Thoughts on Leadership: Generation Now

By Gino Blefari

From every angle, millennials are shaping the future of real estate, whether they’re potential first-time buyers embracing homeownership or recent college graduates joining a brokerage, eager to launch real estate careers. For any business leader asking what the future looks like, the answer comes wrapped in a millennial bow. And even if this certainty is understood, how to reach the millennial is still muddled by a haze of social media, mobile marketing and other millennial-focused trends.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Serving for Success

By Gino Blefari

The packed crowd at London’s Wimbledon Stadium erupted into thunderous applause on Saturday as Serena Williams defeated Garbiñe Muguruza to win her sixth Wimbledon title (and 21^st major championship). Serena’s game was slightly shaky, her serves at times meandering just outside the line, her groundstrokes less than certain. But Williams is a master at mastering adversity, and delivered enough winners and aces to claim the coveted Venus Rosewater Dish, Wimbledon’s time-honored trophy. Her resilience is admirable, and a quality any inspired business leader must strive to achieve. What else can we glean from Serena’s success? In a recent article, famed speaker and motivator Tony Robbins outlined four lessons to be learned from the tennis superstar:

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Thoughts on Leadership: You Can’t Win If You Don’t Enter

By Gino Blefari

When Barbara Wakefield received the call she’d won $50,000 in the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices $50,000 Sweepstakes—held in conjunction with HGTV and Fixer Upper stars Chip and Joanna Gaines—she thought the whole thing was a hoax. “It was too fantastic for words,” she told me over the phone today. “I just thought, ‘How could this happen? There’s only one winner and how could that winner be me?’”

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Thoughts on Leadership: A Message for the Fourth

By Gino Blefari

This week I have the 4^th of July on my mind, a holiday always spent grilling with my family and watching fireworks light up the summer sky. It’s my favorite time of year, with a rich history as compelling as the patriotic celebration itself.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Hawaiian Inspiration

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels find me in the Hawaiian Islands for business meetings and my annual family vacation. The islands are nothing short of spectacular: pristine beaches, unspoiled landscape and a welcoming aloha spirit. This spirit is also evident in the history and local legends of Hawaii, like Duke Kahanamoku, whose life and achievements make for an incredible story I’d like to share with you now.

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Thoughts on Leadership: The Boys in the Boat

By Gino Blefari

This week my thoughts aren’t so much about my travels as they are about what happened while I was away. Nearly two months ago, on a rare rainy day in Southern California, I received a call from HSF Affiliates CFO Brian Peterson, (who also happens to be my neighbor), letting me know he had picked up a package at my door so it wouldn’t get wet.

“Thanks, Brian,” I said over the phone. “That’s interesting though because I didn’t order anything to my SoCal residence but it’s probably a book.”

In fact, it was a book, a very good book I’d like to discuss with you today.

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#22 Thoughts on Leadership: Inspiration Abounds in Washington, D.C.

by Gino Blefari

My travels this week took me to Washington, D.C. to help honor Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices’ top brokerages and hear impressive speakers gathered to provide brokers with new perspectives on real estate, politics, media, business practices and more. These speakers are leaders in their own right, including cyber security expert Joel Brenner, ABC News pollster Gary Langer, CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger, and N.A.R. representatives Lawrence Yun, Bill Gilmartin and Joe Ventrone. I was also honored to meet Real Living At Home leaders Jason Sherman, Justin Levitch and their terrific agents at their Washington, D.C. office.

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#21 Thoughts on Leadership: It’s the Same Difference

By Gino Blefari

This week, I found myself in San Francisco for a media interview via skype with Ilyce Glink, host of Big Money Real Estate, a weekly show on the Whatever it Takes Network. Episodes focus on a variety of topics including: real estate, mortgage issues, real estate investing, personal finance and consumer advice. However, I was video chatting with Ilyce about the results from the Q1 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Homeowner Sentiment Survey, which assessed people’s aspirations and sentiments surrounding homeownership.

So, my interview began and I was asked this question: When compared to other generations, how do millennials differ in their home buying preferences? How are they starting to resemble previous generations?

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#20 Thoughts on Leadership: All About Omaha

By Gino Blefari

This week, my travels took me to Omaha, NE, a city smack in the middle of the U.S.A. and home to an organization we all know well, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Before this year, I had only been to—or better yet, been through—Omaha twice before, years ago as a child on a family road trip from California to my home state of Massachusetts. I remember even then, as we drove along Interstate 80, Omaha was a study in contrast, a small, urban skyline surrounded by the quintessential Midwestern scape of flat, open land.

Now I’m a seasoned Omaha visitor, with three trips to the city in the past year, most recently to attend the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting and then, just this week, to visit Vince Leisey and his team at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Ambassador Real Estate. Each time I return I’m struck by the distinctiveness of the city and I get the recurring feeling that this place is unlike any other; it’s easy to understand why Berkshire Hathaway would be stationed here.

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#19 Thoughts on Leadership: A Message for Memorial Day

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels took me to the Great State of Texas for a visit with the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty Texas team in Dallas and the HSF Affiliates LLC IT group in Houston. Usually, this would be the time during “Thoughts on Leadership” when I would describe what happened over the course of the past few days. But for this post, in honor of the upcoming Memorial Day holiday and its spirit of remembrance and reverence, I want to tell a tale that isn’t my own.

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