0:00

Welcome to . It's Always Sunny in Colorado . I'm Lauren

0:02

Galbate .

0:03

And I'm Todd Galbate and we're a top producing father-daughter

0:05

real estate team in Northern Colorado .

0:07

Now let's talk real estate . Okay , hey , cheers

0:10

, cheers . Welcome

0:15

back to another episode of it's Always

0:17

Sunny in Colorado . Today we're

0:19

going to talk about work-life balance

0:22

, which is always difficult when you are

0:24

a real estate agent , because your

0:28

everyday is work and it's

0:31

difficult . So , yeah , we're going to jump into kind of our

0:34

tips and tricks , what we don't do well

0:36

and what

0:38

we kind of you know , some rules that we set for ourselves

0:41

.

0:41

But , um , yeah , feel free to learn from our

0:44

mistakes .

0:45

Yeah , yeah . What are you drinking

0:47

, Ned ?

0:48

Well , I'm drinking water , and

0:50

I know that's unusual for

0:52

me , but I

0:55

got . Speaking of work-life

0:57

balance , I got a late start today and

0:59

got on the treadmill a lot later than

1:01

I wanted to , in fact just in the last

1:04

hour or so , and

1:06

I am dehydrated . So I am drinking

1:08

a big cold glass of

1:11

snow melt Colorado water

1:13

.

1:13

Okay , what are you ?

1:14

drinking .

1:16

You don't have chocolate syrup on top of your

1:18

snow melt , do you ?

1:20

I don't , it's just water .

1:22

Did you see that from Reese Witherspoon ? She made like

1:24

a snow cone . It

1:27

was gross . It was she like took

1:30

snow outside from outside and poured

1:32

and put chocolate syrup on top and was like , oh

1:34

my God , it's amazing , it was like chocolate ice

1:36

.

1:37

Yeah .

1:38

It went viral .

1:39

I heard her getting backlashed about that

1:41

.

1:42

Oh , so you did see it yeah .

1:43

I didn't see it , but I heard about the backlash

1:46

.

1:46

Oh , it looked disgusting . I mean backlash

1:49

, I don't know whatever , but like gross

1:51

.

1:52

Maybe that was the backlash was . Ooh

1:54

, you know things

1:57

live in my yard .

1:58

Yeah .

1:59

Eat after them .

2:02

Speaking of also work-life balance , I'm

2:04

having my second espresso

2:07

of the day , and I already

2:09

had . I already had an espresso this morning

2:11

and a coffee after

2:13

my workout , and now I'm having my

2:15

second espresso , and I had iced tea

2:18

at lunch . That

2:20

is how exhausted I am from

2:22

work last week .

2:24

I think , yeah , you know , I thought maybe

2:26

you were doing your makeup a little differently , but

2:28

you're just wide-eyed .

2:33

That is rude .

2:35

Woo . Yeah

2:37

, we had quite a week last week , yeah

2:40

, and that's why you

2:42

know we talked . That's why this is such a

2:44

good topic today , because , oh

2:46

my God , you know , last week was seven

2:49

days of nonstop action

2:52

.

2:52

I know .

2:54

It's a good time to take a little break

2:56

and talk about how do we do things differently

2:58

.

2:58

Yeah , when we have really busy weeks that

3:01

go into the weekend , my

3:03

Mondays feel like almost

3:06

a hangover , like we got

3:08

like almost . When you're in

3:10

motion constantly and then you finally

3:12

get to rest , it just like takes

3:15

you down . And I've been noticing

3:18

my Mondays . I am just exhausted

3:20

and I think it's because we've

3:22

been , you know , working Saturdays and Sundays

3:24

. We've been doing open houses , we've been showing

3:27

, we've been writing offers , we've been , I

3:30

don't know , just it just hasn't really stopped

3:32

. And then Mondays seem to be slower , because

3:34

I think we got it all done on the weekend .

3:36

But like I

3:38

am dragon today , yeah

3:41

Well , I had to come out of

3:43

the gate hard today with you know , helping

3:45

a client out with a septic

3:47

pump and inspection

3:50

, and it's just like you

3:52

know , talking to several agents about this

3:54

open house schedule we have . It's like crazy

3:56

, so yeah .

3:57

Yeah .

3:58

I'm ready to podcast

4:00

as my only balance where I get to

4:03

not work but talk about work . Does

4:05

that make sense ?

4:06

Yeah . So

4:08

you and I , when we get really , really busy

4:11

and it's and

4:13

again it goes into maybe the weekends , which

4:15

happens very often for most real estate agents

4:18

you

4:20

and I are also very flexible and maybe

4:22

we give each other grace and

4:24

we give ourselves grace to take it

4:26

a little bit easier on

4:29

maybe the Mondays or the Fridays

4:31

or whatever , like you know you have to like

4:34

. For example , last weekend I knew that we were doing two

4:36

open houses on Saturday , or an open house on Saturday

4:38

, open house on Sunday , but I also knew we had kind of some

4:40

in between work in the middle of that , so I knew

4:42

it was going to be kind of , you know , couple

4:45

hours each day . And so on

4:47

Friday I kind of cut my day . I

4:50

was done at three , I was like I'm

4:52

like I'm not touching , you know

4:54

, my email for the rest of the night . And

4:58

then today I also was able to

5:00

kind of take care of myself

5:02

. I went to the gym , I woke up into the

5:04

gym , showered

5:06

, I cooked , I threw dinner in the

5:08

crock pot and I think it was like 11 o'clock

5:10

before I really sat down to my

5:13

computer . And

5:15

I don't care , because we

5:18

kind of fill in work when you need to , and this was

5:20

like what I need to do to balance myself out .

5:22

Yeah , yeah . No , that's good , I

5:25

try to do the same , you know , and

5:27

you know . The

5:30

thing is , there's

5:32

some stuff where you just can't turn it off

5:34

, and that was this morning for me . You

5:36

know , I had a client

5:39

call me , a contractor call me and

5:42

you know something that needed to be addressed

5:44

and so I'm hoping

5:47

another day is my Monday , but

5:51

you know it's it's it

5:53

is . It is tough , you know I try

5:55

to do the same and

5:57

you know I've got a whole list of personal

5:59

chores I need to do besides

6:02

working out , and

6:04

you know , and I'm trying to , you

6:06

know , juggle it all and

6:09

so today's been a little rougher for me . But

6:11

yeah , I'm trying to plan

6:14

that balance , so important have

6:16

a little .

6:16

Yeah , Because most people

6:18

do like their laundry and like their cleaning

6:20

and meal planning and stuff on the weekends

6:22

and when you don't get your weekend you

6:26

got to kind of fill that in . I have a question for you .

6:29

Yeah .

6:29

Do you have any like tell tells

6:32

, I guess , maybe like physical or

6:34

emotional , or is there something that

6:36

you feel

6:38

that that indicates that you are

6:40

off balance with

6:43

the work and personal ?

6:45

That is a great question , I

6:47

think . Yes , I'm

6:51

a pretty I

6:54

guess upbeat person , yeah

6:56

, but

6:58

boy , I notice myself being

7:00

annoyed , easily

7:03

annoyed , okay , when

7:06

there's just nonstop

7:09

no break for food

7:12

or I've had to go to the bathroom for

7:14

two hours . I'm thirsty , I'm

7:18

talking too much , I don't have time to refill

7:20

my glass . That was today

7:22

. I was on the phone so much and I happened to be really

7:25

thirsty and it's like I don't even have

7:27

time to

7:29

grab a drink because I was taking

7:31

a pause off the treadmill . Yeah , I

7:35

would say I'd get a little snippy , maybe

7:37

.

7:37

Yeah , Maybe irritable or ?

7:39

Irritable , you know , easily

7:41

bothered , it's like , oh gosh , what now

7:44

? What's this kind of thing ? And

7:48

normally I'm not like that . So

7:50

I know when I have that little feeling hit me

7:52

, it's like all right , I need to take

7:55

a break , because and

7:58

we're probably like most agents , but

8:00

I don't know when my I

8:02

don't I eat lunch

8:05

while I work if I'm not having

8:07

lunch with somebody .

8:08

Yeah .

8:09

And it's not something where I just sit down

8:11

and turn on the television

8:13

from noon to one and

8:15

eat a sandwich and then go back

8:17

to my desk . I eat when

8:19

I have a break , and lots of

8:22

times I'm eating when I'm working or

8:24

doing things . Right now I'm doing a load of towels

8:26

in the dryer . So

8:31

yeah , sometimes I can

8:33

tell when I'm been on

8:35

a little too much .

8:36

Yeah .

8:37

I'm not my best self .

8:38

I can tell . Yeah , I

8:41

know you can tell with me , but I can tell

8:43

.

8:44

I know you know me just about as more than anybody

8:46

. And how about you

8:48

? I know sometimes

8:51

you get a little impatient with me or

8:53

whatever . But what rolls ? Your way

8:55

to

8:57

where you're saying , oh my God , I need a break .

8:59

Yeah no , the impatience is

9:01

huge , the irritability-ness I

9:03

can tell when

9:06

I yell at my puppy Pepper

9:08

, when she's being

9:10

cute and I'm on my laptop

9:12

and she's putting her

9:14

ball in my lap and she's like

9:17

just a little bit ago she came

9:20

over to my tennis shoes and she dropped

9:22

her ball in my tennis shoe . So

9:25

that was like a tizzy for her and so

9:27

she was making all these noises and scratching

9:29

at the wall to get to the ball

9:32

in my tennis shoe . She couldn't get it out of the

9:34

tennis shoe and I

9:36

didn't yell at her this time . I feel pretty good right now , but

9:39

there's times where I'll be like Pepper

9:41

gosh and

9:43

it's like whoa , this cute

9:46

little furry thing who's doing nothing

9:48

other than just wanting my attention . He's

9:51

made me snap , and so

9:53

that's one , and the one I noticed last week

9:55

, because last week was a tizzy like holy cow

9:57

. We had four listings

9:59

go live , maybe

10:01

two new ones coming

10:03

up . It was just a little too much

10:05

to juggle and

10:09

I could tell I

10:12

wasn't balancing well because I

10:14

had to drive home in silence . I

10:18

had no music , no podcast

10:20

. And for

10:22

me that is so weird because I

10:24

was just telling my friend this I

10:26

can't go on a

10:30

walk with . If I'm by myself with Pepper , I

10:33

have to have a podcast with him Podcast or music because I feel

10:35

really lonely for some reason

10:37

on a walk by myself . I know it doesn't make any sense

10:39

, I can't explain it , but

10:42

I'm also in the car , I feel very lonely

10:44

and I feel sometimes like

10:46

my thoughts aren't

10:48

I don't know . I just like , I don't

10:51

like sometimes just thinking I need

10:53

like a distraction . Maybe that's what it is . I need a distraction

10:55

because today was crazy and so

10:57

I love a good like true crime podcast , where

10:59

I love like I throw my 90s playlist

11:01

on Spotify . But

11:03

last week I needed silence

11:05

in the car and I drove home all the way from our

11:07

office to home in silence

11:10

and it was like it felt

11:12

really good because I needed . I needed

11:14

nothing , like literally nothing .

11:16

Yeah , I'm really similar

11:19

. I

11:21

don't like the silence either . I mean

11:23

, when I'm either , when we're in our

11:25

office , we listen to music . When we're together

11:27

, but when we're apart and I'm at home working

11:29

by myself , I always have music going . Yeah

11:31

, I mean , you're either on my laptop

11:34

or it's on a , you

11:36

know , an Amazon Echo just playing throughout

11:39

the house , yeah , and

11:42

so , yeah , I could imagine you're at a

11:44

breaking point if you needed silence , because that's

11:47

the real . That's quite a reset .

11:49

Yeah , yeah . But I mean , I think it's really good

11:51

to know your signs , because then it's like

11:53

you know if you have a kind

11:56

of game , game plan in place which we'll talk about

11:58

. You know when you , when you , when you're feeling that

12:00

way , this is kind of what you do .

12:02

Here's another , here's a curveball to throw out

12:05

. There too is we're

12:07

a team , yeah , and

12:10

the planning is even

12:12

more trickier because

12:14

we don't communicate when

12:16

we're going to check out for a little

12:19

bit and take a break , yeah , and

12:21

so , like today , I had to text you . Please call

12:23

me , I need your help . Yeah , and

12:26

you know I had to talk through something and

12:28

you were doing , you know , your , your , I

12:31

was all dressed for the treadmill and

12:33

you were on your treadmill and

12:36

we need you know , we

12:38

needed to talk through a business decision

12:40

quickly , and

12:42

so then there's times where you

12:45

know I'm going to chill out and switch to maybe

12:47

something personal .

12:49

Yeah .

12:49

And I start seeing emails coming through from you

12:51

.

12:52

Yeah .

12:53

And I'm like oh , I feel obligated , like I

12:55

should be working too .

12:56

So it's so it's trickier . I

12:59

hate , I gotta

13:01

say I hate when I'm trying to chill out

13:03

, and you know , I did my work

13:05

for the day and I started getting blown up

13:08

at midnight . Well

13:12

, you know , even just goodness like seven o'clock

13:15

at night or I wake up to six

13:17

am emails my dad . For

13:19

those of you listening , my dad doesn't sleep very

13:21

well , like at all , and

13:23

so there's , I mean , you're a lot better . I used

13:25

to get three am emails .

13:28

Yeah . I hate it and I've tried

13:30

at three am I just try to keep to myself

13:32

.

13:33

Oh , so you're still getting up at three am .

13:34

Yeah .

13:35

Yeah .

13:37

I have a weird like two

13:40

to five , two am to five

13:42

am period . Yeah , where

13:45

it's , I'm up

13:47

, and it isn't because I have to go to the bathroom or something

13:50

, it's just like I just get up .

13:51

You know what that is . There's going to be people who are

13:53

listening , who are into possibly I don't know what you call

13:56

it like . I mean like acupuncture

13:58

. When you like Chinese medicine , the

14:01

four window is like your kidney

14:04

and liver or something like that , or like

14:06

, or maybe it's your liver and spleen . It's like your

14:08

imbalance , because I used to have the same thing

14:10

and I used and I go to acupuncture . They

14:13

were like when do you wake up ? And I said you know two

14:15

o'clock , in between two and four , and they're like

14:17

oh , that's this window of your organs , and

14:20

so I don't know , I get , I

14:23

get .

14:24

If my liver was saying what the hell ?

14:25

Yeah , that would make sense . That

14:28

checks out . Yeah , so

14:32

yeah , but I mean you've gotten better at maybe

14:34

not doing that . And so , speaking of like responding

14:37

and response time , I mean Everybody

14:39

is juggling . I mean the cool thing about realtors

14:42

is like a lot of people Go

14:44

into it so that they have the flexibility to do

14:46

whatever they want whenever they want , you know , especially

14:49

like when you have kids . Yeah

14:51

you know you can go on the field trip

14:53

or you can , you know , at three o'clock , when you got to go pick them up

14:56

from school , you know you're maybe

14:58

off until after dinner time and so

15:00

Having

15:02

strong boundaries of when you

15:04

respond is important . But also

15:07

keep in mind that you know most

15:09

people and and at least the us

15:12

culture People

15:14

work , you know nine to five or whatever

15:16

eight to five , eight to four , and

15:19

so it's really

15:21

important , in my opinion , to to make

15:23

sure that you respond to people in

15:25

working hours and

15:28

you know if it's your clients , if it's your

15:30

, you know another agent who you're

15:32

working with on a different transaction , if it's

15:34

, um , the lenders , you know

15:36

making sure you get to them . You know between

15:39

that time , because I always get frustrated when it's like

15:41

I emailed them at noon , you

15:43

know , and I go 24 hours without hearing

15:45

them and I know they're not like out of town or

15:47

I know Something's going on

15:50

. It kind of it kind of disrupts

15:52

. You know business and

15:54

I think , just common courage to have that

15:57

. But then again , after five o'clock you don't have

15:59

to respond to anybody , just like everybody else in the world

16:01

does .

16:02

I know it . You know the thing is , I

16:05

think you know we've and we've had some

16:07

clients where you know when they get

16:10

off work that's when they , you

16:12

know , are ready to start talking about real

16:14

estate , yeah , and so you

16:17

know with with texting and

16:19

emails , you can kind of check

16:21

in with your clients all throughout the day

16:23

, which which is kind of nice , but

16:26

, um , but at the same time , yeah

16:28

, there's times where some people can't get

16:30

to you till they're off work , and so then you

16:33

know when you're think your days end in , it's

16:35

kind of starting with with Somebody

16:37

on a different schedule .

16:38

Yeah , that's hard . Clients are different . Yeah

16:41

, we're , we're here to kind of serve

16:43

and , um

16:45

, the cool thing is that you can be available

16:47

to them . You know when it works for them . We were just talking

16:50

to I was just talking to , um , a

16:52

really sweet couple who have a , I think

16:54

almost two year old , and

16:58

I remember maybe one and a half year old , yeah anyway , and

17:00

um , they were like , can we chit chat after bedtime

17:02

, you know , which was seven thirty for

17:05

me , and it's like , yeah , I mean that's what

17:07

works for them . If I had kids

17:09

I would . It probably also would work for me too

17:11

, because I be put my kids down too , and so

17:13

like , all works whatever in that time .

17:16

Sure .

17:16

Um , but again , like , I think , the other , like

17:19

agents and lenders , you know you got to get back to

17:21

them . You know within 24 hours

17:23

.

17:23

Yeah , yeah yeah , um

17:26

.

17:27

What about your health ? How do you prioritize

17:29

and do work life balance with taking care of

17:31

yourself ?

17:32

Boy , that's a great question because

17:35

, um , you know , many

17:37

of us are givers and

17:40

and customer service folks

17:42

and you know

17:44

when , when you're those

17:46

kind of people , you put

17:49

yourself second a lot .

17:51

Mm-hmm .

17:51

And so , uh , I am guilty

17:53

of , you

17:56

know , cutting a workout

17:58

short , skipping a workout . I

18:00

don't have time today um

18:03

Grabbing something

18:05

you know not good for me on the

18:07

run .

18:08

Yep .

18:09

You know , um , you know , unfortunately

18:12

there's a you know a lot of things that you

18:14

can just keep in your car . Uh

18:17

, aren't that great . You know they've got

18:19

additives in it , and then all

18:21

the stuff that comes out of a drive-through window

18:23

is precarious . You

18:25

know the the the one healthy thing

18:28

is um A salad

18:30

, but it's hard to go to town with

18:32

a bowl and a fork when you're driving .

18:34

Yeah .

18:35

Yeah , you know , um , yeah

18:37

and so , um . So that is

18:39

tricky , that is . That is a

18:42

discipline that

18:44

you really have to be

18:46

better than At

18:48

least me . But you know I , I'm

18:50

trying to be better now . Like

18:53

I said , I you know , the goal

18:55

today was to get on the treadmill and

18:58

I achieved that goal , but

19:00

it wasn't what I wanted to , because I had an

19:02

emergency .

19:03

Yeah , it was way later .

19:04

Yeah , so again , um , I put myself

19:06

second to deal with the emergency

19:09

and you

19:11

know kind of threw off my day and

19:14

you know , but I managed to still

19:16

fit that in and so that wasn't

19:18

.

19:18

That was an emergency , though , and I you

19:20

don't have , we don't have those every day , so that was .

19:24

Yeah , it's unique , but it's surprising

19:26

how often it's like oh

19:28

uh , I better take this and stop

19:31

the treadmill , yeah , and walk out the room

19:33

. But you're , you're

19:35

pretty disciplined . Um

19:37

, you know , go into the gym

19:40

and scheduling . You know what you need to

19:42

do . How are you ? How

19:44

do you find client

19:47

? How do you find that our clients Are

19:50

okay with your schedule

19:53

? You know , have you had any issue where it's

19:55

like what ? I've been trying to get a hold of you for an hour

19:57

?

19:59

No um .

20:01

It's just me .

20:02

Yeah , yeah , you know

20:04

, I think , I

20:07

think it's it's easy to think that your

20:09

clients would not respect what

20:11

you're doing or you taking care

20:13

of yourself , um , you

20:17

know , I don't know , but I , I I almost

20:19

have found it that clients

20:21

like the transparency

20:23

and kind of the over communication , and so I have

20:25

had , um

20:28

, clients and maybe agents , um

20:31

like Text

20:33

me or call me or email me at

20:35

the , at the gym , and

20:37

if it's a call , I mean I've been able to . I

20:40

guess it's for I guess really more specifically

20:42

for my clients , I've been able to say

20:44

, hey , I'm at the gym , but I'll be back at my computer

20:46

in 45 minutes and they're like

20:49

no worries , like they almost feel bad that they're bugging

20:51

me . So that's kind of interesting

20:53

, um , and so

20:55

I really share just what I'm actually doing , because

20:57

, because it's the truth , it's like

21:00

you know and and and I share

21:02

on social media you know when I'm at the gym

21:04

and what I'm . You know I'm walking pepper or I'm lifting

21:07

weights or you know stuff like that . That's part of my

21:09

just who I am , and

21:12

a lot of people Understand

21:16

that . They're like what gym are you going to ? Or or

21:19

you know , nice job , you know , oh

21:21

, it's so hard to get to the gym in the winter , like I've been having

21:23

these conversations with people and no

21:26

, nobody gets mad . I'm

21:28

not doing eight hours in the gym , I'm no , I'm

21:31

no , you know bodybuilder

21:33

, and so it's not like oh , lauren

21:35

is always at the gym . It's like no

21:38

, you happen to grab me in the one hour that I

21:40

ever get to the gym . Yeah

21:42

, and they're usually kind of cool

21:44

about it .

21:45

So I would say we've worked with some

21:47

really good people , yeah

21:51

, and you know , and we all share

21:53

, you know we we have a funny business

21:55

. It's it is a business

21:58

, but it is super personal

22:00

. Yeah , you know , people follow

22:02

us . They see us having fun on social

22:05

media , yeah , and out and about

22:07

and having a good time and and

22:10

and then we're

22:13

responsive to their needs

22:15

and so I almost think

22:17

that's a pretty good flex . Yeah

22:20

, when your clients see

22:22

how busy you are all the

22:24

time , but you always take

22:26

their , you always get back to them

22:28

Always and it's like oh , thanks

22:30

for calling me , you know , I didn't you know . Or oh

22:32

, my god , I didn't think you'd answer . You know kind of stuff

22:35

I know and that's kind of cool .

22:37

I think I was also . I was at the gym this

22:39

morning and it was 9

22:41

am . This kind of body pump class

22:44

was starting and I saw the

22:46

lady setting it up in the big

22:48

gym and by the time I

22:50

came back down kind of around the gym area

22:52

, it was 9 30 and it was like

22:54

40 people who

22:57

were doing this body pump you know

22:59

type exercise where they're all doing different

23:02

kind of Floor exercises

23:04

and like stages , like minute goes

23:06

by , then the minute goes up and like the

23:08

alarm goes off right up and they switch stages , like

23:10

it was this really cool class . Yeah , I

23:13

was like that is so many people who

23:15

are around my age they're maybe

23:17

around my age and a little bit older . You know

23:19

, I didn't see too many young people , not like college

23:21

kids I would say it's definitely working people

23:23

and I was like what do you

23:25

do all ? Like what is your job ? Because there's no

23:28

way that's 40 realtors . Because , like when

23:30

you work for yourself in your realtor , you can really go

23:32

to classes anytime of the day . If you , if you really

23:34

want to . But like rich who's on

23:36

salary , he's not

23:39

really supposed to be doing

23:41

that like he's supposed to be . Yeah

23:43

. Logged in take

23:45

his lunch at like noon , you know , and like that's

23:48

when he goes to the gym and that's when he eats

23:50

. But this was 9 to 10 a 9 to 10

23:52

, 9 am to 10 10 am Class , and

23:55

so I think there is probably way

23:57

more flexibility that people have than I

23:59

realize , and so if

24:02

I'm feeling guilty of

24:04

being , you know , way from my computer

24:06

when I totally am allowed to be there's

24:09

, I think there's a lot of people

24:11

who are allowed to do the same thing . Yeah

24:13

, and so they're kind of like yeah , get it , you

24:15

know , and so I don't know interesting

24:17

tangent to go down . But I have , I

24:20

have found that you know good , good

24:22

responses in that situation . But I will

24:24

say , if

24:26

I schedule a workout for

24:28

myself in the afternoon it

24:31

never , ever happens

24:33

, ever yeah . I Mean

24:35

. I can tell you almost zero percent

24:38

success rate on that . You know , I'll put it

24:40

in my schedule . That's one thing that I do on Sundays

24:42

is I put in my Google calendar

24:44

my gym sessions , and

24:47

I don't know why I keep doing it and

24:49

I keep putting in the afternoon and it never

24:51

happens . Because the

24:53

day snowballs , for some reason

24:56

it does , you know . It starts off really

24:58

chill and then it just gets crazier

25:01

and crazier and crazier and I

25:04

just can't get get away

25:06

, and so so what

25:08

I've figured out , you know , in terms of work

25:10

, life balance and like making sure I take care

25:13

of myself , is I have to go To the gym first thing

25:15

in the morning , otherwise it doesn't happen .

25:18

No , that was . That was kind

25:20

of . I talked about the treadmill this afternoon

25:22

because there was probably three times where

25:24

I just thought this isn't gonna happen today , yeah

25:27

, and and I was able to pull it off and so I was

25:29

kind of proud of that because you're right , if

25:31

you know , if you don't get to it in the morning

25:33

, you know pretty soon you've got

25:35

a bunch of emails and phone calls building

25:38

up . But hey , I know

25:40

enough about us . Yeah

25:42

, what about the people we love

25:45

and love us back ?

25:47

Oh .

25:47

How do we , how

25:50

do we not get so self-absorbed

25:53

and being Real estate agents

25:55

and working out and going

25:58

to our appointments and find time for

26:00

for the Friends and family

26:02

?

26:03

Yeah , not easy . Um

26:05

, no , one thing that I

26:07

do that I think is very successful because

26:09

you

26:12

know , rich rich gets off at five and he

26:16

wants to hang out and he wants to talk and he

26:18

, you know , worked all day . He wants my time . I'm

26:22

really good at telling him , hey , I got to get this one thing done

26:24

or hey , I just need one more hour . I think totally respects it . He's good , you

26:27

can go hang out . But

26:30

when we are hanging out , and typically when we're

26:32

cooking and sit down for dinner and

26:36

maybe some , you know , we kind of do some TV

26:38

afterwards or whatever , or when we go on walks after work , I

26:41

leave my phone somewhere

26:44

else and it's

26:48

amazing how many times I I think that's a scary thing

26:50

to do . I

26:52

always think I'm going to miss something really

26:54

crazy , like a call that I like

26:56

, just you know a new , a new client that I missed

26:58

, and you know some because I didn't

27:01

answer the phone . But every time I go back to my phone

27:03

it's

27:05

nothing important that I missed , but

27:07

for nothing that couldn't . That needed Attention

27:11

urgently it honest dad

27:13

is not even important like it's stuff that I'm like that was a

27:15

bogus email . That

27:17

was a bogus email , but every time my phone goes

27:19

off I have to go check it . Yeah

27:23

review it and it takes me away

27:25

from riches attention , or I guess his , yeah , my attention is away from him

27:27

and that's

27:31

that's the one thing that I I

27:33

can do . I don't have any . I got nothing else .

27:37

We're pretty lucky that we have spouses that Are

27:40

supportive and understand . You know our work

27:42

, you know mom said it a couple times

27:45

where she's Run into

27:47

, you know , she's had conversations with people

27:49

who didn't think real estate

27:52

agents were really good people . She's had conversations

27:54

with people who didn't think real estate agents

27:57

really worked that hard and she's like , oh my god

27:59

, God is just , you know , todd

28:01

Lorner , just non-stop , you know

28:03

, and so that was really good . Um

28:05

, I had a

28:08

life-changing moment as a dad

28:10

and and

28:12

became mindful of

28:15

the importance to spend

28:17

time with my kids early on

28:19

, and , and , fortunately , your older

28:21

brother , who was very vocal in

28:24

his needs and demands . We

28:28

were having dinner and

28:31

, and it was the four of us know

28:34

, julia at the time . Yet and

28:36

, hmm , and I

28:38

was telling mom that my

28:40

boss asked me to play golf on Saturdays

28:43

and she says , oh , that'll be fun

28:45

. I said hold on .

28:45

So this was like 30 something years

28:47

ago when Julia wasn't born . Yes

28:50

, Okay , just making sure people understand that , because

28:53

they might not know that we had . I have a younger sister , older

28:55

brother . Yeah , okay , gotcha , yeah .

28:56

Yeah , that's 30 years ago , when

28:58

, when , when my son was

29:00

maybe five Okay

29:03

, you know , and , and and

29:05

you were maybe three ish

29:07

, okay , you know , and maybe even

29:09

earlier than that , but but

29:11

yeah , so , so you guys were little and

29:15

I was saying that , hey , I think I'm

29:17

gonna play golf tomorrow . My boss asked me to go

29:19

golfing at this nice , you know golf

29:21

course and and I was pretty excited

29:23

about it , and Alex

29:26

was quiet for a little bit and then he

29:28

goes how

29:30

long does it take to play golf ? And

29:32

I said , oh , it's probably

29:35

about , you know , five

29:37

hours , because we were gonna play like 18 holes and then drive somewhere

29:40

, so it'd be six

29:42

, and then it turned into beers and conversation

29:44

and so , and then he was

29:46

quiet for a little bit and he goes does

29:48

your boss know you play with me on Saturdays ? It

29:52

was like , you know

29:54

, he probably doesn't really , you know

29:56

. Oh , you

29:58

know , he didn't really , you know . Think about , you

30:01

know , I was with my boss Monday

30:03

through Friday , and now I'm

30:05

gonna spend Saturday with my boss .

30:07

Oh my god , I'm crying , I know it .

30:12

And so I definitely did not play

30:14

golf and

30:16

I was so mindful from that

30:19

point about my work life balance

30:21

of , hey , I was getting

30:23

up in the morning and you

30:26

know , commuting to work and working

30:28

really hard and getting home at night

30:30

and and

30:33

I loved every minute I Could

30:35

spend with my kids . But , yeah

30:38

, you know , if I was doing something

30:40

on the weekends , you guys were , it

30:43

was we usually with you or you're come along with me . You

30:45

know , so then it just you know I

30:47

was really mindful of that , and so I

30:50

was so thankful to have

30:52

a Kid

30:54

Early on that

30:56

spoke up you know and called

30:59

me out , yeah , and pointed

31:01

out you know that you

31:03

need to balance your life with , you , need to balance

31:06

your time with me , and so , yeah , so

31:08

, anyhow , don't ever take

31:10

that for granted , because you , you

31:12

know somebody who has a loved

31:14

one that may just

31:16

let them have a long leash

31:18

and work when we work

31:20

and and get Get

31:23

, allow them to be put on the back burner

31:26

. You

31:28

know they're not happy about it , they're

31:30

just they don't communicate

31:32

it well .

31:33

What do you think about ? You know , because I'm gonna be

31:36

a mom at some point and I'm gonna have

31:38

, you know , weekend showings and weekend open

31:40

houses and appointments and stuff

31:42

. What do you ? What's your advice

31:44

for ? You know , anybody who's listening

31:46

, who has kids and is struggling . Yeah

31:48

, you know to like they have to work

31:51

on the weekends but they want to spend time with their kids because

31:53

their kids are probably in School

31:55

, maybe Monday through Friday . So it's like , yeah

31:58

, there's not much . I mean , you know a

32:00

realtor might not have to work on Monday , but their kid

32:02

has to go to school .

32:04

Yeah , that's easy . My advice is to

32:06

do as many weekend open houses as

32:08

you can and let grandpa

32:11

have time with you

32:19

. Fit from soft

32:21

.

32:22

This is gonna be a disaster , though at some

32:24

point gonna be like hey , dad

32:27

, you , you need to work . You

32:29

know I need you to work .

32:30

I can't do all the work and you

32:32

get to just watch the kid , the grandkids , all day

32:35

, but you know think of our partnership

32:37

and when the time

32:39

comes I know you know how lucky

32:41

are we that we can coordinate , you

32:44

know yeah but what do you ?

32:46

think about people who aren't on team . That's

32:48

what I'm trying to you know .

32:50

I know I was hard , I

32:52

was being silly . It would be hard , you

32:54

know you would want

32:56

to . You know if you're you

32:59

would want to . You

33:03

know one day on the weekend

33:05

, one day off .

33:07

Yeah .

33:09

Have some time , you know

33:11

, during the week , where it's it's your

33:13

time and you

33:16

know if you've got a partner you know

33:18

or a spouse that you

33:21

know they kind of understand , hey , maybe , maybe

33:23

Saturday is their day , yeah

33:26

, and because mom and I had that when she

33:28

was In accounting she

33:30

had to work on Saturdays during tax

33:32

season , I know , and so I had you guys

33:35

, all them myself , and then

33:37

when it was Sunday , you

33:39

know , I totally let her , you

33:42

know , do what you won't , you know she

33:44

let her spend time with you , and

33:47

so you know I would knock out some laundry

33:49

and do a few things , and so you

33:51

know she , she could maximize her time

33:53

because she's working six days a week , and so I think

33:55

you really gotta juggle that , yeah

33:57

, I remember mom said when she was , you know

34:00

, in accounting and stuff she was busy on Saturdays

34:02

, just like a realtor would be she

34:05

said that she'd go pick us

34:07

up from daycare , you know , monday through Friday

34:09

, or preschool or whatever

34:11

it was .

34:12

And she said there was

34:14

a few moms who were like who

34:17

said , oh , I just got my grocery shopping done . There's

34:19

no way I could get grocery shopping with my kids

34:21

. I always go there first and I pick up my kids

34:23

. And my mom was like she was like I

34:25

could not bear , you know

34:27

, to stay away from you guys that long . I would count

34:29

down the minutes , like , yeah , and we

34:31

would all go to the grocery store together . There's no way

34:33

I was gonna just , you know , go get that

34:35

errand done without you . And so you

34:39

know , I think there's a lot that can be done with kids

34:41

. You know I don't open houses are probably hard

34:43

with the kids , for sure . But yeah

34:45

you know , if you have the right types of clients

34:48

. I mean , sometimes you can bring them for showings and I

34:51

don't know . There's a lot of errands that you can Only

34:54

run with the kiddos .

34:55

No , that's true . You know . We definitely use

34:57

daycare for while we were working

35:00

only . Yeah and if we

35:02

had stuff to do , you know we , you know we

35:04

would just take you along with us

35:06

, and so it's

35:08

gotta be difficult .

35:09

We'll have to check back in in a few years when I have kids

35:11

. I'm Trying

35:14

to balance everything .

35:15

Yeah , you know that'd be a great podcast

35:17

is to just let you talk

35:20

about . You know life as a

35:22

mom and you know being

35:24

a real estate agent . I mean many , many

35:27

parents have been realtors and raised

35:30

great kids and so Absolutely

35:32

you know it's , there's , there's a way

35:34

to do it .

35:35

There's a lot of people that we know who

35:37

. You know they're . Their parents have been in real estate

35:40

forever and now they're the kids are

35:42

joining them , you know , and they're like my mom

35:44

doing open houses . I'd go help set the signs

35:46

out and blow up the balloons and you

35:48

know I remember going to showings on Saturday . Yeah and

35:50

and so they saw it and it didn't

35:52

scare them . You know they're , they're

35:54

doing it now , and so that's

35:56

. I think that's a really powerful thing . It's like if

35:59

, if it was so bad , there

36:01

would be no kids joining their parents

36:03

.

36:05

Yeah , so true , so

36:08

anything else touch on

36:10

. for work life balance , I have some rules you

36:13

know , yeah , I think I think what you know

36:15

, what rules do you have ? Because we've kind

36:17

of touched on you know health

36:20

and you know your personal life

36:22

and kids and you know there's

36:24

bills and there's . You know cars

36:26

and there's . You know things you got to take care of

36:28

and you know

36:30

carbon timeout for all that stuff is

36:32

important . It's just all about prioritization . But

36:35

you know , to prioritize correctly

36:38

, you got to have some kind

36:40

of rules to follow and it's

36:42

like you know , hey , what's what's important

36:44

, what can you sacrifice and what

36:46

, what's some of the rules you have ?

36:48

Yeah , you and I kind of created these

36:50

based on trial and

36:52

error . The one that we

36:54

have that we really really , really

36:56

try to stick to is not having any

36:59

Like client-facing

37:01

appointments before noon .

37:03

Yeah .

37:05

Just because you

37:07

know , most of the time , if you just say I'm unavailable

37:09

, well , okay , so we do that

37:11

because we want to be able to fit in our

37:13

time to take care of ourselves , get to our

37:15

emails , get to , you know , touching

37:18

base with clients , sticking to our agenda . It

37:20

is so hard to do that when your first appointments at 8

37:22

am or 9 am and then you get back and you're already

37:25

like behind . That's how I feel and so

37:28

we've . We've kind of made it the rule like let's try

37:30

to you know . As best as we can

37:32

, unless our client is like I cannot meet until

37:34

, or I can only meet in the morning , that's , that's

37:36

the only option . Most of the time they can

37:38

meet later in the afternoon , and

37:41

so we try to do that , just to make sure that we always

37:44

have a little bit of consistency and

37:46

time to kind of get ourselves in

37:48

the right mindset and kind of set ourselves up for

37:51

success that day and

37:53

then another one that I that

37:55

we just experienced this the last

37:57

two weekends . We've had two open houses each

37:59

Saturday and Sunday , or one each day . And

38:02

it was a lot . You know it was yeah

38:04

right in the middle of the day , Rich

38:08

, you know , asked I mean we got invited to do things

38:10

and I couldn't and Rich had to go by himself

38:12

, and that's fine , but like that's a bummer , but

38:15

it also is just . It's just a lot , you know , it's

38:17

a lot to be on for seven

38:19

days a week and so we

38:21

just talked we just talked this weekend

38:23

about . hey , let's just do all of it

38:25

in one day , Like I'd rather do , a four hour

38:27

open house than two

38:30

hours Saturday and Sunday .

38:32

Yeah , I agree it would be

38:34

. It would be good to have

38:36

that day where you get

38:38

up and get ready and put on you

38:41

know nice clothes and , yeah

38:43

, have all your signs in your car

38:45

and everything all packed and your work ready

38:48

to go and just to knock that out in one

38:50

day if you can . Yeah it's

38:52

hard to .

38:53

It's hard to yeah be , I

38:56

don't know . Juggle that two days in a row

38:58

, where , where ? If you push it all into one

39:00

day , you know , if you have multiple showings , if you have

39:02

open house , do it all in one day because you're already dressed

39:04

, you're already you know . The saying

39:07

is like an object in motion stays in motion

39:09

, object at rest , stays at rest . And those rest

39:11

days I love . I love a

39:13

Sunday morning . I wake up with my

39:15

coffee , I am in

39:17

my sweats , I read my book , rich

39:19

makes me pancakes and I don't have to go to

39:21

work . You know I don't have to go to an open house .

39:23

Yeah , but both .

39:24

I need more of that I know I need yeah

39:27

.

39:28

Because , then again really busy

39:30

.

39:30

Well , but then again , if you don't have that , it goes

39:32

to I mean , it's pushed to Monday . Today

39:34

I felt very , like you know , groggy

39:37

because of that and I just think that's because I didn't get to have

39:39

my Sunday , my .

39:40

Sunday pancakes . I know

39:43

, yeah , I was feeling that too . I was

39:45

thinking to today's , my day . I had

39:47

a whole bunch of personal stuff to do and

39:49

, you know , my day went a little haywire . But

39:52

but yeah , you

39:54

feel that loss when you

39:56

don't have that time to recharge

39:58

a little bit .

40:00

Yeah .

40:00

You know , or you know it's time

40:02

to shift work to some some personal stuff

40:04

, and so you

40:07

know , and then there's always going to be , you

40:09

know , even though you carved out that time

40:11

, on the weekends there might be a client you

40:13

have to talk to or email

40:15

or a phone call you have to make you know to set

40:17

yourself up for a good start on

40:19

Monday . Yeah

40:22

, but you know it's , that's

40:24

a little different than just having

40:26

, you know , a chunk of your day tied

40:28

up doing something and to where

40:31

you just have to walk over to your computer

40:33

at home , maybe fire something off

40:35

, and then you're , you're back to your leisurely Sunday

40:38

. So , yeah , or you can do it from your phone

40:40

. So , yeah , I agree , it's

40:42

good to block out a day like that .

40:44

Mm . Hmm , yeah , the other one I already

40:46

mentioned . It was just making sure that you respond

40:48

to the really important emails

40:51

.

40:51

Yeah .

40:52

Lenders , other agents , appraisers

40:54

, inspectors , whatever during

40:56

business hours , but everything else , if it's just

40:58

not important , you know , let it

41:00

be for the next day . You know , let it don't . You

41:03

don't need to be sending 3am

41:05

emails , dad .

41:08

Yeah , I know .

41:10

Yeah . So but

41:12

we have a really good hot tip . We both kind of have

41:14

one yes , Mine

41:17

. So what I

41:19

like to do is I to to

41:21

again , you know , have some balance . I

41:24

use my calendar , my Google calendar , to

41:26

block off balance

41:29

. So that means I'm putting in my gym

41:31

time , I put in date night , even

41:33

if I don't know what date night is . I put in

41:35

like a Tuesday night where it's like I

41:38

just I just know that this

41:40

time is specific for me and

41:42

my husband . And

41:44

then also

41:46

in the mornings , you know , we block off kind

41:49

of our morning chunks so that nothing gets

41:51

accidentally scheduled . Yeah

41:54

, Before noon , so yeah , and

41:56

then yours , yours a lot .

41:58

Yeah , I do this , you know I definitely block

42:00

time out . You know I'm a little more old school

42:02

where I've got a daytime or a planner

42:05

and it lays out the whole day and

42:07

I punch in where things are . But one

42:09

thing I do is I set alarms on my phone

42:12

that to

42:14

shift gears .

42:15

Yeah .

42:16

You know , because there's times where I'll just get caught up

42:18

and doing something and it's like all

42:20

right . You know I need to get

42:22

on the treadmill or shower by a

42:24

certain time , or , you

42:28

know , take care of something personally , you

42:30

know , throw in a load of laundry , whatever it is

42:32

, but I like throwing

42:34

an alarm on there , it's . I only do

42:36

it when I'm at home because I have not

42:38

to tell if I was sitting next to

42:40

you at work . Yeah , but you

42:43

know , if I'm at home , it's like all right . How

42:45

am I going to get all this stuff done today

42:47

? And the thing

42:49

is not to linger

42:51

, you know , on something too long

42:53

, or or I've got to move

42:55

it to another day , and so the alarm helps

42:57

snap me out of maybe getting distracted

43:00

by something and get back on task .

43:02

Yeah , I just saw this study

43:05

or research maybe that they

43:07

said people

43:09

are most productive if they work for

43:12

45 minutes straight and then they take

43:14

a 10 minute break or something like that , or

43:16

maybe it's a 15 minute break , but it's like

43:19

at past 45 minutes you're

43:21

you mentally just start to slow

43:23

down and you're maybe not as sharp and you're

43:25

maybe getting distracted . And so

43:27

setting a 45 minute timer

43:29

is a way that

43:31

people are getting really effective and I think I'm going to start trying

43:34

that . I just saw it this weekend and

43:36

I'm looking to be a little bit more focused

43:39

and you know , because there's times where I'll sit here for two hours

43:41

and then I look and I'm like , oh my gosh , I did

43:43

not know that time went . But you know , did I really

43:45

get ? Could I have gotten

43:47

that that work done faster

43:49

and then given myself more free time later

43:52

in the day for work life balance If I was more

43:54

effective ? My time , I don't know .

43:57

Yeah , no , I feel that you know , when I'm

43:59

spending too much time on something , it's

44:01

like , oh my gosh , I need to step away

44:03

.

44:03

Yeah .

44:04

And do something else and then come back with

44:06

a frisk set of eyes to knock this

44:08

out , you know , because I'm just struggling

44:11

here . Or you know , like , like I said , sometimes

44:13

I linger on something and it's like , all right , I'm

44:15

not being productive and so , yeah , alarm

44:17

, snap me out of it .

44:18

Well , 45 minute cycle , I'm going to try it . All

44:21

right we're back , but yeah , that's it for work

44:23

life balance . I think we covered some good stuff and

44:25

it's always

44:28

a challenge . But , yeah , yeah

44:31

, it's all important , so take care of yourself and

44:33

cheers , cheers .