Justin Stoddart
Welcome back to The Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I’m your host, Justin Stoddart and I’m thrilled today to talk about leadership. Sales is leadership. Anything that we do in life in which we have impact, in which we grow anything, requires leadership. The challenge is many of us struggle with being a great leader. Today, we’re going to talk all about that. Before we get into introducing today’s guest and the rest of today’s topic, I want to remind you that you can get a show summary, a weekly summary of every show that happens with show notes by going to thinkbigger.real estate, go sign up for that. I’ve got it looking really, really good. You’re gonna be really proud of what you see, you’ll be proud of me for what you see. And the other thing that I want to point out is that if you’re watching this in another market, and you’re interested in finding either a great loan officer and or a great real estate agent, I would encourage you to reach out to me, private message me, send me a message. I work with the best of the best, I’d be more than happy to make a recommendation. With that, let me introduce today’s guest. His name is Chad Krober. Chad first and foremost, thank you for coming on the show today. I appreciate you being here.
Chad Krober
Thank you, Justin. It’s good to be here. Thank you.
Justin Stoddart
Great to have you here. So Chad Chad’s brand is The Purpose Driven Lender, and we’re going to talk about that tech today’s show is going to be a representation of Chad being that. Chad actually leads a team of 10 originators and support staff, out of the Portland market. He and his team have been for the past three years in the retail lending space, a top 250 producing team in the country. So Chad knows a thing or two about leadership, he knows a thing or two about being a top producer. And for those of you that are able to stay around for the whole episode, I want you to mark on your date, October 25, it’s a Friday from 8:30 to 4:30, there’s going to be a very special event happening here in Portland, that is going to be free to you, but it’s going to be life changing when it comes to being a great leader. So stay tuned for that if you don’t make it all the way to the end, look in the show notes and you’ll see more information about that. So again, thank you for being here Chad. I’m going to ask I’m going to start with this question because I believe that the most important leadership that we’ll ever do it starts off in the home, so I’m going to ask you a question about you probably aren’t prepared for but a guy like you is always prepared for this kind of question. What’s your favorite part about being a dad, Chad?
Chad Krober
You know, honestly, I think the favorite part of being a dad is having the opportunity to honestly learn from my mistakes, and then model that to my kids and show them that I am learning how to become the best version of myself. Even when I trip over myself. I don’t handle the situation. Well, I can model to my kids and say, Hey, you know what, Dad, I did not do this thing. Well, or I did not handle this situation. Well, or I did not model this behavior to you well, but I’m working on it. And I need to tell you, I’m sorry. And I need to ask for your forgiveness.
Chad Krober
And it’s amazing to me how my kids are so quick to say “It’s okay Dad, I know you’re doing you’re trying to work you’re trying to grow, I know you’re trying to get better.”
Chad Krober
Our kids just want to love us more than anything. And that’s honestly probably the one of the most enjoyable parts of being a parent is being able to learn from my own errors, and then model and teach that to my kids.
Justin Stoddart
Powerful concepts. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. For those that are maybe new to the show, this is about thinking bigger than real estate, right? We’re fortunate to be involved in a great industry from different angles, yet, this becomes a platform, Chad, you and I talked about that before the show about how for you it’s really not about mortgages anymore. Maybe it never was but this whole concept of being a purpose driven lender, talk to me a little bit about kind of as a prelude into today’s topic. Like what matters more to you than originating loans.
Chad Krober
Yeah. You know, I I’ll admit, probably up till about maybe five, six years ago, I was way hung up, was hung up way more on the deal. I was I was focused on how do I close more loans? How do I increase my wallet? How do I increase my bank account? And I went through a few life situations that caused me to have to re examine to look in the mirror and say, why am I doing what I’m doing? You know it, you can jokingly say yeah, I’m 44 years old. Was it a midlife crisis? Maybe not. But just the timing, everything played out in my late 30s, early 40s. And I sat back one day and said, you know, what, if if I’m gone tomorrow, and I’m no longer writing loans, will the world even though that I existed? And I had to look in the mirror and say, No, probably not. Because another great loan officer will come along and replace me the day that I decided to hang it up and stop doing. And so I realized that I needed to change my attitude to say, Okay, I get the opportunity to interact with dozens and dozens and dozens and hundreds of people over a year’s time. What if I use my platform instead? To say, How can I make a difference in someone’s life? Instead of just writing alone? How can I bless them? How can I encourage them? How can I model to them? Things that will make them walk away from our conversation and say there’s something different about that person, and I want to be I want to become a better version of myself. And so it just took me down this path of saying, All right, mortgages are a tool. And mortgages are a way to pay my bills. But ultimately, my attitude needs to be I’m here to serve people. And I think it comes back to the whole idea of servant leadership. We are here to serve others. And I think you actually just had a guest here recently who was talking about that, who leads a team that was and that, you know,
Justin Stoddart
Yes, Erik Hatch.
Chad Krober
I thought I caught that briefly. I didn’t get to watch the whole thing, but I caught a snippet of and I went guys nailing it. He I think the quote that I saw was like, “Nobody works for me, I work for them.”
Unknown Speaker
I mean, that’s the whole concept of being a servant leader is you want to serve those around you. And when you come in with an attitude of humbleness, and of saying, you know what you all can teach me, because I really don’t really know much, honestly. But I’m going to do my best to help all of us, I’m going to help our tribe get to the finish line in whatever it is that we’re trying to accomplish. Then all of a sudden, you have a heart attitude where you can begin to grow and you can be you can expand your boundaries and begin to really, I think leave an impact on people’s lives.
Justin Stoddart
I love it Chad. It was interesting, I’m actually reading the book by Ray Dalio called Principles. You know, probably one of the greatest hedge funds managers of all time. One of his key principles is actually humility. A guy has every reason to not be humble, he realized that he began to accelerate his own success and impact on the world when he stopped thinking that he knew everything and started to look around to realize like, I can learn from everybody here and create a what he called a meritocracy, which was the best ideas win. It doesn’t matter if he’s the, you know, the founder of the company, Bridgewater, that that isn’t what matters, who who has the best ideas. That’s what wins. And I think it takes a lot of humility to be a leader and say, Hey, your ideas better than mine, let’s do yours.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I would I could not agree more. I’ve even noticed in my emails that I right, I seem to ask a lot more questions. Help me understand this, or I don’t quite understand where you’re coming from? Or can you help me find out the answer? Because I don’t know the answer, to be frankly honest. And you know, the sign of a great leader is recognizing that when you ultimately realize you can’t control anything around you, and then you find great people to come alongside you who do who actually do things better than you do, then all of a sudden, everything seems to go a lot better. For the most part, when you when you’re moving in the same direction, you’ve got the right people on the bus. Yeah, humility is where it’s at, for sure.
Justin Stoddart
So we have a short amount of time, let’s say, five to 10 minutes to go through this concept of rare leadership. And this is going to be what’s going to be taught at the event on October 24 25th 25th 25th. And it’s going to be a really powerful event. Again, some of you may be watching this after October 25. So So if that’s the case, there’s a book called real leadership. But at this event, Dr. Warner, who wrote the book is going to be going through in depth how to apply these principles and know you and I see it Chad, where you were, we have either seen or even ourselves, had experiences where our team grows, and then our team shrinks, because we weren’t enough times. And I believe that everything rises or falls on leadership, right. And I think if we want to continue to impact lives, and scale a business and serve more people, we have to get better at leadership. It’s not always the people leaving, it’s not always their fault. Oftentimes, the common synonym, the common denominator is us. And so I want to start off by going through this acronym of rare, and I’ll put up here on the screen for everybody to see. And then if you’ll just give a couple key points. Chad, as far as church what people can expect to hear about this particular topics. Let’s start with number one remain relational.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, so REMAIN RELATIONAL. The first letter in that acronym of rare, the whole idea is that the typical component of we as humans is when something that we don’t expect comes out us, or something to create stress or an emotional, you know, our tendency is we want to fight, or we want or fight or flight, you know, and so when something hard comes at us, or something creates stress, or an emotional response, the first dynamic of taking ourselves down this path of saying, you know, leadership demands emotional maturity is I’ve got to recognize, I have to remain relational, I’ve got to remain calm, I’ve got to remain in a position where my tribe around me goes, Oh, how’s the boss gonna react to this? If I remain relational, the first thing I’m doing is I’m setting the tone, I’m setting the atmosphere to say, All right, we’ve had a big issue come up, we’re going to we’re going to handle this, and we’re going to remain relational. And we’re going to do this together.
Justin Stoddart
So it sounds like that the relationship always matters more than whatever the issue is, like, what distinguishing the fact that you’re a human, I’m gonna treat you like a human, even if you totally screwed up. If I blow you up, guess what, you’re not going to be around for very long, and maybe you were just made a mistake. what he was saying is that you always treat that person, like you’d want to be treated, right? Like always treat them like a human. And so and then it gives you the ability to solve the problem. Is that is that what I’m understanding?
Unknown Speaker
You are understanding that and think about this, if there are other people in the room who observe you blowing up someone? Yeah. How do you think they’re going to act the next time you come in the room? Right, they’re gonna say, I’m, they’re going to be on pins and needles, because they’re not sure how you’re going to treat them when they make an error, or when they mess up. So remaining relational in all situations.
Justin Stoddart
Perfect. Let’s go to number to talk to us about number Chad.
Justin Stoddart
Yeah, so ACT LIKE YOURSELF. So we all can look in the mirror and say, I know the best version of myself when I’m acting this way, okay. And we probably all define that a little differently. But when we’re acting like our true self, I would call it we’re acting like our best self. And that’s when we’re in joy, we’re in a state of joy, we’re in a state of high relationship, we’re in a state of recognizing the atmosphere around us is creating a wonderful environment that we want to be in. And by the dynamic of when you take the first one of Remaining Remaining relational, then you begin building to that next acronym, which is by remaining relational, and then building a habit of acting like my true self, even when something difficult has come at me. So that’s kind of it in a nutshell.
Justin Stoddart
I was listening, one of my mentors, Ed Mylett, who’s incredible. He was interviewing a gentleman on his show, who talked about you create this avatar of your ideal self, like the key characteristics and then you create an avatar of your worst self, like the person that shows up that you’re not really proud of and what those characteristics are. And and then before you walk into a room, Ed called himself Superman, he said, “Superman’s here today.” And so you think of those attributes, and what that embodies actually like your true self, I think, I agree all of us have more potential than we can fathom to, and to do good. And as we start to see that in ourselves, we start to act that way, you know, you shared briefly we spend our time to go deep into it, but just how the human brain works, it’s just kind of a 30 seconds to 60 seconds snapshot of how that works, and why maybe this principle of acting like yourself would tie into that?
Chad Krober
Yeah, well, so the dynamic is, is that the right side of our brain fires at six times a second, the left side of our brain fires at five times a second, the right side is kind of like our reaction, we’re, we’re sensing everything around us. The left side is our logic and our thinking side, our rational side. And ultimately, when our brain develops, we create neural connections between each side of our brain and those neural connections fire at 200 times a second. So when you develop a habit, where you’re not acting like yourself, you effectively are then firing that neural path that’s going at 200 times a second. And so that’s why when we’re in situations that we just don’t know how to handle, it is difficult to act like your true self, because we default to whatever we’ve pre wired into our brain from past behaviors. And so rare leadership gives us the tools to first recognize, Hey, I got to catch myself here first by remaining relational. And then I can begin to start rewiring my brain to act like my true self to overcome those hard wiring connections that I’ve put into my brain over 30 plus years of bad behavior. Frankly,
Justin Stoddart
I’ve heard it said that it’s like a like ruts in a road, right? It’s difficult. The more you go down that path, the easier it is to go down that path, you have to go break out of that you can’t do it, it’s it’s typical, but you need help. And that’s what this whole conference is about. Right? This whole event that you’re putting on chat is to help people step into being their true selves, get out of the ruts that are that are destructive, get out of the ruts that are keeping them from reaching their potential impacting the amount of people that they could be impacting, and step into that true self.
Chad Krober
So let me give you a quick story, an example on this, too. I mean, I just thought of this. So another individual that I know who brought this book to my attention. His name’s Dr. St. Cyr and Dr. St. Cyr, I heard talk about this idea that our neural connections in our bodies, believe it or not, or one direction. So when our brain tells us to do something, when we launch into that activity, or that behavior, it’s going from our brain, down the path, whether it’s a physical action, or whether it’s an emotional reaction. So I recently had a situation here, one of my weaknesses, I’ll admit it here on live camera is that I, I am, I can snap and become, I used to be a very angry person, you wouldn’t guess it to know to look at me, you wouldn’t know it. But I was very angry inside and a lot of things. And I would snap at my children, and act in ways that were highly unlike myself. Okay. So just about three weeks ago, I had a situation with my oldest daughter, who really triggered me. And I started down the path of the old behaviors that I used to act in. And what’s amazing is that I was two thirds of the way through this process. And I had this thought in the back of my mind of like, Oh, no, I’ve started down this path. I stopped myself. And when in and I finished acting in a very angry unrelational way with my oldest daughter, the current conversation finished, I went back to my bedroom, and my wife came into the bedroom. And she’s like, Well, that didn’t end well did it? What are you gonna do about it? I said, Yeah,
Unknown Speaker
I know, I said, I, I’m going to go to my daughter. But the other thing is, is I also realize, too, is that my other two children had witnessed all of this as well. And so I went to my daughter, I went to my son, and I went to my youngest daughter, and I apologize to all three of them. And I asked for forgiveness for all three of them. And I said, I recognize I was not acting like my true self. I was angry. And I lashed out. And I asked for forgiveness. And I said, I’m going to keep working on it. And they were all gracious and said, Hey, Dad, we love you. And we, we, we believe the best in you, obviously, so humbled myself asked for forgiveness growing.
Justin Stoddart
We’ve all had those experiences. I appreciate you sharing and it takes a lot of accountability to do that. Thank you. All right. Let’s go to point number three. Yeah, to RETURN TO JOY teaches about that chat.
Chad Krober
Yeah, return to joy. So simply the, how we all know people who wallow in the pit, I mean, they are constantly grumbling about everything. Well, guess what they’ve wired their brains that way. They have built neural networks into their mind that everything that comes with them, they complain, great, blah, blah, blah. So I’m taking the split second to just say, I am not going to let this get me down. Okay. I had a client here a couple weeks ago, we put together two solid loans, I was like, Oh, this is great. We’re going to refinance, he get into a great situation, this is going to be awesome. And the lady comes back five days later and says now I don’t want to move forward, we’re just going to shut the whole thing down. And part of her decision was because another person had kind of stepped in and interfered with our conversations. And I could just feel myself immediately just becoming irritated and emotionally angry and withdrawn, because of the fact that this other person interfered. And then I just had two transactions go down the tubes because of it. But as I was going through this feeling, mentally and emotionally, I said, You know what, I’m not gonna let this ruin my day, I’m not get a wall in the pit. And I’m not going to. I’m not going to dwell on this, I’ve got other stuff to do. And there’s other great opportunities out there. And so I’m going to move forward, and I’m going to return to joy. And that’s really what it boils down to, I’m mentally saying, and turn to joy. Moving on, there’s more opportunities out there.
Justin Stoddart
And as soon as you do that, as soon as you make that choice, you open the space for good things to come in, right? Sometimes we hold on to the stuff that happened. And if you held on to that much for much longer, you would have missed out on the great things that were just around the corner, right? You have to create the space for the good things to come. Right?
Justin Stoddart
Correct. You got it. And so, but this is here, here’s the other cool thing too. And I think this point is a great point to bring up this whole concept of why this acronym works is that what I have found with our team is that we each have a little canvas on our desks with these four phrases that we’re going through. And our team uses them. It’s a common tribal language, and when we’re dealing with hard things. So we had a prime example where another I had another time where I was griping in my office about something that went down on a loan and one of my teammates, hollered through the office and said, sounds like somebody needs to return to joy. And they called me out on the carpet. And the great part of it is is everyone who heard that other team member yelled at it lighten the mood. And it immediately changed the trajectory of what we were doing. And I let go of it. And we moved on, you know.
Justin Stoddart
Perfect segue into our final point, Chad, take us home here ENDURE HARDSHIP WELL.
Chad Krober
Yes. So, our culture does not know how to do hard things well, plain and simple. You think about many of the people around you, when hard things come at them, they run away, it go the other direction they don’t want to lean into when you think about it, how often in our industry Do you have to pick up the phone and make a hard phone call, or you have to send an email that is really not going to be the most positive message that somebody’s going to want to hear. And our normal human tendency is we don’t want to do those things. Because we don’t want to feel the emotional weight that comes back at us. And so by training our brains How to say, I’m going to do a hard thing, we begin to endure it in a manner that is well. And by enduring it well we then do in the model that those around us and they go how we can we can do hard things, we can figure out a way to get through this challenge. And the amazing thing of it is is that the these four components all connect well with each other because when I endure hardship, well that means that I’m remaining relational, it means that I’m acting like my true self. And I’m continually returning to joy when I’m facing hardship in doing it in in a manner that is well. So that’s probably it in a nutshell.
Justin Stoddart
I love it, man, this has been this has been really helpful, I think for all of us to get a little bit of a snapshot. Now imagine, imagine taking these principles. First and foremost, let me let me start with this, at some point during this conversation, yeah, everybody listening to this, like me has pictured in their mind breakdowns in their leadership, either in the home or in the workplace or in the community. We’ve realized, I could have been a lot better in those situations. Now, the reality is the stuff that Chad shared is a great teaser. But this is not enough to rewire your brain, right? This 30 minute episode has not been enough to rewire your brain. You actually need to intentionally spend time getting the tools needed in order to start that process of rewiring. And so again, I want to extend the invitation everybody once again, is that on October 25th, here in the Portland area, there’s a free event that Chad is hosting called rare leadership, it goes into depth on these topics. If by chance you’re tied up on Friday, there’s another opportunity on Saturday. So keep that in mind as well.
Unknown Speaker
Yep, they just need you to go to rareleadership.net and find the events page and they’ll find the info there.
Justin Stoddart
There you go readleadership.ne, sign up for it there. Chad, this has been amazing content. I’m super grateful for you. I want to end with with the signature question of the show. You’re a big thinker, you’ve done some incredible things, both in the in the workplace, you you know, amongst your team and your customers, both in your home and raising a great family and in the community. I know you’re a leader in the community, as well. What does a guy like you continue to do to be a big thinker to continue to expand your own possibilities? Teach us if you wouldn’t mind?
Chad Krober
Yeah. You know, I think the number one thing for me in learning how to, I guess think bigger is setting aside time to evaluate and look at behaviors and actions and things that I’m doing and saying, “Okay, what are areas that I need to grow in emotional maturity?” Because if we don’t stop and take the time, because I honestly, if you think about it, a lot of what our culture does, is our culture reacts. And we as humans, when we stop and look in the mirror, mostly the time we don’t like what we see, that’s that’s the normal tendency. And the irony of it is, is that we have to stop and look in the mirror, because that’s the only way we’re going to grow and by learning how to stop and look in the mirror and go, alright, what’s got to change what’s got to grow, what’s got to modify, that’s ultimately going to set you up for those opportunities where you can begin to say, “Okay, this is where I can begin to think bigger, in whatever area of my life that I’m trying to make a difference.”
Justin Stoddart
I love that create the space for introspection.
Chad Krober
You got to.
Justin Stoddart
This event on the 25th is going to be a prime opportunity for people to do that. Anybody that wants to, again, improve their leadership, even if that’s just improve the quantity of your sales. Again, sales is leadership, you’re leading your customers. Whether that be scaling a team, whether that be being a better parent, or a better community leader. This is going to be an amazing event. And I hope everybody takes this seriously and comes and joins us. So Chad, thank you again, for all that you’ve contributed to the audience today. I’m excited to be a part of this event. It’s going to be fantastic. There’s so many things I’m going to learn from it. And I also want to end with this charge everybody who’s listening today. Chad has helped make this easier through what he shared today. But my my final request of all of us are three simple words which are GO THINK BIGGER. Thank you Chad, want to thank you again for your time and we will talk soon my friend