Start With A Win - Leadership is a Relay Race

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

After nearly 20 years with RE/MAX, and four years as the CEO, Adam Contos is turning the page on a successful chapter of his life. In this very special episode of Start With A Win, Adam is joined by Producer Mark and another very special guest, Kelly Contos—his wife!The three talk about Adam’s time with RE/MAX and the lessons he’s learned and the company’s achievements over the years.One of the things Adam has taken from his time around the RE/MAX agent family is that hunger causes success. You can achieve anything you want to achieve if you put forth the effort on a daily basis. The agents who are growing their businesses are doing it because they’re intentional—which is true no matter what business you’re in! To continue to grow, you have to continue to take risks. And that means doing the habits every day to see the long-term success. Mark asks Adam the question that everyone seems to be asking: Why leave now? After a record-breaking 2021 for RE/MAX Holdings, LLC, most people would never expect the CEO of the company to choose to leave. But another thing Adam has learned over the years is that life and leadership is a relay race. In a relay race, the runner with the baton doesn’t pass the baton as they’re slowing down, they speed up to pass it on to their teammate! Adam’s job as the CEO is to create a succession plan that is beneficial to everyone within and around the organization. Running his fastest—at the top of his game—he’s is ready to hand off the baton to the next season of leadership.What’s next for Adam? He’s ready to take his leadership experience and knowledge to develop the next generation of leaders through coaching and consulting. He has a passion for helping other people and helping them find success. But no need to fear! Your favorite podcast, Start With A Win, will live on! We will continue to bring you encouraging, motivational, winning content from Adam and other ground-breaking thought leaders.Order your copy of Start With A Win: Tools and Lessons to Create Personal and Business Success:https://www.startwithawin.com/bookConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ Leave us a voicemail:888-581-4430

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. And coming to you from top of the 12th floor at Remax World Headquarters, Adam Contos here with Start With a Win. How you doing, Producer Mark? I'm doing so good. Awesome. Hey, we have a special guest with us today. We do have a special guest.

The most special of people. Oh, my gosh. We're going to make her embarrassed and red. The specialist of the specials. That's right. Stop. Kelly Contos, everybody. She's in the house.

Thank you. You know her. How did you get talked into coming here today? Oh, I didn't think I had a choice, actually. Mark's like, hey, we're going to do a solo cast. I'm like, Kelly, come on. Let's go. But hey, what are we talking about today, buddy?

Well, listen, your time at Remax is coming to an end here. By the end of March, you will be moved on from CEO of Remax LLC. You know what's so cool, though? What is cool? Start with a win, we'll continue. Start with a win, we'll continue. Start With a Win will continue. It just won't be from the top of the 12th floor. That's true.

It will be from Start With a Win Studios, sponsored by Remax. That's right, by Remax. Let's go. Hello. I love that. What do you think, Kelly? I think that's great. I think it's coming from the bottom of our house instead of the top of the 12th floor

from now on. Bottom of Adam Ko's headquarters. In the basement. Going back to the quarantine studio. My poor Contos. That's right. Yeah, that's awesome. It's actually a great little studio.

It is. It looks so awesome and legit. It's so funny when people come to the house and they're like, we want to see your studio. And we take them down. It's this teeny tiny little room. And they're like, we want to see your studio. And we take them down. It's this teeny tiny little room. And they're like, what? It looks so big on the video.

It does look big. Yeah, it's very deceiving. It's the wide angle lens and the lighting. That's right. That's right. Oh, well. But yeah, it's been an amazing ride over 18, 19 years here. I found my lovely bride here at Remax.

We met, I don't know, back in 2003, 2004. I was doing the Safer Program. And then we started working together in the Mountain States region. And now look at this. And then they separated us. That's right. They're like, oh, hey, none of that. None of that going on here. Oh, we got to find you new places to work. Exactly. Oh, well. But it's been, there's a lot of lessons. You got to find you new places to work. Exactly. Oh, well, but it's, it's been,

there's a lot of lessons you want to, you want to talk about a couple of those today, don't you? Yeah. You know, I feel like a lot of times, uh, people have different seasons in their life, um, that are really great. And sometimes I feel like people maybe hold on a little bit too long to those seasons, even though they maybe get prompted internally or, you know, their conscious tells them like, Hey, it's time to move. But then logically it's like, well, that doesn't make sense for me to move on because everything's, you know, X, Y, and Z. And so I feel like you could maybe offer a lot of great advice to somebody who is maybe in a similar situation. Maybe they've had some prodding in their heart about, you know, starting something new, starting something different or moving on from where they are.

And you can kind of offer some, you know, comfort and some wisdom to their situation. So, wow, that was that was like a counseling session. OK, well, let's let's take a step back here and back to the beginning, because ultimately it's not where you go in life. So let's just erase that thought from everybody's mind, because everybody's like, oh, look where you got to, whatever it is. And I'll be the first one to say I'm very honored and privileged to be the CEO of this amazing organization, because it truly is an incredible industry full of some awesome people. And this organization, you know, with our co-founders Dave and Gail Linegar, is just, it's a blessing to so many. I mean, the successes that they've helped create. But it wasn't just given.

It wasn't free to everybody. Everybody had to work for it. And I think that's probably the first lesson that I learned when I got here is, you know, you can achieve anything you want to achieve if you put forth the effort and the focus on a daily basis in order to achieve it. And when you look back, you know, we've all seen so many people come and go. We have like over 140,000 agents and 110, 100, I don't know, 12, 14, whatever it is, countries around the world. And the people that are going strong and growing their businesses are doing it.

And this is not just in real estate. This is in all industries. They're doing it because it's intentional. And how we improve ourselves all the time is intentional. It's fascinating. I mean, when you look at that, everything that happens, you know, your self-mark in Brand Viva Media. Hello, everybody.

Check out brandvivamedia.com. And, you know, Kelly and her real estate career grew that very, very well. And it's just because of the things that we put forth to give every day. We're making deposits in all these different accounts. And I think that's one of the first and one of the biggest lessons that I could ever take that thankfully Dave Linegar told me day one. I said, what causes success? He says, hunger.

Hunger causes success. Yeah, I think that's so true, especially in the idea of a lot of times you get to a certain spot, right? And it's maybe easy to kind of rest on your laurels or kind of coast. But what I found is that those who coast end up getting overtaken at some point because there's somebody who's right behind them that, you know, willing to put in the work and willing to maybe take more risks and things like that. And so I think in order for you to continue success and continue to grow, you have to take risks and chances and, you know, keep pushing yourself. You know, otherwise you'll wake up and be like, what happened to all this? You know, it's a great analogy, the coasting thing, because I mean, coasting downhill is easy. Okay? I remember everybody when we were kids on a bicycle.

You start coasting downhill, and you're like, yay, and then you start slowing down when you hit the level area. And what happens if you start going uphill when things get a little more difficult? Coasting doesn't work. Right. But if you're pedaling downhill, you can pedal across the flat. You can pedal up the next hill. That's the only way you're going to get over the next hill. That's right. So it's, I mean, it's, Kelly, I'd love to get your perspective

because you've kind of had the inside scoop on this put forth effort every single day, even when it doesn't seem like it's the thing that's needed. But, I mean, you know, we still get up at 430 in the morning. Why are we putting forth effort every single day? And, you know, you're still in those difficult real estate transactions that you were in. It was go, go, go until I can find a place that is beneficial to my client, things of that nature. You know, how do you view what we've taken from this company? Because you've gotten just as much out of it as I have.

Oh, for sure. And, you know, I think this is a company that obviously the brokers, the agents, everybody is very entrepreneurial, but also they're given the ability to grow their business as big as they want it to be. Like if, if you're not at the top of your game, then you're, you're not trying hard enough because everything is there for you, everything. And so that, you know, the fact that you can just keep building and keep growing and be whatever it is that you want to be as successful as you can be. It relays into, I think, us and our job and you and your job and watching all of these people around you being so entrepreneurial and having no ceiling on their success keeps you kind of fired up and wanting you to keep growing and keep building that success and and see what's next and do the next thing. And I think that's a little bit of what has led you to this point and making the decision to go

on to the next thing. But yeah, I mean, I think as far as the habits go, that's what creates a success, right? You have to do the habits every day, whether you're seeing the immediate success day after day after day. But if you don't continue to do those things day after day, then you won't see that long term success. And so those are the things that are important is that you can't just coast because there does come a time where the coasting runs out. And then it's too late because you've let all the habits go and now you have to rebuild the habits again. So those daily habits are key to what lies in your future and how successful you're going to be down the road. That's a good point. I mean,

when you stop applying yourself because you think you've got it, that's when you start losing. You can't, it's, you know, the whole concept of momentum, Jim Collins in his books, he talks about the flywheel of building success is like a flywheel and you keep pushing it every day. And the more you push it, the easier it gets to push. But if you stop pushing it, it gets harder to push. So, and Dave always referenced creating an environment where people can be as successful as they want to be. You talked about the glass ceiling, which incredibly, this company has been the remover of the glass ceiling for all different perspectives of human nature in this industry. It doesn't matter what sex, religion, background, preference, who knows what you are. It's let's remove the glass ceiling, period, in this industry.

It started in the 70s when this was a white male-dominated industry. Dave said, let's bring a bunch of women into here, and they started kicking the butts of all the guys. And then the guys were like, well, we want to join Remax now because all those women are beating us in business. And now we're a business of diversity, which I'm very proud to say. I mean, 50% of our C-suite is women. Between 40% and 50% of our board of directors is gender diverse. Our company just in and of itself overall has built this global presence of global people that have that same thought of let's eliminate that glass ceiling.

And it just even for an entrepreneur or a business leader, a real estate agent, whatever, how can you do more by helping more and creating that environment where people can be more successful? So it's fantastic. So I love it. That's probably one of the biggest lessons I've learned in this business is help people become the best that they possibly can. And it's made a huge difference for so many, made a huge difference for me. Because the more I help people, the more I'm driven to help myself help people. Yeah. Well, because there's no glass ceiling, you just see people that just keep reaching these new incredible heights with their careers.

They just go higher and higher and higher. And so just when you think maybe you're getting a little bit comfortable, you see these other people and what they can achieve. And it inspires you to do better. And it just, it has this great energy towards it, whether it's out in the field with the brokers and the agents or even here in the headquarters. Because just like I said, you can't help but feel that and notice that around you and want to do better as well. Totally, totally. And it goes into the values of the organization. Yeah. So it's incredible. You know, we, we built the values around the word more delivered to the max, be customer obsessed, do the right thing and together everybody wins.

So cool. It's a great lesson. It's a great lesson. What are your thoughts about, you know, because you know, Remax has had great, this past year has been great. Like, like it doesn't seem like you should leave. Like any sane person would be, you know, like, oh, things are going great. People love me. I'm going to stick around and ride this wave out, you know? So I actually, I interviewed a guy today or had a conversation with a guy today. And that topic came up. It was fascinating because it was a, why the heck? I mean, 2021 was a record year for Remax Holdings. Record revenue, record EBITDA, and record earnings per share. Why the heck would the CEO be leaving? Yeah.

Is the question. And I think I've been asked that question like 20 or 30 times since I turned in my letter of resignation and announced it, since we have to announce everything publicly as a public company. But I look at it and I go, okay, life is a relay race. Leadership is a relay race. And when you think about a relay race, you think about runners running around a track. Let's say there's three or four of them. Maybe it's like a four by 100 or something like that. And the runner has a baton, and they pass that baton to the next person. It takes a lot of teamwork to coordinate all of that going on. The runner doesn't start slowing down to pass the baton.

The runner speeds up to pass the baton. So you're passing the baton when you're running your fastest. I view business success and leadership as that. My job as the CEO of this company, my number one job is to create a succession plan that is beneficial to the customers, the stakeholders, and the shareholders of the organization. So how do you do that? You pass the baton when you're running the fastest. Or as Michael Jordan says, you go out on top. Yeah. So that's John Elway. Yeah. Two Super Bowls and boom,

I'm out. You don't see people go, you know, and the worst thing you want to do is like, all right, so I got fired because I'm kind of skipping along the bottom and people are like, it's time for you to go. But I mean, let's face it though. Can I just say something? I mean, in all the years that you've known Adam, have you ever known him to not be at the top of his game? No. I mean, honestly, I mean, that's your whole persona is continually figuring out how to do better, how to do better. How can this year be better than last year? How can this meeting be better than last meeting? How does this speech or this podcast? I mean, that's just in your DNA is how to do better, do better, do better. So there won't be a time for you to really go out. You're not the kind of person to coast, you know? So it's, this is probably the scenario and the question you get

asked, whether it's today or next year or five years from now. True. So there is another component to this, and that is I get to do different things on my terms. I want to help develop more leaders. So something that I've been working on and Kelly's been a huge supporter and helping me with this as well, is a couple different aspects. One is coaching and consulting. So a big part of when you do things is helping other people. So how do you help other people? Well, you have to be able to devote your attention and effort to help other people. My job here has been helping other people. That's how I view running a company. The CEO's job is to help other people find success. And when a CEO moves on, they should continue helping people find success because that's what I'm programmed to do.

That's what I've dedicated my life to is building leadership and helping to transfer that leadership so other people can accelerate, you know, while they're coasting downhill or whatever, you know, continue the momentum going in their leadership development. A lot of times we just need different perspectives on how we can do better. So as I leave here, first of all, I'm not like completely disengaging from the organization. A lot of people leave a company and they're gone. I want to continue to be very closely associated with this organization. So, you know, REMAX is sponsoring Start With A Win. Kelly and I have an open invitation to attend REMAX events, which we plan to do because we love these people.

These are all our friends. We just had lunch with one last week out in Arizona with Stuart Thomas, amazing broker owner, but a great friend. We have 19 years of friendships and relationships i mean inside this building on the broker and agent level you know people that we used to work with that have moved on in some way that we've kept in touch with i mean it's it's not something that we could just walk away from even if we wanted to totally yeah i mean you can't disappear from that when you and it's our family and our love

is our friends that we develop. So I want to continue to help people grow, but I want to be able to also help other people grow. I've met with the Dean of some business schools, as well as working with different organizations to try and develop these next level executives. So millennials have a challenge, and that's that there's been nobody to teach them how to get into the executive suite, senior, vice president level, things like that in society. I'm going to do that because I think we have this gap in leadership in society, and I want to see it continue to grow. And the only way to do that is, and it's interesting, Dave Linegar has told Kelly and I this philosophy called the storyteller. And it's fascinating because when you look at Native Americans,

the Native American Indian population, they did not have written books necessarily that passed along information, leadership, leadership, knowledge, things like that. They had storytellers, which were some of the elders in the tribe, and they would gather the younger folks in the tribe, and they would sit around and tell stories. And that's how they passed knowledge, is to tell the stories. We did the same thing, only we do it via social media, blogs, training courses, coaching and consulting, mastermind events.

I mean, it's a modern-day storytelling. So that's really one of the major pursuits that I'm involved in is helping people grow their business. And I've already had, I mean, what, dozens probably reach out going, can you help me with that? And I'm happy to do so. It has to be something I can devote the time and effort to in order to maximize the outcome as opposed to just randomly meeting with everybody. Do you want to specify a little bit what kind of coaching and consulting you'll be doing so that you don't get 10,000 agents calling you and wanting you to do real estate business coaching

or fitness training i've actually gotten a lot of those okay are you gonna start your fitness training business now i mean i should just by the things that i get on social media people asking me can you recommend or can you help me? Can you write me a diet plan, please? Yeah, weren't you like Miss Bodybuilder USA or something like that? Well, no, definitely not. No. One time I did it one time.

And now I'm some kind of expert. But it's worked for you, and it's worked for me, so thank you for coaching my fitness. But, I mean, so to tighten that up a little bit, yes, I'm going to do coaching and consulting. Very specific coaching and consulting. I'm only taking on about a dozen clients. And those are going to be high-level business leaders who want to continue to level up their organization.

I can't coach everybody. And based on the fact that I'm going to take very few, I'm looking for a very select group to take on. And I've already got a few lined up. I do have some spots open. I don't know by the time this airs. But the reality is, I mean, you know, I want to coach CEOs. CEOs help CEOs. And, you know And we can all learn something from each other. The young man, gentleman, 30, 35 years old that I met with today, this guy was a rock star. I'm like, wow, I have a lot to learn from you. But he's also like, I have a lot to learn from you. So how do you grow business leaders is a lot of times it's through experience. It's through the

knowledge of what to do and what not to do. And I made all the mistakes, or a lot of times it's through experience. It's through the knowledge of what to do and what not to do. And I've made all the mistakes, or a lot of mistakes. And I can learn from a lot of people who have made mistakes and created successes. And that's ultimately what the storyteller is about. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that it's been fun just being with, you know, the Remax, the nation, and just, you know know all the great people that are part of the organization and i think you know we've built something great here and i think that's going to continue which is awesome and um you know uh i'm excited to see where you go and

just all the new adventures you're going to have so well you're coming with me buddy i'm coming with you i'm coming so i'm stoked producer mark. All right. I'm stoked. Producer Mark. That's right. We start with a win. That's right. Well, hey, Kelly, thanks for joining us. Well, thanks for having me. Yeah.

I'm sure we'll have you again. You were on the Thanksgiving episode. That was great. We could have you and Maggie on. I forgot about that one. Oh, yeah. We do need to have a double. You have to have Maggie on again.

Yes. Maybe we could do a Kelly-Maggie takeover. She needs a follow-up. I'm not here, and maybe it's just you and them. Okay. Hey, that'd be great. That'd be kind of funny, actually. Yeah.

That means I get a recording time off. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. We could have a spit-off. Yeah, we could. Oh. Whoa. Because it would be so successful.

We'd have to start our own podcast the family of CEOs awesome get your fitness training at Kelly yeah she said no don't do that no all right well again this isn't this isn't, this isn't goodbye. This is a see you later. We'll see you next Wednesday. See you next episode. Same time, same place. Um, but, uh, yeah, don't forget to head over to, uh, startwithawin.com. You can find out everything that Adam's, uh, into and up to. And, um, Hey, don't forget to start with a win.

There we go.