Mike Brewer
The Thing About Fear
In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to the nation in his first inaugural address including this powerful statement; “…let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance”. Those sentiments stand the test of time even today.
Fear is common to all humans and most animals (apparently apart from the honey badger).
Hard Wired
Thousands of years ago, humans were wired with the fear response as it was critical to the survival of our species in a world filled with dangers. The fear response prepares the body to fight, flight or freeze. It also triggers the release of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenalin.
Fear is often more anticipatory than reactive. In Letters from a Stoic, first-century Stoic Philosopher Seneca wrote: “There are more things…likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more in imagination than in reality.” We worry over things that could happen even when there is no immediate threat to our wellbeing – but the body doesn’t know the difference. Fear related to public speaking, dreaded conversations or confrontations, fear of failure (or success), and even fear of spiders and snakes all send a signal to the brain to release those chemicals even without the actual presence of danger. The experience of feeling fear is real even when the feared event is not.
Protection or Isolation?
In response to anxious thoughts, humans tend to create systems of rules or boundaries as a hedge of protection against experiencing the feeling of fear or anxiety. Over time, those well-intentioned boundaries can devolve into a cage that prevents personal growth and life experiences. In some cases, a person becomes held hostage by a web of fears that all derive from the stories they tell themselves about the possibility of the feared event.
The good news is that a powerful prescriptive exists – it is free and readily available.
Take Action!
That’s right – action is the best medicine. Use the fear impulse as a catalyst for action and choose to run directly at the thing you fear. Begin with simply making a choice.
- Confess your fear to someone you trust and ask them to hold you accountable as you commit to trying the things you fear. Just the act of sharing relieves some of the fear-filled weight.
- Afraid of failure? Fail. A lot. Fail again and again until the sting of failure is lessened, and the successes begin to outweigh the failures.
- Fear of public speaking? Sign up for an open mic, volunteer to speak at a company meeting or an industry function. Do it even with knees shaking, voice quivering, and a sheen of sweat on your brow. Stand up to the fear by taking action to do the thing that scares you.
- Put in the reps. By doing the thing you fear over and over, you gain confidence, experience, and skill.
- Let go of perfection as the benchmark. If you only define success as having performed perfectly, then failure is assured. Assign engagement and progress as success markers and build on those foundations instead.
Fear Less
Conquering fears is not accomplished in one fell swoop. If the thought feels overwhelming, know that it is not necessary to become instantly fearless – but just to fear (a little) less – just enough less to allow you to take the next step. Small steps lead to bigger steps and eventually to a life less encumbered by fear. Taking concrete action such as setting an appointment, replying yes to an rsvp, or signing up for a class all signal courage to your psyche. Following through on those commitments builds success on top of success. There may be plenty of fits and starts along the way, each of which teaches you that failure is not the end but simply a building block for your next success.
This quote attributed to Robert Tew hits the mark. “Sometimes what you’re most afraid of doing is the very thing that will set you free.”
The daily videos of my blog (fka Apartment Hacker) started with this gem in 2016. One take. No edits. Authentic.
There are countless opportunities to actively engage in the things you fear. Just get started.
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Just Shut Up
Just Shut UP
Mark Twain was a man of many (often acerbic) words. One of Twain’s quotes that resonates for me today is, “Never miss an opportunity to shut up.” It is hard to overstate how important those seven words are to the success of people in leadership positions and to the business outcomes for an organization.
18 Seconds…
Too often, leaders are great at pontificating and speech-making but absolutely awful at listening. In Tom Peter’s book; Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism, he cites a startling statistic: on average, doctors interrupt patients after just 18 seconds, cutting them off – a wound made worse by its frequency.
I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to acknowledge that this same leadership behavior occurs across our industry as well. These doctors and business leaders typically have packed schedules and big demands on their time and therefore feel justified in moving the conversation along to a rapid end. “I don’t have time for a long-winded conversation…” On the one hand, that position is understandable. But, on the other, time invested in intentional listening pays unexpected dividends in psychological safety, feelings of compassion, and trust.
Listening is hard work. Reflecting back to my thoughts on this topic in a prior post, hearing and listening are two different things. Intentional empathetic listening is one of the most powerful tools in the leader’s arsenal.
Listen with Intention…
I encourage you to develop your active listening skills. Engage with others with intention. Listen carefully for what is said, what is unsaid, and to the body language of the speaker. When you do speak, use the time to reflect back and confirm what was said. Ask questions that probe for more information. Resist the urge to give a quick answer to “solve the problem” because those rapid responses may move the conversation to a premature end and worse, they send a message to the speaker that your primary motive is to shut them up. The fallout is a disillusioned employee who learns not to raise their hand or speak out, and whose belief in the culture of the company is damaged.
It takes less time than you think to engage in empathetic listening. One study showed that doctors of oncology, whose practices are filled with patients engaged in the fight of their lives against cancer, spent just 33 seconds directly engaged in compassion and empathy with their patients. Those doctors and patients had better relationships. The patients felt heard and their struggle validated. It didn’t require an extraordinary investment of time on the doctor’s part – just over half a minute – to ensure the patient’s safety and trust in the relationship. Patients who feel safe and heard are more likely to share sensitive information which is crucial to better outcomes.
The same is true in the multifamily space. Imagine the benefits for those leaders who actively make time and space to genuinely listen.
Shared Humanity…
Ultimately, connecting through active empathetic intentional listening comes down to recognizing the humanity of the person in front of you. When you acknowledge that each of us share the familiar burdens of life, of love, of loss, and more, then the things we have in common become far greater than the things that separate us. Much of what separates people is artificial – it’s man-made. When you embrace the truth of our shared humanity, listening becomes less of a burden and more of a gift.
Do you have just 2-3 minutes to build relationship? The time it takes you to walk down the hall and catch the elevator? Even that span of time is enough to send the message, “You are important to me, and I want to hear what you have to say.”
Everyone needs to feel heard. If you don’t take the time to build relationships through active listening, then the quality of your connectedness will degrade. It should come with little surprise then when your trusted employee decides to go somewhere else to be heard.
I know this to be true. When others have something on their minds/hearts to share, then my job is to just shut up and listen.
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Lenox Hill Docuseries
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Speed Dating for Talent
Just over a decade ago, I wrote this post about the need for savvy operators to build brand loyalty with their residents because of the impact the great recession would have on apartment occupancy. Today’s battle for market share is all about talent. Companies are fighting to fill the holes in their teams with the best available people. Facing a tight employment market where recruiting is becoming more difficult, it is time to fine-tune your culture. When everything else is the same – wages, benefits, etc. – culture is the tiebreaker. Smart job seekers know this, and it is critical that your culture stands out. Be vigilant about course-correcting any cultural dissonance. Your existing team and your future team are holding you accountable for it.
Swipe Right for Culture
Now is the time for innovations in recruitment and hiring. Potential candidates speed date through the endless options for employment and if you want to be the company that causes them to swipe right, you need to think in terms of the team member experience and how you ensure that your company lives up to the hype.
Zero to Ten – Where is your pain level?
Every company has some form of financial review process. It is an important measure of business health. I encourage you to add a cultural review to your routine. Ask good questions. Listen thoughtfully to responses. What is the story behind the story? Where are the cultural pain points and what can you do to relieve them? What is the temperature of your current team members? How connected are they to your culture?
Gut Check
The current employment market is not a call to hire whoever you can get. Top talent is still available and those are the people you want to attract. Avoid the panic hire – the one that you knew in your gut wasn’t the right fit for the position or the company. That path leads to an inevitable painful exit which further tarnishes the opportunity for brand loyalty. It isn’t fair to anyone and shakes the confidence of your team.
Passion Play
I don’t have a magic wand to produce key talent in this unusual market. But I do know that it is my job to ensure that our culture is healthy. It is the sort of work that is harder to quantify but it pays the biggest dividends in the end. My parents’ generation favored the stability of lifelong careers at one company. Workers today are less afraid of uncertainty and want to do work that feeds their spirits and their bank accounts. Passion is the name of the game. You don’t have to change everything about your culture, but you do need your company to be who you say you are.
What are you doing to ensure your culture delivers on your brand promises?
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The Downside of Advantage
In his Oscar acceptance speech for his role in The Gladiator, Russell Crowe famously said, “…dreams like this seemed vaguely ludicrous and completely unattainable. For anybody who’s on the downside of advantage and relying purely on courage – it’s possible.” It is true that most of us won’t win an Academy Award. We are each one nonetheless capable of stretching towards a destination that seems impossibly out of reach. Somewhere between where you are today and your impossible dream lies a journey filled with incredible lessons and stories worth sharing around the firepit.
In the quest to achieve your ambition, I offer you a few nuggets to keep, use, or toss along the way.
Failure is Inevitable
You will fail. Not completely – failure is only complete when you decide it is. From a quiver full of arrows, only some will hit the mark. The rest could be called failures, but I prefer to think of them as practice shots.
BHAG
Set your Big-Hairy-Audacious-Goal. Then set some more – realistic near-term goals. If your goal is to win that Oscar, you can’t get there without attainable, actionable goals. I wrote about this topic ten years ago in this series. Even Russell Crowe had to start somewhere. Take an acting workshop or class. Volunteer at your community theater. In the world of multifamily, that could mean signing up for classes wherever you can find them – Internal L&D departments, LinkedIn Learning, or in any of the countless free webinars made widely available by vendors across the industry.
Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable
Embrace nervous anxiety. Lean in to it. Greatness was never found hiding in the blanketed cocoon of comfort. Willingly put yourself into uncomfortable situations. Reach out to someone you don’t know to ask for a call or video chat to talk about your project. You may be surprised by how often people who have achieved success are willing to share their time and stories with others on the way up.
Be True to You
Be accountable – to yourself and to someone else. There is a reason people hire personal trainers or life coaches. It’s because those people hold you accountable to your commitments. It’s incredibly hard to duck out of a 6 am workout if you know your trainer got up early to meet you at the gym. Accountability is key.
Repetition Builds Muscle Memory
Put in the reps. It can feel boring or pointless at times but in every endeavor, practice the reps that build up your skill, strength, and confidence. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a teenager when he started lifting weights and learned the fundamentals of completing and marking the reps. From Mr. Universe to Governor of California, the practice of repetition served him well.
Measure Everything
Measure and acknowledge your progress. It feels like fuel in your tank to have reached even the incremental markers of progress towards your bigger goal. Dave Ramsey has a debt snowball philosophy that helps people get out of credit card debt that involves paying off the smallest balance first. It feels good and it frees up cash to put towards the other debt. Celebrate your progress. Tell the world. Share it on your stories. It’s powerful stuff.
Celebrate the Win
When you achieve your big goal – take it in. Breathe the moment of accomplishment. Then – set your next goal even as you turn around and help someone else who is just getting started on theirs. For every person who heard you out, cheered you on, and celebrated the markers with you, pay it forward.
Congratulations – you’ve reached the upside.
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