Category: Blog Posts

Anthony Morgan is an award-winning science communicator. He’s also a PhD researcher and startup founder who’s hosted dozens of TV shows, including the Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet and CBC’s The Nature of Things with Sarika Cullis-Suzuki.

He’s the mastermind behind Freestyle Socials, a live, hilarious game designed to “undivide” people by blurring the lines we draw between one another.

On this episode of REAL TIME, Anthony shares science-based insight to help REALTORS® become better problem solvers in the face of a disagreement.

Watch the experiment Anthony describes as a “magic trick”– Daniel Simons’ selective attention test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo

Transcript

Colour affects us physically and mentally. In business, it’s a silent salesperson, a powerful way to send a message.

To start the year, we invited one of the world’s leading colour consultants to help us explore colour trends and the malleable nature of colour itself – how we perceive it, what we can do with it, and how REALTORS® can wield it to instill confidence in their clients.

Leatrice (Lee) Eiseman is Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute™ and Director of the Eiseman Center for Color Information and Technology. For more than 20 years, she’s been responsible for choosing the Pantone® Color of the Year, which has vastly influenced the worlds of fashion, interior design, product development, and beyond.

Visit LeatriceEiseman.com to explore Lee’s books on colour and online training courses.

Transcript

Erin Davis: Feeling blue, tickled pink, seeing red. Ever wonder why you feel the way you do about certain colours? Well, get ready for an episode full of colour psychology, and plenty of advice for REALTORS®. I’m Erin Davis, and welcome to REAL TIME, the podcast for REALTORS® brought to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association.

Erin: Now, on this episode, I’m joined by Leatrice Lee Eiseman, the executive director of the Pantone® Colour Institute. What colour trends can we expect to see this year? How does colour influence our behavior, and how can REALTORS® use colour to your advantage? Let’s ask the expert, shall we? Oh, welcome to REAL TIME, Lee. It’s so good to have you here today to kick off the new year with us. We so appreciate it.

Leatrice Eiseman: It’s my pleasure.

Erin: Ah, great. Now, we’ve got a fun question as we leap into this today. In broad strokes, not to use a painting pun right off the bat, but what is a day in the life of one of the world’s top colour specialists look like, especially around this time of the new year?

Leatrice: Well, I can tell you no day is like any other day because I never know what challenges I’m going to have. You know I am a colour consultant and so people consult with me. They want answers to questions and particularly with my clients, something can come up out of the blue and I have another question to answer. I have to do some research in order to answer it or it’s something I know because it’s specific to the work that I do.

I would say to you a typical day would start out with my reviewing. Obviously, my emails, has anybody written in anybody need any answers? I would then go to some of my colour consulting work, which I do with my daughter, who is also my associate, Beatrice. We are also teaching classes online. Even though these are online classes, I’m still available to the students to answer questions. We have to allocate time for the training. I work a lot with Pantone®, my major client, and do a lot of consulting for them as the director of the Pantone® Colour Institute.

I wear so many hats that I never know exactly unless I have a prescribed deadline. If I have a deadline, then I know I’ve got to allocate some time in order to pick out the appropriate colours for whatever that client needs. Be it in packaging or in graphics, whether it’s a fashion client or cosmetics or a widget that needs to go on a shopping market shelf. My work is full of challenges and that is part of what I really, really enjoy about doing colour consulting because you really have to put your thinking cap on and so many people think it’s so simplistic. Tell us what colour to use to improve productivity?

I get those kinds of questions all the time, and then I have to come back with, wait a minute, I need to ask you some questions in order to give you the answers. There’s a lot of homework involved. That’s a long-winded answer to your question, but it reflects what my days are like.

Erin: Well, it sounds like you probably do a lot of traveling too. You’re in your seat, you’ve had your first beverage, you’re just about to start reading your favorite new book, and somebody finds out what you do. Is there a question that a fellow traveler asks you more often than any other?

Leatrice: Yes, absolutely. I can be sitting next to the CEO of a big company who millions of dollars will come in or out as a result of the colour they’ve used, and they will have specific questions. Invariably what it boils down to is what colour should I paint my living room walls.

Leatrice: It’s become like a family joke. When I’m going off to wherever it is and I come home, my daughter will say, “Okay, who did you sit next to, and what did they ask?” Almost invariably it’s that same question. It really shows me that in the end, even though you make these amazing colour decisions about the widget or whatever, people are so involved with the colours that are around them. They don’t necessarily think that way. They don’t think that they are until they’re in a panic and then have to make a decision about what colour to paint those walls.

It becomes very personal. That also is a part of my work that I dearly love that finding out more about people when they share what they like or dislike about a colour.

Erin: Oh, and we’re going to dive into that. The psychology of it is just, oh, it’s so fascinating. Okay, Lee, have colour trends changed over the years? Their impact, their longevity, and so on? I don’t know. Have we always been this obsessed with colour?

Leatrice: I don’t think people have been this obsessed with colour. I think that what has happened is even though for many people who are creatives, designers, and artists, and people’s whose work involves colour or their hobbies or interests, but I do think what has happened with the proliferation of this global network that we started to hear about in the late ’80s and ’90s, and also television shows, the home improvement shows. I think what has happened now is that people will look at those shows or go online and they see much more information that’s out there about colour, more discussion about colour, and as a result, it’s opened up everybody’s consciousness and awareness about colour.

I have to tell you, even though we will probably talk about colour in the year further in this conversation, one of the reasons that I started to do the Colour of the Year for Pantone® was because we were getting calls from people, particularly at the end of the ’90s. People were emailing or calling Pantone® and asking, “What’s the colour of the new millennium?” We understood that we needed to come up with the colour to represent that. They were interested in that.

For me, the fascinating part of it was the psychological impact of that. Why are they asking that question? What does colour represent to them? What does the future hold as far as colour is concerned? I think that doing the Colour of the Year really started an in-depth conversation with people who never even thought about colour before.

I remember my husband coming home from the barber and he’s saying to me, “The barber said to me, it’s about that time that the Colour of the Year is going to be announced. What do you think the Colour of the Year is going to be?” That’s his barber. That’s not a designer, interior designer, or artist. This is an ordinary person. We started that conversation about colour. I think that since 1999 in particular, it has become a big hot topic.

Erin: I guess so. What a coup for Pantone® to have you and to be associated so closely now with the colour, the authoritative voice. That’s absolutely astounding. You were right there for the birth of it. That’s amazing, Lee. Could you have imagined at that time that this would become such a thing?

Leatrice: I didn’t realize that it would become such a thing right away, but as the years went by, I could see the momentum building and then again, dispensing itself through population, people that you would never think would have any access to information about the Colour of the Year, the ordinary person on the street that you could have a conversation with, and they would discuss the Colour of the Year.

It was just absolutely astounding that it would have the impact that it had. Of course, I’m delighted by it because if you can get a conversation going about colour, you can find out an awful lot about the person who’s sharing that information with you, and you can help them. The bottom line to me is to educate people about colour. That’s my passion.

Erin: Absolutely. You’re good at it, obviously, to be doing this now for 25 years. That’s incredible, in any line of business. To be doing it with something you feel passionate about, what a gift. What a gift.

Leatrice: Yes, this is.

Erin: Is it a bit of responsibility Lee, though? When you go out, I see your fuzzy peach and I will raise you a manicure because I went-

Leatrice: Ooh. I like it.

Erin: -to the manicurist. I said, “I’m going to be talking to this woman who knows from colour,” and she says, “It’s fuzzy peach for 2024, so I’d better get on it.” You can’t wear this crown lightly?

Leatrice: Well, no, I don’t take it lightly because I realize that a lot of people do listen to it and embrace it. For me, the challenge is for those people who might say, and the colour is Peach Fuzz, they might say, “Oh, I’m not so sure that I’m so crazy about that colour.” If you get into a conversation with them about it, you might find out, here I put on my therapist hat, and I say to them, “Well, was there anything in your childhood that you can remember about the colour? Anything negative perhaps that happened to you?”

Sometimes they can answer it right away. Sometimes they have to think about it a while and get back to you, but the answer could be, “Well, you know I remember when I was about four years old, I went to a carnival. It was my first carnival. I ate cotton candy. Oh, and I think it was that colour, and I ate too much of it and got sick on my way home and I’ve never liked peach fuzzy colours since then.”

My challenge becomes, particularly if you’re talking to someone who’s designing a new product, their personal interest, their personal likes and dislikes, can’t come into it. It’s a question of, is it going to appeal to your target audience. If peach fuzz is exactly the colour that I feel is going to work for that product, then you’ve got to wipe out these negatives that are in the back of your mind and think of it from a positive perspective.

My challenge is that happened when you were four years old. Does it have any effect on your life now? Does it impact your life at all? It’s an old memory that’s stored in your memory bank. It has nothing to do with you as an adult and certainly as a business decision.

Again, in my consultant/therapist hat, I try to lead people down the path of making a positive out of the negative because it is important to look at it objectively. Look at your decisions objectively. I tell my students all the time, it cannot be a personal decision. It has to be a professional decision.

Erin: It’s interesting that you talk about therapist/consultant hats that you wear, because I’m sure that every REALTOR® is going, “Yes, me too.” All of this just resonates so clearly and people’s preferences when it comes to colour and psychology. Let’s do a little bit of word association or colour association if we can. Lee, you’ve already brought up, and I called it fuzzy peach. Peach fuzz. Peach fuzz. I got to get to know this for the year ahead.

Some of the colours and associations that you find most commonly among your students, among your clients, the people that you meet when you’re walking down the street, or whatever during your daily?

Leatrice: Well, it’s interesting because from a historical perspective, and of course, I do study the history of colour, I have to in order to know where people’s thoughts and feelings came from. What were the influences in the world around us when they first formulated their opinions, where the public, in general, formulated their opinions? I do use colour word association studies. I’ve used them for a number of years, and we can track those studies and see if people’s opinions have changed.

Of course, the colour I love to point out all the time, particularly for REALTORS® because you find so much of this colour, whether it’s on the outside of the house or the inside of the house, and that is brown as a colour family. I can remember a time when we’d showed people a little swatch of Pantone® brown. Invariably the response would be earth, dirt, or dirty. Now that can be positive, or it can be negative. If they’re gardeners and they love that wonderful, rich humus soil, then brown’s a good thing.

Or they may come up with chocolate. Obviously, that’s a positive response. More often than not, it was about earth and more about kind of dirty. Over the years, what I saw primarily coming from the fashion world, cosmetic world, where a lot of the trends do start, there was this changing attitude about brown. That was, I can remember seeing a Michael Kors dress coming down the runway, sequins and paillettes and sparkle. You never saw this for after 5:00. Brown was strictly a country colour, not a city colour, so to speak. Worn for daytime, never for the evening.

Other designers hopped on the bandwagon, and they used brown in a very dressy way. Of course, when you ask people about brown from the standpoint of beautiful leather does brown leather remind you, even a faux leather that we might be using today that looks like leather has a rich patina on it. If you were to go into a home and you saw grandma’s armoire that’s been in the family for years and you’re never ever going to part with that armoire because it’s very special to you or any other piece of furniture. Or your new home has those wonderful wood floors with a nice shiny patina on them.

Somehow people don’t think of brown as a presence when it’s in a wood tone. They think of it if you mention it as a pigment or as a paint colour. What I think REALTORS® have to to bear in mind, in particular, is how and where a colour is used. What is the context of the colour? Let’s not just say, “Do you like brown? Do you dislike brown?” Let’s think about it in various ways it might be used in a home, and look in how rich, or how elegant or how earthy, in the case of doing something rustic, earthy would be a good term to use.

It’s no longer dirty. We don’t think of that wood patina on the floor as dirty unless it has a lot of dog hair on it. We want to get rid of that. We know about that.

Erin: Yes, we do.

Leatrice: Yes, we do, but on the other hand let’s think of the positive aspects of it. Even if you were to describe a home to a prospective client, what positive things can we say about that colour? Going back to brown for a moment in the fashion field, again, to supplement Michael Kors came the brown diamonds. That became a big deal. Nobody had ever seen or worn a brown diamond before.

Of course, the movie Chocolat came out about the same time that brown was gaining more momentum. That was a very artsy kind of film and had a lovely connotation. Even Godiva chocolates was no longer meant just for the elite. You could find Godiva in the corner store, in your supermarket. It was a little more pricey than some of the other chocolates were, but certainly worth it.

Your cosmetic companies started to come up with the usage of brown. Now of course, we see it even further supplemented as as a symbol of inclusion, of thinking in terms of all kinds of skin tones, and how some of the beautiful browns and mocha colours, the whole family of brown. We’ve developed a much different connotation of that colour. As a colour consultant and as a client talking to clients, I have to point out these things because they might be mired in a certain period, arrested in a certain period of their development where they don’t think in terms of these newer aspects of brown.

For anyone in the real estate field, I can tell you, when you’re talking about a person’s home, a home they want to purchase or they want to sell, it gets very emotional. You have to become, in a way, a colour consultant yourself in that they look to you for your advice and your knowledge. For me, knowledge is all important. Training yourself, teaching yourself as much as you can, reading as much as you can about colour, because it’s that guidance that helps your client develop confidence in you and your awareness level, and you’re making them more aware as well.

Erin: I want to talk about peach fuzz, and this is the way that you described it. You said that this year’s colour choice echoes our innate yearning for closeness and connection at colour radiant with warmth and modern elegance. A shade that resonates with compassion offers a tactile embrace, and effortlessly bridges the youthful with the timeless.

I agree with that. Of course, I do because you know exactly what you’re talking about, but it seems to be such a lane change from what the colour was in 2023, which was so. It was warm and passionate and just so sexy. Let’s talk about what was, what is, and how you get from ’23 to ’24, Lee.

Leatrice: Well, the most important thing in deciding on the Colour of the Year is what is the global zeitgeist about the colour. Listening to people they’re telling us what it is that they want. What are their aspirations? What are their hopes? That’s a very, very important points arriving at a colour decision.

That ability to listen, to absorb what is happening in the world around you.

Now, we certainly know there’s a lot of concern about our world today, a lot of reasons to be concerned. The Viva magenta, which is an appropriate name for the colour, we felt coming out of COVID, we could feel a little more confident. At the time we were thinking about naming the colour, which is always about six months before we actually do it, we start to gather our, like squirrels, we gather our little nuts and kernels that lead us to the Colour of the Year.

We knew that we were on a pathway to come out of COVID, so people didn’t want to be sequestered. They wanted to be with others. They wanted a reason to celebrate. What is more celebratory as a colour than Viva Magenta? Even the sound of it, Viva, it’s full of life. It’s full of energy. That we felt needed to be infused and now people are telling us, “Okay, we need some quiet time.” We need time to ourselves, we need time to communicate with others, but not necessarily let’s party, party, party, but let’s do it on a more thoughtful level. I think thoughtfulness, kindness, these kinds of words, kept coming back to us again and again and again.

As I said, that’s the first area that we look at. Now, of course, from a more practical standpoint, we have to look at what the designers are doing, what they’re bringing down the runways, what the cosmetic world is doing, because that’s always very indicative of direction. At one point in time, we did not look at industrial design at all, because industrial designers were always at the bottom of the list of designers as to who they would embrace or what they would embrace.

In the world of electronics, in particular, or the computers themselves, it was putty-coloured. Nobody ever did colour until Apple came along, as we know what happened in the late ’90s, and they still didn’t sell as many as PCs, but I will tell you, nobody who lived through that era will ever forget the impact of those amazing, colourful computers.

People did start to look at industrial design and think, “Oh my goodness, there’s an area where colour is being used too, in mundane products we wouldn’t have thought of in colour.” As a colourist, one of the other areas that I look at, and people always think this is a head-scratcher, I look at what the concept cars are for the future because we know that the vehicle manufacturers have all of this marvelous technology that’s available to them to test out new finishes, and new finishes help to bring new colours. We’re always looking ahead to see what’s on the drawing board.

It’s not what’s in the showroom today, but what the future holds. That’s an area that we look at as well. We look at what’s happening in the world of sports. Is the Olympics going to be held next year? What country? What are the flags of the country? What are the uniform colours that might be worn? Anything that might indicate to us where colour is going from a technological standpoint, from a fashion standpoint, graphic design, packaging, anybody doing anything new in packaging that really is different and unusual, what colours are they using?

What about the art world and the entertainment world? Certainly, we don’t look at the movies that are coming out today, but we’re looking at the movies that are going to be released next year. People all over the world are going to be watching those films. What colours are being used in the film? Are they animated films? I always tell adults, by the way, even if you don’t have a kid, borrow one to go to movies and look at the animated films because that tells you a lot. Film animators are so marvelous in looking to the future, and they have the technology available to them now that enables them to put colours up on the screen that are so wonderfully intense.

It doesn’t have to be a bright colour. It can be something like a neutral tone that they show us, a nuance of a colour that perhaps we hadn’t seen before. Is it a gray? Is it a blue? Is it somewhere in between? We’re constantly educating ourselves about direction, but we have all of these areas to look at and to do a lot of homework in.

Erin: Wow. I’m trying, in my mind’s eye to picture choosing the colour. You went with Viva Magenta and everybody knew Barbie was coming out in 2023. Was there a tie in there, Lee, or was that strictly luck?

Leatrice: During the time that the movie came out, it certainly was a big deal and it’s certainly not totally gone away. We wanted something that would have a bit more adult energy that would be involved in it. We wanted that same excitement. We were on the same track and thinking in terms of a colour family, but we felt that Barbie pink would be perhaps a little bit too obvious and maybe be perceived of as a little too juvenile. We always want our colour to be rather ageless so that it could appeal to all ages again, depending on the context in which it’s used.

Erin: When you talk about peach fuzz, and when I brought this up at the nail salon where all the good conversations happen or your husband’s barbershop, of course, there’s a thought of, “Wow, it’s back.” Of course, it was a thing, and I remember my mom having throw pillows and a couch and stuff that had some peach in it. Is there a lifespan for colour, Lee? Do you look at it because we see things come back, like shoulder pads in fashion, for example, and different elements in the home as well that come back, like retro appliances or things like that?

Do colours have a lifespan that will come back? Will we see Millennium Blue again? Which of course we can tell now is 24 years old. What do you think of that?

Leatrice: At one point, we could talk about the longevity of a colour. We could rate colour from the standpoint of if you looked at just general likes and dislikes you would find that perhaps orange and some of our colours like bright lime greens and some of the purples were never considered the most popular colours. Invariably blue is at the top of the list. We know that, but there are many variations of blue. What blue are we talking about?

To answer your question, even though you read occasionally or see online or you hear somebody say, “Oh, trends happen so quickly.” Actually, I think it’s the opposite. I think that trends are lasting longer now in colour than they ever have before. One of the reasons for that is that we’re dealing multi-generationally when you’re looking at the younger audience, the kids, who were not even living when avocado green, harvest gold were the good colours. Remember that? Nobody wanted to touch those colours in the ’80s because we were so inundated with those same colours.

Erin: Traumatized.

Leatrice: Colour traumatized. I like that. I might use that again. Absolutely. Now, what you’re seeing is that colours have a longer shell place. I’ll point out the yellow-green as a perfect example. Now, when we started to look at green as a Colour of the Year many years ago, obviously we were looking at the social implications of the colour.

If you say nature to people, if you say ecology, if you say environment and you say colour, almost invariably green is one of the first colours that comes to mind. The preservation of the environment, preserving the world around us. Now, we could think in terms of other earth colours, too. Green somehow implies a freshness and implies growth, new growth. Spring comes every year, and we see those new shoots coming out of the ground. We know that’s always going to happen.

It gives us a feeling of something that’s hopeful with that yellow-green. Now, at one time, it was not as popular a colour. It was considered garish. It’s too bright. Now, we look at that colour as being more closely associated with nature and with preserving nature. Again, it’s what’s happening in the world around us. What social implications, what environmental implications are there, geographic implications? That has to be brought into play as far as choosing a Colour of the Year or–

I work a lot on forecasts, both for the home, for interiors and exteriors. A lot of my clients are clients who are building homes or communities and choosing colours. I have to look at it from the standpoint of not just the geography of the area that we’re in, but what are the implications of that colour now? Is it thought of more positively? I would have to say to you that the yellow-greens, I would say in the last 10 to 15 years, have been more wildly popular than any other time in history. A lot of that is because of the connection to the preservation of the universe, if not our planet.

Erin: All right, let’s talk about homes. Often when we look at homes, I know in my case, if I’m looking at a whole bunch of them, and that’s usually the way it goes, I’ll go, “Okay, the blue house or red kitchen house or.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a red kitchen, but who knows? You know what I mean. I will associate the colour with a house. What about people like you talk, you said with builders and that sort of thing and we all associate new homes a lot with builder beige or very light gray or something like that. What is your advice to people who are looking to make an impact but not scream a colour?

Leatrice: That’s a very good question. It’s a question I get a lot. Obviously, I mentioned the geographic location. You don’t want to be the purple lady who paints the house purple if the neighborhood is filled with other earth tones. Obviously, the neighbors aren’t going to be very happy with that. Let’s say that purple is a favorite colour, obviously, for us it’s obvious, not obvious to everyone depending on how fanatic you are about a colour, if you love a colour, like a purple think in terms of the purple family. There are many different shades of purple. Everything from an elegant eggplant or the the French call it aubergine way down to the mauves and the lilacs and the grade of lavender-ish purples. There’s a whole range and if that’s a colour that makes you happy, there’s opportunities to use that colour within the home.

Now, we obviously think of the accent colours, the pillows, the accent carpet, and perhaps something in a painting or a poster on the wall. Many opportunities, a lampshade wherever. I think that it’s a really important if you’re selling the home to do something that’s a little memorable so that when people are looking at a lot of houses as perspective buys you are right. They will leave that home and think, “Oh, that’s the house that had the red toaster and those appliances in the kitchen.” It makes it more memorable.

I think that there is a case to be made for making the home more memorable so that when the prospective buyer leaves there is something they can tag onto that house that makes them remember the house. Now, it doesn’t mean that you’ve got to repaint all the walls in that particular colour. I like to point out there are other areas as well, like for example the front door for curb appeal. If everybody else has a brown wooden door and maybe you want to make it a little more elegant, maybe your home is a little more traditional and you want to set the stage before you even open that door. Perhaps aubergine is the colour to use on that front door. Perhaps and certainly we know that we want to doll up the front of the house for curb appeal. Perhaps it’s in the plants that sit on the front porch or on the front steps. Something that you can do in your landscaping around the outside of the house that will make it more memorable.

Oh, do remember those purple hydrangeas, how gorgeous they were against the house? Those memorable things.

I’m not suggesting that it has to be a bright knock-your-socks-off colour but I will say this about paint and I think it’s really important to bear in mind, everybody’s mindful about how much is it going to cost me. I don’t want to have to pull up the carpeting and replace it. That’s going to cost too much.

What about the entryway? What if I did one wall in the entry in that wonderful new Peach Fuzz colour, which is very warm and inviting? I want people to leave my house saying, “Oh, that’s a very warm house. That’s an inviting house. A feeling of nurturing of possibly using that colour in a bathroom because it throws a good light on the skin.

There are those opportunities to use colour, and it doesn’t have to be brilliant colour, that’s not what I’m suggesting, but finding a spot, the right place to use it, to make the house more memorable and to leave people with the right impression. As I always like to say, and I’ve already mentioned, if people leave your home and they say, “Oh, warm, inviting, I felt welcome in that atmosphere,” then let’s think about that in terms of what we might use in the colours for that house.

Erin: Such great advice, Lee. When we’re talking about, say, a development that’s got a school nearby and parks, and you’re going to aim at the young family, for example, is there such a thing as staging that might appeal to certain buyers?

Leatrice: As far as young families are concerned, I think you need to think in terms of your area. The obvious thing is that there have been a lot of the gray walls, and of course, the black and white and a lot of it’s being shown on television shows and inspiration online. The problem with that is that they all wind up looking very much alike. There’s that memorability that disappears again.

Now, I say to people that live in a particular home, if you love the country atmosphere and you have decorated in country, now country also conjures up certain ideas. It can be over countryfied with too many home sweet homes all over the walls. At the same time, I think younger people today are a bit more sophisticated in their tastes but at the same time, they may find something memorable in something that they own. Maybe grandma’s house was a favorite place to go when they were children and grandma had blue willow china that was in her china cabinet and you want a few pieces of that because it reminds you of your lovely grandma who you dearly love, and you want to introduce that colour scheme, but you don’t want to do it so that it’s overdone. That’s the suggestion I give.

I think that REALTORS® have to become, anyone who is involved in the sale of houses or putting a house on the market, you have to become a colour consultant, too. I mentioned that earlier, and I think it’s important to question the would-be buyer or the would-be seller. What is there about your home that speaks to you? What is the message that you would want to give across, particularly in buying a home? What are you looking for? That’s the advice that you could give to the person who’s putting the house on the market.

Just a few pieces, not a whole wall of grandma’s china, but a few touches of that that bring back some of that nostalgia but is not overdone. I never say to people, “Oh, that’s so yesterday.” Maybe the mauve carpeting was done several years back, but it’s still in good condition. Maybe now with the mauve, we’re going to use some other tones next to it. Maybe we’re going to use some blue-greens instead of the usual kinds of colours that you would use with the mauve.

Here’s your educational aspect that I was talking about earlier, of REALTORS® being aware that there’s a great deal to learn about colour, and you should get the books, get the magazines, look online, take some colour training. All of this is helpful because the more you know about colour and the more you can pass on to your clients, the more confident they become in your abilities. Now, I’m being redundant, I said it before, but I’m a teacher at heart, and I believe that learning more about a subject makes you more valuable as a salesperson.

Erin: As you talk about therapist, consultant, there’s also a little bit of decorator in there, too, because one of your messages that I love too, is that if you want to inject a little bit of colour, like I see you’ve got the Peach Fuzz on and I picked up a scarf. I haven’t put it on yet, but I almost did for you today, Lee. Just eclectic, as you’ve said.

Again, it’s not a magic bullet. It can be an eye dropper of the colour that brings in the feeling of 2024 and Peach Fuzz and what you’re trying to, but not trying too hard, to send us a message if I’m getting your message correctly here today.

Leatrice: Yes, absolutely. I like your usage of the word eye dropper and also the word eclectic, because eclectic is a keyword today, meaning that you don’t have to be so super conscious of everything being absolutely matchy, matchy. That it’s okay to have a more traditional setting and to use a lucite coffee table in front of that wonderful cushy sofa. That you don’t have to be as concerned about periods now, but what’s more important is getting the essential feeling that you want get across. That you have a room that perhaps is rather dark, doesn’t have a lot of light coming into it, small windows, the first thing to think about is how to enlarge that space to make that a more welcoming space.

I will share with you a tip that was given to me by a famous decorator in New York, many years ago. I’ve never forgotten it. I thought it was so brilliant. That was, if you have a room that’s small and it doesn’t have a lot of light, the obvious thing is to paint it with a light colour. I will tell you; it doesn’t necessarily have to work that way.

Let’s say it’s a small powder room or a bathroom that you’re not going to– you don’t live in that room, you’re going to walk in and out, use it, and then come out and do whatever else. Sometimes a bit of drama is something to add too. I have never had a powder room in any home that I’ve ever had that I don’t paint some deep dramatic colour because I know that people are going to walk into that and say, “Wow, I wouldn’t have thought of doing a room in this dark colour.”

Again, think context, a room that doesn’t have any light coming in, but it has electric light so that you can see, let’s stretch your imagination a bit and not do just the obvious. At the same time, getting back to the designer who said to me in a small room let’s do the ceiling in blue. I thought, “Wow, why?” He said, “Because blue is the sky–

Erin: Wow.

Leatrice: -and because it opens us up to the universe and it makes us feel more connected with the outdoors, the outside.” Same reason for using green plants in a room. Not only does it help as far as oxidation is concerned, or oxygenation, I should say, but it also brings in a sense of balance.

Now, there is something called homeostasis in interior design that I think is a really important point. Again, I teach it in my classes. Homeostasis is a fancy word for balance. That is that a room should never be decorated in totally warm colours or totally cool colours because you need a balance. Your temperature needs to be regulated in a given space. If you walk into a room that has mostly warm colours in it, and a lot of people would prefer that in a home, be sure that you bring some green plants in. Be sure there’s some touch of blue-green or bluish-lavender, something from the opposite side of the colour wheel because that helps to give you balance. It keeps your homeostasis on a human level at a good point.

Conversely, we don’t ever want to do a room that’s all done in cool colours because then we’re going to start to feel cold. Nobody wants to leave a home and say, “Oh, I felt chilled in that home. It’s so cold.” That’s never a compliment. I’m not saying don’t use cool colours because they are. Blue is highly preferred, but what shade of blue are we going to use? Is it going to be a Periwinkle Blue as we did two years ago as the Colour of the Year, very peri that has a little red in it, a little purplish tone, and it warms that blue up.

We don’t have to say, “Don’t ever use blue because it’s cold.” We might say, “Let’s warm that blue up a little bit. “Again, it’s educating yourself to the usage of colour and not overgeneralizing about don’t use this, don’t use that. Always think of it in context in terms of where the home is, where the space is, how are you using the colour?

Erin: Oh, there’s so much wisdom here. Lee, honestly, we could go on. As we wrap up, I think part of the message that we’ve gotten from you and from Pantone® through the years is that, you know what? There’s more than one colour on that paint chip, and it doesn’t have to be that Peach Fuzz. It can be any of the ones in the family. I think that’s really important to remember too.

You’ve mentioned this in branding for companies and for REALTORS® who have a company or their own partnership or whatever. If you want to freshen up the colours, not to throw the baby out with the bath water, but maybe to look at another colour in the family and keep your basic colour, but just expand on it, grow, let it blossom.

Leatrice: Exactly. It’s a very, very well-made point. You don’t want to throw the baby out with bath water. You have equity if you’re doing branding in a particular colour, you’ve established it over the years. You’ve developed a reputation around it. Nevertheless, we want to freshen it up a little bit to a new pair of eyes. Again, you mentioned that younger generation that might be purchasing that product or that home, whatever it would be.

Let’s give it a fresher approach. That’s taking a look at the colours you already have and using a nuance of that colour.

There’s also something else that I would like to mention, that is that there are a group of colours called crossovers that we see in nature around us frequently. As a result, they are very versatile colours. It’s important to think in terms of versatility, and that is something that I teach in my classes as well. As a matter of fact, right now I’m working on a program that we are going to offer online to people who want more knowledge about colour in interiors. They don’t want to be overwhelmed. It’s not all about colour theory which can make you crazy after a while, but it’s the most basic ideas, the most basic concepts about colour. I go back to the idea of educating yourself, keeping yourself aware of what’s going on in the world of colour.

Erin: Thank you. Thank you for educating us, enlightening us, colouring our world. We so appreciate your time and your wisdom today, Lee. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, one more thing. I can’t let you go. Just while it’s us, what’s going to be the colour for 2025?

Leatrice: Oh, you know I can’t tell you that.

Erin: Oh, I can’t ask.

Leatrice: I can’t reveal it. Honestly–

Erin: Colour me blushing.

Leatrice: –we’re still doing our homework. We’re not anywhere near there yet.

Erin: Oh, I’d love to be in on the think tank. Thank you so much for opening everything to us here today. Take care. Well, I tried. Okay. Thanks, Lee. Happy New Year.

Leatrice: Thank you, Erin.

Erin: Okay.

Leatrice: Bye-bye.

Erin: Wasn’t she great? Colour consultant extraordinaire, Lee Eiseman. Wow. I was tickled Peach Fuzz to learn that our perceptions of colour can actually change. I absolutely loved what Lee said about eclecticism in the home, so fascinating. If you want to learn more about colour trends and psychology, whether it’s for yourself or for your business, Lee’s got you covered. She has authored 10 books on the subject and has a handful of courses available through her website, leatriceeiseman.com, and you can find it in our show notes.

REAL TIME is brought to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association, CREA. Production is courtesy of Alphabet® Creative with tech support from Rob Whitehead. If you want more real estate resources, tools, and insights, just visit us anytime at CREA.ca. If you liked this episode, we hope you did, there’s more where it came from. We’re inviting you to explore all of our REAL TIME episodes, all bringing you trusted, inspiring perspectives on all things Canadian real estate.

Would you do us a favor? Don’t forget to like, subscribe, rate, or review. We really appreciate it. I’m your host, Erin Davis. Thank you so much for joining us and we’ll talk to you again soon on REAL TIME.

Erin Davis: This is Real Time, the podcast for and about realtors, brought to you by CREA, the Canadian Real Estate Association. I’m Erin Davis, proud to be your host, and I’m so glad you’re here because we’ve got a great conversation for you today in Episode 45. For all its opportunities, working in real estate comes with its share of demands, from long hours to quick turnarounds. Continuing our Working Realtor series, this episode highlights the importance of finding balance, not just for the sake of your health, but to reconcile your hard work with a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

You’re going to hear advice and insight from three members of the realtor community who have made it their mission to find balance: Crystal Hung, a 2023 Canadian Realtors Care Award nominee and the owner of Icon & Co, Peggy Hill, broker and CEO at the Peggy Hill team, and Darren German, a realtor with the German Group and Director-at-Large with the Canadian Real Estate Association.

Welcome to Real Time, everyone. We’re so thrilled to have you with us this month. We’re going to start with a quick round of introductions, who you are, where you’re from, and what drew you to working in real estate. We’re going to start out, let’s start in the east and with Peggy. Hi, Peggy.

Peggy Hill: I’m Peggy Hill. I am located in Barrie, Ontario, in Simcoe County. I have a small team of 60 realtors that I run here. What drew me to real estate initially was that someone lied to me and told me that it’s flexible hours and I can make a lot of money doing very little.

Erin: All right. We’ll find out what version of the truth that turned into as time went on. Crystal, tell us about yourself.

Crystal Hung: Hello, everyone. I am Crystal Hung. I am from the beautiful British Columbia. I work in the Greater Vancouver market. What drew me to real estate was really a love for architecture and design and business. I grew up with an architect father and my mom was a chef. Between those two professions, I found real estate.

Erin: Here you are owning three brokerages. Wow. What a story. Darren, what’s your story?

Darren German: I’m down in beautiful Surrey, British Columbia. Like many, I had a father who was in real estate. Coming from the restaurant industry, came home one day, and he was in the kitchen making lunch and dressed really nice. I had recognized he was on the phone, he had freedom of time, a professional industry, social industry, and just was really intrigued by that. I decided I would, like so many, give it a try and see what happened.

Erin: I think we can all agree there’s a unique brand of work ethic that is required in this profession. The question for you all and each of you, what strategies have helped you work smarter, not harder, when you’re starting to feel the burn? We will begin with you, please, Crystal.

Crystal: Strategies. I think it’s about knowing your constraints. Like any other business, any stores, there is a limited time of which the business is open. As a realtor, as much as we like to be on the go 24/7, we really can’t do that. Having a constraint and knowing what makes you happy was really one of the first things I did in my first year. I looked at who I was working with. I drew smiley faces when they made me happy. From that, I really found what was really making me happy and eliminated what was not making me happy.

There’s lots of things that don’t make us happy. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just really having the ability to track where things are at and having a conversation with yourself. I think over time, you just find balance and merge your lifestyle with your work.

Erin: Through something as simple as your homemade emojis, you were able to determine that running the business aspect was really what fulfilled Crystal. Am I right?

Crystal: Yes. Very early on, I realized there was this consistency in my business, which was I was really good at doing commercial deals. I was really good with developers. I love talking to my managing brokers and would go up to them and say certain things are not working. I was really drawn to the operational side of things. I think it enabled me to look at real estate as a career holistically. and find my niche in what I do now. It started with the smiley faces.

Erin: Very good. Peggy, what strategies helped you work smarter, not harder, when you’re starting to feel the burn?

Peggy: I think in the beginning of my career, I think, like most people, we just work. There’s no harder, smarter. There’s nothing. We just work. I think the longer you’re in this business, the more you learn and you realize that there are certain aspects of the business that you’re not great at and that other people can help you with. However, I think that comes with time, and it comes with patience, and it comes with money to be able to hire the right people to help you.

In the beginning, I honestly don’t think I had a lot of balance. I think I was just doing it all and terrified to say no because it was the beginning of my career. Then, I met the right people, I got the right admin staff, I had buyers agents that helped me control my time and open windows for me. I think that’s where the balance came in after, but it wasn’t in the early days, I’ll tell you that.

Erin: I found it interesting in learning about you too, Peggy, is that like Darren, you came from a restaurant industry. We know Crystal is steeped in architecture, which of course is a beautiful segue into real estate. You started out in the restaurant business, which can be extremely difficult, and then you segued into real estate. That must have been a really big change for you. All of a sudden, it feels like you’re making money, and it’s hard to pull back from that.

Peggy: It’s very difficult when you’re making money because restaurant businesses are not always lucrative. They teach you how to work hard, for sure. However, I got into real estate, and all of a sudden, I’m getting paid for my time. That’s the one thing I had to come to terms with that it’s okay to accept payment for my time and for my expertise and my knowledge because I was no longer handing people food.

I’m grateful for all the years that I spent in the restaurant business because it taught me people. At the end of the day, we’re in the people business. No matter what business you’re in, I think the importance is the people.

Darren: Peggy said it really well. Whether it’s in the restaurant industry or helping people buy and sell one of their most valuable assets, we have a responsibility to really deliver on the expectations. One of the great ways to deliver on those expectations is to be very clear with our clients about what we can do and what we can’t do, and also how we’re going to perform our roles as their stewards of their transaction.

Personally, having a team of three helping me behind the scenes, I don’t have to do everything. Knowing where my limitations are, and also where my time is better spent to be productive, rather than just busy. As an example, I could check email first thing in the morning, or I could have somebody help me check email first thing in the morning, so I can move on to bigger and better things to really assist my clients.

That all sounds great. Sometimes it takes a lot of willpower to really be able to do that. In our business, we really try to augment technology to help keep us all honest, whether that’s software that helps with scheduling, as an example, where people can see directly into your calendar and book things in that only you allow for ahead of time and can’t book things in that you don’t allow for ahead of time, or whether it’s in your voicemail saying that your phone is off at a certain time in the evening, or you’re not available on a certain day or text auto responders.

There’s so many ways that you can really help keep that balance so you don’t come to that point of where you start to feel burnt out and not being able to deliver again on those expectations that are so important to deliver to our clients.

Erin: Name drop what you use for your calendar tech. I think we can all use tips. I’m sure that a lot of people use the one that you use.

Darren: Yes, there’s various programs out there. The one that’s my favorite is certainly Calendly. I find it the most user-friendly for both sides, not only for the professional side, but also for the consumer as well. Definitely a great option to check out.

Peggy: I also live and die by my calendar. Everyone knows that I’ll do whatever my calendar says. If they want me to show up somewhere, they’ll just put it in there. I also want to give people permission as newer realtors to not feel badly about saying yes all the time because we’ve all done it. We’ve all said yes. Even now, I struggle with no, but I’m in a very different position than I was when I first got my real estate license. I definitely live and die by my calendar.

Sometimes blocking those times out, people don’t have the opportunity to put something in there. You don’t even know that you’ve said no. I found that helped.

Erin: Yes. You have voiced a regret that you had back when your three kids were at home. I think that it’s poignant to bring that up because so many people are dealing with it on the regular.

Peggy: For sure. I think a lot of times we want to do the best job possible. This job is so time-consuming. When it’s your passion, and you want to do right by people, and you want to be the best you can be, it’s very difficult to say no. Then you look at your watch, and it’s seven o’clock, and you haven’t gone home yet. I think if I had to do it over again with three small kids, I think I could have better time-blocked my time.

I could have not taken calls at dinnertime. Just time-blocked time that was specifically for them. Then people would understand. They don’t want to understand, but they will understand. They will wait for you. It’s really tough as a new realtor to say no and to know that there’s going to be more coming your way.

Erin: Crystal, you’re also a fan of Calendly. Tell us about that.

Crystal: I’m a fan of technology. We try to automate parts of our business. Not all of it. It’s not possible. Calendly, for example, for us, we’ve used it to help realtors with too many leads and too many calls where they’re overwhelmed. It’s not only a great tool to allow people to see what your availabilities are, but it’s also a great way to automate some parts of the business so you’re not on the phone all the time coordinating appointments that really can be done by a tool.

Just to piggyback on Peggy’s comments on saying yes, I think a lot of us got here today by saying yes to things that were difficult and challenging. I think there comes a point in time where you have to realize what are some of the things that you’re really good at and drop some of the things you’re not good at and refer it out and learn from other people.

Erin: You even do something as important as blocking off time for your lunch, and yet you use those two hours to also do something that’s enriching for yourself and ultimately for your business, Crystal.

Crystal: Yes, I’m a fan of doing two things at once, like most realtors are. Yes, I started with no appointments. When you start, you have nothing. I book appointments with myself to set my goals in the morning and make phone calls in the late mornings. Then I have two-hour lunch where I invite people to have lunch with me. Really realizing that you can both enjoy your lunch and have meaningful business conversations was one of my first discoveries in having a really balanced life, is just really blocking off two hours for lunch. If I feel like having lunch with myself, I’ll do that. If I feel like I have space to meet a client, I will do so. It’s worked out.

Erin: Darren, tell us about your philosophy of taking control of your calendar. If you don’t have scheduling software, you can call the client and lay it out. Tell us about that.

Darren: Yes, it’s really hard sometimes to impose all the great ideas that we want to– the standards, I guess, that we want to live up to in our business. When the rubber meets the road, sometimes that’s easier said than done. There’s little things that you can do to still take control of your time. An example of that would be that you can be very proactive in planning your week or your time that you’re actually going to spend with clients.

As an example, if a buyer that’s actively looking for a property, rather than waiting for them to call you about the newest and greatest home to go take a look, well, why not book a set appointment a day or two out so everyone knows what and when you’re going to be meeting. You can go ahead and look at the property then instead of being reactive and maybe being requested to go look at it at dinnertime. Another example of that would be maybe offering different times. You could say, “How is tomorrow at two o’clock,” or, “Is Friday at four o’clock better?”

It’s amazing when you give people those options, how they will then bend to help you succeed in maintaining your calendar rather than you succumbing to the most available times that they might offer, even if it’s just on a whim.

Erin: When we return with Crystal Hung, Peggy Hill, and Darren German talking leadership, whether you’re solo or part of a team. Have you pulled up a virtual chair in the CREA Café today? It’s the place to catch up on the latest news from the Canadian Real Estate Association. Bring yourself up to speed on legal matters, tech, and all of the elements that keep you on top of what matters to you. Visit creacafe.ca.

Now back to our three guests from the realtor community: Peggy Hill, Crystal Hung, and Darren German on Real Time. Let’s move it into the talk of leadership now on Real Time. Of course, we are keeping in mind that we have individual realtors who are working for themselves and, of course, their clients. About the leadership aspect of the conversation, Peggy, for example, you have more than 50 people who have your name on their business card. How do you balance the responsibility of leading a team with your own professional growth and achievements as a broker and CEO?

Peggy: I guess part of the beauty of having 50 people under my banner is that I’m not actively selling anymore. I think I found my lane, and it was very difficult to step away from the selling, especially to take that leap of faith and to believe that other people can hold what you hold dear, and they can be as great as you are in front of a client. That sometimes is an issue with realtors is we get our ego fed by our clients telling us how great we are. It’s not exactly the easiest thing to give up.

However, I just found different passions. Now I’m the rainmaker. That’s my responsibility. My responsibility is to be financially responsible. My responsibility is to be the name out in our community and to make sure that I am the person that I say I am. It isn’t easy, either, especially being the face of this company. It was never intentional. It’s just back in the day, you were only allowed to call your team by your name. It’s a lot. It really is a lot, but I love it.

My realtors are my family. It’s not hard for me to put their needs in the front and realize this is what they need. Because I’m able to stay back at the office, I can look at trends. I know what’s happening with this market. When you’re on the road as a working realtor, sometimes you don’t even have time to check your phone for your emails. I have the luxury of staying back and being their backup. When we meet, that’s what I do.

This is what I tell them. This is what you need to know. This is what’s happened. It works well for us. Again, it’s having other people’s needs ahead of your own and knowing what they need.

Erin: That’s a maturity, Darren, that you talk about in terms of what Peggy has to say. What makes a strong leader in your books?

Darren: A strong leader is, to me, really anticipating the needs of the people that you’re leading. If you think of the word leading, it stems from the word lead. When it comes to our clients, they’re hiring us to lead them towards the result that they’re striving for. Our job is to help them get there, as almost like a child-parent relationship where they’re just watching you and wanting to know what the next step is and what the next move is because it’s unfamiliar territory to them.

Whether it’s with your clients or maybe it’s with other realtors or members of your team, they’re revolving around you because they know that you’re going to help get them to the destination that they most want to get to. Leadership comes with a lot of good, and it comes with a lot of challenge as well. It comes with things like sacrifice and added responsibility and added risk. The benefits of that are the rewards, like both personal and in business.

It comes with lots of opportunity, a sense of accomplishment. Being a true leader is just really being that shining North Star for others and giving the example of what’s possible, helping them grow and succeed to get to where they want to go.

Erin: Crystal, how about you?

Crystal: I think the term team building is almost too trendy right now. I think it’s perfectly fine if one realtor has a team of professionals helping them. That could be notary, it could be inspectors, it could be lawyers, it could be mortgage brokers. Having that team around you as one realtor is so essential. A lot of us are leading teams, but as a leader of my team and my companies, I don’t see my job as to do their job. I see my job as really to craft a vision to help them see where we’re all going collectively.

That’s really what I focus on, is really communicating what that vision looks like. Whether it’s a vision for one client selling a home or a developer selling a project, crafting that vision is the first thing I do. When that’s done and clear in my head, I spend most of my day conveying that vision to my team.

Erin: You’re more of a conductor, arranger, as opposed to saying to the first violinist, “Move, you’re not playing those notes exactly as I would like them to be played or as how I would play them.” You are instead overseeing the whole symphony to make the company work, whether it’s just you, the soloist out there on the stage, or whether it’s an entire orchestra.

Crystal: 100%. I think that’s the perfect analogy. We do actually talk about theater production a lot in my team. We have to practice, we have to get the lighting right. We have to get, in our case, the furniture right. We have to get our photography right. It’s really that organization of chaos that comes together that delivers results for clients. I really don’t think that our job is to do everything. If you look at what our clients’ needs are, it’s over 200 tasks.

There’s no way one person can do it all. If you have the space in your heart to lead a team of realtors, and that might be your path, but if you’re just one realtor, you want flexibility, you don’t want to attach to anyone, you could have a partner that you call on demand to work on things together, if it makes sense. It doesn’t always have to be a full-time team that works together forever. It’s perfectly fine if you just have a part-time team.

Erin: Peggy, when you began, teams weren’t really a thing, were they?

Peggy: 20 years ago, when I started selling real estate, there were no teams. There wasn’t a roadmap for me to get there or even to think that I wanted a team. I had no aspirations to run a team. I was on the path to just want to feed my kids. What happened was I just started getting too busy. When I would roll my eyes, when the phone would ring, I thought to myself, this is not the experience I want for my clients. This is me dodging phone calls. This is wrong.

After getting some admin support, and that’s when I hired my first buyer’s agent, then my second, maybe my third. Then I had someone come with me to listing appointments because those are obviously the last things you give up. That person came with me for almost two years and learned everything I said and delivered to the client the way I wanted it delivered. Then that person showed that person. I’m sure there’s different ways to do this, but again, I did not have a roadmap on how to get here. I was just trying to do a good job.

Erin: How did it feel, Peggy, when you would sit in front of one of your team members and say, “You made that happen”? How did that feel as someone who used to be the one that could tell themselves, give themselves that pat on the back?

Peggy: In the beginning, when one of your team members sells a home, and you weren’t part of it– because we all know there’s a lot of great highs and a lot of low lows in this business. One of the greatest accomplishments is helping somebody buy and sell a home. When you’re no longer involved in that, it’s a hit to the ego at first, being completely transparent. It was a little tough to get used to, but then when you look at the bigger picture and how you’re able–

I truly believe our team, we care a lot. I’m not saying others don’t, but we just have a special way of doing things. I feel like the community would suffer without us. Now I can affect so many more people and help so many more people. Again, it did not start off as me wanting a team. Didn’t even know what that was.

Erin: When we come back, we talk about this being the season of giving, but for realtors, as you well know, that’s a year round thing. We’ll explore that. We hope you’re enjoying this conversation. Part of our Working Realtors series. If you missed an episode, no problem. Make sure you subscribe. There are 44 other great, insightful, and entertaining real-time chats just waiting for you to enjoy, with a whole bunch more in store. Listen on your favorite app. Thank you for making Real Time the go-to podcast for realtors in Canada who are on the move and at and on their way to the top.

Just like our guests today, Peggy Hill, broker and CEO of Barrie Ontario’s Peggy Hill team, Darren German, a realtor with the German Group in Surrey and director-at-large with CREA, and Crystal Hung, owner of Icon & Co, named to Business in Vancouver’s 40 Under 40 list in 2021. While we’re talking about helping others, it’s a perfect segue into the additional time that you have all three committed in some way or another to broadening your impact, not just on your community, but, Darren, in your case, the country as well, putting more on yourself to give more of yourself.

Darren, you’ve held various positions on local, provincial, and national boards and committees, currently a director-at-large with CREA. What draws you to the governance side of real estate? How do you balance your own business interests with serving the real estate community-at-large?

Darren: It’s a great story. Like so many volunteers have, I stumbled my way into it through the great mentorship, and coming off our conversation on leadership, of some of the great leaders in my life. It is incredibly addictive for all the right reasons. You get to meet incredible people. That’s not just from organized real estate, but even people that you might not ever even have access to. Maybe it’s politicians or thought leaders or influencers.

Not only that, real estate can be very lonely, and it can also be mentally challenging. By participating in some of these volunteer activities, it forces you to get outside of your own business to come up for some air, go for a break. Then you get to come back with a refreshed mind. I think the most rewarding part of it, though, Erin, is having your thumbprint on the industry. So often we can find ourselves maybe complaining or feeling a certain way about whatever might be going on in the world or a situation.

Sometimes it’s maybe things that we feel like we don’t have any control over. This is one thing that I can help influence. We’re such an interesting industry full of incredible people. There’s always things going on in our industry, whether it’s government or policy or public perception. I want to be part of making that better. I want to make it better for everybody from coast to coast. It just gives me an opportunity to be a part of creating something great, rather than having something handed to me that I may or may not agree with.

That’s the, I guess, the selfish benefit that comes along with being a volunteer. In terms of balancing your own business, you’ve got to get really clear on what is going to best serve your clients and cut out a lot of the noise. I think oftentimes there can be a lot of noise and a lot of fluff and a lot of things we do that we think we have to do. It’s almost the difference between busy work and productive work.

When you can really figure out what makes you effective, for your clients, for the people you’re serving, for the results that you want to produce, and you can cut out a lot of that fluff, it’s incredible the amount of time you can get back in your day, the amount of leverage that you can create, and also surrounding yourself with people that can help you create further leverage to make sure that you can accomplish your business goals, your clients’ goals, your personal goals, your volunteer goals, all of that. It comes with a great team behind you, and it also just comes with the clarity of what really moves the bar and keeps you getting better and being productive.

Erin: Crystal, you won the 2022 Realtors Care Award from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, and you were one of this year’s national nominees. Congratulations. Can you talk a bit about the philanthropic side of your life, please?

Crystal: I started volunteering, I think, when I was 12, 13 years old. I really haven’t stopped. I’ve become more public about that work through the work we did during the pandemic. For me, it is one of the ways for myself to stay grounded. I think when we’re successful in our career, in our industry, we get busy, and we forget to look at what’s outside of our industry a lot. One of the reasons why I continue to volunteer and give back is it fills my soul, but it also keeps me humble.

The humility I see when I’m volunteering in myself and others, I just feel energized. There are days when I’m so tired, but I will go and make sandwiches with the crew and I feel energized after. After a while, your body just wants to do more of that. I think a lot of us just get busy, and we’re so afraid to miss a call or miss an offer for 40 minutes. It sometimes just fills the rest of my week. It’s so worth it.

Erin: When you tell your clients you’re not available because you’re volunteering, it is not virtue signaling. It is the truth, and it tells them who you are. That’s just about as powerful as any slogan on a bus bench. That’s great.

Crystal: I agree. Yes. [chuckles]

Erin: Peggy, have you got anything to add from your experience on this?

Peggy: I can tell you, for me, personally, I grew up very poor as a child and even as early as a young adult, and then I got into this business, and I’ve been very successful. I’m still so grateful that I can’t stop giving. When somebody needs something, they– I love the fact that in my community, I’m known as a person you come to when you need something. During the pandemic, we would put out dumpsters in people’s neighborhoods, and I was known as a dumpster girl during the pandemic because the local dumps were closed.

There was really not much garbage pickups, so people were home trying to clean out their houses. We just put dumpsters out in neighborhoods and just did that. Again, it’s a feel-good. It makes me feel good, and it makes me feel like I’m contributing back to the community that’s given myself and my family so much that I’m grateful for.

Erin: What a neat idea.

Peggy: Yes. I’m the dumpster girl.

Erin: Back in a moment with our guests, and we’ll be discussing the concept that no is a complete sentence. Something that can be hard to come to terms with. We all agree knowledge is power, from links to CREA Café to newsletters for and about you, plus insightful market analysis. Get the information you need to be knowledgeable and powerful. Find it all at crea.ca.

Now back to our guests from Surrey, Darren German of the German Group, from Barrie, Peggy Hill, broker and CEO of Peggy Hill team, and from Greater Vancouver, Crystal Hung on Real Time. You’ve said yes to so much, and we’re grateful to you, Peggy, Crystal, Darren, for making the time and saying yes to us today on Real Time, but when did you start being selective with the work that you took on? I’ll start with you, Peggy.

Peggy: I think when I realized that I wasn’t able to deliver the service that I got into this business to deliver, so when I wasn’t able to call the clients back in time. When I didn’t feel like I had the time to really devote to each and every single client, I believe that’s when something changed for me.

Erin: Crystal, I love how you bring up the issue of vulnerability when you’re saying no. I don’t think enough of us are vulnerable in our lives and in our business, and that can be hard. How does it work for you?

Crystal: I think vulnerability is a tool, and it’s a beautiful tool that once we understand how to express it, it allows people around you and your community to really know your value and respect your time and your boundaries. For me, I see our work as emotional and energy management. When you start to look at a client, and you say to yourself, “How much energy and how much emotion am I going to manage here?”

You ask yourself, do you have it? If the truth is you don’t, you have to look at that and see who’s actually a better fit for them. For me, it’s not about saying a hard no or having a vacation alert to let everyone know I’m away. It’s about just having those conversations with your partner, with your team, with your colleague, and your client to let them know you just need a little break and let them know you’re away for a facial, or you are walking your dog and having those real conversations. I find it is so powerful.

Erin: You collect the people who respect your no.

Crystal: I do. Over time, they accumulate. [chuckles]

Erin: Yes, they do. Darren, do you have anything to add? How do you ensure you don’t bite off more than you can chew, and why is this so important?

Darren: It’s so important, Erin. I’ve always been getting a little confused with taking on obligations in situations where you can’t deliver on the expectation that’s been set. As an example, in our industry, if you’ve got a client that has an expectation, let’s say, of the price of their home, and you know as the professional in the situation that you’re not able to help them achieve their goals.

Rather than live through a transaction that’s draining on you and them due to not being able to meet the expectations, and there’s a strong likelihood of maybe that home not even selling, why not just avoid this situation at all? You’re actually doing them a service because you’re spreading the word for the next person that comes in so they can maybe help them meet the expectation, but you’re also saving your sanity and your time, and that time can go to your family or volunteering, or helping another client and being there for them. I think it’s so important to really help those that you enjoy, those that appreciate your professional opinion and really value it.

Help those who are going to accept you for who you are. We all bring different strengths and opportunities to the business. Embrace your strengths and work on your shortcomings to become the best version of yourself, to help better serve those that you are serving. One of the best ways you can do that is by being very particular with who you spend your time with, not only in business but also personally as well.

Erin: Respect yourself enough to say no. My husband, through my career of radio and some television, there were a lot of extracurricular things that I felt I had to do. It came down to the question, when I was deciding whether to do it, he said, “When we’re on our way to the event, are you going to be saying, why did I say yes?” It just puts such a different kind of a filter on it. Put yourself ahead to that point. Whether it’s in a business transaction or whether you’re getting set to show up and shine to something, how are you going to feel when you’re on the way there? That’s my two cents worth rounded up to a nickel. [laughs]

Darren: That’s such a great point. If you’re not excited to show up, if you’re not excited to deliver a result, if you’re not excited to make that phone call, you’ve got to look a little deeper and see what’s causing you to feel that way. Maybe you’re not the best fit for that situation because you’re not as committed to it because your heart is not in it because you don’t feel that you can help them achieve what they’re looking for. That’s okay. You need to be comfortable with that to know that you can’t help everybody, but really put your focus, time, and energy into those that you can help.

Erin: Like you said, there could be somebody else who’s a better fit for it, so send it their way. Let them have at it, and you’ll find something that’s better for you. I am so thrilled to have just listened to a keynote speech from each of you. I think it was fantastic, and thank you for inviting me to MC it. Now you have just done your keynotes, Peggy Crystal, Darren, on balancing your personal and professional life. Starting with you, Crystal, what would the last line of your presentation be?

Crystal: I started this career, this business with this concept in mind, which was, you’re here to sell trust, you’re not here to sell real estate. Trust is everything in real estate.

Erin: Nothing else matters. Peggy, what are your words of wisdom that you’re leaving us with in this keynote speech?

Peggy: No pressure.

Erin: None at all.

Peggy: I think it goes back to our core values. Our slogan as a team is real people, real service, real results. I believe when you’re being real, that’s the best part of you. You check in with yourself, and that’s what we live and die by over here. Just be real. Be real with your clients, be real with yourself, and nothing but good things will happen.

Erin: Last word to Darren, before we turn off the lights in this virtual auditorium, last lines of your keynote speech.

Darren: Well, how do you follow up with something that sounds intelligent when Peggy and Crystal had such good answers? I’m going to try my best. I’m going to steal a line from my coach and a mentor of mine, Richard Robbins. When it comes to finding balance, I think it’s important for the listener to remember that it’s your business. That means it’s your game to play. You get to decide the rules.

It’s your choice and your prerogative to create a business that supports the life that you want to live and help you become the person that you want to be. If you keep that in mind, you will be successful, and you’ll find the balance in your life that you’re looking for.

Erin: Thank you. Thank you, Darren. Thank you, Peggy. Thank you, Crystal. We are all giving you a standing ovation great keynote, but more importantly, just a super conversation today. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and your insight, and thank you for saying yes.

Peggy: Thank you.

Crystal: Thank you, Erin.

Darren: Thank you so much.

Erin: You take care. Thank you so much for joining us for Episode 45 of Real Time, a production of Alphabet Creative. Rob Whitehead at Real Family Productions is our sound engineer. I’m your host, Erin Davis. We’re so glad you joined us here. A reminder to subscribe so you don’t miss one episode. Thanks for listening, and we’ll talk to you here next time on Real Time.

This DIY Menorah is the ultimate Hanukkah gift and holiday craft idea!

What You’ll Need:

2 pieces of 18″ x 4″ wood
Wood glue
Painter’s tape
Wood stain
Rag or paintbrush
Acrylic paint
Drill
Candleholders
Candles

How To Create A Menorah:

To create an L-shaped base for your menorah, glue the long edge of one piece of wood to the bottom face of the other piece.
Once the glue is dry, use painter’s tape to section off a 3⁄4″ strip at the bottom.
Using a rag or paintbrush, apply wood stain to the top portion. (You may need to apply 2 or 3 coats to achieve your desired shade.) Let the stain dry, then carefully remove the tape.
Now, tape off the unstained portion and paint it with acrylic paint.
Once the paint is dry, carefully remove the painter’s tape.
With a drill outfitted with a bit the size of your candleholders, drill 9 holes into the top edge of the menorah: one for each night of Hanukkah, plus the shammash.
Set the candleholders into the holes (they should fit snugly) and add your candles.

The post DIY: Create Your Own Rustic Menorah appeared first on House & Home.

Erin Davis: Hi, I’m Erin Davis, your host of REAL TIME, the podcast for REALTORS® by REALTORS®, brought to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association, CREA. We’ve an amazing episode in store for you today. Fotini Iconomopoulos is an internationally recognized high-stakes negotiator and instructor of MBA positions at the Schulich School for Business, and the author of the book, Say Less, Get More, Unconventional Negotiation Techniques to Get What You Want.

Throughout her career, she’s inspired Fortune 500 leaders, teams, and entrepreneurs to achieve their business goals, increase profitability, and gain a competitive edge using the principles of persuasion. On this episode of Real Time, Fotini shares tips and strategies to help realtors do the same, and yes, there’s even an exercise we get to do together. Let’s go. Oh, thank you so much for joining us today, Fotini, and I love even your backstory. As a kid, you were known for being a negotiator. Can you set the table for us here today? That’s a wonderful tale.

Fotini Iconomopoulos: It was my dad who sort of foreshadowed an entire career unknowingly, and so as a kid when you grow up in the big fat Greek wedding household, so strict Greek father, and as a child I wanted to do all the things I was told I couldn’t do, or the patriarchal society told me I couldn’t do, so you have to negotiate your way out of the house. It got to the point where he would say to me, we don’t need to hear from your negotiator.

It was cousins and sisters and all these other people who would push me to the front and go, you ask them. Maybe it was because I’m a little more assertive, or maybe I was the youngest and the cute one. For some reason, I was always at the forefront of whatever needed to get done in order to work our way out of the house. Here we are today.

Erin: Yes. It’s so amazing how so often as a child, your personality or your traits or your habits then can portend who you are going to be. Here you are now, as I mentioned in the intro, you’re recognized worldwide as the high-stakes negotiator and instructor, and of course, author of the amazing book, Say Less, Get More. I’m just wondering, how did you get from that child to where you are now? We’re going to have to do the X-length version, or Twitter as we used to know it. Just how does one become a negotiator?

Fotini: It was a little bit of nature and a little bit of nurture. I think I was probably born with a little fire under my belly. Then part of it was also just wanting more. When you are constantly pursuing what is that next big achievement, you don’t want anything to hold you back. I ended up pursuing a degree in arts and science because I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Then I ended up getting an MBA in organizational behavior because I thought, well, I don’t have the formal business education yet.

I was recruited into companies like L’Oreal, where I was negotiating with Walmart on a regular basis. That was an amazing training ground because they’re known to be some of the toughest buyers in the industry. Eventually a consulting company that was hired to train me to be a better negotiator went, you should really be doing what we do. I was like, yes, sure, someday when I’ve got more experience because I hadn’t even hit 30 yet.

They said, no, seriously, you should be doing what we do. I joined this British company, and I was traveling all over the world. All of a sudden, I was training everybody from CEOs of massive oil and gas companies to junior account managers and some of my former employers. Then clients kept going, well, it’s great that you trained our team, but we have a billion dollars on the line or we have a hundred million on the line. What do we do? What do we say?

It sort of evolved into this practice within the practice. I found myself really enjoying it and getting even more immersed in the research behind what makes people do what they do. Then that led to teaching at the Schulich School of Business where I teach MBA negotiations occasionally and guest lecturing everywhere else. Then Harper-Collins going, we think you have a book in you. I went, okay. I just kept saying yes to these things because people started to recognize some of the skills that I had. I also kept nurturing a lot of those skills just because it was a big passion and interest for me.

Erin: Let me just backtrack a little bit before we talk about the present and the future. You mentioned international negotiations and we will find out what a negotiation actually is, Fotini, but do Canadians negotiate differently? Does that stereotype of us being more polite actually show up at the table?

Fotini: I wish I had formal statistics to back this up, but anecdotally, I can tell you that there’s a difference when I train or consult folks in Canada versus in other parts of the world, particularly when I compare to our US neighbors. I find that negotiators in Canada are less assertive. We are very polite as a society. I think that’s pretty stereotypical of Canadians. We say I’m sorry a lot, which doesn’t help in negotiations because we also know that when people are conciliatory in negotiations, that makes the other party just more aggressive and it can put us into a position of weakness. A lot of times I see Canadians backing off of stuff where there is a different appetite when I’m working with folks outside of Canada.

Erin: That is interesting. How do you define negotiation? What is negotiation? Let’s get down to basics here.

Fotini: I’d say most people assume that negotiation is two people beating each other up, yet that is a common misconception. All it is two people trying to reach an agreement. It’s two people who actually want to find a solution together, whether they realize it consciously or subconsciously. If we didn’t have to have this conversation, we’d already be in agreement. It doesn’t have to be combative, it’s just a conversation full of curiosity and hopefully some empathy in the mix as well.

Erin: When you talk to groups, you have an exercise. We’re all warmed up. Would you take us into one of your exercises?

Fotini: Yes. This is one where I wish I could see your face right now, Erin, because all I want is all of the listeners to take their dominant index finger and then I want you to draw the capital letter E for empathy on your forehead. Draw the capital letter E on your forehead. Then once you’ve done that, there’s no right or wrong answer here, by the way. This is just a little exercise about where your brain tends to go first. This is your autopilot mode. You either drew it one of two ways. Either you drew it so that if I was looking at you, I could read it perfectly, it would make total sense to my eyes. Or you drew it so that your own eyeballs would make sense of it, but the observer would see it looking backwards to them. Now, one of these E’s is associated with higher levels of power in the workplace. One of these two E’s is associated with people who are more powerful, more senior in the workplace. If you think it through, the E that is written for your own eyes means you are most likely automatically primed to think about your own objectives. That’s what gets people to the top of their fields. Those who draw the E for their own eyes tend to be more senior in the workplace.

Now that doesn’t mean that if you’re drawing the E for me and others who are reading it that you’re never going to be a success. That’s totally not true. I did tell you that there’s no right or wrong answer here. What it simply means is this is your autopilot mode. We’re all intelligent enough. We’re all in control enough to be able to override that mode. If you are drawing the E for me and others who are reading it, then you need to pause to ask yourself, “Hey, am I putting my needs on the back burner for the sake of others?”

If you are drawing the E for your own eyes, this is not a guarantee that you’re going to be super successful in negotiations. Because I have seen so many people, I’ve done this exercise for thousands and thousands of people. I even included it in the book. I’ve seen plenty of folks over the years draw the E for themselves, but still never become the senior leaders they wish to be. Never become those massive successes they want to be.

The reason being, they have forgotten what the reflection of that E is like. They’re forgetting about what’s in it for the other person. What is that other person going through? Why would they care to listen to me? If you are the person listening to this and drawing the E for yourself, congratulations, you have the ability to consider your own objectives, but you need to pause and consider what’s in it for them. Otherwise, why would they bother listening to you? Why would they even engage in this conversation with you?

Again, if you’re the person who is drawing the E for the observer, for others before yourself, then it’s time to make sure you pause and make sure that you don’t become what I call a victim of your own empathy. You have to pause and ask yourself such an important question, which is, what can they afford to do for me? You’re not asking them to go bankrupt. You’re not asking them to do something that’s going to get them into massive trouble. You’re just asking, what is in the realm of possibility that these people can do for me? How can we make this a collaborative exchange rather than making it all about them? If you’re the other E, then making it all about yourself.

In order to be an effective negotiator, you need to make sure you’re keeping both of those E’s in balance. That’s what makes for a great negotiator.

Erin: That was incredible. Thanks for sharing that with us. My E was facing outward. This is the thing about talking with you and about your book. It does not only encompass the world of negotiation. It encompasses so many parts of our lives, because when you think about it, whether you’re a realtor and you’re trying to get your clients to be happy, or whether you’re having interpersonal relationships in your own life, or you’re trying to maybe get the best price on a refrigerator, negotiation is so much a part of our everyday lives. I don’t know how much people realize that, Fotini.

Fotini: I hope they’re starting to realize it because I meet so many people all the time who say, oh, I don’t negotiate. I’m not a salesperson, but do you have children? Do you talk to people? Do you have a dog even? Are you interacting with people? Even if you’re getting on a streetcar or a subway, you’re negotiating for your physical space without even opening your mouth. We have these interactions all the time, but we need to make sure that we’re balancing the needs of others as well as our own needs in these processes.

Erin: I love, too, that a lot of your message is about putting yourself in the shoes of others, which of course is a great life motto anyway, but how that works in negotiation. I think it goes back to the E and the empathy and what’s in it for them while keeping in mind what’s in it for you at the same time. It’s so important.

Fotini: Yes. No one’s going to want to work with you if you’re not considering what’s in it for them. You’re not going to hit all the records of being the world’s greatest realtor and selling everything and listing everything if you’re not wondering, well, why would they want to, why would they want to work with me? Why would they want to list it at this price at this time and so on and so forth. You really have to consider everybody’s needs, not just your own, in order to be successful.

Erin: Back to Fotini Iconomopoulos in a moment. We all want to be liked, right? She’ll point out where that may be tripping us up. We’re glad you’re liking our podcast and we have 43 other insightful episodes just waiting for you to dig in and be inspired. There’s a new one every month and we’re grateful to have you joining us here in our REAL TIME podcast community. Now back to Fotini Iconomopoulos, world-renowned speaker and author of the fantastic book, Say Less, Get More. Unconventional negotiation techniques to get what you want on REAL TIME.

You have said that being likable during a negotiation can be an advantage. Now can you unpack for us the correlation between likability and influence?

Fotini: Likability is a piece of influencing. If I don’t like you, I’m not going to want to work with you. I’m not going to allow you to influence my decision maker. In fact, I’m going to actively resist trying to work with you or trying to allow you to influence my decision-making process. The fact of the matter is, though, every single one of us at some subconscious level, we all want to be liked. This goes back to our primitive cave person ancestry. We were meant to travel the world in packs. That’s why we were not surviving as lone rangers. Because of that, we have this innate need to be liked.

One of the things that I see happening, the big mistake that I see happening when it comes to negotiation and influencing, is we try to buy that ability. I’ll just do that little thing because I don’t want them to hate me. I’ll just let them have this extra little bit that they’re going after because I want to protect the relationship. I want to be able to influence them in the long term, so I’ll let them have this one win now, but that can get really dangerous because it can set a very dangerous precedent for us.

It’s the same reason why if you spend time around children, the world’s greatest negotiators, they will be relentless about getting what they want. If you set a dangerous precedent and trying to buy their likeability, you end up with a really spoiled kid. There’s a really cool study that was done specifically around likeability and negotiation where they took two different groups of Ivy League MBA students and they put them into two different groups with two different sets of instructions. They told the first group, I want you to get down to negotiating right away. Time is money. They told the second group, I want you to spend a few minutes just getting to know each other first.

In that first group who got down to negotiating immediately, 55% of them managed to close a deal. Now that’s not too shabby. That is the majority, but in the group that got to know each other first, 90, that’s nine zero percent managed to close deals. Some people are probably thinking, sure, they made friends. They probably wanted to be liked so much that they sweetened the deal in some way. We know that’s not true because of that 90% group, they ended up closing deals that were 12% greater in value. They ended up closing more deals and they ended up closing better deals all because they spent a few minutes before the negotiation even started just getting to know each other.

When I get to know you, you have more influence over how I want to steer my dollars, how I want to steer my energy, my decision making, and so on. According to persuasion theory, there’s a few things that really stand out in terms of being able to influence people. It’s not by giving them everything that they want. It’s not by sweetening the deal. It is by doing simple things like finding something in common, building a bridge between you, removing some of that fear of the unknown from people’s brain. It is finding a compliment, a genuine compliment for people because we in our subconscious brain can suss out the slimy, fake compliments that are out there, we can sense those things. Then the last thing is we like cooperative people. We don’t want to be pushed around by someone who says it’s my way or the highway. We don’t like aggressive negotiators. We like working with people who seem familiar to us and who seem genuine in how they handle themselves. That’s why I’ve always taken a collaborative approach to negotiation wherever possible. That is going to gain you far more influence. That’s the likability factor that many of us find ourselves in the crux of being stuck between being likable enough and not being so likable that we get taken advantage of. It’s that buying likability factor that’s going to land you in the taken advantage of category.

Erin: You want to be the person people want to work with. You, I imagine you’ve talked about living around or working around the world. Do you do your own negotiations like in, say, real estate transactions?

Fotini: Happily, I do not. I say this as somebody who I’m very comfortable negotiating. I know, however, that when it comes to negotiating, information is power. I know that when it comes to specifically real estate, there’s going to be stuff I don’t know. I’m not an expert in that industry. I’m an expert in the principles of negotiation, but I’m not an expert in the specifics around what is required in order to create a really great deal. I know, just like everybody else does, that you need to have an expert who’s going to be able to represent you.

That being said, I am a tough customer. I have an agent that I’ve been working with for years. We’ve done at least five transactions together. I trust that he knows what he needs to know about the geographies that I’m going into about what’s going on in the market and all that kind of stuff that I don’t have the time or energy to be an expert at because I’m too busy doing other things for a living.

We get on the same page about what should the strategy be. Should it be listing at a certain price and trying to get somewhere else? Should there be a decision about when to time it and how to do it? Those are all things that we need to get on the same page about because I’m an expert in strategy. He’s going to have the information required in order to make it a super successful negotiation.

I would make sure that all of the listeners who are paying attention are also making sure that they can communicate that to the folks that they’re dealing with. That you’re not insulting people by saying, hey, I’m an expert at this. I know you’re really great at this other stuff. I want to make sure I help you get to the best possible deal based on these unique circumstances we find ourselves in.

Erin: Let’s talk about high stakes negotiations, Fotini, which, of course, are very relatable for realtors. What are some of the best ways to prepare before a big negotiation?

Fotini: There’s two ways of going about it. First is preparing mentally, and the other is making sure you prepare tactically. The mental piece is, you can have as much preparation as you want, all of the research in the world and all of that kind of stuff. You can be the best at preparing and having all the market data and analysis. If your head is not in the game, then things are going to fall apart. Because you have the ability to either psych yourself up or psych yourself out.

When it comes to getting there in the moment, when you’re about to talk to a client for the first time, or you’re about to talk to the other agent for a first time, or you’re about to come up with what is that listing price that I’m going to put on paper, or that proposal, that’s when I need everybody to just take a relaxing breath. Maybe it’s breathing in for four, holding for six, and out for eight. That meditative breath is going to make a world of difference in terms of the clarity that you have. Because when we’re really anxious, and negotiation makes a lot of people anxious, all the rational energy leaves our brain, and it goes to our limbs, and that’s what makes our heart start to beat a little bit faster, and our palms start to get a bit sweaty, and our breathing starts to get a bit more shallow.

That’s what makes you have those moments that go, oh my God, is that what I just said? Why didn’t I say this other thing? Why couldn’t I think of that in the moment? In the moment, we need to clear our heads and make sure we collect our thoughts and give our brain the space to do its job. Now in order to get there, we need to prepare. We need to prepare what is that market data? What is that analysis I have to have done? What else is going on in this neighborhood? All of the wonderful things that I’m sure everybody in the audience knows how to do, as well as maybe even rehearsing what is going to come out of our mouths.

If you’re pitching a client for the first time, if you’re going to say something to a client that they’re not going to like, maybe you want to practice that in the car before you get out of the car. Say it in front of a mirror or something like that to make sure you’re giving yourself some of that muscle memory that is going to make it a little bit more comfortable when it’s coming out of your mouth for the very first time and a little less foreign to your brain in the moment so that you don’t have that moment of fight or flight kicking in when it’s time to speak to that client.

Erin: The sound of silence. You could write a song about it, but it’s something we often try to avoid and it can be used to your advantage. We’ll dig into that in just a moment. In talking with Fotini, not only was I grateful to have read her book, but I just wanted to tell everyone I know about it. That’s how everybody at the Canadian Real Estate Association, CREA, feels about REAL TIME. We invite you to like and share this podcast with everyone, among your realtor community and elsewhere. Anybody you think might also gain some wisdom from the words of Fotini Iconomopoulos, and thank you. Now back to our guest, educator, negotiator, renowned speaker, and author of Say Less, Get More on REAL TIME. When you say less, get more, which is a great book title, one of the things a lot of people are uncomfortable with is silence. That can be perceived in many different ways. Let’s talk about the silence between the notes in the concerto of negotiation. Let’s talk about that and how important it can be and how you can use silence as a power tool.

Fotini: I have such a big smile on my face because I’ve never heard anybody describe it so eloquently like the notes in a concerto before. I love that.

Erin: Thank you.

Fotini: I’m going to steal that. The beauty of silence is we all feel uncomfortable, or at least most people feel very uncomfortable with silence until you get used to it. Now if you’re somebody who’s listened to this podcast or read the book or seen the research around what silence can do for you, you will notice that they’re going to be far more uncomfortable with it than you are, because at least you’re familiar with this concept of saying less and getting more.

Now most of the people that I interact with go, but if I don’t say something, if I’m not quick on my feet, then people are going to think I’m stupid. That is not true. They’re going to think you’re stupid if you’re thinking and talking at the same time and having this verbal nonsense come out of your mouth because you’re trying to get through this garbled mess of what is my brain even trying to spit out right now. You’re going to look far more confident when you can say something like, I need a moment to think that through, or give me a second to make sure I’m giving you the right information, or I want to make sure I’m as crystal clear as possible.

Let me just think through what it is that you need from me right now. Any one of those phrases is a way to frame the silence. If you’re super uncomfortable and you are worried about looking stupid because you’re too quiet, then take ownership of that pause. Show up and say, I need some time. You’re not asking for permission. You’re not going to say, can I have a minute? You’re going to say, you know what? I need a minute to think that through.

Now all of a sudden you look so confident, you look so credible and so sure of yourself. At the same time, the person on the receiving end of that statement is waiting on the edge of their seat to go, ooh, whatever comes out of her mouth next is going to be super good because she’s taking the time to listen to me and consider my needs. Man, is that going to be great. I’m going to challenge her a lot less. All because you took that quiet, confident moment and you framed it as something that you own versus asking for permission or feeling conciliatory in that moment.

Erin: I think it projects a respect as well. It’s like, I hear you and we all want to be heard. I hear you and I want to contemplate that. It is to me, it’s a sign of respect.

Fotini: Absolutely. It’s also a sign of acknowledgement, right? You are acknowledging the other person. You’re not ignoring them. It’s not, hey, did you hear what I said? Are you going to answer me? It’s just saying, I need a moment to think this through. You’re commanding that space rather than allowing them to steamroll all over you either.

Erin: Can you do it physically? Again, putting to use the suggestion that you just made where you don’t say, could I please leave the room and get some water? Or can my client and I discuss this? Just say, we’re going to need a moment to go and have some refreshments and we’ll reconvene in 10, 15 minutes or whatever. Is it okay to actually physically leave the room if that comes to that?

Fotini: Absolutely. I think if you’re framing it in a collaborative, polite way, then why not? Why would it be impolite? If you were to be in the other person’s shoes, would they see it as impolite to move things forward a little bit faster simply by having a private conversation? Because I think it would look more rude if you’re whispering back and forth at one another sitting at the table. It looks more suspicious and furtive if you’re doing that versus saying, you know what, we’re going to have a quick conversation so we can speed this up. We’re just going to step out of the room for a moment and figure out what needs to happen next in order to help move us forward.

I don’t see there being anything suspicious about that. I think it looks a lot more furtive when you’re just trying desperately to speak in code at the same table or in the same room.

Erin: All right. We’ve talked about physically removing our bodies from the room, but let’s talk about the language of the body and the physical presence while you’re in the room. I think you’ve got some great ideas on this, Fotini.

Fotini: Yes. We communicate in a number of different ways without even opening our mouth. According to communication theory, a third of our message comes in the words that we choose, a third comes in the sound of our voices, and a third comes in your body language. What are you saying before you’re actually physically saying it? When it comes to taking up space, there’s a really fantastic book and accompanying TED Talk by Dr. Amy Cuddy called Presence. She talks a lot about power poses. I’m sure folks out there listening are familiar with the Wonder Woman pose, my personal favorite. If you’ve ever run a race, the first thing you want to do when you cross the finish line is put your hands in the air in a big V for victory. Any of those types of poses that take up more physical space are going to not only send a message to the other party that you deserve to be there and that you own that space, but also it gives your brain a chance to catch up to what your body is telling others.

Then what happens is, according to research on this, within two minutes, anybody who adopts one of those power poses feels much more confident. As a result of feeling much more confident, there’s plenty of research out there that tells us you get better results. If you are sitting across from them, it could feel adversarial versus sitting adjacent to them, like on a corner, it could feel like you’re working together.

Maybe when you’re sitting with a client, you want to sit next to them instead of across from them so they know that you’re on the same team. Maybe if you’re sitting across from someone with whom you’re entering into this more competitive negotiation, you want them to sit across from you so that they can see the look on your face when you look shocked and appalled at what number is going to come out of their mouth. Or you want to make sure that you are clearly in their line of sight when you are delivering a crystal clear, incredible message.

Where you sit, how you sit, how much physical space you take up, all of these things make a world of difference in terms of how you are received and also how your brain is ready to catch up to it too.

Erin: Does it differ when you’re negotiating on someone’s behalf?

Fotini: It does and it doesn’t. The principles remain the same. However, the benefit of negotiating on behalf of someone else is that you get to take the emotional piece out of it. It is much easier to negotiate on behalf of someone else than it is to negotiate for yourself. In fact, there’s a lot of research out there that says women will negotiate harder for others than they will for themselves because there’s no fear of repercussion. There’s no fear of looking greedy. You know that you’re doing it for someone else. It’s a selfless thing. When you are not as closely linked to that outcome, then you can have more clarity. The fight or flight response isn’t nearly as strong.

One of the reasons why I am brought in by so many corporations, I work with a lot of Fortune 500 types of companies. They’re full of very bright people. I know because I trained many of them. Yet they bring me in to help them on these high stakes negotiations because sometimes they just need that objective clarity because they’re too close to whatever’s going on and it’s hard to disentangle their emotions from the outcome.

I can be that voice of reason that goes, hey, remember when you said this is what you want to accomplish? Here’s how it looks like you can do that based on the facts as opposed to based on my emotional outcome tied to this. The same is true for anybody who’s representing a client in negotiation. Now, maybe if you’re good friends with your client, you’re a little tighter connected to the outcome. The truth of the matter is, you’re still not nearly as connected as if they were doing it for themselves.

Erin: It sounds like you want empathy, but not to get too emotionally invested. That also sounds like a really good reason to have a negotiator like you on your side, because as we know, the real estate transaction can be steeped in emotions because it’s not just the biggest purchase most people will make in their lives, but there’s the emotion. This is the house where I raised my kids. We put so much work into that kitchen and you aren’t able to step back and have the perspective. Really, that’s where a good realtor comes in too. They know their clients’ needs and wants and feelings but are able to have that little bit of stepping back as well.

Fotini: Yes. That’s a critical piece is that you need to look like that objective, credible person. It’s okay to acknowledge that they have invested a lot of time and energy and years into this home, but you have to be really careful of acknowledging without necessarily agreeing with them. You have to also be careful of the fact that they’re going to be very defensive because they are so emotionally involved in this.

If you go in there and say, I think your kitchen is not worth that much, they’re going to go, yes, well, I’ll tell you what I think. The second you’re perceived as giving a feeling or opinion about something, now all of a sudden they’re going to get really defensive and they’re going to mirror that behavior right back. If you can come in with these two magic words, instead of I think, if they were to be replaced with something as simple as based on, based on the comparables in this neighborhood, based on similar kitchens, based on my experience in the last 10 houses that I have listed, now, all of a sudden, you’re coming across as credible and not personally attacking them with just an opinion.

It’s much harder for them to argue with based on. It sounds like, hey, this is set in stone third party stuff, as opposed to I’m personally attacking you. It’s not personal when you say based on. When you say, I think, now that’s a personal opinion, and I’m going to fire right back with my own personal opinion. If you want to make sure you avoid arguing with your client or even the folks across the table, that based on is going to be critical.

Erin: That’s brilliant. Thank you for that. When realtors are talking with their clients, you make a clear delineation between being curious and being condescending. Is that where based on comes in as well? Is that sort of a subtopic?

Fotini: I think it could come in very handy right there as well. Because no one wants to be talked down to. We have so much information at our fingertips. In Google now, you can Google a million different people and reviews are out there and so on. What you say and do is going to be out there forever. People will give you a review, they will talk about you, they will be on chat boards and Reddit threads and so on and so forth. That condescension is going to be something that we have to be very careful to avoid.

That being said, you also want to be perceived as this expert, this person who they’re not going to push back every single idea. They’re not going to overlook you for someone else who’s a family friend who may not actually be getting them the best possible deal because they’re doing this friendly thing that is not necessarily going to be in their best interest. This person doesn’t have anything to gain if they’re a family friend. If they’re leaving that commission on the table, well, then they’re not as invested in it and they’re probably not going to get them the best rate. They just want to get this done.

There’s all of these things to juggle and that based on can help remove some of that opinion. That likability factor is going to be really important here too that I mentioned earlier. Are you finding something in common with them? Are you paying them a genuine compliment? Are you doing something like that before you start negotiating with them, before you get into business to put them at ease and make them think that, hey, this is someone I enjoy spending this much time with, that I trust to put this biggest transaction of my life into their hands. Because for most people, that’s what this is.

Erin: What to do when the temperature is rising just a little too high in a negotiating situation. Some great tips are just ahead. For more great tips, whether you’re just starting out or are a seasoned veteran, there’s always information to add to your professional toolbox at CREA Cafe. From legal matters to navigating technology, it’s all there for you simply by clicking CREACafe.ca.

Now back to our author and guest, Fotini Iconopoulos, on Real Time. How do you manage things when emotions start to get high during a negotiation? Fotini, I know you’ve seen this on the regular. How do you manage emotions? Say for your client, for example, you can’t control what people across the table are doing unless you say, we’re going to need a minute or take down the temperature or whatever. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so tell us.

Fotini: That’s really the most obvious answer is just taking that pause, that moment to say less, giving people a timeout. It’s like when you’re dealing with a toddler, and I use a lot of children’s analogies in my work because adults have just as bad temper tantrums, if not worse than children. We need to give adults a timeout the same way we have with kids too. Just saying, hey, let’s take a minute to think about this, and maybe stepping out of the room, or maybe going, well, let’s work this out. Let’s see what those numbers mean to us. Something as simple as that can make a world of difference for folks.

Sometimes you may have to do that for yourself too. Sometimes it’s because maybe that person across the table is so antagonistic and condescending that you’re like, I want to strangle them on behalf of my client. Maybe you need to take that meditative breath in the moment before you say something you might regret. I also tell people to write it down. Maybe you need a moment to think it through, have it physically come out of your hand, write it down, and then look at it visually and go, is that really the thing that I want to say? That can slow down your brain, your tongue, and what comes out of your mouth, rather than tripping all over yourself or tripping all over your tongue.

Erin: Yes, it’s a good idea because we don’t all need the Aaron Sorkin walking, talking script in order to be successful. One of the tips in Say Less, Get More, unconventional ways to get what you want, is that you don’t have to talk or be fast. What are some of the standout or unconventional strategies, Fotini, that most people, we just don’t consider?

Fotini: One of the silliest ones that we don’t think about, and the most obvious to me, but maybe not obvious to everybody else, is ask a question. Even if the answer, if you need that time to calm your brain down, to buy you some time to think, ask the other party a question, get them to do the talking. Not only is that you saying less, but it’s you getting more. It’s more information and if information is power where else are you going to get it but straight from them? Ask them a question about what are some of their motivators? Ask them a question about where does that number come from? Ask them a question about why is it that they want to do these things in this particular way or what is it that led them to that conclusion?

That will start to create a change in the environment. You’re going to be coming forth with more curiosity. It’s going to seem less adversarial, it’s going to buy your brain a lot more time to think and also process this information that’s coming across the table.

Even though it feels like you’re giving the microphone to the other party, the truth is the person who asks the questions is in charge of the conversation. Because you’re steering the conversation in the direction that you want it to go. You’re digging up the information that you want, that power that you want by asking appropriate questions that can give you everything that you need in order to be successful.

Erin: Are there strategies for both parties getting what they want? What tips can you use if it comes to encourage a compromise? Like especially as it applies to the real estate world, Fotini.

Fotini: Well, there’s a lot of things that are going to require compromise at some point in our world, but the more you can create value, the more creative and complex you can make things. Again, it sounds a little counterintuitive. Like why would we invite complexity? But it’s because the more creative you get, that’s not simple. That is creating value. It’s like the cliche value pie. The bigger we make the pie, the more value there is to go around and divide up, but what else can we put in the pie? Can we get creative with things like closing dates? Can we get creative with things like payment terms? Can we get creative about other ways to incorporate what would be important to one party or to another?

I remember the last time I sought a house, it was a quaint little neighborhood and I bought it from a woman who was twice my age and it was a very emotional thing for her to let go of. I told her she could come by for tea whenever she wanted and see the house and ask questions about it and so on. That was so reassuring to her. She wanted to make sure she sold the house to me.

I know this sounds perverse to all these people who are listening in the audience right now. It seemed bizarre to me too. I wrote about it in the book because it seems so crazy to me that this would actually happen, but this is an emotional security that this person wanted. It cost me nothing. It was no dollars in her pocket. It was just what is valuable to this individual, and we got creative about it.

Erin: Did she come by for tea?

Fotini: We exchanged some emails. She asked me some questions about it and then in the end she never came by. I had that house for four and a half years and it just never happened.

Erin: Well, she just needed to know that the door was open. Really that’s an important part of negotiation as well, but what happens, Fotini, if it looks like the door has closed? How do you wake up a negotiation if a little bit of time has gone by? Do you text and go, “Hey, we’re still here.” What do you do? How do you kind of reignite a talk that seems to have stalled?

Fotini: Well, hopefully, you’ve prevented it from getting down that path using some of these techniques, but inevitably it’s going to happen from time to time. This is one of the only instances where I will encourage people to ask a yes or no question. In fact, I will encourage them to ask a no-question, because, usually, I’m telling people ask a question that’s going to open up a conversation, but if they’re not open to having the conversation, maybe there’s a different way to trigger their subconscious brain. You might want to email them or call them, hopefully. I prefer to do things not over email.

I know it sounds super unconventional to everybody who’s listening because we do everything over text and email, but hopefully, you can ask them a question like, “Hey, did you move on? Did you find another house?” If they say, no, I didn’t, they’re going to go, “Oh, no, we didn’t.” We haven’t had a chance to, or things got away from us, or we were just really busy with this other offer or whatever it is. If they say, yes, we did, well, then now your curiosity is done.

You can case close and move on, but usually when you get that no response, that’s going to provoke the conversation to start all over again. This is the type of stuff I even use with my own clients when, or people use with me because I get so busy and it’s so hard to read all of the emails that are coming in and someone says, “Hey, did you forget about me? No, no, I didn’t. I’ve just been really busy and now, all of a sudden, I’m kick-starting that conversation again.

Erin: When you talk about your reticence to use digital communications, is that partly because it’s so hard to gauge somebody’s tone of voice or body language? Do these tools work against us when we’re trying to negotiate?

Fotini: Absolutely. I mentioned earlier that a third of your message comes through in your words. If you are doing something over text or email, that means there’s a 67% chance you could be misinterpreted. If you’re doing it on the phone, there still leaves a 33% chance that you could be misinterpreted. If you have a dry sense of humor, if you are somebody who is sarcastic, those things do translate well over email and text. That is the reason why we have emojis. Even those are often misinterpreted.

What do those two hands together mean? Some people think it’s prayer hands, apparently the origin of it is a high five. What are you sending to people? Do they even know? Those are the things that I don’t want to be misinterpreted. That condescension that we mentioned earlier, is that what’s coming across in your emails? Is it coming across as cold and aloof? Is it coming across as super eager and desperate? Those are the things that are difficult to read. You don’t want to leave them up to chance and misinterpretation if possible.

Erin: You have a rule of thumb about Post-it.

Fotini: I do. One of the things that I tell my high stakes clients, the folks I’m helping through these really intense negotiations where they’re sitting in these boardrooms, is you can send a really quick message to somebody across the table or under the table with a post-it note that says, “Pause, we need a time out,” or whatever. If you find yourself having to fill a Post-it with a paragraph’s worth of words, this is the time to take a time out.

Take a breather, think it through, because by the time you write it and by the time they interpret what the heck you’ve just written, there’s miscommunication galore even on your own team, between you and your client, or between you and your colleague. Take that time out to have the conversation before you get wrapped up in some more misinterpretation, even on your own side of the table.

Erin: Great advice. I would have the Post-its just so that I could mark parts of your book that I want to go back to because this has been an amazing conversation. As we wrap it up finally, Fortini, what are some of the most effective ways to be persuasive as a leader? What strategies can you use to help inspire and influence your team?

Fotini: Well, this is one of my favorite pieces of advice to give folks who are influencing others on a daily basis. It starts with a piece of research that I came across that came from Dr. Kelly McGonigal. Her book is called The Upside of Stress. They did this study at Harvard where, in 2013, they took a bunch of people and they made them sing in front of a group. Now, you and I are no stranger to a microphone, so I think we would have a good time if we went out for karaoke.

Not everybody feels that way. I believe microphones are the number two fear in America after death. I’m told it’s number three in Australia after spiders. What that means for people is that evokes a lot of anxiety the same way negotiation does. What they found in this study is they separated everybody into three groups with three different sets of instructions. They told the first group, regardless of how you’re feeling, I want you to tell yourself, “I am anxious.” They told the second group, “I want you to tell yourself I am excited,” and they told the third group nothing at all. That was our control group.

What they found was the group who told themselves, I am excited, outperformed the other two groups. We know it wasn’t because they were better singers, because they also outperformed them on a math test and a speech test in addition to the pitch test measured by a computer. Overall, they had a better performance. They changed their brains, they psyched themselves up, all because they told themselves, I’m excited. They gave themselves this little pep talk.

Now imagine what that can do for the people around you. If you are a leader, if you have people reporting into you, if you have people on your team, or maybe even with your own clients, if you want to lead them to a successful outcome, what if you were to say to them, “I am so excited for you.” “I am so excited for what the sale of your home is going to open up for you in terms of your future and what else that’s going to unlock.” “I am so excited for how this client is going to respond to all of this hard work you put into this proposal.” “I am so excited to see you flourish in your new home when we get this other party to accept this proposal.”

Now, all of a sudden, those other folks are going to perform differently. They’re going to respond differently to you and your leadership, all because you got their brains performing at a much better rate. They’re now not allowing all that crazy, irrational energy to take over because you just created that excitement for them. You can do it for yourself and improve your own performance, but you can also improve it for others. You can create a lot less resistance just by getting them excited about what is at the forefront of this transaction.

Erin: Well, we were so excited to be talking with you today and it was amazing. Thank you so much for your time, your insight, your wisdom, and just for a great conversation. Do you ever lose an argument at home?

Fotini: If you ask my dad, he might have a different response. Generally speaking, I try not to argue at home. In fact, people usually say to me, “Oh, your life must be so exciting. It must be like that show Suits.” I’m like, “Actually, the whole point of my life is to not have arguments.” Negotiations don’t have to be arguments. They can just be really simple conversations between two people.

It takes a lot of meditative breaths, depending on who I’m talking to.

Erin: That’s right. Thanks so much. We are so grateful for you today.

Fotini: Thank you for the wonderful questions. I certainly hope that this was helpful for everybody listening.

Erin: Oh, it absolutely was. Read more of Fotini Iconomopoulos’ wisdom in her amazing book about negotiation, not just in business, but in life. It’s called Say Less, Get More: Unconventional Negotiation Techniques to Get What You Want. REAL TIME is a production of Alphabet® Creative, with technical magic and, yes, very little silence by Rob Whitehead. I’m Erin Davis, and we invite you to subscribe and download all of our REAL TIME episodes. Every single one of them holds the keys to our understanding and success in business and in life. Thanks for joining us, and we’ll talk to you again soon on REAL TIME.

Erin Davis: Welcome to REAL TIME, the podcast for and about REALTORS®, brought to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association. I’m Erin Davis, proud to be your host, as today, we’re delving into information, disinformation, misinformation with a person who knows whereof he speaks. For more than five decades, Canadians have trusted Peter Mansbridge to guide them through the political, economic, and cultural events that have shaped our nation.

He’s one of Canada’s most respected and recognizable figures, having spent 30 years as CBC News chief correspondent and anchor of The National. On this episode of REAL TIME, Peter, through his unique journalistic lens, helps us understand why, how, and where we’ve deviated from trust and truth and how leaders can respond. Thank you so much for joining us, Peter. It is such a pleasure to have you on REAL TIME. Thank you for being here today.

Peter Mansbridge: Hey, Erin. It’s always good to talk to you, and it’s especially great to talk to you today.

Erin: We’re here to talk about trust and truth, and of course, you are someone who has earned the trust of Canadians for decades. When I told people that I was getting up to record this podcast with Peter Mansbridge to a person, they all said, “Say hi to him for me,” because you are someone who was in their living room, their bedrooms in their homes on the regular and you really do feel like a family member in so many ways.

Peter: It’s funny like that. You have the same experience over your time in broadcasting as well, but I can be in an airport or a hotel lobby or a shopping center, and somebody will come up, and they give you that look like they know you and they’ve known you a long time, and they don’t quite understand why you don’t recognize them, right?

Erin: Yes.

Peter: There’s a thing about our business that lends toward that kind of familiarity on the one hand and a degree of trust on the other hand.

Erin: It’s true because in so many cases, as I did in mornings when people were just waking up and you when people are ending their day, winding down whatever kind of day they’ve had, there is a trust. There is a bond that you form with people because you are there for them. As someone who’s earned the trust of Canadians for decades, how have you seen, Peter, the perception of these values change?

Peter: It’s a really good question, and the thing about it is, trust is a delicate quality and quantity in terms of how much there is out there. You have to earn it for one, and then you have to maintain that trust, and that’s not as easy as it sounds. There are times, and there certainly were times in my career when there was an issue about trust when people wondered about whether or not what you were telling them was accurate, was the truth or not, and you had to earn it.

You had to earn that faith that what you were delivering to them was the accurate sense of what had happened in a day or a week or what have you. I’ve monitored the trust factor for literally decades. For a long time, the journalism business was up there near the top, not at the top, the top is doctors and nurses, firefighters. The bottom was, you remember it used to be used car salespeople, right?

Erin: Yes.

Peter: They were the least trusted. It’s changed over time. The doctors and nurses, et cetera, are still at the top. Journalism, which had been near the top, has dropped down to– when you look in percentage terms, it is around 50% now. That’s a terrible number for journalism. Journalism is one of the pillars of democracy. You got to have it to believe that you have a democratic system, and to have it, you got to believe in journalism. When you start doubting it, then everything falls into some doubt.

That has taken place over the– I’d like to say, gee, it started the day after I retired, but it had already started before then. People were doubting what they read, what they heard, what they saw on newscasts, television, radio, digital, what have you. The more the business has exploded through social media, the more doubt has crept into it. To earn that back, journalists have to, first of all, be aware that it’s an issue and work at trying to bring it back, and bringing it back means ensuring that you’re telling the truth and that you’re transparent about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.

Erin: How much has the loss of the fairness doctrine back when Reagan scrubbed it in, I’m going to say the ’80s, and basically just allowed whatever anyone who called themselves a journalist to go on the air and say, “How much did that start to muddy the waters?” Because I’m guessing that that was where it maybe if not begun, then that was the blossoming, and then the internet just was the fertilizer.

Peter: You may have a point there. We tend to blame a lot of things on Reagan or especially so on Trump of late. Listen, part of the issue here, it’s not just the responsibility of journalists. It’s also the responsibility of the public. You’ve got to be prepared to challenge when you don’t believe something. Now, I’m out of the daily news business. I’ve been seven years out of the CBC, but I do a daily podcast and I get a tremendous amount of mail and reaction to it. In many cases, there’s the crazies out there, but not mainly on podcasts.

Podcasts seem to have a different kind of audience. They’re thoughtful, they’re constructive. When they challenge, they do so in a constructive way, not in a kind of ignorant way. That’s all good. That’s the way it should be. Journalists have to be prepared to answer them. A lot of the questions are around this issue of transparency. How do we do our job? How do we make a decision on what’s news and what isn’t news? What should be the top of a newscast? What doesn’t make it in a newscast?

All of that stuff is all part of the transparency issue, and we have to be more upfront about how we make decisions. Sure, it may well have started back in the ’80s, maybe even before then, but it has taken on a whole new dynamic in terms of trust, and journalists and their news organizations are not used in the way they used to be used. Decline in newspapers, the decline in network television, the move towards streaming, all of that stuff. Some of it is part of this issue. Not all of it, but some of it.

Erin: Whatever is out there, the idea that somewhere there is a Minister of Information who is sitting there overseeing everything that a news operation puts out so that it goes along with the government voice, which you and I know is insane. That there is a Trudeau or somebody sitting in the newsroom saying, “You are going to tell the story this way.” That’s just simply not true.

Where does the decision-making begin? The buck stops at your desk, but not everyone is a Peter Mansbridge. How does the decision to prioritize which stories, how they’re going to be covered, how is that done, Peter? Take it down to basics for us.

Peter: Sure. It is one of the misconceptions. You’re absolutely right that there is this hidden hand somewhere that directs journalism. Now, I can talk specifically about the CBC and the time that I was there. Once again, I left seven years ago, so I’m not sure how things are handled there now, but I assume and I certainly hope that they’re handled the same way as they were when I was there.

I can tell you that I was at the CBC for 50 years, five-oh, five decades, and only once in that whole period of time, and I was at a senior level in the news organization, the news structure, so I would’ve known, but there was only once in those 50 years where the government of the day ordered something up and said, “You got to do this.” The CBC folded like a cheap suit and did it. That was in 1970 during the October Crisis, 1970, so over 50 years ago, when they agreed to broadcast the manifesto of the FLQ.

It was part of the negotiating package that was going on behind the scenes. There was a great kerfuffle about that, understandably so, within the journalistic organization that that was a decision made by the government, not by journalists. I never saw anything remotely like that happen again. Now, do politicians no matter their stripe; liberal, conservative, do they cry out and say, “You’re biased. You’re this, you’re that. Why don’t you cover this? You should cover that”?

They all do that. That’s normal. That’s just part of the package that goes on in the background. Meanwhile, journalists do their job. You can argue about how well they do that and that’s a legitimate discussion to have, but move this stuff about political interference aside because it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen at the journalism level. Maybe it happens at the bureaucratic level, but that’s different.

That doesn’t affect the journalism. The journalism, the decisions that are made in a newsroom, and I’m assuming most newsrooms are like this, but they certainly were at the CBC in all the newsrooms I worked in, including The National newsroom where I was the chief correspondent for 30 years, our decisions are made on a daily basis by a group of individuals who are very diverse in their backgrounds, both geographic, gender, culture, ideology. We have a mix. We deliberately have a mix and we move people around the country.

I started in Churchill, Manitoba then I went to Winnipeg, then I went to Regina, then I went to Ottawa, then I went to Toronto, overseas a couple of times. That is typical. Then you end up in this room where decisions are made on a daily basis about what’s going to make the program, what order things are going to go in, what we’re going to say, all of that stuff. Scripts are approved and debated by reporters as far away as the Middle East, covering stories. That all happens by this group of people.

Do we have arguments every day? Absolutely. I used to say, if you end up in a newsroom and there are no debates or discussions going on about what you’re doing, then you’re in a really bad newsroom. You want that kind of discussion, hopefully, on a daily basis about what you’re doing. That’s how decisions are made. They’re not made by some directive from above. That doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen where I worked.

Erin: Thank you for that clarification. Sometimes we need to hear that again.

Erin: The American author and futurist John Naisbitt said that we are drowning in information and starving for knowledge. Coming up with Peter Mansbridge, the common misconception about the way newsrooms are directed, plus the crucial difference between mis and disinformation. Hey, have you heard? The Canadian Real Estate Association, CREA, has launched a new national login experience. That new experience, REALTOR.ca Single Sign-On or SSO, offers you password security and self-serve management, personal data protection, and a mobile-first experience.

It’s up and ready for you to start using your new REALTOR.ca SSO username and password to access CREA’s products and services. Got questions? We are ready. Go to the FAQs at crea.ca/sso/ and away you go, and away we go back to Peter Mansbridge, our very special guest on REAL TIME. Misinformation, Peter, can lead to polarization, which seems to breed more misinformation.

We get into our camps, our tribes, and we decide, “No, no, I’ve got my fingers in my ears. I’m not going to listen to what you have to say because I’ve made up my mind.” What steps can we take to avoid falling into this cycle of misinformation, polarization, and more misinformation do you think?

Peter: Well, it is a bigger issue these days than it’s been for a long time, and I don’t want to dump on social media all the time, but that’s a lot of how it’s created in terms of misinformation. Disinformation is stuff that’s deliberately put out there to affect the news pool and the understanding of people. That’s a different manipulative way of doing stuff, but how do you challenge that twofold?

As journalists, you challenge it by demanding the truth, demanding the facts, checking the story. Too much ends up on the air, and especially in social media, without anybody checking anything. It just gets repeated, and at a certain point on the repetition factor, it scores its original purpose, which was to disinform, and it gets out there so much that people start to buy it.

The journalists have to check, but so do the people. There is an obligation on the public. When something doesn’t seem right to you, demand to know more, demand a better understanding of the story that’s being pushed on you. Whether it’s on social media or whether it’s on legacy media, it doesn’t matter. You can still make that demand. If you don’t hear back, then you know, well, it probably isn’t true. We all have obligations here to try and prevent this from happening, but we live in a world, and we’ve got to be realistic, we live in a world where there is so much information out there.

I wouldn’t even want to hazard a guess on how much is real and how much is untrue, but let’s say it’s 50-50, which is possible. We live in this world where there is more information available at our fingertips than has ever existed before in the history of the planet. Our kids, they can get information to back up their essays or their exams at the touch of a finger. That wasn’t the case for us. It’s a challenge, and the monitoring of it is only going to get more challenging.

As we move into a world of artificial intelligence, I shudder to think the direction a lot of this is going in, what the world is going to look like, not 10 years from now, not 5 years from now, a year from now. Things are moving at such a rapid pace on the movement of information and the creation of information, but we got to put guardrails in. We have to be very careful or the polarized world will only get more polarized and more challenging and more difficult for us to maneuver in.

Erin: It’s almost as though critical thinking should be in the curriculum now for even elementary school, never mind high school and post-secondary, but being able to look at something– We’re with our nine-year-old grandson and he’ll be watching a video about the world’s oldest man and I’ll say, “Okay, Colin, you know this isn’t true, right? You know it can’t be true.” Because they’re saying he’s 160 or whatever. Well, why isn’t it? Just because someone has put something on YouTube. It has to start so young that you start going, “Is this real?”

It’s unfortunate because here we are needing to instill, not only in ourselves as adults, but as our children and grandchildren as well a healthy skepticism that didn’t have to be there before anymore. It was all Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and all those good things, but now it’s like, “Well, okay, wait a second, the Tooth Fairy does what now?” You know what I mean?

Peter: I do. I hear you. The other thing about critical thinking is it can be fun. Good for you that you’re teaching your grandkids that at a young age to be critical in their thinking, to be asking those questions. “Is that really true? Tell me more. Why should I believe that?” Looking for the facts. That can be fun. There’s nothing like leaving somebody stumped who is trying to force an idea on you that simply isn’t true and they can’t back it up. That idea should exist and parents should be able to answer it, which can be an even greater challenge.

Erin: Oh, yes, absolutely. It’s like when someone is having the argument with you about let’s say, I don’t know, I don’t want to say vaccines because that’s too hot a topic for whatever reason, but when someone will say, “Well, you know they want you to get this because they blah, blah, blah,” it’s just simply asking the question, “Well, who are they? Who’s this great cabal who is trying to do this to us all?” It does come down to critical thinking so that we may get back to your subject of trust and breaking the cycle and working together to change it.

Peter: It absolutely comes back to the trust issue because in those questions where somebody who’s critically thinking can’t get the answer from whoever’s foisting the idea on them, then they’ve got to go to somewhere they do trust. If it’s a health issue, they go to their doctor, or they go to a clinic, or they go to a nurse, or whoever they can go to, who they trust with their assessment of things, and that can lead them to a safer place on that issue.

My parents used to teach us as a young family. We’d sit around the dinner– We had the luxury of being able to have dinner together every night because of the hours my parents worked, but we’d have dinner every night and we’d usually have a topic of discussion that was borne out of the day’s news. It wasn’t a formal discussion or anything, we just ended up talking about something. Opinions would form and my dad would encourage us, “Okay, take the opposite view now. Let me hear you argue it from the other side.”

That was a really interesting exercise because it forced you to think more. It forced you to seek out other opinions on issues. It sets you up for a better way to handle issues of consequence that you may be suddenly confronted by. That was one of the ways we went about things when we were tired of just challenging for more facts to back up an assessment or an opinion. Information is everything. That’s how we move forward in life. It’s based on the information we gather.

If we reach a point where we’re all going, “I don’t trust any of this,” we’re in trouble, we’re in big trouble. We have to find the ways to be more confident about the facts we have and the facts we use to make decisions about whatever the issue may be each day.

Erin: Where do you get your facts, Peter? Where do you get your news from?

Peter: Oh, I just go on social media and say, “Hey, what about this?” No, you’ve got to read. We’re caught in the middle of a time bubble right now where the major issue, the international issue, is surrounding the Middle East. Well, you and I have been around long enough, Erin, to know that there are so many opinions and sides to the story that you can have a hard time trying to come up with what you believe to be the truth. How do you do that? You do it by checking out of social media, and you do it by reading through trusted sources and understanding the background.

Middle East is a complicated historic issue but so are many others. There’s a history to most of them, and you want to understand the history before you try to make decisions about the present on these issues because the old saying, “If you ignore history, you’re bound to repeat it in some fashion.” That’s not always a good thing. Reading and studying and understanding it is a good part of it.

In my job, I was not an expert in anything. I’m still not an expert in anything, but I’m a generalist, so I know a little about a lot which is, as my dad used to say, “Knowing a little about a lot is a dangerous place to be because you basically only know a little.” Right?

Erin: Yes. An inch deep and a mile wide, right?

Peter: Yes, exactly. What I found that I could do was get into a discussion about a subject and ask questions based on a reasonable degree of knowledge, limited but still reasonable to the point where I could ask questions which were probably similar to what a lot of people were asking at home. That’s where you want to be. As the questioner, you don’t want to be trying to be smarter than the guest. What’s the point?

Erin: Yes, you’re no longer the common man, and that’s who you’re supposed to be, but you’re also supposed to know what you’re talking about. You are in a very interesting foot-in-both-camps sort of position. Yes, please go on.

Peter: Yes. The audience can see that and they don’t like it if you’re trying to be more than you are. It’s like questions that go on forever and in fact, have an implied answer in the question. We all do that. I do it. I imagine you do it at times. It’s not where you want to be. You want to just get to the question, right?

Erin: Right.

Peter: That nobody cares exactly what your opinion is. They want to know what the opinion of the person you brought into the discussion because they’re an expert of some degree on whatever the issue is. That’s where I am on that.

Erin: When we return with Peter Mansbridge, applying the principles of trust and truth in your life and your work and leadership. We’ve been talking about social media today, and we know that Instagram has become such a huge part of our daily lives. Of course, that includes reaching out to your clients. Be sure and follow CREA, @crea_aci, on Instagram so you know when a new episode of REAL TIME is being released and for important updates from stats to our blog, CREA Café. Now, back to renowned journalist and broadcaster and our very special guest, Peter Mansbridge, on REAL TIME.

When we talk about trust and truth, many people, of course, think we’re talking about with the media or with the government, but how do these principles apply to, say, modern business leaders?

Peter: Well, exactly the same way.

Erin: I had more to that question, but I decided to cut it off because I didn’t want to ask more. No, I didn’t want to go on too long.

Peter: Correct. When I talked earlier about those trust listings, there was a whole list of professions in there-

Erin: Yes. Teachers.

Peter: -including bankers and real estate agents, you name it. They’re all in there, and they’ve all taken a hit as well, just like everybody else has taken a hit on trust. The same thing applies to them as well to ensure that what they’re dealing with when they’re talking, whether it’s to a client or a colleague, that what they’re saying is real, that it’s accurate, and that it can help others understand their business and the implications that they’re going to face in that business by being a part of it in some fashion, even just as a customer or a client.

Trust is just as important, and the truth is what trust is built on. You’ve got to have both of those no matter what your profession is.

Erin: What steps can businesses take to develop a culture of honesty, integrity, and transparency? We’ve seen companies that when they’ve screwed up, they’ve stepped up right away. Then we’ve seen other companies, an automaker comes to mind, that kept things on the down low about emissions for so long and lost so much trust as a result of that, and it’s taken a better part of a decade to build that back up. What steps can businesses take, Peter, to develop that culture?

Peter: Well, you’ve got to stay ahead of the story. What’s the term that most people use in terms of crisis management? What’s the best way to manage a crisis? Well, the best way to manage a crisis is to realize how it’s going to end and get there as quickly as possible. Don’t play it out. Don’t fudge. Don’t try to cover it up. If you know it’s going to end a certain way, get there. Get there right away.

It’s kind of the same just on a basic way of instilling that sense within a profession, is that, tell the truth, admit when you’re wrong, get there quickly, because every minute you take getting there is impacting your trust factor with your clients or your colleagues. We see so often a situation where a company or some business of some kind is caught in a problem, and you know that those early denials don’t seem to make a lot of sense. You know where this is going. It’s just a matter of how long it’s going to get there, and the longer it takes to get there, the less trust you have in them.

If you’ve got a problem, deal with it. Deal with it right away. If you’re lucky, you can deal with it behind closed doors before it ever gets public. Clean up the issue you have within. The longer you leave it, the more likely it is that it’s going to go public. Somebody’s going to say something, or somebody’s going to find out something, and then you’re really dealing with a situation that’s damaged everything about your operation. That would be, to me, the basic thing. You’ve got a problem, deal with it. Deal with it right away.

Erin: That goes back to what you said at the beginning; your reputation, your trust. The trust that people have in you takes a lifetime to build and can be shattered overnight, and so you want to mitigate or get in front of that right away.

Peter: It’s so true. I’m talking from personal experience too. In my time at the CBC, there were times where bad things happened, stupid things. Stupid decisions were made, not crooked or anything, but just dumb decisions.

Erin: Human decisions.

Peter: Yes. You knew it was going to backfire. You knew your audience was going to say, “This is crazy, I’m not watching this.” There were times you had that, and you’re absolutely right, you can make a mistake. You can lose your audience or your customer base overnight and it takes a long time to earn it back if ever. Whether it’s journalism or selling widgets, these same kind of lessons apply. If you’ve got a problem, deal with it. Deal with it as soon as you can.

Erin: How can Canadians feel empowered to respond to the challenges that we’ve talked about today, Peter?

Peter: Well, in many ways, they hold a key to making a better world in this kind of world we’re talking about because if Canadians, generally, clients, customers, don’t buy in, that business is going to have a problem. The first thing Canadians have got to understand is they do have power. Consumer power is an amazing thing. It’s a wonderful thing. It can be a decision-maker on the way companies and professions end up on that trust factor scale. Don’t be shy. When you don’t like something and you feel empowered to say something, say it because they will listen. Eventually, they will listen.

Don’t be shy. They’re there to serve you. They’re there to make a profit, but they’re there to serve you. If you don’t feel served, make sure they know. Make sure they understand why you don’t feel that way. Whether you’re calling the local grocery store to say, “You sold me chicken, and you had it dated, but when I got it home, it was bad. That’s just not acceptable.”

No is an answer that, “Hey, listen, that’s the way it was dated. That’s the way it was dated” The only thing that’s acceptable at that point is, “Bring it back, we will replace it immediately,” or better still, “We’ll come to your house and replace it.” You’ve got some power. Don’t just dump the chicken or whatever it may be in the garbage and move on and say, “I learned my lesson, I won’t shop there anymore,” or, “I’ll look closer at the date or whatever.” Call them, tell them.

Erin: I appreciate that, we all do, and everything that you’ve shared with us here today as you have with your keynote in Ottawa at CREA. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and your expertise, and we’ll remember when we see you in the airport, “Hey, it’s that guy. It’s Peter Mansbridge.” Don’t you love when they say, “Should I know you?”

Peter: Yes, it’s crazy.

Erin: I’ve gotten that, but it’s like, “I don’t know, should you?”

Erin: Tell us the most bizarre thing someone has said when they’ve met you and not known what else to say because fans get gobsmacked, Peter?

Peter: Actually, I can tell you when that happened, and this has happened a few times. It was just a couple of weeks ago. I was flying back from somewhere, got in the car at the airport, a taxi or Uber or something, and we’re driving into Toronto. The guy was very talkative, and we were talking away about different things. He’d recognized me. We were talking about– it could have been sports or world events or something. Anyway, he was very, very talkative.

He kept looking at me in the rearview mirror. We had a great conversation. It was very enjoyable. I get to where we were going, I said, “That’s great. Thanks so much.” I get out of the car, and before I close the door, he says, “I just want you to know I really miss you, Mr Robertson. You were great all those years.”

Erin: I knew it.

Peter: It’s funny because Lloyd says the same thing has happened to him. He remembered picking up somebody at the side of the road during a rainstorm. Him and his wife picked this woman up, and she got in the back seat, and he said, “I couldn’t leave you standing there. I’m happy to take you to your home,” which was, it turned out it was right along the way. He takes her home, they have all those discussions, she gets out of the car, she says, “You’re great, Mr. Mansbridge. I just love the fact that I got this opportunity to meet you.” Those things happen, and it keeps you honest too, right?

Erin: Oh, don’t they, though?

Peter: Oh, yes. Just when you think everybody knows who you are, they don’t.

Erin: Exactly. If I had a dollar for every time it was, “Hey, it’s Marilyn Denis,” I’d be flying off with you somewhere. Peter, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and your perspective. We so appreciate all of it, and it was great talking to you.

Peter: Thanks, Erin. It was great talking to you, as always.

Erin: Catch more Peter Mansbridge whenever you like, simply by downloading his podcast, The Bridge. Informative and entertaining, you’ll stay up to date on all the latest developments in the world around us from someone you can trust. We trust you are enjoying REAL TIME, and please do let all of your associates and friends know we’re here. Catch every episode, past and future, simply by subscribing wherever you download the best podcasts.

REAL TIME is produced by Alphabet® Creative, with sound magic by Rob Whitehead and Real Family Productions. I’m Erin Davis, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode just as much as we did bringing it to you. Thanks for being here, and we’ll talk to you again soon on REAL TIME.