David Novak 0:03 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learnings so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple that you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is Ryan serhant, star of Bravo's television series Million Dollar Listing New York and sell it like serhant. He also runs a wildly successful real estate firm. We all know that a leader casts a shadow in their organization, meaning the people in the company mirror what they see in their leader. The truth is some leaders aren't fully committed. While they may be clocking in every day, their teams can see them just going through the motions. And so what they get in return is a disengaged team that's mirroring that lack of commitment they see in their leader. But then there are leaders like Ryan who go all in they are the leaders who are excited to go to work, and their excitement and energy spill over to their teams. And as a result, they have engaged teams who bring their best each and every day. I know that you want to be a leader like Ryan, how do you make it happen? But what you're about to learn from Ryan serhant is what it looks like to go all in and the impact that that approach will have on the team you lead. And boy, does Ryan have some crazy stories. I'll let him tell you the full versions. But there was a time he flew to Europe in an attempt to close an $8 million dollar deal for an apartment in New York. Talk about going all in. This is going to be a fun one. Here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be IRS. Ryan serhant.

You know, Ryan, you know, I can't wait to get into your career. But I always like to start out at the beginning. Can you tell us about your upbringing?

Ryan Serhant 1:53 

Sure. Yeah, I mean, real quick, you know, nothing too, too crazy. I was born in Houston, Texas, and I bounced around a little bit kind of grew up a little bit outside Long Island, really kind of settled down outside Boston. My parents made me play every single sport known to man, you know, it took me a long time to really figure out what I liked and what I wanted to do. I was okay at school, it wasn't great at school. I really liked making little movies, though. You know, my favorite thing that I ever received as a gift was a video camera. And I would force my little brother to star in every single one of my little movies. And so I kind of got into acting and theater. And that kind of became the one thing when I was in high school that I sort of had a passion for that I really wanted to study and read about all the time, I went to Hamilton College in upstate New York. I majored in theater, and my dad made me have a real major as well. And I majored in English literature.

David Novak 2:43 

You know, Ryan, your dad was a very successful financial executive as the vice chairman of State Street Global Advisors, you know, and you go into theater, that might have shocked him a little bit, I'm guessing, you know, did you ever really want to follow in your dad's footsteps? And how hard was it for you to buck the trend,

Ryan Serhant 3:01 

my older brother followed in his footsteps, and my little brother followed in his footsteps, my little brother, still to this day works at State Street, you know, I wasn't smart enough, you know, I wasn't able to do what he was able to do with his brain at the dinner table. And I always liked to take kind of like mental personal checks, right? Like, you need to know what you're really good at, you need to know what you're not good at. And you need to not go out there and try to do the things you're bad at, unless it really makes you happy. And maybe you could do it as a hobby. But I knew that I was never going to be able to think about math and think about the macro economy and have an interest in the things that he did the same way that he did to a point where I wanted to wake up and do it every day. You know, my, my thing was, was being in front of people was performing was was improvising becoming other people. Which for me when I was younger was was theater. But you know, what was interesting for me was Little did I know at all that training that I had, was really to make me a salesperson, and to make me a you know, a pretty strong salesperson. I didn't realize that until much later, but my dad was, he was kind of okay with it. You know, I think that for him, he just wanted me to be like healthy, safe and happy. But when I graduated college and said, Listen, I don't have a job. I have a little bit of money saved up because you forced me to work in construction every summer which I hated every little minute of going to New York City with two roommates. We're going to rent a one bedroom on 66 And first I'll keep you posted let you know how it goes because I'm gonna do theater. I think he had a little bit of a heart attack but I always knew that I could move home but I didn't know that they weren't going to help me like you know, they would help me if I needed it but like I was out there on my own to try to make it to quote unquote, on my own and I I give them a lot of credit for pushing me but also letting me go when I needed to go there's a lot of people I know whose parents are so petrified of what their kids decide to do. They just hold on to them for so long. They fund you know, their their professions for 10 years and then It's like, it's like what happens when you feed the deer? You know, like, the minute the food goes away? Like, how does the wilderness survive? And so, you know, he really taught me the value of the dollar, if there's anything, you know, he taught me that success begets success. He taught me the value of the dollar taught me the value of hard work, especially when I was a little kid. I mean, he would pay us nickels to pick up sticks, you know, and to do roofing, and demolition, or all the stuff that he didn't do. But he forced us to do it so that when we grew up, we know, like, wow, you know, I understand the value of $100. Because I distinctly remember what it was like working for $2.50 An hour picking up sticks in mowing grass, doing all that stuff for months and months and months on end.

David Novak 5:41 

You went to Hamilton College, and then you went into acting, but it's notoriously hard to get an acting career started. How did you start? And what was your first big break?

Ryan Serhant 5:52 

Oh, man, I don't think it really had a big break, I came to the city. And I knew that I just had to meet as many people in the business as possible. I knew I needed an acting coach. So I got a good acting coach named David Epstein, who is still an acting coach in the city who was amazing. And I started going to auditions, kind of the same way I do as a real estate agent now where I go out there and try to meet as many people every day who are looking to buy, sell or rent a home, then I want it to be seen for as much as possible. And then I'd study as much as possible. You know, study monologues, study scenes, try to meet with other actors and try to like look at, you know, look at theory and brackets and, and kind of, you know, all these different things that you wouldn't think that millennial actors would do anyway. And well, my dad told me when I first moved to the city, because I said, I'm going to be an actor, without a real job. And my two roommates were going to be paralegals at massive corporate law firms. And then they were going to go to law school, my dad said, Listen, if you want to be successful, if you want to make it as an actor, you have to work harder than your two roommates, that to wake up when they do to go to bed when they do and if you really want to be successful, to wake up before they do and go to bed after they do because it's gonna be very easy for you without a boss, without anyone telling you what to do without punching in for some sort of time clock for you to adhere yourself to a schedule that's wake up at 5am. Memorize monologues at six, go to this audition today, do this, do this do this. And so I got onto a soap opera relatively quickly called As the World Turns that has since now been cancelled, not because of me. But it was on the air for over 50 years. I was a doctor on there, Evan Walsh, the fourth, I got on to that show funny enough on an internet reality show on cbs.com called in turn. And so they would take eight actors to be interns on As the World Turns, and we would have an audition every day. And we would get fired. One person who got fired every day. Awful, it was just emotionally the worst thing in the world. And then they aired it. I made it to the final three, they put it on the internet. And then America had to vote for which of the final three actors they wanted to win a contract role on as returns and I won. And I won that in 2007, the year after I graduated and I became Dr. Evan Walsh, the fourth?

David Novak 8:07 

I'm sure you were a good doctor, there's no question about that. Do you know you did well in acting and and then you decided to shift gears and to go into the real estate? Well, what was harder breaking into acting or getting yourself started in real estate?

Ryan Serhant 8:22 

That's a good question. I think acting was definitely hard to start because you don't really know what to do, at least with real estate, I knew that I could show up in the office, I could post ads for apartments on Craigslist, because that's what we used to do. 1011 years ago, I knew that clients would call and I knew that I could meet them on the corner. And I could show them apartments for rent from 1000 to 2000 3000 $4,000 a month, if I was lucky to get that type of high roller was acting like you just kind of sit there you don't know what to do. You try to look for auditions. You submit your acting resume, you tried to make you know, little videos and submit it to casting agents, you try to write letters to casting agents into talent agents. But there's no blueprint whatsoever. You just try to get seen as much as you possibly can. And it's hard. And you could meet the right person tomorrow or in 15 years. You know, Morgan Freeman didn't get known until he was, I think 50 years old. Right? There are a lot of people that I met that really scared me to be honest, who were much much older than me, who were still trying to get their big break. You know, they were still living in a tiny studio apartment sharing bathrooms. And they were 60 years old. And they were still trying to meet that one agent and they were still working for free. And I had to make a decision in the summer of 2008. Because I'd run out of money from my savings. And I basically had to decide, do I want to do this? Do I have the willpower to work for free in a business that will really beat you down until I'm 60? Or do I not? And do I have to find a way to survive and so I kind of chose both?

David Novak 9:57 

Yeah, right. That's how it's kind of turned out and we'll get more Enter that but you know, as I understand it, when you got into real estate, you couldn't sell anything at first or very little, you know, how did you stay motivated to stay after it?

Ryan Serhant 10:09 

Oh, man, it was so hard. My back was just up against a wall, you know, and I talk about that in a lot to kind of Gen Z and millennials who come to me who want to be entrepreneurs and want to be real estate agents. You know, like, my, I didn't choose to have my back up against the wall, it just sort of happened. And you know, I could have always gone home. But that would have been a massive failure to me, you know, I had to figure out a way to do it on my own in the city. And if I could figure out how to do that, I knew I could then be successful. And at the beginning was super hard, because I didn't know anybody. I didn't know anybody. I didn't know the city. I'm not from here, I didn't go to school here. And the real estate brokerage community here is very, very, very tight knit. I mean, there's 80,000 of us. So there's a lot of us. But everybody knows each other. And the best ones are really from here, nor there. From here. They they know each other the guy that sold Jeff Bezos, his apartment for $80 million is from the Upper East Side, you know, he's got his restaurant people come to people have known him forever. And I just there, I didn't have that. And so I had to start figuring out how to create that the same way I did when I first came to the city to try to be an actor, and I did it just through volume, and having as many balls up in the air as possible, and figuring out kind of how to run away from my wall. And my wall was not having enough money for rent, right? Was I want to get as far away from that moment as possible.

David Novak 11:26 

Are you a person Ryan that's driven by the fear of failure

Ryan Serhant 11:30 

1,000%, I think I'm, I'm driven equal parts by the fear of failure. And by the fear of loss potential, I try to do as much as possible, because I'm so nervous that I'm gonna leave something on the table. Like I wanted to write the book. So let's do it. And then we're gonna write another one, let's do it. And I want to do an online sales course, for real estate agents, no one can stop me, I could do whatever I want, I might as well do it, I don't want to regret it. And that was the same mindset I had when I moved to New York City after college, which was sure, I could retake the LSAT, which I took once and bombed by the way, so couldn't go to law school totally bombed it. But I could study even harder, I could retake it, I could go to law school, that's what you're supposed to do. When you graduate, a liberal arts school, or I could do better in my econ classes, and go and work with my dad, maybe. But for me, it was, I have this thing in my system, and I have this passion for theater and for performance. And I have to try it. If I don't try it, one day, I'm going to die. And maybe there was something amazing, you know, in that coffin that never got out there. And that's gonna be a real, real real shame.

David Novak 12:33 

That's a great concept, that fear of loss potential. And you when you think of people who want to be entrepreneurs, you know, what would be a few tips that you would give them for give an entrepreneur who, you know, has those moments where they really wonder if they have what it takes to succeed. I mean, you obviously had to have those moments, and you had to keep going. So what advice would you give to help people work through those times,

Ryan Serhant 12:58 

I would say the first thing that I would do, and it's probably the most uncomfortable, but if I think about what worked for me, when I first started in sales was you have some sort of parachute you're holding on to it's either your job that you're currently in, it's your parents house, you're living in someone subsidizing you in some way, like you have to cut the rope. Like you got to cut the rope, you got to cut the net, and you got to go all in, it's very difficult to be the most successful part time anything. Okay? I found that equally true. When I was doing real estate at the beginning, I didn't get into real estate, because I wanted to be a real estate broker. Real estate brokers are the worst, you know, and I didn't want to be a real estate agent and wear suits all day. I mean, that just sounded terrible. I got into real estate because it was better hours in from what I was told anyway, from a bartender and a waiter, which were my two other survival job options so that I could continue to do theater and pay my rent, so I didn't have to move home. And having run out of money was the best thing for me. It kind of removed the net and made me force myself to figure out a way to innovate and move outside my comfort zone and make money which for real estate sales at the beginning was literally go outside, talk to people on the street, if they have more than three Saks Fifth Avenue bags in their hand, they can probably afford an apartment. If she is holding a Whole Foods bag and she's pregnant, maybe she needs more space, go talk to her. Those are things that I'd probably be too terrified to do. If you know my mom will take care of me like, it's okay, I have my next shift and then a couple hours, I'll be fine. I'll do something that's uncomfortable tomorrow. So you gotta cut the net in some way and it is terrifying. But if you have what it takes to be successful, you will land on your feet in some way, shape or form. I think my other big piece of advice is just brutal, brutal, brutal consistency. I don't think anybody ever knows something is a thing until they see it over and over and over again. And you know this really well. You know, when it comes to advertising and comes to marketing and putting out your brand Name and putting out your image and putting out whatever it is that you're going to talk about over and over and over and over and over again, to your farm, right to picking out what your target market is going to be, and pushing out to those people. So they know you whether they want to know you or not. And so if you look at my life and everything I've done, whether I've been successful at it or not, all exposures, good exposure. And every single person told me not to do Million Dollar Listing New York, every single person told me not to do the vlog that I do on YouTube, because I had no time. Why should I do that? Now that is my number one lead source for business. Right? But I'm consistent with it. And I do it every week,

David Novak 15:35 

you know, what is your first big sale? And what do you learn from it?

Ryan Serhant 15:38 

My first big sale, I sold an apartment at 45, West 67th Street, apartment 15, ABC for $8.3 million to a guy over the internet. Wow. And I thought he was fake. I didn't think he was real whatsoever. I thought it was just somebody trying to scam us to take a contract out who then will sell the contract to other foreigners. And that's what happens a lot in New York, right? You know, people who do sketchy things be completely disappeared. And then one day, randomly, the real estate attorney got a wire for $830,000. And I realized it was real. But then he disappeared again and wouldn't close. And then we had to fly to Europe to go and find him and then realize that he was real. And he was just so busy. And he was a billionaire. And he didn't have the time. And he finally eventually closed. And at the closing table, he looked at me. And this was a year later from saying you wanted to buy this place. And he said, you know, the only reason I eventually did this was because you stayed on top of me. I felt bad for you.

David Novak 16:34 

So what was the big learning get people to feel sorry for you?

Ryan Serhant 16:38 

No, no, not really was the big learning curve for that was, you know, it was create relationships with all of my clients that have some sort of emotional connection in some way, shape or form. Clients are not just customers, they're all friends and people love shopping with friends, and they hate being sold. Right? That's really what that taught me and the power of persistence and the power of follow up. I mean, that is really my business. I mean, I, you know, I was I was about ready to follow up with you for the next 10 years. If you didn't get back to me to do this podcast.

David Novak 17:09 

You know, Ryan, it's kind of amazing for me to be having this conversation with you. Because, you know, I know as a kid, you know, and you say this, that you were socially awkward. And you talk about being shy and zero confidence, you know, how in the world did you transition yourself into this outwardly confident guy who's so successful?

Ryan Serhant 17:30 

I had to, it was like, kind of like what it talked about it was my wall, like my back was up against a wall. And I had been, you know, a friend told me to get my real estate license. And I couldn't be a shy real estate agent. I couldn't be an introverted real estate agent, I had to, like I did with theater, I had to put on a character, I had to improvise, I had to go out there and be Ryan, the real estate agent. Now, if at home, I wanted to be quiet and turn the lights off and watch a movie, that's totally fine. But, you know, during the day, I had to be Ryan, the real estate agent, that was my character, he's gonna wear suits and a tie, and he's gonna meet as many people as possible. And so that way, it wasn't me. Right, it was a way for me. And then I did the same thing when I moved around so much as a little kid, like every new school that I would go into, like, it was kind of inventing the character that I was going to put myself out there as which was still me, but it helped me not be so uncomfortable, and so physically locked up into myself, so that I could, you know, like, just live and be happy.

David Novak 18:31 

You know, now that you're you're successful, and you've quote, made it, do you still feel scared, insecure, uncertain, and, and if you do, what triggers that?

Ryan Serhant 18:41 

Groups of people, large groups of people, large groups of people who I don't know, you know, walking into a room, I think a lot of people feel the same way. But it's, you know, walking into a room and we go to a lot of networking events, a lot of big galleries in New York City, we have them all the time, where everybody's already talking to each other. And I don't know a single person because the person that told me to come there is now half an hour late, like, what do I do? Do I stand in a corner? I talk to the waiter? Do I just go tap this person on the shoulder and try to make conversation about what Who is this? I mean, it's very, very, those are the moments I dislike the most. But I've turned into kind of into a game. You know, when I walk into moments like that I I really look at it, like an operation, right? Like, it's not me waiting for someone who's half an hour late. I'm gonna go in there. I look at my watch. And I say, Okay, let's see if I can be five people. Let me see if I can be five people. And let's just make it a game. I want to meet that guy, her and that guy, and to see what see if they'll say hi to me that way. It's not Ryan awkwardly and a large group of people. Now it's Ryan, the people meet her who's gonna go meet five people. If I meet six, I just won my game and then I give myself a reward. Maybe I'll actually have a drink that night. You know,

David Novak 19:53 

is there anything else you do either physically practically or mentally that when those anxieties insecurities creep then you kind of have something that you go to that helps you work through it.

Ryan Serhant 20:04 

That's one, like, honestly, I do this I, I make it a game so that it's not just me, it's like, Okay, I'm going into a game now it's either win or lose. Like, for me, I feel like I need those stakes. The other thing I'll do is I'll take my phone out, and I'll write a list, right, I'll write a pro list and a cons list, which really, really helps me a lot of times when you're really anxious, or you're sad, and clinical depression aside, you know, it's, it helps a lot to sit down and write two lists, like what really makes me nervous about this moment. And also what really good happened today, like what good could come from this moment. And so walking into a big room of people is always funny. The list of reasons why this could be bad is like one or two things that make literally no sense that if you looked at it tomorrow, you laugh and you know, be angry that you didn't take advantage of the situation. And the list of all the good things that could come are awesome. And it just calms you down. And then while writing that list, your breathing slows down, and your heart rate slows down. And it works, it works. And I do that a lot for a lot of stuff, even before big deals,

David Novak 21:06 

what made you run launch your own brokerage team.

Ryan Serhant 21:11 

Because I wanted to be the number one real estate broker in the history of the world. And, and in order to do that, I can't do it all by myself. And I hate saying no to business. You know, like I said, like, a big fear of mine is the fear of wasted potential. And, you know, kind of losing isn't an option. You know, it's, it's if I can win, I might as well win, like Life is short. And I need people around me to do that. And sales is a volume business, right? It's about keeping as many balls in the air as possible. And so with a large team underneath me and I, you know, I've got 64 people underneath me, who I can work with on all of my deals who are there helping me all day long. And we're, you know, a nice, big, happy, strange family every day.

David Novak 21:53 

You and your team are known for doing some what might seem like pretty crazy things to close a deal. What's your favorite story?

Ryan Serhant 22:02 

The biggest deal that I closed at the beginning of my career that I told you, for 8.3 million get on a plane to go to Europe to meet somebody who I was 99% sure if he was real, if he was going to harvest my organs. Like that was by far the craziest thing that we've we've ever done. But I've you know, now, I've like, you know, we'll we'll charter an airplane last minute to get a client to go look at a house in the hopes that maybe he'll buy in that moment. And, you know, we'll do crazy things like that, just because our economies of scale have changed.

David Novak 22:32 

You mentioned Jeff Bezos buying the property in New York, how much did it kill you that you didn't get that deal?

Ryan Serhant 22:38 

Every deal that gets done in this city angers me when it's not mine? I mean, I'll live it's okay. There's a lot in New York City, there's a lot of homes that gets sold, I don't want to sound like I wake up every day upset that they're not all mine. But that would have been a great deal to do. And at the same time, I do a lot of deals that anger a lot of other brokers. But I think, you know, the competition is a good thing. And I talk about that a lot. And I don't know how to separate it between friendly competition and kind of like tough competition. But New York can be really, really tough. Real Estate Brokers here can be really tough, you know, Million Dollar Listing paints us as sharks all the time, in part because it's true, right? We're going after each other's business. Like I said, there's 80,000 of us and probably this year, only 11,000 homes are going to sell, how do

David Novak 23:23 

you break out of the clutter? I mean, you know, how important do you think it is for a leader in any business? To break out of the clutter and be different?

Ryan Serhant 23:30 

That's what I focus the majority of my time on? That's marketing, one on one. Why should someone call me instead of one of those other 80,000 Real estate agents? And how are people even get to know about me? I mean, I meet people all the time, who say to me, Oh, if I just known you or known that you would have picked up the phone, I totally would have used you to buy my place last year. And that kills me all the time. How do I get in front of that person? How do I do more? In a way that's not just spending money? Right? The easiest thing to do is throw money at it do billboards all over New York City takeout commercials, but is that really going to work? But for me, I've really turned media into the biggest piece of my real estate outreach in a way that no other broker has yet. I use YouTube in a way no other broker has we sell houses on YouTube. We just sold a house for $13 million over YouTube. We sell things over facebook, watch over IG TV, we use all the tech in our hands. And it's not just to hit the actual clients. That house we sold on YouTube. The 14 year old daughter of the mom who bought the house, saw the video showed it to her mom, mom said I don't want to be on the west side of Manhattan. But then she looked at the video and said okay, that actually looks pretty cool. Why not? Let's go see it told her broker she came through she bought it for $13 million dollars through YouTube. Right? That's crazy to me. And I tried to separate myself as much as possible that way.

David Novak 24:59 

We'll be back with the rest my conversation with Ryan serhant, just a moment. As a leader, when you go all in, what that really means is that you're willing to walk the talk, you're someone who will model the behaviors you want to see in your organization and on your team. And that reminds me of a great conversation I had with Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors. Listen to this one. If you

Speaker 1 25:23 

want your players to feel joy, and you got to display that every single day, whatever that means, there's got to be a feeling a sense of joy in your practice facility every single day. And that's how your value of joy will actually come to life.

David Novak 25:37 

Go listen to my conversation with Steve Kerr, Episode 62 here on how leaders lead.

You know, I understand you require all your salespeople to do improv was

Ryan Serhant 25:53 

much, much to their distant because I think there's nothing better than being in a comfortable environment, and making yourself really, really, really uncomfortable. You know, there's, there's a safety in that, and you learn how to think on your feet, how to answer questions, you don't know the answer to how to carry on conversations where you don't know where they're going to go. When you take improv classes, and you pretend to be a dog on Mars on fire having a baby in front of 100 other people, right, but that's the job. That's what you do. And a lot of real estate sales and selling anything, not just real estate, is being able to think on your feet is being able to start conversations with people that don't want to start conversations with you, is being able to get somebody to purchase with you when they were going to purchase something anyway, but probably with somebody else, or now over the internet, right? There's a lot of websites now you can just go and buy real estate online. Why use a real estate agent? Well, if you're not to think on your feet, and you can be creative, think outside the box, improvise in any situation in a way that other real estate agents Can't you up your ROI and your ability to convert that lead. And it works.

David Novak 27:06 

Hey, Ron, how important is your culture that you create for your team, the work environment? And what do you personally do to drive it?

Ryan Serhant 27:14 

The culture is something I don't spend enough time on. I lead through discipline and the power of hard work. And I make sure that I'm the hardest worker in the room. In my office, I'm not a team leader who rests on the coattails of my 64 agents who really do most of the work, right. But I'm, I'm here before anybody, and I leave after everybody, for the most part, I work every single day, and I hustle harder than anybody else who I will ever ask to work for me. And I'm not afraid of doing dirty work either. If we have to paint something, I'm not gonna cry, because we have to get a painter to come through can't come through on time, I will physically go over there and do it right now. And my team knows that. And so our I think our culture really is being relentless with with ourselves, our own expectations, but also with our clients and in our ability to get deals done. And I think that's how we sell as much as we do.

David Novak 27:59 

It seems like you're not a very patient person with yourself. And when you go public and say, I want to be the number one salesperson known to mankind, you put a lot of personal pressure on yourself, what kind of patients do you have for your own team members? Are you as impatient with them as you are with your own performance?

Ryan Serhant 28:20 

No, no, no, no, it's the opposite. Actually, my entire team is kind of the same way. They are very, very impatient with themselves. We are all patients with results, but we're impatient with behavior. And that's a big thing for my team. So anyone who's new that starts on my team, I give them a year, at the beginning with no goals, they need to hit no quotas, no nothing, because a business is hard. You know, and it takes some time. You know, it takes now for large listings in New York City in the high end, the average days on market is something like 407. Okay, the rest of the country, you go to the West Coast, it's like seven days, I got an extra 400 days on average that we got to try to sell things in. So it takes time. But you have to have good behavior, you have to have a great personality, you have to be able to be nice, you have to be friendly, you have to be able to work with others around you. And that that's something I'm really impatient with. You know,

David Novak 29:15 

when you look back and you think about what you the challenges you've had building a team, what would you say is the biggest mistake you've made as a leader or any leader makes when they're building a team?

Ryan Serhant 29:25 

The biggest mistake I made at the beginning of my career when building a team was treating my team like assistants, right? Basically saying, Okay, I'm the quarterback, you're all going to be my assistants. And that's why I have a team because I have so much business. But really, everybody on the team needs to be their own individual Rockstar. They need to be able to sell as much as possible and I cannot win the game without any of them. None of them are my assistants, everybody, even the most junior of agents can be the most valuable person on my team. And the minute I kind of made that call, which almost sounds so so commonplace. It's like, why would you not do that? But it's just it's not everything changed for me, right? The everybody was happier, everyone was more excited, everybody was a part of every win instead of just a part of Ryan's wins. And that was a big deal.

David Novak 30:13 

If people look at you, Ryan is so successful and you have it all. But when you look at your own leadership, and what you're trying to achieve, is there anything in particular that you're struggling with? And how do you go about attacking that so you get better at it?

Ryan Serhant 30:27 

I think like a lot of people, you know, organizing time, right, balancing my my fear of missing potential along with trying to get everything I need to get done during the day, like, how do I do that? How do I? How do I do as much as possible? And I look at people in the world, like when Obama was president, how in the world? Did he get everything done? Is it just having good people around you? Or is it having a much better sense of self right? Is it just having a great calendar? Or is it having nine assist? It's like, what is it and for everybody, it's different. But for me, that's something that I still kind of struggle with. And I'm trying to figure out, especially now that I'm married, and now that I have a baby, it kills me every moment. I'm not with her and I come home to her. I don't want to be on my phone. But I but I need to be and, and that's hard.

David Novak 31:12 

How much have you changed your behavior? Because of that change in life? Having a child you're very happily married to Emily, you know, how much how do you prioritize all that you have going on with your family?

Ryan Serhant 31:25 

I kind of made some rules. Honestly, I sat down with Amelia and I said, Okay, anything I ever do. After 6pm? We're going to make as a joint decision, you can tell me no, and there's no there's no grudge, no resentment, I will 100% be home. Okay, but now it's not my choice anymore. Now it's our choice, because we're a family. And then Saturdays are for you. And I'm not gonna work. I used to go to the office every single day, it was in the office seven days a week, the first three years of my career, I didn't take a single day off. Now looking back on it. I'm happy I didn't take a day off. Because I think that's really what propelled me past a lot of other people when they were vacationing, I was taking more business. But now, you know, I've kind of made those little rules, and it's helped a lot, you know, and kind of treating little free bits of time. There's always a little time in the day maybe where there's an extra half hour. If I'm downtown, I can swing by and see the baby even for two minutes like little things like that. So those like three little rules that I made myself

David Novak 32:24 

work, how did you get to starring role in Million Dollar Listing New York? How did that come about?

Ryan Serhant 32:29 

Oh, man, I went to an open casting call with 3000 Real estate agents in March of 2010. I had been a broker for basically a year, and they cast it between March and December of 2010. And there was all these different auditions and everything. And then they whittled it down to four of us to show has three that whittled it down to four of us. And Bravo said, Okay, we're gonna film the whole first season with four of you. The three best agents are going to make it on the show. Good luck.

David Novak 33:00 

You had a pretty cutthroat life. It sounds like three clients

Ryan Serhant 33:04 

trying to kill me all day. Like if you don't sell my apartment by 5pm, you're fired. But between Bravo putting a gun to my head I Yeah.

David Novak 33:13 

Do you ever, like, give her the clients because they're rude to you and don't appreciate what you do. Or, you know, it's like, you're gonna sell anybody in anything.

Ryan Serhant 33:22 

It's something I'm working on. I do. Now, I didn't always because I needed the business, you know. And I really learned how to have a thick skin. I mean, a big part of how acting I think really helped me those first two years in New York City, this is this thick is I think 84% of all new real estate agents in New York City quit within the first 12 months. Because it is just too hard. You can't make money. It's too hard. It takes way too long. And it's just too hard to survive here. The city's just too expensive. And the rejection is really hard for people that have never experienced it. But for me, I got into it, I already had no money. So I knew how to kind of get by that way. And with the rejection. I mean, I'd spent two years with people rejecting me to my face, like because of my face. Well, you've been

David Novak 34:09 

able to survive. And now you even have a television spin off, you know, which carries Your Name, where you coach underperforming salespeople. What do you find is the key trait of underperform

Ryan Serhant 34:22 

not believing in themselves, right? They every salesperson I worked with on that show. You know, it wasn't just that they didn't believe in the product. That's an easy fix. For me, it was not believing in themselves. And you know, they it was trying to find that confidence. Like if you're not confident in yourself, you're not going to be able to get a date or a job, right. You gotta be able to find even if you have to fake it.

David Novak 34:45 

How do you go about coaching somebody to get confidence. So let's say I'm underperforming, okay. You know, where would you start with trying to get me to understand that I have this unlock potential.

Ryan Serhant 34:56 

So misery loves company, and it's easy to focus on negative thoughts, it's easy to focus on what you don't like about yourself. Because a lot of times, what you don't like about yourself is looking at you in the mirror when you're brushing your teeth in the morning. And it just reminds you of, that's what I don't like about myself, or maybe your parents or mean, or a friend said this. So one of the first things I do is going back to one of my traits for how to fix anxiety is I would sit with them, and I would sit down and I'd say, Listen, you got low self confidence. That's why you're not going up to people in the store and selling more shoes. Okay, as an example, we're gonna make lists, we're gonna write down a list of things that you like about yourself, and a list of things you don't like about yourself. And it's amazing what happens when you just sit down with a pen and paper, what people will write out. And then you write out what bad happened to you this year, and what good happened to you this year? And if they can't remember, we'll even go to that day. What, what was the worst thing that happened today? What was the best thing that happened today? And then we take a look, and we take a step back and look at those lists, and it has nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do with what I just told you. Right? I can't give you confidence by telling you you look great, and glasses and look at that hairline. It's amazing, right? It's it's got to come from you. Right? It's got to be kind of that inception, it's got to be a seed that's planted in your brain and where you say to yourself after I leave the room. Wow, you know what he's right. I know, I can't do this. And I always start with those lists. It's such a simple trick and it and it really, really, really works.

David Novak 36:22 

You know, my company did some research. And we discovered that there's a real recognition deficit in business by 82% of employees feel like their supervisor doesn't recognize them for what they do. 79% people quit a job because they don't feel appreciated for what they do. Why do you think this is and how important is recognition in your line of business?

Ryan Serhant 36:43 

Oh, man, it's really important in my line of business, because it's no one here is salaried. No one on my team who's a team member who an agent gets a salary or benefits. You eat what you kill, you make as much money as you want. If you can be successful at your job, right? There's no base here. There's no hourly wages, there's nothing. So anytime there's a win, it is so important to recognize that. And I do it publicly, I do it over email, I do it over tags, phone calls, I do it over social media. So it's public, I do it as much as I possibly can. Otherwise, like if I don't recognize them, and somebody else will, right. And everybody likes to be liked. Everybody likes to be recognized. And I think that the reason a lot of people don't do it leaders anyway, and management's. I don't think it's because they don't care. I think they definitely appreciate good people, and they appreciate people who work hard. I think everyone just gets so busy, and so wrapped up in their own stuff and their own issues. And the fact that that manager doesn't feel appreciated from their manager, that they almost sometimes just forget. So I'll literally put into my calendar, right, which is attached to my phone, which is on my desktop and everywhere, appreciate the team. And I will remind myself to touch base with everyone on the team, because I should do it anyway not want to, but sometimes I just get so busy to touch base with them, you know, even short little emails or a short little phone call and say you're awesome. And it goes a long way.

David Novak 38:07 

Yeah, what was your most meaningful recognition moment, personally or in business? And what made it so meaningful to you?

Ryan Serhant 38:15 

There's a lot of rankings, you know, in, in real estate, I think I was ranked the number one real estate agent by sales. So I sold the most, I think it was in 2006, tene, maybe 2015. And that was just that was such a wild, crazy moment for me, because it happened so much faster than I anticipated. And it was just really cool for my team. You know, just to say, like, we worked our butts off, none of us are really from here, we're just sort of winging it. We don't work for one of the big firms. And by the numbers, okay, not by what we want to tell people. But by the numbers, we sold more than anyone else in the hardest city to sell real estate in in the world. Like that was, that was pretty crazy.

David Novak 38:59 

What would be the three bits of advice you'd give aspiring leaders,

Ryan Serhant 39:04 

I think the first bit of advice that I give an aspiring leader is kind of what you just touched on. You can't win on your own. You can't lead a company on your own. You can't lead a football team on your own. You can't lead a real estate brokerage team on your own is, you know, you are there with everybody else, like treat the rest of your team the rest of your company better than you treat yourself. Give them as much recognition as you possibly can. Number two is you got to lead by example. And that's why I work so hard, right? That's why I put myself out there all the time. I can't ask my team and the people that I manage and the people I lead to do things that I don't do, like, why would they then do it? They'd say to me and that we you don't have to do it. Why should we do it? Like that's, that's just that's common. Right? So it's lead with recognition lead by example. And then I guess my third piece of advice to aspiring leaders would just be to do it with kindness, man. You know, I think that sounds super simple. I don't think it's a cop out but you know, do it with kindness and do it with a smile on your face. Life is hard for a lot of people, and you have the option every day, if you can, to look out a window where the sun is shining and look out a window, where the rain is falling and choose sun. If you can, it goes a long way. You know,

David Novak 40:16 

I I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the fact that you try to provide a lot of sunshine to the disadvantaged by supporting Operation Smile, feed the children make a wish just to name a few. You know, why have you put your focus in on children, it seems like

Ryan Serhant 40:32 

because children don't have a choice. They didn't choose to be here, they didn't choose to be sick, they didn't choose to live in the household that they live in, they don't have a choice. And if they are going to grow up to be the adults that we all know that they can be, they're going to need a little help. And if no one else is going to give them out, then I want to help as many of them as I can. And a lot of it too is good to remember. Like, you know people talk about charity and taxes and all these things. But for me, it's any money that I make is not mine, right? It's a I did I earn it Sure. But the reason the number was $1 versus $100 isn't because of me, it's because I'm playing with the houses money. No matter where you are, you're playing with the houses money, and it's okay to help the house it's okay to help the other people in the house. You know, that's that's important.

David Novak 41:21 

So, Ryan, one last question. What's the unfinished business for you?

Ryan Serhant 41:27 

Oh, man. All of it. You know, I don't know, I'm just a real estate agent in you know, on a tiny, tiny little island that is such a blip. I want to sell as much as I can all over the world. And I haven't done that yet. I don't know what it's like to sell something in Hong Kong are in Singapore are in Cape Town. You know, I don't know what it's like to put my flag in Dallas, you know, like, I want to do as much as I possibly can. While I can. I think that's my my unfinished business. Maybe my kids will help me.

David Novak 42:04 

Well, I guarantee they're gonna grow up with some ambition and desire and passion. So they better. Thank you very much, right? I really had a fun time doing this.

Unknown Speaker 42:13 

Thanks so much, David.

David Novak 42:23 

Like I said, That was a fun one talk about a leader with some giant ambitions for himself and his team. And here's the thing, Ryan knows that there's no way he can accomplish these big goals unless he goes all in. And what I love so much about Ryan's approach is how it has him leaning into life. He's not a bystander. He's making things happen and inspiring others to do the same. This week, as part of your weekly personal development plan. I want you to be really honest about how you would answer this question. Are you all in? Are you giving it everything that you have? Or are you holding back for some reason? Now, don't judge yourself on this, just be honest, and figure out where you're at. If you're not fully committed, dig into why and explore why that might be the case. Because if you want to lead your team, and you want to drive them towards a big goal and make big things happen, you have to be excited and engaged and be all in yourself. So do you want to know how leaders lead? Well, we learned today is that great leaders go all in. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday, you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I'm making a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be. I'll see you next week.