Episode 175 - Nicole Pearson - Leaders On Leadership

podcast

Oct 19

Leadership isn't about the destination; it's about the journey of growth, resilience, and putting others first. In this episode, we hear Nicole Pearson’s incredible journey. Nicole's story is not just about the real estate market; it's about the resilience of the human spirit and the determination to make a positive impact on others' lives. She unpacks the true meaning of leadership, touching on the challenges, sacrifices, and rewards that come with it. Nicole shares her personal experiences, including moments of loneliness and weariness, and how she overcame them to achieve her dreams. Discover the power of vision and how it shapes your path to success and learn how Nicole maintains her vision while nurturing a thriving team. Tune in now and get ready to pay the price of leadership.

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Nicole Pearson - Leaders on Leadership

I am tremendously excited to welcome my dear friend and professional associate, Nicole Pearson. Welcome.

Thank you for having me.

Let me tell you a little bit about this tremendous guest you're about to read. Nicole is a full-time and full-service realtor. She's been that for several years. She has resided in South Central, Pennsylvania. She strives for exceptional customer service and relentless hard work. Those are the reasons for how successful she is. She loves being collaborative with other agents during transactions and assisting new agents while they are learning. That's part of her recipe for success and why she loves her career. Nicole, I’m delighted to have you here for many reasons.

I'm grateful to be here. I’m glad that you thought of me to have me on the show. I think highly of you. You are one of the most tremendously amazing people I know.

Thank you, Nicole. I'll give you my sponsorship dollars after this for saying that, but let me tell you something. She's in South Central, PA. We're both close to the Enola Boiling Springs area, the nexus of the universe. The original Garden of Eden is what I call the place we live. I met Nicole when I was moving back several years ago when my father was passing away, and I thought, “It's time to come back home to continue the legacy and take care of Mom.”

I reached out to Nicole because I was looking at homes. I reached out to many people. Guess who got back to me? It’s Nicole Pearson. I see her hustle clock and the word relentless. I have never known a more hardworking realtor than Nicole. She helped me find my beautiful place in Boiling Springs, right on Front Street. It’s like a little Hallmark movie where I met my betrothed, my neighbor down the street.

If Nicole hadn't found me that house, this whole secession of events wouldn't have happened. After we got hitched several years ago, Nicole helped me sell my house and find our new dream house out in Enola. Every time I look at the heaven on earth that I'm blessed with, I think of you, that you are in your zone of genius and helping people find the homes that they love so much.

I am glad that you chose me, not because I answered the phone. That helps, and that gets it started. That's a key part of real estate. It seems to be missing in a lot of aspects of it. That's a key part of opening the door. Coming to know you and Mike has been wonderful because you guys are amazing people. Letting me go through all these different phases and steps of your life has been great.

My schedule is insane. I did manage to wedge out to go to your wedding, which Scott and I were ever thankful to to be included in. I watch who you have become and strive to be that admired and well renowned is what you have made for yourself because of hard work. I love everyone to be successful, but there is something great about successful, strong women in business.

I am excited to talk about all things leadership with you, Nicole. My father wrote a speech called The Price of Leadership. It's one of the ones that has been the most downloaded and listened to. He was poignant about leadership. It was bittersweet. There are a lot of high highs and low lows, but there's a price you're going to have to pay if you truly are going to be a leader, not as what I call a LINO, a leader in name only.

The first price he talked about is loneliness. We have all heard that it's lonely at the top and heavy is the head that wears the crown. What does loneliness mean for you as a leader? Could you share a time in your career when you went through a season of it, how you got through it, and what you would like to share with our readers about the topic of loneliness?

It's funny because I have this conversation a lot with realtors once I see them becoming successful. It’s mostly female realtors. We have a little bit more of a trickiness with this. Once you become successful, people look at you differently. You'll have a few people you've come up with in the business that remains tight with you. That's a small few people. Others are like, “How did she get there? What did she have to do to get that?” It's real estate.

Once you become successful, people look at you differently.

Here's an idea. Pick up the phone, talk to people, and pay attention to what they're saying. It does get lonely because, if they don't say it to your face, you know that it's being said. I went through that when I was probably in the business for several years. I hit the ground running. I wasn't from here. I was a stay-at-home mom. I knew about sales, but I didn't know about sales, but I knew houses. You put yourself out there and go. Because of that and the attention I paid, the business started coming right away.

People are like, “They’re feeding her leads. They're this or that.” I get the fewest leads handed to me because they have a tendency to want to give them more to people who need it. I'm consistent. It does get lonely because you think of the people who were your friends as you were coming up, and you quickly realize that they're not that. That was hard because it does get lonely because I feel like I'm a good person. I'm not a devout go to church, but I feel like I'm a good Christian because I treat people well. I treat them with kindness. I always try to do what's right regardless of what that effect is going to have on me.

When people are talking about you, and you know they're talking about you, a big one I hear was, “It's the Nicole show.” I've come to learn. I have a big personality, but I'm also embracing that there's nothing wrong with that because am I going to be like, “No, let me.” You want to know that I know what I'm doing. You want me to be confident in myself to be confident in you. That has been a big one.

The most recent I heard was, and you probably know this, I merged with a team who came over to work with me at Howard Hanna. I never feel like I need to be number one. That's the biggest thing people don't realize about me. A lot of calls I got were like, “Why would you join a team? Why isn't it the Nicole Pearson team? Why isn't this?” I don't need to be in the spotlight. I want to be walking side by side with other agents, my partners, and team members. We're equal regardless of whether I sell more than some of them or I don't. We are equal. To me, that's important. I don't need to be the Nicole Pearson team and have that out there.

People are like, “Did you hear about the team? I don't think it's going to last.” I'm like, “Thank you for that.” I know it's going to last. Failure is not in my name. This is what happens when you become successful. I take that as like, “I've made you nervous. Our team has made you nervous.” Look out because Central, PA, we're out here. We might not be on every billboard and radio station, but we're here. We're going to do a silent attack.

I appreciate you brought that up because there is an aspect of loneliness. There's good loneliness and bad loneliness. You brought up an aspect of the bad loneliness where it's professional jealousy. Whether it's a woman thing, I've seen it happen to men. It happens a lot with women, but it is something to be aware of our leaders reading out there. It's going to happen to everybody. I look at even Jesus. They were like, “Who is he? He's Joseph's son. Who is he to tell us?”

If you realize that it's going to be there and you have to be you, that's on them. Professional jealousy is a self-imposed emotion on their part. You know authentically who you are. I always liked it because I saw who truly was my ally and my advocate who wanted my success more than even me and who are the other people as you're climbing the ladder and coming out of Mount Majority, you leave the rest behind.

It hurts. It shouldn't be that way, but it's part of who we are as human nature. I know I've judged people and been jealous. It's something to be aware of as a leader it's okay. It's part of it. It means you are stepping out. Stay humble, which you are, and stay real. I appreciate you sharing that because a lot of leaders are like, “Why doesn't everybody celebrate my success?” I'm like, “Who told you everybody was going to celebrate your success? You have to do it because you feel it's your calling whether anybody celebrates it or not.” I appreciate you dialing that in because I don't think we've talked about that on the show.

I was on the phone before this. I got off to get on the show with a client earlier. She called me around 10:30. I've known her for several years. I've been through her dating, marriage, children, and multiple homes. Her mom unfortunately passed away. She's like, “I need motherly advice and womanly advice.” I always have time for her. She's like, “Am I crazy?”

We went on and talked about things. We talked about being a mom and the jealousy that can come from that. Moms don't talk about the real craziness in their life. It is okay to be like, “I don't like my child now because they're being nuts.” No mom is going to tell another mom that because we have to have the persona that we have it all under control.

A lot of times, the people who look like they have it most under control don't. As women, we talk about supporting each other. As a humanity, we talk about supporting each other, but I see less of it. It is sad. That's what I said to her. I said, “You are a good woman. You wouldn't be who you are if your mom didn't do a great job raising you.” I'm honored that she looked at me to come to me for this. I'm like, “Stay true to you. Don't put so much pressure on yourself.”

It's okay if you don't vacuum now. It's okay if you decide to take the kids through McDonald's. It's okay if your kids are off the charts, and you're like, “I don't like them.” Don't put that pressure on yourself. Don't, for one moment, think that somebody else isn't going through that. It is the same thing in any aspect of life, whether it's a real estate career or motivational speaking and writing books. You're always going to look at someone else and think, “They have it going on.” Maybe they don't. You don't know.

You said, “Don't put on yourself.” As you are saying that, I got an email from somebody I'd put in to speak. They're like, “We don't think that topic would be good. We pass.” I'm thinking, “What? It's all good. It didn't work out for whatever reason. I'm going to listen to that and see if there's any feedback that I can own for it. There wasn't. I'm going to move on.”

Sometimes, we are the worst enemies as far as making ourselves lonely because we think, “I'm the only one going through it.” For every speaker getting a yes letter, there are twenty getting a no. It's all okay. Press on. You're not the only one. I love that you shared that. How sweet that you're involved in people's lives. That's why I love you and why we're more than a transactional relationship. We go way deeper than that.

I had a client call me at 10:00. He's like, “I know you said that you don't have a life. I figured it would be okay to call.” My clients are my life. Thank goodness I have a supportive family that understands it. There's an occasion that my husband was like, “Could you set the phone down and make it through a dinner?” I'm trying a little more now. That’s why it was time for me to expand to something better.

It wasn't that I needed to sell more or build my brand more. It was that I wanted to find people who were like-minded like me, who had the knowledge that my clients would be okay if I went away for a weekend and they wanted to see a house because I don't ever want my client to have to wait on me. I want to get them in right away. My daughter and husband are both licensed, but if we're all away at the same time, I need to fall on other people and our family vacations together all the time.

It was with the thought that I was like, “Will my clients be able to relate to them? Will these partners I'm taking on be able to give them the same confidence that I do?” I'm not shuffling off my people at all. They still get me. I still do all of the negotiating. I had a deal going with an agent. I'm like, “I realize you never saw the house because someone showed them the house. You wrote the contract and negotiated it, never having seen the house. A third person negotiates the reply to the inspection. I don't understand how any of this can be good for a client, but it's working for you. Who am I?”

I'm like, “In this instance, where you're firing off an email to me that you want a $20,000 price reduction, do you not think that it is beneficial to everybody involved to call me and say, ‘Nicole, this is where we're at. This is what we would like to do. What are your thoughts?’ Instead of opening my email, and here it is.”

I'm hoping this is the second time I've had to have this conversation with this team, but I am hoping that at some point, it sinks in. I sit back and go, “Why am I helping them?” It benefits me and my clients because an open line of communication is better. After a phone call to them, we met in the middle. We found a happy place, and we're closing.

You brought up the main difference between being a leader and moving into leadership. No doubt you're a leader. Everybody reading this is a leader, but engaging in leadership means it's no longer about you. It's not the Nicole Show. It's not the Tremendous Tracey Show, but it's about how you get things done with a team.

This brings us to our next topic, weariness. Many times, we as leaders, especially women leaders, are juggling many plates that we become burned out, chronically fatigued, frustrated, and let certain areas of our lives go to pot thing, literally or figuratively. Not me, but it happens. What do you think about weariness, and how do you with all this going on?

I love that you talked about the team because you said, “I want to be able if I want to go and do things that I can hand stuff off.” That is the goal. That's where you go from being a leader, a singular entity, to leadership, which is a whole group of people that are able to function without you. Nobody knows who the leader is because you're all this collective team. How do you combat weariness, Nicole? You're on all the time. You are a hustler. How do you stay hustling and not falling down and burning out?

There are a couple of things here that you brought up, which is amazing because I'm going to get into a little bit here. I do hit the proverbial brick wall. For about twice a year, I am mentally spent because we're on all the time. When you write a contract, especially in this market we've been in for the past several years, you are not only thinking of the client, you're like, “What are the five other agents going to be writing? How is this going to be?” Your brain is always going. There is no break. I talk in my sleep about real estate. My husband one morning said, “I almost bought the house you were selling in your dreams last night. You did a great job.”

I genuinely love what I do. To me, it is not a job. It is a career and a choice I made. I tell that to people who are thinking of getting into real estate. I'm like, “Don't look at me as the norm because I'm not the norm.” I chose this. You also have to know that it does dictate a little bit more in your life than something else would.”

We have four owners on our team. One of the four is two people. It's a husband and wife team. It’s technically five, but four entities own it. When we got together, we were like, “This is going to be your role.” A few months into it, I sat back because I was, as people called it, a lone wolf for several years. I can't believe you did this. I never thought you would do it. How is that going to work in all these personalities?

I sat back and watched it all happen. I didn't say a whole lot. I was like, “We can do this better.” We had our owners meeting, and we did a list. I'm like, “Everybody, let's make a list, not out loud, on paper for each of us and what you think all of our roles should be.” We took away our names. We took away the team manager and training specialist. I said, “We are all good at all of this. We are team owners and co-managers.” We wanted our agents to know that you can come to any one of us. We all know this stuff. We also needed to figure out where each of us was the strongest.

The funny thing is one of us didn't get to do it because she was homesick, but four of us did it. When we put it all together on one sheet, we all came up with the same thing for each one of us. We had to do it on ourselves, where our strengths and weaknesses were. Because we can do that, and we see that in each other, we have the ability to become even stronger together. We're not growing separately. Even I was a little nervous of, “Can I do this whole team?” It has been many years of me like, “Go.”

I've embraced it. I negotiate all my contracts. I write all my stuff. We have an amazing transaction coordinator. For the behind-the-scenes paperwork, I don't even have to think about it. I have partners I can count on if something happens. I had the last two falls. Knock on wood. This is the first fall in several years that I haven't had surgery.

I had to have surgery in 2022. It was a knee replacement. That's a long recovery. The year before was a hysterectomy. Do I have cancer? Do I not have cancer? Thank goodness I didn't. That was the best phone call ever. That also is a long recovery. I didn't have the support of all these people. It is amazing. We are all leaders. I forgot where I was going. What was the question?

It’s the team with weariness.

I'm not weary anymore.

I can tell that because you get to the point where you grow. Number one, we're not meant to be alone. One of my favorite verses that I had at the wedding is Ecclesiastes 4:2. It’s like, “A quarter of three strands is not easily broken.” When you weave together your support network, you can go through 90 million times more stress than you could before. Leanna Horne has one of my favorite quotes. It’s like, “It's not the load that breaks you down. It's the way you carry it.” When you have the right team shouldering alongside you, you can do anything. It's not 1 + 1 = 2. It’s 1 + 2 = 11, 111 or 1,000. It's synergistic.

For leaders out there, we have this great man theory. It’s like, “I was with them, and I'm the one.” Maybe you think that in your 30s and 40s when you're out there lighting the world on fire and burning the candle at both ends. The older you get, the more you realize, “Life is way more tremendous when done in fellowship with other leaders with a shared vision.”

Let's be honest. I turned 52. I had to think about that. I'm like, “We should stop celebrating birthdays.” I realized once you hit 50, we should not celebrate. I realized we have to celebrate so we remember how old we are.

The best years are coming.

I am starting to have a life a little bit again. That's new for me. I’m like, “I can plan something.” For a while, we wouldn't plan a vacation we couldn't drive to because we would miss planes. We weren't making it. The other reality is I'm not getting any younger. The buyers get younger. It doesn't matter how much knowledge I have and how good I am at what I do. I'm smart enough to know that I need to start training other people to have that knowledge and information. Build them up and help them be successful. Hopefully, they'll stay with me. If they don't, then I wish them nothing but the best.

It's about supporting us. Honestly, more agents are properly trained out there, which is why I do help agents from other brokerages because if they're not trained or they don't know, that's not beneficial to me. I'd rather people be educated out there in the field because it reflects on all of us in this industry. We can train people. I said to one of our agents under us, I'm like, “You may only be 21, but you will be me someday. I have no doubt about it.” She has the drive, ambition, and enthusiasm, and I'm like, “I have no problem giving you all of my knowledge and information.”

That's the mark of a true leader. The number of other leaders raise up. You're hitting it. This is about the time in life when you start looking back and saying, “Okay.” What did I always hear? The 20 to 40 is the learning. The 40 to 60 is the earning. The 60 to 80 is the yearning. The 80 to 100 is your blowout, and do the highest level of service. You're in that where you're earning power, but you're also starting. I'm glad you're doing it at 52. That's progressive and evolved, Nicole. Good for you.

You do know that I plan to sell real estate until I die.

I know. You'll be signing the last contract. Go to heaven.

I had a client say to me, “I certainly hope you live a long time because I don't want to have to go find another realtor.”

You're not going to be selling another house for me because, as Mike said, “The only time I'm leaving this house is going to be in a hearse.” I'm like, “Amen, we're in it.” You might find us a second or third.

We had that conversation when you bought it. We wanted to make sure it was your forever home, and it's amazing. I learned so much from our dear Molly Garman, who sold real estate until she passed. I'm not as tough as her, but one of the biggest things I learned from her was she did not give her respect willingly, not unwillingly, but as an agent, I had to earn it and work for it. Once you had it, you had it. God loves her.

I know there's a 50/50 in Carlisle of the love and hate from Molly Garman. She said what she said, what she thought, and that was it. She fought for her clients. She was tough. What an amazing role model for me to have starting out in the business. God rest her soul, but I planned fully to still be selling real estate as she was at that time.

My father spoke up until he lost his voice, but he whispered, “Finish the race strong.” That's what you do. We did loneliness and weariness. The next topic he talked about was abandonment. For us puppy lovers, abandonment has a negative connotation, fear of abandonment, but that's not the abandonment we're talking about.

What my father said was, “We need to stop spending time and hanging out with people and thinking about things we like and want to do and think about in favor of what we ought and need.” It was about pruning out the non-essentials, the things that weren't the highest use of our time, and the things that weren't going to get us to where we wanted to go.

Nicole, with all the different things, people come to you who were like, “Try this. Do this marketing. Do this team. Advertise here.” How do you stay tightly focused on your clientele, what you want to do, and your zone of genius? Somebody told me, “Tracey, don't be a jack of all trades, master of none. The more niche you go, the more you grow. You define that.” How do you stay so tightly focused? So

The joke is I'm a squirrel. We have a sign in our office about squirrels. You have to be a squirrel to be successful in real estate because it is constantly changing from minute to minute. You have many plates in the air spinning, and you have to figure out how to focus them all into the same spot and stack them neatly.

You have to be a squirrel to be successful in real estate because it is constantly changing from minute to minute.

My phone rings constantly with the next, latest, greatest, and best things. I don't buy my leads. I don't pay for lead generation. I do a mix of old school and new school. Here's a novel idea. Let's have a personal touch. Send a newsletter quarterly with actual information in it and things people like. Do a customer appreciation event. If I were to sign up for everything that I get a phone call for in a week, I don't know how anybody could keep track of it.

Here's the question. Even if you have somebody in in-house sales who's emailing those people and trying to be in touch with them, are you giving them that personal feeling they need? People forget real estate is personal. If you get married and you have children, you buy a house. Those are huge decisions. Everyone was like, “It's technology. The Millennials are all about the internet. They want to do that.” I'm like, “No.”

I did a class at a convention several years ago about dealing with Millennials. I'm like, “You're missing the boat here. You think that they're only digital. They're not. Yes, we have to text them to tell them that we're calling them and to please answer their phone because they're not going to listen to voicemail and call you back, but they are not as connected as we think.”

I pay attention to what is going on and what the needs are of people. I don't buy into every platform out there that's offering the next latest and greatest thing. I am staying true to what I have done from day one, which is answering the phone, responding to emails, responding to text messages, and sending out newsletters. I hand-sign 1,000 Christmas cards. I start in October, and I hand-sign them.

When it was smaller, I could do hand notes. Now, it's like carpal tunnel. It's a real thing. I at least hand-sign them. Those personal things go a long way because it is personal. With this younger generation, we're seeing that their parents are more involved in house buying. Don't focus on those clients. Focus on the whole family. Make everyone know they're important in this decision. That's probably the key. I don't have to get onto the next, each latest and greatest, because I have the here and now that has been the greatest for many years for me. Why would I change that?

I love that you talk to anybody. Most of our audience is in commission-based real estate, life insurance, financial services, and network marketing. You get it. When you build that book of business, it's all repeats and referrals. Even for speaking in publishing, I don't go out and advertise. So and so heard me or published with me. How'd you hear about me? You get to that point because it's relationship-based.

I'm like you. I love technology. ChatGPT has changed my life, but I'm never going to stop being able to use this mind, connect with people, and hug them. You're unstoppable because you have the resource of technology combined with the personal touch. We're not robots. We're still flushing blood with emotions. We still have needs. You're right. A home is a personal thing and one of the biggest investments most people are going to make in their lives.

This is where I was super smart. When I was looking at the people to partner with, I was smart enough to partner with a few tech-savvy people. That's what we're honing in on a couple of platforms. We don't want to be on every platform. It's too much because people slip through the cracks. People talk about bad experiences more than they talk about good experiences. They're going to remember that more than the good.

We don't want to have too many platforms. We're honing in on which platforms are the best for us to focus on marketing. We have a huge marketing budget that we're like, “Let's do some paper, maybe billboard, and this for digital.” We're blending the old with the new because I don't know about you, but in real estate, realtors were successful a long time ago, before there was the internet.

That's what I tell people. I'm like, “You realized several years ago none of this was around?” It was the dawn of mankind up until several years ago. We have one of our authors who came out with a book in 2022, 94 years young. He is like, “Tracey, I'm going to print off the sheet and mail it to people.” He drove sales through the roof.

Never underestimate. It wasn't his older people. They got it in the mail, and they're like, “Otherwise digital, it's busy.” There are times when I'm not on social media, LinkedIn, or even in my email for days, and it's gone. It's good, especially since tech is another resource. It means enabling, but it's not the answer. It certainly will never eliminate the need for a personal touch.

There is power in print. You see what you touch with what you do. He's an example. Even for our fundraiser coming up, we do an ad in the Pennysaver. Let me tell you. Those bingo people came out of the woodwork. I said, “Let's try this in real estate.” You can tell hardcore bingo people, “I'm going to go for fun.” I'm like, “Go for fun.” Some of them are scary.

I'm like, “This is the power of paper.” Even if it's once or twice a year, the full-page ad. I've had recognition come through from Lebanon of like, “I saw your full-page ad.” Normally, it's nothing in particular, but it's there. They save it. I don't know how often you come across it. I come across it more. I have clients that don't have cell phones and computers.

I have it, too. They'll call me, and they want me to process an order. They don't even pay online. Are you kidding me? A huge portion of our audience is 60-plus. They're like, “Yeah, I’m not doing it.” I'm like, “I'll be here to help you out.” If I didn't have that ability or have a number and let everything bots do it, I'd lose them.

It's being evolved to blending it all.

I have a true bingo story. I'm not going to say what town I was in. I played bingo once at a VFW hall and I made a mistake. It was an honest mistake, but I was never more scared. I said, “I'm never playing bingo again because I'm not savvy enough. They go in there. They're ready.” One of my friends is like, “Go, come play.” I forget what happened. I didn't call something. It's like poker. I'm not going to play poker because if I lose the table, I can go to war, but I can't handle the pressure of poker or bingo.

Your mistake was going to VFW because they do bingo every week. Did you see the people that had their nomes and their five different daubers?

I should've known right then. They were like, “I went to war with these people. It doesn't matter. This is bingo. This is a whole other thing. Get out.” I was like, “Respect. I'm with you.”

The beautiful thing about this is that we have other brokerages. Some of their agents are sponsoring. From three other brokerages, they have reserved a table for ten. It was funny because, in 2023, some of the Hannas can't come out because I picked a date that they're at a manager's meeting in Ohio. I get it. In 2022, they were there. They were like, “Nicole, I can't believe how many agents you pulled in from other brokerages.” I'm like, “It’s because we can get along. We are competing, but we don't have to not get along.”

That's where people miss the boat because I'll even hear from AJ. Carlisle is small. Everybody knows each other. We compete, but we don't have to be ugly about it. Let's be good human beings. Let's come together for the greater good of the children in our backyard. There have been multiple agents in this region whose children, not Howard Hanna, because it's anyone, have benefited from the money we raise at Hershey or Harrisburg. Let's put all the competition aside and let's have a good time. That's been nice for the area because they're like, “We did it in the spring. We're doing it in the fall. Can we reserve another table? That was great.” They liked seeing these other brokerages there. That's what you want.

Competitiveness is so ‘90s. It's collaborating. There are plenty of homes, buyers, sellers, and wealth.

There are not plenty of homes.

The way they're building in South Central, PA, come on.

Who can afford them?

That's a whole other episode. I have no idea. I thank God we got in when we did. I couldn't get qualified to buy a home now. We did loneliness, weariness, and abandonment. Last is vision. I remember growing up listening to people like Zig Ziglar and Og Mandino. I'm like, “These guys are visionary. They're different than me.”

My dad was like, “Tracey, vision is two things. Seeing, having a dream, having a goal, and having a plan to get it done. it's vision, but it's means.” I'm like, “That puts it much more into something that Tracey can do.” How do you keep your vision? You went through some transitions. You've grown yourself and your team. How do you craft the future for Nicole and your Howard Hanna team?

First off, every day above ground is a good day. We're going to start with that. Everything changes quickly in every environment and the world, and you don't know. We're in such a volatile time. Things are crazy. Even with this emergency broadcast test, everyone got theories. They’re like, “What's going on that they're testing the whole country?”

Every day above ground is a good day.

My vision is to continue growing as one unit. We're four legs to a table. We're balanced. We got that. We're growing with the same goals to something better and greater. Does that mean selling more real estate? Sure, that's going to come with it. That's great, but building something unbreakable. The one thing we've learned, especially since there are four of us women and we're strong women, is full honesty.

We got that out of the way. With that, we're going to be unstoppable. We want to continue to grow the team into something that people come to us and say, “We want to work with you. We want to be on your team. We see what you're doing, and we want to be part of something better and greater. We don't want to grow a team to have a bunch of people to say we have a bunch of people. We want to grow a team that has the same core morals, values, and beliefs. The client always has to come first, even if that means you may not get a paycheck. You will because you put them first. They're going to be loyal to you and refer you. It's growing our culture.

Howard Hanna has an amazing culture. One of my partners said to a new recruit that we brought on, “I always knew it. I want to bleed green like Nicole. I can't describe it to you until you're here and you feel the culture. You get the loyalty.” I want to have our team together grow in that same culture that Howard Hanna has fostered for many years and has grown into a tremendous company. Have our team follow in that same footsteps to be customer service driven, and the business will come.

I love that you talked about how when you get in there, it finds you. We go out looking for things, but my dad, with life insurance, it found him. When it found him, he went all in. When you dial in and you finally find what you're looking for, even if you were, it's like your heart recognizes it. They recognize the team, the service they're providing, the enabling collective around them, and Howard Hanna with their reputation.

When those things all coalesce, I love that you said you don't know it until you see it and you feel it. Anybody can work anywhere and get a paycheck. You don't need Howard Hanna to have a good life, but you need something to make you feel like you're showing up for a shared vision with a collaborative team that is grounded. It's called value congruence. You can share those values. You get into this higher level of team building. You could do things for people, where it's not just transacting real estate.

It's a lifestyle. Being with Howard Hanna, being on my own, and having the team are lifestyle choices I made with the team. I'm learning to maintain a little bit of life, and still, my clients come first, but being able to say, “I am out of town, but I have these amazing people that can take you out there. I have my computer.” Everyone knows I don't even go to dinner at a restaurant without my computer in the car. I want to find that happy medium and share it with others and see it. Howard Hanna affords that.

Real Estate is a lifestyle.

There have been times when I've been like, “Oh.” That's loneliness and exhaustion. I'm like, “I'm right where I'm supposed to be. I feel it because of what's been instilled.” That's what I want to share with everybody who comes, works, or deals with. In my bio that you read there, I am not great at writing things. You've read my emails. They're a long run-on sentence of a paragraph, but that's okay. It's a running joke in my house, and I've embraced it.

I was on the phone with one of my best friends. She's at another brokerage. I said, “I have to write this. This was my highlights that I put in.” While we were talking, she typed it up and sent it to me. I'm like, “Is this what you believe?” She's like, “It is. I want you to copy, paste, and put that in there.” I'm like, “Okay.” It was nice to see, and I thanked her. I'm like, “Thank you so much. That's what you see in me.”

That's why we have other people because we can't read our own labels. I have my own coaches because I can help others, but you have to have others help you. The other thing is, Nicole, I'm going to get you set up with ChatGPT. It'll write a bio for you that will flip you out.

I'm ready for it.

I'm not kidding.

I need to refresh my bio and a new picture.

It'll do everything. It'll change your life. It's amazing. Nicole, thank you for that. We talked about the beautiful descriptor of vision. As we wrap this up, is there anything else we have not touched on about paying the price of leadership you would like to share with our tremendous readers?

Paying the price of leadership is good and bad. I have come to learn that, even when you're successful, and leadership is many different things, remember that you're human. I have to remember I am human. I cannot be everything for everyone all the time. I want to be. I do, but sometimes I can't. It's like picking where you keep moving forward and what may be left behind. I'm starting to come into that role and not because of the team, because that's where I was going, and the team was the next step to get me there. Whoever you are, stay true to who you are, and success will surely follow.

My husband and I joke because if we didn't have bad luck in a lot of senses, we'd have no luck. He's like, “Can we get one break? I don't understand.” I said, “Do you know what our break is? Our break is that through everything in our relationship, we've come out strong as a partner for many years together.” I was 17, and now I'm 52. We have two amazing kids, and our family is close. I said, “Every time we turn around, it seems like something's going amiss. We can look back and be thankful that we have so much of a blessing with our family unit.” That's where I say, “Keep being true and don't sweat the small stuff.” Sometimes, it gets to be big stuff.

The greatest blessing of all is what you have there. Thank you for sharing that. I was reading Oswald Chambers's The Devotion and he's like, “You have to keep the vision. God will take you and prepare you. You will launch into whatever when he says you're ready.” We don't know it all. It is good to focus on how far you've come versus how far you have to go because otherwise, women like us are achievers. Until our last breath, we’ll be like, “I should have done this.”

I am not going to have what I should have because I don't have a bucket list.

I'm sorry. I want to do this. We're going to keep doing it.

God has a plan. I said to my client friend, “Let go and let God. He's going to guide you. It may not be always the best, but there's a reason you're taking that path.” My stepfather was an alcoholic. I said to her, “Do you know the Serenity Prayer?” He's like, “Huh?” I said, “Let me finish brushing my teeth and I'll do the Serenity Prayer. Do you know how many times a week I say that? It’s because you have to. You can't let every crummy thing that happens consume you. Push forward. Move on. Don’t live in the past. That baggage is heavy.”

You need to let it go and keep moving up. That's a tremendous way, Nicole. That's why you're tremendous. How do people get ahold of you? I will put your information in the show notes, but what do you think, website or LinkedIn? What's your preferred method of contact if somebody's looking to hang out with you because you're cool or looking for a tremendous realtor in South Central Pennsylvania? I know everybody is coming to South Central, PA.

My husband says my phone is my pacemaker and my lifeline. You're going to put the link in there, which is great. It comes right to me. It is on 24/7, but cell phone texting is (717) 609-7619, or call the Howard Hanna office in Carlisle and ask for me.

Nicole, I can't thank you enough. It has been such a joy. I learned so much more about you. I already knew a lot. I hope God gives us 45 more years of wonderful friendship and we blow the roof off our dreams and goals together. Thank you for taking the time to share with our readers. I know they got a lot of information and inspiration from you.

Thank you so much for having me on and considering me for this. It is a great honor to be here on your show.

Thank you again, Nicole, and to our readers out there. I want to thank you so much for paying the price of leadership. If you like what you read, please be sure to hit the subscribe button. If you would do us the honor of a review, we'd be thankful. Those reviews mean the world. Other people can tune in and live a tremendous life.

Share with somebody who may need to read who is going through a season of loneliness and weariness how they can truly pay the price of vision and come out on the other side stronger and better. Remember, you're going to be the same person several years from now that you are now, except for two things. The people you meet and the books you read. Hang around with people like Nicole. Connect with her. Thank you so much for being a part of our tremendous tribe, and have a tremendous rest of the day.

Important Links

Nicole Pearson
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About Nicole Pearson

Nicole Pearson has been a full-time and full-service realtor for 16 of the 19 years she has resided in South Central PA. Her secret to success is exceptional customer service and relentless hard work. Nicole thrives on being collaborative with the other agents during transactions and assisting new agents while they are learning the business. She loves her career and it shows!

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Tracey Jones