it is time to forgive your past and seek your future! with Larry Bettag

Justin Letheby 0:00
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the next episode of the professor this week, I get to talk to Larry botad. He's an author. He's an attorney. He's a VP of a mortgage company. Yeah, he does a lot. And he's even here to kind of tell us, not necessarily what to think. But how to challenge ourselves, how to forgive ourselves, how to make the most out of our lives, it's a really good episode, even though it may not feel really business related. It is because what we do for ourselves personally, will help us develop ourselves professionally. I really can't wait for you to sit down and enjoy this episode. Thanks. And enjoy.

Welcome to the professor real estate podcast. My name is Justin Letheby. And I'm a realtor trainer and coach, my sole purpose here is to take my many years in real estate, as well as my even many more years as a trainer and get you to your goals and beyond. I'm going to do this by talking about business growth, development, branding, marketing, you know, basically all successful things that entrepreneurs are doing today. And hey, since I'm your tech guy, there's gonna be tacked on in here as well. So let's go.

Hey, everybody, welcome. This is Justin Letheby, the professor of real estate and I have Larry have a tag on here. I've known Larry for Oh, shoot probably almost 10 years now, I think. And he's part of Cherokee mortgage. He's the lead general manager there.

Larry Bettag 2:09
Owner, Vice President of national production. There we go. I knew I was gonna Colorado, I'm not the owner.

Justin Letheby 2:15
So I'm working. I'm trying to get your raise to promote it up, man. So, so he runs out. He's an author, no rewind. He actually has his own podcast. So I'll give him time to talk about that, towards the end, go find them. But I thought I'd have Larry on today cuz he wrote a book called no rewind. It's a great book. I told him right before we get started, and I'll do candor. I've gotten through half of it. It's been great. I love what I'm learning from it. But I'm a slow reader. So I have a hard time getting through all of it.

Larry Bettag 2:43
pretty pictures, and they're either makes it easier.

Justin Letheby 2:47
I wish I had pictures. So let's just start off, Larry, by simply telling you why. Why did you write the book?

Larry Bettag 2:56
Well, first of all, thank you for having me, take us and you and I our pads were crossed at one point pretty tightly, and then we wave and come out and come in and come out. But it's great to circle back. And I think there's certain people in your life over the course of your life that you know you want to be connected with. And I even if it's only by a strand, or a thread or a rope, it's great that we have that connection. So thank you for inviting me today. Well as it really started, because if I go way back, I will tell you, I was in college, and I was not a great student. I were not great too. In high school in Norway, as I went to college, I had a PhD and be the life of the party. And as a result, it took me five and a half years to graduate, I will tell you, I changed degrees, three, four or five times my parents said knock it off graduate, talk to a counselor. They said Listen, if you're going to do it, you need to get in literature communications. And you can go in any field with that. So I did. And what I found out was that I actually found out that it was actually pretty good at writing not because I had a talent, I think I had an expression for words I could put him and even me being a wash child at that point in time, I was able to dazzle some people with writing and I thought it was a one off because I really wasn't committed to and quite honestly I hated like you I hated reading. I hate writing. And I did it because I had to. But fast forward into law school. I'm doing a lot of writing and so I get lost training. And finally, I get married and have these kids and my oldest kid I drove them into a tree behind a snowmobile and he got airlifted and put in Lutheran General Hospital in the PICU unit and he spent 10 days in the PICU. And so I got tired of giving updates. I got tired of putting on the phone I got tired of doing this. And finally I just wrote out the whole story and we'll give updates as a winner. And I give them to my wife, Michelle, and say, give it to everyone. So this is where we're at today. People call up hurts, and oh my gosh, I'm crying. This is the best thing in the world. It's at that point, I realized that I probably had something that maybe I need to pour myself a little more into. And honestly, I love it. And then story after story that finally I realize I got all these different things as put it together. long answer to a very short question.

Justin Letheby 5:26
It's really good, though. You know, I did actually just finish the chapter that you talked about with your son, that was very inspiring, moving. But I think what's actually very fascinating about your book, at least for me right now is kind of how you started off the book and was doing now, I am not this person, right? You said when you read a book, you have the front of the page, and you write down all the topics and, and you note them right, and you put them out there? Yeah, I don't do that i i kind of rely on my memorization skills, to be honest with you, which is not the right strategy. But it's what I do.

Larry Bettag 5:57
Well, let me tell you, I want to share this because I think it's one of the best tricks that I guess I'm the only one that figured this out. But um, everyone that I share with it, they love it. But I have this other book here. It's not my book. But if I were to take this book here, and as I read this book, what I do is I open up the book on the inside. Yeah, the first white page on there, I make that my personal index. And so I might go ahead and write down. It's something about faith. And they'll put that that that page 22, or discouragement when I want to jump off a cliff because something bad happened or a family or finances whatever, that way don't have to go search the book again. But I'm bummed out. I opened it up. Like oh, yeah, I'm undepressed Oh, this little rhyme reminder. Remember, I talked you out of it last time. So it's pretty cool. I

Justin Letheby 6:46
think, no, I love I love that technique. I think it's great. I also think it's great. Because you know, the thing that I think is prominent with what you do and why you do that is what this book I think is full of at least what I've seen so far. And you know, there's adversity, and then there's examples of how those adversity has came over and the values that you have used to reference them for overcoming those right, and we all have our values, religious base, moral, ethical, whatever those values are, we have them. Yours is I don't know if I'm overstating it, you know, is there's definitely a religious base to a lot of the values that are perceived in the book, which I personally love. But nonetheless, there's a lot of values in there. And I know I do it through Kindle, so I have them highlighted, but I love it. So let's kind of talk about that. I, I would assume part of the reason for writing these out there is not only to talk about the challenges that can happen in life, but that all these people in all these examples you have run across in your experiences have found ways to overcome these challenges. Would that be overstating it or simplifying it?

Larry Bettag 7:56
I think you're on it, when I tell people is that, if I can say this, I want to share kind of the premise of the book, but um, is the conclusion is what you said. And the conclusion is that everyone's dealt a different set of cards. And I really don't care as far as what you're dealt, yeah, I see rich people killing themselves, I see rich people committing suicide, I see poor people coming from abusive relationships thrive. And it doesn't matter where you came from, you got a different set of cards. So when I hear all this stuff about equality, think the quality is opportunity, maybe and as long as we have that opportunity, but here's the deal, you got to deal. No one's gonna change your circumstance except for you. And so the premise of the book of I can say this is that there's two, two parts of this book those two to three minutes. But the first one is that I think about David, I, I tell people, it's not a Christian book. It's not a religious book. But there's definitely some themes in there. And there's some stories in there and the one is about David and David, you know, David Goliath guy with David. You know, he is a guy who his story is well known for most a lot of people said he was supposed to be out of war. He's not at war. He's at home, hang in the crib. And he looks a couple rooftops down he sees Bathsheba taking a bath. And he said, Yeah, I was I want some of that. And as a king, though, you know, she's married and she's married to somebody else, but he doesn't care. He's powerful King and he brings her down and axe her up and but then he tries to get as she goes husband to go have sex so you can cover his tracks. And so he goes ahead and basically, when when he can't get her husband to sleep with her, he kills her. And so I always think of the man thing you know, he's awesome man. He's a man who does stupid stuff and then tries to cover it up with even Word things and so, but what will blew me away is when I read the Bible, the New Testament, I think it's Romans 828. I think it says David's a man after my own heart. And I think he's talking about David's heart, not his morality. I think that David always want to do the right stuff. But but the conclusion for me this is part one of the of the theme, is that you and I, I don't know what you but probably you. But we hang ourselves with a sense of our past. And there's nobody who has a PhD incentive failing more than I do. And I got my I got my failings down perfectly. And so, but I thought about it, if you're going to write a scale who is is worse, I guess. I've been flipped with any wife. I haven't killed any wife's husband. So what the hell am I beating myself up for? God says he's a cool dude in a rock star, and quit hanging myself up. And the reason this is important, is because that creates when you when you when you want to hang yourself, that creates a paralysis and you can't go do the things you're supposed to do. So that's part one. Part two is us. Elisabeth Kubler Ross is a doctor who is known for death and dying, she wrote a book called death and dying. And I remember reading this in high school, and my Prophet told me that in the book, they had one she studied people who are dying. But in the book, there was a study of people who died or resuscitated and brought back to life. And whether it's through CPR, the paddles or whatever, the the people who are brought back to life, 1/3 of them had the same experience. And he said, God rewound their life. Don't ask me how, and replay their whole life from birth to death, and then replay it again and said, but this is how I want you to live it. And as I think about it, they said that agnostic atheist shoe, you believe in God, you don't believe in God, you're Baptists, Mormon, whatever, 100% of the people that had that experience, I wish I will live the life that God had live. So what he told me is one quit hanging yourself all the bullshit that you do, and I do most. And don't, but don't waste your tomorrow. And I think that when those two worlds meet, boom, if you want to put a Christian or religious element onto it, great, do so. But I guess even if you're an atheist, I think myself You only got one shot in life. So what are you doing? I mean, let's go make something of it, you know. So all these people are shut up here. People are people who have had stuff dealt to them, and at some point in their life had to make a decision to go ahead and either continue to ride the pity party train, or get off their FMA and start moving, you know?

Justin Letheby 12:53
Yeah, no, I would agree. Again, you know, for me, saying what I was saying earlier is, you know, I don't care where our belief systems are. But we're all kind of guided by our own code, our own boundaries, our own set of parameters, and an unfortunate for what you what you're saying is, and we all do it, I mean, we all have our guilties we feel like the thing that we all fall under, is we all feel like, we're we're on our own island of misery, right? We're under our own island of stuck, right. That's what we feel like it's not true. We're all together and that world is stuck, right?

Larry Bettag 13:25
I think people look at it is just, I say exactly like you say that you're on an island. Everyone else is on the ocean liner there. I'm finding you're just watching the world go by. I gotta tell you, I've been there. And that's a miserable, miserable, miserable place.

Justin Letheby 13:40
It's very tough. Right. And, you know, I think this is I think this is good timing to have you on for the fact that quite literally, we have just spent the last year in our own island. Right? I mean, literally, we have seen the same four walls, you know, now you, you do have a business that does get to have you out in front of more people. Why? But it's for a lot of us, we don't have those luxuries we don't have I mean, I'll be honest, I teach a lot of people all day long. But it's still the same four walls when I walk out of the room. It's too new walls, but the same is the same boundaries I have all day long. So feeling that stuck is challenging, which is why I love what you just said about don't waste tomorrow. Right? Let's, let's keep moving forward. Because I'll be honest with you. I think you wrote it in the book. If not, I've heard you say that somewhere else. That's what's been ringing my ear for about the last two to three weeks. It's like, Okay, stop, stop just just running around, right, stop just paddling. You know, let's start swimming. Let's start doing something. Let's start living. Who cares if it's a mistake, who cares by going the wrong direction? I'll learn from it. But let's start doing something. Let's start living again.

Larry Bettag 14:53
Yeah, one of my best friends would always we always harass each other and you know, it's like, Larry, just do something. I don't care if it's right or wrong. Just Go do something. Yeah, that was his way of just, you know, slamming me we tease each other. But he's right. You know, if you're stuck, do something, I heard this person talk. And this is going to go ahead and slam some people wrong. But they said, the most selfish people in the whole world and the depressed people, and I can say this because I was depressed. And when you hurt when I heard that heard him explain it. It made me kind of do a big introspection. Because I look back on my life during that year that I was depressed, everything was about me. miserable, how can I make my life better, nobody loves me Poor me poor, whatever, and I was bad. And that was clinical, seriously clinical DNA depression. I get that. But I'm going to tell you in the United States, I'm working with this 18 year old kid or Pakistan right now. Yeah. And we FaceTime almost every week, he's always a second always have six kids, you know, they are in house, that's probably equal the same size of this office here. They have one mattress where six out of the eight of them sleep mom and dad, and for the kids, and he and his brother sleep on the floor. It takes him his dad's the only one that's employed. He it costs $150 to have the rent, and to pay the food for the entire month for the entire family. No one's educated. And so we're helping this guy get through high school. But if you're educated, you get through and he's dying, dying for an education. And I think to myself, you know, the worst people here in the United States truly are the people that don't understand that the worst people are probably the homeless. Beyond that, the worst people that are on welfare, section eight housing, they got their iPhone, they got their, you know, their TV, their, you know, they have everything. And we have no clue. And so when I hear about people in the United States feeling sorry for themselves, you know, they haven't found their purpose. They're screwed up. And I'm not I am pointing fingers and I'm in a judgmental way because they need get the head of their ass. But there's nobody I need a crowbar to get my head on my ass. I was the worst of the worst. And I felt sorry for myself. It was a bad time. And I was my own. I wasn't doing what you're supposed to be doing. I should have been at war like David, I didn't. I was sitting around being a playboy. And there's fun for a minute, but it's going

Justin Letheby 17:50
well, and it's I think it's interesting, right? Because I think you nailed it, right? We all have to have that help, right? We all have to have that crowbar to to to waken ourselves up in different formats, right? Some we get lost in different directions on we get lost too much in ourselves. You know, I can only speak for myself going back to what you said, I know for myself. You know, when I you know I am a real estate, we do that stuff. But when I was directly going in real estate, those transactions mostly were about me and getting a paycheck. They were not about my clients, my best, my best time my best joy when it was always about them. And that's what it is for me now. Right? So finding that true desire and finding who you're going to help who you're going to help move and grow when it stops becoming inter and becomes intra, it's going to be a lot better. And that's why that's again, it's why I love the book is that you know, it's it's it's helping me kind of regather some of those things that the last year I probably have forgotten about because it's way too easy for us to get focused internally, too quickly. Because it's that's all we're at. We're just internal right now. But here's the thing, let me ask you this going along those conversations. Just take a side tangent real quick. You mentioned the phone. When the when the smartphones came out, I'll be I'll be the first to admit, I'm a big tech guy, and I love that stuff. And I thought it was going to be a great communication grower. Right? I thought it was going to be a great binder of boundaries, right? We are no longer no longer limited by neighborhoods, we are no longer limited by your right right. But now, I almost gonna say it's just the opposite. I feel that a lot of these things give us a false sense of global reach. And we have gotten more tighter and more tight niched in our communications conversations via our phone and social media and stuff like

Larry Bettag 19:42
that. Yeah, so a couple rabbit trails here. I love what you're saying. I will tell you I teach a lot, how to use Facebook to grow your business and make money on the free aspects of it. And so, I'm doing it for purpose and I will tell you that I love about Facebook. Because this, Justin, this is the first time I've put my eyes on you. I don't know, maybe a year, year and a half couple years, I do. Yeah. And so this is nice. And this gives me something, now FaceTime will give me that. And Facebook's pretty cool because it allows me to pop in and pop out of your life. But the politics, all the negative stuff, it's horrible. Five o'clock, when I get home or six o'clock, when I get home, I want to be a husband, I want to be a parent. And then if I put my thing down, I can look and see these idiots, my my idiot kids doing the same thing. And so it's really, I feel bad for this generation. And now I'm the old guy all of a sudden, you know, and I'm thinking about how my parents were all screwed up. But they don't know how to do relationships. And now my kids are good, because I've been, I've been pretty much a bully. As far as no phone zone times that we're doing a lot of physical stuff outside, take them Canada fishing, we go up there, where we go to a Boundary Waters where there's no, you know, there's no cell, I take them up in the mountains with the same thing. And that honestly, is our favorite thing. I think if you look back on your life, I doubt that you'll ever look back and say, Boy, I'm sure glad I spent X amount of time even having a one hour exchange with you, or me. But I will tell you, when I take them out to Colorado hiking and climbing a mountain in Canada, they're always gonna look back time, to me, those other things and honestly, go into what you said, those boundaries, there are no boundaries. And so I'd make it a point my my wife made a point, but he will not respond to me after a certain amount of time at night, not because he doesn't love me. He's one of my best friends. Because he's got his own frickin family I got to do. And I don't want to be married to this stuff. So it's horrible.

Justin Letheby 22:01
No, I worry about it, because I'm a single person myself, but I value my friends, my family, I value all those folks. And I tried to make time to go out and visit them as best I can. And it's funny when I go out to dinner on my own, I watch people couples, I would assume their couples at a table together. And the reason I'm saying as I assume is because they're not talking to one another.

Larry Bettag 22:26
Like, okay, I went and said that there. I was in a restaurant recently, I think was she Amelia? It's a Charles that said, Put your phones away. Now I don't know if that's the right for a restaurant to do that or not. But I gotta tell ya, I agree with them. I mean, why? Why not just get pick up, get doordash if you're gonna sit there and just if it's a food thing, and you're gonna play your whole time on the phone, I mean, really, what's the experience with no experience, you know, you want to go meet at GM is Justin, you and I go meet and we'll spend our entire time on the phone before me know, I'll

Justin Letheby 23:00
be honest, when I meet with my friends, especially my old high school friends, the first thing I do is I put my phone on the table and I put it down like this, he threw me through it right in front of them right in the middle of table. And it's I'm not trying to be mean or be rude about it. But I'm here to intentionally let you all know that I'm here for the conversation and for the handout, not for the phone. Can't go back. So I agree with that. So getting back to the book, that's a rabbit trail, but I thought it was great for what you saw. Let's go back to what you're saying. So if we talk about the chapters, we're not gonna get too deep into that, but let's just kind of summarize the chapters of it. So we talked about the fact that you know, it's you know, you gotta you got to be okay with your sins, your mistakes, your you've got to accept your flaws really. And that's what we got to accept and we don't have to necessarily keep reproducing our flaws but we got to be okay with what we've done and kind of learn from them. And then we need to move forward. So how do we do that? Right? How do I think we just kind of talk a little bit but I think people are part of that conversation but how do we what tools do you think or you use personally or whatever to kind of work past your, your flaws your sins, so to speak?

Larry Bettag 24:12
Well, here's the thing if I if I tell you just don't think of a pink elephant, what's the first thing you think of

Justin Letheby 24:20
already pictured it into two and all that kind of stuff.

Larry Bettag 24:22
So so I think to myself, I first of all, I quit thinking about all my frickin faults and flaws because the more I dwell on how here here's the deal, when you want to call it straight out, I'm going to be as arrogant as I need to be here. I'm the best at some things in life that I just have a skill set that nobody else has. And I got to tell you, I go outside that box. I am the worst in the world. I fumbled through I want to hire people to cover up the things the things I'm good at, I want to live in. I mean I have more fun with that and and you know again, not appreciating but I think most people believe there's a guy but I mean, think God designed us with a certain talent, certain DNA to do certain things. And quite honestly, I don't want to do what you do. I'm you selling real estate, oh my gosh, I'd rather kill myself. And the fact that you do it, thank God, we got somebody good high integrity, loves people wants to serve them. That's great that Amy, and but that's okay. And I think that there's this all this false humility Well, I'm, I'm no good at bs you were designed to be great at something. So my first comment would be this. I'm a big advocate of a life plan. I love life planning. And I think that life planning is a huge, it's a cliche term, but I will tell you that a life plan really says you build the life that you want, it's going to come. And I think that if you do that, there's always different accounts, and you're gonna create accounts. But, and what the accounts are, are like will say, my relationship with God, my relationship with my wife, that's another account, my relation, my kids, my finances, my health, each one of those accounts, what I'm what those look like. But I think even before that, there has to be a time where you put your phone down, you go out and this sounds so damn hippyish. But you go out in the middle of a field, you go out in a park, you go sit out in a country road at midnight with a million stars, and you think to yourself, what am I good at? What What do I get off on? What am I great, what what fills my tank? And you know, there has to be a skill set that really does it. And I think that you start building from there, you find out what the thing is that excites you, I can tell you what excites me I had a conversation with with with a recruiter earlier today. I said, you know, the only thing I really care about is if I can change people's lives and make money doing that I'm going to happen. Now, the fact that I'm in law, the fact that I'm in mortgages, have two careers that that's awesome. But those are really conduits to fill up my tank, you know what I mean? And that's such a big coin flip from where I was a million years ago. And it's depressing the world about me, and I'm more happy filling other people up, and I get paid to do it. So it's pretty cool. But then my point is, if I hold those counts, and you're going to start investing in those accounts, so let's just say with my wife, my account might say that I spent one meal a week out with her and it could be just going to Portillo's to get a hotdog for we're not there for the hotdog, we're there to hang with each other. And remember that we married each other. And then maybe I'll say, once a quarter, we'll do a family vacation. And once a year, just she and I will on vacation. And so I start making plans to fill up each account in ways that can be calendered. And ways that can be measured. And so I can, but I think the more you start focusing on those good as opposed to me going back to all the crappy stuff I've done in the past. Because as soon as I say don't pick up pick off it. I'm screwed. You know.

Justin Letheby 28:13
And I think that's so huge. I appreciate you say that, right? Because again, I think that's such a good analogy. Because I do think including myself, when I asked that question, we asked that question wrong. How do we fix our flaws? their past or in the history? How do we move forward? That's what we got to think about? Where were our goals? Where are beacons where our boundaries? And I love the other thing that you say, because I do I also teach this quite a bit as well. I have a business builder class I teach at least once a year and the first thing I talk about is filling that calendar before you start worrying about work right? What are those things that you're going to re energize yourself? What are those things that you want to do? What are those things that you value? Is it your family? Is it your friends? Is it you know, a fishing trip? You know what, I don't care what they are? It's one of those things that value are and you can focus on those items. You are now running towards something and stop running away from something.

Larry Bettag 29:05
Yeah, what I love what you say with that, because I do think a lot of people are doing to us that they're running away from things I think in America, you know, we waste so much talent, we have more gifts than probably anywhere in the world. And I just tell how I tell everybody all the time. We're we're we're addicted to painkillers. And so painkillers is I call them teddy bears. You know, it could be booze, we Sex, drugs, rock and roll. It could be you know, making sure that you spend two hours a night in front of the TV it could be that's going to show up, work a half hour late every day making sure you got that through that Starbucks line. You know, we all have these teddy bears and I think I talked to this realtor who you probably know and I'm not going to say because she was nice enough to share this with me but she went through a divorce X amount of years ago. Can I help With her, she said, I'm hurt you she was so depressed. And her doctor said here, let me give you some. What's that medicine, antidepressants. And she's like, she goes for me to get better. I have to feel this pain. And now that's a really cognitive depression. But I gotta tell you, I think that most Americans, here we are low asleep through mediocrity. And so we live for the weekend and what the weekend is, we just kind of ramp up the painkiller a little bit more, we have one or two more drinks on a Friday, we, you know, we live in for the weekend. I think that if you're living for the weekend, is wrong. I love the weekend more than anybody. I mean, I just, I love it. I love my job. But I love leaving. I love hanging out with family. I like taking my wife out for dinner. I like hanging with a family. But I spend most of my time at work. So I like walking away from my job. I'm not living for the weekend. And I think that you can live the weekend every single day, two hours in front of the TV, what's your screen time, five hours, that's killing you killing time, you're wasting time?

Justin Letheby 31:10
Well, I stopped watching TV, mostly for the fact that I realized several years ago with the centers, you know, the centers, but they talked to me a couple times about that. And, you know, just made a Cognizant point of me that if you're watching the news, all it is, you know, the news is based on selling attention, and the best way they sell attention is to negative news. That's what they have learned. It's just how it works. So I stopped watching TV then and holy cow, my energy changed almost overnight.

Larry Bettag 31:38
I will tell you I have people always say have you seen the walking dead, which I've never seen? Have you seen this and I tell people I got an addictive personality. I don't want one more thing that I'm gonna look forward to. I will I'll I want to blanking something, and I'll be addicted. I have like two shows that I watch it by them and I watch it, I watch them. They're there. They're like reality shows such as like gold rush or Bering Sea gold, or, you know, whatever. And so I don't live on it. But I sure like seeing an alternative way of life. And it's probably about a half hour a week. But we made a determination last year. This excuse me with a election. Then we're done with the news. And so march of 2020, we turned it off. And I just found out yesterday that there was a trial for the guy who was convicted for i can't i don't know the guy's name, but George Floyd. But I don't know who the police officer was. I didn't know what it was out. Everyone's saying on social media stuff. And I gotta tell you, there's justice there, then you decide who's right, who's wrong, I know nothing about it. I gotta tell you living in that world. I'll jump in and jump out to see what's going on. I don't want to live in that world. I got too much to do. I get to that's that's the best thing I got too much to do. I'm not wasting my life anymore.

Justin Letheby 32:59
Well, and I think that's huge. Right. I mean, you know, the the one challenge, you know, getting back to the industry, hopefully that we're talking to right now our fellow realtors, you know, the challenge that you have is, you know, we're we're over a million now something I don't know what it is. But no, we're over a million agents in the area. And you know, the average agent does two transactions a year mission a lot of time on their hands. And what are you doing with those times? Right, going back to what you just said? I think one of the best things we can tell them or hopefully I'm not trying to speak for you, but tell them go find things to be doing constructively go find ways you can help people go find ways that motivate you energize you and reward you in ways real estate will come

Larry Bettag 33:42
without you know, you know, Brian Buffini, right?

Justin Letheby 33:44
Yep, absolutely.

Larry Bettag 33:46
I love Brian, I had a one on one. Actually, it was fortunate that he gave me a personal coaching. But the thing that I will never forget about Buffini, he says to lenders that you should spend 80% your time working on your files 20% of your time marketing. He said realtors do the opposite. You spend 80% of your time with people 20% of the time when your deals. I think myself as lender I would kill to be able to spend 80% of my time building relationships if I can build relationships. Honestly, there's a someone in our industry called xenyx XI ni x and the woman who created this company she was the number one lender in all the southeastern United States your marriage number two lender from Merrill Lynch mortgage back when Merrill Lynch was was reality, and then the number one mortgage coaching company in the United States, and they are elite and now the top 100 originators throughout the entire United States. Half of them have graduated from xenix her whole program is this. Know Me, like me, trust me. How can you trust me if you don't like me? How can you like me if you don't even know me? So what's your job as a realtor Go out and do that build trust invest another I tell my kids all time, it's my new expression. I can't believe I pull this out of my butt. I go by think think beyond yourself. I love it. I for years, I never thought beyond myself. And I think that if you think about other people their needs, and build relationships, you're gonna be fine. But quit wasting your frickin time quit. Well,

Justin Letheby 35:23
yeah, and I kind of ended this. I think the one chapter you talked about fear was huge, right? We all live in fear one way or the other.

Larry Bettag 35:30
I wouldn't say that. I said, we've all experienced fear. You can graduate pass it, but you got to confront it.

Justin Letheby 35:35
Sure. That's fair. That's fair. Well, much better said, um, we've all we've all had fear. We've all we've we've all in the past have handicapped ourselves based on a myth of fear of something, right? You know, for me, getting on the phone call for the longest time was the hardest thing in the world to do. It was just a straight out fear is a misconception. But once I found, what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to help people getting on the phone was much easier. You know, I called you a few years ago, seeing how I could help. We didn't figure anything out. But that was okay. I wasn't crushed by that. Because it was what I was driven to do. It wasn't a good thing. It wasn't a bad thing. It was a step in the stepping stone of the world. The those steps lead me to doing other things, calling other people calling other associations calling other leaders. And it has tremendously grown. So with that being said, I guess let's just stop there. Anything you want to add about the fear? Because I think that's, I think for most of us in our industries, cooperating or not, that's really where I see most people fail is not because of their ability, not because of their skill sets. Not even because they are social beings is because they are driven by a fear that they can't get past.

Larry Bettag 36:44
Yeah, those are those are great words that I will sum it up to the really easy punch in the face is this. And this is for me. You either live with bear and fear paralyzes you fear paralyzes you, it's kryptonite. And so if you're living in fear, that's the deal. Or the alternative would be to carry regret. And I can tell you, that carrying regret I can't ever get rid of I have to go through a lot of stuff that I told you earlier is you get to go through therapeutic crap in your mind to release the sins of your past and your failures. But I would rather go out when I realized this. I'm not in sales. I am. But I think a sales thing a sleazy sales people like used car salesmen. When when I say hey, Justin, Larry, better your sales guys coming over? You want to see him? Not really. And so by the way, I realized that everyone would say, oh, first of all, you're either transactional or you're relational. So I told them relational. But the reason I say I'm not in sales is because really all I do is serve people. I educate them. I hope they think I'm a rock star because I'm not selling anything. And then even if they don't go with me, maybe they'll tell their friends how awesome I am because I helped them out. So here's the deal if I don't use my talent, my DNA that I got carrier. I don't know how hard it is put regret down I I don't have regret right now. But I can tell you I carried it for a long time. And I don't know if you ever put it down. I am I carrying it. I think right now. I gotta tell you, when you live more authentic, you're really who you are. And you're probably thinking beyond yourselves or whatever I don't want the whole thing is, here's the deal. confront your fear or curious and curious means you gotta carry regret. And that's a bunch of bullshit. So

Justin Letheby 38:41
no, no, you're good. You're good. Hey, this is an adult podcast.

Unknown Speaker 38:45
It's no big deal.

Justin Letheby 38:48
So I appreciate that. We are about that time I promise you to keep on this timeframe. So I do appreciate your time layer. I thought man there were so many tremendous nuggets in here people listening late now that were listening live or listening in the future. Do it Larry said but do it from an old notebook here right? Yeah, a little piece of paper writing these nuggets down and timestamp them in this podcast so you can go back to and listen to it because I think there was tremendous value for this. I appreciate your time. Now here's the trick. Here's what I do as a value to use as you are donating your time to me. This is your opportunity to plug away so tell people what you want them to know where you want them to find you how they want you to interact with

Larry Bettag 39:27
you. Well thank you for doing this. First of all, I'm grateful and I find that you re energize me I am at whatever time of day it is right now. I feel like I'm kind of hitting my thing. So this this does re energize me I guess. You know if you're interested in mortgages or if you're interested in in real estate attorney, they're completely separate and related businesses. Call me or text me at 630-417-7172 or your clients. My shameless plug as I did write a book called no rewind. Even if you want a free copy, you can email Me at hell bet tag at ccmc lending calm. And I my my shameless plug I'm really excited for is I have started my podcast and my podcast but oddly enough is the idea.

Justin Letheby 40:14
Rewind.

Larry Bettag 40:16
There you go, Oh no, I just figured I try to keep it simple. So it's no rewind the podcast, I got some awesome people. And it's really that doing the stuff that you're doing. So it's not a competition. It's just really talking about those people who have made decisions at some point, put their switch on their life and go from good to great. So that's me. And that's my shameless plug. But I'm grateful for your time today. I really enjoyed this. I want to do it again. No. Well, hopefully

Justin Letheby 40:43
there's more topics you said you got another book coming. We got other topics we can talk about. But I'm glad to do this. Yeah, I we do this, hopefully weekly. But right now I'll be honest, the year got away from me. So it's been about every other just like you we talked earlier. I'm still learning this a little bit and the consistency hasn't been my bestest of friends for the journey. It's a journey. It takes a while.

Larry Bettag 41:06
I love streaming our streamer I use for a lot of my stuff, too. It's great. No, I

Justin Letheby 41:10
love it. So I appreciate it. Thank you, Larry. And we'll chat later.

Larry Bettag 41:15
Okay, thanks a lot.

Justin Letheby 41:30
Don't forget to sign up for this podcast for all podcasts at Apple Spotify, Pandora these days. You have them all Google. There's all there please sign up for it. Enjoy, like subscribe, so you get all the episodes. And too if you want to participate in this live, every single event that I do is broadcasted live so find us in the professor of real estate FaceBook page or my page on YouTube, all the links are below. Like subscribe to those as well so you get notified when I go live and you will get those and you can participate with the event. Can't wait to see in the next episode.

Larry Bettag is a talented transactional attorney who focuses his practice on residential and commercial real estate transactions.  In addition to practicing law, Larry has been involved in banking services since 1994, is a critically acclaimed author of the book, No Rewind, and speaks nationally on topics related to business and entrepreneurship.

Larry's No Rewind Podcast