Strong leadership is often defined by positive attitude. In this episode, real estate industry leader Nick Bailey joins Glenn Bill to share the key ingredients to leadership success and how an optimistic outlook can fuel it. Nick looks back on his decades of leadership experience and his current role as Chief Real Estate Officer of T3 Sixty to underline the importance of coaching, continuous learning, and constructive criticism. He also explains why he does not shy away from the tough stuff, how he makes difficult decisions, and the crucial skill of seeing what others do not.
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Building A Winning Leadership Attitude With Nick Bailey
Welcome to the show. We are here with a leader in the real estate industry. He has been a leader for a long time and led some of the biggest organizations in America, such as RE/MAX Real Estate, and Century 21, and was on the leadership and executive team of Zillow. When it comes to bridging the gap and figuring out how to go from where you are to where you want to go, I have a feeling our guest will have some fantastic ideas, solutions, and answers to how does attitude works with leadership and what’s it like to be running these huge organizations with over a hundred thousand people. Without further ado, I want to welcome Mr. Nick Bailey to the show. Welcome, Nick.
Thanks, Glenn. Thanks for the introduction. You said I’ve done this a long time. We start out with you calling me old?
Only a little old. You’re not that old. For those of you watching on Spotify, if you look at Nick, he does not look old. That is correct. You’ve been around a little bit, haven’t you, Nick?
I have, professionally. Let’s say within the real estate industry, it’s 28 years.
Almost as long as me. That makes me very old.
You said it. I didn’t, so congratulations.
Lessons From Coaches, Parents, And Grandparents
Nick, we always like to open up our episode and ask people what their definition of attitude is.
I think it’s the one you decide that you present with.
When you talk about deciding what you present with, that means that we have a choice either positive or negative. Where do you think you derived your attitude or who was your first attitude coach?
I believe heavily in coaching. It’s interesting you mention this because my path has grown over decades. I’ve had the honor to serve, as you mentioned, as CEO of a couple of the largest global real estate brands. In the process, I’ve had a lot of coaching. I have a personal coach and a professional coach. I’ll get back to your question, but this leads into it. I’ve never had an attitude coach specifically, but I would say that my personal coach, my professional coach is I have grown.
I got into coaching the more my leadership positions grew and most people do it the opposite. They get coached when they’re young. All of a sudden, you become a CEO and now you are the coach and you don’t need coaching anymore. I think it’s the opposite. The higher you go in your leadership roles, the more coaching you need. I’ve never thought of it this way until you mentioned it, but that’s probably been key to helping me keep what I’d say is a pretty good attitude along the path.
[bctt tweet=”The higher you go in your leadership roles, the more coaching you need. ” via=”no”]
When you think about whether you’re a business coach or a life coach, give us the goods. What are the two mantras that consistently run through your mind from those coaches who helped you along the way? Are there 2 or 3 mantras that you live by or that you go, “When I heard that, this changed my attitude and it may have changed my life?”
I’ll give you one example on the personal side. My life coach said that people in your life, whether it be personally or professional, resemble a space shuttle. When you make a decision of where you’re going to go, you have to realize that no matter what stage of life you’re in, the people that are with you and around you, friends, family, and colleagues may not be prepared to go where you’re headed. It’s similar to the rocket boosters on a space shuttle.
You launch and you’re all together but if you’re the space shuttle and you’re going in a direction that you want to go. You’re going to have to let some people in your lives possibly fall off if they’re not prepared to go where you go. That was important. This is going to make me sound heartless, but I think we stay close to certain maybe family or friends. It’s not let them go or push them out of your life because I’m a long-term relationship guy.
When you think about your goals, your attitude, and where you’re headed, some people are prepared to go with you part way and some are prepared to go with you all the way. That was probably a significant time for me several years ago to realize it’s okay that not everybody has to go on your journey with you.
When you think about or when I think about leading an organization of a hundred thousand people, my guess is like when you were a kid you weren’t thinking, “This is probably what I’m going to do.”
No, it was.
Did you know it?
I did.
That’s good. That is somewhat of an attitude. “I knew it. I’m dedicated to this.” What do you think was the impetus to that? What put that burning desire in your gut or in your heart that made you feel like that? Was there some person who helped you shape attitude or was it innate?
I have to go back and think that I’ve always been curious by nature. Here’s a dumb example. When my parents would buy a new car, I’d be 7 or 8 years old. I would read the entire manual front to back and then sleep in it the first night that they owned it. All of a sudden, I didn’t realize that was years in the making of becoming tech support for my parents. I’m just naturally curious. I think that there’s a nature component, that’s curiosity, but I also came from a very hardworking entrepreneurial family.
My family had small businesses. My dad worked in the corporate world for a while. None of which were in real estate, ironically, but I loved real estate as a kid. What I didn’t realize is what started as an architectural interest, by the way, the little super lock boxes with the dial. I could break into any vacant house. Those things were so easy. I was a good kid. As old as I am, I cannot be charged for this breaking and entering trespassing thing anymore.
Anyway, I used to love to go look at houses. I would self-tour at ten years old. What I didn’t realize is this was setting me up for a career that my real estate career was not going to be based on architecture or houses, which still fascinate me, but it was more around people. Most brilliant people I’ve met belong locked in a back closet doing what they do but that’s not me. I realized my gift and my desire was to be out and help other people achieve their entrepreneurial goals. It’s that double role curious, and a foundation of a very hardworking family.
We have a lot of people that come on and I love talking about the family because I always believe that your parents are usually your first attitude coach. The first coaches that people get when it comes to who develops your attitude. I’d love you to tell us like what attitude lesson did your mom and dad teach you?
You should have sent me these questions ahead of time.
You’re good. Come on, Nick. You have so much talent. You have more talent in your pinky than most people have in their real estate office. Let’s go. You know what it is.
Best attitude lesson from both?
Maybe only just the best lesson. When you think about your dad, what did he instill in you and your mother?
There’s one thing, my dad was very quiet. He didn’t say much. He was this unspoken guy sitting in the corner. I did take away from him that you don’t have to be the first one in the room to talk. At the time, I didn’t translate that when I was young because I was the one, “I jumped in. I’m a leader, let’s go.” I’ll be the first to answer something. Realizing later that one of the smartest people in the room is the one who speaks last. That was probably a unconscious learning. There was one he gave me, and I think that this can translate across many things.
[bctt tweet=”One of the smartest people in the room is the one who speaks last.” via=”no”]
I had a business when I was in my teens. My parents had small businesses. I wanted to go to college and my mom went to a trade school. She was a cosmetologist. She owned her own school and so on. That was translated into that, but there was this debate between my parents that, “Should I go to college or should I keep working on these businesses that I was building?” This debate kept going on and on.
The one thing I’ll never forget is that my dad said, “No matter what and no matter how well you do, how much money you make, how you define success, education in whatever form or fashion, is something that once you have it, no one can take it away from you.” That was probably an attitude lesson. It doesn’t mean college. It’s whatever education you’re getting in your life. Keep learning something because the more you learn. It’s the more powerful thing that people cannot take away.
From my mom’s side, this do-anything attitude. Here was someone that was in the beauty business. She could dress up, look like a million dollars, nails and hair done and all of that, but she was also the person that could be in sweats, scrubbing a floor, or nailing 2x4s together. I think that attitude of whether you own the company or work at the company, you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make it work.
I think that an attitude is I see people get successful and get pretty snobby. All of a sudden, it’s, “These things are too good for me.” I would say that attitude is, I mow my own lawn and clean my own house to this day. People usually don’t believe me when I say that, but it’s true. I’d say those two things. It’s a long answer.
Didn’t you just move?
I did. Are you stalking me? How do you know that?
I saw it on Facebook. You were getting a new home or something.
We moved in. I spent a few years building this thing. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It was so fun. I placed every outlet, every switch, down to every minute detail. It was fun.
One of our favorite questions, and I know we talked about Mom and Dad. Bailey, it’s a great and simple advice. It’s an advice that everybody should know. If you’re an entrepreneur out there reading, these are solid facts about how to get from where you are to where you want to go. I always believe greatness can skip a generation.
One of my favorite things to ask is about our guest’s grandparents. We all have four grandparents. I’m just wondering, was there one grandparent that was specifically close to you that had a super impact? We’d love to know their name and that story because sometimes, the greatest stories involve our elderly population, people over 80 or 90. I love to dig in and get a little of that from you.
It’s funny you mentioned that because you do stalk me a lot. My grandmother’s name is Ruth Cooley and that was my mom’s mother. She was my number one, even more so than my own mother. It had to do with a cool story and sad story. Right after I was born, my grandparents raised me my first year because my father at 33 or 34 was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s. As a young man, first health issue. This is a testament to the change in companies. Now, picture this, he works for a private oil company at the time on the corporate side.
He’s young, a second child, and this happens. The company kept paying him a full paycheck and sent him to Stanford, which at the time was the number one-rated treatment center. The gentleman who invented radiation was the physician who worked on my father. The company paid for a year and rented my mother an apartment near the hospital so she could be close. What company now would do something like that? He was young. It’s not like he had been there for 28 years. As a result, I was very close with my grandmother up until her death a few years ago. She was my number one. Hilarious.
What was the lesson she taught you? What was her attitude?
She had one of the best attitudes in the world. The number one thing I learned from her was no judgment. She was just a no-judgment person, especially for her generation. There was a lot of room for judgment against people who were different and lived in a small town. There was an opportunity, which I saw with a lot of their friends of bigotry and racism. She just didn’t have it. That was pretty cool how she could meet or treat everyone the same.
Balancing College And Real Estate: A Journey Of Dedication
Again, I ask this question all the time. I didn’t stalk you, but usually, people who ascend have a link to a grandparent and those stories are always so cool and eye-opening. Did you ever end up going to college or not?
I did.
Did you graduate?
I did. I went to Montana State and graduated with a degree in Business Administration. I had businesses and I was selling real estate at the time. I’d grown up in Colorado, but I live in Denver. At the time, I was in Northern Wyoming. To give you an idea, people say, “I came from a hardworking family.” Many do. I lived in Wyoming, and I went to Montana State. Three days a week, I drove 200 miles to class. My first class was at 7:15 in the morning then I had to be home for my business by 3:00 in the afternoon.
I drove it 4 years or 5 and half years. It was a little longer because I couldn’t take a full slot. Even my oldest son started going to college and he had to drive 32 miles and I said, “That’s easy.” It was a lot of discipline but it was because I wanted it. I wanted to work. I am more of a toddler now than I was then. I was the most grown-up eighteen-year-old you’d ever meet. I read textbooks on my steering wheel. Not advised. I only fell asleep once and ran off the road. One other time was in the snow and I broke a strut. Not bad odds.
I was just wondering, were you listening to old cassettes like some old Tom Hopkins cassettes, or were you listening to music? Tell me what you were doing for five years, 400 miles a day, and 200 back. That’s six hours.
It’s like 215 round trips.
That’s still three hours a day in the car. Did you make the automobile a university or were you rocking out on the on the road there?
It was all music based and you bet cassettes.
Cassettes. Not eight tracks?
No.
Were you too young for eight tracks?
No, but I did have that cool little cassette with the string that hooked into the CD player. That was cool.
Who was your artist of choice, Nick?
That’s one thing. I’m a big music guy. That’s how my wife and I met. We started dating in 8th grade because we were in a jazz band together. We’ve been together for a long time. I would say I’m not a metalhead. I don’t like heavy metal. I’ll do a little bit of rap, but if you had to give me my number one, I love country music.
That’s so cool. I met my wife in 6th grade, so we have that in common.
Did you start dating in 6th grade or just met?
I walked up to her. I was kicked out of a school, walked in and I said, “I’m going to marry her.” She’s like, “That’s a little heavy,” and I did. I’m a closer, so what can I tell you? You sold real estate while you went to college. Is that right?
Yes.
You were doing deals. What did you study in college? I’m curious.
Business Administration.
You were writing purchase agreements while you were in college. What was the company that Nick Bailey walked into and started selling real estate?
Believe it or not, when I was licensed, Century 21 and I was 21 years old. It’s cool story. You fast forward, when I became the CEO of Century 21 a few years ago, this is how some things are meant to be. It was on August 16th, 1996 when I got my license. Twenty-one years later, on August 16th, 2017, I became the CEO of Century 21. I was only there for 90 days. The number one broker out of that office and in the area, her and I opened a new company together. I had no idea what I was doing, but I thought, “Sure, let’s do it.”
We have that. I walked into a Century 21 office. No one would hire me in our market except a Century 21 office that was in an old steak and ale converted into a real estate office. You got to loved them, and off my real estate career went. Did you open an independent or did you buy a franchise?
We were independent and the individual that we open this office together, has been with a brand, the C21 brand for ten years, so we realized this very quickly. I tell everyone, it’s when I became a brand fan in the industry because, all of a sudden, we were creating all of our own marketing materials, our folders, and our display kits. Everything was from scratch. We weren’t focusing on the right things to build the business, which is get agents in the door and sell houses. Instead, it was building spreadsheets, marketing materials, and business cards. We did affiliate with a brand about twelve months after we opened.
In that early stage in your career, who was it that affected your attitude in business or to get you doing what you did? Who had the biggest impact on you? Maybe let’s call it your first five years in real estate.
I don’t know if I have a single person that I would jump to say, “This is the person.” I will tell you what led to leadership beyond those five years. It’s the process of going through opening a real estate company and then branding it. We had franchise sales staff come in. Once we were affiliated, and then we had franchise development staff. I thought this was interesting because I knew I wasn’t going to sell real estate and own a real estate office for my entire career.
I like leadership. I’m naturally drawn to it. It was that process of going through branding your company and seeing leadership from outside that was coming into someone that was very young and naive and looking to them for answers on how to help open and grow this business under their brand. I went, “That sounds cool.” That was probably the most influential piece during that time. After I got married, I wanted to come back to Denver and she came back from a big city, graduated from college. It’s what led me into the franchise side and the rest is history.
What were you at first Zillow, RE/MAX, or Century 21?
We mentioned I was C21 as an agent. I spent five years on the brokerage side, went to RE/MAX headquarters. I was working in the franchise operations side across the US and spent eleven and a half years there. I went to Market Leader. Market Leader is a SaaS-based lead technology company for the real estate space. After being there for a very short time, Trulia announced they were acquiring Market Leader for their CRM and lead capabilities. After we closed that deal, Zillow came around and acquired Trulia.
Between that market leader Trulia, and Zillow, it was probably the coolest five years of my life. Three public companies and all we did was acquisition and integration. Most people think that was chaos. I was fortunate enough I got to lead the industry side and these tech portal sides. The two didn’t speak the same language. It was fun to build out a team that I got to lead a team that was the interpreters between these wicked smart tech people who couldn’t relate to these real estate people. We had to connect the dots to make it all work. It was very fun.
Learning Leadership: Key Lessons From A Renowned CEO
Who would you say had the most impact or who taught you the most about leadership? You’re in the middle of all the chaos. Was there 1 or 2 people that stood out and you pointed and said, “Somebody I could emulate, look up to, and learn from?” Who were 1 or 2 of those folks?
That’s an easy one. His name is Jes Jespersen. He’s the retired CEO of RE/MAX. When I came into RE/MAX headquarters, I was 26. Within a year, he became my mentor. That’s been 22 or 23 years ago. He still is now a very dear friend. He wasn’t the crazy charismatic front guy like I am. We’re very different in so many ways, but we are so much the same in other ways. For example, do you know how people would play tricks on him? They’d go into his desk and they would reorder his highlighters by color and it would blow his mind. It would drive him crazy. We had that in common. If you could see where I’m sitting and my drawers, everything is very organized.
He was so instrumental in bringing forward to me things that I was too close to myself and didn’t see. I’ll never forget. I’ll tell you a quick story. About six months in, and there were a number of people that did the same job at the company that I did at the time. He said, “Nick, I chose you to mentor you because I saw something that I think there’s some potential there.” I said, “I appreciate that.” He said, “I’ll tell you. We’ve worked together now six months and quite honestly, I don’t know if I could articulate if you’re any better or any different than the other eight colleagues that have the same job as you.”
Now, I’m telling you. It was this type of thing. I walked out of there and I thought, “Am I not waving my flag loud enough?” I knew I was working harder and smarter than some of my colleagues. Some of my other colleagues could run circles around me. There was a mix, but I was willing to outwork them. It took me months to figure out. I was doing the job well and I didn’t need to wave my flag, “Look at what Nick’s doing.”
It was, which he finally got me to months later, is I needed to become the go-to resource. When someone has a question, be top of mind, whether it’s someone experienced in the company or not, “I have a question about this.” “Go ask Nick about it. He might know.” That was a defining moment for me. It’s when he told me, “Position yourself in leadership to be the go-to resource. That will then be what changes your career path.” He was right on the money.
Leadership: When someone has a question, be top of mind.
That’s true in sales, too. When you think about the hundreds of thousands of real estate agents, and as I go out and talk to them, if you’re the ultimate resource for your customers like if they need a roof and all they think about is, “Call Glenn.” That’s the key. That’s the key to success no matter what you’re doing.
What great advice as a 27-year-old that was invaluable.
How To Be A Good Mentor And Mentee
That’s so cool. You probably cannot see this or whatever, but we have the ten attitude boosters that are from my book. Number five is to have a mentor and copy him or her. I love the fact that you brought up mentorship, but we don’t talk about mentorship a lot. I love the story, but give me your perspective on how to be a good mentor, and how to be a good mentee.
Overall, the people reading this, let’s face it, 9 out of 10 people don’t have a mentor. Probably 99 out of 100 don’t. Why get a mentor? How is it good? How do you be a good mentor? What are the rules? Let’s dive in for a couple of minutes on what is mentorship, how does it work, and what can we learn from you about that so our people can go out and start embracing attitude booster number five, have a mentor, copy them, him, or her. Let me know. Let me hear it.
I love number five. I think mentorship does turn into what I mentioned, which is coaching. You can blend them together. One just has a higher accountability level. First, I think as a mentee, you have to seek somebody out. You talk about the emulation. I’m very visual. I would walk in and see a leader or a CEO on stage and I would study what they’re doing. Public speaking is a big thing of mine. I love it. I continue to try to master it. I watch comedians, not to be funny, but for delivery.
I would watch people that were good and influential on stage. I think you have to be eyes wide open as a mentee, but you have to have broad shoulders. Someone told me a few years ago, do why gingers are overly confident as adults? It’s because we were picked on so much as kids. We have built this iron shield around us that you cannot harm us as adults. I think that translates to being a good mentee.
[bctt tweet=”You have to keep your eyes wide open and have broad shoulders to be a good mentee.” via=”no”]
People don’t like criticism, whether we use the word constructive in front of it or not. I think you’ve got to have broad shoulders. You cannot get your feelings hurt. If you want to get better, you have to let someone help you get better. Now I’m a focus on your strengths. Not fix your weaknesses guy, but you got to do both. You’ve got to know where your sand traps are that you’re going to sink into. That’s what a mentor did for me.
I think being a good mentee is having broad shoulders and seek it out. Don’t wait for your company to promote you or wait for your boss to teach you. I’ve had a lot of supervisors that I learned more about what not to do from them than what to do. People also sit around and wait for someone to make them grow and better. You have to do it yourself. Go seek it out.
Over the years, I’ve become a mentor to many people. I got lucky in a lot of cases. I was at the right time at the right place, but I also got to do things at a much younger age than a lot of people have gotten to do. As a result, it has attracted a very young group of people who say, “How’d you become a CEO at 40? What can I learn from you?” As a mentor now, it’s not teaching them what I did. It’s asking them questions about what they need. Sometimes as a mentor, I say, “I don’t know. What do you think?”
Leadership: Mentorship is not teaching them what you did. It is asking questions about what they need.
When it’s a coach or mentee or mentor, neither one of you has all the right answers. I heard something from Simon Sinek. I was speaking and I shared something. He said he had a colleague who reached out and said, “Can we have lunch?” He didn’t get back in a timely fashion and didn’t realize. She followed up with him. They were great friends and said, “Why didn’t you reach back out?” “I was in a dark place. I was having a very hard time.” He said, “Your message about let’s get together or have lunch wasn’t any different than any other time.”
He followed a study that said, “When you’re having a tough day, a bad week or something in your life is difficult.” You need eight minutes with someone. It’s not eight minutes to fix it. It’s not eight minutes to figure it all out. This study showed the average time that people can get together when you’re having a tough time. Eight minutes can reset your outlook. They had a code between them that now the text wasn’t, “Do you want to have coffee or lunch?” It’s, “I need eight minutes.” That’s very powerful in a mentor-mentee type of scenario is we all need eight minutes. It’s going to be, are you willing to ask for it?
We’re with Nick Bailey with T360. We’re going to talk about that and we don’t get eight minutes. We get about 42 minutes. We get eight times six. I think that’s the right math. Is that right?
That’s 48, but you’re close.
There you go. Catholic school education. How about that? You were a CEO at 40. What company were you the CEO of at 40 was? I knew and I was like, “This dude is getting it done.”
That was Century 21. I got recruited to come on board and be President and CEO of that organization with 128,000 people in 80 countries. What a cool opportunity. As a kid, I always knew I wanted to lead a large real estate brand. I didn’t know what that meant. That could have meant 25 people in one location or 150,000 in 110 countries. That’s why I say I knew that path. I just didn’t know how I was going to get there. I let that just happen.
Being in that position with three different entities, were you the CEO of Zillow, too?
I was in their executive group and I led the industry segments, but I was not in their C-suite.
Leadership Lessons From The Toughest Days
Regardless, intense, lots of work, lots of travel, lots of time, and long days. Tell me about the worst day you’ve had in your career professionally where you felt you were broken and you mustered the attitude to come back. I’d love to hear that story. As great as this all sounds, I have to imagine you had a couple of not good days.
I’ll tell you both and I hope I don’t get choked up with either. One of them is a leadership lesson and one is a personal lesson. Can I share both?
Yes.
A quick story, it was the downturn in real estate. Some of the most successful people with large operations were suffering. I got a call from a gentleman that said, “My accounts have been frozen. I’m going to have to tell all of my agents in multiple locations. My hundreds of agents. I’m telling them tomorrow at 9:00 AM. We’re out of business and we’re closing the doors.”
I was leading regional operations for a company at the time. I said, “I think there’s a better way. You don’t have to just lock the door. We’ll help you. My number one colleague and myself will be on a plane. We’ll get there because we need to help independent real estate agents, too. You cannot lock the door on them. You may be locking your door, but don’t lock the door on all of them. Let’s help get them so they can have some continuation in their business.” He said, “Okay.” I was the last person that spoke to him.
The plane landed and turned back on. He had gone out between the air conditioning units and committed suicide. His wife didn’t know. She had dropped off a salad minutes before and left it on his desk. I had to stand up the next day, office by office and tell his entire company of hundreds of people that he was gone. It was one of the toughest leadership days because in a moment like that, people are looking for strength. They want strength, direction, and what do we do. All of his staff asked, “What do we do?” That was professionally the hardest day of my career.
That’s a hard day. Unbelievable story.
This guy was known. He was the president of his church on the campus. When I say campus, thousands of people. He was the guy that always had it together. It was such a surprise. That was a tough day.
Let me ask you, did you find a lesson? Did you learn something? Did something click on that? I know it’s on the spot.
I did learn that I probably could have in that last phone call with him, maybe asked a few questions a different way because I didn’t pick up, and I don’t know if there were signals. I knew it was humiliating. I know that’s tough on your ego and your business, but I didn’t go deep enough on, “We’ve got all the business things. We’re doing this. We’re going to do contracts here We’re not going to litigate this.” I had it all under control. We had a plan.
I didn’t stop for a minute and say, “By the way, Tim, this has to be tough. How are you doing?” Now, I went to his service and I’ll tell you, the pastor that was doing the service did something wonderful for 2,000 people that were in the audience. He said, “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Not one person in here could have changed this. You couldn’t have said, ‘I should have called him. I just saw him last week. Maybe I should have reached out. I haven’t seen him.’ You’ve got to let go.” Every one of you sitting in here saying, “Maybe I could have done something to avoid this.”
He walked people through. He was wonderful but I don’t look back and say, “Any of it was “my fault.” I’m not carrying his monkey. What I did take out of that is I don’t care how good, how smart, and how business, you’ve got everything locked up, but we were in the people business and I knew that. I could have gone that much further. Now, when it’s tough people situations, I’ll step out of the piece and say, “Glenn, how are you doing?”
I cannot tell you how much I appreciate a killer story. We did two episodes on suicide during Suicide Prevention Month with Mark Henick. That one won a national award for that show. If you are somebody out there that’s struggling, this came up and it hits you or you know somebody or if you’re like Nick going, “What can I do?”
Mark in that episode walks through the mindset of a suicidal person, which he was. He was saved by a stranger ready to jump off of a bridge. To get inside the mind of somebody, and we did it on the show. It was unreal. It’s a great resource. If what Nick just told you, hit you, check out Mark Henick on the show. It will open your eyes and hopefully, help you maybe someday save somebody that feels that way.
Glenn, I’ll say that’s all the college, all the education, and 25 years of experience. None of that prepared me for that.
I can’t imagine.
You got to rise leadership. That’s what you have to do. I compliment you for having that episode and openly discussing it because there’s always someone out there. If you hear something from the right person at the right minute, it can make all the difference in your life.
[bctt tweet=”If you hear the right thing from the right person at the right moment, it can make all the difference in your life.” via=”no”]
Sometimes, we don’t know the power of what we say in passing. I’m sure you’ve done it where people go, “Nick, when you said that, I cannot tell you what it meant to you.” You’re like, “I don’t even remember saying it.” It is. Keep on going. I think we had a slightly more upbeat positive personal lesson that you were going to share with us, the second story.
I mentioned my wife. We have two boys. At the time, I was at Century 21 at their headquarters. I lived in Denver. They’re based in New Jersey. I was commuting. We didn’t relocate. My kids were 9 and 13-years-old at the time. I traveled over 200 days. I got home at Thanksgiving from a long trip and then I went to China to speak. They made me wear a gold jacket on stage. It was all old-school official. Anyway, I took my son to lunch at Chipotle.
On the way back, he said, “Dad, I miss when you worked for Zillow.” Now, as a dad, I’m thinking, “He has labeled branded charging cases.” He’s got a Zillow blanket and hats. He’s got all the cool tech swag that’s immediately thought. I said, “Why, buddy? I haven’t brought you any new cool tech stuff?” I swear to you, my nine-year-old said, “No. Dad, I used to get to see you.” I always had plans in my life. This was the first time in my life I didn’t have a plan B. I walk into the house and tears rolling down my face.
My wife looked at me and said, “What happened? Did you get into a car accident? What is wrong?” I told her. After Thanksgiving, I flew out and I resigned. There wasn’t enough title and enough pay that I only had one chance to screw up my kids and I was going to make sure I was a little closer to home to do it. That was an attitude moment in my life that I went, “I never missed a baseball game. I never missed a concert. I changed flights to be home.”
I thought that was making me an award-winning dad with the right attitude. What I didn’t realize is what they weren’t telling me until he mentioned that. I went, “I may have put a couple of things in my priorities. It just got out of whack a tiny bit.” The first time I didn’t have a plan B and people said, “Are you kidding me? People live their lives to have a job like that.” It wasn’t going to work.
As you said, no better title than the title of dad, and no better pay than the presence of your child.
I got to go on to be CEO of another company. I still traveled, which is fine but I got to be better at both instead of only good at one.
Knowledge Through The Decades: Life Lessons For Every Stage
I think I was at Century 21 when you were the CEO, if I remember correctly. I remember when you resigned. It’s powerful stories. Nick Bailey, you’re killing it. You’re giving us lots of great things to think about. Great antidotes. Now. it’s time to wrap it up. We got to do Knowledge Through the Decades with you. Do you know what Knowledge Through the Decades is?
I don’t.
Knowledge Through the Decades is how I close every show. We walk you through your life and ask you about the attitude lesson for each time you turned into a new decade. There’s no wrong answer. Only speak from your heart and let’s have some fun and walk through Nick Bailey’s attitude adventure. We always start with the day you were born. I’m certain you don’t remember the day you were born. Maybe when your kids were born, you do remember it. What is the attitude lesson of new birth or being born or being reborn in your opinion? What is there to learn?
Attention. Pay attention.
Let’s dive into that a little bit. When you say pay attention, what does that mean? Why did you say that?
When you look at a small child, and I’ve had two, you have to be prepared or anticipate the unexpected needs and deliver upon them before they even know they need it. That, to me, is the complex answer of pay attention. How many things do you need to pay attention to with your children to make sure that their wants and needs are met even before they know they need it? That’s the job of a provider. You have to pay attention.
That’s the job of a leader when it’s all said and done at a different level. Now, little redhead Nick is ten years old. He’s in fourth grade. You remember being ten. Do you remember your teacher? Was there a time during that year that you said, “I think I learned a lesson.?” Tell us what it was like being ten years old in Colorado, the attitude.
Miss Nyberg was my teacher. She was a fellow ginger and she taught us how to write a check. My attitude was, “I like being able to write checks.” That’s an honest true story. I remember what the checkbook looked like and we did practice checks. For some reason, that’s when I became not a money person, but the formula of business, revenue, and money in and money out started to take place. I bought my own trampoline that year. My parents had made me save up for it and I had to buy it myself. I had the coolest backyard of any kid in the neighborhood for the summers.
How did you raise it? Were you a grass cutter? What did you do, paper route? What went on?
I mowed lawns and I had a car detailing business in high school. There are a lot of things there that we’ve left out in my young career. Anything I could do to work. I also babysat kids. It was always hard. I had family members that had boys and, at the time, it was hard to find a male babysitter that would go and play football in the backyard with the kids. I had no problem finding babysitting jobs, especially for little rowdy young boys who wanted to play basketball and football.
I did a lot of babysitting. My rate was $1 per hour. No matter the number of kids. That’s what my uncles and my aunts paid me.
At least you had a rate. I learned a valuable lesson that you made me figure out on the spot. I just let them pay me what they paid me. Sometimes, it was a lot and other times it was not good. I should have set a standard and I didn’t.
Let’s talk about Nick turning twenty. Do you remember turning twenty? I’m guessing you were in college. What was your attitude lesson at twenty?
At the time, I owned my own business. I purchased two commercial retail buildings when I was seventeen in the community where we lived. I was a landlord for one and I had a business in the other. It wasn’t real estate. It was more in the entertainment business side. When I was twenty, I was going to real estate school, operating a business, a landlord and going to college.
I had worked in a restaurant for nine years on the weekends at a high-end steakhouse. My attitude was, busy was better. I wasn’t a troubled kid. I was never into drugs or drinking or anything like that. I was just a hardworking, busy kid. I sat on the economic development alliance for our community when I was twenty. I bought my first house when I was eighteen. I was a homeowner, a landlord, a college student in school for real estate, and serving steaks on the weekends.
GAPers, Nick’s had a lot of success. He’s done a lot of great things. You may be sitting there going, “I didn’t do that.” The point is age doesn’t matter. You’re never too old to start. If he could do this at eighteen, you could do it at 52, if that’s how old you are reading. Nick, it’s certainly cool that you showed the path. It doesn’t matter when you start. You started early and I have that in common with you. Have we done 30 yet? We haven’t done 30 yet. Do you remember turning 30? What was going on in your life in the attitude lesson when you turned 30?
Everyone wants to stay young. Thirty was wonderful to me because now I’ve been in real estate for nine years. I was at this corporate place where I was younger than most people. I used to always get the question, “How old are you?” It’s because I looked young. It didn’t matter if I was 21 or 29. If it started with the word twenty, I got a reaction on the other side. When I became 30, my attitude was I am now grown up enough that I’d grown into the career that I had at a young 30. I would just say, “I’m in my 30s.” They didn’t know if I was 31 or 39. My credibility from 29 to 30 went big. I gained an extreme amount of confidence at 30 because I knew my place and I wasn’t getting questioned on how old I was.
Great story. Thirty’s flung by because you were awesome and you’re like, “I’m 40 now.” Tell us where you were on your 40th birthday. Was it a big party?
I went to Las Vegas and all my buddies said, “Wait until 40. Stuff starts falling off.” Now, I’ve worked out with a trainer for twenty years, at least three days a week. My personal health and fitness is important. I said, “I’m fine.” Four days before my 40th, I had an emergency appendectomy. I’d never had anything health-wise. The surgeon looked at me. He was cool. He was a trauma surgeon in Iraq. Young, and fast.
Every nurse said he’s the best. He gave me double the pain pills. He said, “Go ahead. Get on a plane and go to Vegas. Either take double of these, and drink a lot, but don’t do both.” I went to Vegas on my 40th and I don’t remember much of it. Not because I did anything crazy. It was because I had been out of the hospital for 24 hours. That was interesting.
That’s fun. I like that. That’s a good 40th story. The attitude lesson is, no matter if I’m 40, I can still go do it even after being on the table 24 hours later.
That’s right. Go do it. We had fun.
Are you 50 yet?
This has gone well until now. That was weeks ago.
Happy birthday, Nick. Congratulations. Welcome to the club.
Thanks.
What’s the attitude lesson to turning 50?
It’s not a good attitude. Maybe this is timely. I needed this. Remember I like saying I was in my 30s? I was okay saying I was in my 40s because then when I was 49, if I was in my 40s, I could have been 41. There’s nothing good about saying I’m in my 50s. I read an article a few years ago that said, “50 is terrific because, by the way, if you’ve done it right, now you can drink the wine that you want, and take the trips that you want. All of those are better things than what you could do in your 30s. There’s probably a little bit of truth to that but it’s only weeks young on this 50, so I’ll have to get back to you.
New Beginnings At T3 Sixty: Embracing Leadership And Growth
My guess is you’ll grow into it. You’ll figure it out and you will thrive. There’s no doubt about that. You’ve just accepted a new position at T360. They’re an awesome company, a leadership positioning company. It’s the number one education company. I’ve been to the T360 Summit. Give us a little thought on the new role at T360. What are you going to do and why it excites you?
T360 is the largest executive management consulting firm in residential real estate in the United States and the founder who started it is been a good friend of mine for years. I’ve been on his stage for years and this is something that’s been on my mind for a while. All of a sudden, when you have almost three decades of the lenses that you look through of agent, broker, tech, and franchise. All these different components has been able to give me a very interesting lens to look through.
For me, it was time to take this knowledge and be able to help many. Instead of leading and helping just one brand, there were many in it. It’s cool. I get on one call, which I was on right before you, it’s helping one of the biggest brands in the industry. My next call after you is helping a different brand in the same industry. Now, what it is, it’s about helping people get close to their business and help them no matter what it is.
It’s cool. They’re competitors. We’re not helping them try to figure out how to take the other one out. We’re trying to help them be what they want to be and rise the tides, as the cliché says. That part of it is fun for me. A big part of what I do is I’m a steward of the industry and spend a lot of time on stage talking to groups.
Especially in a market as we’ve gone through, which is the biggest change in my lifetime in three decades. Probably yours too, Glen, with litigation, changes, regulation changes, and interest rate changes. All these different things that are happening at once. There are a lot of people looking for answers and not that I have them all. No one has a crystal ball, but in a moment of confusion, it is such a cool opportunity to be the one that can bring some level of clarity.
Leadership: In a moment of confusion, it is a cool opportunity to be the one to bring some level of clarity.
Nick, what’s your favorite topic to keynote on? Do you have a line or a mantra that would be awesome to tell us? You’ve been on stages. I’ve seen you on stage and do all kinds of crazy stuff at conventions. What do you like talking most about? What’s your message when somebody wants to hire you to speak to their group?
You’re right, I do crazy things. A couple of years ago, I flew in across a stadium ceiling by a wire. That was my entrance onto the stage. That was super fun.
I saw it.
I’ll give you one that I talked about, and I’m still refining it. I’ve refined every time I do this. There’s one that I entitled See What Others Don’t. There’s a lot to it, but it’s the idea that if you’re only seeing what everybody else does, you’re going to fall into what everybody else does. I’m not the smartest guy. I’m a harder worker than most, but I have always tried with that curiosity of reading the car manual, look and say, “What is everybody else seeing and what are they not seeing?”
I do that in the headlines. I listen to people talk about politics and headlines. I don’t care what your politics are, but some people can only regurgitate the headlines because they’re seeing what everybody else sees. I ended my talk with this. There’s a lady in 1951. She was, at the time, called a Secretary at Texas Bank. The electric typewriter was new. It’s a great invention, except because it went so fast, it created a lot of mistakes.
She went home and took some water-based paint and some coloring. She matched this to the station area of the bank. She went back, and used her correction fluid to help her be more efficient. Five years later, in 1956, she left to start this company that she ran for 25 years. In 1979, she sold liquid paper to Gillette for $47.5 million. She saw what others didn’t see. Granted, I did it for non-real estate. It can be real estate. It’s a lot about leadership, but it fits no matter where you are in your career. As a leader, are you seeing what others don’t? If you’re a brand-new entry-level employee competing for the next job, are you looking for the things that maybe others don’t? It’s my favorite one to give.
A Message Of Hope: Inspiration For Challenging Times
That is a great message. We are with Nick Bailey from T360. We’re going to wrap it up. We got to respect your time, but Nick, we always want our guests just to give a message of hope. There are people that aren’t in the real estate business. We have people from all over the world that readds. We got 20-year-olds and 70-year-olds. I got a text that said, “As I do my chemo, I sit there for two hours getting the drip and there’s nothing more I love doing than reading this.” What’s your message of hope in this time of chaos for those who are reading? I’ll turn it to you and we’ll call it a day.
I can’t take credit for it but I’ve lived by it which is, E plus R equals O. If anyone has heard that from Jack Canfield, the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. It’s the event plus your response equals the outcome. I’ve lived my life by this for decades. It’s changed my attitude. I have it in many of my keynotes. Again, I can take zero credit for it other than the fact that it hit me like a brick in the face and I’ve stuck with it. To your good friend who’s getting chemo, the event, we know what it is. His reaction to listening to positive things is going to lead to a great outcome.
I don’t care if it’s personal or professional, you can control your response, but you cannot control the event. You can take the exact same event with two different people, and the responses can be night and day. It ultimately results in a different outcome. That is the best formula to follow because we worry about what we cannot control. I love asking people, “What are you worried about? Name two things.” Nine out of ten times, it’s what they cannot control. If we worried more about our response and what we can control, I don’t think we’d worry as much.
I love it. Nick Bailey from T360. Nick, thank you so much. I’d say the outcome was good. We did some good. GAPers, we will be talking to you on the next episode. Thank you, Nick Bailey.
Thanks, Glenn.
Important Links
- Nick Bailey on LinkedIn
- T3 Sixty
- RE/MAX
- Century 21
- Zillow
- Mark Henick on Get Attitude Podcast with Glenn Bill – Previous Episode
- Chicken Soup for the Soul