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A survivor of two civil wars, Zahra Al-Harazi immigrated to Canada in 1996 with her three children and no higher education. Today, she’s one of Canada’s most successful entrepreneurs.

On this episode of REAL TIME, Zahra unpacks the turning point in her story, when she defined her sense of purpose, and how it continues to guide her and her businesses. She also shares strategies for defining your own purpose, and how to harmonize your personal and professional values, so you can stay focused, motivated, and fulfilled.

Discover Ikigai, the Japanese concept Zahra swears by for inspiring your sense of purpose: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai

Learn more about the Enneagram personality types: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enneagram_of_Personality

Transcript

Erin Davis: What stories do you owe your 80-year-old self, and how can you start writing them today? One word, purpose. That’s our topic today on REAL TIME, the podcast for REALTORS® brought to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association. I’m your host, Erin Davis, and our guest is Zahra Al-Harazi, one of Canada’s most successful businesswomen, a woman whose life defies expectations, consultant, author, and community builder. Zahra joins REAL TIME to talk about the power of purpose and its business potential for REALTORS®. Let’s get started.

Erin: Zahra, people have different definitions of purpose. How do you define it, and why is it important for businesses to have a purpose beyond profit?

Zahra Al-Harazi: Thank you for that question. A purpose is the explanation of the company’s motivations and their reason for being. It’s a way to set boundaries for what an organization will and will not do as part of its growth strategy. It is really important to have purpose as an organization because it defines the reason that you are there. Especially in today’s world, between the millennials and Gen Z, there is a massive trust deficit, desire for sustainability, desire to fix social inequality.

Brand control isn’t as much as it used to be because there’s this rise of social media and people trust more in what other people tell them about a product than the product itself. There’s all these reasons why you should have a strong purpose statement. Really, the purpose statement is your reason for being.

Erin: You have said that there are two types or two ways in which your values have to align with the corporation. Can you explain that?

Zahra: Rather than two ways, I think there is a personal purpose and then there is an organizational purpose. Really, those things should align. Organizations should really understand what their target audience, meaning their stakeholders, meaning their employees, their customers, what they want, what they desire, what is important to them, and then aligning that purpose to both those things. If I, as an employee, don’t feel the same sense of values and purpose with my organization, I’m going to be less interested in what that organization has to stand for.

I will go looking for somewhere else that does align with my values, my sense of purpose, the things that I want to do, what my legacy is meant to be. I think those are the two things that are really important. A lot of people write these nice things like mission statement and values and purpose and whatever, and put them up on a wall. If you ask the employees without looking at the wall what those are, most of the time they won’t be able to tell you.

They’re also very similar to what every other organization is doing. You can change the logo in the name and put in another name and you’ve got pretty much the same sense of purpose. Truly understanding your audience, what they want, your employees, what they are passionate about, what motivates them, what gets them going, what drives them, is then going to make a really powerful purpose statement. Every stakeholder should remember what your purpose is without you having to articulate it over and over again.

Erin: Zahra, I find your own story of realizing that you had a purpose, of course, but it wasn’t really in line with who you are or what you really wanted. Can you tell us that story? Because it’s really enlightening.

Zahra: Yes. I don’t know that I had a purpose before I actually sat down and I worked on articulating it. I think for a big chunk of my life, I was pretty lost. I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do and what other people told me. I never really got to true success until I defined what that purpose is. I’m both a refugee and an immigrant. I was a refugee when we left the war in Uganda and went to Yemen. I was an immigrant when I left the war in Yemen and came to Canada.

In that time, I just wasn’t sure what I was meant to do, what I was supposed to do, how to go about life, and my sense of purpose. I didn’t even know what having a sense of purpose honestly quite meant. Then I took the tools that we use at a really low time in my life when I was going through a lot of bad things. If you’re from Calgary, you’ll know that when the recession happens and it’s this very cyclical sort of environment, it affects you. Between that, getting a divorce, a whole bunch of different things, I was just not at a good place. I took the tools that we use to build a brand.

For my first company, it was an ad agency. When we’re helping a company design their purpose and their values and their brand and how they operate, we usually start with a creative brief. That creative brief can be pretty powerful because it fully understands what this brand is supposed to be, what it does, what are its drawbacks, who’s its competition, what’s its purpose, how does it work, what does it look like on a shelf, and all of that. Once we understand this brand is then when we are able to move forward and design it. I took that tool, and I built a purpose for myself.

Honestly, in the last 15 years, that purpose hasn’t changed much, but it also helped propel me to what I am doing today.

Erin: You have said that the things that you adhere to in terms of your purpose, like integrity, honesty, experience, and expertise, those are non-negotiables. They’re totally who you are and what you wanted yourself to present, what you wanted you to present to the world. How do you translate that into what a company should also have for brands? How does that translate? Your own, because you’re a company, so how do you translate that into what others can also see and believe and be?

Zahra: Yes. Actually, those were for my company when I was building purpose for my company and we were trying– because clients would ask us what ours was as we were building theirs. We grew by flying by the seat of our pants. We didn’t actually have time to stop and do that. We realized that we had to do that as a company. As we were looking at that and trying to figure it out and we had these big post-it notes on the wall and we were writing things down like integrity and honesty and excellence and all of that and nothing, it didn’t feel right. It was weird because we kept crossing it off and it was like, why does that– That sounds like a good purpose to have.

We realized that those things are set in stone. If you don’t have integrity, then get out of business. If you don’t value excellence, then it’s not going to work. That was the big driver is understanding like, “Okay, so those things are table stakes. They’re set in stone. They’re non-negotiables. If we don’t have these things, we shouldn’t be in business because those are the cornerstones of doing things the right way.” When we started looking at our purpose and our values as an organization, we started looking at how we wanted to live our lives, what we wanted to leave behind, what we wanted to touch, how we wanted to operate, how we wanted to act, how we wanted people to view us.

That’s how we ended up with the set of values that we wrote down. Interestingly enough, those values have followed me now into my third startup, and they’re the same things that I wanted then I want now. I realized that your personal values, your personal purpose has to align, especially as an entrepreneur, has to align like this, completely and totally with your company and your corporate values. Otherwise, you won’t be true to them.

Erin: Right. Not just a slogan or something on a coffee mug, but something that becomes part of your DNA. Obviously, if you’re in your third incarnation, then it certainly is. Now, question for you here, Zahra, is should a purpose differ from a mission or a vision and how do they work together if they do differ?

Zahra: Yes, so like I said, a purpose is the explanation of your motivation. Your reason for being. A mission statement is a definition of your business. What are you in business? What do you do? Who do you serve? What are your objectives? What is your approach to achieving those objectives? Purpose is different. With a lot of companies, you find that whether it’s your values, your mission, your purpose, they sort of belong in the HR department, and again, become words on a wall. They don’t live and breathe throughout every silo that– and we all know that every organization is quite siloed.

Your purpose should live and breathe through your entire organization. How you do billing, how you do legal, what you volunteer for, what organizations you give for, what you attend, what you do, and especially as an entrepreneur. You have to live and breathe it at every touch point. If this part of your company does not align, it breaks that chain.

Erin: Okay, you came up with this list of words, a long list of words. I love your circle the 20 thing. Could you explain that exercise to us? Because I get a feeling we’re going to be doing this when we’re done, those of us watching and listening today, Zahra. You’re really putting yourself on the line with this one and that’s brave and it makes you vulnerable. I think that’s why it works. Go ahead and explain that for us, will you?

Zahra: Happily, however, I didn’t totally put myself on the line because I made it anonymous, because I didn’t really want to know what people thought of me. What I did when I was working on my creative brief and my personal values and purpose is I put together 200 words on a piece of paper, and I just circled just instinctively and they were good and bad words. things that maybe were flattering, some things that weren’t as flattering.

I just circled the 20 words that I thought that applied to me. Then I gave that piece of paper to a lot of people in my world, everybody from clients to staff to friends and asked them what they thought. I made it anonymous because I wanted them to be comfortable telling me what they thought. Then I also wanted to not really know what people thought.

Erin: It’s like a focus group. Nobody likes those.

Zahra: For sure. I compared everything, and it was really interesting to see how I viewed myself versus how other people viewed me. There was a lot of similarities but there were a few differences. Where I thought I was assertive, a lot of people thought I was stubborn and bossy, That’s interesting. Because maybe I’m not projecting myself the right way. I had to really think about that. It’s like, this is what they’re seeing. Why are they seeing that? How can I change that to them seeing me as being assertive?

It was a very helpful and difficult exercise in understanding yourself and what you put out there. Because that’s a huge part of, for all of us, especially entrepreneurs, again, your brand is you. What you put out there in the world for people to see how they interact with you, who they believe you are, is such a huge part of whether they believe in your work and your product or not.

That was a really big– Before I did this exercise, before I started exploring this creative brief and this brand, that self-help, self-motivation stuff belonged in this kumbaya world that didn’t really apply to me. Because as soon as I thought something was wrong with me, that meant something was wrong with me. I just wasn’t going to think that anything was wrong with me.

Erin: That perception is their reality, as much as you go, no, that’s not me at all. Okay, where did you get the 200 words from?

Zahra: I Googled. I sat down. I wrote descriptive words. I just tried to put together words that I knew. Good words, bad words, like it’s just very easy to do that part. Maybe there was some bias too in that exercise for myself because I know what words I wanted to see on there and stuff like that. That’s why I made it such a big list of words so that I covered so many different things.

Erin: Yes, well, you said anonymous, but still, I do think it was vulnerable of you to open the doors to what people thought of you because most of us, a lot of us don’t want to know. It worked for you. It was an eye-opener. You have a few other tests that you really like. There’s, for example, the Enneagram.

Zahra: Yes, I love the Enneagram personality test. Again, it was a moment of conflict with a business partner. We decided to do the Enneagram personality test because we did not see eye to eye, and we did not understand how the other person works. We were so polar opposites in personality. We did this Enneagram personality test as part of our, just, trying to fix the relationship. We brought in a coach, and they did the Enneagram personality test. It was fascinating because not only do we all have certain personality definitions and traits.

For me, my personality is I want to try everything and see what sticks to the wall. On the bad side, yes, I’m the one with all the big ideas, but then I’m never around to pick up the pieces because I’m not the detail-oriented person. Whereas my partner was down in the weeds in this detail stuff. She would never do anything unless it was tried, tested, true. She knew exactly how it would work. We frustrated each other to a enormous degree. It was really powerful to understand. The Enneagram not only tells you how you work with people, how people should work with you, personality things, it tells you what your wings are.

If you’re in a bad place, you might lean more into this direction of being an overprotective bully, for example, or in this direction of being too accommodating because you really wanted to work. You really just understand. It’s all part of this growth journey that I think a lot of us just don’t take on because like you said, it’s difficult. It’s scary. A lot of times you don’t know what you’re going to find on the other side of that research. It really helps. It helps understand what you want, how you’re going to do it.

It helped me understand what I wanted to do with my life. I’ll tell you what my purpose statement was that I wrote 15 years ago. This just rang true to me at the time. It wasn’t a goal that was money-oriented or career-oriented, but what I wrote down is I will spend the rest of my life living stories and experiences that will change perspectives, outcomes, and hearts. That was really important to me because then I was a marketer. That was my first company phase. I was a marketer. What we did was we sold things to people.

We convinced them to buy what we wanted them to buy, to go where we wanted them to go. That was part of my DNA. I wanted to have experiences. I had come off a part of my life where I didn’t have the freedom to do what I wanted to do. Now all of a sudden, I did, and I wanted to do everything. I wanted to change hearts because giving back is such a huge part of who I am. I wanted people to care more.

I wanted them to see other people and take in how they can change their lives. I wanted to change people’s outcomes. I wanted to help people in poverty and get them out of that situation into a different place. These were all things that were important to me that meant a lot to me. I started working on that and I started speaking, for example, I’ve spoken to audiences around the world, two to 5,000 people at a time. I’ve spoken at the UN, at Canada’s Most Powerful Women Conference, at a conference in Istanbul, for example, that had 2,500 entrepreneurs from around the world.

That became a big part of what I did. I set myself up to a place where I became an influencer, and I got to sit at tables where big decisions were made. I was the Canadian ambassador for UNICEF for four years. I was on the National Canadian Board of Directors for Make-A-Wish Foundation. Those were all things that I cared about. The first trip I took with my kids after my divorce was, we went with Homes of Hope and we build homes in Tijuana for families.

All of that led into this purpose statement that I had put out. It all continues to fit because everything I do, I measure it against that. Does this feel right to me? Which has led to my third company. I started doing stuff because I wanted to have experiences. I did everything from learning how to ride a motorcycle to jumping out of a plane, I am terrified of heights, to doing big and small things that were new.

Erin: Just incredible. That clarity really did just open up everything for you. You talk about being at the table where big decisions are made, but these are things, too, that can translate so beautifully to the kitchen table, too, because you have imbued your children, not only with your brilliance and everything that you are and have proven, not only in business, but in life and the obstacles that you have surmounted. The fact that you are giving examples of giving back and charity and living that.

I think this is a message, your message, your story is one that applies not only in business, but around the kitchen table. I think you’re just resonating so much with so many people today as well. Thanks for this, but we’re not done. Because, Zahra, I want to ask you, how could a well-executed sense of purpose help boost your reputation or maybe even shift misconceptions about you or your business? It’s fine to have these ideas of what your purpose, what your mission, what they are going to be, but you got to go get it out there, right?

Zahra: Yes, absolutely. Before you get it out there though, it has to be true. It has to be true to who you are. It has to be true to what you do. For example, if we are talking real estate, and everybody wants to sell houses to people and a lot of those mission, purpose, value statements are going to be the same, but what is your niche? What sets you apart from other people? What is it that you truly believe in and you want to do?

An example could be somebody who wants to help seniors transition into smaller homes, which is exactly where I am right now. I want a one-story forever home that I never have to move out of, hopefully. I don’t want to be moving when I’m in my 70s, and trying to figure it out. If there is somebody that has decided that’s going to be where they want to live, and that’s the client that they want, so now they’ve found a niche market.

If you do a good job, if you live by your sense of purpose, if you actually do that properly, every person that you work with is going to recommend you to other people. That means what organizations do you volunteer for, like I said earlier, what organizations do you give to? What events do you go to? Who do you socialize with? All of that needs to fit, and it needs to be real, because if it’s not real, if you are acting and if you’ve decided that this is going to be what you want to do, but it’s not a part of you, then it’s not going to be believable.

I really think that understanding yourself and what you want to do in life is a huge part of your success story. It really is because if you are truly hungry for that thing, if you are truly inspired by that thing, if you are truly motivated to do that thing, then it all becomes real. You work harder. You work faster. You innovate better, and it all fits.

Erin: Yes, and you stop being a boat against the current. It just flows. That authenticity allows you to flow. What do businesses or entrepreneurs need to consider when they’re defining and articulating a purpose?

Zahra: There’s this really, really interesting Japanese concept that I really do love. It’s called ikigai. It means your reason for being, and your ikigai is at the center of what you love, what the world needs from you, what you can be paid for, and what you are good at. Meaning your passion, your mission, your vocation, and your profession. Right at the center of those four things is your ikigai. I absolutely love that. I discovered that when I was working on my own purpose because it’s easy to say, “Well, I’m really passionate about this thing. I love it, but it’s not what I’m good at. It’s not my actual vocation.” I’m really passionate about saving lives, but I’m not a doctor. How am I going to do that?

What you’re passionate about is only one piece of the puzzle. What your mission is in life, is the other piece of the puzzle. What the world needs. Your vocation is what you can be paid for. Your profession is what you are good at, and you take all of those and you put them together, and at the center of that is your purpose, and so great– Look it up. It’s ikigai. It’s a great way to look at yourself and your life, and what you want, and how all of those pieces fit.

Because like I said, if it’s not real, if it’s not believable, if you’re not actually good at that thing, you’re not going– Maybe you can get better at that thing. Maybe you can educate yourself and do that, but maybe you can’t because your circumstances in life are not going to allow you to go deep enough into understanding how to get good at that thing in order to do it well. At the center of all of that, I think is your sense of purpose. Not just me, ikigai is the one that coined that.

Erin: I love that. I just love it. It just sums it up so perfectly. I know you’ve said you don’t like to give advice, but I’m going to go ahead and ask you anyway and see if we can get something out of you here. What are some authentic tactical ways to weave a sense of purpose through every facet of your business? Do you have any that you can share or some feedback, or how do you operate there?

Zahra: I’m a member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization. One of the things we are told is not to give advice to our foreign members. You can share an experience or a story as opposed to giving advice. If I were to say three things that really make a difference is clarity. What I’ve talked about is just understanding yourself, understanding what you do, why you do it, who you are, how you operate, and all of those things. That’s one.

Pride is another one. Having pride in yourself, having that confidence and that courage and that understanding and that resilience and resilience doesn’t come from nothing. We are not born with or without resilience. We earn it. We gain it, and we gain it by doing difficult things, by stepping out of our comfort zone. The more we do that, the more we step out of our comfort zone, the more we do difficult things like me jumping out of a plane is the things that help you build that resilience, and that resilience is so closely tied with courage and belief in yourself and ability.

Having that sense of pride in yourself and finding that is really important, I think. As women, we are taught not– It seems boastful to talk about yourself in a certain way or to take ownership of say, “Yes, I did that.” As opposed to, “It was a team effort.” Be proud of who you are, what you’ve done, how you’ve got here, and then be motivated. Motivation is not easy to come by. Find that thing that you are really passionate about and you really want is really important because if you find that, then you’re more motivated to do it. Motivation only works if your environment works, like if your psychological state, the environment, the people around you, the support system that you have, and your past experiences.

Those things come together in a perfect place, and you can tap into that motivation. Find that, find that motivation, find that thing that makes you want to do something.

Erin: The challenges that you faced, Zahra, when you came to Canada were far from a perfect place from which to start. Yes, confidence and perseverance had to be in your tool belt, but how did they lead you to such a successful career in business when you were first starting out and having to navigate life in a new country?

Zahra: Great question. I’m not entirely sure I know how to answer that. Only because a lot of it happened. A lot of it happened. I knocked on a million doors, and I was a nobody immigrant from nowhere. I was knocking on doors, because like when I came, I had three children. I had a high school degree. I didn’t even know what the word entrepreneur meant at the time. I was so far behind everybody else. I was 26 years old, like I said, three kids, and didn’t know anything about anything.

Just growing up where I am because of poverty of the country and the war and everything else. There’s these big gaps in my knowledge of even popular culture and things like that. I knocked on doors. I asked people out for coffee. I asked them to teach me things that I didn’t know and nobody ever said no. People are kind. People are helpful. That is, I think, our first approach for the majority of people. The doors that I knocked on, the people that taught me things ended up becoming my friends, my clients, my motivators, my fan club, and they helped cheer me on and take me to places that I might not have got to on my own.

I know that I put myself in places where I was lucky enough to have those resources. A lot of it, I think, happens with life. You have to capitalize on it. You have to move forward. My very first award was Top 40 Under 40. A client of mine, who was also a friend, Andrea, put my name in the hat. I didn’t even know about the Top 40 Under 40 award. I was busy trying to build a company. I wasn’t even thinking about it. I was early, first year in business sort of thing.

I won that, and with that came a lot of accolades and a lot of new clients and it grew from there. Again, this is advice that I don’t like to give, but put yourself in rooms where things are happening. Volunteer, get involved in community, join a sports team. One of my very first things that I did when I came to Calgary because girls where I come from are not allowed gym class, and I don’t think I even ran as a kid. Jim Button in Calgary started this thing where you just went and played a sport every week and it was 40 girls, 40 guys and then everybody got together at the end of the night for a drink.

The first time I went every game, like every weekend, every week we would do basketball or hockey or floor hockey, portaging and every week I’d be the one who put my hand up and said, “I’ve never done that before.” I met the best people and some of them are still– they play such a huge part in my life, especially Jim Button. A lot of that is the things that have made a difference. I can pinpoint decisions that I made to do things that weren’t success-related that led to my biggest successes.

Erin: Talking about the purpose, does that change? Our perspective at 20 is so different from our perspective at 40 and at 60 and on and on, just who we think is old for one thing. Does your perspective need to be recalibrated as you go along or what is your opinion on that?

Zahra: 1,000%, 1,000%. What I wanted 10 years ago is not what I wanted 20 years ago is not what I wanted when I was a kid is in some cases not what I want today. We change, our circumstances change. There was a point where I just really wanted to go to Hong Kong. I don’t know why I was fascinated by my visit there and the culture there and the people that I met there and the best of the best of the expat community. I just wanted to live in Hong Kong, but I’m an only child. My father was not well. It didn’t make sense for me to do that. That dream had to be put aside, thankfully, because what ended up happening was much better.

Things change. Like I said, your environment, things that happened to you, your circumstances, guide different things, different moments in your life. You might go down a path that you never expected and find a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. Yes, I revisit my purpose, my creative brief every year. Some things have not changed. I really haven’t changed my purpose statement because I like it. It fits me, but other things have changed. Yes, absolutely. You have to revisit.

Erin: Like a tune-up every year. That’s fascinating. Okay. What is or what are some stories you want to tell as an 80-year-old?

Zahra: At the risk of sounding very corny, what’s important to me is doing good in this world, people who do good in this world. I’m very choosy about what I let into my life at this stage, about who I let into my life at this stage. I have kids that live all over the world, and I spend a lot of time going to see them. I have a limited amount of time outside of my business and volunteering for things that are important to me, of who I want to hang out with, what I want to do. I’m very choosy. I’m choosy about what influence I want to have, who I want to let into my life, what boards and charities I want to be involved in, what I want my business life to look like.

My new company is called Skillit, and it’s an experiential company. It’s where we take a family on an experience, but they learn something every single time. It’s very experiential, but there are soft and hard skills that you come away with at every interaction. For example, we’ll take a family out into the desert with no food, and they have to dig for water, forage for food, learn about medicinal herbs with a guide, of course, learn about medicinal herbs and how to build a lean-to.

Erin: Is there room service? No, I’m kidding. You almost had me there, Zahra.

Zahra: They’re going to build a solar oven and cook their own food. Can you see how that brings together everything in my world? Because number one, it’s experience-based. Number two, it’s very associated with people and changing lives and influencing, making their lives better by teaching them things. For every skill we sell, we donate one to a young person in need. That’s my give back, and so it just, all the pieces fit, and that’s what I want to give my time to. That’s the story I want to tell.

Erin: Beautiful. Thank you so, so much for sharing some of your story here today. We will definitely tell people more about that as we say goodbye to you. Zahra, we are just so grateful. As we wrap up today, are there any like three things you want people to take away from our discussion today? You’ve given us so much.

Zahra: I think I’m going to go back to the three things I said earlier, pride in yourself, clarity in what you have to do, and motivation to do it.

Erin: Wow. We’ve got all of that, especially the motivation after talking with you today, Zahra, thank you so much. We cannot wait to find out what’s next for you, including Skillit. No more jumping out of perfectly operating planes, okay? Thank you.

Zahra: No, that was a one-and-done.

Erin: One-and-done. Good for you. Thank you so much.

Zahra: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.

Erin: Wasn’t she amazing? You know what? We only began to skim the surface of her own personal story. If you want more inspiration from Zahra, her book is called What It Takes to Live and Lead with Purpose, Laughter, and Strength. It details her journey and how it all began. You can find details on that in our show notes. We will also link you to Ikigai so you know what it is and where to find it, and also the enneagramtest.com. It’s all fascinating. If you liked this episode of REAL TIME, we invite you to explore our other episodes. Don’t forget to rate or review the show. We always, always appreciate it. I’m your host Erin Davis. REAL TIME is brought to you by the Canadian Real Estate Association, CREA.

Production is courtesy of Alphabet® Creative with technical support from Rob Whitehead. Thanks so much for joining us, and we’ll see you again next time on REAL TIME.

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LIFE. LOVE. HOME. MOMENTS CONTEST

The post Life.Love.Home. Moments Contest appeared first on House & Home.

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.