Let me give a little background on the topic that you and I want to solve today and then I'll give some background on you to speak to some credibility of your story as to why you're the right person for them to listen to on this topic. So, I see agents, as I have a chance to be knee to knee with them all day every day, I see them spending a lot of time and a lot of effort walking past people that already know them, like them and trust them to spend resources, time and money to convince other people to know them, like them and trust them. And I really feel like they're, they're headed out into the diamond mine going down, risking everything, to go down to find these diamonds when they're walking past fields of diamonds right in front of them. Do you ever feel that way Jennie?
Oh, preach! That is, I mean that is so true. And that's been honestly my mission over the past years when I discovered that I truly love to empower agents. That is why, is because we already have all these people that know us, like us and trust us, and we're just not pouring into them more or squeezing them with more love to get referrals and recommendations out of them. So I'm with you on that.
Perfect. Well, we're going to dive into that topic and how agents, some real tactical strategies that you've employed to master this database topic in your business. So some background on Jennie. Jennie and her and her team last year had the privilege of serving 135 families. And that's exactly how she stated it to me, which again tells me a lot about how she feels about her people. She didn't say 'sell homes or houses.' She 'served families.' Okay. So there's probably a, a built in lesson within that. She's been in business for 18 years, but you actually got to a point, Jennie, where you felt almost a little burnt out, like this business is making me not like people. And you said that that's a problem. So talk to us about how with you being so relational, how even you said at times like, "I'm kind of burned out." What, what happened there?
Well, thank you for leading me up to that because I think that's an important part of the story because now people can see where I am or where we are as a team and they can make assumptions that we've just always been this awesome, right? That's not the case. We've had so many fail forwards during the process and like I shared with you in 2010 and 11 is when I took my first BOLD and got to a coach and my production doubled and I was a single agent still. And so what happens when your production doubles? Things start breaking, you start losing your mind and getting pretty stressed out. So I sloppily started building a team, not following any of the proper processes that are lined out for us. And by hodgepodging a team together, I was still, yes, I had some leverage and relief, which was awesome and at the same time, maybe I didn't hold them accountable correctly. I was still learning how to be a leader myself and so then I'm still hanging on to way too many things, not properly leveraged. What does that cause? Frustration and and really just getting to a point of like I shared: hating people, I hated people. I say it out loud in the classroom and people always laugh out loud and I know it is because they have been there and we cannot hate people in this relationship business that we're in. And so that's where I had to take a step back and reevaluate why in the world am I really doing this business? What do I love and how can I apply doing what I love to helping families buy and sell homes.
Let's talk a little bit about the root of this, of this hate and I'm not going to try and be a psychiatrist, but I would imagine, I know you're the loving mother of a beautiful little girl and I would imagine you had people that were imposing upon that time with her and they were demanding. And because you felt like, now this is pre team and I know some teams get a bad rap and that's probably accurate. Other teams don't deserve that bad rap that actually serve clients at a really high level. And I know based on what I've heard about you from Patrick and others and that you teach this business by referral at a high level, that's not you, right? But with these people, while you were just a solo agent you had on 15 hats at a time and the hat that you wanted to wear the most, which is that of being a mom was always on the sideline. Is that what caused the root of that hate?
How did you know all of that?
I am a dad. I get it. Right?!
That it, that is so true. And so many and dads are awesome as well. I can speak to the working moms because I am one. That is our struggle. You know, there's a book on it. It's called the ONE Thing, by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. And by using that book as a tool, it really helps so much along with the Six Personal Perspectives, like we mentioned early on, the whole value of time blocking and knowing your calendar and family is on your calendar. So every day for the past four years, "Pick up Mia" is on my calendar and "Family time" at four o'clock. And so that was real easy for me to say, I'm sorry I've got an appointment at that time. Instead would noon tomorrow or you know, you pick the time that, that works for you. And I think that's it. That's the number one thing is taking control of your calendar. And that allows people to not stress you out. And so if you don't have a calendar, you will allow people in at all times that you get frustrated and you start feeling burnout. So that's key.
Yeah. Let's talk about this. You showed be a little something that you have on your desk that says E to P. Will you pull it out for the audience.
Yeah. My friend Missy Webb from Norman, Oklahoma, she sent this to me. I think it was after I taught a Six Personal Perspectives class and I said that one's my favorite. I love them all. I love all of the perspectives. The E to P though, every bit of our lives, personal lives, business, lives can be plussed and be better and we can have more focus and purpose with them.
Let's talk about what that is. There's probably a group of the audience that knows what that is, right? You and I do. In fact I was teaching it to a group yesterday, but going from like an entrepreneurial style to a purposeful style, and I want to parlay that into what you described, how you had this pivot. I would imagine before, when you were starting to dislike people, it was because you were working more entrepreneurially, right? Where it was like, "Yeah, like bring it on and I got this, I got everything." And there wasn't like a purpose behind it. You weren't being purposeful of like, "Okay, what matters most to my business?" Okay, this is on my calendar, this is what matters. Most of my relationships picking Mia at four o'clock, this is going on my calendar. That was that kind of where you started to to really embrace and implement this concept of E to P?
Yeah, I think so. And even the term counterbalance when that has been shared and if you really think about it as sometimes you do go extreme in your work life and you just have to know that it will come back together. You know, there's a straight line and you get extreme and work sometimes you may go extreme family and that's okay. So the goal is to really keep yourself balancing, counter balancing between the two. And that's where like Mr. Gary Keller says, as you start your year by planning out your calendar, starting with your family time, your vacation time first, and then all the rest gets filled in. And so I think that's key for keeping your head straight in this business.
Let's talk a little, I love that, and I couldn't agree more. I mentioned to you earlier, for those that don't know, I'm a father of six kids. Uh, that wasn't by accident. Yes, we've been asked by every elderly person we know if we know how that works and we actually started off wanting to have six. My wife comes from a fami...
