Posts tagged:business success

Thoughts on Leadership: Leadership Lessons from 2022 Masters Winner Scottie Scheffler

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me starting the work week early with a Sunday flight to Carlsbad, California, so I could conduct my Monday morning meetings from my hotel room (and not while traveling). On Monday morning, I participated in the Berkshire Hathaway Energy meeting and completed all my WIG calls from 4:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. At 3 p.m. I joined a session for the Zillow Industry Forum, which I attended through Wednesday. And I am back in Northern California today where I’m now sitting down to write you this post.

Like many people, I spent last weekend watching the 2022 Masters. (I’ve written before about the iconic golf tournament, read the post here.) I’ve long been fascinated with the Masters, and it’s probably because golf holds a special place in my heart. As a senior in high school, I started a job at Cherry Chase Golf and Swim Club in Sunnyvale, California, which I held through college. After graduating from San Jose State University, I was appointed General Manager of the Cherry Chase Golf and Swim Club. After a developer bought the land, I got my real estate license to sell the new homes that would be developed there. I had just $1 in my pocket, and I was determined to work harder than anyone else to find success. I look back on those formative years and realize how they’ve shaped my career and the way I approach leadership today.

But back to the Masters … No. 1 ranked PGA Tour golfer Scottie Scheffler finished in first place, three strokes ahead of second-placed Rory Mcllroy. It was Scheffler’s first major title. When asked immediately after the win how he felt about being the 2022 Masters champion, Scheffler said with humility: “Pretty tired.”

Being number one doesn’t happen by accident. It takes consistent work, a focus on your Wildly Important Goals and a strong, positive mindset of a winner. I watched on TV as Scheffler walked off the green and greeted his family and close friends, and you could just tell he’s not only a great golfer but also a great person. 

Here are a few facts about the newly minted Masters champion:

He started at a very young age. The Scheffler family borrowed money to allow their young son (then just age 6) to join the Royal Oaks Country Club in Dallas where he began working with Randy Smith, head golf professional at Royal Oaks Country Club, who became his swing coach. Though he was just six years old, Scheffler had the focus and drive (quite literally) of a champion. Smith recalls their first meeting: “I walked down, his parents were there, and they introduced him, and he took his hat off, shook my hand then went back to hitting balls.”

His job is his passion. In high school, Scheffler played lacrosse, basketball, baseball, and football but golf was always his number one passion. “My whole life, I knew how much I loved golf,” he told Golf Digest reporter Keely Levins. “It was the one sport I always wanted to be playing, regardless of the season.”

He knows the importance of a good swing. In the offseason, Scheffler took a trip to the Scotty Cameron Putter Studio in San Marcos, California and switched one of his clubs to a Scotty Cameron by Titleist Special Select Timeless Tourtype GSS. Right after the switch, he got his first tour win. The week of the Masters, he felt like the club was off. Tour reps examined the putter and realized he was right – the loft and lie angles were off from where they should be, so the putter was adjusted the day before the Masters began. The idea that swing takes perfect synchronicity and mechanics to achieve is a sentiment echoed in one of my favorite books, “The Boys in The Boat” by Daniel James Brown:

“There is a thing that sometimes happens in rowing that is hard to achieve and hard to define. Many crews, even winning crews, never really find it. Others find it but can’t sustain it. It’s called ‘swing.’ It only happens when all eight oarsmen are rowing in such perfect unison that not a single action by any one is out of sync with those of all the others. It’s not just that the oars enter and leave the water at precisely the same instant. Sixteen arms must begin to pull, sixteen knees must begin to fold and unfold, eight bodies must begin to slide forward and backward, eight backs must bend and straighten all at once. Each minute action – each subtle turning of wrists – must be mirrored exactly by each oarsman, from one end of the boat to the other. Only then will the boat continue to run, unchecked, fluidly and gracefully between pulls of the oars. Only then will it feel as if the boat is a part of each of them, moving as if on its own. Only then does pain entirely give way to exultation. Rowing then becomes a kind of perfect language. Poetry, that’s what a good swing feels like.”

So, what’s the message? When he won the Masters, Sheffler became part of an exclusive club – one of only a few players to win the Masters in the start immediately following their World No. 1 status. He joins Ian Woosman, Fred Couples, Tiger Woods, and Dustin Johnson in this feat, and proves to the world that with passion, perseverance, a positive mindset and a putter with the right loft and lie angles, anyone can win.

Pictured: Our CEO of Allie Beth Allman, Keith Conlon played golf on Tuesday with 2022 Masters Champion Scottie Sheffler. (Keith, you can let me know how it feels to tee off right after the No. 1 golfer in the world has striked one 308 yards right down the middle of the fairway.) Sheffler is giving the University of Texas Hook ‘em sign and in case you don’t know, Keith is with the TCU Horned Frogs. In another twist of coincidence, Allie Beth Allman agent Alex Perry was the listing agent and Allie Beth Allman agent Ashley Ferguson was the selling agent for Sheffler’s home.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Lessons from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me starting Monday at home with my typical WIG calls then traveling to Atlanta, Georgia for the Realty Alliance General Membership Meeting. The conference was filled with valuable takeaways and insights from trailblazers, disruptors, and visionaries in the world of real estate and beyond. There was one keynote that had a particular impact on me, delivered by Horst Schulze, co-founder, and former president of the Ritz-Carlton Company. I’ve written about the Ritz-Carlton Gold Standard for operations before, but to refresh your memory these are a few of the Gold Standard values that guide the company and its team members to operate with impeccable service and the highest standards of performance, execution and leadership:

  1. I build strong relationships and create guests for life.
  2. I am empowered to create unique, memorable, and personal experiences for our guests.
  3. I continuously seek opportunities to innovate and improve customer experience.
  4. I own and immediately resolve problems.
  5. I create a work environment of teamwork and lateral service so that the needs of our guests and each other are met.
  6. I am involved in the planning of the work that affects me.
  7. I have the opportunity to continuously learn and grow.

In his presentation, Horst Schulze told an interesting story that is the epitome of accountability in action. He said that if there was an underperforming hotel, he would give the general manager three months to turn things around; if they didn’t, he’d go to the hotel, sit in the GM’s office, and have the GM sit in the corner and watch Schulze turn hotel operations around. Talk about accountability!

Here are a few other lessons from Schulze:

Top performers pick up the trash. What’s one trait of a top performer? They pick up the trash, says Schulze. When something isn’t taken care of, they’re not afraid to get their hands dirty and do it themselves. Wait around for someone else to do a job you may not want to do, and you’ll be waiting forever. And who can perform if they’re just sitting there waiting for something to happen? Make it happen yourself, Schulze explains.

Don’t ever be late. To Schulze, one of the greatest insults is tardiness. He says it doesn’t matter if you’re thirty seconds or thirty minutes late; when you’re late, you’re late and it is a sign of disrespect and a lack of care. You arranged for someone else to meet you at a particular time and place (even if it’s virtually), you have a duty to be there at that exact moment, too.

Managers push, leaders inspire. Managers control the hierarchy of an organization, says Schulze but they don’t have real buy-in when it comes to the overall success of the team or their ability to inspire their team to reach new levels of greatness; they simply care that profits are increasing and the business is growing. A leader is someone who gets that team members to want to do their job. They know an inspired employee is a passionate employee and that dedication to excellence spills out into all aspects of the company.

Excellent customer service can cost you – and that’s OK. At the Ritz-Carlton, it was common practice to spend money to keep guests happy. In fact, every employee could spend up to $2,000 per guest, per incident to right a wrong. Sometimes this meant purchasing a meal for a guest who was dissatisfied but sometimes, it was even more extensive. At the Ritz-Carlton in Cancun, Mexico, for example, hotel employees used that money to buy metal detectors when a young couple on their honeymoon lost their wedding band on the beach. At another location, one guest – a mother with a two-year-old son – realized her son lost his favorite Thomas & Friends train toy while they were packing up to leave the hotel and head to the airport. Frantic, the mother mentioned the missing toy to one of the Ritz-Carlton employees and called the loss “heartbreaking.” The employees helped the mother search for the toy to no avail, so they simply went to the nearest toy store and purchased a new one for the woman’s son. They gave it to him with a note that said, ‘Thomas took a long vacation but he’s back now and included a few photos of the Thomas toy in various locations around the hotel. The mother said she would tell anyone she met that Ritz-Carlton won her business for life.

So, what’s the message? Horst Schulze is widely regarded as an icon in the service and hospitality industry, not only because he led his company with excellence but also because he instilled the idea that excellence should not be a sometimes-endeavor; it is an always-endeavor and with perpetual improvement, impeccable service, and an empowered team, you can achieve this excellence no matter what business you’re in or what customers you serve.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Leadership Lessons from Tom Ferry

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me in Napa, California at the Tom Ferry Team Legacy Retreat. From Sunday through Wednesday, participants networked, challenged themselves, learned and found inspiration from Tom’s words of wisdom and through collaborating and sharing stories with each other. I probably took more notes than anyone in the room because my goal for the retreat was to learn from the people in the room who have boots-on-the-ground knowledge and figure out how I could use my experience to help the group get to another level of success.

 Today, as I write this, I’m preparing to attend the Intero Honors 2021 Production Award Celebration in San Jose, California.

But for today’s post, let’s return to wine country and the teachings of Tom Ferry.

Tom has been a great friend, mentor, and coach of mine for years. We first met when Tom was 19 years old. He cold called me as a top-producing real estate agent to sell me a ticket to a Mike Ferry Superstar Retreat. We’ve been friends ever since.

There’s a reason Tom has such esteem in the industry; his leadership skills are extraordinary, and each day, maybe even each hour or each minute, he’s passing along what he knows to help others succeed. One of the things I really like about Tom is that he’s incredibly relevant. He’s not teaching old knowledge repeatedly; he’s always looking for something new, something fresh, something that will enrich people’s businesses and lives in a way nothing has before. It’s the very definition of a forward-thinking leader. Here are a few of his most recent (and valuable) takeaways:

Believe in yourself, achieve more every time. Tom recorded a podcast with therapist John Jolliffe and during the episode, Jolliffe said: “All people have as much self-confidence as everybody else. That’s the truth … but there’s two types. There’s negative self-confidence and positive self-confidence. People with negative self-confidence have trouble reaching their Wildly Important Goals because they simply don’t believe they can. Or, they’re too fearful to begin the process of making it happen because yet again, they don’t believe they can. Leaders with the exact same amount of confidence – only this time it’s positive – achieve their goals because they see nothing as impossible. Guided by optimism and their strong belief in themselves and their capabilities, they tackle tasks with confidence and get it done. Tom says one way to gain confidence is to recite daily affirmations and I agree. I’ve been reciting a passage from Og Mandino’s “The Seeds of Success” as part of my morning routine for the past three decades. Read the affirmation in full here.

Harness the power of accountability. I’m a big fan of accountability partners and Tom is, too but there are many ways to harness the power of accountability. Tom says you can: announce publicly that if you don’t do something you’ll write a check to an organization or person you wouldn’t typically support; schedule a quick touch-base call with a colleague every morning to review your commitments; hold a contest where those who are at the bottom of the scoreboard have to organize an event or dinner for those who win; share your goals with another leader and ask them to check in on you periodically to track your progress; involve your friends or family in the process, (for example, if you don’t generate X number of leads per month, you give your kids $50); or you could hire a coach.

Analyze your closest friendships. Tom says as an 18-year-old he had an epiphany after his dad came to visit his apartment and told him, “We become like the people we spend the most time with.” There are three kinds of people in the world: positive, neutral, and negative. The positive people are those who will pick you up when you’re down. They are the people committed to perpetual improvement, accomplishing their goals and forward momentum. Neutral people are just that – they won’t react in any kind of positive or negative way to the circumstances around them. “Want to go do this?” Sure, they’d say. They’re fine with whatever. They’re neutral. And finally, the negative people. Those who will drag you down or are constantly pessimistic and won’t ever elevate your state of mind. Tom says write down your close friends. Look at how many of them are positive, neutral, or negative. Make sure that you’re surrounding yourself with positive people, those who will challenge you and hold you accountable because they want to be accountable to their big goals, too. Neutral people are the ones who YOU may be able to help, whose neutral mindset may be able to shift more toward the positive because you’re in their lives. Negative people have negative mindsets. As the saying goes, being positive works most of the time, being negative works 100% of the time.

Know your why. In a recent blog, Tom asks an important question: Why do most people quit? Why do most people break their own promises and commitments? If you ask them, they often have many reasons why they couldn’t do something; it was a one-off. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t have time. I didn’t think I could. They justify these actions and move on, OK with the fact that their life is not being lived at full potential. Tom says, “I would argue that the real case for a life, a life at level 10 is to find that one reason why … that one driving force … that one thing that just aligns you.” It’s what, Tom explains, makes you a person of your word, a leader others can rely on. I’ve long believed that your word is your bond, and this includes the words you speak to yourself. You can read these words now and reflect on the calls you didn’t make, the deals you didn’t get, the appointments you didn’t book OR you can focus on your one reason why, and use that to propel you forward, to make the calls you said you would, to do the things you need to do to become the person, leader and human being you want to be. Your reason will determine your action. It will allow you to follow through and, as Tom says, have a life by design instead of a life by default.

So, what’s the message? For this one, it’s easy: gratitude. Thank you, Tom, for being a leader by example, someone who not only delivers sage advice but also lives by that advice every single day.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Willie and Billy (An Unexpected Story You’ll Want to Read)

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me starting at home on Monday taking my typical WIG calls. On Tuesday, I participated in the weekly Berkshire Hathaway Energy call and on Wednesday I participated in the celebration and launch event for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Jordan Baris Realty. I also spent the week reading over and rehearsing for the upcoming Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Sales Convention 2022 in Louisville.

Whenever I write these posts, I always receive incredible replies but when the last post about Willie Mays, written in celebration of Black History Month, was sent into the world, I received a response from William “Billy” Knox at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties that I just had to share.

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Thoughts on Leadership: A Tribute to Willie Mays

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me starting Monday at home with my typical WIG calls. On Tuesday, I traveled to Dallas and had dinner with the Prosperity Home Mortgage team. (Yes, it is record cold here). On Wednesday, I attended the Prosperity Home Mortgage National Sales Summit and had lunch with Allie Beth Allman at the Dallas Country Club. I then returned for an evening of events with the Prosperity Home Mortgage team. Today, I attended the Ebby Halliday Companies leadership meeting and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Sales Convention virtual creative review. This afternoon, I’m up in my hotel room (still shivering) writing this very enjoyable piece on my hero, Willie Mays. 

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Thoughts On Leadership: Celebrating Mary W. Jackson

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me at home, starting Monday with my typical WIG calls. On Tuesday, I participated in the Berkshire Hathaway Energy meeting followed by preparation for the virtual CEO conference, which I attended on Wednesday. Today, I traveled to Orange County for a meeting and of course, also spent time writing this post in celebration of Black History Month.

Last week, we showcased my good friend Johnnie Johnson and his book “From Athletics to Engineering: 8 Ways to Support Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”  ’. The week before, we talked about Russell Wilson and his philosophy on what it takes to win. Today, I want to shift gears to a trailblazing leader, Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer at NASA.

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Thoughts on Leadership: 8 Ways to Support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels found me starting Monday at home, completing my typical WIG calls. On Tuesday, I had the Berkshire Hathaway Energy call followed by a day of meetings. My Wildly Important Goal (WIG) this week was to spend 14+ hours on legal matters, so I completed that WIG and today, I’m writing this post to you now.

February is Black History Month and last week, we celebrated the leadership thoughts of Russell Wilson. This week, I’d like to highlight my good friend and former All-Pro defensive back for the Los Angeles Rams who is today president and CEO of World Class Coaches Johnnie Johnson. This spotlight is especially pertinent because Johnnie’s Rams are facing the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl this Sunday. For many years, Johnnie and I do a standing Saturday morning breakfast, where we catch up on life, family, business, books and whatever else happens in between. Currently, we are reviewing Johnnie’s new book, “From Athletics to Engineering: 8 Ways to Support Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and I’d like to share those 8 ways with you now:

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Thoughts on Leadership: What It Means to Win

By Gino Blefai:

This week my travels find me starting Monday at home, completing my typical WIG calls. On Tuesday I had the Berkshire Hathaway Energy call, then traveled to Las Vegas to attend Tom Ferry’s Elite Retreat. I’m in Vegas until later today, listening to Tom speak, learning from the inspiring keynotes and meeting with a business prospect for one of our brokerage networks.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Winning the New Year

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels find me starting Monday at home with my typical WIG calls. On Tuesday, I participated in the Berkshire Hathaway Energy meeting in the morning then filmed videos for multiple HomeServices of America acquisitions we’ll be announcing very soon. Today, I spent the morning at the virtual Berkshire Hathaway Energy Executive Leadership Conference, themed “Building for the Future.”

It’s noteworthy that this is the very first Thoughts on Leadership post of the new year. Ah, the new year, a time for resolutions to make … or break.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Happy Holidays

By Gino Blefari

This week my travels find me at home, starting Monday with my typical WIG calls. On Tuesday, I had three succession calls and on Wednesday I had meetings and spent time writing this for you.

Of course, this week we celebrate the holidays and for some, that means spending time with friends and family. Each year around this time, I think about St. Nick, and what a wonderful leader he is and always will be. Wondering about the reasons why? Let’s list a few:

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