being fed. That's what we're being told every day.

[00:20:05] And we were born to experience massive levels of joy and love and happiness. And we go on Instagram though and we see Grant Cardone and I'm not, nothing wrong with Grant Cardone. I'm just using it as an example of a message. Yeah. Of like, boom, like, you know, go hard, charge hard, grind, like all these things. So then we start scrambling and we start doing more, more, more. And unfortunately, usually that more makes us more sick, more miserable, more unhealthy, more stress, more overwhelmed.

[00:20:35] The reality, the secret to generating really, really big things. 10X-ing your life is not grinding and doing more. It's actually doing less. But the less you do is extremely effective and it has to be extremely enjoyable. Yeah. And that's the thing that I'm passionate about is bringing this idea and this concept of less is more. Right. But the less I do is very impactful.

[00:20:59] And how can I actually go about my life with this extreme sense of joy and happiness? And the key thing here is we got to detach from this idea of results. Right. When we think about everything that you just described, which is so accurate. Yeah. Like more listings, more volume, more this, they're all results. The reality is our joy does not lie in the results because as high performers, which we all are, what happens when we achieve results? We set more. You want more results.

[00:21:29] And we set more. So life is this mountain we're climbing. There's no top to this mountain. And the secret is actually hyper-focusing on the joy of the action and the daily things that we do. How do we find like gratitude in those actions? And then identify the actions that bring us to the results we want, but actually are enjoyable. And unfortunately, like we all have these cell phones, right?

[00:21:54] And unfortunately, we have been sold into a trillion dollar industry that is designed to make us unhappy. And this cell phone is actually a device that is designed to make us distracted, disconnected, and unhappy. Because what happens when we're unhappy? We buy stuff. Or eat things. Or eat things. Or take, you know, drink things. Yeah, right. Right? And that's this concept we got to come back to that the reality is like there's less actions. For example, let's take real estate.

[00:22:24] Great example. Yeah, I was going to say, can you give a real estate example for that? I think that'll be helpful. And I'll actually even give everyone like some live, like some real things you can do. So in real estate right now, a lot of people are just going into databases, but they're like, hey, send this email to thousands of people, right? Deal of the week. And love deal of the week. There's a very great marketing idea.

[00:22:47] But the reality is, if you actually just sent a text message to your past client, one past client, and created a what I call conversation generate versus lead generate. If every day I focused on just creating conversations that were human conversations with the people I cared about. How are you? How are you? And here's a really great script for anyone that's listening to this that is in real estate.

[00:23:13] If you are showing a house today or this week, look at who you know in the neighborhood or in the town or the zip code or whatever. And just send a text message to them saying, hey, I was showing houses in your neighborhood. I drove by and it just made me think of you. I hope you're doing well. And that's it. That's great. Notice the difference there too. I'm not even asking them for a response. The reason being is because sometimes when we say, hey, how are you? Or, hey, I'm checking in. Do you have a need? Yeah.

[00:23:41] It's like, why is this person reaching out to me? Right. And then they're like, oh man, maybe they're going through a hard time and they don't want to talk about it. Now we're putting them in a position. So what I'm doing is I'm just extending kindness. I'm making someone know that they matter to me. And in the process, I have zero expectations of an outcome. And my focus is on an action, which is create conversation with a human being. Yeah. And again, deal of the week. People you don't know all day, every day.

[00:24:11] Great tactic. But as realtors, we ignore our greatest resource, which is human beings and relationships. And why this is so critical today. There are two really big companies right now that are actually stealing your clients. Because we are not talking to them. Zillow has a super app. And now we have Rocket Mortgage and Redfin. Yep. And if you as a realtor are not paying attention to this, you are going to be out of this business very soon. I agree.

[00:24:41] These companies are preying on our lack of using our greatest and only resource we have now, which is our human connection. Yep. But isn't that so this is just... He's definitely barking up the right tree because this is what we talk about all the time with relationships. No, I know. But you have like the David and Goliath. And the Goliath is the Redfin and the Zillow, right? And like you're there with the slingshot.

[00:25:09] And it's the easiest thing to do to beat them. Like they cannot compete with that. And if you do that and you do that once a week, twice a week, five times a week, then you compound that over the course of a year. I mean, just think about how many conversations that's creating. Just think about how much positive impact that's going to have in your network. And then what is that net out after a year, three years, five years? It's like it's the simplest thing that you could do.

[00:25:39] But how many people are doing it? Very few. And the reason being is because of the fact that their brain is why. Their brain is saying, that's annoying. Their brain is saying, they probably hate me. I haven't talked to them in five years. The brain is saying, oh my God, do they even remember me? Or whatever it might be. The brain is saying, let me scroll on Instagram because I want dopamine for this Instagram. What if they don't reply back? So all these messages are being fed.

[00:26:08] And again, this is why we connect back into the importance of a morning routine. I get centered and grounded in the morning routine. When my brain gives me that message, I tell my roommate in my head, my voice, shut the fuck up. Right. Go sit down. I'm going to actually just make this person know that they matter to me. And when you're not present, that brain and that voice takes us over and then you're gone.

[00:26:32] You don't have, you don't do it because of the fact it's so simple, yet it is so dangerous to the brain. Because as easy as it is, it's so difficult. It is. And it's like anything. It's like practice. Do you remember the agent workshop I did at the end of last year? You stopped by. And one of the things I have always personally taught and believed in because I've just done it myself over the years. And I've said this before. I'm slow and steady. I'm the tortoise, not the hare.

[00:27:02] I've always called it a book of business. Yep. And how I define a book of business in real estate is a captive audience of people that when they have a need, they come to you. Or when someone in their network asks them, who can I go to for this? They refer you. Yep. And in order to have a book of business, you have to be grounded. You have to be present. You have to be consistent. Like you have to be thoughtful.

[00:27:32] Yep. You have to understand all mediums of communication. Like we do this podcast. Like this podcast is more a form, in my opinion, of cold lead generation for people we don't know because we're getting like thousands of views on YouTube. But it's also speaking to my book of business so they can learn a little bit more about me, about Sean, about you. Yep. We bring these guests in, like these experiences come out.

[00:27:58] So like if you want a book of business, which is what Zillow will never be able to compete with and neither will rock it, then you have to do those things. And to your point, it is actually less. Like making 100 cold calls five days a week is more. That's right. Not to say it doesn't work. It's not to say you can't make a shit ton of money. And it's not to say it's not fun, like dopamine, like converting people. I brought that call from a no to a yeah, whatever.

[00:28:28] Like that's all true. But that's the more approach. I think when you step back and you're like, okay, I have like 50 really important people in my life or 25. How do I service those people in a way that hits those points? It's not a lot of work every week. But to your point, it's much easier to pull up Instagram or Facebook or YouTube and just start. Wow, that was a good marketing idea. I'm going to do that tomorrow. Totally. And that's people just, they latch onto that. Yeah.

[00:28:56] And again, I think that, you know, then we're also then fed this line and like, let's just take social media for realtors. Like you got to be posting and content. Yeah. And the reality of social media, if you want to do business out of Instagram and Facebook, there's actually, I would challenge you for one month. Don't post a thing. But every day you spend 15 minutes, five minutes you spend in your DMs, conversing with people in DMs. Five minutes you spend commenting on stories. Yeah.

[00:29:25] Five minutes you spend commenting on posts. And then at the end of that 15 minutes, you write down anyone in your Instagram that should be in your real CRM. Wow. I love that. And you transfer them into your CRM. The reality is we have CRMs that we are using at a high level called Instagram or Facebook. And we don't recognize that that is a CRM. But unfortunately, that is not our data. And it's unorganized. You know, you can't keep track. And we don't own it. It could go away.

[00:29:52] So, but I can spend very purposeful time creating conversations, right? And then taking the names and putting them into my real database. Because my theory is if most realtors could take their Instagram feed or, you know, the people they follow, that is their business. Gold. Right? That's the gold. But all they do is scroll and post versus converse. I love that. So, and again, the other thing I'd recommend for people, unfollow realtors.

[00:30:21] If you're a realtor, your Instagram feed is filled with other realtors doing really cool things. Why? Because Instagram wants to make you unhappy. And compare, the comparison mindset kicks in. I'm not doing enough. I'm not enough. I'm not cool. I'm not funny. I'm not filling the blank. I'm not successful. Yeah. The reality, anyone listening to this, you are enough. Who you are is your superpower. And that is something that if you, this podcast, you guys, this is you, right? It's so powerful.

[00:30:47] If you're listening to this and you feel like you're not enough, you got to kill that voice in your head right now. And you got to recognize you are enough. And all you got to do is be you. And that's how you build big businesses. I think too, if you challenge yourself, you said something about that voice that's saying, oh, if I send this text message, they're not going to remember me. Like challenge yourself, do it for, you know, 30 days, 60 days and see what the response is.

[00:31:15] And I guarantee that if you get into doing it and repeating it and doing it over time, you're at six months, you're going to be like, why haven't I been doing this? It's crazy. And again, you think of the David and Goliath, the simplicity of doing one good thing for yourself and your business every day. Anything works if you do it consistently. And why do most people fail at what they start to do? Because they don't do it consistently.

[00:31:44] Your podcast, if you guys did one or two or three, it wouldn't work. But if you did 100, it's going to work, right? If you reach out to one person with one text message and they don't reply back, you're like, oh, it doesn't work. If you do that 500 times or not even, 10 times, right? It'll work. And this is why I'm building the coaching company I'm building is because I'm obsessed with teaching people how to do less to earn more.

[00:32:12] And I'll give you another really quick example around events, right? We go to realtors and we say, you should do an event. Client event. Client event. First thing that goes to their mind is fear because A- No one's going to show up. No one's going to show up. B, it's going to be a lot of money. Yep. C, how do I do it? Those are the three questions that pop up that then prevent them from doing it. Right. So what I coach to is the word event carries a lot of weight. So let's unpack it a little bit and let's give it three different names.

[00:32:41] A micro event, a small event, and a large event. A micro event is anything you do in your normal life. Walking your dog, taking your kids to the park, going to trivia night. So imagine a world. I just had one of my clients today is like all juiced up because she just started doing this. She invited three of her past clients to trivia night. Nice. She called me. She's like, it didn't work. They all couldn't go. I said, it did work. The reach- You invited them. You invited them.

[00:33:09] The next week, three people invited her to trivia night. No way. She's like, oh, that's really cool. And so the reality is the reach is what works. It's not the result. And at the end of the day, now she's planning a smaller event where she's going to reserve three tables at a trivia event. And then she's like, and then maybe next month I'm going to do a large one where actually it's only my people. Yeah. Maybe I'll host a trivia event. That's it.

[00:33:38] And then she's like, oh, like my thank you cards could be trivia. And she's just taking this really small concept, right? Less. I love that. And extrapolating it out. And I think it's the kind of thing that if anyone listening, challenge yourself to do a micro event every week. And I'm going to walk my dog. Who else owns a dog? Who can I invite to come along with me? I have kids. Who else has a kid that I can invite to? I am on Saturday. I'm going to the park. You want to bring your kids? Right? And it doesn't cost a dollar. And it's that stone.

[00:34:08] It's that David and Goliath, the slingshot we have. Zillow can't do that. But what do we do? We stay quiet. We scroll on Instagram. We complain. We read our email. We do whatever we do that's unhealthy. And then we complain we don't have any business. And all we have to do is create a conversation. That's so good. We asked what you love most about what you do. And you had said, watch people transform their lives. So why does that particular aspect of business drive you?

[00:34:37] It's a concept that I developed. I call it being the light in order to give it. So a lot of times it's like, you know, givers. Like we want to give people things, right? We want to give them the light. But often that comes at our own expense. So what I'm developing or working on, and I work on this every day, is how can I build my light or my energy so big that people around me are just, they build their own energy, not by my...

[00:35:07] It's like you're giving off light. Giving off light. So be the light, don't give it. Meaning, don't give it away, right? But you are giving it away just by building this huge bright presence, you know? And when you start to do this, and then you see these other lights start to light up. And then you hear stories about how they're lighting other people up. And then this is how you create massive impact on the world. And I have a smile on my face right now, you know, because I'm just thinking of some of the stories over the last couple of days.

[00:35:36] Like I was in LA. Yeah. I saw a lot of people I haven't seen in maybe about a year or so. And the stories that people were bringing to me about, you know, what their lives are like or how I impacted them. It's awesome. It just really, it makes you wake up and recognize that you can't worry. But often the results, we don't even know the results are happening, you know? And you got to just every day wake up and stay committed to the actions that we know are good. And that we know are going to bring any result that we want in our life. Love that.

[00:36:06] Hey, everyone. This is Tim, your favorite bricks and risk co-host. But don't tell Sean. I hope you're enjoying this episode. And I'll get right back to it in a moment. Our audience grows through word of mouth. So if you would please take a moment of your time and give us a review on the platform you're on, that would be fantastic. Please also help spread the BNR word by sharing your favorite episode with a friend. We greatly appreciate your time and trust. Now, back to the show.

[00:36:40] All right. So let's go a little glass half empty Mooney here. Yes. Let's go. Biggest struggle. So again, we love talking about the positive things in our businesses, you know, the things we love, the things we're having success with. But for biggest struggle, you had said most people view coaching as an expense, not an investment in themselves. Yeah.

[00:37:03] So why do you believe that investing in yourself, like through some positive coaching motivation, why does that produce returns? And again, it's a struggle. It's something that surprised me because I think because of the fact I do spend money on coaching myself. You know, I spend money on therapy, on programs, on learning and growing. And so I think I didn't recognize how hard it is for people to invest in themselves.

[00:37:30] And again, this concept that most people view it as an expense and I view it as an investment. Because I know if I invest in this, like what I'm going to create at such a high level. And it's my greatest struggle right now because of the fact that I also don't want to be salesy or pushy. Right. So how do I walk that fine line of motivating and inspiring someone to actually invest that money, aka spend it, in the belief that they're going to get better.

[00:37:59] But they have a lot of fear built into that. Right. And in this real estate market, let's be real, a lot of people are not having their best years ever. And a lot of people are scared. Marketing budgets come back. Coaching can be considered a marketing budget. Absolutely. It's sort of a, you know, it can be considered a little bit of a luxury because if you don't have a coach, nothing bad happens. But the other side is nothing good happens as well. Right. Yep. So we stay complacent or comfortable when we don't invest in ourselves.

[00:38:26] And the other thing too is when we don't have a coach or we don't have a training program that we're maybe following, what it also allows us to do is stay in that complacent mode. Remember, your brain wants you in that complacent mode because your brain wants to keep you safe. Yep. And so the reality is we need to, the times that we're struggling the most is the times we need to push the most through it. And we need support through it. And again, trying to convince someone of that, it's my greatest struggle is I don't want to be salesy.

[00:38:55] I don't want to be like, do it, you know, just spend the money, you know. But that has been one of the greatest struggles is actually being surprised by how people are so hesitant to invest money. Well, it has to be your past clients and students, right? Yeah. That can do the selling for you. Like, you kind of don't want to be the guy in the room, you know, at the end with the pitch. Exactly. Remember we made the team example?

[00:39:24] Remember we did an episode where we were talking about, you know, you could be a solo agent, you could be a team member, you could be a team leader, you could be a broker-owner. Like there's lots of different paths in residential real estate. And we were talking about team members. And it's like, look, I have a team. I have team members. I get some of the commission when they close a deal because they get paid, I get paid, and the brokerage gets paid. That's the team model.

[00:39:46] And we had talked about there's some people that rely on the team for, you know, motivation, accountability, marketing, leads, all this stuff. And when you and I were talking about it, because, you know, Sean's in insurance. Yeah. He was like, what would you say to that team member instead of being on that team? Why would they go solo? And I said, everyone in this world today says, go join a team because that's how you learn. That's how you grow. And then jump off the team if you get too big. But I had said to Sean, I was like, you know what?

[00:40:13] You could take whatever commission you think you would be paying to the team. Yeah. And you take now, again, you haven't closed the business yet. So you're taking a risk. And you're investing that money in a coach, someone such as yourself to invest in yourself and who you are and what do you want? And where do you want to go? And how fast or slow do you want to go?

[00:40:35] And if you do that, being solo is actually more valuable than being on a team or being a team leader or being a brokerage owner. Because you're going to learn so much about your business that if you get too successful as a solo agent, then you'll consider the team. Then you'll consider the brokerage. I think a lot of people put the cart before the horse, especially people wanting to be on a team. And I'm a team leader.

[00:41:05] I don't want to disparage my own team. But it's like if someone said to me, hey, I'd really love to be solo. What do you recommend? I'd say, I'd recommend investing in someone that keeps you motivated and accountable. So just find the right coach that fits within your budget and the cadence of which you want to meet and grow your business that way. And coming back to this point, I coach my clients on building forever clients. You should never use the word past client. You believe in this, Tim. I saw you demonstrate this live.

[00:41:34] If I use even the word past client, well, I'm going to treat them that way. So what we want to do is we want to rethink this into forever clients. Why? Keeping a client that you already have helped. You've already won them. They already love you. They already are advocating for you. If you treat them in a way beyond the sale in this like really elevated way, that's not salesy. That's not annoying. That's real. Inviting them to trivia night. Yeah. Right? Taking dogs for a walk.

[00:42:04] Even just writing them a little note. Not an auto email on their birthday, but like an actual text message or a video on their birthday or something. Just making them feel like they matter. Now, the hard work of winning a client, you did that hard work. Instead of like having to win more new clients, just maintain that current client. So in my coaching business, I follow the same philosophy. So my coaching clients, I want them to be forever clients. Right.

[00:42:31] And to do that, I need to provide continual outlets and pathways forward of different programs that sort of build on each other. So I just got done today was our last session of a seven week program. I call it the forever client where I teach people how to build this repeat referral. That's cool. Then one of the recognitions is one of the key things that the one skill, if I could give every realtor, if every realtor could do this skill, Zillow would be out of business.

[00:42:58] And if every day all you did was send a market snapshot or report, CMA, I call it a portfolio, whatever you want to call it. Right. Just a quick snapshot of the market over the last year in that person's neighborhood. And by the way, you can do this to people that were not your clients. You just did one a day. You organize the contact in the CRM. You set them up on some kind of a reminder, not an action plan where there's auto stuff going out to them, but a reminder to do a couple of things. Birthday. Yeah. Homes anniversary. Right. A couple of things on your calendar.

[00:43:28] You know, CRM task, whatever. All these systems that we can do. Use technology to help you as an assistant. You just do that once a day. Every day of your real estate career. Not every day of the week, but every day you work, you start your day like that. You would have so much business just flowing into you. Yeah. So now, and this is the example. Now I'm building out a 30-day CMA day challenge for April. So these clients that I just taught at a really high level, now we're going to reinforce the skill set.

[00:43:57] By every day, they're going to do the same thing for 30 days. So they're going to start April. They're going to identify 30 people that they're going to send this to. And, you know, you don't need to do one a day. The concept is one a day. You do two, you know, one Monday through Friday, and then maybe Friday you do two or whatever. You guys get the idea. Yeah. And if they learn that skill for 30 days, A, they're going to be shocked at what happens inside their business. And then B, they have a lifelong skill that they can lean on to generate business.

[00:44:27] And so the process is building a forever client inside of coaching, but it's also you can apply that inside of real estate. So you buy a house with me. I know that I'm going to do certain things every year that is beyond the transaction to keep you as a forever client. And not sending, you know, a card or like a pie on Thanksgiving. I'm talking about house maintenance. Here's a coupon to service your heater. By the way, in the home inspection report, it said the heater was 10 years old. It's now year 15.

[00:44:57] You know, I just did a quick review of your inspection for when you bought. Just want to reach out. Just remind you, might be something to think about budgeting for, right? If we start to treat our clients like forever clients, and we do things that illustrate that and practice that, you won't need to lead generate a day in your life. Yeah. All you do is generate conversations. Well, and the wonderful thing about that example you just gave, it technically doesn't cost any money. Zero. To do that. It does take organization. Absolutely.

[00:45:27] It takes consistency. Absolutely. It takes effort. Yep. It takes patience. Like you could do this for an entire month and you might not get one response back, but that's not the point. That's right. The point is you reached out to 30 people with purpose, something of value. Yep. Whether they respond or not is not the point. They received that. That's right. And you're top of mind. So maybe the next month you're either jumping on another 30 or thinking about your next touch point to them another month, three months, whatever.

[00:45:56] You know, some people like to reach out to people every week. It just depends what kind of person you are. I think that's awesome. One tip for our audience that you gave that I thought was great is you said aim small to achieve big. Yep. So find the smallest thing you can do every day to move the needle, which is basically what we just talked about. Why did aiming small become like a focal point of your coach? Like why do you find value in this? Yeah.

[00:46:25] I found value because of the fact that that's how I sort of lived my life, right? By not worrying about the results. Like I grew up, we grew up poor, you know? And when you grow up poor and you, you know, there's not money for like lots of fun things. And I started working at the age of 12, right? Right. And in some ways, being poor humbles you where you have to aim small because you're, you know, you're not going on the two week vacation over the summer or to the shore house or anything like that.

[00:46:55] All you had to do is you had to focus on, all right, we're going to just pay this one small bill and that's going to get us to this mile marker. And then this bill will get us to this mile marker. If I do, I'm going to work the Dutchess County Fair for a week and that's going to make me a thousand dollars. All right. That's, it's a small little one week action. Yeah. I'm going to work really hard and get there. And so I've applied that through other aspects of my life, division one athlete, you know? All right. All I got to do is I got to just worry about this one practice, right?

[00:47:24] And if I crush this practice, then tomorrow I'm going to worry about that next practice. So by stringing together these small wins, what it does, it eliminates the need to worry about the end result that I'm, that is fearful, right? Like, oh my God, how do I make varsity? How do I win the IRAs? How do I, right? That's a result. We got to throw that out. It's going to happen, not happen, and it only will happen if I focus small on the immediate, right?

[00:47:53] And that's the kind of thing that it's that, I think a Navy SEAL quote is where I came up with a quote, right? Aim small, miss small, you know? So it's like one of those things that you got to really, really think that the, if I just focus on small things, but I do them consistently, crazy big things come, you know? And this coaching company is a great example. I've just kept it really small, really simple, really focused and really consistent.

[00:48:19] And now it's at a point where it's starting to really grow into this fun thing. Where did, where did the name come from? I mean, obviously I understand like, you know, the approach you have, kindness, empathy, aiming small. Like this is like a very patient, thoughtful, empathetic approach. Like how did the name come to be? My real estate, a team name was Real Estate with Heart. Oh yeah, I remember that. So that was the name of my team. So it's a little bit of a historical nod.

[00:48:47] I was a former history teacher, so I like history. And so it's a little bit of a nod to my history. The second reason is the fact that it really illustrates how I coach, right? I want to coach with empathy, caring about people. I don't coach cold calling. And again, there's great, great coaches out there. And that's a great technique for anyone listening. No, he likes cold calling. Love it. Yeah. I'll find you a coach. Said nobody ever.

[00:49:17] So yeah, so that kindness and empathy comes through in the name right away, right? You sort of know what you're getting into if you're coaching with me. It's not like- It's a vibe up front. Yeah, it's not a hustle culture kind of coaching company. And then the final thing is it gives me a lot of power to scale into other industries. So when you think about with heart, you can put any topic in front of that, like mortgages with heart. Used cars. Used car salesmen with heart.

[00:49:47] Plumbing. Plumbing with heart. When you think about- I mean, it really am. Yeah. Honestly, when you think about a service-based business though, the principles of selling real estate are the principles of a personal trainer or a hairdresser or a pizza shop owner. How many personal trainers have a CRM? Very few. Right? Imagine if I had a program, I could teach a personal trainer how to develop a CRM in a relationship-based business. And then you overlap that. My mind just starts going like-

[00:50:16] Crazy, right? Right? Like personal trainer, right? And then it's like you have your CRM. And then you incorporate the idea of doing those- It's a personal trainer. Right? Right? And bring a friend to the personal trainer. Same thing. You can utilize it. You take that and utilize it in really any type of business. That's right. Lawyers, doctors. Awesome. It's endless in some ways.

[00:50:41] So my dream and my vision is that it'll start to scale into other industries. And by the way, I will not- I'll be leading the company. And the reason I don't want my name in there is then the people who are doing the coaching, their name will stand out in their industry where they are experts. So because of the fact that you're in insurance, right? So if it was Sky Michaels coaching and then you're like, hey, I want to work for you. Like, yeah, where does my name fit in?

[00:51:09] And this way, your name can shine and we just attach with heart. You're part of the program. Yeah. Powered by with heart coaching. Very cool. It was- So- Awesome. And then your quote, really, really good. Be where your feet are. It's kind of like everything we just talked about. Is that like a quote from you? Is that a quote that you saw somewhere? Yeah, I did not. I don't remember where I picked it up. It's not my original quote.

[00:51:37] I do remember seeing it at some point, but I talk about it every day. And everything we talked about today was about being where your feet are. And when you think about climbing this mountain with no top, right? If I'm looking up at this top that doesn't exist, what am I going to do? I'm going to trip and fall. If I'm looking behind me at like all the things I regret not doing, what am I going to do? I'm probably going to trip and fall. When I look at my feet and I say, oof, where are my feet are? Big step over this rock, small step over there. Exactly.

[00:52:05] And I enjoy it because I'm right where I'm meant to be. Anxiety is worry about an unknown future. Right? Depression is usually regret over a past that we can't change. Yeah. Joy is found where your feet are. Love is found where your feet are. Happiness is where your feet are. Right? And that's this concept that everyone should come back to. What is going on in my life right now? There's endless things we could think about that are wrong.

[00:52:35] Right? But let's think about the things that are right. And let's actually have gratitude and celebrate those things. Be where your feet are. So good, man. All right. So before we shut this one down, why don't you tell our audience where they can learn more about you and everything you got going on? Excellent. So my website is withheartcoaching.com. Another sign from the universe when that URL was available. I was like so happy. My email is sky, S-K-Y-E, at withheartcoaching.com. My Instagram is just my first and last name.

[00:53:05] So at Sky Michaels. And Michaels is spelled a little differently. It's M-I-C-H-I-E-L-S. Okay. And we have most of my programming right now is geared at realtors. I do have some private one-on-one clients that are outside of real estate that I do coach. But stay tuned. This thing is going to be growing. Fantastic, man. We appreciate your time today. Thanks for stopping in. And thank you to everyone out there who tuned in again. See you on the next one.

[00:53:32] Thank you for joining us on another episode of Bricks and Risk. Our goal is that you walk away with one or two valuable nuggets. And we greatly appreciate you sharing your time with us today. You can find all B&R episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and anywhere else you get your podcast content. Until next time, keep learning and keep growing.