Surviving Market Shifts with Generosity | Ep 16

Arjun: 00:00:01

Bad times are temporary and when the dust finally settles, the people that emerge are going to be drawn back to those that took care of them, that those who had their best interest in mind, that weren't necessarily seeking a profit from them or focused on the bottom line, but were actually concerned for their well being.

I'm going to share with you the one key concept that has kept me in business for 24 years and been able to withstand all kinds of different market cycles, including the huge crash of 08. But it's also one that has maintained the relevance and profitability of so many amazing key small businesses and companies around the country.

If you think back to every service related transaction that you have done, where you went back to them or you left with such a good feeling that you knew you were going to go back to them to transact one more time, what was it about that dynamic or experience that made you feel that way?

Sure, maybe the service was phenomenal, or the deal that you got was truly out of this world, or all the extras that came along with it were amazing, but at the root of it, it was something really, really simple that was actually giving it the fuel to give you this feeling. And it's a simple concept that I call giving a shit.

Now, there is a formula that I use so that I can always ensure that I am continually giving a shit about the people that I serve, my friends, my family, my colleagues, in any aspect of my life, whether it's in business or personal. And you can steal this today and put it to work for you, because I've seen the best of businesses apply it to some varying degree.

But I promise you without a doubt that if you incorporate this on some level and make it applicable to your business or your life, it will absolutely move the needle. Now, I call this the LFG Energy Formula for Relationship equity. And here are the components to relationship equity.

It's generosity plus reciprocity equals the relationship equity.

The more generous that you are, putting things out into the universe with no expectation of anything in return, but just doing it out of the goodness of your heart or because you want to genuinely help others or serve others, and you combine that with a principle of personal reciprocity, where everything that's coming to you, you put it right back out there into the world so long as it's positive, this ultimately will determine the amount of relationship equity that you have out there in the universe. Now, I call it equity and others call it capital, but I specifically refer to it as equity.

Because equity cannot be obtained unless you Invest, which means you have to actually be putting something out in order to gain that equity. And when you have enough equity, ultimately you have a lot of wealth.

Even when that wealth doesn't necessarily show up in the bottom line of your business or whatever it is you're doing in terms of dollars, you have this real wealth. Because people don't forget.

They don't forget how you treated them, they don't forget how you made them feel when it comes to doing business, even when you had nothing to gain from it, but simply just the sincere proposition of helping someone else. Just like you didn't.

Or won't forget about the service you got in the instance or the example that I asked you to recall about when you did that transaction or obtained such high level of service, so much so that you're going to go back or you've already gone back to do a transaction again. Now, I said at the onset of this podcast, this is what keeps people in business.

This is what allows businesses to continue to thrive throughout any market cycle.

Because the ones that don't pay attention, that don't actually give a shit, that don't make the investments and trying to obtain relationship equity, they ultimately have a limited number of days when it comes to how long they're actually going to stay in business. Because people at the end of the day want to be made to feel taken care of. They want to be seen, they want to be heard.

lived and worked through the: 2008

Now, for those of you that weren't around, or let's be honest, podcasts weren't even around at that time. Let's look back at that time in history. The real estate market and the economy had completely collapsed.

And anyone that was associated with real estate, specifically mortgage professionals, mortgage brokers, mortgage bankers, mortgage agents, they were public enemy number one.

And I'll be honest with you, every single person, with the exception of my brother and maybe one or two people that I knew as a colleague or someone within the industry during that time, they're not in business today. And it's because they didn't have any relationship equity whatsoever, meaning they never took care of people.

Because look, bad times are temporary and when the dust finally settles, the people that emerge are going to be drawn back to those that took care of them, that those who had their best interest in mind, that weren't necessarily seeking a profit from them or focused on the bottom line, but were actually concerned for their wellbeing. How I actually did that during 08 was when people were losing their houses.

I embarked without any sort of license or credentials to help people modify their mortgages because I understood how to deal with mortgage lenders and how to actually speak mortgage or bank talk.

I would speak to the lenders of these people who are in real trouble with their mortgages falling behind or on the verge of losing it to foreclosure, and talk to their banks for them to try and negotiate some form of a settlement, try and modify their mortgage for them.

One I felt a sense of responsibility because I was a mortgage professional and that's what we're supposed to do, is help people make better decisions around taking out mortgage so that they can stay in their home.

And while so many other people in my industry had put people into loans and then run out of the industry to where you couldn't find them or actually hold them accountable for anything, I felt this heightened sense of responsibility to do something.

So even when it only made me a couple of hundred dollars per transaction or that was only in the instance where the people actually had money to pay me, I was helping out these homeowners, many of which were done for free, to be able to stay in their home.

And I'm proud to say that I kept hundreds of people in their homes by helping modify their mortgages so that they didn't have to displace their families and completely uproot their lives during what was already an extremely stressful and chaotic time in the economy. Now, what did this do for me?

Because I gave a shit, Because I was actually being generous and doing so with no expectation in return, but doing so actually because of a heightened sense of obligation and using the law of reciprocity when it comes to dealing with folks, I built up so much relationship equity that when the market finally turned the corner and suddenly became a fluid space again where people wanted to and felt comfortable buying homes and wanting to take out a mortgage, I was one of the first people within my circle that they looked to. And this got me back in business and allowed me to continue to thrive, to build a good book of business for the next 10 to 15 years.

Which is why I'm sitting here right now saying that I still am a licensed mortgage professional and advisor and I'm able to talk about it in the form of a podcast, which didn't exist back then. So taking care of people and giving a shit is basically the foundational premise for all of us as human citizens, right?

We're all here to make this place better. We're all here to make a contribution, have some form of an impact.

And if you aren't actually investing in to relationships by way of being generous with your time and your services and giving to others with no expectation or strings attached, but doing so also with a full acknowledgment of the law of reciprocity while doing it, you're going to have so much capital and so much equity that you built up into people that it's going to leave you abundantly wealthy. Not just in your relationships, but ultimately in your business later on. You basically cannot lose by adopting this mindset. I swear by it.

Again, it's what's kept me in business. It's kept me relevant up to this point. And it'll work for you. Now, some of you might say, I don't have a business. Where does this apply?

I'll tell you how you pay it forward with the people that you're around. You might be a student, maybe you're a junior or senior at your high school or in your college.

You can do this by helping out people that are new, by helping guide those who maybe needed a mentor or if you put yourself back in their shoes, what you would have loved to hear, what you would have needed to hear, needed to have been guided by in terms of an individual to help kind of navigate your way around that campus or how to actually get through these tough and challenging years as a young adult. You do that, you're building up relationship equity. Why? Because you're being generous and you're applying the law of reciprocity.

You're teaching this person to do ultimately what now you're doing. You're leaving that institution or area or community a better place. And that's what humanity is all about at the end of the day, isn't it?

So if you're in business, start with the people that you serve. Your clients, your customers, those that you're trying to reach.

And if you're not in business, apply this to people that you are in direct contact with on an everyday basis. Your peers, your colleagues, your classmates, your coworkers.

Because really, in layman's terms, what this all comes down to is just being a pretty good effing human being. And who doesn't want that for society?

And another thing, guys, when it comes to AI, because so many people out there are very insecure of AI or they're fearful that it's going to take their job, replace them, wipe out their industry. And look, I'm not going to sugarcoat this, I think there's a degree of truth to that.

But the people who are going to be impenetrable or irreplaceable, indispensable are those that are always investing heavily or that are always rich in relationship equity, because that is irreplaceable. There's no level of AI that can wipe out someone that is so wealthy in relationship equity because of that human aspect which will never be replaced.

That ability to connect with people, to serve them, to be generous with them, the emotion that it evokes, all that comes from this good action and good behavior and good doing as a human being, it just cannot be replaced.

I think those of us that are wealthy and relationship equity will find ways to employ AI and make it so that it can enhance our efforts and allow us to reach even more people and build more equity at scale.

But for those that are really poor or defunct or even deficient in relationship equity, I think their days are numbered because those are exactly the professionals, individuals, industries, businesses, what have you that are going to be wiped out and taken over by AI because they have no long term value.

They're just transactionalists in the moment with no connection or emotion that's being evoked to and from what it is that they do and offer to the marketplace. And so AI is going to replace that. But remember, AI cannot replace emotion. AI cannot replace real, true human relationship and connection.

And if you're wealthy in this space, you'll always have a place. But in closing, I will tell you again, this is what has kept my business going. It's what kept me in business.

It's what helped open the door for any major breakthrough or new relationship that I was able to forge because of where I invested and how much relationship equity that I continue to build every day that I'm around on this planet. And I'll continue doing it till I can't do it anymore.

So I hope you adopt a philosophy similar to this or you go all in and do it exactly the way I have and go full throttle. I promise you, you'll never lose.

I hope this episode gets you thinking a little bit differently and applying something new today in your life and in your business. And I'll catch you gu you guys. On the next podcast.