Start With A Win - Learning, Earning, and Yearning: Interview with RE/MAX co-founder Dave Liniger (Part 3 of 3)

Episode Date: February 15, 2019

On this episode of the Start with a Win podcast, we hear the final installment of Adam’s interview with RE/MAX Co-founder and Chairman of the Board, Dave Liniger. Over the past 46+ years, RE/MAX has lived through many transitions, economic swings, technological advances, and generations of homeowners. During that time, Dave and his team have often been called “disruptors” to the real estate industry because of their innovative thinking and structuring of their organization, but this name has always served them well. By having an open and curious mindset, Dave has been able to navigate the organization through many ups and downs, and he has gone from earning $95 per month in his military days to being a billionaire. One of the key concepts that Dave has used throughout his life is his intentional planning of his goals and taking the small steps along the way to get there. He talks about the concept of “the three boxes” and the necessity to integrate learning, earning, and yearning into every stage of life. He is not afraid to say “no” or to listen to the ideas of anyone who has a good one.Dave’s top 3 business lessons are:Personal development – Never stop learning: read more books, attend more seminars, and watch less television.Personal associations – Seek out diversity and inclusiveness in your relationships.Personal balance – Balance does not always happen, but you will make time for what is important.Links:“The Three Boxes of Life” by Richard Bolles: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Boxes-Life-How-Them/dp/0913668583 “The Four Burners” by James Clear: https://jamesclear.com/four-burners-theory Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/adamcontosREMAXCEO/https://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/

At top of the 12th floor of the Remax World Headquarters, you're listening to Start With A Win with CEO Adam Kantos. And hello everybody, Adam Kantos here at REMAX World Headquarters, top of the 12th floor, overlooking beautiful Denver, Colorado. Kind of some snow-packed peaks out there in the middle of winter here. And this is the third part of a three-part series where we have with me here today the co-founder, chairman of the board, and amazing man of the industry, Dave Lineker. Welcome back, Dave. Thanks, Adam. So we talked about in the first two episodes, the early years and kind of hitting stride of this three-part episode. This third part, we want to talk about some amazing things that have happened in the business. There have been a lot of changes. So we're going to dive into a few of the changes that are really, really business altering that

you've been through. And then I want to get into some big business lessons that you've learned over the years. So you ready to get going with this? You bet. All right. So Dave, over the years, the company's grown. It's grown to well over 100,000 agents. It's 45 years old. We'll be coming up on 46 here pretty soon in January, maybe not long around the time that this episode is released. And frankly, there's a lot of stuff that's happened, a lot of changes. Dave, what are some of those key changes that this company's been through that are really, really burning your head as being major for all of us here? Well, I think it's really important to talk about this concept of change and disruption. And as many of the magazine articles and interviews on Gail and I have pointed

out, we were the original disruptors. We put an industry on its head, and we changed the profitability of broker-owners forever. Over this 45-year transition, we saw all these changes come up, and we started one of the big ones. We were also involved with franchising, which was a major change. We were also involved with, at the same time, the national companies coming in, such as Sears buying Caldwell Banker, Prudential Merrill Lynch, and then eventually Prudential buying out Merrill Lynch. And so that transition. Then we saw the transition with buyer agency. We saw the crises of the savings and loan crisis of 1980, 82, when we had a huge recession. Two-thirds of the savings and loans in the United States went out of business in two years. We saw the attempt to throttle back inflation. And when mortgages were 16%, we saw the oil embargoes that happened both times.

We saw all the different crises that we saw in 2006, 2007, and what's happened since then. The tremendous foreclosure problems or whatever. And, of course, the huge technological revolution that we're all faced with every day. And so change is constant. It just seems like it's not only constant, it's increasing at a faster and faster rate. When you look at REMAX making a transition, what you have is an E1, which is the lowest person in the military. I was making $95 a month, my first month in the service, and make a transition from going from that point to ending up, if this is not sounding

terribly boastful, a billionaire. My life went through all these transitions. I went through all those business transitions, plus the personal life transitions that happens. And so trying to figure out how do you grasp what is going, try to figure out what is coming, and how do you adapt that you fit into it and don't become a fossil or get pushed aside as things move along. There's a technique to that. I feel like I just read an encyclopedia.

I mean, you just ran us through the major changes in the last five decades in the U.S., just in a matter of minutes. And you were building your business through all of these and, and not just seeing that change and accepting that change, but forecasting that change and, um, you know, combating it and, and adapting to it. What's, what's in your head where that doesn't scare the daylights out of you? Um, I think it's, it's a lifestyle. I think it's a lifestyle. I think it is a mind game of are you open? Do you have an unending sense of curiosity?

Now, I'd like to make a comment that I've heard so often and I'm sure other salespeople have. And that is that most people plan a two-week vacation better than they plan their entire life. And that's very true. We end up going through life, and we bounce from place to place and thing to thing, and we never know which way the wind is going to blow and where it's going to push us. You plan a two-week vacation because you're limited on a budget,

you're limited on days and hours and times and miles. And so you're sitting here dreaming of this vacation you've worked so hard for, and so you're going to figure out where are you going to be each day, where are you going to talk and do, if you're going to Hawaii, which islands, what hotels? Are you going to scuba dive?

Are you going to fish? Are you going to just bask in the sun? You plan out everything from your car, your rental car, your airplane, your hotels, what you're packing, and you get a pretty good plan. It may change while you're there, but you're going to cram a lot in your two weeks. With your life, it seems like there's always more. There's always more.

That's next year. I'll get around to that someday. And this someday thing is a pretty fascinating concept because someday you run out of some days. That's amazing. You do run out of some days. And I guess if you just let things happen by default. And you and I were talking about this concept the other day, sitting around and I have this amazing honor of just kind of sitting and pontificating life with you, you know, as my mentor and somebody who's guided me over the decades. And we're talking about the difference between design and default. And it sounds like that's kind of what you're referring to here. Yeah, it definitely is.

In designing, you plan your life. In default, you take what life hands you. About 40 years ago, there was a book I read that was called something about the three boxes of life. The three boxes of life was the concept that as a child, your first box is learning. And so you start as whatever you are, a baby learning to talk, to walk, grade school, high school, college, and so on. Those are your learning years. The second box is your earning years. That's your career.

That's where you make your money. It's where you start your businesses or whatever it might be. And then the third year is your retirement years, which this author put as your yearning years. It's in the yearning years that you now don't have the physical ability or that you had when you were a kid, and you wished you had done some things different. And so his whole concept of this story is that you ought to be doing all three things throughout every box of your life. In your box when you're learning, you ought to also have a part-time job. You ought to be earning money towards college. That's where you're going to build your work ethic. You ought to be giving back to your community, even as a young person. Whereas maybe you don't have money to give back,

you've got time. Whereas at a later part in your career, you might have money but no time. And so when you're in your earning years, you can't ignore, hey, there's other things. You can't say, when I retire, I'm going to play golf more often. When I retire, I'm going to go fishing more often. You've got to find a balance

in there. And finally, your end of your life years, most people are making the decision they don't want to quit work. Maybe they want to cut back, but most people were living so much longer than 62 or 65 that it's not fulfilling just to sit on your butt, drink beer and go fishing. Interesting. So you've got those three, I guess, unrealized aspects of your life, because you don't think about those as you're going through life, as you're going through business. And frankly, it sounds like you thought about those as you were growing the company. Is that a safe statement or did you just kind of realize it afterwards that you weren't? No, it's a very safe statement.

The thing that's really fascinating is many people know I was in a coma for four months and then in the hospital for six and a quadriplegic for a year. When I was coming out of the coma, I was very frustrated being paralyzed, gone from rich and independent and do anything I want to, where I couldn't even shave myself or feed myself. And so the one thing that was interesting to me was I kept thinking, hey, it's okay. I did it all.

You did do it all. I did do it all. You did. I didn't miss anything. I flew jet planes. I was it all. You did do it all. I did do it all. You did. I didn't miss anything. I flew jet planes. I was in combat. I was a skydiver, scuba diver. I've hunted big game all over the world.

I've been a photographer. Had four of the greatest kids in the world. I mean, no. I got to do it all. And so, no regrets. So you had no regrets, but you didn't throw in the towel either. No, I wasn't quite through. I mean, you, when it comes to your time in the hospital, which was a big, I mean, it was a huge change for you.

It was a change for the business because, I mean, you just, you went from going to speak at an event in Texas to essentially disappearing off the face of the earth for a lot of the people in the organization. And you were fighting hard for months and months and months because you weren't done. I mean, what kept you on track? Why did you fight so hard when you go, I've done it all? I mean, you hit the satisfaction level, but there's more.

I had a lifetime of events. I had failed at some and had succeeded at some. I knew how to pick myself up when I failed. I'd been there, done that. And so I wasn't quite done. And then when I made the realization about perhaps I was going to be paralyzed, what do you do? Give up? Or I thought about it and I said, well, I've watched some pretty macho men and women in this place that are in wheelchairs that are playing basketball and field hockey, and they knock each other over and somebody puts their wheelchair back up and they go and fight it out. They're fully involved with life.

They're not just going to say, I'm done. They'll sit here like, you know, just wait for the end. And so watching other people face their challenges and pick themselves up, that's an inspiration to anybody. That's amazing. And you told me once, I don't remember who this quote is from, but I've heard you repeat this to me. And that's that you only fail if you stop trying. That's right. The minute you don't get back up is when you fail.

And you're not someone to accept failure, obviously. Not yet. So that's what's in your mind. That's how you think. And some of the changes in this organization, because we've gone through a lot. You mentioned the Great Recession that I think all the listeners are so familiar with is probably the largest economic and business event in recent mindset. It happened just over a decade ago. How did you deal with that change in the business when it comes to – a lot of companies threw in a towel on that. And our industry was hit really,

really hard. But you had a different way of looking at it. What was that way of looking at it? Well, you know, the military has this saying about over, around, under, through, but you've got to get to where you're going. And so with my sense of curiosity, I also had the support of a hundred and some thousand REMAX agents and about 7,000 offices. And so that's a lot of brainpower. And a lot of the ideas we came up with that helped everyone get through was our best brokers, our best agents saying, hey, we went to this course. We found out about the CDPE course. I'm working on repossessed properties. I know one woman had been selling multimillion dollar houses for years. And in Paradise Valley,

there wasn't one that sold in a year. And she said, David, I have to go work $100,000 foreclosures or I have to get out of the business. And so it was those kind of ideas that we took from everybody. And then our job was to take the best ideas and put it back out to the entire network. I love it. It wasn't something that couldn't be overcome. It was an opportunity to pursue a different angle, I guess you could say. That's right. That's awesome. So to transition onto this next thought on this episode,

you've learned some big business lessons in growing this company and your upbringing as well, through the military, the challenges that you faced, taking it into REMAX and growing this, one of the largest global companies on the planet. You know, you keep talking about the day that there's going to be a REMAX sign on the moon and Mars and things like that. So, Dave, let's break down three big business lessons from you for our listeners.

What's the first one of those three big business lessons that you've learned? You know, there's dozens of very important lessons. But if I had to put them down in one, two, and three, I'd say one of the most important thing is your personal development. Nobody's going to do your push-ups for you. I like that. You don't. I mean, it's just nobody's going to do it. No matter how much money you've got, you can't pay them to do it for you.

Money buys you freedom and money buys you time. I mean, by the time I was selling real estate, I never mowed a lawn again the rest of my life. I knew selling houses, how much money I made when I was working selling versus what I made mowing my own yard. And I couldn't work that cheap. I could pay somebody else to do other things that gave me more time. And so when you start looking personal development, it is your responsibility to develop yourself. It is not your responsibility or your parents' responsibility to bring you up the right way. I love that. It's a sad state of affairs today when we know that very few people read another book after they finish their formal education.

Yeah, it's amazing. As an example, I've probably gone to at least 20 minimum one-day seminars a year that I've participated in as a student, not as an instructor. I read at least 100 books a year. I don't have time for television to watch much. I like to watch a little sports, a little bit of news. That's it. And like in my entire lifetime, I've never seen a late night show. I've never seen any of these famous personalities.

I've never seen any of these famous personalities. I've never seen a comedy. I put my time someplace else because I didn't want to live their adventure. I didn't want to watch baseball. I wanted to be on a softball team. And so this personal development thing is so important because our industry, our business, our lives are changing so fast. You have to keep changing and adapting if you're going to continue to win. The more money you spend on your personal development, the more money you'll make. The more time you put into learning, the more you learn. Now, when I say you read a book, reading a book isn't personal development. Reading a book is entertainment.

Now, even if it's a business book, it's entertainment, unless you get your yellow marker out and you highlight it, and hopefully you read it with somebody else to where you can argue and talk and discount and figure out what's the most important things. And not only that, what applies to me? It's like sales techniques. There are hundreds of sales techniques. You can knock on doors and find business in a real estate business. I won't do it. I don't want to be a full-brush salesman. I think that's unprofessional.

I would rather spend the money on marketing dollars. But different strokes for different folks. And so this personal development is you ought to continuously be developing yourself. And what am I going to do better? I love how you built the accountability piece into there as well. Because, you know, you talk about you reading 100 books a year and spending your time, you know, growing, studying things. you'll find somebody who's worked out a concept or come up with an idea or a definition of how something occurs in the business world and how it's applied. And then you go and research the daylights out of them. You look for videos on YouTube and social media, things like that.

And how do I know this? Because I get the phone call from you a couple of times a week going, have you seen this? Do you know about this person? And it becomes an accountability trade-off where you and I start beating each other up over the concept. So it's amazing. So thank you for including me into that. But I think it's important that the listeners know this isn't, you know, it's not a one-person situation. It's, you know, you do wrap people in yourself and help grow yourself. You're very vulnerable to that, as am I. And it's a great relationship, great process. So thank you. You're welcome.

The second thing is your personal associations. In session two, we talked about that a little bit. It is so incredibly important to put yourself in a situation where you are being influenced by lots of other people. So when I start talking about personal associations, it's not just associations of people and similar people.

It's the diversity and it's inclusiveness of these personal associations. I love that. It's, in fact, we have that built into our values of more. And the E is together, everybody wins. So it's, it was really cool to, you know, to kind of spend the time over the past couple of decades with you, because I hear from you time and time again, people are amazing. That's the understatement. You just, you cannot ever figure out how devoted, how disciplined, how wonderful the vast majority of the people are. Which brings us up to the third thing, and that's finding personal balance in your life.

Recent article that's been written in the last few years talks about the four burners. And you've got this cook stove, and in these burners you've got your career, and you've got your personal life, and you've got your family, you've got all this stuff. Other people have told it different ways. They say, okay, there's seven areas of your life, finance, family, and friendship, and education, and career, and how do you find balance? And that I love what I've learned from you when you did your MBA program. And then all of a sudden, here you're working 2,000 plus hours a year for REMAX. You're still working 200 hours a year as a law enforcement person. And now all of a sudden, you're going to have to spend 1,500 hours a year for 18 months getting your MBA. And how the hell do you find the balance? And the answer is, you You don't. One of our finance executives said that she talked to one of her mentors and was saying,

I'm a working mother. I've got my career. I've got my husband. I mean, how in the world can I make this thing balance? And the truth of the matter is, is there is no perfect solution. At certain times in your life, you're not going to be in balance. You got to try to find what's important to you at that time. But I think the question that top producers, team leaders, our biggest brokers, we all have the same demands of how are we ever

going to find balance that we can do all these things we're supposed to do? And the answer is, it's impossible. Now, if you logically will look at it, and you keep looking at it month by month, year by year, you're going to understand there are time periods in your life where your career is going to be more important than maybe your health. Now, you're a perfect example. You work out every day. I never had the discipline to get there.

I could work out really good. But man, when I was on the road 250 days a year, pretty tough. And so I think you get what you focus on. And if you focus on your personal balance, you will find that you can make it work. I didn't have balance in my life when my children were young. I was either in Vietnam or in the military, or I was really busting my butt trying to be a top producer chasing the almighty buck. I realized that at some point, the white light went off and said, oh, they are not getting their share of fathering that they should have.

And all of a sudden I said, okay, this is what we got to focus on. A little less on the career and let's focus a little harder on the family. And so it's just, it's being aware, I think, more than anything. It's too bad when you're a cop and you work on Christmas Day and you work on Thanksgiving Day, but somebody has to do it. So where can you make up for it? With the family. Can you make up with it that you get a three-day weekend and you go to the mountains together or something? It's just, I think you just have to work on those three factors.

You've got to figure out how do I develop myself because the better I get, the more balance I can have in my life. And the better my personal associations are, the better I'll be as an individual. Sounds to me like you are creating a design for your life. We talked before about default and design. And you are one of the most intentional people I've ever met. Everything you do is for a reason. And I love the fact that, you know, you pulled me aside one time when I was getting more and more drag on myself personally. And you said, Adam, you need to understand the power of no.

And you need to direct your energy to those things that you need to direct your energy towards. And the rest of the things you need to push off to somebody else or let them take care of themselves. And it just, it fits in all three of these things, but particularly in this, uh, you know, this balance piece, because if you're, if you've got your priorities laid out and you're intentional about them, it creates balance inherently over time. So, I mean, you've given some great wisdom on that, Dave. Well, a last thought. The power of no is overwhelmingly powerful. Everybody is going to demand your time. Everybody wants you. Everybody wants something from you. And if you keep saying yes to everybody, you're saying no to your most important things, which were the three things we just talked about.

And so the discipline of being able to say no frees you up to say yes to the most important things in your life. You can't say yes to everything. That's awesome. Well, Dave, thank you so much for saying yes to this interview. It has shared so much wisdom with so many, and you've made a huge impact on us and continue to do so. So thank you very much for being here. Well, I've got an incredible passion for the men and women of the RE-MAX organization. Gail and I started with nothing. We've ended up with the most remarkable lifetime experiences, friendships, personal relations, and friends

that you could ever find any place in the world. And this is truly a major adventure to have been part of the Remax story. It's super cool. So thank you again for all you do. We are extraordinarily grateful. So ladies and gentlemen, that is part three of our three-part series of Start With A Win featuring the co-founder of Remax and one iconic figure in the real estate industry

who's done so much for so many. We thank you so much, Dave, for being with us. And ladies and gentlemen, please go back and review those three episodes. There's a ton of value in them. And don't forget, start with a win. Thank you so much for joining us today. Make sure to head over to startwithawin.com to get more great content. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Adam on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And remember, start with a win.