Books That Helped Shape Our Real Estate, Investing, and Mindset Journey

Christian: [0:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of the Awesome In Seattle podcast. This is your host, Christian Nossum with the Awesome Nossum Group at Wilson Realty Exchange, Inc. And today we are talking about our favorite books. Yes, books. We still read.

Shannon: [0:13] Rom-coms. No, that's not what we're talking about.

Christian: [0:17] I am here with my beautiful wife, my lovely co-host today, Ms. Shannon Nossum.

Shannon: [0:22] Hello. Hello. Happy to be here.

Christian: [0:24] Thank you for joining me. So yeah, this is a little bit different than normal, but there is a reason. Shan, you want to explain why we're here?

Shannon: [0:33] Yeah. So I, I mean, I read a lot. Christian doesn't quite read the same books that I read. Sometimes I read for fun, like maybe a little murder here or there or a rom-com, but we also wrap in some business books. Mostly Christian just reads business books, but I do read some real estate books too. And some of them have been really influential. And so in a podcast, like we educate you guys all the time on different parts of real estate. However, books can take you so much deeper on a particular niche or topic and really have the power to like change your mindset. I also think books are really important to share because Like where sometimes on social media, for instance, you might see somebody at a snapshot of time where they are right now. And you're like, hey, that's something that maybe I want to do. Maybe I want to flip a house or I want to do this or that. And you never know how they got there or what information that they needed in order to propel to the next step. And so I think sharing these particular Like pieces of knowledge that we gained through our journey. Not saying we're like at this perfect place or anything, but we have learned a lot and it's nice to be able to share, Hey, these are the things that kind of changed our trajectory.

Christian: [1:47] Yeah.

Shannon: [1:47] So that's why we wanted to do this.

Christian: [1:49] Yeah. Um, I mean, early on you, your mindset was a little bit different too. Cause you were, you know, Go to school, go to law school, become a lawyer, which is all the things you did. Yes. You weren't necessarily in the growth mindset, in the I want to learn how to invest mindset. That just wasn't how you were raised.

Shannon: [2:10] Yeah. I was uh I think typically there is that combo of couples so you have kind of the one person who's like maybe more entrepreneurial maybe wants to take more risk um and often I see this like in real estate you'll have that one person who's into it like that and then you have this other person who all they know is what most people know which is you know just do your normal nine to five And they don't really know what the other side looks like. It sounds scary and unknown and like maybe it sounds, oh, it's not right. I don't know. That's kind of what my mindset was just like blockade, blockade, alert, alert, danger.

Christian: [2:47] Yeah. Yeah. And I kind of forced you to listen to some of the books I was listening to and read some of the books I was reading. And I think that helped us get to where we are now. I agree. And it wasn't any sort of knock on you. That you weren't doing that.

Shannon: [3:04] That's just what I knew.

Christian: [3:05] Yeah, it's just what you knew.

Shannon: [3:07] Like that first book that really, I'm just going to jump in.

Christian: [3:10] Yeah.

Shannon: [3:11] So the first book was, it's a classic. Pretty much everybody's probably read it, but.

Christian: [3:15] And their first book, most likely.

Shannon: [3:17] Rich Dad, Poor Dad is that book that kind of changed things for me. And it was one of those books that made me go, oh my gosh, like I. I had no idea that I had this mindset or this way of thinking. And so I think that slowly, it took years, but like slowly opened my mind to being able to be an investor. And it's a good book. Like maybe you've read it, but your partner hasn't read it. Maybe you've read it, but your kids haven't read it. Like this is a book that I think is important just to get started.

Christian: [3:51] I 100% agree. And I think it's kind of the gateway drug to real estate investing for everyone. Not everyone, but the majority of people. Or just entrepreneurship. Yeah, exactly.

Shannon: [4:01] Is that entrepreneurship? Is that a word?

Christian: [4:02] Yes, that's a word. Good job.

Shannon: [4:04] Thank you.

Christian: [4:04] You're an attorney, but you know.

Shannon: [4:06] Sometimes I still have to wonder. What are words? Do I speak them? What are words?

Christian: [4:12] They do have a kid's version of this. We have the audio book. We have our kids listen to it. Let's move on to the next book. So another one that I don't know if many people know this one. And this is a huge one for us. It's called The Six Types of Working Genius. And this was an excellent book for learning what type of work gives you energy and what type really drains you. Because we all have different tasks that, you know, you love, you look forward to, you're doing it. It doesn't feel like work. And then there's other tasks that just feel like you're pushing a rock uphill. It's so hard. You don't know why. It shouldn't be that hard, but it just drains the hell out of you. This book helps you understand what those things are, how to differentiate them. It's also super useful for couples if you work as a team, if you have business partners.

Shannon: [5:05] Even if you're just running a family.

Christian: [5:07] Yes. It really helps to understand how to divide and conquer so that everyone is getting the tasks that they're the best at and removing the ones that really drain them. Inevitably, there's going to be things that everyone still has to do that drains you. Taxes. Yeah, taxes. Jeez, that's ours.

Shannon: [5:26] Except for accountants.

Christian: [5:27] Yeah.

Shannon: [5:28] But pretty much nobody's like, yes, I love the taxes, honey. Let me take care of it. It's my favorite thing.

Christian: [5:33] So that six levels or six types of working genius, highly, highly recommend it. Even if you're not in real estate, even if you are just, you know, you have a partner or you're at work or whatever, it's going to help you. They also have an online, you can pay, I don't remember what it was, 25 bucks or something like that. You can take a test online and learn that way. So pretty cool.

Shannon: [5:55] We still, after reading that book, I think we still talk about that almost weekly. And sometimes we'll find that maybe I'm really good at something, but it drains me a lot. And maybe he's just okay at it, but it doesn't drain him. And I'm like, great, that's your task. And so that's really just good for that. And also just as far as this, this episode goes, we're going to kind of start more generally. And then from there, we'll go into specifics for like agents, salespeople, real estate investing. And so we kind of have, these are more general books just kind of for your mindset. And maybe you'll read six types of working genius and go, I'm in the wrong job and I should be a real estate investor.

Christian: [6:36] Yeah. Yeah. So I guess we should have said at the beginning. So yeah, this is the general section and some mindset stuff. Next section is going to be books that are more geared. There's only three of them, so it will be short. If you're not an agent or salesperson, whatever. It's still actually the books are helpful. Third section is real estate investment focused books. And then the last section is books that just help you run the investment business. So that's kind of the outline of where we're going to go with this episode.

Shannon: [7:03] Yep. The next book and last book in this section on general like mindset money stuff is Work Happy. So I read this book kind of when we very first started our team because I'd never managed anybody before. And I really didn't know how. And I was worried that I wouldn't know how and I would be bad at it. And so.

Christian: [7:26] You didn't want to be like seen as a dictator or someone that's like super mean and stuff like that. And you wanted to make sure you did it right.

Shannon: [7:32] Yeah, and so there was no managing people for dummies. There probably is.

Christian: [7:36] There actually is. I guarantee you there is.

Shannon: [7:38] But we didn't read that. We read this instead. It was great. So yeah, this is just a good book to kind of help you understand how to work as a team with other people. If you do manage people, it's really helpful for that. And just designing your work and your life to be balanced and sustainable and fulfilling for you.

Christian: [7:55] Yep, and I think a big theme of this is, you know, money is important, but it's not the finish line. The point of creating wealth, building wealth, is to have more options. You have freedom, the ability to spend time on the people and the things that really matter most to you. That is the point of life, in my opinion, in your opinion. It's not just to get stuff and show it off.

Shannon: [8:22] Yeah. And I think that, I mean, you probably know this by now from hearing us talk, but our version of success is probably different than other people's and that's okay. I think everybody's version of success is a little bit different. Maybe one person's version of success is like, I want a vacation home at this specific location just so I can go to it. And that's really what it boils down to for them. Or in some people it's like, I want full freedom. And then some people love what they do. They just Want to add more to it. So, I mean, success happens in so many ways. So mindset's pretty important. The other thing I was going to say just about those books, real estate investing is not click here and then click here, click here. It's not going to be a step one, step two, step three process. So if you've never done it, or maybe if you are a real estate investor, you know, there's constant blockades and problems that show up daily that you don't know how to solve. And that's what you get paid for, your ability to solve the problems. And so these mindset books can really help you figure out how to have the right mindset to fix the problems. There's no book that's gonna be like, all right, first you do this, then you do this. And maybe you do those things and then you're on step five and it's like, and then the whole basement floods. And what are you gonna do? Because you have your Airbnb people coming in one hour and how are you gonna handle that? There's always gonna be problems, especially when you're doing real estate.

Christian: [9:45] Yeah, generally in real estate, the bigger of the problem that you can solve, the more money you make. I think in life. Yeah. Maybe. Exactly. Exactly. Getting your mind to be able to handle some of these stressful and unknown situations so that you can solve them without stressing out and being a mess. Like that's, that's a huge skill.

Shannon: [10:09] You still are gonna do it. Yeah. Sometimes I am stressed out and I am a mess and that's okay. It is okay. But everything's figureoutable.

Christian: [10:15] It is.

Shannon: [10:15] That's what I try to repeat to myself as. People are fighting about a dog someone got at midnight no one else wants in our 11 bedroom house. And they're all texting me. I'm like, it's all figureoutable. It's fine. They will solve this between themselves. I'm sure they will.

Christian: [10:30] All right, we're going to move on. So you don't have to talk about that anymore.

Shannon: [10:33] He's like, shall we talk about Shannon Strachan?

Christian: [10:35] No. All right, so these are three books that are great for sales, for agents, and for business owners. And this one, I think, is actually also just good for anyone. And it is one of the most famous books out there. It's how to win friends and influence people. This is a classic because it's not really about, you know, manipulation or being salesy at all. It's about being interested in people, listening well, remembering what matters to them and making others often feel seen and respected. Those skills matter in life, not just real estate. This is just a way to be a good human, in my opinion. We make our kids listen to this, begrudgingly, but we made them listen to this. Yeah, they listened to this whole book

Shannon: [11:20] on a long drive. And the first time I listened to this book, I don't think I read it on paper, I think I listened. I was, we'd been together 20 years at this point. You guys, when I tell you that I had no idea how much Christian learned from this book, I was like, wait, you do that? Wait, you do that? What, what, what? My mind was kind of blown. Like, oh, wow, this is really a great, because Christian's really, really good at dealing with people, particularly when it comes to real estate. And I've just listened to so many phone calls and I had no idea that these like magical skills could be learned. And they are from this book. And many other things, but there are some skills I've seen you use. I had no idea they came from this book. Yeah.

Christian: [12:08] I didn't either actually.

Shannon: [12:08] It's mind blowing.

Christian: [12:11] It's funny how you learn things and you don't remember how you learned it or where you learned it.

Shannon: [12:15] Well, that's where you learned a lot of stuff, let me tell you.

Christian: [12:17] Okay, next book.

Shannon: [12:18] Okay, next book is Sell It Like Serhant. I know, maybe people don't like Ryan Serhant, I get it. But I read this book years ago and at the time, I mean, I think we definitely had a team at that point. So I'm helping manage agents at that point. And I thought it was such a great book to have some real life examples of how he handled certain situations, how he navigated his clients, and just real life ways of talking to them, which I thought was great. Also his follow up, you guys, amazing. His ability to follow up is why he became so successful for sure. So I think if follow-up is a struggle for you, reading this book will make you realize that you can never follow up too much in Ryan Serhant's world. And he has had a huge amount of success doing that. So if you're an agent, I think this is a must-read book. I think it's amazing.

Christian: [13:15] Next up is Seven Levels of Communication by Michael Maher, I think, Maher. I read this, I don't know how many years ago, a long time ago. And it really, it resonated with me because it was kind of already how I thought about business. I was never into the sales part. I was always into the relationship part. My mentor always taught me that real estate is not about houses, it's about people. This book essentially talks about that same thing. And it's a fantastic book for agents because it focuses on how those relationships and, you know, just consistent communication can really create lasting relationships where you are able to help clients over and over and over again, because you did things right. You weren't sleazy. You didn't screw people over. Like normal common sense stuff that Isn't actually all that common. I feel like in this industry, unfortunately, there's definitely a lot of good agents out there, but there's definitely some that aren't so good. And I feel like if everyone read this book, It would change the perception of our industry because sometimes it's not so great out there. But this is a great, fantastic book to help you build a real community, a good referral network, and not just chase the next transaction. This really helped me. I mean, I've helped numerous clients buy, sell, buy, sell, buy, sell three, four times at this point over my 20 plus years of doing this. And I don't, I mean, that's, that's just goes to show, like if you treat people right and you help them get a great deal on the selling side and the buying side, they're going to keep using you over and over and over again. So.

Shannon: [15:02] Yeah. I think it's a really good one. If you don't, maybe you're an agent, but you don't have the greatest like referral network. You're not getting a ton of referrals. This is the book to read to figure out how to get those.

Christian: [15:12] Yep. It's definitely not a get rich quick type of situation, but if you're in this business, you're not in this business to be get rich quick. You're long-term. So you got to think long-term. Yep. At least you should be. Yeah.

Shannon: [15:25] Yeah. So I think. We should go on to investment books.

Christian: [15:31] Okay.

Shannon: [15:31] So this is kind of like our journey. I just realized like first we had to get our mind right. Then Christian's an agent. We're kind of doing the agent stuff. Then we get into investing. So we're just taking you along on our, I just realized kind of our process.

Christian: [15:46] Evolution of how we did it too.

Shannon: [15:47] We probably read these books somewhat in this order on accident.

Christian: [15:50] Actually a good point. Yeah.

Shannon: [15:52] Kind of funny.

Christian: [15:54] Okay, so- I mean, we totally meant to do that. That's how we set up- That's how we wrote this, totally. Yeah, the script and planned this out.

Shannon: [16:00] Yeah.

Christian: [16:01] Anyway, so one of the best- Books out there. Selfishly, we can say this because we wrote one of the chapters in it. But a really good book to get started in real estate investing is Return on Real Estate. So Leka is the author on this one. She asked us to write one of the chapters. And the reason why is because this book basically gives you a great rundown of all the different types of potential real estate options out there for investing. So our section is about student housing, rent by the room, that kind of stuff, because that's what we are experts in. But that book talks about BRRRR, investing, flipping, development, multifamily, all sorts of different ways that you can do real estate investing. Which in my opinion, you need to understand what those ways are before you choose to dive into one specific niche. Once you do dive into one specific niche, that's where you really start to become and can get in, become an expert. You can then spot deals faster. You can understand how to make a property worth as much as you can, like get the most value out of it. But you got to kind of understand all the different options first so that you can choose which one you want to go deep into. And then you really do need to just focus on that. Once you kind of have that one down, you can then start to layer other options out there. But in my opinion, you need to focus on something first, something small, not a whole bunch of different things. Because that's where I think most investors, you know, they get the shiny object syndrome and they see an ad for some other program or book. Yeah. And they get sidetracked and, you know, you can learn and learn and learn and learn and learn. That doesn't let you earn and earn and earn and earn and earn. I just made that up. I thought that was pretty damn good. You have to actually focus on one thing and then take action. Taking action is the biggest part. And so this book is a great first book to read to really help give you that wide breadth of knowledge. And then you can start to see which one feels exciting to you and doesn't feel like going back to the seven levels of genius or whatever it's called.

Shannon: [18:32] Seven, six, six, seven.

Christian: [18:34] The six types of working genius.

Shannon: [18:36] Yeah.

Christian: [18:38] Seven levels of communication.

Shannon: [18:39] Seven levels of the candy cane force.

Christian: [18:42] Six types of working genius. So there's going to be certain parts of real estate that are the same thing that feel super heavy and others that feel super light. So try and find one of these niches, niches, niches. Can't talk all of a sudden. That does feel light for you.

Shannon: [18:59] I'm trying really hard to make fun of you, but it's.

Christian: [19:01] You can.

Shannon: [19:02] I'm not you. I don't have a perfect joke just waiting in the queue for these moments.

Christian: [19:08] All right. What's the next book?

Shannon: [19:10] First of all, please read that. Read chapter four and tell us how you like it. Is it three or four that we're in? I think it's four. Great question. Read it and let us know what chapter we are.

Christian: [19:18] Yeah. Let us know in the comments. We read it. We don't remember.

Shannon: [19:24] The next book is about flipping homes. So it's called The House Flipping Framework by James Dainard. And he is a mentor of mine, but this book one really goes over, if you want to flip houses, this is going to show you the exact way to do it and his strategies. So if you're in Seattle, which you probably are, if you're listening to this podcast or maybe somewhere in the Northwest. This person is one of the best flippers in the country. And he's been working in this Seattle market for like 15, 20 years, flipping homes, thousands and thousands and thousands of homes. This is the person you wanna learn from. Not only is he one of the best nationally, but he does his work here. So this book is kind of a no-brainer if you want to flip a house. And it's a great book. He is super, super smart. He's on BiggerPockets all the time. And there's a reason for that because he really has an amazing expertise. And this book is going to show you how his process functions.

Christian: [20:22] Yep. We happen to have been on his TV show as well, which you can now find on Hulu called Million Dollar Zombie Flips. We were episode three of the first season.

Shannon: [20:32] Yeah, like mid-century mess.

Christian: [20:34] Yeah, that's the title of it. I think that's the title of our episode. So yeah, if you have Hulu, you can watch it. Million Dollar Zombie Flips.

Shannon: [20:41] Yeah.

Christian: [20:41] Episode three.

Shannon: [20:42] Yeah.

Christian: [20:42] You can see us. All right, next up is Raising Private Capital by Matt Faircloth. Tell us about that one, Chan.

Shannon: [20:49] Yeah, so this book I feel like is kind of a sleeper. I'm not sure this book gets talked about enough or even this topic gets talked about.

Christian: [20:58] I also agree with both of those statements.

Shannon: [21:00] So Christian and I were in real estate for a long time before we started actively investing. Actively investing means that we're doing projects like flips or BRRRRs

Christian: [21:09] or development, things like that.

Shannon: [21:12] So we did rentals for like 20, almost 20 years before we started actively investing. And there's a reason for that because we would make some money and we would have some extra money and we would go, okay, what should we do with it? And we're like, well, we could buy another rental. Okay, let's do that. And then it takes a long time to like build that capital. It's a lot of money. I mean, 20% down takes a while to earn that extra amount. And so we kept thinking like okay well if we want to like do something more active but we don't have enough money and so it was a constant struggle of figuring out well how are we going to get into active investing if we don't have the cash to do it like we just couldn't figure it out we'd ask other people who had done it in the past and like oh you just make the money and then you start doing it or find a deal and then the money will come we're like what is it too

Christian: [22:00] too slow of a process for us

Shannon: [22:02] It was also vague, like nobody was specific about what we were actually supposed to do. And so then we first started partnering with other people and then we would split 50-50 and we're like, there's gotta be a better way than this. How is everyone else doing this? And finally we found... Somebody talked about this book somewhere. I don't remember where. Maybe I was on a podcast just like this one. I don't know. And they said, oh, well, you just do it by using private money. And I was like, what does that mean? So somebody basically lends you their private capital. You take that and you go do your deal and then you pay them back with interest when the deal's over. So you don't have to have the money yourself necessarily in order to do these type of projects. And I just was like, that opens up a whole new world. So this book is great. Not only teaches you what does that mean to use private capital, but how and then how to raise it. So how do I go to other people and say, can I use your money?

Christian: [22:59] Yeah.

Shannon: [23:00] Which it feels really weird and it feels bad, but then you kind of have to get into the mindset of like, okay, I'm giving them an opportunity to make a return. Yeah. And so it's a great book to teach you that, but this is a, this really will break you open if you're like, I want to invest in real estate, but I don't have any money. Well, this is the book.

Christian: [23:16] Yeah, and I don't think you need to feel like you're taking advantage of anyone either when you do this, because that was kind of a thought that we had at the beginning. That was a big hang up that we had. And then all we had to do is just change our mindset on it. The people that we were lending money from. They were making way more profit than they would just you know having it in a bank account or in a money market or in a CD or something like that. We're giving them two or three times the interest that they would make and over a short you know less than a year usually time frame and They were super happy about it. Like they would love to do that because, you know, they knew us, they trusted us. And it was, you know, it's a win-win. So that's what we were always looking for. And yeah. Side note, if that's you and you want to lend money to us, we will happily talk. Reach out.

Shannon: [24:14] This is how you raise capital.

Christian: [24:17] All right. Let's move on to books that help you run your investment business. This was also a good one for just business in general. Not just investment. But first one is 10X is easier than 2X. This book challenges the idea that growth always means doing more like linearly. Instead, it asks you to focus on the true things that matter and eliminate the ones that don't. And for me, what this meant was Really, when you're thinking about, hey, how do I double my business? You think of all these little steps along the way. When you think of how do I 10X this business? That's such a bigger jump that you actually bypass a lot of the steps that you would normally do to just double. And even if you don't 10x, you're going to triple, quadruple your business along the way because you eliminated a lot of the unnecessary steps along the way that kind of held you back. When you build for a bigger growth, you can much more easily and quicker hit that growth. And that's how I looked at it. Another way that I looked at it too was it helped us I think we already had this mindset too, but it really helped to kind of cement our thought of we don't want a hundred doors in order to make, you know, $20,000 passive income. We want like five doors or as few doors as we can possibly have in order to hit our income goal. Because The more doors, the more headaches. The more doors, the more fridges and washing machines and appliances and furnaces and all these other things that you got to repair and headaches that you have to have. Our goal was always have the least amount of headaches while reaching our goal. And so this kind of also helped us, you know, realize that.

Shannon: [26:18] Yeah, it also, sometimes you go to conferences and people are like, I have a thousand doors. But then if you're like, okay, well, how much passive money do you actually make? Like if you're able to get to that kind of conversation.

Christian: [26:28] If they actually share for real versus what they boast.

Shannon: [26:30] It's usually not, yeah, it's an interesting comparison. You're like, well, you're not actually making that much per month. So I don't know if that headache is really worth it. Yeah. And so it kind of makes you feel bad about yourself while you're like, I have this many. And they're like, I have 47,000. You're like, oh, okay.

Christian: [26:48] But it's really not about that.

Shannon: [26:50] It's about the freedom you're getting from it, the amount of passive income you're making, how much is it appreciating. It's about all the other things. It's not really about that number.

Christian: [26:59] Unless your big goal is to have an ego that feels inflated, which that's not ours. And hey, if that's you, go for it. You do you. Make yourself happy. But I'd rather have fewer headaches and make more money.

Shannon: [27:11] Less roofs.

Christian: [27:12] Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon: [27:14] The next book is Buy Back Your Time, which I think is a pretty famous book. At this point, yes.

Christian: [27:19] Dan Martell is brilliant.

Shannon: [27:21] Yeah. And so this book is really about figuring out what things are the things I should actually be doing. Sometimes you create a business or to accidentally give yourself this really big job when you're supposed to be maybe trying to find some time freedom, and then you accidentally give yourself a job. And so this is really about figuring out what things should I delegate? How do I build my systems and how do I make things more repeatable so that I don't have to be a slave to this job that I've created?

Christian: [27:49] Yeah. And he wrote this before AI had kind of really taken over and now he uses it extremely, like in extreme amounts. And he, one of his things now is he actually buys companies that utilize AI and he helps like grow them and then sell them off. So that's what he's doing now. I want to say that he also has a new book coming out showing you how to use AI to buy back your time, which I mean, you can also just have a conversation with AI talking about this and it can help you do that too. So yeah, it's a fantastic book. If you haven't read it, please do. Next is Who Not How. This is another one that's similar to the six... Working genius. Why do we never remember the name of this? Six types of working genius. No, I know, but it's, it's, um, it's similar to that because, um, you don't need to always figure out, you know, How do I do that? How do I do this? How do I, I gotta learn how to do this now. I gotta learn how to do that now. No, you need to know who you can hire to do it. They're gonna be better at it if you don't know what you're doing. They're probably gonna do it a hell of a lot faster. And although you have to pay them, you're probably gonna get a better outcome at the end of the day too. So it's not always about how you get stuff done. It's who you bring on to get stuff done. You're gonna grow so much faster By bringing on and building a team of experts versus trying to do everything on your own. An example of this for us, although we understand construction, we hire a general contractor that oversees all of our DADU builds. He's just better at it. He knows the good contractors. He knows the ones that, or when to fire the ones that aren't great that are doing different projects.

Shannon: [29:47] He- And he's quick.

Christian: [29:49] He's so fast because he's done this for so long that he really knows how to schedule things up perfectly so it all syncs and you don't have these huge delays. And with real estate, Your time is money, like big time. You have to pay for that holding cost, whether or not they're actively building or you're sitting around waiting for some contractor to show up. So it can actually save you a lot of time. If you're sitting around waiting for three, four, five, six weeks because you didn't schedule things out correctly or you didn't get the permit in time because you forgot to schedule it or whatever, you can actually cost yourself way more than what it costs to actually hire The right person.

Shannon: [30:29] Don't let yourself be the roadblock for sure. Yeah.

Christian: [30:32] All right. Next up is Scaling Smart by Rich and Kathy Fettke.

Shannon: [30:37] Well, first though, if you read that Six Types of Working Genius, now that you're managing people, read it again.

Christian: [30:43] This is actually a really good point because yeah, your business has probably grown hopefully at this point. You need to reevaluate, revisit that book. You are going to learn a lot more than you did the first time you read it.

Shannon: [30:58] Yeah, and it's just about knowing for the people that work with you, okay, well, this person really likes doing this and they're really good at it. All right, they should be doing more of that. And I shouldn't be doing that even though I can and it's okay for me. Maybe I don't get depleted or get excited, but if they love it and they're good, hey, that's your task now.

Christian: [31:15] Yeah, exactly.

Shannon: [31:18] It's like taking that who not how and the delegation and figuring out who are you going to give it to on your team that's going to feel really good doing that task. So the last book is Scaling Smart. So this one is written by Rich and Kathy Fettke who are amazing.

Christian: [31:35] Yes, they are.

Shannon: [31:35] They're some of the coolest, nicest,

Christian: [31:38] smartest people that we've ever met. There are goals for who we want to be as we grow older. They are amazing.

Shannon: [31:45] They're goals for sure.

Christian: [31:46] Yes.

Shannon: [31:47] And so this is kind of about figuring out how you're going to take that investment business and scale it. I know it sounds Scaling a real estate business is really hard, actually. It's not easy and that's why people really get stuck working in it a lot. And so since Rich and Kathy work together and they've built some businesses, they're really good at explaining how you can do this in a way that is going to be effective and still get things done in a timely manner. Yes. And so it's really useful when you're doing deals and building rental portfolios and your workload just continuing to grow.

Christian: [32:27] Yeah, this was a super helpful book for us. Again, working together, but also trying to understand how we can scale while actively growing at the same time and not making a ton of mistakes. That's the beauty of books that are great. They help you bypass mistakes that are extremely costly, both in time and money, because you can learn from other people's mistakes and not make them. And that's the definition I think of wise. And I think this book is very wise because it will help you understand that.

Shannon: [33:04] Now it's time for some tips. So Christian has ADHD. Yes.

Christian: [33:09] As do a lot of people that are in real estate. So a tip that I can give, and I learned this just by accident. I had actually bought a book, you know, in the airport, you have a delay, you go to Hudson News or whatever the bookstore is, you pick up a book that looks interesting, you buy it. While I was sitting there waiting, I was like, oh, that's also on Audible and I have all these credits saved up. I'm just going to buy the Audible book as well and listen to it while I'm reading it. That was the shortest flight of my entire life. I went through three quarters of the book and I've never done that with any sort of book before, even just listening auditorily. Is that the right way to say this? I don't think so.

Shannon: [33:52] Why don't we know how to say any words today? Fire us immediately. Yes, we're done.

Christian: [33:56] Podcast over 170 plus episodes. We get the ax. Anyway, although I can listen to a book on Audible quickly, that doesn't mean it sinks in. Just means I read it.

Shannon: [34:09] And I heard it. When I say quickly, I mean.

Christian: [34:11] Real quick.

Shannon: [34:12] Yeah, I get in his car and he's like, I'm like, Christian, I can't understand this at all.

Christian: [34:17] It's like almost two times speed. Yeah, it's fast. Depends on the reader, obviously, but it's fast. It's fast. Yeah. So having that and having the written book in front of me. I got so many more takeaways from it. I was able to pause, write notes in the book, and just digest it so much better. So just a tip, if you haven't already learned that and you haven't started doing it, give it a shot. You might really, really learn a lot.

Shannon: [34:45] And the authors will appreciate it.

Christian: [34:47] Yeah.

Shannon: [34:47] Because you'll buy it twice.

Christian: [34:50] Support your author.

Shannon: [34:51] Support your authors. And the other tip I wanted to give is about our kids. So I know that a lot of people who are in this business, maybe their kids are like, I don't want to do what you do. You know, maybe they're not really interested or they just don't really care. One thing that we've done is for our kids, any book that they read, that's like kind of like a self-help or anything that make them a better person. Those books, we pay them $20 if they read it. And so just last night, actually, our youngest daughter read- Our nine-year-old,

Christian: [35:24] The Confidence Code for Girls.

Shannon: [35:27] Yeah, which is a great book. And it goes over real life scenarios for kids and how to deal with it. And she read that book, she earned her $20. So we kind of quizzed them on the book afterwards just to make sure they actually read it and what they got out of it. And then they get their money. So that's a good tip. I've heard this from another parent, and I think it's a really smart way to get your kids, one, reading, and two, reading things that really will benefit them in the long term. And then the third, not third, the other thing that we do, like Christian said, when we're on a long drive, whether we're driving to a sports game that's a half hour, 40 minutes away, or we're on a couple hour drive, For part of that time, we will listen to these audio books like How to Win Friends and Influence People. And then sometimes we'll pause it. Richest Man in Babylon.

Christian: [36:15] Richest Man in Babylon. Yeah.

Shannon: [36:16] We'll pause it and be like, guys, what do you think about that? And try to sometimes, as all kids are, they're not always totally interested in this or engaged.

Christian: [36:25] No.

Shannon: [36:25] Here's the thing.

Christian: [36:26] We ain't perfect. Just throwing that out there. They don't always want to hear what we want them to hear.

Shannon: [36:30] But. However. If it's on, they're still soaking it in. Whether they are that excited about it or not. And so I think just like whether you're doing it for 20 minutes, just do it anyway. Let them listen to it.

Christian: [36:48] It can't hurt for them to get that knowledge. Even if, again, they're pretending they're not listening, it can't hurt. I think that's it for this one. I hope you guys learned something. I hope you picked up some new tips. We tried to not go over the standard books that everyone knows and kind of some of the more hidden gems that maybe you haven't heard of. Definitely check those out. Also, tell us, leave in the comments section, let us know or DM us on Instagram. AwesomeNossum is just ours. AwesomeNossumGroup is the real estate agent business. Either one, they both go to us. But let us know kind of what your... You know, whether it's hidden or not, what your most influential book has been or books have been, we would love to know. And we can, you know, read it and then discuss it or just discuss it with you. Because the more you can do that, the more you're going to learn. The more you can learn, again, the more you're going to earn. I got some great taglines today. I'm just pulling out of my mmm.

Shannon: [37:51] Your mmm?

Christian: [37:53] I didn't want to swear, so I said mmm. Okay.

Shannon: [37:58] Well, that's a lovely way to end this episode.

Christian: [38:02] Thank you again for listening to this episode of the Awesome In Seattle podcast. Again, if you want to reach out, DM us on Instagram at AwesomeNossum or our real estate brokerage team at AwesomeNossumGroup. That's it for this episode. We'll see you on the next one. See ya.