Real Estate Burnout Isn’t the Market — It’s Your Maintenance

In real estate, you can’t “turn it off.” Brad and Wayne explain why agents are endurance athletes — and why self-care isn’t a luxury at this level… it’s required maintenance if you want to stay in the game and not hate it.

They break down the simplest fixes: stop numbing, start renewing, protect your time boundaries, and track a multi-dimensional scorecard so you know you’re winning even when you don’t close every day.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Real estate = endurance athlete

00:32 – Self-care is maintenance

02:03 – Numbing vs renewing

06:25 – 5 minutes no phone + email boundaries

07:13 – Meal prep as fuel + time protection

09:37 – Multi-dimensional scorecard

11:48 – 3-year audit: where are you headed?

Watch on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/vTEFs1uh1FY

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https://www.realestateuntucked.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Most German people I know, most German people, they don't skip self-care because they're lazy. They skip it because they think they can do it later. They skip it because they they think they gotta take care of everybody else first. But then they wonder why they feel resentful, tired, starting to check out, frustrated, burnt outright, all all these things. Self-care is not selfish. Self-care is is it's like car mean, right? I'm not making enough money to even think about taking care of myself. The first question I ask is that was what things are you doing that are numbing that could be renewing?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

You're an Olympic athlete when it comes to sales, but yet you're eating like shit, you're performing like shit, and you're setting yourself up to produce shit. So what can you do to make sure that your body, mind, and soul are actually all in conjunction to then help you be the Olympic real estate athlete that you need to be? I think I mean I literally consider myself an endurance athlete of sales. Like I tell my agents that all the time. Like, you are an endurance athlete. If you weren't, you could turn it off. But you can't. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

And I don't know. There's what do you what do you find, Wayne? Because like we've talked about burnout, but like, what do you find people need to be doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Dude, most people, like most driven people I know, and and see if you're if if you know people that are making this mistake, like most driven people, they don't skip self-care because they're lazy. They skip it because they think they can do it later. They skip it because they think they got to take care of everybody else first. But then they wonder why they feel resentful, tired, starting to check out, frustrated, burned out, right? All these things, right? And it's because self-care is not selfish. Self-care is is it's like car maintenance, right? You don't you don't take your car to get maintenance because you're selfish, you take your car to get maintenance because you want the car to keep running forever and not have to buy a new car everyone every you know so often. The key is right, they're unrealistic about how long they can go without taking care of themselves, how long they can go without drinking a cup of of water and doing things. So the key thing is self-care is not a luxury at this level. It is part of the maintenance. And when you get your mind around this is not a luxury, this is part of my my required protocol to stay in the game. If I want to stay in the game longer, if I want to play the game at the highest level, here's the protocol I have to have. And I think that's the question I said, what's the protocol I would have to have to stay in the game the longest, to play at the highest level, and and and not to hate the freaking game? What would be required?

SPEAKER_00 2:25

What would the protocol be for that? Well, Wayne, I'm not making enough money to even think about taking care of myself. Right? That's the thing that we're gonna get pushback from. That's that's the excuse.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

And here's the thing the first question I ask yourself is what things are you doing that are numbing that could be renewing? So let's say we've all sat there and scrolled in our phone for 10 minutes. Instead of scrolling for 10 minutes, lay on the floor and breathe for 10 minutes. Go touch, go outside, touch grass for five minutes, drink a glass of water for a minute and a half, right? Do a five-minute meditation routine. We've bought into the lie that we're really busy and we don't have time for it. And I guarantee you it's a lie. I guarantee you, if you know right where your sport team ranks, if if right, if if if you have any idea what happened in the news in the last seven days, like you, we can find time, but you're doing things where we're by habit and ritual, doing things that are numbing and distracting and kind of that they're not renewing. They're not actually getting you back in the road. And and here's the price. You want to know the price? The price is intentionality. Right? I either prepared and I had a good lunch in the fridge, or I didn't prepare. I had to leave the office, go to McDonald's, and come back and have a really crappy lunch. It didn't, the time wasn't that you probably spent more time going there and giving back. It wasn't the time. Time is not the the the the factor usually. It's the intentionality.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Yeah, and then it may be too much sharing, but like I'll be on. I mean, me starting out, dude, like, yeah, food. We my old office, you'd be across from a Hardy's. I eat Hardy's probably four times a week. Because it was right there, like literally right across the road. And drinking, because it's a social business, right? And I still drink, but like I was drinking way more than I should. I was having health problems. I was severely overweight. And I'm not saying there was some like come to Jesus moment, but as you get older, you realize that. And here are some things that I've I've done, and people are gonna be like, holy shit, you're too bougie. But like, here are things that I'm doing on a weekly or monthly basis that have really helped me. And what I have noticed most than anything else is it gives me the energy, not just energy like in my body, but it gives me the correct energy to be focused for the events I have. Because when I was waking up, half hung over, feeling like shit, looking like shit, I treated people like shit, whether I knew it or not. I was I didn't have the energy, I didn't have the wherewithal. So maybe if you're prospecting and you're not putting your all into it, because you're not really all there. Like your body is telling you to slow down and you're trying to make calls. And people can read that you're not being a true self. But I mean, you can do little stuff. I love a good IV. I mean, I love a good IV. They can get expensive. So I probably do one once a month or every other month. Put some B12 in there, vitamins and nutrients. Yo, you know what we don't have time for? Is getting sick. There's no sick days.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

And that's isn't that the thing? People go, like, oh, I'm like, here, here's you look at your productivity. Like you go 200 miles an hour, then you get sick and you're you're out for three days. Well, that's that's not good, right? Or people look at their productivity like, I'm just working tons of hours. I guarantee you, your productivity after 10 hours is shit. You are not getting a whole lot done well. Like you're just not. So the thing is, I love looking at it this way. Think about the people you look up to. They're not the people that you look up to, that you admire, that you are drawn to, they're usually have the best relationships, they're making the most money, they're making the most impact. They're not way overweight, they're not exhausted, they're not resentful, they're not what Why? Because they're going to get the massage. They they they do the walk in the morning with their spouse. They're eating correctly, right? They they go, hey, I need seven and a half hours of sleep, and I'm gonna go get it, right? Whatever that is for them, they're doing those things. And you don't say that selfish to go, oh, that's their routine, so they can show up and be the badass leader or mentor or coach or person that I want them to be. So it can start with one. Like, what's one habit that would make an impact? Start with just one simple thing and add on, right? Maybe it's just drinking an extra glass of water in the morning. Maybe it's a five-minute walk at your lunch break, right? Pick one, maybe it's just reading for five minutes, maybe it's it's laughing for two minutes a day, whatever it is. Pick one thing, right? Do it in association with something you're already doing, right? So, hey, when I drive to work, instead of just listening to music, I'm gonna listen to something motivational, right? Hey, every day when I go get the mail, I'm not taking my phone and I'm gonna do one extra lap around the block, right? Add it onto something and just start there and see where that goes.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

What would you be what would be your one thing you'd tell somebody? Like the one thing, like, all right, I'm gonna start this. Start something.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Hey, really quick, you know how YouTube works. Like and subscribe so we know this is working and it keeps pushing the content out.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah, this is what we do as a passion project. Wayne got his own coaching, I got my real estate, but we've come together because we want y'all to learn from all our scars and mistakes. So that like and subscribe means the world to us because it means you care and it means we can keep giving, and also it makes us look cool with my mom. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

For agents, I would say actually take a like, well, I mean, there's a whole lot of things, but if it was something very simple, I mean, in the middle of the day, just sit without your phone for five minutes. If you can do it outside, even better. Just five minutes. That that that's it. Take one lap around the block without your phone, without listening to something, without having it to be some product productivity exercise, it would just it would be that. And the other thing that I would do is I I would stop responding to emails before eight in the morning or after seven o'clock at night. Even if you want to write the email and set it to send the next morning, cool. If if you're if you're so panicky that you gotta like do the thing, but don't teach your people to message you and reach out to you in the middle of the night. Um, and start with giving yourself some ownership of your time.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah, mine would be meal prep. It really would. I think it solves so many issues. It's and it can be whatever you want, but on a Sunday, I grill some chicken, I do some stuff myself, I'm not paying somebody to do it. I package it, I look at what days I'm not gonna be available, but guess what? I just walked out of here, I got my food, I put in the microwave, and I'm one, I'm still here, but I'm eating something nutritious usually, eating something good, and it didn't just take two hours out of my day. And so I do think that's because it's healthy, it's fuel. Some people even skip lunch. Like, I think that's not even helping you. But you know, what other things are you seeing? And we've talked about this in our burnout one before, but like, what are some other things you would recommend people do to kind of just take a break, take a breath, to love on themselves?

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Yeah, one of the things is figure out what's required, right? So you and I were talking on another podcast, like, hey, I need to make 20 con contacts a day. Like, cool, you made your 20 contacts, awesome. Give yourself a high five. And if you don't want to work anymore, don't work anymore. I think part of it's figuring out what's required so that you can go, I earned the right to take this weekend off. I earned the right to go home at two o'clock because I got the required things done. Our to-do list is never ending and it is exhausting. And I think never having a I can give myself a high five, I did the most important things today moment is really, really brutal. And then the other thing is get this is such a simple one, but it's so hard to really embody. The better you are at getting clear on your yeses, the easier it is to say no to everything else. So when you're clear on what the yeses are in your calendar, it's easy to say no to that fundraiser that doesn't fit in your schedule. Or it's easy to say no to, you know, go helping Jason put up signs because you know where you're supposed to be. It's not supposed to be helping Jason put up signs. Like the clearer you get on a yes calendar, the easier it is to say no to the things that aren't really in alignment. And and go through your schedule and go, am I saying yes to the best yes?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

You know, if I if I understand what you were saying correctly, it's have a way to know if you're winning. Because I think internally we always think we're losing or we're behind because we wake up broke and unemployed every day. But how much emotional toll and struggle that puts on us? But if we had the metrics, again, it's the four letter word of numbers, and you knew, hey, my goal is to set three appointments every day or one one appointment a week, whatever it is. But yeah, high five. And if you want to double down, go for two. But you know what? I won today. I won. Because there's some days you're gonna get kicked in the nuts.

unknown 10:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

I love the challenge of like you're saying a multidimensional scorecard, right? And maybe it's four things. Like I moved my body, I I did made my 20 calls, right? And and I I spent an hour present with my family. Maybe maybe it's just that. And it's like, but it's not just one thing, maybe it's like multidimensional. It's like, and if I can check those three boxes, just start there. You don't need to track 48 things, start with two or three, right? I I moved my body, I I I made I made my my calls, um, and I spent you know half an hour, an hour with the family, just start with that. But but I think another thing that helps is is tracking success in multiple things, not just in one category. Can be can be really, really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Yeah, no, I wholeheartedly agree. I do. And I think um we put the number of transactions or the volume or the money in our bank account as the only litmus of winning or losing. And you don't make money every day, right? You don't close something every day. But it doesn't mean you're not working. It doesn't mean you weren't successful because I'm I'm horrible at that. I'll go home and be like, I don't know what the f I did today. I was busy from sunup to sundown. I couldn't breathe or pee, but I was I wonder what I did. And I don't feel like I'm winning.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

So did I do things or did I do the most important things? And and I think you gotta take some time to figure out figure out those. Like, did I do things or did I do the most important things? And I think that sometimes we have an an old school mentality of like we get paid by the hour. Most of us that are watching this, we don't get paid by the hour, you get paid by the results. So I don't care how much time you worked, I care about what you did in that time. And I think we gotta kind of hold that to a little bit of a higher standard. And if you get your stuff done by one, go home, go do something else, go goop off. Why do we all say, I'm so busy, and then we kind of work the same hours over and over and over and over and over. Like that's weird. Right? Get more effective and efficient.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yep. I wholeheartedly agree. And I think, guys, if you're uh if you wouldn't mind, tell us how you measure your success. Like DM us or drop in the comments, like I would love to know what Mr. Penelope, I'd love to share it with my own agents or myself. Like, I I want to learn still. So if you're doing something that you know you did well that day, do it. And it reminds me of the Hermosy quote quote, right? Um, if you keep having the same business problems at the same intervals, it's probably your strategy, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:42

I mean, I know I'm all in. A great thing actually is if if I do the if I keep going in the same manner I'm going right now, where will I be in a year, two years, three years? So I keep not going to the gym, where am I gonna be in three years? I keep being resentful because I let other people run my day and stuff, myself run my day, where am I gonna be in three years? Um, right, just if it's not working, something you make a change. Do a little audit. It's a great time to do that. Done.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Hey, real quick, if you're liking this content, imagine having a full day immersed with people that are on this like us that are learning from each other.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

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