Elevating Your Team: Kathleen Black on Mastering High Performance

High Performance. We all want that. But how do we achieve it?

In this episode, Kathleen Black, a high-performance real estate coach, discusses her philosophy of "shift" and how it has helped her, and her clients navigate various challenges. She explains that "shift" is about changing one's mindset and perspective to overcome obstacles and achieve goals.

Black emphasizes the importance of enjoying the journey of growth and curiosity, and the need for leaders to provide the right tools, training, and path for their teams to succeed. She also warns against spending too much time and energy on the bottom performers, suggesting instead focusing on the middle 80% who can be influenced the most.

Listen For
2:33 The Power of Shift
3:29 The Importance of Community in Shifting Mindsets
5:39 From Sinkers to Raft Builders
14:21 Enjoying the Journey of Growth

Guest: Kathleen Black
Kathleen is a globally recognized high-performance mindset & performance expert, bestselling author, and renowned transformational speaker.

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Transcript

Kathleen Black (00:00):

Where we want to get to is where we move into that raft builder space. And the raft builders are, I say you could drop them in the Sahara Desert, you could drop them on a trek in Ecuador. You could drop them in the pandemic. You can drop them in middle of the sea in a massive storm, and all they're going to do is look for the 0.0001% that they can actually influence positively.

Manny Andrade (00:38):

Welcome back to another podcast, Coffee Beans and Real Estate. Today I'm actually excited. I'm a little nervous to be honest with you, Kathleen, to have Kathleen Black, of KBCC, Kathleen Black Coaching and Consultant, high Performance Real Estate Coach. Don't want to put you in a corner or anything, but you specialize or you do a lot of work with top, top, top producers, teams. Author. You have how many books now, Kathleen?

Kathleen Black (01:11):

Two. And I'm going to be working with publisher for the third in the next year, so that'll be good. Yeah.

Manny Andrade (01:17):

Very accomplished. Do a lot of really wonderful things, and I thought, well, okay, this is because you do work with us here. This is an opportunity for you maybe to help us with what we are trying to do here. So we're in the pursuit of it, at some point I'm going to ask you what your it is and what is it? It is, as we mentioned before, it's something that when people are identifying, they say, well, Kathleen has it, or Wink Gretzky has it, or Doug has it. What is it? So we have a mannequin and we're going to pin your it, and it's going to be a single word on the mannequin. And my word, I'll tell you what my word was, and it was fear. My word was fear. I think my paternal grandmother instilled fear in me and I just couldn't fail. So maybe we would start cold. What is it you're accomplished? Do you've struggled? Do you have so many resiliency and tenacity and you've built yourself up many, many times? Do you have a specific or single word that you can?

Kathleen Black (02:33):

I think the word that comes to mind is shift. I mean my it is shift. I've shifted out of some difficult scenarios, which I think a lot of people have, but when you've done it enough times, you realize that it's possible. So when I meet other people who are stuck or fearful or afraid or they're confusing something that happened to them in their life as their identity, which happens a lot, creates a lot of limitations. I like to bring them into my energetic space and help them shift. And for me, I think that's my life's work, whether it's shifting the industry positively or shifting how humans think about things, how we believe things, that's behind all the work I do in the end with myself and with others, honestly.

Manny Andrade (03:16):

So shift, can you teach that? Is that something that was with you within you? Is that something that somebody taught you?

Kathleen Black (03:29):

That's a good question. I mean, I've invested a lot of money in personal and professional development. I've over 20 different certifications just myself, and that was to be able to help clients, but it also helped me. So I think you can definitely teach people to shift, you can support them in shifting. Community is a really important thing. Whether it's a brokerage community or it's a coaching community or it's an entrepreneurship community. Community can help us shift out of really difficult situations. It can also shift us into difficult situations. So we have to be careful of the company we keep. But yeah, I don't know if I teach it, if I sherpa it, if I embody it, but I know it's what I do. I think we sometimes don't know what that is. Sometimes it's deep work getting into what people actually believe. I mean, the number of people I've worked with who have wanted to make big shifts in why they started to work with me, but what it turned out was what they actually wanted to shift were all the things holding them back.

(04:26):

They couldn't figure out why they weren't taking action or why they were fearful or scared or what was holding them back. And they didn't realize that they were creating so many self-fulfilling prophecies. So shift a lot is really cleaning the mechanism, right? Saying, Hey, instead of just recreating the past, let's clean up that because there's a pain that wants our attention or there's a dream that wants our attention, so let's feed that and go towards creating something new and desirable and exciting. When people have hope in the future, they have power in the present. I believe that statement, and I think it changes people's lives.

Manny Andrade (05:01):

Wow, that is a powerful statement. And one of the episodes and one of the sessions that we had here, you spoke, and I think it's in your book, you spoke about the front of the boat, middle of the boat, back of the boat, and you shift. So shifting mindset, so getting people from the middle of the boat to the front of the boat or the back of the boat to the middle of the boat. Tell us how we can make somebody who is in the back of the boat maybe potentially feeling that he or she's about to drown. And how do you shift that mindset? How do you get people out of that?

Kathleen Black (05:39):

Yeah, and it's such a powerful question. The keynote I'm touring right now is shift. It's moving from chaos to calm. And it's not just for real estate, it's for anybody, but it's essentially also helping people, self-coach, because when we're young, depending on our upbringing, we don't always realize there's different ways to believe things. There's different ways to deal with life. Think about leadership, right? Somebody does something to somebody that person's upset and because they're upset, they're going to do something back or call them a name or gossip behind their back. And I always am like, there's other ways. What if we moved into a place of personal responsibility where we said, no matter what other people do around me, I'm responsible for my words, I'm responsible for my actions, I'm responsible for my success and my failures. And if there's systemic problems, which there are in this world, I'm also responsible for trying to be conscious and create change and be thoughtful.

(06:32):

And that's a big part of shift because when we're in that small mind, that small ego, I call them bobbers and sinkers. So if you're a sinker, you're sinking to the bottom. You're frozen in fear because you truly believe the worst case scenario is going to happen. And we've all been there. There's been times in my life where I'm like, I'm screwed. We've all been there. Like worst case scenario, you're going to lose everything. And I have lost everything a couple of times. That's just the truth of it. But I also over time did enough personal work to realize, to move into at least being a bobber where we're not taking action to help ourselves, but we're not frozen in fear anymore. Unfortunately, the bobbers are complaining and criticizing and feeling sorry for themselves, but they're also at least paying attention to what's going on.

(07:16):

Whereas sinkers, they're frozen, they're not open, right? Their brains are completely closed in fear. But where we want to get to is where we move into that raft builder space. And the raft builders are, I say you could drop them in Sahara Desert, you could drop them on a trek in Ecuador. You could drop them in the pandemic. You can drop them in middle of the sea in a massive storm, and all they're going to do is look for the 0.0001% that they can actually influence positively, that they can bring good faith that they can do something about. Because as humans, we create momentum and energy and confidence and integrity by taking action in good ways that feel good for us, that help people. But what makes the raft builders so unique is that they work with what they've got to get more to build their raft, every goodwill to their community, to their brokerage, to their clients.

(08:07):

They're getting another piece of wood, another piece of twine. They're building a raft not to hang out, to go to their most important destination to make their biggest and most important shift because all great leaders understand we can't influence everything, but if you wait around for the future, you influence nothing. Raft builders understand you're creating the future every single day. So if I can help people shift out of a sinker and be like, oh my goodness, my whole life I thought there was only one way to believe things. I thought that somebody does something mean and I do something back, or I thought people don't like me, whatever it is, and all of a sudden I'm like, holy goodness, I've got millions of ways I could believe things, so why wouldn't I believe something that's more empowering for me and for the world? And it's pretty cool to see people shift out of that and start to take positive action in their businesses and their lives. And how you do one thing is how you do all things. I can work with someone in their personal life, it'll impact their business. You work with them in their business, it impacts their personal life.

Manny Andrade (09:04):

Are we born sinkers or bobbers or ship builders?

Kathleen Black (09:08):

I think statistically the majority of the population are born sinkers or bobbers. And typically we don't have the kind of education that we have in entrepreneurial land because it's expensive. It's not cheap to invest in coaching or certifications. It's not. But we don't have the education around the mindset side of things. So the majority of the population, 98% are in effect. The world happens to me. I react to the world. Only one to 2% are actually in cause, which is, Hey, I bring things to the world. I'm the one creating that positive change. And it takes a lot of responsibility. Think about it. Sometimes it feels really good to complain and be like, it's not my fault. Point the finger like, Hey, we all are sinkers and bobbers every day. The best of us choose to be raft builders as much as we remember to choose it. You know what I mean? Nobody's perfect.

Manny Andrade (10:02):

So you can shift into that. You can get away from that mind space or mindset as you put it and get away from back of the boat, middle of the boat, front of the boat. One of the first sessions we did here was with my daughter who is studying, she's PhD candidate. She's defending her PhD right now to the University of Guelph. And it was about mindset and frontal cortex and amygdala and all that stuff. Kathleen, it was so fascinating, but it is. It is. And when you spoke here at our office a few months ago, it's all in line with our brain, our mind, our, and it's so interesting. I started real estate three and a half decades ago. There was none of this stuff. It was like either you have it or you don't have it. But here I am, 35 years and later still talking about what is it? But it's mindset. A lot of it is mindset. So it's good to know that I can do better, I can shift, I can get away from being a bobber if that's what I am now into a raft builder.

Kathleen Black (11:12):

Absolutely. And the more I do it, the more I remember to do it, and then I do it quicker and all of a sudden I'm spending maybe 30% of my day as a raft builder and then 40% and then 50%, which is a really powerful thing we see in this market. Leaders are trying so hard to support their people. And a big part of it is, think about it. When you're a sinker, you don't believe taking different action will give you a different result. You don't believe it. That's why you don't do it, right? So I think we talked about there the leaders are like door knock and go do open houses and call your dad. He's like, why aren't they doing it? They're not doing it because they don't believe the things that would drive them to take those actions. You shift them out into RAF builder and all of a sudden they have this different sense of hope and confidence in what they do. A lot of the time we try to really hit people with tactical, this is what I need you to do, these tactical things, but if the root cause, the source is what we believe about ourselves or the business. The tactical just doesn't help. It's hard as leaders, it's exhausting sometimes, but we're focusing on the wrong thing.

Manny Andrade (12:16):

It's interesting you say that reading your book, the top 1% Life, you speak about that. You speak about that just building good habits and then it comes naturally to you, but it's hard. People don't believe it. You mentioned two out of a hundred, you have two successes or two failures out of a hundred, and then you focus on those and you forget the 98% success that you've had or vice versa. So this is really fascinating. I wish we could bottle all this, but it's not that simple though, is it?

Kathleen Black (12:51):

No, it's a journey. I always say it's all a journey. There's one thing I'm really grateful of, and maybe you'll say, this is my it. I don't know, maybe, but I love the journey part. I love the hike. When I did Camino across Spain, 840 kilometers, I did that free from fear and shelter safe in your home because during Covid it was like shelter safe. And it's like there's a lot of people who don't have a safe home to shelter in. So I did that trek in 2020 on my own, but a big piece of it was like I was sad at the end because I loved being on the journey. And if you think about that with business, right? It's like we want to summit. I summited Kilimanjaro, okay, there's lots of people who in real estate want to go to Kilimanjaro, they want to summit it, but they don't want to do the hike.

(13:35):

They don't want to go to the base camps and deal with the altitude and deal with all the medication you need. They don't want to get the right pit crew. You see what I'm saying? So it's such a gift to actually be like, I enjoy the journey of growth and curiosity and being able to provide more value to people and knowing myself better. And I think if people focus more on those goals, I always say with teams, okay, you want to sell whatever 200 deals next year. That's not your goal. That's not that's the byproduct of your goal. Your goal is to have systems and energy and communication and skills, right? In a community that generates as capable of 200 deals a year, let's focus on all that stuff, like the right mindset, the right culture. And when we focus on that, we shift a lot faster.

Manny Andrade (14:21):

Yeah, it's the buildup to things, the details. I just came back, you mentioned Kili, Maura, maybe you want to get into that. When did you summit that?

Kathleen Black (14:31):

I summited that this past year I didn't walk, which is ironic. So summer of 2022, I didn't walk with a knee injury for those listening. And then summer of 2021, I summited Kilimanjaro.

Manny Andrade (14:42):

How was that?

Kathleen Black (14:43):

It was amazing. Scary. Scary. Part of my mission, the shift mission in the keynote, I talk a bit about it because I mean, at that time, coming out of Covid, right, there was still a lot of desperation and there's people wanting to take people up the mountain. They haven't had tourism and they need funds, but they don't necessarily have their equipment. They have an oxygen bottle, but they don't have the money to refill it or there's not enough oxygen in the area because they've been depressed of the things that they need. So you have Sherpas with no equipment, with equipment that's faulty or some lucky enough who actually have what you need. And we did an eight day trek. I had to have 20 different pills on the day of summiting because I did get congestion first in my lungs and then in my head, because Kilimanjaro is 19,400 feet like you're above or where airplanes are at.

(15:35):

So there's a lot of risk, and I always say in high altitude it's very similar to high performance. Things can be going very well and they can shift in one second. It can become very dangerous. And unfortunately someone did lose their life at the same time that we were up there, and that was really devastating to see, I mean, I'll never forget that, a woman from the US and it really just hit home. People are relying on us as leaders, have your equipment have what you needed, because unfortunately, her Sherpa didn't, and that was just really, really sad. So it was a bittersweet to do such an amazing summit because you summit at midnight, it was minus 29 degrees Celsius, and we summited from base camp and then you get up to the first peak when the sun's just starting to rise and then there's two more peaks, which they don't tell you. You're like three hours away, you're already freezing. So Kilimanjaro was the first mountain when I finally got off it, I'm like, okay, I'm done. Every other one, I've cried for sadness, but Kilimanjaro, I was ready to come off the mountain.

Manny Andrade (16:33):

Wow, what a story. I just came back from Ecuador and we did the Royal Page charity trek, and we got to just under 15,000 feet. It wasn't anything in comparison to what Kilimanjaro or anything close to what you did, but it's a thing. Breathing is problematic and the altitude sickness and everything associated with it. So I applaud you for doing that. I don't think... It's a thing. It tests your will, it breaks you. I can't imagine sleeping in altitude with minus 29 degree temperatures.

Kathleen Black (17:14):

...on a sleeping bag...

Manny Andrade (17:17):

Right. We're waking up and Ecuador waking up with frost inside of our tents and we were like, oh, no, I can't do this. I want to go back to Toronto. I don't want to do this anymore. I can't imagine. So good for you.

Kathleen Black (17:30):

Thank you. I just want to say Manny, for those listening, I did Salkantay Pass in Peru, and it was the same right around 15,500. And I was very ill like in Peru, they just get you up and over the mound as quick as possible. They have no equipment because they know you're going to come down and feel better. But hey, that altitude's a real deal. It's not nothing. It's hard. It does test your will.

Manny Andrade (17:50):

Yeah, for us, it was a journey to up and down pretty much in a single day, but we acclimatize. But again, it's not where airplanes fly, but it does test you. And a lot of people got sick. I felt that I had difficulty breathing. I was on the medication just to preempt any sort of side effects to it, but interesting. And anyways, it was a really good experience. I'm not sure I'm ready for Kili. Is it Kili?

Kathleen Black (18:20):

Yeah, Kili they call it. Yeah, pole, pole. Slow, slow, slow. That's what they say on Kilimanjaro.

Manny Andrade (18:26):

What next? What other peaks and mountains is Kathleen attempting?

Kathleen Black (18:31):

Yeah, you know what? I am itching to get out there because usually I built my business. It took me 10 years to be able to take off six to eight weeks at a time in the summer, and then I'll go away five weeks over the winter. But I built it that way and the business still grows, so I'm itching to go. I think in the spring I'll do the Portuguese Camino because it's more like 11 or 12 days and it's not, I'm still healing my knee again for the, I had knee surgery, so I have to be careful. But my goal the year after, two years after max, I'd like to do Everest base camp. I don't need to go beyond, but Everest Base Camp is a good goal. Nepal, it's a good trek. I think it's 18 to 20 days that we'd be out, and I'd really like to do that. So I think that'll be the next big target. Portuguese Camino for me is just, it's small beans, but getting out to Everest would be nice.

Manny Andrade (19:16):

Yeah. Wow. Admirable. I commend you for doing it. This is something that if I had started maybe 20 years ago, I think it'd be something that I would attempt. Although one of the gals that summited and summited, we got to 4,200 meters. She was 76 years old. Marjorie Grimes, she was at the head of the pack, celebrated her 76th in altitude. She's done Nepal. She's done so many wonderful things and I've told her she is my new idol. She is my go-to, I thought what she did was, and she did it obviously for charity, but at 76, it's a thing. So she's the person that I most admire right now. Getting back to, I wanted to ask you a question on the book. There was a gentleman that you worked with, so this is on the top, the 1% life. Gentleman that you worked with, you fired, you, rehired, refired. Yes. What was it that made you do that? What causes you or I to believe in people and bet on people and make mistakes and learn from those things? How did that turn out? Tell us.

Kathleen Black (20:30):

Well, I'm going to tell you the truth. It's two reasons. So one which I'll talk about second is that our gifts are also our weaknesses, and that's a fact. So needing to know when to pull back on our weaknesses and protect our world from them is a real thing, which I'll get back to in a second. The other one was I was a younger leader and I work with leaders who get so upset with themselves because they're going to go in and have a tough conversation and then their empathy kicks in and it's like, that's okay. That's part of the leadership journey. We get better at things over time. The leader I am today, would I have rehired him again, I want to say no, but I think there's a piece of me that also always wants to believe in people. And my gift as a coach is truly also my nemesis.

(21:17):

It's been very hurtful in my personal life and other places, but it's been my gift in business and that's where I meet people and I truly look for and see and celebrate what's either great about them now or where I think they could go. I'd be like, have you ever noticed you're really good at this? And I get excited. I'm like, what if you did this or you did that? When I coach with people, I truly believe in them. I really do. And we have a rule in our coaching team. I don't coach one-on-one as much anymore. I do more strategy work. But one of the rules, and I believe in it for real estate as much as I do in coaching, if you don't believe in your client, you should not be the one guiding them. And I believe in that hands down, there are times where you're with a buyer and you're like, I don't think they're logical.

(21:59):

They're never going to buy. Refer them or you're with a team, let them go to someone else because you transfer your confidence in people. But for me, as much as I believe in people, I also in the past can be manipulated because I believe what people say and sometimes it's just not true. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors in the world. So I think I really wanted to believe that that individual had changed and they had a lot of remorse, and in the end they had changed. I want to give them credit, just not enough. They had, not enough.

Manny Andrade (22:28):

It's funny, that resonated with me because I think I'm somewhat guilty of doing the same thing and people, I believe I can change anyone in real estate. I can't make people do things outside of their, but in this business, I think I can make anyone succeed in this business. And I've gone to that well a few times. And so I thought it was a little funny because it talked, it spoke to me as well, and saying, Manny, you see, you're not the only one that bets on people again and again and again. And I agree with you. I think sometimes we just have to know when to hold it, know when to fold it. But it was a good story. The market. We're just going to briefly about the real estate market. Right now we have a market that is, Doug and I were talking about this at the beginning of the episode, and I think there's a lot of opportunity right now, but you can have a lot of realtors struggling. How do you get the bobbers from going back to sinkers? How do you prevent that? Because this kind of market will tend to tilt the boat backwards and...

Kathleen Black (23:38):

Absolutely, and this is a time where as leaders we're being tested just as much as the people were looking at saying they're not making their calls or they're being a sinker, we're being tested because we only have so much time and resources. And I used to really focus only on how do I help people get going and how do I optimize them? Now, I also do a lot of work on awareness as leaders of what is toxicity, what is enablement and what is high performance? Because they are not the same thing. So if we have people on our team who are saying one thing, doing another or making excuses or it's a slippery slope and our culture sliding down, you never have toxicity without enablement. There are fuel to the fire. One's, oxygen one's flame. So as a leader, we really need to look at a bottleneck that a lot of leaders have hit in the last six months.

(24:24):

And what they're doing is saying, okay, I have this much amount of time to spend with my people and they're spending 80% of their time with the bottom 20% who are the bottom 20% because they're not doing what they say they're going to do. They're out of integrity and they keep doing it, and there's no accountability. There's no natural consequences. So we're literally bleeding, not just the leader's time and energy, we're bleeding the team or the brokerage or the organization, the business's energy. And that's a really important one. A leader has gone the way, right? They'll show the way they've gone, the way they've done the summit, 200 a thousand times. But end of the day, a leader's job is to give the path, give the tools, give the training so that they can walk successfully on their own. So today, leaders have to ask themselves, do I have the systems in place, the training in place?

(25:11):

Do I have the route in place? Do I know predictably it equals success? Okay, now my job is to get out of the way and they've got to walk the walk because we cannot influence everyone. We think we can, but we cannot. But people with lower energies or toxic mindsets, they a hundred percent can influence us. And we try to think they can't, but the truth is they'll take us down without them rising, and that's just not fair to our organization. So a lot of leaders need to be honest, Hey, what do I need to build out to support my people? Have I done my work there and then I need to spend my time with the middle 80%, the top 10% are always doing the do. They'll come to you and they need something, they want help. But the middle 80% are the ones we can usually influence the most, the bottom 10 to 20%. That's not where you want to put 90% of your energy right now. There's some hard choices that have to be made there, and I recommend their systems and consequences instead of firing, right? That's not the only way we have to do things.

Manny Andrade (26:08):

Firing is not something in times like this. I mean, you have to be compassionate and empathetic and understand. But you're right, the toxicity not only applies or gets into somebody like in my role as a manager or broker of record or and coach, it also permeates into others, and it will. The negativity will start to affect other peers, colleagues in the office. And we have to be mindful of that. But luckily we have Kathleen Black coaching and consulting here, so we're okay with that. But it is a tough time. It's going to be difficult times for the next little while. So it is, if anybody's listening, anybody out there, you know what? You can't do it alone in any market, let alone this kind of market. So get ahold of Kathleen and it's a lifeline and the shift, and I agree with you. I think the shift is, you can shift people's mindsets.

(27:10):

I think you can go from having a really good month. You can have, you see it all the time, the negativity, all of a sudden, oh, am I ever going to sell another house? Am I ever going to get another listing? I think it took me 12 years before I used to sell, and I haven't sold for 13 years, but there was a time that I had the swagger and I knew I was going to get it, but it took about 12 years before I believed in myself enough to know, Hey, I got this. I got this, and I know I'm going to be okay, but it's up here. It's up in the brain,

Kathleen Black (27:44):

And this is where we need the toolbox, right? I think a lot of high performers, they get down too. They just have tools that help them. So I mean, you can shift with your physical, right? You can get, some people believe in ecstatic dance. There's a lot. People think that's weird, but there's a ton of research about it. Just put on some music and get up and move your body, right? Really move it to move the energy out. You can shift your breath. The research is phenomenal in that. Just deep breath for five, hold for five release and do it 10 times. Even if you're trying to go to bed, you can do it as a practice to let tension out, right? Deep breath, okay, let it out. Let it out. And you can shift your vision. I do a lot of that with talks. Close your eyes, do some breath work. Shift your vision, because the only way to change your state is either with what you're focusing on or your physical body. Those are the two ways to change your state of mind. And every choice we make comes from state of mind. So we need those tools right now. They're not soft skills right now. To me, they're invaluable skills right now.

Manny Andrade (28:43):

Essential, essential. Kathleen, we're running out of time. I want to thank you. I think we can do this. I can do this with people like yourself, positive people that have gone through struggles and rows and keep rising, and now you're challenging yourself to go to Everest. I think that is phenomenal. When you do, if you're looking for some sort of sponsorship or whatever, come and see me. I'd like that sort of passion and commitment. I want to thank you for coming in. We're going to see you, I guess, as you said in the next short while here at the office. Today's guest, Kathleen Black, is a real estate coach and consultant, KPCC, Kathleen Black Coaching and Consulting author, a real estate coach extraordinaire, lucky and privileged to have her on. So thank you again, Kathleen, and I want to thank everybody at home for listening, tuning in. Give us some feedback, tell us how you feel. You like it, share it with somebody, tell a friend, and thank you again for listening. Until next time.