Brindley Tucker: Building Your Empire By Supporting Others Building Theirs
LISTEN TO FULL EPISODE ON:
Brindley is the founder and CEO of Your Realty Leverage, a company that provides a whole suite of services to real estate agents, teams, and brokerages - from recruiting, hiring, training, listings, transactions, marketing, and coaching. In addition to that, she has a long list of ways that she's contributed to the administration side of the real estate industry, as an assistant, transaction coordinator, coach, trainer, and entrepreneur. Brindley is always willing to share with others, help anyone out, and make a positive impact on the industry.
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- Her story in how she worked as an assistant and made her way to the top
- When we hire people and bring them into our business, it requires us to slow down and have the patience to take people through the process
- You need to know your values, mission, and vision so that you know the type of people you want to be in business with
- How its not always the best idea to do business with friends and family
- You don’t build a business. You build people and they build the business
- Founding Your Realty Leverage, which focuses on marketing, social media, listings management, and transaction management
- With the right talent, she has had clients double & triple business in 6-12 months
- Her business coaches leadership, agents, and admin
- Because her business has grown, it has opened up opportunities in the medical and legal field
- She is living a life by design by spending summers in Washington and winters in Florida
- Everyone has choices and you are the only one in charge of that
- Ask yourself: Am I doing things that lower my hourly rate, or that raise my hourly rate?
Timestamps: If You Want To Jump Ahead To Your Favorite Part
0:00 - Intro and overview on Brindley’s career
10:00 – How she overcame some difficult situations and grew to success
20:29 – What Brindley’s future looks like
24:10 – How certain opportunities came her way
29:30 – Fun experiences that Brindley gets to have
Links Based On This Episode:
Brindley's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brindleytucker/
Brindley's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brindley.tucker
Your Leverage Team: https://yourrealtyleverage.com
Transaction Management Academy: https://www.transactionmanagementacademy.com/
Book: Rocket Fuel
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Hi, everyone, welcome to real freedom. And we have another fantastic real freedom story to share. We have the wonderful Brindley Tucker here. And what I love about brynlee story is it's a little bit different than the traditional story. You know, we're gonna have lots of agents talking about how they were agents and built teams. And we have somebody who's who's on a different side of the coin here, who is supporting agents, and has built companies around that in really supporting agents and helping them get where they need to go.
Mike Swenson
So it's a great example of showing that you can build something big in real estate, and you don't have to sell real estate yourself as your primary function. And so Brindley if you want to just share a little bit about you, some of the irons you have in the fire, and we can go from there.
Brindley Tucker
Hi, thank you first and foremost, Thank you, Mike, so much for having me today. I'm Brindley Tucker. And I like to say that I am the queen of leverage, I have spent the last pretty much my entire career in some capacity of leverage within business, especially small business and supporting visionaries, rainmakers and, and then now we own a company that as a real estate agent, we're in real estate, primarily right now we're moving into medical and legal yet they can come to us, we can offer them temporary admin support, while we find them a permanent admin support, we train that admin, and then they can go into coaching, and further on their professional development to support their rainmakers, brokers and leaders.
Brindley Tucker
So it's really for you know, now it's the complete package, right? Someone can come to ask and really leverage everything in their business, because they need to focus on the things that make them money, not the things that that lower their hourly rate.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and a lot of times when we talk about leverage, you know, we've heard agents talk about, you know, I don't really know what to do, I don't really know how to hire people. You know, I've or have, I've even heard a story of like, Hey, I'm hiring a person they start next week, what should I have them do?
Mike Swenson
So, it's important for people to understand, you know, first of all, you you don't want to go at this alone, you want to go through it with others. And you've really have taken that to the next level in specializing in how do I get people to that next level? So do you want to talk a little bit about you've got a couple different things inside of your company? And what it is that you're what it is that you're doing?
Brindley Tucker
Yeah, so the first part of kind of the whole, the first domino, I will say, of the process is offering marketing, social media, transaction management services, listing management service. So all of those things that right now, if you don't have the proper leverage in your business, you're probably hemorrhaging. And so we want to stop the hemorrhage. And so our temporary leverage services will help do that. And then we know that while we're busy, you know, business owners are busy people, I'm a business owner, Mike, you're a business owner and hiring requires us to slow down and have patience to take people through the process.
Brindley Tucker
Most of us just don't have the time. And some of us don't have the patience. Right?
Mike Swenson
Most of us don't have the patience
Brindley Tucker
To go through that process and so what we do is we have people that that's what they specialize in, they're talking to talent all day long. They're taking them through a very, very thorough hiring, recruiting process. And then once we find that talent, we're we're partnering with you to take them through their first 90 days. So we're meeting with them, we're giving them one on one training, learning module systems, everything that they need to be set up for success, because we also know that training requires patience and slowing down and, and I was listening to there's a great book called rocket fuel, if you're talking about bringing in an integrator into your business, and he called it organizational whiplash.
Brindley Tucker
And that's what we will cause right, we can be very unaware sometimes as leaders what our emotional wake that we leave is, and so we can cause whiplash in our organization. And the reason that we, we have a revolving door, so to speak, is because we bring people in quickly, right? We don't take them through a thorough recruiting process. And then we say, here's the fire hose, start drinking. And we don't set them up for success. We don't set us up for success. So by 30 45 60 days, we're both frustrated with one another, there's resentment. And my if you've heard me say it, you know, resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It's very difficult in a new relationship to reverse resentment once it's, it's created.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. And I think what's important for people to understand too is how much having the right admin support and having that right leverage can really accelerate your business. You know, one of the interviews I just finished up, they had went, they brought in, they went from I think it was 29 closings to, it was like 56 closings the next year by making their first hire. And they said, you know, look at this, that person basically just earned five or six times, or I earn five or six times more, because I was willing to leverage other people.
Mike Swenson
And so as we talk about, you know, getting real freedom, you can get real financial freedom through the power of that leverage. And so are there any examples that you have that come to mind just of success stories that you've had with people and how their business has grown as a result of what you've been able to provide them?
Brindley Tucker
100% I posted something this morning, it's so funny, you brought this up that says you don't build the business, you build people, and they build the business. And I think, you know, yes, the right talent can make massive changes and create massive growth in revenue opportunities inside your company. And on the flip side, the wrong talent can take you very far back, and it can take you backwards and can cost you a lot of money. So I think, again, it's going back to making sure that you have the right talent, because the right talent will rocket launch you.
Brindley Tucker
Then it's also about finding the right talent, and then getting out of their way, giving them the systems models and tools and training that they need to succeed in their role. And then getting out of their way, and letting them have the autonomy to focus on their lane. Because if we're hiring properly, you're hiring to your your your Yin to your Yang, to your Yin, right, you're you're hiring the Yang and the Yang. So really, that person should do everything that you've hired them for better than you do, right, because you've hired against your strengths, we want to keep everyone in their strength zone.
Brindley Tucker
So you know, your strength zone, so that identify what's not your strength zone and go hire that person. If you hire someone who has those strengths, then you have a higher probability of increasing business in a very quick way. So I've had several teams and brokerages that have doubled, tripled production within six to 12 months with the right talent, because it's about they now get to shift their focus on the things that matter and the things that generate the most amount of money the fastest.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and what you said about finding the right talent, because you can find, you can find a button to fill a seat, and that person can take some stuff off your plate. And yet you might not get you might just get a 1x return or less than a 1x return. And the right person can 345 6x something. And so I think that's the thing that it's a difference between having leverage, you know, we think about leverage, it's, you know, think about a teeter totter, right?
Mike Swenson
Like, if you just push on it a little bit, you get a lot on the other side. And so that's where the right person really can make a big difference. An average person can make an okay difference, and yet, you're really looking for somebody that's going to launch your business. And that's why it's called rocket fuel because it helps to launch to the next level, right?
Brindley Tucker
I'm 100%. And I think it's, there's so many elements of it, right? It's the the recruiting process that you follow that you're following a thorough recruiting process. Number two, that you have a thorough 90 day trading plan to set that person up for success. And if you can't do it, that you find someone that can for you, and you leverage that, right, and then and then continuing to set metrics and expectations for the individual. And the most important thing is knowing when to get out of business with people. You know, it's it's, it's like I, I'm single, online dating is so annoying, right?
Brindley Tucker
Yet, it's a lot like dating, like, you've got to go to dinner with a lot of people to find the one person that is your match. And so I think sometimes what happens too, is that we bring someone on and they don't perform in those first 90 days. And we start to convince ourselves why we should keep them, well, maybe it's us, maybe I did something wrong, maybe, you know, I didn't I wasn't there enough, when in reality, they just weren't the right fit for the role doesn't make them a bad person doesn't make me a bad person.
Brindley Tucker
So I've learned, I used to also be very afraid of what people in my industry would think if they saw turnover in my organization. And when I was able to remove my ego from it, I realized that not only was I doing my business, a favor of getting out of business with people quickly, I was doing my other team members of favor by getting out of business quickly because they could see it as much as I could. And that's not fair to them. So you have to be slow to hire and quick to fire and we've heard that over and over yet we still need to be reminded of that.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and I think so. So talk to me then about so you're in a unique position because you've you've seen this opportunity in the market and you chose to fill that. I mean, you could have sold homes, you could have done a fantastic job at it. And yet you saw this opportunity to market and at the same time, you don't work for free, right and so you have bills to pay you have a financial future that you want to fund
Mike Swenson
So walk me through the thought process of when you started to create this organization and you did transaction management stuff too. So kind of walk me back up a little bit. And let's walk through like, what did you see in the market? What did you see also as like the financial opportunity for you to be able to achieve the future that you want through these companies that are supporting other people in real estate and now other industries too.
Brindley Tucker
You know, it's funny, like I fell into this, really, and there was, and I constantly think back to him, there was I worked for a gentleman named Kurt Jomo, in New York, when I first got out of college, and he was the first person that I ever heard use the word leverage. And what I learned very early on in my career is that the fastest way to learn and industry was to become someone's assistant, you know, if we go back in time, that's why they had apprentices, right. And they had apprenticeships is because people learned from people that had mastered the craft.
Brindley Tucker
I didn't realize that as I was going through my journey, that every single industry that I went into, I was an assistant first yet then I became what the master was. So you know, I was an assistant in investment banking, and I became, you know, a day trader and a trader in investment banking. And then I was, you know, an assistant to a membership director for country club memberships, and I sold country club memberships for three or four years. And so when I came into real estate, I said, me, I don't know anything about this industry. I was going through a lot of personal and personal challenges, I was probably in one of the darkest places of my life.
Brindley Tucker
The story I was, I was drinking a lot at the time, because I didn't want to feel I was in a relationship that was not healthy. I was back home at 32, I had worked really hard lives in Manhattan, worked on Wall Street and all these amazing things. And I just was back home at 32. nothing to show for it kind of back at the drawing board. And what do I want to do with my life and just really depressed and ashamed and shame is a really, really dark thing. And so my self medication was to drink. And so I decided, well, real estate because I learned a little bit about it.
Brindley Tucker
When I sold country club memberships would be great, right? I can make my own hours, I can make a lot of money. And I submit I know nothing about it. And I don't want to spend a bunch of money and I don't have a bunch of money to invest. And so I started applying for real estate assistant positions. And with the company Keller Williams that I'm current agent for they have what's called a director of agent services position inside the brokerages and they hired me to be their director of agent services. That was in November of 2011. I would continue to kind of go through this spiral.
Brindley Tucker
And I went to my first Keller Williams conference, which is family reunion you know it in February, and all I heard was God family business. And I was like, that's everything that's missing in my life, this big hole that I've been trying to fill inside of me is because I don't have God family or business. All I have is drinking and misery. And so fast forward to May, I made some pretty big mistakes and ended up in a really, really in the lowest bottom that I've ever had.
Brindley Tucker
I made a U turn in front of a motorcycle in the middle of a blackout. And for about two days, I thought he was dead. And I thought I was going to prison for a really long time. And you know, there are in some of our lives, these pivotal moments that you have to make a really big decision. Am I going to continue down this path and allow it to consume my life? Or am I going to use this as a catalyst to change? And I chose the later and it was a really hard difficult time I was facing you know, felonies I was.
Brindley Tucker
I was I was $50,000 in debt between attorneys fees and you know fines and I had no job the brokerage had to fire me he didn't demand didn't die and I truly believe that's because he knew I you know God knew I'd be more useful here that I would be you know behind bars yet I accepted full responsibility for my actions. I didn't try to deny it and plead not guilty like I I took the responsibility for my actions and and so a few agents knew that and they said we want to help you. And I did what I know best I assisted right and so I would do their websites, their database and then I would ride my bike because it couldn't drive so I'd ride my bike from brokerage to burgers to brokerage, I always say I have the best rear end and Pinellas County at that time.
Brindley Tucker
And it was like a beach cruiser and like no shocks like drive. I mean, it was just it was a it was a tough time. And a few agents, an agent called me one day and he said, I want you to do my transactions. I'm not happy with my transaction coordinator. And I was like, okay, I've never done it. So I called another agent. And I was like, This guy wants me to do transaction management. And I don't know how to do a transaction, can you record it? And I'll like, play it back. And that's how we learned transactions. I had Maureen Casco never forget it, she recorded an entire transaction on what to do in the process. And I would play it over and over and over until I learned the transaction. So in about three years, I went from me to 2000 transactions.
Brindley Tucker
So I always say close 1000s of transactions, but I've never sold a home run. That's kind of what got me into it. And then I saw that we there's this community that are the ninjas, and truly the foundation and the backbone of the real estate business. And nobody's fighting for them. Really, no one is, is using their voice to grow the community. No, there's no training, there's no, you know, coaching, there's no pouring into them at a really high level. People were doing it but not at an extremely high, intentional level. And so a lot for profit, not a lot for about you, right? And so I said, well, let's start coaching and training. And, and then I said, Well, we got to have people to coach and train agents aren't very good at hiring.
Brindley Tucker
So let's start hiring them. Right. So I sold the TC and listing management business to go into coaching, teaching and training, and ended up in a partnership with another coaching company, and have an amazing I've so much gratitude for that company, helped build some operations programs for them. And then last October decided to go back into my business and say, You know what, I want to be a one stop shop for agents. I want to solve every leverage problem that an agent has every problem, so you can come to us and we can take care of everything. And you can go lead, generate lead, follow up on appointment scripts, and roleplay and negotiate contracts. So as we're building, yes. And so I think you asked the question, like, I saw the niche yet. It's been a struggle, Mike like, and I posted this this week, like I've been struggling with, okay, I fell into this, it was a product of like survival.
Brindley Tucker
Is this really my Why? Like, am I you know, what is my legacy and my purpose with this because I didn't choose it, I kind of fell into it, and then realize the need and wanted to help people. And I was reminded that my mom in 1983 was a secretary making $12,000 a year for a company called Raymond James, some of you might have heard of it. When she started working, there was one building in Pinellas Park, Florida. And when I graduated from high school, she was a senior VP of institutional sales. And so she had worked her way up in the company from a support position to a VP. And it was clear as days, that's the legacy I want to leave, I want to help people do that. Right. I want to help people, business owners get leverage and help leverage grow into business owners.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, yeah. And I remember early on, you know, sometimes people and this is the, I guess, in some ways, I don't want to say the sad thing. But I see people that aren't on the leverage side, say, like, Well, why would you want to do that, you know, and I really look at it as from a gifting standpoint, is what am i gifted to do. And there's people that are gifted to do some things over here and some things over here. And it's not a better than or a worse than, it's, it's just different. And, you know, a lot of people just take for granted how much a great person can really add to your business, by doing all the things that you probably don't like to do, and they can do them a lot better, and they enjoy doing them.
Mike Swenson
And then the flip side is they would never want to do the things that you like doing, you know, and so it's not a matter of better than or worse than it's about it's a matter of what do I enjoy doing. And then I think the other thing that, you know, being leveraging in somebody's businesses, you know, people sometimes treat it like a disposable asset. Oh, you know, I'll just go get another person. And it's like this assembly line of people. And what they don't realize is that, when done well, that person really adds to your business and grows your business. And it shouldn't be just this revolving door. You know, if you if you treat people like they're disposable, then they are disposable.
Mike Swenson
If you treat people like they matter, then they really do matter. And they really want to support you. And what you'll find and you've seen lots of examples of this of where people are really loyal. And in a lot of cases they they take a beating, and yet they're still loyal because they believe in what people are doing. And so how much more can you gain when people recognize the importance that great leverage can bring to a business a business and how much they can allow it to grow and then stop that person, you know, and what does that look like, you know, give them time off, give them you know, encourage them in their job, help them to grow and achieve things in the future.
Mike Swenson
don't just treat them like AF eventually that person gets burned out, I'll just get another one, you know, and what you're doing is you're just cutting off your business at the knees, versus really allowing it to grow. And so, yeah, that's what I really love is you've seen this niche in the market. And so then talk to me about the future. So, you know, where would you want to see this grow in the future? To help you accomplish your financial goals?
Brindley Tucker
Yeah. So before we go there, I just want to go back for a minute to what you said, because it's not right or wrong. It's different, right? Something I would add is, we're all put on this earth, to live our lives to create our life by design, right? Mike, you have a big family, right? You're married, you have kids, I'm single, I don't have children. My company is my business. That's my choice. Right? I that's the that those are the decisions I've made for my life. They're decisions that you've made for your life. And we have to remember that not everybody wants to live the life that we want to live. Some people don't want work to be their priority.
Brindley Tucker
Some people don't want building a business to be their number one priority, they would rather support someone whose number one priority is building a business because they can go home at night and be with their families, right? They don't, they can enjoy their weekends, they can enjoy their nights, we both know, as business owners, that's not really a luxury that we always have, right business doesn't just stop, because we decide to take off work, right. And so we have to remember that it's not about right or wrong, it's about different. And so those individuals may just want a different life by design than we do. And we can leverage that and their strengths inside of our world. Right. And then I think he brought up such a great, great, great point is that we have to take care of our people. And it's hard, like, I'm just gonna say it leadership is hard, right? It is lonely.
Brindley Tucker
Not everybody wants to do it. And it requires mastery, like everything else. You know, people say that leaders are born, you're born with leadership skills. I believe that you can be born with leadership tendencies, you have to master and hone the craft, like you have to have countless hours, you know, mastery is 10,000 hours of leading people in order to become that level four, level five leader that john Maxwell talks about. Right? So future for us. It's funny, you ask that, um, so we just launched coaching and consulting a few days ago. So we're really, really excited about that. And we're excited to be partnering with our new director of coaching and consulting. If you want more on that announcement, you can check it on our Facebook page.
Brindley Tucker
We are now we're now off to the races so we can actually go come into your business. And we can do a full systems evaluation, rebuild your systems for you and take part of a consult consultative approach. Or we can hire coaches for all of your people. So we actually coach leadership agents and we coach admin, so mostly primarily on operations and building teams and leadership. We'll leave the sales coaching right now to agent sales coaches. But we're primarily focused on building businesses. And that's what we want our niche to be. And we are already starting to expand into several brokerages. So we're an ESP compass, Coldwell Banker, kw, and quite a few others. And then we are also going into the medical field and to the legal field.
Brindley Tucker
So we're going to do the same thing that we've built for real estate agents for attorneys and doctors that are building their practices. So there's a lot of vision here, I think the nature of leverage is changing, especially with the technology and with technological advanced advances. And I think that matchmaking between employers and job seekers is going to look different now that we're moving more towards a virtual world. So I think there's lots of exciting things that are going to happen in this field and in the industry. So I'm excited to see where it takes us.
Mike Swenson
So can you talk a little bit about you know, I'm sure when you first started, you didn't have the idea of of getting into medical and legal and all that, how did how did those types of opportunities open up, I just want to encourage people that, you know, what you have planned for your business. And maybe you did have this planned in the in the long run, but just wanting to see like how different things like that just open up through, when you do something and you do it well, and you serve a need. Opportunities just just happen. You know, and that doesn't mean it doesn't take work. You know, it's not like people are just magically calling you but in some ways, those relationships grow, those connections grow and sometimes things just blossom
Brindley Tucker
100%, it is referral based, right? When you do a good job and take care of your customers. They're going to talk to other people and those other people may in different industries, and how can you help me, right? Well, everybody has hiring needs, right? It's just a different industry, she's looking for a different type of person. I also think this is a really important time to mention that when you have the right leverage in your life, and you're a builder or a visionary, when you have the proper leverage, it gives you more time to focus on the vision and the mission and, and the building. Right. So now that I have the right people in place for each of my divisions, it gives me more time to step back and say, Okay, this is set, where do we go next?
Brindley Tucker
This is set, where do we go back? Right, and I'm constantly revising that vision. And then sometimes, just because you do a good job when people want to be in business with you get a random phone call, like I did a few weeks ago that says, I want to be in business with you. Can we talk about being in business together. And that's how we launched coaching and consulting. So it's, I think that you've just always got to be looking for talent and looking for those relationships. And always identifying people that you would want to be in business with. So if those conversations present themselves, you can, you know, our Director of leverage services that runs all of our TC listing, management, marketing, Evelyn Pendleton, she called me out of the blue probably about a year ago and was like, I want to up charity speak at a conference.
Brindley Tucker
And she said, I want to up to five people I'm surrounded by and I want you to be one of them. Would you go to dinner with me? Like Sure. So for girl drove in the pouring rain, like almost a hurricane in Florida, 45 minutes to have dinner with me, we had the best dinner. And then I guess it was like, probably nine to 12 months later, I sent out an email asking or a post on Facebook asking for some folks to give me some examples of things. And she emailed me and I responded, and I said, What are you gonna come work for me. And within three months, we were in business together.
Brindley Tucker
So you, you also want to be remembering, you know, this is someone that if they cross my path in the future I want to be in business with. So you've got to know your values, your mission, your vision, so that you know the type of people that you want to be in business. And being in business with friends and family is not always a good idea, at least in my experience.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. Yeah. Cuz you don't know what the future is gonna hold. And it's nice, in some ways to keep those separate. Sometimes those businesses work really well, sometimes they don't. And so at least having an understanding of this could potentially go wrong. And if it did go wrong, how is that going to affect our relationship?
Brindley Tucker
You know, and I have failed forward and this many, many times, and I'm very transparent about it. And I seek ownership. And a lot of it is that when you bring friendship or family and you're bringing an emotional relationship into a business setting, and business needs to be logical. And so what happens is, is in the beginning, oh, it's great, well, like each other, we know each other, we can get along. And then when someone doesn't meet the expectations of the business, that emotional relationship comes in, and now you're no longer acting on the logical side of the business relationship, you're acting on the emotional side of the personal relationship.
Brindley Tucker
And I've learned some really, really big lessons in leadership because I want to be everybody's friend, I want everyone to like me, right? ears aren't always light, right leaders are there to protect the mission and the vision. And I have been failing forward through this. And even like, um, I'll use this as an example when I'm a woman. So this probably might be a little bit different for some folks is, you know, going and visiting. We're virtual. We've been virtual for eight years. So I've got employees in Minnesota, Florida, Carolinas, all over the place. And I'm going to go to Minnesota here shortly and visit some of my employees and one of them offered for me to stay at her house. And a year ago, I would have done that Mike, right.
Brindley Tucker
But now there has to be a boundary friends stay at each other's houses. Are we friends? Yes, we're friends, yet we have to protect the business and the mission and the vision. And we've got to know where those boundaries lie. So I'll stay in a hotel where I should right now when we go to dinner, we enjoy one another? Yes. Get you've got to determine as a leader, what boundaries you're going to set to lead them. Right so that you don't allow those relationships to become too much where it's hard to hold them accountable. Because you've gotten too close emotionally. Does that make sense?
Mike Swenson
Yeah. And then talk to too. So you know, as we talked about, freedom through the opportunities that we're creating for ourselves, you've had the opportunity to have some freedom to do some traveling. So I think folks would love to hear how you know, part of it is when we talk about financial freedom, like there's some sort of end that we're going towards whether it's a certain dollar amount, or whether it's a certain dollar amount monthly that we're going to get, but part of it too is enjoying the time to get there. And I think you've got some cool experiences, being able to enjoy your journey and And so you've had some opportunities open up. So talk about how kind of your life and your location and where you live has changed as a result of opportunities opening up through what you're doing.
Brindley Tucker
So, you know, I truly believe that we have one life to live. Right? And for me, hitting rock bottom, and basically like getting scared to death made me really realize like, number one, I was given a second chance. So how can I leave a footprint and give back right? And then number two, what do I want for myself? What is my life by design? And I guess it was two years ago, a dear friend of mine that lives in Bellingham, Washington, some of you in the real estate industry may know him, Ben Kenny, I was up at a conference in Bellingham, and I texted him on my way home.
Brindley Tucker
And I said, I think the perfect life would be summers in Washington and winters in Florida, because Florida gets hot as Haiti in the winter, in the summer. And he said, I think that'd be a great life. And that was in October, never thought about it again. Well, I believe a conscious thought is a prayer, right? That's the whole manifestation, like you put it out there and the university, they're going to give it to you, you're not going to you're God's going to give it to you in October. And in April, I got a phone call from a friend in Bellingham, that said, we just bought a house and we got a two bedroom apartment downstairs.
Brindley Tucker
And I just wanted to let you know that if you ever want to stay here instead of staying in a hotel, and I said, Well, I'm thinking about coming up for the summer. She said, Well, let's talk about that. And so I did my first summer up here last summer, and and then I will go back after my second summer, I leave in a week and a half to go back to Florida. So it, it can happen if we're willing to make it happen. I think sometimes we are either in fear, because we live in the land on it instead of the land. And what if, what if negative instead of what is positive? Right? So instead of you know, what if it does work out, and it's amazing, we go to?
Brindley Tucker
Well, what if it's not fun, and I don't like them and i and i don't like the city and I don't mean anybody and I don't do this, and I don't emulate all of these stories that we tell ourselves cloud our judgment that then we shut down and we're gonna we're not gonna do it? Well, I didn't have a virtual business to sit in a seat all day long, I set up a virtual business that I could work from anywhere. So am I living that? I also think that when you preach it, you've got to live it. Right, we talk a lot about life by design yet who's actually truly living their life by design?
Mike Swenson
Yeah, it's been fun to see, you know, all the cool experiences that you post about on social media, as far as you know, getting to go out and on the boat and different things like that. And so it's just been fun to see that, yeah, you really can do something that you love, provide great value that people love and respect, create a an income that you're building and growing for the future. And all these other things open up and still have a life that you'd like to live, and you enjoy living. So it's kind of, you know, hitting a lot of different boxes.
Mike Swenson
And the cool thing is, is, you know, being able to do that you're not wanting it's your second year, right? So who knows what future opportunities can open up as a result of being in the northwest being in Florida and back and forth, and all that and, you know, five years, 10 years down the road, there's just lots of opportunities. And like you said, going back to, you know, being the average of the five people that you hang around the most, you're having an opportunity to hang around some pretty awesome people. And, you know, they're going big places, you're going big places, and, and you know, sky's the limit for the future.
Brindley Tucker
I think that's so important, right? Like, everything is a choice. It's a choice. And as long as we are okay with our choices, then we should make the choices that are best for us. Right? And it's okay to change your mind, right? It's okay to make a choice and then change your mind. And you know, I've worked really hard, I'm not perfect by any means. I'm sure there's a lot of people in this world that you could talk to that would be very, very open to telling you my character flaws.
Brindley Tucker
And yet, I make choices on who I choose to be around, I make choices every morning on what I choose to put into my mind and into my body and I and I make choices on how vulnerable I want to be. You know, and I believe that I've been blessed tremendously, and if I can help others, through my experience and my strength and my hope to have their lives that they want. I mean, my you know, like I said, I mean, I was $50,000 in debt, I was facing 15 years in prison. I didn't know how I was going to pay my rent, you know, and I didn't know where I was going to live. I always say I was I was I wasn't homeless, but I didn't have a home.
Brindley Tucker
I was living on couches, right. And I think that you, there's an appreciation that comes when you're able to come back from that and I think there's a responsibility that comes to share with others that no matter where you are, if you just put one foot in front of the other and just wake up every day and do your best and treat it Just for today and not think about the future, you can be anywhere you want to be in five years, you can be anywhere you want to be any year, depending on how much hard work you want to put into it.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Well, anything else that you can think of that you want to make sure that you cover that we haven't covered yet?
Brindley Tucker
You know, I think the most important thing is identifying in your first and foremost identifying your hourly wage. Do you know how many hours you're working in comparison to how much money is going in your bank account, to take the hours a week that you're working, and take the amount of money that goes into your bank account every month. So take the number, the amount of money that goes in your bank account, divided by the number of hours you work per week, and that will give you your hourly rate?
Brindley Tucker
Then ask yourself, Am I doing things that lower my hourly rate? Or am I doing things that raise my hourly rate? And I will be honest with you, I don't take out my trash anymore. I don't do my dishes, I don't do my laundry, I don't even put gas in my car. I have someone that does that. Because and that's not to make me sound pretentious, or that I can't I'm very capable of pumping my own gas. And by the way, when I'm here in the summer, I have to take out my own trash. Right?
Brindley Tucker
Yeah. I'm able to use that time to focus on on other things that will raise my hourly rate. And so you know, a lot of people I use the mowing your grass, cleaning your house analogies, right? Do you really enjoy mowing your grass? Well, no. But if I do it, it doesn't cost anything? Well, no, it does. It does it cost you your hourly rate. So it starts with you determining what your worth is, so that you don't have to hire yourself to do jobs that you can pay someone else to do cheaper. Mm hmm. So that's what I would, that's what I would leave us with is really identifying what your hourly rate is and what you're doing to raise it.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. And that's where you'll get more freedom faster by understanding the power of leverage, right? percent, right. Kind of too close, then, you know, we want to give you an opportunity to plug anything that you want to plug. So tell us more. How can folks get ahold of you? Anything that you want to plug here?
Brindley Tucker
100% so it's Brindley Tucker, you can follow me on social media, Facebook, and on Instagram. You can also email me [email protected], so your realty leverage. We will send you some free tools and a guide to remote running a remote work environment. We've got some capacity trackers, some systems valuations, we'll send you some stuff that can help you start to get leverage built up in your business and we'd love to help you if you're looking for temporary services you want to hire or train or need a coach or consultant, give us a call. We'd be happy to help.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Brindley. We really appreciate it. It was a blessing to have you on.
Brindley Tucker
Thank you so much for having me, Mike. We'll talk to you soon.
