Nathan Daniel: 0:00
Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to the broker broker real estate podcast I have a incredible guest on that's joining us today. And we were talking a little bit about a new series that he's actually teaching inside of his brokerage. And it's pretty phenomenal. It's called authentic success. And so we're gonna get into it today. So, here we go, I'm going to cue up the music and we'll jump right in. Alright, so I have Mr. Chris Thompson, Chris Thompson from real brokerage. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris Thompson: 0:51
Hello, thank you. Thanks for having me. Nathan, how are you today?

Nathan Daniel: 0:54
Oh, man, I am doing fantastic. Even better now that we've finally been able to connect and do this. So I'm excited.

Chris Thompson: 1:02
long time coming. I'm ready. Let's dive in.

Nathan Daniel: 1:04
We're gonna get right into it. So a little backstory. For those of you, Chris and I have been working together since about June of this year. And really just getting to know each other throwing back and forth some awesome dad jokes here and there, which is a lot of fun. And anyway, so he was talking to me about this series. But before we get to that, Chris, tell us a little bit about yourself, how long you been in the industry? And what leads you to where you're at today?

Chris Thompson: 1:31
Okay, well, I am. My name is Chris Thompson. I've been in the business about 11 years, I've been a broker for I want to say five and a half, it's all starts to, you know, come together, maybe six, I'm not sure. And I've had two brokerages, one with a partner and one without I came to this industry I was originally My degree is in special education, I was a high school special, special education teacher. And so I got into this business kind of on a whim, we bought a house and had a questionable experience by a guy had been in the business a long time. And I just thought, Man, if that guy could do it, what he's doing. And for that long, surely I should be able to try it. And, you know, we love to travel and making 40 grand a year, you don't get to go too far. So I was like, I'll get into it. And I'll just, you know, maybe we can go on an extra trip or two a year. And that turned into the second year, I was making as much teaching as I was doing real estate. And doing that part time and thought, Man, maybe there's a real career here, saw that a lot of the skills translate, you know, when you're teaching, you have to meet people where they are, you don't get to pick who walks through your door. And to some degree, that's true in real estate. You know, some, some kids would come to you great test takers, some would be great listeners. And, and you know, same thing in real estate, I learned that some people came to you real high 10 real high energy, need a lot of information, some people need a lot of hand holding, some people just need a kick in the butt. And, and having five years of experience of doing that with smaller versions of those adults. It was a really easy transition for me. And it's, it's been a passionate, you know, process to really dive into this business and, and the way that it's changed my life and, and change my family's life and the families that I've touched. It's been a real blessing for me.

Nathan Daniel: 3:22
Yeah, that's awesome. And, and I know from our conversations that we've had, you're absolutely making an impact in the lives of all of your agents, but also your clients. So thank you one for being a great industry leader and professional and raising the bar. So I appreciate that.

Chris Thompson: 3:38
Who knew that anybody would call me your professional? Yeah, like coming and that's kind of, you know, ties into this authentic, authentic success platform that we're doing is that, you know, when you're first getting into the business, you have this idea of what a professional is, you know, it's a suit and tie guy or gal, it's you know, the the three series Beamer, the showing up and suitcase carrying guide and for me, like I was never going to be that guy. So that's why I thought it was going to be a side hustle for me. And it wasn't until I really got into it, that I realized that you're actually better when you're more like your authentic self than when you're like that guy in the YouTube video that you're trying to learn everything from. And that's, that's a big part of like my first three or four years of learning that the hard way, and going through those ups and downs that a lot of agents go through because I was trying to you know, be this person or be that person instead of being this person and and it just it was important for me to find a way to share that with our agents and and we just recently released this that our first test of this class, I think went really well I had a guy who does 40 deals a year come talk to me just yesterday and tell me like man that that part on cognitive dissonance man that hit me so hard. I was at home last Three days getting stuff in line because I knew that's what was was holding me back from being my true self. And, you know, when you hear stuff like that it just like, fires you up to just keep getting after it.

Nathan Daniel: 5:11
Well, that's, that's cool. I love I love hearing that. So let's let's jump in let's talk about authentic success, okay? And what does it mean like lay this out for us this journey of authentic success?

Chris Thompson: 5:22
Absolutely. So, you know, authentic success is something different to everybody. You know, for me, authenticity is about being able to other success about building a business that's repeatable, that's enjoyable. And that's something that you can you can do for a lifetime. Right? When you're trying to be other people, and you're trying to chase the magic bullet, it's, it is destined to burn you out in this business. And, and it's also tough to repeat, it's tough to repeat being someone you're not, it is much easier to be yourself and to be true to your principles and your guidelines throughout your business. And, and then you have a business that lasts a lifetime. And that starts to feed itself, it becomes very, like a cycle that just keeps building on itself. And, and so for me authentic success is being who you are, and doing it every day. And being able to repeat that process, to scale that process and to enjoy this profession that can sometimes not be so enjoyable. You know what I mean?

Nathan Daniel: 6:25
Yeah, there are stresses that come along with this. It's not just like, show up, show three houses and then get to a closing. Yeah, it's not like that. Right?

Chris Thompson: 6:33
Yeah. Well, I mean, there may be some days it is, but usually you're you know, what I one of the things we always talk about is, as agents we have to learn to, to carry our clients problems without wearing them, you know, we have, we have to be able to get them across the finish line. And that requires us to put hands on it and to be hands on and get this thing there. But But we can't wear that stuff, especially when we go home. Because, again, that's just another term of burnout and, and we we look at our this business, and the grind is so real, that it really starts to attack that inner child that we are. And that inner child is always where we're most happy. Always where we find the most joy. And, you know, a couple, one of the quotes I Dave Winnicott, he says are Winnicott. Excuse me, he's he says that the source of one's spontaneous self is where your most authentic. So being willing to try new things in this business is authenticity. And through the process, we talk about some of the challenges some of the pillars and and some of the outcomes that you'll see in this and, you know, everybody experiences different things. And one of the things I think is, was that I touched on in the beginning that I think is most important to note is authenticity doesn't mean you have to be the leader figure everything out on your own. You know, I think we put that pressure on ourselves.

Nathan Daniel: 8:06
Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I know. In this this is kind of highlighted. You shared a video with me. Yeah. And do you mind telling us about that video?

Chris Thompson: 8:17
Yeah, absolutely. Well, when I was teaching, one of the classes that I taught, it was called pals and Pao stood for peer assisted leadership. And these kids had to apply, they interviewed. And they were accepted into this program where they were able to mentor middle school and elementary school aged kids. They also had to do service learning projects. Like, you know, we sent 1000 pounds of clothes to Haiti after the big earthquake, one of our kids set a world record to bring awareness to something. We set the world record for most high fives in an hour. It's crazy the world records that are out there, but but shout out to Derek Dillard for doing that. Great kid. But when when I was teaching that class, one of the first things that I would do is teach this I would show this video called, you know, the first follower video. And if you google first follower, you'll be able to find this video. It's all over YouTube, millions of views and such. But it's essentially as a guy at this music festival with the shirt off. Dancing in the way only a white guy can dance. I mean, it's the most awkward, uncomfortable thing to watch. But what the video talks about is, is because it's so awkward and uncomfortable. It's actually really easy to follow. And being easy to follow is a really important skill and authenticity. Because when you when you find yourself when people don't really understand who you are, you are a tough person to follow because there's no trust in that relationship. So being easy to follow meaning being yourself every day and all the time. That is a that is an opportunity to bring people on to lead you are to follow you and and we talked about what a first follower Looks like in our business. You I think I might have mentioned it to you. But if you don't remember, do you remember what I what I attended to? I don't know, tell me, it's it's online reviews. Okay, yeah, when I start first followers are going to be online reviews. So we have to do our job so well and so effortlessly, that we inspire people who leave these reviews, of course, we can hound them, and there are other techniques, right, but, but when we are able to get people to leave those reviews, then what that does is that creates that social proof, just like in the video, when that guy's dancing with the shirt off in the sunshine awkwardly, another guy comes and starts dancing with a shirt on, but just as awkwardly, and that goes on for a few seconds, 15 seconds, and he starts motioning to his friends, right, leaving the reviews, it's safe to do this. And then the next person comes, the next person comes in before you know it. Now it's a movement. And that's what we want to do in real estate. By being authentic, we can create our own professional movement. So we start their training there. And we kind of work through some of these other things. And we talk about pillars of authenticity. And some of the pillars that I like to connect to or compassion, competence, self awareness, sincerity and connectedness. Now, what of those? For me, the number one reason people aren't authentic, the most common reason is lack of competence. Alright,

Nathan Daniel: 11:26
What do you mean by that?

Chris Thompson: 11:27
So when you don't know what the hell it is you're doing every day, it's hard, it's hard to be authentic. Right? You only have so much gas in this tank. And when this tank is using its energy to figure out what to do, how to speak to people, you know, you've never taken any time to do scripts, you never taken any time to review the contracts. You only do the bare minimum of education. You've never you know, you do your first CMA when it's time to write an offer. Like when you're putting yourself in those situations, you have a lack of competence. And that creates that increases stress. And that stress draws from your energy and your passions, and you're not going to be authentic, you're going to be a lesser version of yourself. And it's the one that we don't talk about most, you know, I think you'll hear it on every chat room that has one real estate agent in America will, will argue that the the bar of entry is too low in real estate. I disagree. I think the bar of entry is exactly what America is about. Everybody has opportunity. What's I think what's too low is the is the the level of competence when agents get into it. They're so busy worrying about their branding, worrying about their next deal, which I understand you got to eat right. But they're not taking the time to build the foundation and your authentic foundation is your competence. Now, of course, self awareness is another tough one. I think a lot of us a lot of us struggle with that.

Nathan Daniel: 12:57
Yeah. One, I think some of that self awareness could lead to the competence, right? Absolutely.

Chris Thompson: 13:03
I mean, you're if you know, you haven't ever done a CMA before. And if you're honest with yourself, you're like, should I need to do this and, and these people are, they're not taking the time to do that. Because it's uncomfortable. And it's like, you know, like working out, nobody likes to work out. Well, some people like to work out my wife, she does shout out to Deseret, but, you know, initially you don't like to work out, because it's hard, and it makes you sweat. And you're like, I'm not good at this, and nobody wants to do good things are good, not good at but being self aware, and what where your weaknesses are, will allow you to, to draw deeper inside of who you are. And, you know, I'm aware that this stuff is somewhat touchy feely for some people, you know, like, this is about making money in and cashing checks for a lot of people and I get that. But I also think that, that you're missing an opportunity, because this is a relationship business. And to really excel on any level, whether you're a giant team leader, or a team broker, and you don't ever show a house, but you still have a relationship with those people. So if you want them to be self aware, you must also do the same thing. And, and the things that I think most agents are good at, is having compassion. You know, most of us have empathy. That's why we do this. We want to help we want to serve we want to lead. And that comes from a place of compassion. And so I think that's why I think that's the first pillar of authenticity for me, but, but it's the easiest one and we lean on it too much. We lean on compassion, we lean on. Okay, we'll give you some of our commission we lean on. Okay, well, we'll pay for that. Because we don't have the competence, the self awareness to do the other things right. And so, and it's just like, our bodies, you know, you got one arm that's stronger one arm that's not you keep going back to this one. And then you know, you got this this Popeye look. Yeah. And so it's just it's something to be aware of, again, is that if you're, if you're leaning on just one of these, then you're also not going to be truly authentic either.

Nathan Daniel: 15:08
Yeah, well, and you've done a really great job about building and following. In your own world with this, right? I mean, all of this, like, you've found your authentic self. And you're, I want to say not ashamed of it, but you're not ashamed of who you are embracing it, you're embracing it. Right. And, and you're, you're doing it in a great way. And I know you have some headshots, and I have it on the slides, and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, you just took some really cool pictures, you know, at a pub, or a bar where y'all know where to go and have these networking events, right?

Chris Thompson: 15:42
Yeah, we we've been before COVID, we did a happy hour every month for about two years. And, you know, I, I want to totally untraditional route where most brokers, they're all about branding their name and getting their name out there. And even when I talked with marketing professionals that told me it was a terrible idea. And maybe it was, who knows, but I enjoyed it. And what we did was, we created a whole third party setup, where it's called real happy, and essentially, we became the source for putting together are like bringing everybody's happy hours disseminating that information, but also putting out on our happy hour. So originally, you know, when we first did it, there's like six of us. And we went to this place, and we had the same awkward conversation there that we would in the office, and but we did it over drinks. And then you know, it started to grow and started to grow. And by the end of two years, we were having 85 people on the first Wednesday of every month at the same place. And you know, people would, I would be the same guy there that I am in the office, I got my flip flops every day, usually in shorts, like, that's just who I am. And, and I would connect with people. And that's where I did 100% of recruiting, I never sent out an email or did cold call stuff. And were able to about a year and a half to grow to 2530 agents by the end of two years with 31 agents. And it was just by developing those authentic relationships, know people coming with contribution being available to people and and building that. And we saw great success with it. And also was we we think I think I had three people leave over the course of two years. And two of them were a couple. Right? So we had really great, we had a great bond, because those those foundations of the relationships were formed authentically, one on one, slowly, right? expect it to happen overnight. We're not pressuring people to make sense sign, you know, sign up with us and things of that nature.

Nathan Daniel: 17:43
Yeah, you were, you were intentionally growing slowly to get the right people in your world that knew who you were right? Because you weren't willing to jeopardize being that authentic self,

Chris Thompson: 17:54
because any broker that's listening to this knows that, that agents are the best part of the job and can be the worst part of the job. You know, like, the relationships that you build with these agents are something that that I am incredibly grateful for, like to be the person that they choose to go to battle with, when things aren't going well to confide in when they need advice, both in the business and outside of the business. Like, that's the kind of stuff that I want on my headstone someday. But also, you pick the wrong agents, and they can really suck you dry and in the worst kind of way. And so worrying more about numbers were to me, it's just not who I am. I'm a relationships person. You know, I couldn't My wife has paid the bills for the last 18 years, I don't know how much money we have. I just know that if she tells me I can't go on a trip, I have to work harder. That's pretty much how we gauge it. And so the numbers were never The deal was always the the leading indicators and the people that mattered to me. And so, we did a really good job of having having great people here. And, and it's probably the thing that I'm most proud of in my career as a broker for sure.

Nathan Daniel: 19:09
Yeah, yeah. And that's awesome. And it shows up every day, like in the in the relationships that you build, like I said, you know, we pass dad jokes back and forth. Yeah, for fun. So all right,

Chris Thompson: 19:19
well, I'm having dad jokes. Let's do it. So how do you talk without having dad jokes? You know, I

Nathan Daniel: 19:25
know. Right? Dad world?

Chris Thompson: 19:27
I know. Well, um, all right, Chris. So So leave us with a just a few words, if there's something that we haven't covered today that that you would like to share your message? Well, there's there's two parts. I think that that you're challenged you with authentic success. And so I want to these are the two, I think most evident ones that I've seen beyond what we've talked about, but the number one is one that I'm dealing with right now. And it's the principle I've summed up into what got you here won't get you there. Sometimes people think being authentic has been who they've always been. And you know, if you if you heard it talking about being spontaneous and creative, spontaneous and creative, have nothing to do with doing what you've always done. It's the complete opposite of that. And so for me, I had always been sphere of influence, I've always done things a certain way. And I've had enough success that I thought I never needed to change it. And I, you know, being self aware and understanding that, that I have to continue growing this business, if not just for myself, but for the agents that look up to me, I had, I decided I need to start getting involved in some other types of businesses, because I want a little bit more in life like everybody else. And to get those other things, I'm gonna have to do new things. And then the last one, I think that's that's most damaging to all of us. And that is the biggest roadblock to authentic success is cognitive dissonance. And cognitive dissonance is basically having two competing ideas in your mind. So for me, being healthy, I want to be healthy. But I'm eating bad food, right? That's cognitive dissonance. And so what happens is when you're eating the food, feels great, because who doesn't love bad food. And as soon as the meal is gone, you're left with that feeling of this doesn't jive with my other idea. And the thing is, is that idea doesn't just go away in that moment. That idea stays with you throughout that day and throughout that night. So it lingers in the background, and it's draining that gas tank that we talked about earlier, and it's taken away from your prospecting, it's taken away from your client care, it's taken away from your relationships with your kids and your family. So that goes back to self awareness, really be aware of where you have this idea of who you should be or who you are. And but what ideas are not competing with that or are competing with that, what actions are you taking? So those are the last two things, I would say really start there and work your way backwards.

Nathan Daniel: 22:02
that's a that's a great bit of advice there. Because in the analogy of food, I mean, that's, that's spot on, especially as we're getting ready to come up. At the time of this recording, we're getting ready to come up to everybody's favorite time of year, which is give me that pumpkin pie. Give me that pumpkin pie. And you know what, though? I mean, it's, it's okay to indulge sometimes. Sure. And I do feel that you are onto something with this because, you know, it's a part of being human. Right. And it's that battle that takes us from one point to another. And, you know, I go back to that, oh, there's a commercial about investing and stuff, right. And they provide you the green line to get from point A to point B on your finances.

Chris Thompson: 22:48
Mm hmm. Well, guess what?

Nathan Daniel: 22:50
Like, that's all well and good having a perfect straight line to retirement however,like we don't live a straight line. We live like this. We live in a tree like where we branch off and make a decision by a boat, whatever it is, and water heater goes out. The water heater goes out. Yeah, Life Life happens. So well. Very cool. Well, Chris, thank you for sharing this, I think authentic success is, is going to be a big hit. I know. You just started teaching this. And I know you're already getting recognition within your company actually going to be teaching on the national level. So that's awesome. Yeah,

Chris Thompson: 23:27
I'm pumped about I mean, listen, I think if when you those of you who are brokers, you know that, that you can't just take this job because you want to make more money or you don't want to be in production, there has to be more to it. And for me, it's about like leading and protecting and loving our agents. And, and I do that because I feel most loved and protected when I'm loving and protecting other people. And so that's what this is about, like I struggled with these things, and I didn't know what I was struggling with. So when you as a broker are out there, and you know, there are things you struggled with, figure out a way to make that a message for your guys, because that will make them better. It'll make our industry better. And that's how we're gonna fight. You know, these big conglomerates coming in, we're going to beat it relationally and not trying to transactional and we have to be better people to do that.

Nathan Daniel: 24:18
Yep, that's true. That's absolutely true. Well, everybody, we've been talking to Chris Thompson with real brokerage Chris, I really, really appreciate you being on the show today.

Chris Thompson: 24:27
Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. It's good talking to you again, you as well.