Transcript of FAAR Louder Episode:
HI everybody today we’re here with
Alicia Angstadt of the Angstadt Real
Estate Group and we’re going to talk about work life
balance how are you today
I am fantastic how are you
I’m doing great so
tell me a little bit about yourself and
running your business
so I I own a brokerage we’re a small
boutique brokerage in Fredericksburg
and um gosh a little bit about me i
could talk all day
I do have the brokerage I also have
three children
and a husband I do still work actively
in real estate as well as help
facilitating things along at my
brokerage
so that does keep me very busy along
with the the items and the
everything else that i’ve got to put
together and organize and
the extracurricular stuff for the
children as well so it does keep me
really busy
I also set a couple committees here at
the association of realtors
and assist with two different churches
so that keeps me very busy
wow that’s a lot what committees are you
involved with
so I uh well this year I’m actually co-chair
I’m usually chair of grievance but I
co-chair grievance
and I am on the nominating committee and
now we are forming a new
um diversity group a multicultural
diversity group
and so we are busy with that
wow so you are definitely got a full
schedule
so how do you how do you keep that
schedule straight what are what are some
things that you utilize to help keep up
so and and I have this conversation with
new agents all the time I always tell
them to make sure that
their family is on the same page as them
because
luckily for me my husband is in real
estate as well so we totally understand
schedules and
and everything else I have been in real
estate for 20 years
so my children have grown up in it
that’s all they know and they know that
when they see me
grab the phone it’s because I have to
take the phone call
um of course we’re working on client
time and maybe they’re not available
during the day and they’re only
available at night so my children have
grown up with the understanding that
this is what mommy does
as far as um making sure that
I organize things correctly in terms of
time
everything there’s you’re never going to
have and I’m trying to figure out the
best way to say this
you’re there’s never going to be a
complete equal balance of family and
work one is going to always take
precedence depending on
the importance of it at the time there
could be something that
is the contract is going to fall out if
you don’t take care of it and i’ve got
to get up from the table from meeting
and handle it and my children again
understand that my husband understands
that
I try to allow for time
for personal and not touch my cell phone
I also let my clients know I let my
agents know look I’m going to be
unavailable
or out of pocket from this time to this
time so there’s never going to be a
complete balance
I do tell all new agencies and even you
know agents who have been in the
business for a long time that are
struggling with this
make sure that that your direct circle
is on the same page as you
because if they’re not on the same page
as you they’re not going to understand
what we do so make sure they understand
our business
how we take phone calls how we respond
to emails and text messages
and there are a lot of people that have
it a lot more put together than I do
I don’t know how they do it I’ve tried
I’ve tried to sit down and schedule
every hour out and it’s very difficult
especially being in a broker’s position
because you never know when there’s a
fire that you’re going to have to help
put out or there’s an
issue that someone has just you know
I’ve got to have this taken care of like
right now
or my client you know only has this time
to this time to get this worked out so
you
that type of stuff you’re never going to
be able to schedule because you never
know we don’t have a crystal ball we
don’t ever know like what’s going to
happen at the time
so the easiest the easiest way to kind
of keep
things in line is make sure that at
least your core group
is on the same page as you if they
understand that that’s going to help
ease and transition into everything else
that you do in your business
it’s gonna also help if your clients
understand your timing and when you’re
available when you’re not available and
set that
up front with them like just make sure
that that is something that that you
establish up from with them
so you have a lot of things going on so
so you kind of have to prioritize and
obviously that changes but
when it comes down to it how are you how
are you prioritizing your commitments
so the best way to do that is to just
get your calendar out and I’m a very
visual person
like I love the fact that we can do
everything on our cell phones however
I like to have a piece of paper as well
I’m very old school like I like paper
still
I’m probably one of the few that does
but I love a paper file
and I have everything on a database but
I love everything paper
where I can grab it and look at it at a
glance I like my little at a glance
notebook
that has the calendar written out i
write everything down so then I can see
it
one thing that I do is sunday nights is
I write out everything for the week
so everything that I know that I’ve got
to take care of for the week and that’s
not the stuff that pops in on me that’s
everything that I know I’ve got to
accomplish
and then daily so sunday night I write
out the week and then I also write out
what I’m doing monday
and so daily at night right before bed I
write down everything that I’m doing for
the next day that I know I’ve got to
take care of
and then everything else that falls into
place I make sure that I get everything
that I know
I have to take care of that day done and
then everything else I try to get done
as I’m thinking of it I just make lists
I’m a list person love a list
I actually have charts for charts for
charts so just the way that my mind
Works
I absolutely understand that I probably
need a spreadsheet to organize my
spreadsheet that’s the same
same as me absolutely so you so you’re
very much about
writing it out keeping everything like
right in front of visual
yeah visual if you see it then you know
and then you can check it off
I’m a check list type person and even if
you’re not that type of person
start writing stuff down scratching
through it for me
it’s like this sense of euphoria like
when I scratch something through that
I’ve gotten it done
I feel so good about it just like I’m
like okay that’s good that’s done so I
can look at my list and at the end of
the day everything should be
crossed off or I will actually get it
done I’m a little ocd with certain
things
actually with a lot of things so if I
know that I have something to do I will
not be able to sleep at night the way
that my mind is
so I make sure that I write the list out
I scratch through it and if it’s
something that can be done the next day
I’m fine pushing that to the next day
but for the most part
write it out cross it off when it’s done
it just it gives you that sense of
finalizing out everything absolutely
So what are some things that you find
because obviously you’re like go go go
all the time it seems
but there’s still that personal care
element to it
how do you make sure that you’re still
getting enough time to recuperate
throughout your week
um personally for us my husband and i
get up in the morning super early and we
go to the gym
we make sure that we have that time it’s
it’s it’s good for a couple different
different reasons so you have the health
aspect of it but also
it’s the time that he and I are together
by ourselves and we’re kind of talking
about stuff and
just kind of getting the blood flowing
and getting oxygen moving along in your
body
and I think that for us like we
brainstorm when we do that type of stuff
um so we do that every morning it’s
consistency
again everything is so consistent with
what we do
um it’s like we have the same pattern of
what we do every day and so
I think that that helps facilitate
things along for us and it helps also
keep
that personal level to where everything
is not all about work
we have things that are scheduled
specifically for the children so we know
if we have certain things that we have
to do with the children
that’s the time if one of us can’t make
it we both try to make it to everything
for the children but if one of us cannot
then that’s fine the other one is always
there so we have
figured that out in the time that we’ve
been together which we’ve been together
for quite a while but
we have figured out the balance of how
to make sure that
the children are always getting the
attention the business is getting the
attention but again
at some point in time something is going
To take precedence over the other and it
has worked out really well for us
because of the fact that our family
understands what we do and they
understand how our businesses
the children are at the office every day
they get to see like the workflow
um you know I was through through two
different two of my three pregnancies i
was actually
pregnant while working and um that the
babies have grown up in the office
and it’s it’s just something it’s our
it’s our life like it’s just what we do
and we love what we do and
we just I don’t know how we make it work
for ourselves
so you amongst all of this you still carve
out time for things like
church and you even make time for things
at FAAR which we really appreciate
um why are those so important why are
those extra maybe people wouldn’t see them as
important why do they stand out to you
I feel that regardless of what you do
whether you’re religious or not
if there is something that you do in
your personal life you have to schedule
that the same way that you schedule
an appointment for work a lot of people
schedule everything for work and then
they fit their life in
we like to know what we do on a personal
level and then we fit the work around
That which some people would probably argue
with me on that but we know every you
Know every monday we do this every tuesday we
do this every sunday we do this
saturdays we like to do this so there
are other things that do fall in
sometimes
again with with in the middle of the
personal aspect
but we like to schedule our work
around our life because we are
you know we are who we are and we have
things that we do
that it’s on a regular basis where work
sometimes
is all over the place we know at least
every day what
we do on that day as FAAR as
FAAR a lot of a lot of agents don’t
realize what benefit they get out of
of just participating and coming and
feeling the
feeling you know every every bit of the
energy
and in the atmosphere that’s here at the
association
um I personally like it because every
time I leave FAAR i’ve learned something
new
it’s a conversation in the hallway
although right now it’s
very messed but um it’s you know the
conversation in the hallway of someone
an agent that you haven’t seen maybe
you’ve talked to them
you know six months ago but you haven’t
physically seen them it’s just getting
together and being able to feed off of
each other’s energy and I think it’s
very important for agents to be around
other agents a lot of people’s mindset
is I don’t
really need to hang out with them or be
around them because they’re competitors
Well if you come to the association and you
get a chance to actually be around
other colleagues and and other
people in our industry be it you know a
mortgage company or a title company
just being around them helps keep you
Going um they tell you new things that are
coming they tell you something that’s
happening in their office
is it going on in yours yet or is what’s
coming down the pipe there are things
That keep you connected and I think that FAAR
is what keeps you connected
thank you for your time today thank you
I appreciate coming it was fun