I had the opportunity to interview a Realtor and an awesome person who was featured in The Wall Street Journal, Fox 35 News and Realtor Magazine.
This individual prides himself in being an agent who is a bit unconventional, one who believes there is no property too big or too small: Dan Grieb.
The first thing that struck me about Grieb was his point of view on leadership. Now, most of the people that I’ve had on my show were once solo agents — individual Realtors who kept working their way up.
With Grieb, once you hire him, you get an entire team of Realtors — primarily because he knows that different people have different skill sets. Being able to identify the people with the right skills and encouraging them to improve and perform made Grieb an outstanding leader.
Grieb, like most, entered the real estate industry with difficulty. The roadblocks and obstacles did not deter him. Although there were times that he lost focus, he eventually found motivation in what hurts him.
He was not foolish enough to do the same things and expect different results. He ventured out and learned from his mistakes. When Grieb said that failure is not actually a bad thing but an opportunity to learn, I realized that he was talking from a place of pain. He is always remembering what hurt him most, but he learned from those experiences.
Stronger together
Grieb has been in the industry for quite a while now and risen from individual Realtor to leader. He knows that he can find people who complement what he lacks, so he decided to build himself a team.
I have always been a firm believer of “if you want to see something done, you have to do it yourself.” Grieb acknowledged that he cannot be everything his customers need.
As much as he wanted to do everything himself, the health of his business outweighs his own interests. “You gotta grow for your business to grow,” he said.
Leadership then became one of his fortes. He teaches his team members that failure exists only for people who quit. Grieb started his business but also started to raise his standards. Now, his team is one of the most sought after in the industry.
‘No man walks in the same river twice’
This concept, “no man walks in the same river twice,” is something that Dan shared on the show. I have heard the quote before, not from a Realtor, though, and it is a bit different coming from a person who dominated the worst real estate market in history.
Dan said that the river changes as well as the man. The environment does not remain the same and the man who once walked the river is no longer the same. He has grown.
Here is a man who had a lot of competition during his startup years. But he was no fan of competition. Grieb believed in dominating the market, and he did it by building relationships. He was a Realtor on a league of his own.
He has been in really tight spots and situations, and the memories of those times are vivid enough to keep him falling into that kind of lifestyle. He builds rapport with his customers by establishing common ground and working his way from there.
Everything for Grieb is about relationships, for no one will trust him with their decisions if he’s not perceived as trustworthy to begin with.
The leader of your life
Life tests your mettle. Sometimes, you don’t realize that you’ve dug yourself into a hole. Many people would give up under these circumstances. Others would definitely whine and wallow. Grieb, on the other hand, firmly believes that you are the leader of your life. And I do, too.
It is how you respond to the challenges of life that defines you as a person. It is coming out of the hole you’ve dug yourself into that gives you confidence.
And in a world where people remember the hurt more than the pleasure, if you’ve succeeded and surrounded yourself with all the things that put a smile on your face, you wouldn’t realize it yet, but you’re no longer remembering the hurt that much — just the lessons.
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Pat Hiban is the author of NYT best selling book “6 steps to 7 figures – A Real Estate Professional’s Guide to Building Wealth and Creating Your Destiny” and the host of Pat Hiban Interviews Real Estate Rockstars an Agent to Agent Real Estate Radio Podcast with Hiban Digital. Follow him on Instagram or Twitter.