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The Justin Landis Show: Helping Atlanta’s Top Realtors Build, Grow, and Scale
The Justin Landis Show is a real estate podcast about having honest conversations, building real relationships, and creating freedom through the work you do every day.
Hosted by Justin Landis, the show isn’t about hype or hacks. It’s about the people behind the business. Each episode is a conversation with agents, leaders, and partners who care about long-term growth, strong partnerships, and doing good work. We talk about what’s working, what’s not, and the decisions that actually matter.
If you’re building a team, growing your business, or just trying to find a better way to work, this is a place for real perspective and conversations worth your time.
The Justin Landis Show: Helping Atlanta’s Top Realtors Build, Grow, and Scale
Ryan Jenkins: Communication Is Dealt, Connection Is Felt
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Ryan Jenkins, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of "Connectable" and a leading voice on multi-generational team building, joins Justin to break down a distinction that changes how agents should think about every client and colleague relationship: communication and connection are not the same thing. Ryan shares the research behind why generational spans are shrinking, why 8 out of 10 people feel disconnected at work despite constant communication, and a simple five minute meeting tactic that shifts a team from communicating to actually connecting. He also digs into what specifically motivates younger agents, why the average first-time homebuyer just crossed 40 for the first time, and previews his next book on what he calls team binding.
Ryan offers a free Team Connection Kit, four short interactive tools designed to build connection in two to five minutes at a time, available at connectionvault.com, along with early notice when his new book on team binding releases.
There's a big difference between communication and connection. Those two things are not the same thing. So communication is the exchanging of information, and we actually process this in the front part of our brain, whereas connection is a feeling of understanding and an ease of communication between people. And we process this actually in the back part of our brain. So a good way to think about it is if you've ever texted, I love you to significant other, that's wonderful. That's a great pro-social behavior. We we should probably all be doing more of, myself included. But just know that's only communication, right? The other person is just processing that as a communication versus their brain would click it over to connection if they heard the tone of your voice.
SPEAKER_00Man, so Ryan is a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, his book, Connectable, keynote speaker, and um I would say, I mean, if not one of the experts, maybe the expert on team building and multi-generational work inside of a team. And so, man, I'm really excited uh for this conversation today. Thanks for being here.
SPEAKER_01And we're both in Atlanta, but yet we couldn't be in person. So go for it.
SPEAKER_00Seriously, seriously, this is the second one that I have done with somebody in Atlanta where we just could not get the you know the timing together. So we first connected, you were a keynote speaker at a real estate conference um for a group that I'm in that it literally has like top agents in all of America and Canada. Uh, and we got to meet uh on the pre-work for that. And I was like, oh man, this is really interesting for a lot of people, but especially for real estate agents, where there's such a wide range of ages. Um tell me a little, before we dig into that, tell me a little bit about your background and kind of how you got into this work, um, and then we'll dig into to the practical side of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I studied entrepreneurship in college, and then go figure, I landed a job and came to Atlanta, and um I was in technology sales, but there was, I knew I wanted to do, I wanted to speak. I knew at a really young age I wanted to speak, and I just didn't know the topic of what you know what I was going to be an expert on. And at the time, the millennial conversation was red hot, and there were so many people that were pointing fingers and millennials this, millennials that, and I just thought, man, this isn't a helpful conversation. And they kept telling millennials to sit the bench, wait their turn. And what I was seeing was that really the millennials were kind of this signpost of this next wave of like the digital workforce. And so I start I started a podcast 15 years ago and just started interviewing anybody that I could, and no one knew what a podcast was. And all of these Fortune 500 senior leaders were like, sure, I'll be on whatever that thing is. And so I had hundreds of conversations.
SPEAKER_00You were early to that. That was great.
SPEAKER_01So early, and it was it was such a great benefit. Like the chief people officer at Chipotle was on our podcast. I'm still great friends with her, and and so you know, it just blossomed from there and began writing and and getting asked to speak. And here we are today.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So tell me, I mean, 15 years, a long time. I'm sure a lot has changed in that. What are the current trends? Like, what do people need to know right now about the multi-generational trends in the workforce and in team building?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I think one of the the generational shift that is very sneaky and it seems to be accelerating, and I don't think a lot of people can have got their hands around it just yet, and that's that generational spans are shrinking, which is kind of weird, right, to think about. So typically generations are 15 to 20 year spans, because that was a natural step in our ancestry. But uh generations are defined by innovation, uh events, trends that are happening during the multiple years of an age cohort. I think Justin, you and I could agree, every listener and viewer of this podcast would agree, things are changing now more than ever before. Oh, yeah. And so if you if you think back to the past, let's just say like our ancestors who roamed the plains, there was maybe four, maybe five things that would influence our behavior, right? It was like landscape, sources of food and water, um the weather, other people in your tribe. Like there wasn't a lot that would influence our behaviors that would change over the years. Fast forward today, there's so much coming at us all the time. It's now imprinting generations at a rate we've never seen before. So think of a good example is you know, we all have a 24-7 news cycle in our pocket to where, you know, just a generation that's coming of age during those multiple years, they can experience uh an event that's happening halfway around the globe in real time, and that imprints a generation. AI is a good example too, right? AI, we've never seen a technology scale so fast, have such fast adoption. That's fundamentally reshaping how an entire generation uh buys, research, communicates, all these things. And so again, 15 to 20 years was the natural span, that's gonna shrink down to 10, maybe even five year spans. And so, why that matters to anybody listening is if you're feeling the tension as it relates to working, leading, selling across generations, it's only gonna intensify moving forward because we're gonna see these new nuances of generations more frequently than ever before. And so this conversation's never been about uh weeding out the differences and and flattening every generation because there's there's uh gold in those differences. But now more than ever, we have to understand that there's there's there's strength in every generation and we have to lean in consistently and learning about one another so we can stay relevant in today in the future multi-generational marketplace that we're all operating in.
SPEAKER_00Man, that is fascinating. I had not thought of that about the compression of the generations, but I mean, how true, because things have changed so quickly and they continue to do so. And you mentioned the connectivity, you know, that's available now. But one of the things that I know you've seen is that especially for the younger generations, there's a bigger challenge of isolation than there has been, you know, historically, generally speaking, which is almost like counterintuitive, but that's definitely something that we've got to work through to try to reach our best selves and our best teams, right?
SPEAKER_01Totally. Yeah. And that's uh so I started my work in generations and I wrote a number of books on generations. And then I was writing a book about Gen Z, which is the youngest generation that's entering the workforce right now. And I kept bumping in all this research that was highlighting how isolated to your point, disconnected, lonely. In fact, it's 73% of Gen Z report feeling alone, either sometimes or always, which is the highest of any generation, right? That's just mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so I so that caught me by surprise. Alarm bells were going off. This was pre-pandemic. I was doing this research, and I thought, all right, what's going on here? And how can we help organizations around the globe and our clients connect with this emerging workforce as they poured in the work in the workforce? Yeah. And so I began doing some other research and then come to find out while Gen Z is super disconnected, every generation's experiencing more disconnection than ever before. Uh, it's still most acute with Gen Z for a variety of reasons. Um, but we're all experiencing this disconnection and isolation. And so that led me to write my latest book, which is called Connectable. And it's all about how do we find connection at work and why is work such a great spot to foster better connection. And so, yeah, to your point, it's you know, the world's moving fast and we tend to, it seems like we're uh retracting from one another like never before.
SPEAKER_00Hit's hit the key points in Connectable, and then let's tie those once you do, let's tie those in specifically to the real estate agent and real estate world. But tell everybody what you learned in your research of how do we move forward and improve those challenges you just mentioned.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think the kind of the core argument in connection in Connectable was that it's the hidden driver of the most successful teams. And I say it's hidden because one, you can't see connection, but then two, we're undervaluing it and we're we tend to disconnect um connection from work, right? We think, oh, I want to go, uh I want to be connected or be friends with people outside of work. But now more than ever, and the research is really clear that um eight out of 10 people, eight out of 10 people say they feel disconnected at work. And all eight out of 10 of those want more connection at work. So this is a big trend we're seeing to where, again, generations passed, you you didn't go to work to connect, but now we have entire generations and established generations that are looking towards work for more connections. They're looking towards their colleagues and managers and their employer to foster more of this connection. And yet, only uh what makes this like a really uh uh slippery topic and again hard to nail down and get this right at work, um, is that only two out of 10, so two out of 10 workers around the globe say that they'll speak up if they're feeling disconnected. And so we tend to label all these things, we tend to quickly jump to burnout or languishing or all these other um uh symptoms, and we're not actually dressing the core illness, which is which is disconnected. We don't feel completely connected to the colleagues and the people that we work with, which is where we're spending most of our waking hours. So that's kind of the premise of the book. And yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, I'll just say on that for everybody listening. I love numbers. If anybody listens to this show, they know I love numbers, went to Georgia Tech. I mean, think about it. Eight out of 10, that's basically everybody. I mean, that is almost every single person that you are working with. So whether it's your colleague or you're a leader and it's folks that you know you're trying to guide and shepherd, almost everybody doesn't have the connection they want and does want it. So shouldn't that be a really high priority for us all to, you know, improve on that? So I mean, I just think like the advice you're about to give, it's invaluable to people because it is one of those things that it's impacting nearly everybody you're around.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, no, you're you're spot on. And the the numbers do kind of help us uh grasp that, yeah, there's there's a massive appetite that's being unaddressed. And I think what what makes it um this problem that continues to linger is that we're in this connection illusion. Where, well, before I tell you about the connection illusion, like the biggest takeaway that I constantly hear from folks is this concept that we address in the book, which is loneliness isn't the absence of people, but rather loneliness is the absence of connection. Loneliness isn't the absence of people, it's the absence of connection. And I love this beautiful quote by Robin Williams, who was the late actor and comedian. He he's he kind of hammered into this um this concept really clearly. He said, the worst thing in life isn't to end up all alone, it's to end up around people who make you feel all alone. And I think that's what we're experiencing at work is we we go to work and we think that, oh, I am surrounded by people. Even if you're working remotely and you you have multiple calls with your team members or clients and colleagues, and just because you're interacting, it feels like we're connected, but that's not the case. And here's what we learned that there's a big difference. This is kind of the strategy that I think will be helpful to many, is that there's a big difference between communication and connection. Those two things are not the same thing. So um communication is the exchanging of information, and we actually process this in the front part of our brain, whereas connection is a feeling of understanding and an ease of communication between people, and we process this actually in the back part of our brain. So a good way to think about it is if you've ever texted, I love you to significant other, that's wonderful. That's a great pro-social behavior. We we should probably all be doing more of, myself included. Um, but just know that's only communication, right? The other person is just processing that as a as a communication versus um they their brain would click it over to connection if they uh heard the tone of your voice. Tone of voice is one of the strong uh connection pieces or features that we have as humans. Um they would click it over to connection if they felt your embrace or maybe saw your body language. And so so often we think that we're communicating or we're connecting at work when when all we're doing is just connection. So technology enables communication, but not connection. And I think a good way for all of us to keep this in the front forefront of our mind is communication is dealt, right? It's the exchange, but connection is felt. So communication is dealt, connection is felt. And so if our goal is to get out of this connection illusion that we think we're connected, when in reality we're just communicating with our colleagues, we have to be really intentional about trading communication for connection. Um and one really specific way that we teach our clients to do this is a really easy tactic. We call it connect five. So next time you have a team meeting that could be in person, hybrid, virtual, doesn't matter, you take five minutes at the top of your meeting where one person shares one non-work-related picture, and that's it. So one person shares one non-work-related picture for five minutes.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm I'm taking that. That's awesome. I love it. That's it. That is so good.
SPEAKER_01It's so it's so simple, right? And and just watch. If you do this, Justin, just watch the person that's sharing the photo. I mean, they obviously love the photo, and you're gonna see a side of them you haven't seen before, and it's gonna draw in all these other people. And typically what we hear after folks uh um do this this practice for a few months is we constantly hear people saying, we can finally see the human behind the job. And that's where we're trying to get to. We're trying to get to no more communicate. Well, yes, we have to be good communicators, right? As as professionals, that has to be absolutely uh, you know, we got to make it happen. But we we have to stop making the assumption that we're using technology and these other things to actually um connect when really have to take it this extra step, and a small practice like that is all you need uh to move from communication to connection.
SPEAKER_00Man, that's so good. I had an experience recently that I wonder your feedback on. We have a at the Justin Lanis group, we have a mid-year summit meeting, which is typically a business meeting. Now, we do may do some sort of fun game and you know, some sort of something nice for the agents, but it's mostly like, let's sell more houses. What are we going to do to sell houses, you know, in the second half of the year? And this year, uh maybe for some of the same reasons you're saying, I was feeling like, hey, I think the top priority of this meeting this year needs to not be to sell houses, but needs to be to build community with each other. And so completely pivoted. And instead of like a during the day in the office meeting, um, we did sushi rolling at Nikado, and there was a very, just a very small intro about work, intentionally set the tables up in different ways. So people who weren't usually with each other had questions for that. And the number of thank yous, and this was great that I got relative to that meeting compared to, I mean, probably every other mid-year meeting I've ever done in the history of my career, this one, you know, way more. And I think I was probably just hitting on the tip of the iceberg there of like, hey, there is a desire for this, because if you had asked me, is the communication of the Justin Landis group good? Yes. I mean, there we have a lot of very productivity, efficiency-based people. So they're making sure the communication is good so that things work quickly and we sell houses and we do great for the clients, but communication is not connection. Just like you said, and I think like I might be like living out a little bit of what you're saying and seeing it firsthand there. What what's your what do you think on that?
SPEAKER_01Amazing. Yeah, I think it, you know, I think keep experimenting, right? Try other things and see what happens. And what spoke to me there is this idea of what makes people click is a shared reality. Um so a good way to think about this is like if if you went to if if you went to a um an art museum with your team and everyone was looking at their phone standing in front of a painting, there's no shared reality there, right? Because our heads are down, we're we're in whatever business, email, social, whatever it might be, and we're not actually embracing the shared reality in front of us. Whereas if all of our devices away and we're consuming that same uh artwork, all of a sudden there's a shared reality that pulls us together. It's kind of like I fly a lot, I'm sure you do too, Justin. And and if you're on, if you're in a plane and on the tarmac and all of a sudden that flight is delayed, that whole everyone in the airplane starts to get real chatty, right? All of a sudden there's a shared reality, there's a common enemy, and everyone starts to get you really start to the ice is broken, you really start to uh build connections. So um, yeah, those little things, new experiences tend to tie us together. It doesn't take a lot. We just have to be intentional about doing it.
SPEAKER_00Let's talk a little bit for specifically for real estate agents. So we've talked a lot in teams and organizations, but for the real estate agent, I want to go kind of both directions on the multi-generational because we um have agents that are 18 years old, agents that are 88 years old and everywhere in between. But let's start with the younger generations where the average age of home buyers and sellers, it is moved up. I'm gonna put you on the spot. What do you think the average age of a first-time homebuyer in the United States was last year? Oh man, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say 41. You I mean, you're right on. It was over 40 for the first time. So if you're 25, the average age of a first-time home buyer is 41. The average age of a home buyer and seller is even older than that. So, what can younger agents, from the research and experience you have, what might help them as they work with some clients who are in generations that can ahead of them?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think um so often what gets us in trouble when it comes to generations is like every single generation, every human on planet has a generational bias. Right. For most of us, it's unconscious, right? But it's subtly influencing our decision making, our actions, our communication, uh how we approach an older buyer, like all these things, right? It weighs in on so we have to first and foremost, I think. I'm always teaching this in my keynotes, is we got to back up and I'm gonna give you some science and some strategies as to why you feel negative towards those other generations. And I think that's really crucial to kind of unearth that first. Um and so I I I wish I could do it for this group, but there's a there's a a paragraph that I'll that'll show my my my live audiences or my virtual audiences, and the entire paragraph is misspelled. All every word in the paragraph is misspelled, but yet um it's a Cambridge University did this study to where all of the words in uh don't have to be um in the same order for us to still be able to read the paragraph. So I flash this paragraph, all the words are misspelled, but yet you can still read the paragraph, and it's it's astounding. And people are like, oh my gosh, they're like, and I'm like, why do you think you we can read still read this paragraph? And most people are like, well, because this is how we communicate. We're texting and emailing, and we're we're not spelling things correctly, and we're so busy and fast moving. And I'm like, that maybe that might be part of it, but um, there's actually a very specific process happening in our brain called chunking. So it's actually a cognitive shortcut that actually helps our brain um efficiently interpret things and organize things. And so we're using uh prior knowledge and experiences to actually make sense of this. And so how I would sum it up is is um your brain hates to be confused and it's constantly looking for shortcuts, it's constantly looking to make assumptions so that we can move through the the day more effectively and you can um you can reserve some calories. You're not burning as many calories because we want to keep some reserves just in case we get uh uh chased by a saber-toothed tiger later on in the evening, right? So your brain wants to be lazy and it wants to be to conserve energy. So this is extremely helpful. It's a great survival mechanism all of us have had for a long time, but it's really detrimental when it comes to interacting with other generations because you want to immediately jump to a conclusion about that 41-year-old homebuyer, right? And you want to think, oh, I know about this generation. And and so uh Abraham Lincoln had a great quote. What did he say? He said, Um, I don't like that person, I must get to know them better. And the the crook of connection, and and let me pause real quick and make the the connection, if I will. The problem is never that you have multiple generations on your team or you have multiple generations that you're selling to. That's never the problem. The problem is that there's a lack of connection between those generations. And so what we have to solve for is connection. And so what Abraham Lincoln was talking about was perfect. The crook of connection isn't difference, right? Because we have way more similarities than we have differences across generations. The crook of connection is is is distance, where it's not, we don't take the time to get to know that buyer. We don't take the time to get to know our baby boomer colleague. And so a really simple uh tactic to keep in mind as it relates to this conversation is to trade uh certainty for curiosity, to spend a little bit more time getting to know your clients, your colleagues, because your brain, your brain's gonna want to jump to conclusions, but you got to push against your own human nature and remain more open minded about the different generations you're trying to sell to or Work with. Hopefully that's helpful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Brian, that is so good. What is, if you were going to give some practical advice to an agent this week of something they could do to build that connection and come from curiosity, what would it be?
SPEAKER_01One of the things I I see constantly, folks, um not understanding clearly is what actually drives or motivates the emerging generation. I talk to a lot of leaders and they're always pointing towards compensation or purpose or flexibility. And those things are great, great. There are certain drivers and motivators to a certain degree. But according to the research and according to the neuroscience, the the two things that drive people from the ages of 10 to 25 are status and respect. Status and respect. And if we boil it down, and any parents that are listening to this, if you've got kids in those age ranges, think about it. Think about yes, status and respect. Anytime there's a blow up or friction, what they're what they're clawing for is trying to get status or respect. And so when you have this next generation that's entering the workforce, if you have young agents, whether they know it or not, they're looking for status and respect. Because status, they don't have it, right? They look around, they see all these other team members that have that status. So they're trying to get status and respect. And so one of the easiest ways to fast track status and respect. So this is not only going to motivate this next generation, but it's a great connective moment for your multi-generational team as well. And one of the fastest ways to fast track status and respect is to showcase competency in front of the team. Well, I think showcase competency in front of the team. So if you can create moments where, hey, agent XYZ, you did a great job reaching out to those, those, those, those leads today, and you really had some really great progress. Tell us how you did that. What were some of the things that you did? And so not only does that bring that person to the forefront to gain some status, uh, but if they teach well and the strategy is well received, now they've got respect from their teammates as well. So it's a really unique way to kind of um to build connection across the team, all the while motivating the next generation as well.
SPEAKER_00Oh man, I've looked into that a few times, did not do it for the reasons that you said. I mean, primarily just wanted to like them to share things that were working so other people would know it. But uh now that I reflect on it, oh, I can see how it impacted the person who got to share because they did. It gave them status and respect. And it really did garner a lot of respect. I mean, I can picture one um person sharing about their um initial. It was interesting, you were talking about converting leads. It was actually about the initial call with a new lead and how prepared they were and how scripted and um and just detailed in it. And everybody was like, oh, I want to do it the way that Rule's doing it, you know, and it really did garner a lot of respect. So man, I need to do that more. And I think everybody listening probably needs to do that more because that is that's powerful in both directions.
SPEAKER_01Sounds like I'm just giving you all the examples and the data behind why you should be doing the things you're already doing.
SPEAKER_00I I'm on this is my podcast. I'm sharing the things I'm doing great. I'm not going to share all the failures. No, just kidding. Uh, I shared a lot of failures on here. I just it's interesting as you think about it, a couple things that have like kind of worked, maybe lucked into a little bit. And then now I hear you talk about it, I'm like, oh, well, that is why it worked, not the reason I thought it was going to work. It just did. And then um it's kind of affirming to me, man, I need to do this more. I really need to take this seriously. Um let's let's move a little bit to the future because man, when I heard what you're working on, team binding, not team building. Team building's not good enough anymore. I was like, what do I need to do to get an early copy of this book? I need to get this book as soon as the first manuscript is out. I think this is gonna be awesome. Tell us a little bit about what you're working on next.
SPEAKER_01Sounds like you just volunteered to be a beta reader. Oh, I'm gonna write that down.
SPEAKER_00I didn't even know that was a thing. If it is, send it over. I'll read it. Happy to read it.
SPEAKER_01All right, right on. All right. Yeah, let me let me let me tell a quick story that kind of teases why I think this is such a big deal and it kind of helps us understand why team binding is needed now more than ever. Let me take the everyone to the southeastern Brazil, where there was uh some research done between these two villages. So there was a a lake village where everyone in this lake village was very uh distrustful, unfriendly, um, just a lot of uh just not not a healthy village. And then just 40 miles down the road, 40 miles down the road, uh there was another village. And basically on paper, they should be the exact same, but this village was on the ocean, and this village was thriving in every aspect. And so researchers were trying to figure out what was the difference between these two villages, and so they thought, right, maybe there's nutrients in the fish, and that's causing these people to act different. That wasn't it. They thought maybe it's the something in the air climate, and they kept weeks and weeks and weeks, and they couldn't figure it out, and then finally they figured it out. Do you want to take a stab, Justin, of what the answer was?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's gotta be something about the team. I mean, I'm guessing, but I don't know. I don't know. You tell me.
SPEAKER_01The correct answer is the boats. The boat.
SPEAKER_00All right, I've never gotten that one. All right, tell me how. How are the boats?
SPEAKER_01So the boats, so so think about a lake village. Um, they used boats that were only operated by a single person. So every day they're going out on the on the lake, and it's a it's a it's a single person operated boat, and they became very distrustful of each other, right? And became competing with each other for the the the ripest or most fertile uh fishing holes, right? Meanwhile, in the uh the ocean, because the ocean is so harsh and there's so many uh harsh elements and it's it's much harder to tame the ocean, you need a big boat that requires a team to work together to accomplish the goal, which is get as many fish as you can and bring it back to the village. And this is a perfect metaphor to how work is now going, right? We are we it might feel like we're part of a team, but we are just group chats with deadlines now. We're not really working like a team. We use all this wonderful technology to execute our work and then we slack it in, right? We email it in and we our work is done and we go about our day. And so we are increasingly feeling more isolated in our at our work. And so the where we're heading the direction now is we we need to have team binding, which is something where we're constantly building connection between one another. And I'll share a quick analogy to kind of further tease this out, but I'll pause there.
SPEAKER_00Man, that is no, keep going. I mean, I am I did not see the boat thing coming. I will say, I mean, obviously. Uh, but now that you say it, that is fascinating that just the way that they're set up, the way that those two villages were set up could have such a different impact. Um and yeah, I can I can see how powerful that would be. Tell me the next analogy, keep it going.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And the, you know, the the the other thing to point out here is it's the way we work, right? It's the way we work that matters so much, right? If we're just going, you know, if we're working fully remotely or we're going in the office and we're not really having strong connection, it's like we're operating in a lake village. Whereas if we're constantly building and and and doing great things with the team, like in the ocean village, that's gonna uh connection either way, right?
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's doesn't it's not necessarily remote versus in-person or hybrid. You could have or not have connection in any and in any setup, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And so ultimately I I've I've kind of coined this the erosion of teams to where again we it feels like group chats with deadlines, there's communication, but no connection. There's silos, no collaboration, there's meetings, but no meaning, there's contact, but no cohesion. And so it's this erosion of teams, and it's happening silently. But as we all know, with erosion, eventually it's gonna just fall apart, and we're all gonna be left wondering, what the heck? Like there's this big hole in my soul, and I'm like, well, I thought I was doing all the right things, but we we we we we've put up all these things in our life and at work to protect us from um you know the inefficiencies of working with others, and that's not the answer. So the other analogy that's gonna be helpful in this is think of like a brick wall. So a brick wall without mortar looks strong, right? All the bricks are stacked neatly, everyone's doing their job, but as soon as you apply pressure, that thing crumbles. So a brick wall without mortar is like a team without connection. It looks strong, but as soon as you apply pressure, it crumbles. Whereas a brick wall with mortar, it's strong, it's resilient, it's formidable. And so again, the what's tricky about connection is you can't see it. And so we we go and measure all the other things to figure out the health of our team, and we're forgetting about the one hidden driver that I would argue is the the most uh successful driver of our of our high performing teams. And so that's the difference between team building and team binding. Team building is all it's like that brick wall without mortar, right? It's it's all about assembling, it happens occasionally, strength is assumed, and it just creates moments. So it's not bad, but that's not ideal. So we need to move to team binding, which is all about strengthening, where it's continuously happening, strength is assured in this case, and it ultimately creates resilience. And we need to find these ways to incorporate more connection in our day-to-day versus just doing those off-site and trust falls and think, okay, we checked the box, our team is built, now we're good. So that's the difference in where we're headed with the new book.
SPEAKER_00All right, so Ryan, if people want to follow along and find out exactly when the book's going to come out and how they can follow you and learn more from you, what should they do?
SPEAKER_01Yes, thank you for asking. Uh, I've got a great resource that folks can can download, and then once you're a part of that uh group, we'll let you know when the book comes out. So folks go to connectionvault.com, so vault like a bank vault, connection vault.com. Um, you can download what we call our team connection kit. And so this is uh four interactive PDFs, super simple, but these are ways to kick off your meeting. These are tools that you can do uh every day that take two to five minutes, whether you're a leader or non-leader, to bolster more connection inside your organization. And the goal is to do these consistently to get to that team binding effect that we've been talking about. So connectionvault.com, download that resource, use it and abuse it with your teams uh to create more connection, and then you'll be notified when the book comes out.
SPEAKER_00All right, everybody. Right now, connectionvault.com. And Ryan, I like how you got bolster into that sentence. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it's very close to bolst. So I'll take it. I like that. Heck yeah. All right. Got that in there today. But man, I really appreciate you coming today. This information has been invaluable, and I know that real estate agents are going to get more connected because of what you shared today. So thanks so much for being here. Um, everybody, thanks for listening. Make sure that you like or subscribe so that you don't miss a single episode, and we will see you again next time.