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No growth happens until you commit. Did you actually commit? I see this a lot with, I would say, average people.
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Did you actually commit or did you show someone a post on Facebook that you wanted to do this thing and you didn't do any of the things that you said you would do?
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You didn't wake up early. You didn't stick to the plan. You didn't analyze ten properties that day like you said you do. That's where the inner work comes in. Only you can answer that. Nobody else can answer that for you.
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Welcome back to the Seven Finger Flipping Podcast. Today's presentation comes from none other than Navy Seal James Le Skarra. He spent 15 years in the Navy Seals before transitioning to real estate and business full time, making a multiple seven figure business. One of the most successful developers in Tampa, Florida, and an incredible leader and mentor for many in the Tampa area.
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In this presentation, James drops his top ten principles for leadership and mindset. And at the very end, he talks about a definition that I thought was a game changer for me. So stick around. It's going to be an incredible episode.
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All right. I'm excited. I'm excited for three reasons. First, the seven figure flipping community has done a lot for me over the years. I remember in 2021 being a flip hacking live, being so inspired, seeing Adam Whitney and Bill Allen speak on stage. Dave has helped us with hiring. Lindsay has helped us with sales. What a go.
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Give our community. I'm so happy to be able to be here and pour back into everything that seven figure flipping community has done for me and for my team. Second reason I am so passionate about this topic, because it has allowed me to take 15 years of being a Navy Seal, and the ten years have been real estate investing.
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There's some overlap in that time and become an absolute savage in teamwork and leadership, making myself the most lethal version that I can be. To be the most effective, very passionate subject for me. The third reason I'm excited is because I think you guys get it. It's exciting to speak to a room of people who just understand and resonate with the points that you're making, and then are going to go actually execute and make their themselves better, their families better, their organizations better.
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So before I get too involved in the presentation, real quick. Anybody in here active duty military veterans or family of veterans, please stand up. Please stand up. Let's go. So yeah.
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Thank you. Thank you guys. So Tuesday, Veterans Day, I truly believe that we would none of us none of us would be able to do the things that we're able to do in our businesses, investing, growing organizations. If it wasn't for the sacrifice of our first responders and veterans. So thank you guys for that. Quick show of hands raising.
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Hi. Please. Who has a substantial team? We'll call it five or more members, including yourself. Please raise your hand. Sorry. Okay. Thank you. Beautiful job. So I think there will be a lot of points during this presentation that resonate with you guys. And I think the point for you guys is like, oh, I get it. Like that makes sense.
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I am seeing I am doing some of the right things in leadership and growing our team. Another show of hands who is a solopreneur. You have no employees in your journey. You know you probably need to hire at some point, but you haven't taken that step yet. By the way, most people are there at some point. So there's no shame in it.
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Who is who is in that category? Raise your hands high, please. You got two hands on. Yeah. Yeah, I've been there too. Beautiful job. Okay. My hope is that this presentation will give people exactly like you. The guy with two hands up during that, the some actionable steps to be a to have the right winning mindset, to be an incredibly effective leader.
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As you go to hire your first, second, third, fourth, 10th person.
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So a little bit about me. I don't wanna spend too much time on this, but I have a team of five, including myself. We do real estate development. Tampa. I spent 15 years in the Navy Seal teams. So that started in 2010 and that actually ended this year in July. What we do simplistically, we do deals, we invest in our community.
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What I mean by community is we invest in specific neighborhoods, and our aim is to make those neighborhoods more stable, better. We do that right here in Tampa Bay. I am a big believer in our our business philosophy of people, over purpose, over profit. And it is in that order. There's a big caveat there that it's the right people.
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But I think if you do it in that order, you end up making a more substantial impact on others in a more meaningful way. And the irony is you end up making more money anyway. And that's that doesn't have to be the goal, but it ends up being the case. The best teams win. The best teams win.
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When Adam asked me a few months ago if I would give a presentation on going from a Navy Seal with a winning mindset to growing an effective business, I really spent some time thinking about it. I realized I cannot disassociate a winning mindset and a winning approach in anything that I do outside of teamwork, which then means I can't fail to mention leadership because it is through the mechanism of leadership that we create the most effective teams and is through the most effective teams that we have the most effective winning.
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And so this is going to be kind of a hybrid presentation on a winning mindset, but also a lot of leadership. Because unless you make yourself into the best leader that you can be and you invest into the people of your business, then I think you will never see the optimum result that you're capable of. No growth happens until you commit.
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No growth happens until you commit. Did you actually commit? I see this a lot with, I would say, average people. You, not anyone in this room. Did you actually commit or did you show someone a post on Facebook that you wanted to do this thing and you didn't do any of the things that you said you would do?
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You didn't wake up early. You didn't stick to the plan. You didn't analyze ten properties that day like you said you do. That's where the inner work comes in. Only you can answer that. Nobody else can answer that for you.
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So during this presentation, I'm going to go through my ten, what I call my ten Non-negotiable guidelines for Elite leadership. There will be some aspects of tying in my military service during this. There will be some aspects of tying in my real estate and entrepreneurship during this, and they all overlap. September 26th, 2010 is an important day for me.
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I was on the eve of starting Buds Hell Week. It's it's arguably the hardest military training in the entire world. It's not all that hard. You're only awake for 120 hours with four hours of sleep in frigid temperatures, nonstop, doing nonstop physical training. I had a decision to make. I had to decide what kind of person I was going to be.
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Leading up to that, I had three roommates, guys I really respected. These guys were absolute powerhouses. A lot of integrity, physical studs, hard workers went out of their way for others. I lived with all of them and they were in one class before me and buds. None of them made it during how we zero of them. So you can imagine how I felt.
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These guys I really looked up to as my peers and leaders. None of them made it through hell. Week two quit and one was performance dropped. I was mortified, I could not believe it. So leading up to Hellwig, they put you in a room and you're waiting for this event called breakout, which is shooting a lot of guns, a lot of loud noises, setting off artillery simulators and demo simulators.
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It's really. It's designed to shake you up. That's that's really a and the the challenge of it is you don't know what time it's going to be. It ranges from like 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.. You're just waiting in a room for this to happen. It's pretty terrible. And I went outside to kind of, like, get a breath of fresh air.
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It's just it's in a classroom on base where you're kind of sitting with your class. And I realized I was like, it's going to be up to me. I have to decide now. I have to decide now what my level of commitment is going to be and what I'm willing to endure. And the challenge for me at the time is I had this pain in my leg right here in my femur, kind of like in the groin area and I wasn't really sure what it was during first phase, which is like the time leading up during how weak you get.
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Like you try to really take care of your body because your body is absolutely breaking down. They take you past the point where you can just keep recovering. And so you get a lot of massages. And I remember the days up to hell week. I got a massage, like right in this area to try to make it better.00;09;10;08 - 00;09;27;18UnknownAnd it did not help. And so I knew going in, you really don't want to get rolled back because you repeat all the three weeks leading up to hell week, and then you have to go through hell Week again. If you get you get rolled back during health week. So I knew it was a big focus of mine to make sure I completed her week.00;09;27;21 - 00;09;48;14UnknownAnd so it was at that moment I decided I really don't care what it takes. I'm going to do it. That's pretty much it. I realize it sounds so simplistic, but that was it. And so realizing it was up to me, I realized that I had to lead myself. And so my first principle is if you have trouble leading yourself, you're going to really struggle with leading others.00;09;48;17 - 00;10;04;12UnknownSo the best thing to do, if you know you need to work on your leadership or your effectiveness in business, focus on that first. If there's no other point you take from this presentation, focus on that first. Get really great at leading yourself. I went on to do Hell Week. We started. We finish on a Friday. Friday afternoon.00;10;04;12 - 00;10;26;27UnknownI end up finishing Hell week with a stress fracture, my mind, my femur. So I had a broken leg when I finished whole week. It was miserable. But they take you to the point where you would rather die than quit, and I truly believe that I would have rather die than quit. And I'm not saying that's how serious it is in the room here today, but you have to decide the lengths and level of commitment that you're willing to go to get a result.00;10;27;04 - 00;10;31;13UnknownThat was the level I was willing to go.00;10;31;15 - 00;10;53;00UnknownPrincipal to is better to hire for character and culture than for skills. The reason why is because skills and expertise can be taught. Let me tell you this in Seal training, you don't pick up a weapon or go to the range or touch grenades or touch demolition until they know you're not going to quit. They've screened you first.00;10;53;02 - 00;11;12;21UnknownThey know that you're resilient. They know that you're adaptable. They know that you're going to persist. They're seeing if you have the right culture to be a part of our organization before they start teaching you technical skills, because you will be trainable. You've demonstrated that skills and expertise can be taught. I use the same exact approach for for our hiring.00;11;12;28 - 00;11;33;07UnknownI would much rather take someone with a little bit less experience. And by the way, I'm not saying experience is unimportant. That's definitely important in the higher. I'm not saying it's unimportant, but skills and expertise can be taught. So focus on finding the people who have the right mindset, the right attributes mentally to contribute to what you have going on.00;11;33;07 - 00;11;39;00UnknownAnd by the way, as a leader, you should embody those too. That's point number one.00;11;39;03 - 00;12;00;06UnknownPoint number three. Great leadership will rarely feel fair. I didn't say never. Sometimes it feels fair, but it rarely feels fair. If you're looking if you're in this game, the game of leadership, to get a pat on the back or to get the accolades or to have other people notice what you're doing and constantly feel good about that.00;12;00;09 - 00;12;15;17UnknownI really feel that you're not going to go to the full length that you're capable of. I really do believe that you're going to have to wake up early, or sometimes you're going to have to stay up late. There's a reason this picture is what it is, by the way. It's on a range at night when nobody wants to be there after we've been weeks.00;12;15;19 - 00;12;26;29UnknownSpending time on the range, shooting 50 cals because we have to dial it in. Great leadership will rarely feel fair.00;12;27;01 - 00;12;52;09UnknownPoint number four, 98% of issues in an organization can be resolved or prevented with effective communication. I'll go a little bit deeper here with this point to almost all issues I see in any organization. The issues I saw in military organizations, the issues I see in entrepreneurial organizations specifically come down to a type of communication that is sometimes skipped.00;12;52;11 - 00;13;15;27UnknownAnd in my opinion, from what from my experience, what I've seen, it's un communicated assumptions. It's an assumption that you're making about what a member of your team will do. Maybe a contractor will do. Maybe even if you have rentals, maybe what a tenant will do. And so we make all these assumptions and we don't clarify them. We don't actually outwardly express them to our teammates.00;13;16;01 - 00;13;39;17UnknownAnd then they were surprised when they don't get done. That's not really fair. So get really great at effectively communicating and agree on a standard. Talk to your team about what the standard is. They will fall short. They will fall short. Everyone fall short. We're human. Hold them accountable. Help them get back up. Help them do what they need to do to be a contributing member of the team again.00;13;39;19 - 00;13;48;26Unknown98% of issues in organization can be resolved or prevented with effective communication.00;13;48;28 - 00;13;52;02UnknownNumber five.00;13;52;04 - 00;14;16;22UnknownAmateurs will do what they will go until they get something right. One time amateurs will practice something until they get it right one time. Professionals will practice until they can't get it wrong. And I realize that's a different point that than what's being presented. But I'll explain why I lead with that. Despite seeking the greatest good for the greatest number of people, some people will still misunderstand you when you have to be on a shooting range.00;14;16;24 - 00;14;32;20UnknownUntil you guys are so dialed in that you're stop making mistakes. Some guys don't understand that, hey, you're a member of this organization and yet you got it. But we're a team and we're going to go tell every guy gets it. We're going to go until every guy gets it. We're going to go until we can't get it wrong.00;14;32;23 - 00;14;55;24UnknownWe're going to keep rehearsing. And sometimes people, ones in your organization, they will not miss and they will not understand that. As a leader, you have a job to uphold the standard, to express that standard and communicate it and uphold it. People in your organization might not understand that, and people outside your organization might not understand that.00;14;55;27 - 00;15;12;24UnknownDoes anybody feel like in 2025 it's actually like if you're even a little bit savage, like even a little bit. It's never been easier to win anybody. Like Show of Hands. Anybody else feel feel like that?00;15;12;27 - 00;15;40;17UnknownOkay. Point number six as a leader, you will have people say bad things about you. These are usually people outside your organization, hopefully, and you will not always have the ability to defend yourself. And I see this is more of an a point I experienced as an entrepreneur than a point that I experienced in the military. But I see so many people get wrapped up in this like it's a high school.00;15;40;19 - 00;15;56;03UnknownLike a high school gossip. Why? Anybody show hands real quick? I've been there, too. By the way, I'm raising my hands because I have also done this. Has anybody ever let this really get to them?00;15;56;05 - 00;16;00;27UnknownOkay, cool. Yeah. Same to help you.00;16;00;29 - 00;16;13;04UnknownThey help you. They help you grow. Usually doesn't. So just let it go. Focus on what you can control.00;16;13;07 - 00;16;34;04UnknownNumber seven. This is a tough one. Despite wanting the best for your people, you will eventually have to make decisions that don't directly benefit them. The picture is a guy riding in the door of a helicopter, and there's a limited amount of seats in a 60, without auxiliary fuel tanks, you probably carry it sometimes, like, I don't know, to maybe 12 guys.00;16;34;06 - 00;16;52;11UnknownAnd so you run out of space really quick, and so somebody has to sit in the door and it's really cold. You think that dude is super stoked about sitting in the door when it's really cold for, like, an hour and a half, and it's just it's frigid. No, this guy's like, this sucks, but I have to do it for the good of the team because he gets the number of guys on target on time that we need.00;16;52;13 - 00;17;17;20UnknownSo I have to suck it up for an hour and a half for the good of the team. That decision doesn't benefit that guy. It benefits the organization. So as a leader, this is the burden sometimes that we're faced with. You're going to have to make decisions that don't positively affect the individual in that moment, but it positively affects the organization.00;17;17;22 - 00;17;23;20UnknownDon't, don't make your aim to be everyone's friend.00;17;23;23 - 00;17;29;01UnknownWhich is a great segue into point number eight.00;17;29;04 - 00;18;03;19UnknownGreat leaders create other leaders, people who are elite people who want the best for themselves and those around them. People who have high standards. Individuals that are elite contributors, contributors to high caliber organizations. These types of people actively seek and welcome things like coaching, constructive feedback, clear standards, growth, accountability, expectations. Quick secret. If they don't like those things, they're probably not elite.00;18;03;21 - 00;18;27;20UnknownSo as a leader, it like when we become leaders, you can have all the real estate technical expertise in the world. But if you actually want to grow a business and a really great organization, you really get in the business of people. You're in the business of people. The better you can be at being in the business of people, the better your organization is going to do.00;18;27;20 - 00;18;47;14UnknownThe better business is going to grow, the better you will do as a leader. It becomes your job to provide those folks with those things the coaching, the accountability, the constructive feedback. I'll tell you something in the Seal teams you like, a lot of people don't realize that in the Seal teams, you train a lot. You're gone from home 80% of the time.00;18;47;20 - 00;19;10;26UnknownSo some of that is deployment. It's on a 24 month cycle. Only six of the 24 months is deployment. The other 80% that you're gone from home is training. You're constantly training. And as soon as you've trained one thing, you've got to you've got to renew. You're training on something else. Jumping. Diving. Demolition. Formation. Profiles. Shooting. I could go on and on with the list.00;19;10;28 - 00;19;40;28UnknownDoes anyone want a guess? If you have a guess here, just raise your hand and, And I'll call on you and shout out. Does anybody want to guess the first thing? The first thing we would always do when we finished a training operation, if you have a guess rate revision. Yeah. Do a recap. Yeah. Debrief. Exactly. You do a debrief because it is our job to make sure we immediately capture those lessons learned so that we don't make the same missteps that we just did during training.00;19;41;00 - 00;19;43;20UnknownAgain.00;19;43;23 - 00;20;08;04UnknownImmediately. So taking that to business. And if you guys aren't doing this now with your deals, with your flips, with even just with, with your, you know, your weekly scorecard, if you aren't implementing debrief with your team and giving an opportunity for your teams to have constructive feedback for you guys to have discussions on accountability and growth, I think expecting long term success is reckless.00;20;08;06 - 00;20;17;25UnknownWhy would the most elite military organizations in the world do this? But you don't want to do it in your business. You should. I think everyone should.00;20;17;28 - 00;20;47;22UnknownPoint number nine your business will only grow to the level of your leadership. Your business will only grow to the level of your leadership. So if you're not actively making it a point to spend time with your people, instilling in them the resources, the tools they need to be successful and clarifying that expectation, then I would not expected to grow in that scenario either.00;20;47;24 - 00;21;10;04UnknownNumber ten. This is something that really sticks with me. Before I mention what this point is, I want to tell you that a lot of these lessons that I took from the SEO community and I tried to apply as an entrepreneur at first, I really did it wrong. And the reason I did it wrong is because the screening process for the Seal teams wasn't up to me.00;21;10;06 - 00;21;27;15UnknownI was part of it. I went through it. But now, as a business leader, the screening process for my organization becomes up to me. And I was like, oh, everyone's just like, good to go everyone's screen. So I can just hire people and they'll be high integrity people and, and hard workers. Well, that couldn't be further from the truth.00;21;27;15 - 00;21;54;03UnknownI think it's a bad assumption without clarifying it with the people that you're you're vetting. So I went through to get to my what my team is now. I've been through probably double digits, probably 11 people over the past three years to get to the five that were me, plus four that we're at now. And the, the part that was hard for me and I realized I had to really improve on was point number ten.00;21;54;05 - 00;22;13;11UnknownKeeping low performers around high performers over a long enough period of time diminishes everyone's abilities, including your high performers. What I would do, my mistake, is I would make excuses for them. I would say, you know, they messed up this week, but maybe, you know, maybe it's on me. Maybe I didn't give them the right expectation and, like, let me give them another chance.00;22;13;12 - 00;22;32;00UnknownLet me give them another chance. Let me give them another chance. And at a point, if you're going to do that, it's actually going to cripple your your entire organization. And your high performers are going to see it too, and they're not going to benefit. They'll they'll be negatively affected. Your organization will.00;22;32;03 - 00;22;53;06UnknownAtrophy. I don't mean in in terms of number of people, but you will you will get less of a positive result by keeping low performers around. And they can even be one. It can even just be one low performer. From what I've seen is that can be a toxic person. That takes away from the great work that everyone else is doing.00;22;53;08 - 00;23;22;15UnknownSo the burden of leadership here is that sometimes you unfortunately have to be the bad guy and fire people when they don't meet the standards or expectations of your organization. And not only is it it, it can feel unfortunate because we want to be liked by those around us. But it's required. It's required. You're not doing a service to your other people who want these things.00;23;22;18 - 00;23;44;26UnknownThe coaching, the growth, the accountability. You are not doing a fair service to them and giving them the empowerment that they need. If you are keeping low performers around other people who have a high standard and expect those on their team to be able to meet it.00;23;44;28 - 00;24;02;12UnknownOkay, so here's a bonus point after the ten. I like Ronald Reagan. I don't I don't get too political, but I think he was, I think he did a good job. And I think this point about leadership is extremely, extremely effective and poignant. So as a leader, there is no limit to the amount of good that you can do.00;24;02;13 - 00;24;24;14UnknownIf you don't care who gets the credit. I see a lot of people, they they become millionaires or they become eight figure entrepreneurs, or they grow a business and it becomes them, them, them. And it was always them. And they it's kind of goes back to point number one, but they want the accolades. And when I see people do that I think they're stopping short.00;24;24;16 - 00;24;41;24UnknownI think they're forgetting the investment in the people and the awesome folks that made it, that made it possible to be a part of the organization. As they grew. Without them, it wouldn't be possible.00;24;41;26 - 00;25;04;07UnknownSo here are some closing thoughts from the over a decade I spent as a Navy Seal and a decade of real estate investing that I've done every wrong, that we've gone up, or every business pivot that we've done is challenged us with a new set of problems. Sometimes it's the people problems, sometimes those are technical problems, sometimes those are process problems.00;25;04;10 - 00;25;31;04UnknownJust expect the problems and choose to be the persistent kind of person that's able to work through problems. As a leader with your organization. Collaboration has always gotten me a level up quicker. I'm not saying you can't level up on your own, but the reason you guys are in this room right now, the reason rooms like this are so effective, is because collaboration, John from one side of the room might have had a breakthrough recently.00;25;31;04 - 00;25;53;06UnknownOn a flip in this market, which is challenging more investors than we've seen over the last decade, that someone on this side of the room has never tried. Collaboration is what will get you a level up quicker. No level of I've experienced in my military career. No level of I ever experienced in my real estate investing career. No level.00;25;53;09 - 00;26;03;02UnknownThe low excuse me, no level up I've ever experienced as an entrepreneur was ever absent of teamwork, ever.00;26;03;05 - 00;26;16;27UnknownDon't expect positive results if you're not putting in the inputs. I know it's so simple. It sounds. Doesn't sound simple. It sounds so simple. But I see people miss this a lot.00;26;16;29 - 00;26;29;05UnknownThey don't track their metrics and they're like, why? Why is this not doing well? I don't know what your weekly scorecard look like. There's no input. Track it.00;26;29;07 - 00;26;53;07UnknownThere's garbage inputs if you're not actually doing, if you're doing the things, but you're not doing them well. But in my opinion, not tracking and not actually having significant data to inform the growth is even worse. We're spot to be in. And then my last point is growth comes from awareness. I think awareness can be really uncomfortable because we see things from our perspective that maybe we didn't consider before.00;26;53;09 - 00;27;14;00UnknownThis is where accountability comes in. If you have a friend that holds you accountable and they're like, hey, James, you know, you said you were going to be you said you were going to run every day this week, but got to be real, man. You haven't been doing it. That's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable when we are told things that we don't really want to hear, but that's what leads to our awareness that we're falling short.00;27;14;02 - 00;27;24;13UnknownAnd that awareness. Awareness is what allows us to make the decision to then grow. We do something about it.00;27;24;15 - 00;27;44;24UnknownSo that's one of the allow a lot of time. I kind of blasted through that pretty quick, but I want to allow a lot of time for questions, especially anybody going through a leadership challenge this year. I have never seen more people be challenged in their organizations, or especially with flips this year. And so I wanted to open up the room for questions.00;27;44;25 - 00;27;49;05UnknownWe got plenty of time for questions. If you guys have any.00;27;49;08 - 00;28;10;11UnknownYeah. Back there if you want to. Can you guys hear me? Okay, by the way. Okay. All right. Here. Go right. So you mentioned right when you leave the military, you. Well, being in the military, there was a screening process. And then once you left, you had to essentially figure out your own screening process. What did that process look like for you?00;28;10;14 - 00;28;30;25UnknownRight. Starting being an entrepreneur, new business owner, creating your own screening process. Yeah. So I use a few tools. I think tools are a great way to be efficient, to get information that, and just allows you to get more information more effectively faster than digging it, for your on your own. So there's a few tools I use for American employees.00;28;30;25 - 00;28;49;22UnknownI do I would do two interviews. I would do shoe interviews because I want two instances where I get to see them and maybe different settings different times a day. Ask a few different questions. I want, kind of two looks. And so one has to be in person for Americans and then, or just domestic employees, I should say.00;28;49;24 - 00;29;12;18UnknownAnd then one can be virtual usually. I also, like where's Dave? Dave Morse culture index has been huge for us. So taking a look at someone's cultural profile to see if they if their attributes fit for the role that you're aiming to hire or if they're kind of faking their answers. And I don't mean faking in a way that's, like they're being unethical.00;29;12;20 - 00;29;34;26UnknownBut if you have a person who's and Dave could explain this way better than I'm about to. But if you have a person who loves mundane type of work, just, you know, doing admin quiet, it doesn't really engage well with other people. Their sociability might be low, and you put that person into a dynamic sales role, like they could interview the best and be the most gung ho person and kind of interview like a savage.00;29;34;26 - 00;29;53;27UnknownBut they won't do well in that role. So doing that, doing the CI has been huge for us, for American employees. So that's that's what I do for American employees. And then my rule of thumb is if I have a sense of they're really not the right fit in the first month, I communicate that feedback and the reasons why.00;29;53;29 - 00;30;10;24UnknownAnd then if it's not going better, you know, then implementing all of that feedback to improve, then we're done. We we end. So I've had people work for me for less than a week before. And that's not like a I'm not bragging. That's kind of like a bad thing. But you got to be able to make that decision fast.00;30;10;26 - 00;30;29;00UnknownAnd so that's for American employees. And then for Vas, I like hard train VA. I think they they're involved in this community too. Both our Vas came from higher train VA and they're solid. We've used them pretty extensively. I think Lindsay used them blackjack a lot. Adam Adams involved with them? Yeah. So we've had great success with Hire Train.00;30;29;00 - 00;30;53;17UnknownVA is out here. Balls. They're here. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I think that's a really cost effective way to give you some efficiency. You know, they they record a video interview with each VA so you don't have to like set time out of your schedule to get on these interviews with VA. And you, you know, you can review all those those video interviews.00;30;53;17 - 00;31;13;15UnknownLet's say, let's say you're going to get them on the phones to be cold calling. And accent is really important to your brand. Well, you don't have to schedule an interview with the VA's like go to the library of the VA they've already interviewed and you can see, hey, who has a who has good English, right? If if you know you're cold calling in to the sellers, it's really important that they sound American.00;31;13;18 - 00;31;32;01UnknownYou can see that without having to schedule an interview. Then choose the top 2 or 3 people and and, schedule interviews with those. So hard train VA has been really good to us. Great question. Yeah. What other questions. Yeah. Go for it.00;31;32;04 - 00;31;51;09UnknownYou know, so what are some of the best, either tools or resources or books that have helped you kind of level up as a leader? In and you know, on your journey? Yeah, there's been a few. So I think who knows how. I remember talking to Adam as I was reading it, who not how, was probably a really impactful one for me.00;31;51;11 - 00;32;09;17UnknownYou know, as a, as a, as a solopreneur and like in this game, you you have the real estate technical aspect, right? That's like, hey, what are the numbers on the flip? Let's make sure we we don't do, don't fill in that garage and close that garage because that doesn't work in this area. That's all the technical stuff.00;32;09;19 - 00;32;27;26UnknownAnd so I got really good at the technical stuff. But the empowerment as an entrepreneur, I kind of struggled with because, like, nobody can do the technical stuff like I can, there's almost kind of a mismatch from my, from my time in the military to be like, oh, the guys are experts. Like, the guys got it. I was I was like, not making that connection as an entrepreneur.00;32;27;26 - 00;32;47;14UnknownAnd so who not how was incredibly impactful for me. A couple other books like, oh, here's another one. Everyone needs to do this if you have. Okay. If you have not done this tool, I think it's just really foolish. If you leave this weekend and you don't do this tour, I just don't expect it to get better.00;32;47;16 - 00;33;12;16UnknownThe. Yeah, the the, the delegate tool, the elevate and delegate tool in us is like a quadrant tool where you identify the tasks that you are. I'll tell a story about this tool here in a second. Adam challenged me a few years ago and it really help me out. It helps you identify the most valuable, highest impact use of your time in whatever tasks those are today.00;33;12;16 - 00;33;33;07UnknownAnd also the things that you're the best at and you enjoy the most. And those are the things you should do more of. And then there's different quadrants, and you get down to the quadrant where it's like, hey, I hate doing this thing. I'm not good at it. I don't enjoy it, and it doesn't produce any value. You need to stop doing those things and actually get it in front of you, and either get it on the computer or write it in, or get it on a computer.00;33;33;07 - 00;33;47;11UnknownWrite it in on the computer, or get in front of you and write it in in pen and actually fill it out. Don't mentally do it, because when you start to think about it and it's in front of you and you're filling it out, it just hits differently. Trust me. I used to mow all the yards of my rentals.00;33;47;13 - 00;34;04;12UnknownI used like in 2020, 2021 on a weekend, I would finish up a call. I have a call with Adam every Saturday morning, a small group of us meet, entrepreneurs. We've done it for about five years. And I was like, all right, I got to split. I got to go mow the yards. He's like, what are you doing, man?00;34;04;15 - 00;34;24;12UnknownI was like, I mow the yards. So I charge the tenants like 200 extra bucks and I go from from rental, the rental, mowing the yards. He's like, dude, if you like, help me make sense. I'm like your bank account. You cut out, you cut out. Go ahead. He had $1 million in his bank account. I'm like, you're cutting your grass.00;34;24;15 - 00;34;46;00UnknownLike your time is so much more valuable than that is true story. True story. So he was like, fill out this tool that I just told you about. And he's like, fill out this tool. And so I filled it out. I was like, I don't like cutting grass. I am not particularly good at it. I don't know that you need to be highly skilled to do that job.00;34;46;02 - 00;35;04;18UnknownIt doesn't produce a lot of value and it is consuming a disproportionate amount of my time. And I said, well, how much would it cost you on the high end to, to hire someone to cut the grass at these five, six, seven properties that you're going to each every other week? It's like, I don't know, maybe 50 bucks an hour on the top end.00;35;04;20 - 00;35;23;14UnknownHe's like, okay, now if you take that time, what is something you enjoy doing in business? I'm like, oh, I love putting together deals. He's like, okay, on the low end if you put a deal together and with your underwriting and you know your connections in Tampa, what's, what's the minimum that you'd make, you broke it down hourly.00;35;23;14 - 00;35;54;10UnknownI was like, well, probably, I don't know, probably like $10,000 of value. And it took me 20 hours. He's like, okay, that's $500, $500 an hour. So what you're doing is you are squandering your $50 an hour by mowing yards. You're not even enjoying it. You're miserable to to be able to charge the tenants like an extra landscaping fee each rental or sorry, each month and put that in your pocket and what you're saying no to is the $500 an hour task of putting the best deals together.00;35;54;12 - 00;36;17;04UnknownAnd so from that point on, I actually filled out the tool. I was like, oh my gosh, this is very eye opening. And, from that point on, I have grown increasingly. And this, this changes as we've gone through advancing phases of business. But I've been really, really clear on the things that I say no to. And I try to really, codify the things that I say, you know, so I'll give you a few of them if they might help.00;36;17;07 - 00;36;37;09UnknownLow value meetings on Mondays or Fridays. No, I'm not doing them. I'm just not like, it's not good for the business. It doesn't advance the business. So meetings on Mondays and Fridays, unless it's it's extremely emergency for some kind of deal or it's, it's an important relationship. Then I'm not doing a meeting on Monday or Friday. It doesn't mean I'm not going to meet with somebody.00;36;37;09 - 00;36;50;17UnknownIt doesn't mean I'm going to blow someone off or that they're not. It doesn't even mean that they're not worthy of my time. I'm not trying to be arrogant like that, but I'm not doing it on Monday or Friday because I've found that for me, those are the best deals that I can do the deep work on the business.00;36;50;17 - 00;37;11;09UnknownSo that's something I say no to. And there's a long list of other things I say no to. But, you don't take my list. I encourage you to discover that for yourself. Give give it some thought. That was a great question. Actually, here's one more. Ten x is easier than two. X was also a book I liked, so add that one.00;37;11;16 - 00;37;38;05UnknownYeah. Where is that elevating? I believe elevate and delegate is, it's part of us. Is it? Yeah. Just find that image online. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of different names for it, but elevate and delegate. I think you'll have four different quadrants actually fill it out. It's really effective. I actually try to do it each quarter by the way, because as business changes, your time is growing more valuable.00;37;38;07 - 00;37;59;06UnknownYou maybe enjoy some of the things you used to enjoy more. You enjoy those less. So I try to here's where the leadership comes in. By the way, not only do I do that, I have my leaders do that. My my ops manager, my marketing manager. I ask them to do that as well so they can become aware of the things that they need to stop doing and delegate down to the Vas.00;37;59;08 - 00;38;27;21UnknownYeah. Who's the MC? Yeah. I was going to ask your first point that you made. If you have trouble leading yourself, you'll really struggle with leading a team. Can you dive more into that about what exactly that means to lead yourself? Yeah. In your context, does anybody. Yeah. Is okay if we engage the audience a little bit here, does anyone want to give me their definition of discipline?00;38;27;23 - 00;38;45;29UnknownYou already kind of win. Anybody else in sales. Yeah. Yeah. In the blue shirt right there. The thing you need to do things. Doing the things you need to do when you need to do them. Okay I don't disagree. Anybody else want to share their opinion.00;38;46;01 - 00;38;52;27UnknownYour definition of discipline.00;38;53;00 - 00;39;10;04UnknownOkay. A lot of hands down. Yeah I know I'm not gonna I'm not gonna attack you. You're you're I think that's a great definition. I think it's a great definition. Anybody else want to share theirs? I just say staying consistent. Staying consistent. That's good. Okay, Tracy, I was just going to add to what he said. Even when you don't want.00;39;10;07 - 00;39;40;13UnknownYeah. Okay. So that is a key differentiator in my opinion. Discipline is keeping the promise you made to yourself. Okay. We all pick up on leaders that are in it for the wrong reasons and leaders who are in it for the right reasons. You guys have all, at some point in your lives, made some kind of observation regarding that about a leader or a boss, whatever the case, maybe, maybe even a parent.00;39;40;16 - 00;39;59;28UnknownAnd so when when you are going in front of your team, you're saying, hey, here's the standard, you know, this is collectively what we expect among the team. And this is the promise we're keeping to each other. And you don't do it as a leader. I would if that was the case. I would wager a bet that you probably don't.00;39;59;28 - 00;40;19;19UnknownAlso, you also probably don't do that in your own life. So if you want to get in shape and you're constantly skipping the gym, you're inherently lot you're skipping on the promise that you made yourself, which is my definition of discipline. And I didn't disagree with any of those definitions, by the way. Those are great. Thank you. Beautiful job.00;40;19;22 - 00;40;39;28UnknownSo if you're going to be the kind of person that like that, the really the point comes down to discipline. In my opinion, if you're going to be the kind of person that does not keep the promise to yourself, then you're going to struggle with helping others understand that you can keep the promise to the team, and they're not going to want to follow you.00;40;39;28 - 00;40;56;23UnknownThey're not going to feel inspired. You're going to be another word is hypocrite. You're going to be a hypocrite. You expect some people to do one thing and you do another. And unless you can master that principle in your own life, you're probably going to struggle with the same principle in a team. And that's just my opinion, though.00;40;56;29 - 00;41;02;18UnknownSo yeah, yeah.00;41;02;20 - 00;41;23;18UnknownThat's why, you know, in some in some older organizations like officers go through a different, training process than enlisted. And I'm not trying to bash officers enlisted or Marines versus Navy or who's the best we know, who's the best? I'm just kidding.00;41;23;21 - 00;41;49;23UnknownBut but officers are enlisted to go through the exact same training, and and the seal pipeline. Why? We have to ask ourselves why? Because there's a demonstrated level of resilience and proficiency that the enlisted guys need to know that you've been through so that you're capable of leading them. Kind of the same thing with discipline and hypocrisy that I just explained in business.00;41;49;26 - 00;42;08;13UnknownImagine if it was like a softer 2025 soft version of a hey, the officer pipeline is like a little difference, like a little less hard. To be fair, the marine officer pipeline is harder. And that's a great point. That's a great point. But there in in the I think in the Army, like they're not always they're not always the same.00;42;08;15 - 00;42;12;02UnknownSo.00;42;12;05 - 00;42;24;16UnknownAny other questions. Who's in the army here. Yeah my bad. All right okay. Yeah. Any other questions.00;42;24;19 - 00;42;34;29UnknownWe got time I think we got some time for some more. Okay.00;42;35;02 - 00;42;55;23UnknownSince we have time, is this on? Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay. James, I love it when you said we're going to go until everyone gets it right with your team. I'm curious. Like, I know what that means for me with my sales team, but what what are some examples in your organization that you would do with your team now as an entrepreneur?00;42;55;23 - 00;43;17;28UnknownYeah. Like in business now. Right. Because I'd love for everybody. Understand. Like how did you translate that into your team. Yeah. Here's a really easy, easy example. I'll do a show of hands on this. How many of you write your own offer? Well, put your hand up if you're an agent, if you have your license. Okay. How many of you write your own offers as an agent like you, you draft it up.00;43;18;00 - 00;43;36;13UnknownSorry if you're an agent, keep your hand up. Just keep your hand up for a second and then leave your hand up if you write your own offers. Okay, so some people put their hands down. Which leads me to believe that you don't initially draft your own offers. Is that accurate? Your your head. Yes. Okay. That is that is one.00;43;36;13 - 00;43;56;09UnknownOkay. So my VA Marie, she drafts all my offers. So I say hey one, two three Main street 300 K deposit this. I give them the metrics. They go into my MLS account and they draft it for me. And then I do the final review and sign okay. There's times when she gets it and hey correct correct. That's correct.00;43;56;11 - 00;44;13;22UnknownAnd there's times where we start mis stepping in. And usually it's because we haven't iterated on that, on that skill set in a while. So if we go a month without making an offer, she's usually pretty rusty and is not going to be great. What do you think we do to combat that? To to respond to that?00;44;13;25 - 00;44;30;23UnknownCoach we do reps. Hey, we're going to do a practice offer. We're not actually going to submit this. We need to do two practice offers every day this week until we're not making mistakes anymore. And I'm not going to slam her over the head with it. I'm not gonna say, hey, you're you're a piece of junk. Like you don't fit in anymore.00;44;30;23 - 00;44;49;09UnknownLike, no, we got to train this. You got you made some missteps. We got to improve. We got to get reps. So you're back on track. So that's like the easiest, quickest example I can think of. But that at scale and it may not need to be two offers every single day for five days. Maybe she gets it on day two and we're good.00;44;49;12 - 00;45;03;16UnknownBut I need I like to have an organization where people are performing at or above standard. There's below standard. I had to step in. How do you want me to hold you accountable?00;45;03;18 - 00;45;09;28UnknownAll right. Yeah. Richard, what's your.00;45;10;01 - 00;45;29;05UnknownYeah. Great question. I think if you want your business, just my opinion, people may disagree with this. The school. Just my opinion. If you want your business to grow and you're not meeting with your team or they're not conducting an internal meeting daily, you don't necessarily need to be there depending on the to your team. If you're not doing that daily on work days, then I don't think you should expect growth.00;45;29;08 - 00;45;53;00UnknownSo we meet Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday for just a quick internal team. Sync starts 815, last between 15 and usually 30 minutes depending on what we have going on. We go through kind of like leadership comments. We go through department comments, we go through specific projects or milestones for that week that we're trying to hit. And and then once the meeting is done, we've cover what we need to cover.00;45;53;00 - 00;46;10;09UnknownWe're done on Wednesdays. We do a level ten. I recommend you guys take a look at the level ten meeting agenda. It's like it's a 90 minute meeting. It's more in-depth. It's more you get you have time to discuss more long term initiatives, more strategic initiatives. So that's on Wednesdays. And then some weeks we'll add a Thursday afternoon meeting.00;46;10;09 - 00;46;29;24UnknownAnd the reason we do that is because it prevents a fire drill on Friday of like, oh, we got to get all the stuff ready that we didn't really, properly synchronize on before Friday can. And so when we need to we'll do the Thursday meeting as well. And my team is entirely virtual. Even the American employees.00;46;29;27 - 00;46;49;08UnknownTo answer your question, yes. Do you have a weekly one on one or no. One. No. Weekly one on one with team members or just the team meetings? Yeah. So I'll talk to my. I'll talk to usually my leaders like how I have it structures. I have an ops department. In a marketing department. We have five businesses that they kind of serve.00;46;49;08 - 00;47;08;00UnknownAll of them. Some are not active like our rental portfolio. Very little going on there. So it's not like that's a day to day thing. And so I have an office manager who's an American employee. And then she has an OB VA. So they're the ops team. And then I have a marketing in in American Marketing manager. And then she has a marketing there.00;47;08;02 - 00;47;35;24UnknownSo they're the marketing team. And so I will usually have point to point discussions sometimes once a day, sometimes is unplanned with my with my leaders, like my American employees. And then I don't want to I don't want to jump the chain of command and talk directly to one of the Vas without them knowing, especially if there's an issue going on, because that's, you know, that's their leadership to manage.00;47;35;27 - 00;48;02;01UnknownAnd so most of my one on ones are with the Americans. I do a quarterly synchronization. It's a quarterly performance review with everyone. And that's one on one. Yep. That is your question. Okay. What's going on here? Hey, I got a question for you on that, daily sync meeting. Yeah. So is that you're talking. Is that your American department heads?00;48;02;01 - 00;48;22;05UnknownIt sounds like they're. They show up and they they they know the agenda. Can you just go a little more in depth on what you do? And I think you said it was 30, 45 minutes. So it can be sometimes we've had to be ten. But it's mostly priority items for the week. So I'll get on, like let's say let's let's do a Monday example.00;48;22;07 - 00;48;38;19UnknownOkay. What was the highlight of everyone's weekend? You know, we've got a really great opportunity in front of us this week. I'm speaking at seven. So you're flipping the rooms with full, full of awesome professionals. So we need to get the slide deck ready for that. Can you have the draft ready for me by Wednesday? That's something as a priority, as a leader for me.00;48;38;19 - 00;48;58;16UnknownI want to make sure I clarify the team. So Wednesday doesn't come up and surprise us, and we don't have our slides ready for this, this presentation we're giving. So besides that, we have this event Friday and our revision for one of the development deals on one, two, three Main Street that's due Monday. So let's get ahead of that to any questions on the the larger priorities for this week.00;48;58;16 - 00;49;28;28UnknownNope. Okay. Moving on. Ops goes. And so Giselle will cover her Ops priorities for the week. Usually some dialog they're based on. Like, I'm a believer in triaging your workload. So, like, be aware of what's important and what's urgent. And if things are both like, do those first. And so we'll talk about the priorities. And if there's a change I'll, I'll kind of comment on what she has planned and then Marie or our ops VA, she'll just comment on some of her supporting stuff for what we have going on.00;49;29;05 - 00;49;48;02UnknownThen we'll shift over to marketing and do the same thing for the marketing department. Okay. So you have that. Everyone is at that meeting. Everyone's at that meeting, okay. Everyone's at that meeting and you set your agenda. You know, you share that first and then they each have their individual department. Like this is what's most important this week for our department.00;49;48;04 - 00;50;06;21UnknownYeah. None of it's like a surprise. None of it's like oh I didn't see that coming. It's it's like running the drill. Okay. Yeah. So what I'm saying is I was just trying to understand the flow of like, they, they didn't just show up and have it and have already planned what's most important for them for this week.00;50;06;21 - 00;50;24;01UnknownOr you're doing it day by day by day, like so. So having disconnect is one time. Yeah, yeah. No worries. It's a good question. So we'll talk about it for the week. And we'll also talk about it for the day. It kind of depends on what we have going on that week. If there's something massive on that Friday I'm going to mention on a Monday.00;50;24;01 - 00;50;40;27UnknownSo it doesn't surprise us on Thursday night. Okay. But if there's like, let me think of an example. I already page he's here. He's with fun and grow. So I'm in the hallway. So he's coming on and speaking. I'm going to give us an example because it happened this week. He's coming on and speaking to one of our groups in a few weeks.00;50;41;04 - 00;51;02;10UnknownSo on Monday I'll say something like, hey, by the way, I don't think we've, you know, touch base with Ari on the exact presentation topic in four weeks. At some point this week, we just need to make sure it gets done. That's not a crazy priority. It needs to happen before the end of the week. And so it might be something like that where it's like it doesn't need to be Monday just needs to be by end of the day Friday, they'll figure it out okay.00;51;02;14 - 00;51;05;07UnknownYeah. Thank you. Yeah. I hope that answers your question.00;51;05;09 - 00;51;10;24UnknownWow, what an amazing presentation. Now that I got to let you guys on the inside,00;51;10;24 - 00;51;14;02UnknownI know you thought that was amazing, because how could you not?00;51;14;02 - 00;51;19;16UnknownI would love for you guys if you feel compelled, if you feel called, if you feel like these are your kind of people.00;51;19;16 - 00;51;28;14UnknownSo just reach out to us. If you want to be a part of a real estate community that goes just beyond profits, beyond real estate, impact, service and legacy.00;51;28;17 - 00;51;34;19UnknownYou feel like you're aligned with us and our community. We'd love to talk to you. Just click the link in the description.00;51;34;19 - 00;51;41;14UnknownYou can hit the application and you can talk to me or somebody from my team. All right. Talk soon. See you on the next one.
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