LeadingLane Podcast

Steven L Burch (00:00)
Alright, welcome to the leading lane podcast. One of the topics that we're going to talk about today is being able to say that you are successful. I am successful and really I think it has a ⁓ crazy negative taboo about you're not allowed to say you're successful for whatever reason. ⁓ And people think it's, you know, egotistical or self whatever.

Whatever it is, but I think that one for me specifically, it was, I don't really necessarily see everything that is going on that is happening. And I, you you're always constantly, I was always constantly on the go, still on the go. And I don't stop to pause to think like, damn, I'm doing pretty damn well, right?

I need to pat myself on the back and I need to be able to say I'm successful. I'm doing a good job and really understanding that success is not a destination. It's really a journey and you have to enjoy the journey of it as much as you can. There's turbulence. Don't get me wrong, but I'm successful. Actually, you're successful, right? But how does that feel now versus, you know, when you first got into this industry, first started going?

and looking back, being able to see and look at people saying that they're successful, maybe what your opinions of them were then versus kind of what is your opinion of it now.

Ashley Fredrick (01:34)
Yeah, you know, I think that, like success, what that means is different for people too, right? I think that some people get ⁓ misled on what success means. I think we've talked like if it's the nice house or the nice car, means that you're successful. In all reality, some of those people could be six digits in debt, you know, is that successful? ⁓ So for me, I think I've always looked at when I was younger, like looked at people that were busy.

Steven L Burch (01:41)
Mm-hmm.

Ashley Fredrick (02:04)
I would probably say in the past, I used to think about if you had nice things that meant that you were successful. I think I have found that that is not true for everyone. You even our financial advisors will say that some of their wealthiest clients, you would never know. Like they have the tourist, they have the house that they bought in the 70s, right? So I think that that's like a misnomer. think that maybe to

Steven L Burch (02:25)
Right.

Ashley Fredrick (02:32)
Work ethic is sometimes how I tried to equate success, which is probably what I still struggle with today. So in my brain, you have to be working like almost all the time and then that equals your worthiness, which I know is not true. We have to try to figure out how to reel that back. So I think when I saw people that were busy or whatnot, that it was successful too. But I mentioned before that I ⁓ met someone that I graduated with.

Steven L Burch (02:39)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Ashley Fredrick (03:00)
graduated with earlier this week to show up property and they made some comment about Like it sure looks like you're doing well for yourself and things are going really well and I said like yeah who would have thought and we kind of

laughed but I think that's funny because You know like people are allowed to change and people Don't necessarily have the same personalities the same I mean, I say I'm not who I was in high school. I wish I could have the same ⁓

Steven L Burch (03:26)
and

Ashley Fredrick (03:28)
confidence that I do now for the way that some people acted. So I think that that's really just interesting how you morph over time and what that means. We were talking about a video where someone says like, hi, I'm so-and-so and the other person says like, hi, I'm successful. And like how weird that is to actually say something. I think really like what defines it is that ⁓ like if you're happy with what everyday life means to you, like it's not necessarily a numerical.

Steven L Burch (03:32)
Thank

Mm-hmm.

Ashley Fredrick (03:57)
figure that makes you successful. think it's, you know, we've talked about that before, like some people have quit high paying jobs in order to be happy and not be so stressed. So I think it is a matter of like being happy with who you are, where you're at, who you're with. ⁓ And for me also, it's like the ability to

Steven L Burch (03:58)
Okay.

Ashley Fredrick (04:17)
give back in some sense means success to me.

Steven L Burch (04:21)
Absolutely. And I wrote down, happy people are always successful. Successful people are not always happy. And I think that is wild, like of, you know, chasing the checks. That's what, you know, we think that you have to do, you have to work so hard, you have to hustle, have to have the grit, you have to go, go, go, do more and more and more.

Ashley Fredrick (04:26)
Mm.

So true.

Steven L Burch (04:44)
But I don't think that that does not drive the happiness. I think that maybe masks what is truly going on and you're suppressing what is truly going on. And when you can evolve into the person that you want to be and making sure that you're being happy yourself first, the success travels afterwards with that. And I think that that propels you. Because I too used to think that it needs to be the big house and nice cars and

you know, luxury vacations and the showy glam of everything. Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong, I need vacations. Don't get me wrong. I like nice things, but that's not what drives the success. And I think that's where people actually, you know, they don't ever stop to be able to say like pause and say, guess I'm good because they're always going to chase it. And because you're chasing it, you're now putting yourself in a position and a finance side of things.

that you actually might be hindering what that bottom line actually looks like. ⁓ And then now if you're unhappy trying to be successful, you're unhappy and you have some financial issues and then compound those two together, we're really, you know, contradicting of what we're trying to put the facade on to the public. Like, there should be no facade. There should be no number that needs to be in your bank account that...

says that you are happy. If you're happy, that's the most important thing in my opinion. And it's taken me a very, very, very long time to be able to learn that and truly live that. And it comes with boundaries. And honestly, I think it comes with a lot of the self-reflection too. I have a client that I'm working with that while we're talking and he's like, I want to be successful. want to be successful. So, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like what? Okay. First, what is success to you?

Cause that's, mean, like you said, that's totally different from one person to the next. ⁓ and I said, I want bullet points. I went, don't, don't tell me the fluff of all of these things that you think like, that you want to throw on there. Like what are the bullet points that make you successful period? And I made him list them out. And when we have done with it, he was like, huh, because he was able to check box each of those now because he already had it. And I was like, so now that you

have these and we've identified it, what it was, what does that mean? And it took him so long to be able to say that he was successful because it was almost this hindrance of he wasn't worthy enough to be able to say that at that point. And I finally made him, I was like, you need to tell me because you said once you have these things and now you realize you have them, you are successful. But if you keep on changing the line of success and not having it drawn out truly, you're always just going to be chasing the line.

live on the line and make sure that you know that you are successful. And believe it or not, he wrote a blog about it, right, and published it and sent it out to everybody. When I got that in my inbox, I was like, holy hell, that's a huge freaking step of being able to say that, being able to send it out to who knows who's on your actual email list here, but kudos, right? Like being able to say that out loud is a huge step and almost exhilarating and scary.

all at the same time. Right. So

Ashley Fredrick (08:12)
I think you just never

know who's listening or watching, right? So I think like I read it and I was like, I totally can relate, right? So there might be someone else that is struggling to, to appreciate that or to feel that. But I think it is important. The pause. think we miss the pause a lot. think we forget to reflect on everything that we have done or that we're just so busy. You just keep on tackling the next project before you actually realize like, holy crap. I.

I counted for all of that in the last year or the last five years, you know, like if we were to try to just go back to like what your life looked like maybe prior to COVID and what it looked like now. mean, everyone had to make loops and bounds in their businesses. They had to pivot. I think that was not my favorite word at the time was like, well, we're going to pivot again and we're going to pivot again. Right. And like all of that in its own form and success, like being able to pivot, being able to keep your business open to continue to.

Steven L Burch (08:51)
Right.

Right.

Ashley Fredrick (09:07)
grow, all of those types of things. I think that we have to remember that success comes in many different forms, but we can't forget to look back and appreciate like what it took to get there either.

Steven L Burch (09:19)
And that goes to, know, like, I know when I first started my journey on all of these things of self growth and investing in myself, it was always that and I know I said it on here before, but like, you are your business, right? So if there's no you, there is no business. And so if you are not successful as an individual,

And there your business is not going to be successful either. And so I think people try to look at, you know, a real estate agent, like let's say that they need to, you know, they to now do all these calls. They have to do this. They have to do that. And they think that's all these actions. And there are actions that have to come along with this income producing actions. Totally get it. But when you really pull it back and you get to see like, what is it, the reason why you are doing this and what is it that you are truly

after, not after units and volume, but what is it after for you as an individual? And I think probably eight out of 10 people, nine out 10 people can't identify what is it that they're truly doing. They just are constantly increasing that quota, constantly saying I need to sell more, constantly saying I need to make more. But what is it that you as an individual, your compass,

that is going to make sure that you're aligned with where you're going versus just continuously again, moving that goalpost down the line. So it's not also doing more. Like we don't need more. We just need intentionality of what you, what makes you happy.

Ashley Fredrick (10:55)
Well, I think like, let's be honest, most times like when you make more, you spend more. That just tends to go hand in hand, right? So I think that like if people are trying to use numbers to justify, don't think that that always works, but I think it does go back to putting yourself first. And if you're not putting the time and energy in and we've been guilty of it, but you know, I know that people have postponed.

procedures and postpone doctor's appointments like all for an appointment. And I think when I was younger, I used to do that too. And I used to think that that meant that you were successful or that right, that you were doing the right things to be successful because you were giving up yourself, if you will, to put someone else forward. And over time, I have learned how detrimental that actually is. And if those clients can't

Steven L Burch (11:37)
Great.

Okay.

Ashley Fredrick (11:50)
can't wait or won't understand, like I've always said, that

those are not the clients I wanna work with. If they don't understand that I'm gonna be out for three days because I'm sick or I'm gone or that I deserve to take a vacation just like everybody else does, then those just aren't the best clients.

Steven L Burch (12:03)
Right.

No. When you're talking about numbers and associating, ⁓ one of the things that has I really struggled with is I used to think that money equals the value, right? Like by

either receiving the money or making the money, but also to on the flip side of that of giving money as far as, you know, making sure that we're paying for the dinner for, you know, agents or paying for the signs, paying for. felt that I had to pay and give so much because that's what I related to value. And the value really is not the money, even though that has a monetary value.

The value really is the connection and the meaningful and the happiness and developing the relationship. That's the true value. And I think that then once I was able to shift that, that I don't have to pay for everything for everybody. I don't have to do all of that for them and make them more money. But once I create the relationship and really nurture that, as far as my agents, my staff, my team.

then that is the value that I get. That's the value they get as well. And then again, the money follows, which then drives success because I'm happy with my team. My team is happy with me. So I think it's all correlates one another. And who would have thought there would have been so deep rooted things that from childhood of what, how we're yeah, like how we, we view things in life and how that still relates over into business. So, you can self reflection, understanding,

Ashley Fredrick (13:36)
off of one word.

Steven L Burch (13:49)
What is the driving factor for whatever your thoughts are on success or value or money, right? Like all of it. So how does that really work? Because also with the same thing, breath of that, I always thought money was bad because you can't make too much money. That's the way that it was instilled in me growing up. Like don't show that you have money. You can't make too much money. That's not, not that I wasn't worthy of it, but it almost made me feel an ick of now that I'm making money.

even though I feel that I'm successful in one breath, but made me feel it because money's bad. Money's kind of the demon of it all.

Ashley Fredrick (14:28)
It's funny, know, especially being in real estate ⁓ now, but growing up, we always referred to one neighborhood as Snob Hill. And it was right, like because it was, you know, big houses, which now those houses are like a normal, a normal house. You know what I mean? But it was kind of funny. Like even when you were little, like they just automatically got lumped into this Snob Hill because they had a, you know, a nice car and again, like you don't, or a nice house.

Steven L Burch (14:45)
Okay.

Ashley Fredrick (14:56)
that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I think it's funny how you grow up in a certain small town USA and same thing and you know, people try to define your success for you. And it takes a lot of doing your own thing to be able to define it yourself.

Steven L Burch (15:02)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. So my takeaway for everybody that's listening. Number one thing is truly sit down and define what does success look to you? What is success for you? Not anybody else, not society's definition of what success should be like, not what your parents think it should look like, not what your spouse thinks it should look like. What

does success look like to you? And truly see if there's anything of, you know, numbers of dollar signs, ⁓ anything like that that is tied to it. And if so, scratch those out and continue on. What does it mean aside from the metrics, right? Metrics do matter, but not in this to define success as you as an individual in US for your business. So that's what I would say. What would you tell somebody?

like going through this journey just like what you have, what would you tell them to reflect on and how to evolve to being confident in saying that they are successful?

Ashley Fredrick (16:20)
Yeah, that's tough. You know, I think that you really have to take a hard look at like who you want to be as a human. Like what is your ultimate goal? Like, you know, where do you want to end up at the end? But also who you're taking along with you, I think also can define success as to who you spend your time with, who gets your energy, ⁓ where are you pouring your energy? Like those things to me all help define success. And I think

Just being able to make an impact is something we don't talk about either. And an impact is not necessarily, um, monetary, it's even like we talk about with the podcast, right? Like I find it a success because people come up to us at conference and we'll say, this one episode made me do this, or I changed that. like, to me, that's a success. So I think just trying to figure out what success means to you, like you said, and knowing that it can be all kinds of things. It can be.

⁓ Again, impacting people. can be monetary if that's what it means to you. It can be the right job, the right vacation, those types of things. But really what brings you happiness at the end of the day and then what can you do to amplify that so you have it more.

Steven L Burch (17:34)
You know, when you were talking about the who you have around you, we talked about that a lot, right? I remember there was a time like.

can't remember what we were doing or why, but we were kinda hanging around our island at our house with people over, and it got kinda quiet, like that awkward, like, where does the conversation go to next? And I just, out of the blue, said, like, what does success mean to you, right? Like, what makes you happy? And there was these guys, bikers, that were there, and they were like, what? And I made each person go around, right? Like, I asked these random questions at the random times.

And I made each person say what success means to them, what brings them happiness. And then later on, one of them came up to me and was like, nobody has ever done that for me. Nobody has ever asked questions and position it that way. Right. So I think that even to once you figure out what your success is, if you can challenge other people around you, because you want to make sure that their successes and their goals, aspirations in life, you want them to align with what yours are. They don't need to be the same, but.

Are you driving each other to go the same direction and challenging one another to being better humans, better individuals in whatever industry you may be? It just goes back down to the human and helping one another out for sure. Good chat. I'm successful. You're successful. ⁓ And I love it, being able to say that. So we appreciate everybody that tunes in. We appreciate all the messages and the comments. Keep them coming if you guys have any topics or

Ashley Fredrick (18:52)
Definitely.

Steven L Burch (19:09)
want to be a guest, please reach out to us. We would love to hear from you.