Episode 56: Exploring Our Belief Systems as Real Estate Agents
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Hello, and welcome to The Thoughtful Realtor podcast. I'm Connie Chung.
I'm Cliff Tsang.
And I'm Kenny Gong, and we are the founders and partners of Willowmar Real Estate.
This is a real estate podcast where we get real personal.
Every episode, we sit down for insights, stories, and conversations about things in the market today, running a real estate team in California, and finding our way as leaders and business partners.
And for today's episode, we are going to do a deep dive into the profound influence our beliefs have on who we are as realtors, as business leaders, and as human beings. The power of positive belief systems emboldens us to overcome challenges and also creates the conditions and environment for us to thrive—to really achieve professional success as well as personal satisfaction and happiness. So, we wanted to get in there and talk about some positive beliefs. Shall we get in?
Let's do it. Where shall we start?
Let's start from the beginning. What is a core belief you grew up with? That you still hold on to. And how has it affected your choices in life today?
Oh, first one that comes to mind is: if you work hard, you'll see the results. And, I think this is something my parents instilled, especially as immigrants to the country. They started their own business building gates for homes and businesses, and I fondly remember my dad starting his day early.
He would take us to Carl's Jr. and get us breakfast and then he'd go to work, and he'd come home super late at night. And did well—he ran a really great, successful business and it was because he was working hard manually. Just that manual labor and the concept that you get what you put out there.
And it's something that I think has really instilled this very hard-work ethic in me and just that hustle, you know? That immigrant hustle mentality. And sometimes, I wish I could just tell myself, “Connie, chill. You've worked so hard, you know, you have worked hard enough, and you can relax and enjoy.” But it is just that pride in the good work that you put out.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, I think that's so fascinating to see what we pick up from our parents, just through osmosis, just witnessing them work hard. Same, I can very much relate to that same story too. Actually, one for me is similar to witnessing my dad; I think I've shared on the pod before and with you too.
But my dad, at about age 40, had a complete career transition. That's when he started his insurance agency, the All-State branch that used to be on Atlantic Boulevard and Monterey Park above the Sun Fat supermarket, for any of you in the 626. But …
Prime real estate out there right on Atlantic Boulevard.
Prime location. Yeah, but he … so, prior to that he worked at different casinos, like a floor manager, a “pit boss” was the term for his role. But seeing my dad transition from one career to another and also the grind that that entailed, if I remember. My sister and I had a study room where we would do our studying in high school, middle school. And my dad started to join us in that room, studying for the insurance tests and all that.
Seeing him go through all that lessons, the belief that that infused in me was like: you can—anyone can—learn anything. Anyone at any age can learn anything.
And actually, for me, I've been thinking through a lot of this, too, because I know amongst us and on our team, I think I sometimes can be a very critical person, like just bring up, “Hey, we can improve this. Hey, we can make this better.” And I think that's also shaped in some ways from that lesson from my dad of … at least the story that I tell myself, that belief comes from me actually believing in those people that I am—I don't want to say criticizing—but the people that I am, at least in my story, in my head, is thinking that they can do it, they can learn, so that's why I'm bringing that up.
I know it can in moments feel negatively, but I think that's at least in my head. What I'm trying to do.
Yeah. It's the high expectations.
Yes, yeah.
It's … you have high expectations because you believe that someone can fulfill those expectations. Yeah, yeah. Mine is that you can … whoever you want to be … I think, for me, it's always been … you can be inside whoever you want to be. And that the way that you find your greatest strength is actually by exploring who that person is inside.
I think that was very much ingrained in me as a kid in the way that I think my parents just always, always, always express just this unconditional love and support for whoever I was, right? In whatever I was doing or whatever I was trying to be, or
there was just such a level of support to whoever you're wanting to be inside is possible. And I think that has been really helpful for me to just set the foundation for seeing what is possible, and seeing that there is so much in the mindset that we have. And that mindsets can shift and that we can be whoever we want to be. And I think that was, yeah, that's a very, very deep core.
Curious, how does that relate to Willowmar or any of your work as an agent, or the team, our company?
Yeah. I wonder if it actually relates to what you're talking about: which is that you can learn, you can be whoever you want to be. As long as you're actually putting the intention and putting in the work to get to where you want to be. And maybe, this is tied to the mindfulness and the meditation practices that I've had for a really long time, which is: it's both I want to aspire to be better than I am today, as well as being okay with who I am right now.
It's all about: whoever I am in this moment right now is perfectly okay. And also, I have so much more to grow into. I have so much more that I can be if I commit to it and I dedicate intention and dedicate the strategy towards becoming that person.
So, I think all of that has definitely been part of my entire career in real estate from just being a solo agent to now leading this team. I think it's how I approach pretty much everything that I do. Especially when it comes to leading other people.
Are there other beliefs that y'all have when it comes to personal growth and success and whether that's professional success or personal success and satisfaction?
In real estate, one belief that I have to remind myself because it's not always the default thought that I think of, especially when I open up my Instagram feed and sometimes it's all the realtors and everything they're doing. And in real estate, the amazing thing is: there's no ceiling.
There's no one way you have to do business. There's so many ways to do business and that's one of the major benefits. And there's so many ways to be successful. And I think that overall is the biggest blessing in this business. The one downside or curse to it is: it means you can always be doing more.
And I know for me, something I always struggle with is possibly comparing myself or thinking, Oh, I could be doing that. I could also be doing that. And that I have to remind myself that there is: one, plenty of business to go around, and because someone is doing all that, that doesn't mean I need to go after that and do more. But it's like, okay, I could still get plenty of business with all that I am doing already at the moment, which is already a lot.
And yeah, I think it's so easy to compare and not just professionally, but socially, especially in the world of social media, reminding myself that we're just constantly evolving. And failure is not so much like this one terrible thing, it's actually part of learning.
I see it more as these challenges in life that we learn and grow from, especially in the world of real estate where there's always some hiccup, or some new thing that we learn. I feel like those are the moments where those lessons are really solidified in our brains too. So seeing those as a huge blessing is great. It was key for my belief system.
Hmm, that reminded me of one for me. Yeah, one little trick or hack that I've started to do through this job is adding the phrase, “I get to,” to everything. There's just some things that are in life, in any job or anything, there's just some things that are just bummers, where it's like, “Oh, I don't want to do any of those.”
But, when you just add the phrase, “I get to, I don't know, tour with these clients. I get to stay up and do these things to, for XYZ, work or non-work related.” It does shift your mind to realize that it's a choice and also reframes it in your head to just recognize that life is great, like just being able to live another day and being healthy.
And all of that is a blessing, so you get to do all those things. And then, also related, Connie's talking about failure reminded me of—I think it was just related to my upbringing—but I just remember so many instances growing up where failure was not okay, or making a mistake was not okay.
I think we've talked about the tang tiu on this podcast and other things that were used to hit you if you made a mistake. Oftentimes they were not good mistakes, but that also led to just thinking if you try to solve a math problem, but you get it wrong, you get in trouble.
And I think those were the ones that had an adverse effect as I've gotten older because I still have some of that scar tissue of like, “Ooh, I can't fail. I can't mess up.” And it's like, What is failure, actually? What does that even mean?
And if, and for those of you who haven't heard those mentions of a tang tiu or speak Cantonese, it is oftentimes a duster, a plastic duster with feathers that is used as a punishment.
They're banned now. I don't even see them anymore.
Maybe this is why, you know, I also think about what y'all are both talking about, which is just like, sometimes the positive belief is you have to cultivate—actively cultivate—positivity and actively cultivate optimism. So, you know, when, when, when Cliff says, “Oh, I get to,” I think it's actually reshaping your brain in a way that helps your brain see the same exact scenario from a different side and from another perspective.
And I think, yeah, it takes work. And one thing that it made me think about also: another trick to cultivate this positive belief, which comes from one of our agents on our team. I will not name them because what they do, and I think it's a brilliant idea, is they are connected to a lot of other realtors on Instagram, but they mute these other realtors just because sometimes it's not helpful to constantly, constantly be seeing people who you can compare yourself to in your feed. Right?
And so I think sometimes that's such a really great lesson that there's things that we can do to filter, and there's things that we can do to be really intentional about the kind of information that we're receiving, which, because it's an onslaught, it's so easy for those messages to then turn into our reality and our mindset.
So do you mute a lot of people on Instagram?
I do. I do mute a lot of people. But not our realtor friends. Don't worry. I'm not muting you, but I'm muting other realtors. Other ways that you cultivate your own positive belief systems?
I have a neat one that I wanted to share. This came from my coach Brody, and this is something that we worked on for a little while, and he called it archetypes. And where this stemmed from was the thing that I talked to him was like, “Hey, when I go on vacation”—and maybe this, other realtors can relate—it takes, just say while I'm there for a week, it takes me a few days to disconnect and then start to feel in vacation mode. And then prior to going back on the flight to get home in a couple of days, I'm already thinking about work. So really, in a one-week vacation, I might only have two days of actually Vacation Cliff.
And so he said, “Oh, have you heard of this thing called archetypes?” And it's effectively thinking through your seven or ten different modes that you might be in on a weekly basis. You might need to be a really, really good friend; you might need to be a really good teacher; you might need to, like if you have kids, being a really good parent; you might need to be a leader for a team meeting; another aspect, then you might also need to be a realtor.
So think about all the different phases that you are and being able to switch into that archetype quickly. So then, we start to work on this idea of: what does Vacation Cliff look like? And thinking through and eyes closed, embodying who that is. And to me, it was like a picture of me wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and I'm in Hawaii, and I'm chill and relaxed.
And it was a really helpful exercise and, you know, I'm still working through it, but it's like being able to effectively shift into that version that you need to be more quickly. And that's been helpful too because it ingrained in me that you are in control of your emotions and your beliefs more than you think. And a lot of it can be—I don't want to say trained—but, you have control and power over them.
I love that. It gives you such a clear visual too of that type of person.
Mm hmm.
Did you, as part of the exercise, did you write out some of the characteristics, like Vacation Cliff is having a Bloody Mary for breakfast kind of thing?
Yeah. Not to that detail, but yeah, it was like adjectives that described each one so that I can try to learn to embody it when I wanted to. Yeah.
I love that because also, especially in our job, I feel like your archetypes are going to be so drastically different from one another. So I can imagine that if you're a Vacation Cliff facilitating a team meeting, it's not only in misalignment, but you're just not going to have as much fun because you're trying to flex the rest muscle when you should be flexing the leadership muscle.
Yeah, yeah. It's a really powerful tool. I mean, I'm still kind of working through it and trying to get more comfortable with it. But for example, before giving a speech, you know, I might get really nervous, but then that's honing into the leader archetype and being like, “Okay, the leader needs to show up now to deliver his or her best version of yourself. Go up and give that speech now.”
And it's a quick way to switch your brain, because that leader is in you. Everyone has all the archetypes in you. But that misalignment that Kenny was talking about is what I think sometimes causes problems, like if there’s a frustrating thing with Mee-Sun, I need to show up as a different person than a childish version of me, for example. But the childish version has its place too because that's part of the Vacation Cliff. I need to be able to have fun and let loose. So yeah, all that kind of connects.
That's so great. Con, what about you? Any other ways that you cultivate these positive belief systems?
Yeah, I think about my why's or I try to. I mean, naturally, I'm such a positive person, but I think it's such a great reminder of “Why am I doing this? Oh, it's, you know, so much of it's for my family.” And especially when I spend a lot of time with them, it works in both ways when I'm challenged, you know, having a hard time with my family, my kids, it's like, “Oh no, this is why I'm doing all this.” And, oh, trying to appreciate the moments. Like, “This is so rare and special.” And then vice versa when we are enjoying, it's like, “Oh yeah, this is the, literally, the fruit of our labor. And I think going to the full circle of the belief systems, I didn't really see my parents rest as much.
And it's something I'm trying to instill in a belief system. It's like, yes, we work so hard, but rest and enjoying is just as important. And, also part of the why too. So really, putting it into practice all of it.
Yeah, especially knowing, we started this conversation in this episode talking about how we embodied the belief systems that we saw from our parents. And so also seeing that as these are the ones that we are now in—I don't know, it's not inherited, but it's that we're now passing down to future generations. And so how can you do that in a healthy and productive and intentional and loving way?
Oh, yeah. Totally. Yeah. Even teaching my daughter how to bike or play baseball is like, “You want to fail. No, you want to miss the pitch or fall on your bike because the most important thing is getting back up and trying it again.” So it's yeah, kind of taking those moments that maybe we weren't taught or “How can we reframe it?” And what's the lesson we want to pass on to the next generation is really cool to think about.
Yep. Should we wrap up?
Sounds good. There you have it. We love these kinds of deep episodes, and we hope that you, our listeners, do too, and have found parts of it or all of it enlightening and inspirational. It's important to recognize that belief systems can really shape who we are and just as important to remember that these systems are not fixed. You learn them somewhere, and you can always change or improve them as you grow as a person.
And we'd love to hear from you about your belief systems that you may have grown up with, or the ones that have maybe positively affected the direction or directions of your life. And you can find us at willowmar.com or on Instagram @thoughtfulrealtor, and you can reach out to us directly.
If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and leave us a five-star review. We read each one of your reviews and always appreciate when you share the love. And so until next time, bye!
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