Justin Stoddart
Hello and welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I’m your host Justin Stoddart, very excited about today’s episode I have with me an individual who’s going to unlock for you why maybe you’re 2019 isn’t quite what you’ve wanted it to be, maybe some of you are in that category, and how to be sure that 2020 is the year that you want it to be. There are some amazing parallels with 2020 meaning perfect clarity, perfect vision. It’s a great year. It’s a brand new decade. It’s a great time for all of us to hit our stride and become the people that we know we can become. Today’s guest is going to do exactly that. I want to invite everybody who’s listening if you are not yet signed up to get the weekly summary emails you’re totally missing out. This week is going to even feature Grant Cardone. Many of you saw that interview, and several other amazing people, including today’s guest. So, please do yourself a favor, go to thinkbigger.realestate, sign up to get the weekly summary emails, they’ll make your life a lot easier and will be sure that you don’t miss out on some of the amazing people that I’m bringing on to the show like today’s guest.

Justin Stoddart
Her name is Dr. Amanda Barrientez, her PhD is in sociology and she specializes in human behavior and performance. What a perfect topic and what it’s perfect guest for us to be delving into this time of the year when we know that that’s things that we’re doing right now in October are going to pay in 2020. So welcome to the show, Amanda. I’m really, really excited to have you here.

Amanda Barrientez
Hey, thanks for having me.

Justin Stoddart
Yes, my pleasure. And out of Boulder, Colorado, where there are four inches of snow on the ground, folks.

Amanda Barrientez
Yeah, that’s quite a surprise. Really.

Justin Stoddart
My wife is from North Dakota and she jokes about how all of her Halloween costumes always had to be made to fit over her snow suit.

Amanda Barrientez
Exactly. You pretty much decided your Halloween costume based on the weather and and yes, always always. It was like I have this great one year. I remember I was a cat and I had this amazing outfit that you and I had a one piece snowsuit. You can’t see any of it.

Justin Stoddart
I’ll bet it was cute before though and all of a sudden you look like the State Puffed Marshmallow Man.

Justin Stoddart
Let’s get into this. Amanda I’m excited about this topic because again, now is the time for people to act not to think about acting, not to be planning for 2020 because the reality is the things that we’re doing right now, again, are not going to pay until 202. Give us this help with mindset effect, if you wouldn’t mind tell us the name of your company, and maybe how the branding and name of that company helps you on this very topic or helps your clients and your audiences on this very topic.

Amanda Barrientez
Yeah, yeah, so my the name of my company is NFA coaching which stands for No Fucking Around and you know, I love it because it captures a wide variety of mindset behaviors performance, but also the self care, you know. So I think about the way that we run our businesses from a very holistic perspective and it really starts with mindset, you know. Do you have a no fucking around approach to taking care of yourself, to building your business to treating it like a business, to your relationships to the way that you create your personal power, your sense of self confidence, how you set your goals, all of those things, I really, you know, I talked about it as the NFA attitude or the NFA mindset and it’s really a radical responsibility approach to knowing that your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. And if you don’t like what’s going on in your outer world, you got to change yourself. And so it’s this radical responsibility where you go. Okay, I’m going to step into a new game, I’m going to step into a new version of myself and become what I want to become because anything’s possible.

Justin Stoddart
Isn’t it interesting Amanda of how the tendency for all of us and I’m not pointing fingers at all, I mean, most of the fingers are pointing back at me is that when something doesn’t quite go right, we are quick to look to our circumstances to other people. Why do we do that?

Amanda Barrientez
Because it’s so much easier. You know? Um, well, there’s multiple reasons. I mean, one reason is whenever we’re blaming other people, it keeps us in a disempowered position, which in some ways, we think, Oh, awesome. If I blame them, then I don’t really have to do anything. But the challenging part of that is if you blame them, you can’t you don’t have any power to change your reality. So the moment you start to shift the perspective and go, Okay, how can I learn lessons from this? How can I see my responsibility responsibility in it, then I have the power to choose. I have the power to get conscious and change my circumstances. So for me, I was on food stamps three years ago, and I shifted, you know, broken relationships on food stamps on the floor crying and I had this really epiphany moment where I was sitting there going, I’m the center of my reality, and I’m the one that needs to change and so I started doing everything I possibly could to change myself. And I really, I mean, people will talk to me all the time about how serious I am about about personal development. And I’m like, well, here’s the deal. If you are empowered in yourself, you can create anything you want in your life or business. And I really started to see that happen for myself. And so it just, you know, NFA fits me so well.

Justin Stoddart
You know, I love how you said that because it is interesting that it feels good for the moment, right? We’re comfortable in the moment to say what market was really off this year, right? Or my teammates really let me down my company let me down like for a moment where it is in fact, I was sitting in a class yesterday and we actually discussed this topic about how it’s comfortable in the moment boy that ends up happening as it transpires into discomfort down the road because we stay in that same spot. Yeah. If we can say get really uncomfortable and say, my, my circumstances are 100% a result of my actions and my choices. then guess what? It’s very uncomfortable. Not very moment. Yeah, we can then empower ourselves, like you said, to make the changes to where we can get comfortable later on. Yeah, you know what you’re highlighting. So we’re animals basically. And we live by the pleasure pain principle. And it’s based on survival. We want to avoid threat in the current moment. And and we’re always tracking for threat and we’re tracking for survival. And the interesting thing is, we don’t have to do that when we step into our executive functioning, we can go okay, I can, I can tolerate pain in the moment so that I can have pleasure in the long run. But most of us are very short sighted. And if we don’t train our brain that way, we actually will then want to blame other people not take responsibility, be comfortable in the moment. But you’ll notice all great leaders, all great thinkers, all great business owners, people who are really balanced in their life, they’re able to offset pleasure in the moment and go, Okay, I can, I can struggle through this. I can do the work right now. Because I see in the future, I’m going to have a better outcome. Voice brilliant and I’m again, I’m reminding you what

Justin Stoddart
You’re saying is resonating with some of the greats that I’ve actually listened to this week. I mean, obviously, Grant Cardone 10X is all about that, right? Like the 10X Rule, like you own it, buddy. Yesterday, I sat through a class here locally that he taught. And the concept was, you’ve got, let’s say you make $100,000 $150,000. Like, like, whatever the number is, that’s the level you that’s your thinking, is that right? And it’s it’s not good, bad, evil, but it’s like you’re operating at that level. And sometimes we tend to point at everything else. We’re like, we we have the power to step that up. If we can, again, think bigger, right, as we start to think bigger, our actions start to follow.

Amanda Barrientez
Yeah, and it’s really cool. I love that the ideology of thinking bigger, right? It’s How big can you allow yourself to think and you start to stretch as you think bigger it allows you to then keep thinking bigger. So it’s this really cool self perpetuating cycle where you just stretch your edge a little bit and then you notice different opportunities and you meet different people, and then you stretch a little bit more and then it keeps expanding and expanding. So you know, I like to ask people the question, what are the possibilities? How big can you think? How big can you go? How big can you expand your vision? And step into that version of yourself? How far can this thing go? Right? Wow. Yeah.

Justin Stoddart
Really, really cool. Talk to us a little bit about this concept of genius juice. I know you, you would kind of alluded to it with me earlier and it’s almost like when sports stars and all kind of compared to this, like, when people get in the zone, right? It’s almost like they can’t go wrong, right? And if you if you felt maybe like you’re 2019 wasn’t quite what you’d hoped it would be. And you really deeply aspire to where your 2020 is, like, I know what it feels like to be in the zone or feel like everything can go right. But a little bit about this, this this concept and how we get into that more often.

Amanda Barrientez
Yeah, so so I love this. So if you anyone listening, I do offer resources for people. So this one book is awesome. And this guy Gay Hendricks, who wrote the Big Leap, coined the term genius zone, which a lot of people have heard about or talked about, and I really linked it to I go, Okay, well, how does an individualized step into my genius juice because I often feel like when I’m in the flow, like you’re talking about, and I’m doing exactly what I was put here to do, which evolves over time and and as your vision expands, and as you think bigger, you start to actually shift some of your values. So genius, tapping into your genius juice has to do with the study of x theology, and it’s how we we come up with our value and worth and then this is combined with the Greek study of teleology, which is really your chief aim. It’s your Telos. It’s your chief aim. It’s your Why. It’s how you orient your actions every day. So when you tap into your genius juice and you do exactly what you want to do, instead of all the “shoulding” of yourself, like you “should do this”, “you should do that” or what your parents think you should do, or your church told you should do what society tells you you should do. And even your partner, your kids, we have all these outside expectations. And when we try to live up to everybody else’s outside expectations, we get bogged down. And when we can let that go and really just step into our greatest potential, we tap into our genius juice, we have more clarity, we’re more focused, we don’t procrastinate. We have less fear, we’re able to take on challenges, we really step into that powerful leadership role of, of brilliance and and focus and profitability is what happens and when I say profitability, I mean genuine wealth when you’re actually holistically living your life. You feel fulfilled in your mind, your body, your spirit, your money in relationships, and you’re more inclined to take on challenges that will help you get where you want to go and you don’t get up in the morning and go like oh, I have to do this. You get up in the morning you go I can’t wait to do this.

Justin Stoddart
I get to. I get to go do this today.

Amanda Barrientez
Yeah, yeah.

Justin Stoddart
It is a powerful… I think, for me, what I found is that there are certain activities that are a grind. Right? And I’m not saying that we need to avoid the grind that you know, there’s, there’s this kind of popular theme out there of like, like the grind the hustle all this stuff. Yeah. And I think that there’s some truth to that like that it’s it’s not always glamorous, it’s not always fun. You can’t always just do things you absolutely enjoy. Yeah, I do think as you mentioned, Amanda, that there are certain areas where we feel like we were made to do this right that this is our contribution to the world that we were specifically set out to have this kind of impact. And the reality is most of us because of the many responsibilities and tasks and this and that that we that we put upon ourselves whenever we end up spending a very little amount of time in that zone. Yeah, I think the more that we can really take a good hard look at our business at our WHY and again, kind of the things that we value as you’ve described, that really put us in flow in that zone and spend is, you know, 80% of the time doing those 20% activities, it’s amazing how much energy comes into us, right? It’s not just the productivity. Yeah, we get we leave those activities feeling more energized, then came into them as opposed to being like, this is such a drag, right?

Amanda Barrientez
Yes, you get to be joined lead instead of drain, you know, constantly constantly drain you. One thing I want to say for listeners that I think is really powerful is that what you’ll know when you’re stepping into that because even those parts that you’re like, I’ve got to do these parts for my business because of course, when you’re building a business, there are a lot of things that you’ve got to do, I’m sure in real estate world you know, I work with real estate investors and real estate agents and coaching them and and there’s all these activities that people don’t like to do, right, of course, and that’s in my business as well. So until you can delegate some of those activities, you want to start linking it in your mind to your greatest mission and vision. So clarity is really important here. So I tell people getting clarity first about your vision is really important, daydreaming about it, visualizing it, meditating on it. And then you go when, in this morning, I’m going to make 10 new, you know, I don’t know how everyone here builds their business, it’s going to be different for everyone. But let’s say you know, I have people that will do cold calls, and they don’t love doing cold calls. And but they link it to their big biggest vision and they go, Okay, how does making this phone call? benefit me in my vision? How does it get me there faster, and you start to actually link it and then you get into more spontaneous inspired action instead of this outside extrinsic motivation. So I always think about the difference between inspiration and motivation where inspiration is internally inspired. External is motivation or someone else has to get you to do it. And it’s more drudgery, and it’s more of that hard, kind of, I think when we think most people talk about the hustle, people are kind of like it’s the grind and it can be really challenging. I like to think about the NFA hustle is like, this is my joy, this is my genius juice. This is what I love to do. This is what I want to do. This is what I’m inspired to do. It’s what I’m committed to doing. And that helps you shift in new directions instead of getting up and being like, oh crap. And it’s why we don’t meet our goals in 2019, right? Because we put it off, put it off, put it off, and then all of a sudden, its fourth quarter and we’re like, oh crap, I didn’t take all the actions I needed to take at the beginning of the year. And now here I am. And it’s now going to be into 2024 certain businesses. And so if you want to prevent that next year, you know, I really love 90 day plans. I don’t know how you do your goal planning but 90 day plans are really great because of that idea of Parkinson’s Law, collapsing time because work expands to fill the time allotted. So if you decide okay, I’m going to do a 90 day plan. I actually was listening on your podcast. I don’t know the woman’s name but she was talking about she does hers and 30 day doses and 90 days is a really great way to go as well instead of the year long because will tend to put it off and then all of a sudden, we’re at crunch time. So if you a 90 day because we’re such short sighted humans, then you have more likelihood to achieve it. And if you’re tapping into your genius juice in that combination with that, you’re much more likely to meet your goals. It’s really great stuff.

Justin Stoddart
Thank you for sharing all of that, you know, I’m, I want to pivot our conversation here a little bit because I know you have expertise in this. We’ve obviously discussed kind of the mindset, getting into the flow into kind of what, where our energy ups, and I would say even what we discussed right now will cause people to stop saying so passionately, “Thank goodness, it’s the weekend.” Now I know real estate agents, like their weekends look a little bit different. Right? When, when people’s like their whole goal in life is just to get to the hump day and to get to the end of the week, I think we’re doing something wrong, I know Gary, Vaynerchuk talks a lot about that, but to get more like “I can’t wait till Monday. I get to go do my thing. This is my thing.” Like Yes, absolutely. I love family. I love spending time with them but I’m also fired up to get to what I was made to do every week and I think that even if your profession as a whole, you’re just like, I don’t know if it does that, for me, there’s parts of it that do, right, there’s parts of it that have to fire you up and I think focusing on those things, you know, it’s kind of a big takeaway that I’m taking from what you’ve said here. Let’s, let’s pivot a little bit to this concept of being a leader and advisor. As I mentioned to you before, my audience knows that I’m writing a book on this called The Upstream Model, which is really helping sales professionals to pivot from being customer service representatives and sales people to being really advisors and leaders. And I’d love to hear kind of your thoughts around this of how people kind of make that transition of just there to service people versus people that are there to really lead them.

Amanda Barrientez
Yeah, you know, I think it with it comes to mind first is this thought of really creating win-wins. How can you turn other people into leaders is a win win versus how can I get something from you or how can I tell you what do or how can I it’s not it’s almost even beyond the teacher role or the coaching role, right? Like I really coach from a leadership Win Win perspective where I go, let’s be in this together, let’s learn together, you bring all your gifts to the table, I’ll bring all my gifts to the table and we’re going to, we’re going to work together to achieve an end result that we both want. Right? So in my business, I’m always looking for win wins. And it’s you know, in that advising, it’s more about the quality of asking a lot of questions and drawing out from within, from the people that you’re working with. Because we all have a genius inside of us. We all have the leader inside of us. It’s just it gets covered and sometimes people have a lot of self doubts and limiting beliefs and they don’t see the leader within so when you can draw a leader within within someone else. That’s when you’re a real leader. And that’s the power of team and and community and thriving in your company, in your relationships in you know, even in customer service. You know, if you can awaken something in someone else that helps them feel alive, that’s you being a leader, from my perspective.

Justin Stoddart
That’s some really, really powerful concepts. I hope if it for those that are listening, if you didn’t hear that you need to go back and listen to that. Because it really takes on a whole new level of leadership that leadership isn’t isn’t just leading people, it’s it’s helping to develop them, you know, oftentimes think of like a true consultative conversation is you’re, you’re asking questions to it’s such a such a level that people are answering and saying things that they didn’t know were inside of them. Yeah, yeah. And to then take that to another level to say and help them to develop into being leaders themselves. You become a extremely valuable value proposition and lives of your customers if you can help them to those experiences and then become that person. Yeah, I love that idea. It’s it’s an unfolding and a discovery process.

Amanda Barrientez
Right, the the Latin root of the word education is a judo which means to draw out from within. So you’re drawing out from within these qualities of the other person that everyone wants, right? Everyone wants to be seen and known and, and appreciated for who they really are, instead of being told how to be some being shown how to be they want to go, oh, here’s me, now help me show up the most powerfully that I possibly can.

Justin Stoddart
Yeah, and the person that helps them to discover that and help to identify who they are at the core and again, what they were designed to do, what their what their genius juices, like, what an affinity that brings, and what a what a loyalty that brings, when you can help people have that. Absolutely. Yeah. Is there anything else within because I think you look at things deeper than most of us because of your PhD your background and got a human performance and human behavior that is happening during that process, when you’re helping to consult people when you’re helping to lead people. What else can you teach us that you’ve learned through your studies, both as a as a as a student, as well as a doctor and like an actual performance coach that would help people develop into a leader themselves as well as helping to develop other people in the leader. So I’m just super curious to learn from you right now.

Amanda Barrientez
Yeah, you know, I it’s something that has been absolutely fascinating to me, Justin is seeing that we’re all the same. Like we’re just humans. And so for me, I had a ton of money blocks and I had a lot of blocks around rich people. Because I grew up in you know, I have a long history of challenges with money and I was on food stamps, like I said, and I hung out with I was always this outlier in a lot of different scenarios, like I had kids really young and in Boulder that is just unheard of. And then I went to grad school as a 35 year old and then you know, I just always was kind of on the fringe outside looking in and thinking Oh, these people are better than me better than me better than me. And something that I have come to recognize and working with a wide variety of people. Now some, you know, I did life history interviews with incarcerated men all the way to working with people who make millions of dollars a year, building successful companies. And it’s like, wow, we’re all the same. The self doubts are the same fears are the same. The limiting beliefs are the same. And it was a really huge gift for me to recognize that so for everyone listening, I think there’s something that’s really powerful and recognizing you’re not alone. In your fears. You’re not alone in your struggles. You’re not alone and doubting yourself. You’re not alone in imposter syndrome. You’re not alone and thinking that everyone’s better than you. We tend as humans to put other people on pedestals and put ourselves in the pit with especially when we’re learning something new. So for you know, your listeners, if if they’re in the real estate industry, if they’re just starting out, you feel like a baby, you know, you kind of like you’re just learning the first steps until you get to the next level and there’s always going to be somebody ahead of you and there’s always going to be someone behind you. So how do you get to develop the leader within and work on the work on realizing that you have the same traits as everybody else, you know, you’ve got the trait of leadership within you, you just might not be seeing it, you’ve got the trait of powerful multi million business owner, you just might not see it yet. And so really realizing, I think that working on yourself is the most important thing you can possibly do to help to be empowered in yourself and help other people to create a thriving business, to have an incredible relationship to create a powerful family, on and on and on. When you work on yourself and your belief system. You’re really your mindset, you really then have a magic one power to create anything you want in your life.

Justin Stoddart
Man, I couldn’t have asked you to do a better plug for the Think Bigger philosophy and what we’re trying to do here. Really, really powerful I I appreciate what you have said on multiple levels. I think part of the challenges that we face in our society today is that our insecurities are magnified as we look on social media and everyone shows their highlight reel, right? You don’t show your dirty laundry there. Yeah. You know, and and, you know, even pictures are are filtered and, you know, to where we’re looking and we’re looking at that verses are kind of behind the scenes kind of snuggled mess. Yeah. Maybe everyone else has it figured out and I agree that that, that that those insecurities have a similar kind of downward spiral just as the finding your flow and getting into what you were made to do has a has a positive kind of snowball effect and spiral upward, yeah, or insecure. We are the like, the less we show up. And this again, self kind of perpetuating cycle that causes us to not be who we are meant to be and have the impact we’re meant to have.

Amanda Barrientez
Yeah, absolutely. I love that you said that’s exactly how I phrase it is the upward spiral of growth. I look at it like a spiral because you know, the inside is hidden by the next layer and until you get to the next layer, you can’t see it right? You’re it’s hidden and then you start and growth is hard. That’s the other thing. I think people want growth to be easy. I talk to people all the time, you want to be financially free, everyone would raise their hand, do you want to do the work? Are you willing to show up every day and stay in the game consistently for years and years and years, not the same outcome. And that’s why not everybody’s financially free. So it’s this idea of, I’m going to continually be on the path to upward growth to understanding new parts of myself and willing to do the work. I’m willing to fall in my face and I’m willing to get back up. I’m willing to see failure as opportunity to grow even bigger. And then just question How far can I expand? It’s really up to you, you know, you are your greatest limiter or your greatest cheerleader, and it’s up to you. So it’s Yeah, I love that idea. That concept of, of the upward trajectory of growth and dispelling some of the myths of like, it should be easier than this, or I should be better faster or don’t look like they do on social media, they’ve got a million followers and I’ve only got 1000, you know, or 100, or whatever number you’re starting at zero. You know, it’s like, I think just working on not comparing yourself to other people is probably one of the most powerful tools that there is. And it is hard, you know, that inner critic voice is really challenging. And you can train yourself out of it, I’ve done it, it doesn’t mean it won’t come up. But you learn tools to shift really quickly instead of getting stuck in that, you know, some people will get stuck for years and comparing themselves negatively and that inner critic voice beating them up and then they don’t, they don’t succeed in their business because it’s not easy to build a business. You know, it’s just not I don’t like to set people up with the unrealistic expectation of like, oh, come in and build a business with you know, it’s really easy to make a million not the case. Yeah, it’s fun. I think it’s fun. But it’s it’s challenging. You know, you you will be getting along the way the greatest version of yourself?

Justin Stoddart
Well, I think when people get committed to the process that I’m going to go, I’m going to, I’m going to live a big life. I don’t mean that you need to necessarily have fancy this fancy that but like, I’m going to be the best version of myself. And I’m gonna continue to develop that best person into, you know, as far as I can, I can think once people are committed to I’m just going to get better every day, right? I mean, it was another example that was shared yesterday in the class I attended. Just like what’s next? What’s next? What’s next? You again, you you start to experience the momentum of growth, you start to experience like love that I can be something more than I was. It doesn’t matter what other people are up to. Right. Of course, I would encourage and inspire and impact them. But my journey is my journey. And I’m committed to things even when they’re not necessarily easy.

Amanda Barrientez
So yeah, yeah. I love that. It’s just stop worrying about everyone else and do you?

Justin Stoddart
Yeah, I want to. As we wrap up here, I want to end with the signature question of the show, which I love asking people because it’s it can be so insightful. And I feel like you’ve you’ve asked this through every answer you’ve already given because you are a big thinker. And you help other people unlock and become big thinkers as well. So to all of us in the in the think bigger audience, all of us that our big thinkers aspired to be big thinkers teach us what does somebody like you do? To continue to be a big thinker to continue to expand your own possibilities? Teach us.

Amanda Barrientez
You know, I always go to habits because I my habits and mindset coach mostly, and I really think about our habits are repeated patterns of thoughts, decisions and actions that become automatic, right. So if you’re setting yourself up for success in a certain way, your habits are awesome, and your autopilot habits are going to be set to success. If you’re a big thinker. If you’re someone who’s stuck in that victim mindset and blames everyone else, your habits are going to be really stuck in this autopilot way that aren’t helping you. So you guy, you gotta get strategic. And so I think in order to think bigger, you’ve got to strategically be conscious. We we run 95% of our lives through our subconscious behaviors and thoughts, right? 95%. So if you can raise that just a little and you can start to get conscious, you can start to think bigger and the ways the strategies I use for that as the habit of journaling, the habit of meditation, daily exercise, like I do really specific things to get aligned and connected with myself to make sure that my, my mindset is on and geared toward growth. Like I’m really, I, to me, one of the greatest goals in life is to be the most conscious person I can be to help other people see consciousness and step into the most incredible version of themselves, that for them, whatever that means to them, because that’s where people really feel a sense of personal like, it’s a funny thing to say it sounds kind of weird, but like self love, really, you know, when you love yourself you know what you want to know who you are. You can help other people because you’re not stuck in that mode of Judge self judgment and other judgment. And so thinking bigger really has to do you know with with consciousness from my perspective being conscious of your daily thoughts, decisions and actions your habits present.

Justin Stoddart
I love that journaling meditation for me prayer these things really center me ground me back and reminding me who I am right and what the journey that I’m on and the impact that I need to make in the world. It’s powerful. Great stuff. Well, I want to thank you for being on the show. My audience is used to hearing me give kind of three last a charge of three simple words. Would you mind doing that for us Amanda?

Amanda Barrientez
Go Think Bigger.

Justin Stoddart
I love it. Amanda, thank you so much. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in today. And do, Amanda and I a favor and share this out. Get this into the ears of people who will be inspired by it. I know there’s a lot of people out there who would benefit greatly by getting in Amanda’s world, being aware of her who she is and the difference she’s making. Do us a favor, share this out get this out to more people, we we would appreciate it. So thank you again, Amanda, and talk soon, everybody