The Real Mike Duley

Ep. 7 - Legacy and Leverage: Tara Smith’s Playbook

• Mike Duley

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What if power isn’t a title but a daily choice? We sit down with broker-owner, MAPS senior mastery coach, and blended-family matriarch Tara Smith to unpack how a Wonder Woman poster, a hard reset after divorce, and a year of loss reshaped her approach to leadership, real estate, and life. Tara opens up about moving from survival mode to intentional growth, why “do less better” beats hustle for hustle’s sake, and how presence becomes a superpower when markets shift and life throws curveballs.

Across the conversation, Tara breaks down a practical playbook for agents and leaders who want results without losing themselves. She explains how her teams use AI to win back time, drafting leadership council roadmaps, sparking marketing prompts, and accelerating content, so humans can double down on the work that actually moves the needle: relationships, negotiations, and coaching. We talk systems that stick, including sacred calendars, time blocking for “signal over noise,” morning routines that beat drift, and a simple vacation framework that prevents burnout by booking your next break before you get home.

Legacy becomes the throughline. Tara shares how her kids now touch title, insurance, renovations, and sales, and why financial fluency starts with small, consistent deposits that compound into freedom. She reframes impact from going wider to going deeper, the inner circle that remembers specific moments, not metrics, while still creating ripple effects across hundreds of agents. Expect honest stories, clear tactics, and mindset shifts you can use today: pick one lever a week, automate the repeatable, personalize the irreplaceable, and treat failure as data you learn from fast.

Ready to lead with clarity, protect your energy, and scale what matters? Follow, share with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review with your word of the year.

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to the Real Mike Dooley Podcast. I'm Mike Dooley, nationally recognized broker, bringing you real conversations, real strategies, and real insights into today's real estate market.

unknown

Woo!

SPEAKER_02

I just learned that your word is powerful. I love that. You are powerful. We are uh hanging out. We're on the real Mike Dooley podcast. I like it. As you know, people would say not to have your name in the podcast and in the business because how do you sell it or how do you have it later? And I was like, you know what? I'm never getting rid of me, so why not just keep it rocking? So hopefully you like that. The play on real real estate, right? So uh thinking about that. So who's our guest today? Will you tell our audience if they're listening? Because if they're driving, they're gonna see how smart and powerful and awesome you are. We don't have to crash their car, but who do we have in the house today?

SPEAKER_00

My intro of me?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. I I just so you know, I do have I do have it, we'll weave it in. I have an amazing, great, I should talk about her, intern Taylor and Michelle on my team. I got some great people that look make me look good every day. So trust me, I have some dirt on here, you know, and stuff. I know we both uh live, we were both Florida State Dixon Street people, right? So we always forget about that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So I remember you say you worked at Miami Subs, is that our uh Miami Subs? Is that right? I mean, I remember I pay attention to you.

SPEAKER_00

Listen, you are a relationship man. I know that about you, and you're good at it. So um, yeah, my name's Tara Smith. I um I have been I've worn a lot of different hats, honestly. Um I am a mother, you know. I had four four amazing adult sons and I'm married to a husband. We have together a combined family, six children, three grandchildren, and have spent my entire career in the real estate industry. I'm coming up on year 20, which is wild to me. Um and I should probably say I was a college dropout. So while I did go to FSU, I dropped out of college and did not complete my education, got into real estate, and have um done a lot of different things. And so I worked in sales, right? I've I'm a broker in multiple states. Obviously, I work at Keller Williams now as a multiple franchise owner. I own four franchises with Keller Williams Realty International. We have close to 600 agents in our locations, and I operate as a MAPS senior mastery coach at Keller Williams University master faculty trainer, among other things. And so that is that is who I am. I don't know how I got here, Mike Dooley.

From Restaurants To Real Estate

SPEAKER_02

I was gonna say, just so you know why I did not want to do your intro, if they're not seeing on YouTube. This is like 17 pages and it's just intro. That is massive. And I learned something every day. You know, a funny story about your Florida State. I went to Florida State too, and I had a period where I didn't, I kind of dropped out, didn't go to school, and I don't share it enough. I should. I'm glad you brought it up. I worked at Red Lobster, so I was in the restaurant world. So if anyone's listening, they're thinking about getting into real estate, they know. I think the restaurant sets you up to be very personable. I think it causes you too. It's like, oh, 47 people just came in. I got sat. You're you have to figure it out. You know how do you make people how do you how do you move around? But I worked my way up to a manager, leader manager, general manager, that kind of thing. And Valentine's Day, which I know is coming up for most people, so hopefully you're thinking about your sweetie and bow. But uh, two o'clock in the morning, the dishwashers walked out. And when you're a manager and you're a leader, who the dishes don't wash themselves. And I said, you know what, it's two o'clock in the morning. I'm washing dishes. Is this my future self? Now I love the restaurant industry industry and I think it's great. But for me, I was saying, you know, what's my 10-year, 20-year, 30-year? I'm actually having my 10-year uh in real estate. So I'm 10 years behind you. I need to, I need to follow up, I need to hurry up, which is pretty crazy. I used to say I was new. I guess at 10 years, I can't say new anymore, can I?

SPEAKER_00

You can't. Well, I don't know. In the real estate industry, I mean, it feels like every single day is a new day. And I think that's part of the reason I love this industry is it's ever evolving and changing. The people are new, the challenges are new. And while I'm 20 years in and you're 10 years in, I think we can both agree. We probably both have learned something new today already. And it's, you know, it's two o'clock. So that is that is what the industry feels like.

SPEAKER_02

No, and you know, you talked about 600 people you you guys are leading. Wow, that's amazing. My market center now, which I know we have the blessing of you coaching our assistant team leader. We have 401 agents in our market center, so our local office, but then our region, we have 6,000 agents. So who let these uh Florida State dropouts lead this many people, right? That's right.

SPEAKER_01

That's right. There you go.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know if that's saying something good or bad on Florida State. I did actually this past weekend. I was uh my parents uh lived there. They actually followed me to college. You know, most people move away from home. My parents came with me. I don't know if they just wanted, they cared about me, they wanted to stay with me, but Tallahassee is such a beautiful place and they took me around. I cannot believe, I don't know when the last time you were there, been there, the amount of six-story buildings, ten-story buildings, eight-story buildings, and I had to Google it. There's 60,000 student population, which is amazing.

SPEAKER_00

Wow, I have not been back for maybe since I left. It's been that long.

SPEAKER_02

I think that my parents were telling me I think they only accept 4.5 GPA students now. I would have never been able to make that happen. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So look how like look how blessed we were to get in and get out and and do what we do now.

SPEAKER_02

For sure. You know what? And I I've where we first met, and I don't back to having memory, we were both going to be maps coaches together. And when you did your introduction, you're still a maps coach and still doing it at a high level. I am not.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know if that's you're still driving out, Mike, dearly.

Leading Hundreds And Owning Franchises

SPEAKER_02

Yes, I am. And you know, it was I would just taught right before this productivity coaching a class, and I had a lot of fun. And I gave them 10 steps. One of my 10 steps was fail fast, fail forward, you know. So that's one thing I probably haven't done as fast as I would like, but I think, and I and I would love to go into it for our audience. You're doing a lot of different things. And I don't, I don't know about you. My parents are like, wait a minute, how many jobs do you have? What do you what are you doing? You know? And it's about leading in different ways. So, what is the thing? You know, you talked about your word being powerful for 2026. How are you being powerful with all those things? Like, how are you keeping? I know you even helped G5, you got things at headquarters, you got jobs that I don't even know about that you probably don't even know about. How are you keeping three grand Greg Jones or three grandchildren? You said six kids, husband, how are you keeping it all in the air?

Power As A Guiding Word

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so my word is power. And I here's an interesting story about my word of the air. Um, and I'm looking over here because it's hanging on the wall. Uh, in 20, in 2014, 2015, I got divorced. And um that put me on a path of transition. And I was in transition. Honestly, I stayed really stagnant for three years. And I look back, and I've done podcasts before where I've talked about my rock bottom story, but I stayed really stuck because the only path forward that I could see was to go backwards and get to redo what I was doing. And it wasn't my marriage, it were things, it was things in my career, things with my mission. And I stayed really stuck for about three years. And in 2017, um, actually I had a conversation with someone where they said, Who you surround yourself with matters, and you become the sum of the five closest people in your world. And I looked around my world, and I mean, I had great friends, most of which were divorcees, uh, single women, single moms, divorcees. And, you know, we had a great time. We would drink, we would talk about our ex-husbands, and we would try to navigate our kids. And um, that was my circle for some time. And yet I looked up after three years and realized like I'm not, I didn't feel like I was moving in the direction of getting my life back, at least not in the way I wanted it to come back. So I actually selected the word power in 2017 and I saw power on a Wonder Woman poster. And I bought the poster and I framed the poster and I hung it in my office. And um, the reality is, is I didn't feel powerful when I bought that poster, but I loved how Wonder Woman looked on that poster, and she looked powerful. And so that poster hung in my office for several years, and we renovated that space. And when it was time to take it down, I didn't have anywhere to put it, but I didn't want to let it go. So I took it down to a closet in my house and it sat in that closet for five years. And so this year, like 2025 for us, Mike, was challenging. And you know, Bo and I lost a grandbaby last year. We went through a lot of changes in our business, business evolution, and just challenges. And I think for a lot of people, 2025 was a challenging year. Um, and so when I got to the end of this year, it was like I was gasping for air, but really what I wanted was I wanted January 1st. I wanted a clean slate and I wanted a new year, and I wanted a fresh start. And I, and I, to be honest, I ended last year. My self-esteem was down, business is failing, challenges personally, um, challenges professionally. And I was questioning myself as a leader, questioning, you know, am I doing the right thing? And I remembered that word. And I was in my PJs one night, and I looked at my husband and I said, Where's my poster? And he said, Honey, I don't even know if we have it. And I said, You better not have thrown that poster away. And I literally ran downstairs, I dug through the closet, and I found that poster, and it was covered in dust. And I pulled it out and I bought a new frame and I framed my poster, and it's hanging in my office because I'm choosing to have a defining year like 2017, because 2017 changed my life. I chose power and I showed up in power. And so you asked about power. That was a long answer to a short question. Um, but it's, I think power for me is choosing choosing to show up in who I am in integrity and showing up in each moment completely present because there are a lot of moving pieces. And if we can be present with the people we're in front of and just bring our best in each moment, right? Uh you see Kobe behind me, you know, he's shot his free throws with that torn Achilles. You gotta be present and you gotta give it your all in each moment. And that to me is the ultimate demonstration of power as a leader and just as anyone, anywhere in your world. Just be present and bring your best and bring your A game at all times.

SPEAKER_02

Well, you got a crazy amount of nuggets in there. And I know I was saying powerful because I was maybe, maybe I was like saying you're powerful, which you are. I know the words power, which I love, you are power and powerful. But you know what? A lot of people, a lot of listeners and different people that see on social media will see somebody like yourself and say, you know what, they got it all together. Their grandma, their mom, their leader, their coach, they got it all together. And I love that you were being vulnerable together, you know, to say you we don't. We don't every day is a journey and we have to do something different. You had some nuggets in there too that said, you know, one thing that I took away right away is how powerful your mind is, though. I think that's the other thing is people could have said, and they do, I'm divorced, I'm just gonna go down the path, I'm gonna give up, whatever it is. I've known you now. I was thinking about it, maybe my whole 10 years. You've never given up one time. We've done many phone calls together or hung out at events, and we're together both like this stinks or that stinks, but the next day we brush ourselves off and say, you know what, let's go kick some butt together, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's right. Like the only, like really the only failure is quitting. Because if you look at successful people, their entire life is a series of ups and downs. It's in that moment when you feel like I failed or I can't go on. It's actually just the choice to get up and do it again. That's what success is, right? And you know, you mentioned people looking at me going, she did this and she did that. But you guys, I mean, those are highlight reels. I am just like, I tell people all the time, they're like, Well, I can never do what you do. And I'm like, really? Neither could I. Neither could I, because I've never been qualified for the things I've done. And, you know, I'm a college dropout, I've I was a stay-at-home mom, I was a single mom. I've I've probably failed more than anybody that's ever gonna listen to this. And the reality is, um, you just get up and do it again. You just get up and try again. And every time you fail, you learn. And if you really take the time to reflect on, you know, how did I show up? What could I have done better? You know, where do I want to grow? What would I do differently next time? That starts to define who you become over time. And all I've done is I've taken more risks and I've and I've failed probably more times than the people that haven't accomplished yet the things that I'm doing, which is just it's just more failure on my resume, right?

SPEAKER_02

For sure. Well, everything you just said there, how many of our listeners, like I said, been divorced, dropped out of school, and you know what? You're an inspiration to those to say, single mom, all the things you just said, I love it too, to say it's possible. I know when I was teaching earlier uh to our productivity coaching, which are relatively usually new agents, and I said 10 years ago, I was in this room getting my license and dreaming about what it would look like. They say you complain about what you dreamt about five years ago. So if we go a little go a step further, if I will, what are you looking to the future? I know you're a planner and you kind of have it organized. What are some of the things that you're thinking about that our listeners can go? Okay, I love that mindset. Are you connecting dots? How how you know you're 600 agents now. I know you, you know, you look at your market share, you're probably 1,500 agents. So if people are listening, also what areas are you located in? So if our listeners say, you know what, she's a badass. I want to hang out with her, I want to spend time with her. I know they can get on a plane and do that, but what cities do you represent right now?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I live in Lexington, Kentucky, Central Kentucky. We operate in Louisville, Kentucky, southern Indiana, and Cincinnati, Ohio. So we're kind of in that tri-state area. Um, you asked where I'm going, and this this is this is true, and it's probab maybe not the most popular answer. Um I've been running, I feel like COVID, you know, I think COVID put a lot of people in survival. And um, you know, we were building and building and building, and then COVID hit and we went into survival, and it was kind of like you just get in the grind. And something that my mentor said, Diana Kokoska said, she said that what COVID did is it programmed an energy of survival into us. And if you think about it, COVID ended at some point several years ago. But how much longer has it taken people to start dreaming and take vacations and go do the things that they always wanted to do? And it was years, it was years after COVID. I mean, I think last year was the first year I started seeing people go to Europe and go to Greece and go to London and Paris. And I was like, wow, it's kind of like we're deciding to get back to our dreams. And so right now, Mike, like we have been in such a grind. And honestly, like scaling business, growing, my focus right now is to do less better. And my focus, my focus is to be intentional. That's your word, right? Intentional and purposeful in how we grow because more than anything, what the last five years has taught me is, and this is the same lesson it was 10 years ago, who you surround yourself with matters. And the the higher you climb or the higher you rise, the circles of people and who they become are more and more and more important. Um and so we're just focusing on taking amazing care of the people we've been entrusted with and growing organically through, you know, resurance, just like a great sales business. Like we're focusing on from a real estate perspective, database. Like we're focusing on not the thousand ways. How do you take amazing care of the people that you know so that you can earn the right to then go get in business with new people? And that's that's our focus this year.

SPEAKER_02

Will you say that again? You said do less better.

SPEAKER_00

Do less it's on my t-shirt today. Do less better.

Failure, Resilience, And Mindset

SPEAKER_02

We need to make that a hashtag. Maybe it is one. I like that a lot. We need to come up with some initials. That is so cool. I think you can, you know, I think about it when I was kind of coaching today earlier, it was on my mind I have a thousand texts that I haven't read. Most people would fall out of their chair, and what I heard a mentor say one time is that's their priority, not my priority. So, what I think a lot of people do back to do less better, is if someone texts me and they need something, maybe if they read a book or they did a podcast or listen to this podcast, which we highly recommend sharing, subscribing, and hanging out, they might learn something to be able to have a different conversation with me. And I'll give you an example. I had a president of a hospital, CEO of a hospital. We were working on a deal that's going to be 400 uh acres of land that they got gifted and donated to them that we'll be able to sell. And he said one of the reasons that he wanted to continue the conversation with me or the lever is because I video text him. So I did a which I know you perceived over the years, video text for me or different texts for me, but I video text myself because AI and technology and all these things are coming into place. People don't know if it's a human. So I love that you said do less better because they're gonna intimately know you, know that you're uh have grandchildren, know that you have six kids. Also, I know you flip houses with your kids, which is really cool to see. They're actually, when they say it's a family business, right? Right now, who's working in the business as far as a family perspective?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so um, my oldest son right now is working in a title company that we own, right? So in one of our locations, he is operating as the title closer, title rep there. My youngest son got his real estate license a couple of years ago and then transitioned into insurance sales. And he is a little beast on the cell phone. I'm like, we need to get you back in the bigger ticket item. Um, and then my twins, I have twins in the middle, they um they are in home renovations and remodeling. So it's interesting. The boys at least are um all kind of touching the real estate industry. One of our daughters is still in school at University of Kentucky, and I know that one of her goals is to come into the family business. And so, um, and our other daughter is actually, she just finished her real estate classes. So we are, you know, we talk about Keller Williams talks about, you know, careers worth having, businesses worth owning, lives worth living, experiences worth giving, and legacies worth leaving. We are living that, but it's a it's it's become our reality. And it's because our mission and our vision and everything we've built is inside this amazing industry. And it's almost like I'll tell you where this happened. I went to a John Maxwell training with our friend Tara Allen a few years ago. And um I was amazed at all of the conversations about leadership and legacy. And I stepped out of the training and I called my husband and I said, you know what? Um, this entire session has been about legacy, and we're gonna miss it. We're gonna miss it so bad if we allow our kids to go to college and think that making$100,000 a year is the absolute best life they can have because we work in an industry where$100,000 a year is your first year as a Keller Williams agent. So, you know, it's just the mindset shift of how do we create a path for our children to live an expansive life and have a and and not step into wealth. I want them to work for it, but for us to be able to teach them to think bigger and to think differently than like let's be honest, 98% of the people they probably run around with.

SPEAKER_02

I love that you're leaving a legacy and getting them in. So right now, my 13 year old and nine year old Evelyn Sinclair, we ask them all the time, hey, are you gonna get into real estate? And they're like, no way. Mom, you and dad work way too hard. You're on the phone all the time. So at their perspective, they're seeing how hard we're working. But I actually see that as a huge compliment to let them know that nothing is easy. Uh, the easy way, the easy path, that's not the way mom and dad are doing it, you know, to your point, build a legacy. But my oldest has started talking about interior design. So I'm not not telling her that's close enough to the real estate business. We'll get you in somehow, right? I started a question when I was kind of talking to Story about the video text to the hospital CEO. And I wanted to go into you and you think about your companies and your organization. How are you using AI and using technology today, or what does that look like in the future?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, um we we're in AI, I would say, every single day at some level. And what I have found with AI, so I told you our year is about relationship. What I find AI creating for us is it it's time. It gives us time back. So I can sit and create an entire plan and spend an hour doing that, or I can take 35 seconds and ask Chat GPT to put together the plan. And, you know, in a in a in a real basic place, I mean, we're launching our new associate leader, our agent leadership councils. And what I've seen in the past with that group is we didn't have a clearly defined plan for their year. And so now I, you know, I simply went into Chat GPT and said, build an 11-month plan for a Keller Williams agent leadership council with a month-by-month strategy. And that's what we're gonna use for them to build their plan. They're gonna take it and review it and build their own plan, but it's just giving them ideas and strategies to put into place. And same thing with our agents, right? Like we're using it for marketing and video prompts and all of the things that the agents can use in that regard.

Growth Plans And Do Less Better

SPEAKER_02

That's so cool. I think if you ask anybody today, everyone's using AI. I went to a fast food restaurant, which we have here, Slim's Chicken, and the person taking my order was an AI uh individual. But I was gonna go back, you'll you'll love this, thinking about your kids and your grandkids. So my 13-year-old injured her knee. So I took her to physical therapy this morning and I was driving her to school, and she just started babysitting. So, what I didn't know is um uh Cody wanted her to be CPR certified. So I went to drop her off and I thought, oh, I'm gonna hang out in the car, go run errands, and come back. And they're like, oh no, an adult has to stay. So I got CPA, CPR certified for five hours or whatever, which I was not expecting, but I love that quality time with her. But what we talked about though, the her first babysitting gig, uh, you know, shout out to my brother-in-laws. They gave her like 170 bucks for five kids. I go, honey, just so you know, that's not realistic. Don't think that all the time. But where we're where we're going with that is we were just talking about money and she's got another babysitting opportunity this Friday. And I said, You're 13. You need to start thinking about what kind of car you want to buy, what does it look like, you know? And somehow I got into, I just for giggles said, What if you saved you babysat and saved$100 every week from babysatting? How fast would it take you to be a millionaire? And it said she'd be 50 or something like that. You know, Chat GPT did. We did it on voice. And she said, Oh, that's too long. So I did not stop there. I said, Chat GPT, what if for this year she saved 100, but next year 200 and the year after 300? You know, what would that look like? And it was like 35 years old. And she's like, Oh, I'd basically get out of college and I'd have be a millionaire at 35. And we talked through, she had it in a gross stock index fund and it kicked out 10%, so 100 grand a year. I was like, you can live on 100 grand a year for the rest of your life, which was just an unlocking idea for her concept that no one ever told me. And I know you too. You think about like our parents and what right now, the things we're able to give to our kids and our grandkids. Someone, if they're listening now, knowledge is so much power. So that's why I wanted to do this podcast and hang out with smart, great people like you. What's something that you're coaching your kids, grandkids, ALC, or someone in your office? What's a thing that you're doing? And I know you're probably talking about the power story. I think that's huge. I think that lets everyone know everyone can do it, right? They just have to have the will and the want. What are you coaching right now or what are you talking about with your people?

SPEAKER_00

We're really, we're really focusing on knowing who they are and knowing their business. And I think more than anything, like just to what you said, knowing why, knowing why. So, like, how you know, what do you want to do in your business this year? Okay, why is that important? What's the ultimate outcome of that for you? Because again, we've got a little bit of a hustle culture going. And in our industry, it's so easy to get into grinding and burning out. And so we're focusing on um just the holistic approach of like, you know, what are you where are you going on vacation? You know how many people I talk to about where's your next vacation? And they say I haven't taken a vacation in 10 years. And it's like, what are you doing? You're not getting any younger. So in coaching, in in all of that, it's mindset, it's what do you want to accomplish? And then to be really honest, like what are the lead levers? What is the smartest way to move the biggest rocks to accomplish that? Right. And I I don't think I think that's a skill. I think learning big levers and which levers to pull, like we talk about the big rocks. I think it's a skill. I don't think it comes naturally. So teaching people that is really it's really valuable.

SPEAKER_02

If people are listening, and just so you know, we have listeners from Dubai. I just I just tell people that they're probably from uh Dubai, Arkansas, or something. But uh, we want them from all over, you know, Paris, Texas. But I love that you said that. That's a great question if anyone's listening. Where are you going on vacation next? If you're a leader, it seems really small, but you just you I wrote this down as a note for myself too. It shows that we care, uh, which we do, right? Because this is the whole human, not just, oh, you want to make a hundred thousand and then stopping there. How are you using it? Where are you going on vacation? Uh, I love that you're going deeper on there, and also you're realizing people are saying, I haven't been in 10 years. Well, that's a coaching opportunity for us to provide them to say, let me show you a path. What's your next vacation? What does that look like? And it might start with, and I know a lot of people talk about this. Gary Keller talks about this, taking, you know, three a long weekend, three days off a month, one week off a quarter, one day off a week, you know, and it's your brain and your body needs to rest sometime. And I know you were kind of talking about that with your loss. Uh, and I know that's gonna be with you forever uh in in 2025. And I'm sorry again, that's so horrible. I could not even imagine, but that's gonna make you who you are, and I think that's why you said you want relationships. So somehow, form or fashion, God brought that in your guys' life to be able to say, you know what, I'm gonna use you to be able to work with people differently, and that's the kind of leader you are, what kind of vacation you're going on. What other maybe questions are you using that way that are thought provoking? That one to me is is it seems small, but it's actually brilliant because it unlocks a lot of things for people.

Family Legacy In Real Estate

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, there's two things I want to touch on. One is um as far as vacation goes, my my leader, when I first came back into Market Center leadership, taught me this. He would see me, I would, I would run until I got really tired, and then I would recognize I needed a break, but by then it was too long, it had been too long, and then it would be another 90 days before I could get on one. And he would look at me and go, You need a vacation, you need time off. And so what I started doing was I go on a vacation. While I'm at that vacation, I feel amazing and I start thinking about where I'm gonna go next because that's what our brain actually does. The challenge is we get home and we get back in the grind. And so I made, I actually have this commitment with myself. I either book my next time off while I'm off or within about 48 hours of getting home. And so rather than just run until I'm tired and create space, I actually run pleasure to pleasure, which means I come home, I already know where I'm going next. So when I have a day like today where I didn't sleep well and a little tired, I already know when my next vacation is and I can push myself through the hard days because I'm running toward something. The other thing I wanted to say was, and I and I learned this, you know, I study a lot around energy and I study a lot around mindset. I'm an NLP certified, you know, coach. And um if we could reframe, you mentioned like the tragedy in our life last year, and that happened, and I hated it. And I am kind of like the queen of mindset, and I know how to trick my brain and I know how to move myself forward, and I got really stuck and I had to wrestle with that for some time. But the but if we could if we could change how we think about failure or loss from why is this happening to me to what is the lesson I need to learn or understanding that everything is working for us, then you can actually turn yourself in a positive direction and move forward. So when hard things happen or challenges come, and this back to your question, what I share with people, how is this working in your favor? What is the lesson that you need to learn that's gonna move you forward through this hard time or this challenge, right? Because there's a lesson in every single thing that we experience in life. And actually, Mike, my philosophies have changed a lot in the last few years. I believe that we pre-decide. I personally believe that we predetermine the lessons we're gonna learn in our lifetime. And that means all the hard stuff that we experience, like my brain believes that I pre-picked it a long time ago. And that means that as I'm experiencing it, I can simply say, you chose this. You chose all of this, and there's something in it for you, even in this really hard moment.

SPEAKER_02

I heard a pastor say one time too, God knows what hard you can handle. Um, and I think, you know, some people can't handle you know certain hards, but the reason you have that too is so you can pay it forward. Um, and I and I love that. I was gonna go back to you said one thing about vacation. Brett Tanner, a great leader. I love him. He's great. He talks about that. He talks about when you're on the vacation, planning the next one, you know, and already laying out what that looks like because we need to have fun. But there's a tool, and I love you gave a framework. You said you book it while you're on it, or 48 hours of coming home. That's a system, a framework, and we want to give our listeners that. But also there's the big ass calendar. I don't know if you've ever seen Jesse Etzler. I love him. I I just I you know what he he just makes it so simple. His delivery, you know, his concept. I actually told my 13-year-old this if you play basketball and he says eight do anything in the world for 18 minutes a day, you'll be better than 99% of the people in this one thing. So I went out there one time and she's shooting hoops and she's got a timer for 36 minutes. So she wanted to be 100% better than everybody. So I love that. That's just a mindset thing, but there's there's tools in her life. And that's kind of one of my next question I wanted to go into for you. So, Jesse Itzler, I have one of those. I used the big wall one two years ago. This year I'm using the one that actually you carry around. It's still big calendar for the big ass calendar to kind of lay out some of that stuff for me. What tools are you guys using in your life that could be beneficial for other listeners?

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh. Mike Dooley, I I am a model systems and tools woman. I mean, um, I live and breathe by my calendar. I, you know, and people go, uh, you work all the time. And I go, no, and I actually don't. I probably just get three times more done in my day than you do because I don't waste time, right? So um my my calendar is my life. I mean, it is. And the reality is, and this is this is interesting because I watched a video recently about um about signal and noise. Signal and noise, and they were talking about um they were talking about Steve Jobs, and they talked about how signal is basically your big rocks, and noise is everything else. And the most talented and successful people, they stay in signal more time in their day than they do in noise. And they were talking about Steve Jobs, and they said he spent 80% of his time in signal. So 80% of his time, he was doing the most important things he needed to do that day to make the biggest impact. And they said there's only one other person that does it better, and it's Elon Musk. He stays in Signal 100% of his day. And I listened to that video and I thought, you know, I do stay in Signal about 100% of my day. I don't waste time. Um, I don't commit to things that I'm half in on. If it's on my calendar, I'm gonna be there. Um, so my calendar is a really big thing as far as a tool. And I think it's I think learning the skill to time block and manage my time has absolutely changed my life. So just like you, I'd say calendar is is a big one.

AI As A Time Machine

SPEAKER_02

That is a great answer. And I 100% agree with that. Uh, you know, I'm I'm probably seven or eight things in already today, and some people don't get started till 10. So I actually, when I was teaching today, just you know, relevant that it's fresh, and I said, What time do you get to the office? Well, I'm usually the first person in all our offices at 7:30. So if people aren't rolling in until 9:30, I did the math. If you work 240 days in a year, it's like 480 hours. So I'm getting every year, call it 500 more hours of work productivity in than somebody else that I'm competing against. And that's just one small thing. But you know, as a I listened to the One Thing podcast last night, highly recommend. It's great. I love the way Jay's delivery is just so simple. And here's what he talked about. He actually said it doesn't start today, it starts the night before. And he talked about if I go to bed at 10, well, then I can have a better day if I go to bed at midnight. Right now I'm watching, I don't know what you're watching. I would love to know what you're watching. I'm watching Landman, and I'm I'm caught up now, but I was at that stage where I wasn't caught up, you know, and I was like, oh, one more. And then it'll be like midnight, which is way too late for me. But I was like, oh, I watched three of them just because I was intrigued by it. But if I don't go to bed, you know, at a reasonable time, my next day is not as productive. And you talked about signaling. I love that because you're moving it forward, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we're watching Stranger Things to answer that question.

SPEAKER_02

There you go. Are you so uh I'm actually I love Jordan Freed. I love that he lays this out, and uh several other people lay it out. Craig Zuber, about a 10-year letter. Yeah. I talk about that a lot and I think about that a lot. Where am I gonna be in 10 years? Do you guys have a process that you're thinking long-range planning or vision? Are you thinking that far?

SPEAKER_00

That's a great question. And you know, my husband, something I learned at NLP is people are macro or micro processors. So every year I'm like, let's sit down and do our vision. And we sit down and I get to the first thing, and he goes into like all the micro things. They're gonna, I'm like, let's invest in this. And he's like, okay, so let's break it down. And I'm like, I gotta get out of this room right now because we process differently. So um I've actually uh last year or the year before we sat down, and it's interesting, Mike, because this company has changed my life. And you know, I grew up in poverty, and you know, we've been able to accumulate wealth and and do lots of investing and things like that. And so when you sit down and you look, sometimes we look at what we've accomplished, it's hard to imagine something else. And so so I do have a net worth goal and I really tied that honestly to our kids and what we wanted to accomplish for them. But for me personally, outside of the money, I truly believe, and and you'll hear me say this pretty much anywhere I speak. I believe that every single one of us have been given unique gifts and talents. And it's our responsibility to actualize the best version of ourselves. And so for me, 10 years from now, my goal would be one step closer to the best version of Tara Smith. And that's probably gonna look like a lot of failure, a lot of selflessness, a lot of humility, a lot of my face planted in the dirt somewhere. Uh, but that's my journey. That's the journey. And so it's just about growth, personal growth, um, being being more giving, being more loving, being more kind, being more empathetic, um, and and being a partner to the people that we get to be a part of their lives. That for me is I want to look up, I'll say this. This is an activity I do. I think about my eulogy, I think about the end, not 10 years, the end. And um this is a little lesson I learned this year. Bo lost, uh Bo's best friend passed away in December, pretty unexpectedly. Yeah, 2025 was a fair for us. Um and he was, he had massive influence. So for the last 10 years, I've looked ahead in my eulogy and I've thought when I'm gone and they're speaking about my life, will there be hundreds and thousands of people there? Will I have impacted people in that way? Will there be stories of my impact? And what I've learned is um I can't reach the people as much as I want to. While I have 600 people in my world, I can't talk to them all every day. And honestly, at some level, I feel like I'm failing all the time. I feel like I can't get to enough people, I can't love on them enough, I can't support them enough. And so Bo's best friend passed away, majorly known, known worldwide. I mean, he's he's the international distributor of Blands whiskey. He's traveled all over the world. He's he's you know, in Lexington, Kentucky, known. And when he passed away, we got invited to the to the inner circle. And the inner circle was about 10 people.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

And you know what they asked? They asked for people to come and tell stories. And I sat in that room and I thought maybe the journey is not about a thousand. Maybe it's about who who are the 10 or the 20 that you've made such a massive impact in their life that they sit in a small room and eat a little bit of food and break a little bit of bread, and they spend three or four or five hours telling stories about you so they never forget them. And so that was how my year ended. And um, so I'm my my focus is shifting from mass amounts of people to where am I gonna have intentional impact in my life and whose lives are gonna be drastically changed because they got to be a part of mine.

Money Lessons For The Next Generation

SPEAKER_02

That was really, really insightful and sad and just everything. But I love that to me when I thought about it, I said you got a person that maybe thousands of thousands of people work for, and he's impacting hundreds of thousands of people. But I guess here was the thing if if people read through it, and I I this the way I read through it, you could still just impact, and I know you talk about five, and I want to give you a high five. That's my hug to you. Let me give you a hug and a high five. But if you think about your five, if you impact five and they impact five, and they impact five, and they impact five, the butterfly effect, which is a great video on YouTube. There is something to that. So if someone heard saying, Hey, I want to, sometimes I hear people talking about a small company or small broker, but well, you have to still have the ripple effect to have the abundance, to have the opportunity. It all has to work in itself. So it's not that necessarily it's either big or small, it just is, you know, and that's what I heard from you that I really love and that's deep. You can have different relationships with different people. Sometimes someone maybe just wants to hear from you on this podcast, they're still gonna connect with you and go, so that was someone you've never even met. It's gonna go, that's the greatest story. If she can do it, I can do it, and I appreciate her. So that's why I appreciate you being on the show, is because it's possible, right? You're showing through power that it's possible. And I think that's the win. I would, and me and you, me and you could talk for four hours, but I I want to keep talking, but I don't want to forget to tell people how do they find you. If they they don't want to hang out with Mike Dooley anymore, well, they want to hang out with you only. Do they find you on Instagram, Facebook? Where's the best place to find you?

SPEAKER_00

I'm gonna answer that, but I want to go back real quick. I told you about Bo's friend in the room of 20. The reality is at his funeral, at his celebration of life, they lined up for four hours. The people he had impacted, they couldn't even get through the line. People that had worked with him 10 years before and five years before. And so the impact was really great. Yet the gift was being in the room, the room of 10. The gift was there's more. There, there's something really special about going deeper with people. So I want I wanted to say, like, we can touch tons of people's lives, but really at the end of the day, it's like who's the handle? Who's the five? Right? Um, so thank you for having me. You know, you guys can find me. I am on um, I'm on Facebook and I'm on Instagram, and my name's Tara Smith. I I think my handle is Tara Katie Smith on Instagram. And uh you can go follow me on either one of those pages. I'm having lots of fun with AI and making myself look beautiful um all over the place with my AI tools.

SPEAKER_02

I was gonna ask you on your poster, did for Wonder Woman, do you have your face on Wonder Woman?

SPEAKER_00

You know, I don't, but she gives me a lot of power in just who she is. I thought about doing a Wonder Woman body in my face. Maybe, maybe I'll get there one day.

SPEAKER_02

You can have the Wonder Woman, but you could be behind it as another woman, like a Wonder Woman in the shadow or something, you know, maybe on her shoulder. We'll come up with some ideas. I'll give Bo some ideas for Valentine's Day. But you know what? Going back to your story, I love that you shared it. I just had a concept or idea, and you reiterated the idea that I just had about going from 10 people to four hours in line. What would that impact look if you're listening today and you think about me and give me chills, thinking about who am I impacting today? How am I impacting? What does it look like? What am I saying? What am I doing? And anyone listening, and as you know this, people are always watching you too. Maybe someone you don't know or you don't interact as leaders, that's a blessing and a curse. People are either looking for us to stumble or they want to high five us or they're looking to see how we're showing up in the hard moments. And I love that about you as a great friend of mine, how you show up in the hard moments at a high level. But you know what? You're also vulnerable. We're who we're human, we're all human. And that's what I think about real estate too. It's a human process concept thing. It's not just selling homes, it's a human thing that we're doing all together because we're coaching, we talked about insurance, we're remodeling, we're doing all the things. I tell people all the time as they think they're just gonna be Phil Dumfy, there's a hundred jobs at real estate. You could do so many things. Um, but we'd love to loved having you. Uh so much fun. Will you promise? Can we do? Because I feel like it's like cutting short. I want to do a part two. And you know what? Maybe we can do that when I see you in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_00

We'll do it. I'm in. I'm in for any time with Mike Dooley.

Coaching: Purpose, Levers, And Rest

SPEAKER_02

Well, you know what would be cool actually, if Bo, all three of us, maybe did part two, and then anything we talked about in part one, we could bring him in and we'll ask him what his thought process. Because it was funny. I actually saw uh an Instagram where a husband and wife they were kind of fighting, they were they were in business together, and they actually did it on YouTube and they showed how they interact. If you're I'd say most people in real estate, it's a family business. I feel like you know, I think about your regional owners, just go through the list. People are our family, you know, it just happens. Spouses work together, and Cody and I's uh mindset and process is totally different, so it's meeting them where they are, understanding their their concept. And I love that you did that. I love the micro macro. I'm gonna I wrote that down too. Our brains do process differently, but you actually need both to work.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. That it's not right or wrong, it's just understanding the language you're speaking and and if you're actually having a conversation, right?

SPEAKER_02

Is there anything that you wanted to make sure we talked about today that we didn't hit on?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, this has been great. I've loved being here, you know, just like you know, I'm your guest, but you are such an inspiration. And what you know, the thing I know about you, Mike, is you push people. You you you have a vision and you push into it and you do the work. And so, you know, I'm really grateful to have been in your space for so long. And I know that the people that you lead are actually breaking ceilings and doing amazing things because of how you think and the vision that you cast. So I'll just say thank you for how you lead and for having me here to share all my amazing failures or some of them. Um, and I would just encourage people listening to know that there's nothing really special about Mike Dooley or Tara Smith. We just get up and do the work, right? We get up and fail and we do it again and again and again. So go fail today and celebrate it and learn from it and go do it again.

SPEAKER_02

So true. Thanks for listening to the Real Mike Dooley podcast. Subscribe, share, stay real. I'm Mike Dooley. Until next time,