Episode 34 – Emotions in Real Estate Negotiations with Kevin Stark

Episode Summary

In this episode, we spoke with Kevin Stark about how to manage all of the emotions that arise throughout a real estate deal and looked at the sales that happen to us all on a day-to-day basis.

Should you want to reach out to Kevin for any questions on this episode or for real estate questions or services you can reach him at:

602-904-1000 or kevin@starksells.com. You can also connect with him on Youtube, Instagram, or Tiktok @StarkSellsAZ or Facebook at Kevin Stark Real Estate.

Listen Through Website

Listen on YouTube

Show Transcript

David Enevoldsen: All right, hello, everybody, and welcome to yet another episode of the Emotional Embuffination podcast. I am your host, David Enevoldsen, and here on Emotional Embuffination, we are training to become emotionally buff enough to overcome any conflict in life, and at the same time we are trying to discover and optimize and just maximize all those really positive, successful, happy feelings in life. This podcast is just one of a number of resources I have available. If you want to learn more about that check out the Emotional Embuffination website, which is embuff.com. That’s E-M-B-U-F-F.com. When you are on the website, make sure that you sign up for my newsletter and in the newsletter you’re going to get quick weekly Emotional Embuffination tips. Okay. On today’s show, we are going to be talking with Kevin Stark about basically emotions in the real estate negotiation process and really any sort of negotiation process. Kevin is married to his lovely wife, Kimberly, going on 11 years. They have three wonderful children, ages nine, six and four. And Kevin is celebrating his 13th year as a full time residential realtor who works mostly off referrals, selling an average of 30 homes a year. His clients consist of home sellers, first time home buyers, homeowners moving up or downsizing, and investors building their real estate portfolio.

David Enevoldsen: He’s teamed up with one of the Phoenix area’s largest and leading real estate brokers, Realty One Group, and he’s passionate about consistently growing personally and professionally and doing his best to better the lives of others, which is where Kevin and I take our joy in our conversations. I’ve known him for quite a while and we spent a lot of time talking about personal growth and how to improve ourselves and just all the things that Emotional Embuffination stands for, living your best life possible. So Kevin, thank you very much for agreeing to interview with me today. I feel like I’ve known you for quite a while now, and Kevin has helped me with a couple of real estate purchases at this point. The house that I’m presently in and I’m in my home office at the moment doing this recording, and you helped me purchase this house. So I feel like we go back a little bit and I can attest to your doing good work and I actually feel like you’ve probably been the best realtor I’ve ever worked with. So with that intro,

Kevin Stark: Thank you.

David Enevoldsen: How about, tell me, so obviously you’re a realtor. Tell me a little bit about what you do and your background.

Kevin Stark: Yeah. Appreciate it. First off, thanks for having me. This is exciting. These are fun. Just to be able to have an opportunity to have a great conversation back and forth on, you know, doing better, trying to be better and and help in any way that we possibly can. Um, been a realtor for 13 years. Really enjoy it, which was a really odd twist of, of my goals, I guess, over life. Just because graduated college as a geologist and got in the natural gas industry for a while and just made a massive 180 shift based off people, just people alone, being able to be around people, interact with people and just have that different change every day. And real estate through some other resources became an avenue that I explored and fell in love with. I mean, it just mainly for the different people interactions and the opportunity to to be with those and serve those people. So.

David Enevoldsen: Can you elaborate a little on that shift there? So how do you go from geology to real estate and how do people play into that?

Kevin Stark: Yeah. So I learned something about myself about 28, 29 years old. And I’ve kind of come to this just realization of my own observation that there’s two types of people, people that really want to be around other people, more like extroverts and people that would rather not be around people, you know, they’re plumb happy being in an office all day, working by themselves, taking phone calls, whatever that might be. I am not one of those. Being in an office away from people is incredibly difficult for me. And when I was in the geology realm, working in the natural gas industry, I was 100 miles out of town working on the natural gas drilling rigs with the same rig crew, 3 or 4 guys all day long. And the people interaction was drastically different. And so just through reading some books, one of them being Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and learning more about the real estate industry and and just the opportunities there, I dove into further education and further classes and and just kind of felt this passion come alive in me for a change because I was even though I tended to excel a bit in the geology world, I just I was massively bored. I just there was no growth. There was no pull there to be better in any way. And so.

David Enevoldsen: What is it that drew you to geology in the first place? Have you thought about that?

Kevin Stark: Yeah. So, um, first off, growing up and I grew up in Wyoming and up there in Gillette, Wyoming, it’s a massive mineral industry, coal, natural gas, methane gas. And so being around that realm, you know, you kind of get get pulled into this whole, um, I guess, environment of all the natural gas and natural mineral resource that can be part of it. And learning about geology could have been a petroleum geologist to get more into the oil and gas industry and and work for, you know, big companies like BP Oil or things like that would have been an opportunity or or a route that actually a lot of my friends in college took going down that industry because I also graduated from the University of Wyoming. So just being in that whole realm of Wyoming was more of pursuing that natural gas oil aspect to it based off me just growing up there. And so that’s what got me into it and wanted to be outside and think that I wanted to be interactive in this whole science world, which was super fun and awesome for a season. But there was just a part of it that wasn’t enough of a challenge, and the part of it that wasn’t enough of a challenge was the people, you know, and just the opportunity to to serve multiple people at a higher level was definitely a desire for me that I didn’t know I had. I didn’t know I wanted to be around people until after college and doing my career for a few years. And then whenever I got around people, my energy came up. You know, I came alive. I’m like, I love this. What can I do to be to be more around people?

David Enevoldsen: Yeah. So you consider yourself to be more extroverted going back to your dichotomy a minute ago.

Kevin Stark: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s funny because in I’m a firm believer in kind of opposites attract. It’s just funny as you kind of even see like husband and wife couples, right?

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: My wife, so I’ll sometimes have client parties or gatherings. Which you and Tabitha have been to before, but it’s like I go to those gatherings and they’re all,

David Enevoldsen: For anybody, listening, Tabitha being my wife.

Kevin Stark: Yes. And there will be anywhere from 20 people to 60 people there. And after those gatherings of 2 or 3 hours of hanging out for those people, I’m energized. I come home, I’m like, Let’s go do something else. Let’s go run a mile. Let’s go have some fun. Let’s go, and my wife comes home and she’s like, I’m going to go to bed early.

David Enevoldsen: So she’s an introvert.

Kevin Stark: She’s well, she she can communicate at the time when she needs to, but and it’s not that she doesn’t like being around people. It’s just that being around a group of people takes more energy than it gives her. And being around a group of people gives me more energy, you know? So, yeah, she’s definitely more the introvert and I’m more the extrovert.

David Enevoldsen: Well, I can, speaking as an introvert, I can very much relate to that. I mean, when I go to those events, for example, I find it draining. You know, it’s I’m the same thing. I get home from some big event and I feel like I just need to be alone for a while and hide in a room somewhere or go to bed or whatever. So I get that. And it’s interesting, though, that you picked a spouse that is the opposite. Do you do you find that challenging in a relational sense?

Kevin Stark: Um, you know what it’s been nice is that it’s actually been grounding in a little bit of a sense because it kind of brings a little bit of a peaceful thread to my sometimes energetic wanting to go do a bunch of multiple things.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: And then it starts to kind of balance an aspect of going, “Hey, we’ve been running around this week doing things with kids or sports or school or volunteering opportunities or work events or things like that that I’m doing. What about time together as a family?” You know? And what about kind of winding down and kind of getting back to your your foundational rhythm as a family rather than always being busy? And so when I was younger, I found myself always being busy. But I don’t know that I would say I had a consistent rhythm, you know? And when you get a family with kids, that rhythm is really important because you’ll even see it in your kids. You know, if you don’t if you don’t have somewhat of a pretty structured stability and a rhythm as a family, your kids will act out and they’ll they’ll fill off with that energy and that rhythm. And and I’m firm, I’m a firm believer that there’s that energy out there that has a certain vibration and pattern to it, that when it’s followed, everybody can kind of be in rhythm with that. But when you’re when your energy is all over, you’re high, you’re low, you’re up, you’re down, you’re everywhere, you know, people feed off that, too, but not in the best way. It’s unpredictable, inconsistent. And so she’s definitely added some consistency into my often inconsistency.

David Enevoldsen: Well, and sorry to dive into this, but I feel like this is very relevant to the Emotional Embuffination umbrella. So this to me is a fascinating topic. And we’ve talked about introverts and extroverts, and at the end of the day, we’re talking about psychology and well-being and optimizing happiness and all of that. That’s kind of the mantra of Emotional Embuffination. So maybe if I can dive more into that for just a second, what do you think that there are drawbacks then of if you were just an unchecked extrovert or you were married to another extrovert or something like that, do you perceive there being a problem? Would you not find that rhythm that you were describing if you were in one of those situations?

Kevin Stark: Uh, good question. I don’t know for sure. I’m trying to think of just my wife and I are fascinated with this topic as well, just by looking at other couples, you know, other friends that we have. And either the wife’s an extrovert, the husband’s an introvert or vice versa, you know? And just kind of how how we just often see that opposites attract. And I’m trying to think of somebody that they’re more both pretty big extroverts and, I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, but just regarding my own life, you know, not only has like my rhythm of just being able to have consistency in my life, just being able to be grounded at certain moments, but also just in the way that I communicate. So kind of like an Italian family, and I’m not saying that I’m Italian necessarily, but just like there’s lots of yelling and hollering and everybody’s loud. And that’s kind of how my house was at times growing up, is everybody’s just loud. Not disrespectful necessarily, but that’s just communication-wise of, you know, hey, if you want to be heard, you better make yourself heard. And and that’s not how my wife communicates.

David Enevoldsen: Right.

Kevin Stark: So even if, like, you know, we go through times of, hey, we’re having a confrontation, I might start to get loud. And she just goes quiet.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: And then she just won’t come back alive until I bring it all the way back down to where we can have a similar conversation, you know, conversation. So, so the whole opposite aspect to it has been a blessing more than I think it would ever be a trial. Um, we got another couple that’s their opposite we’re good friends with. He’s a more of an introvert and she’s more of an extrovert. And we went to a concert with them one time and the husband was laughing about it just because I mean, it’s so just the way him and me and his wife think and the way that him and Kim think back and forth. Kim being my wife, the way that him and Kim think is so similar. And he he made a comment. He goes, you know, if you look at if opposites did not marry, he goes, for example, if Kevin and his wife Karen, if Kevin and Karen got married, he goes, they wouldn’t know which way is going, which they wouldn’t have any consistency in what’s going on. They might, you know, see each other. They might never see each other. He goes, if me and Kim got married, he goes, we’d probably be in bed before the street lights came on at night. Right? Like, there’s just this aspect of, um, heard it said another way in the book is that the, the husband being more of the introvert, the wife being more the extrovert, he said without her I would live an incredibly structured, boring life. Without me, she would be in jail. You know, so you start to see this.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: Back and forth aspect to it, which is just fascinating to watch. So I don’t know of two extroverts really thriving, um, that I can think of. I think there’s big similar at some point. There’s opposites that are there.

David Enevoldsen: For sure. Well and this is you know, as you said, this is a topic I’ve thought a lot about. Again, just because it falls under the psychology umbrella, which I’m fascinated with. My my last big relationship, my first marriage, my wife was very definitely an extrovert. And as I said, I’m an introvert. So again, those kind of reciprocals and it didn’t there were problems that came out of that in my mind. But I felt like some of that was just not understanding the reciprocal. Like she needed to go out and do things. And, you know, if I wasn’t being loud or constantly out in front of other people, there were times when she would get upset. Which frustrated me because it felt like she just wasn’t understanding what I was wanting or needing. So it sounds like you’re listening to what your wife wants and kind of toning that down. Also, if you use the I’m kind of big on the Big Five Personality Aspect Scale, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. I did a podcast episode previously on it, so I won’t beat that into the ground right now. But under that model, kind of extraversion is essentially just the when you have somebody that is motivated by the pursuit of positive emotion. So to what you were describing, if that is left unchecked and somebody is just kind of perpetually chasing things, we’ve seen like there’s some case studies I’ve seen with people who are heavily extraverted that kind of seem to ignore risks of things and they sort of chase stuff down and like you said, might end up in jail or something like that because they’re just in this perpetual mode of I need to hunt down the good stuff, which can lead you down some potentially dark paths.

David Enevoldsen: So that’s to me, that’s a fascinating dialogue about this sort of check between the when you have the complementary systems that are drawn together in a relationship and how they can kind of hold each other in place provided that I think you were understanding what the other one is wanting or needing. The, interesting. Okay. Now that I’ve dived off on that little topic for a minute here, part of the reason that I thought you would be a good fit for the Emotional Embuffination theme is that you are a real estate agent and you do a lot in sales and you pay a lot of attention to self-improvement and psychology and all that stuff. I know from having talked to you. And I think that sales, which is, I think one of the hallmark ingredients to a real estate deal, so I’m sure that you’re dealing with that constantly revolves very much around psychology. And I think we’re all sort, of correct me if you disagree with this, but I think on a day-to-day basis, even if you aren’t working as a real estate agent or negotiating sales of some sort, we are engaged in sales all the time. You know, if I’m just speaking to my spouse, I’m selling something very often. I’m like, I want to go out to eat or something. I have to sell that to a certain extent. And sometimes you’re trying to offer something that is good for someone. You’re offering a sales pitch to make them improve their lives. So I guess, first off, do you agree with that statement in terms of the applicability of an understanding of the psychology of sales as applying to the rest of life?

Kevin Stark: Absolutely. I mean I get, it’s a book I read up here that I love, and I didn’t really understand it at that depth until I read the book by Grant Cardone. Sell Or Be Sold.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: And in there he just outlined the aspect of like every single day you’re either selling or you’re being sold. You’re either buying or you’re, you’re selling something, like you said, whether that’s a dinner, whether that’s a movie you just saw, a book you just read, some clothes you want to go buy, a program you want to buy, some time you want to have together. Like you, I mean, even with our kids, you know, we’re selling them on bedtime. We’re selling them on healthy eating. We’re selling them on doing their homework and having faith that in the future this will benefit you. Believe me. Trust me. You know, let me sell you on this. And you know, sales the word sales can get such a negative connotation to the word itself. But I think.

David Enevoldsen: Why do you think that is?

Kevin Stark: Because it’s been misused. I think it’s an aspect of I heard it on Dave Ramsey’s podcast one time and he’s like, define sales, somebody said define sales. He said one word. He goes, “serving.” Sales is serving. Sales is not getting. Sales is not what can I get from this? Sales is an aspect of how can I help you? How can I serve you? First off, does my product fit you? Are you someone that I’m in the I’m in the wheelhouse to be able to actually help. And so and that’s, I believe, the proper way that sales should be viewed. And I don’t think sales should be a negative. You know, somebody drives on to a car lot, you know, car salesman have a negative connotation in the aspect of always trying to sell something somehow of a car. But somebody first drove onto the car lot like, why are they on the car lot if they’re not looking for a car? They’re looking to be served somehow at some level, you know, to be sold of buying this car. They want to be sold on this car.

David Enevoldsen: Right.

Kevin Stark: Um, there’s an aspect of selling that I think I wish more people understood. And that’s just in the aspect of let’s just take media, for example, whether that’s social media or the nightly news, the morning news, whatever it is, the news is a sales business. So let’s just talk about the purity of truth in everyday life and living. The media is a sales business to to try and get a lot of us to stress about things that are beyond our control. Therefore selling us on why we should watch the news and how they’re going to have the answer to something that they told us about that we don’t even have any control over now, causing us a massive amount of anxiety, worry and concern in our own mind and life and energy and vibrations to our family, friends, spouses and our own careers on something that we have no control over.

Kevin Stark: Meanwhile, the news is just trying to make a sale to create income. It’s like one of the guys that I, uh, guys that I would talk with in a group we have every week is he goes, you know, I used to be able to read one newspaper and get a general idea of what’s going on in the world. He goes, now I have to put 12 newspapers together just to get just get half of an idea of what’s true and what’s not. Because the news when it first started used to be kind of like, hey, this is what’s happening. And we’re reporting on it to keep you updated on, let’s just say the truth of a storm, for example. A hurricane recently, right? Coming to land. We want people to be safe. Here’s the updates on it. But there’s an aspect that there’s another aspect of news that is relayed out there, that is they’re just trying to get get sales, get ratings, get attention to it so you have negative connotations of sex and drug sales type mentality to impact people’s life in such a negative way.

Kevin Stark: It’s like the news started out as such a wonderful resource to be able to inform people and quickly became a sales avenue that people have to recognize. What are they buying? And not saying you can’t watch the news. All I’m saying is when you watch something like news or review posts on social media, what are you buying? Like, just be aware that you’re either buying or you’re not. And that has an effect. You know? If you buy into the doom and gloom, you know, the economy’s not going to make it. And massive recession’s coming and sell everything and the stock market’s sinking. Get all your investments out of there. You know, you buy into some of this stuff, you better have a really strong, deep understanding of what your plan is and what you’re going to do and how that directly affects you.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: Rather than just an emotional like we talked about, emotional strength, emotional intelligence here. Emotions are incredibly dangerous. And the news sells based off of that. A lot of their information, which is half truth or no truth. That’s not just my opinion. That’s true.

David Enevoldsen: No, no. I actually very much agree with you. One of the things that I pitch on Emotional Embuffination’s umbrella again all the time, and I’ve done numerous videos and other things on this is to not watch the news. Just because I feel like at this point it’s become pretty much just destructive. I think to your point, it feels like most of the time we’re selling fear and the sale of fear doesn’t usually do a lot of positives for you. I mean, fear has its place. And I’m not saying you should never feel fear or just ignore fear if it’s there, but I think when you spend your life wallowing in fear, it’s it can definitely become a problem. It can definitely become a limiting factor in anything you want to do. Another thing you said there that kind of resonates with me is the this idea that sales has become associated with just people wanting to get something from you and it feel like it’s become just, I guess, to agree with you, it feels like a lot of people associate it with like the used car salesman who everybody thinks is just trying to dupe them and just get some of their money and then throw them something that is not of value. Like they’re not being served by the salesperson. So I think it does carry a very different dynamic if you’re actually trying to sell something to someone of value. The one of my favorite Napoleon Hill quotes comes out of Think and Grow Rich, and he talks about, “The day of the go-getter has passed. He has been supplanted by the go-giver.” Which I’ve always really liked that because he’s essentially saying, you know, if you want to make money, if you want to close sales, do things that are going to bring value to you, you have to give you have to provide value to somebody else.

David Enevoldsen: And I guess one more thought and then I’ll stop rambling here is that a lot of times I’ve noticed that people hear this concept but don’t think that they actually believe it, you know? And so I’ll go to like networking meetings and I’ll hear people that seem like they’re almost programmatically saying things like, “What can I do to serve you?” And they don’t actually care. Because when you start explaining, they’re just like, okay, I’m just looking for a sale. And so there’s it’s really hard, I think, as an average consumer to kind of pierce through all of that mess. The selling of fear, the I just want to get something for nothing. I want to take the money that you have and not really provide something of value back and actually get to something that is of value. And so I think we have this negative association with sales. That is exactly what you were describing there. So can you explain to me a little bit about your thoughts on the sales process. You’re doing like a real estate deal or any kind of sales, I guess. But particularly in the real estate context, where do emotions come in? Where do you start seeing that and where do you see it sabotaging things? Where do you see it making things go right? What’s your perception on that?

Kevin Stark: Yeah, and I think there’s emotions throughout every single step. I mean, homes, you know, homes are one of the biggest things that are viewed, explored, looked at by everybody. I mean, homes and cars, two biggest things people are just fascinated by. Drive down the road, you’re looking at everybody’s car. Even if you don’t want a new car, you’re just fascinated. Oh, that’s a new car. Haven’t seen that lately. What’s that car? That’s new. That’s nice. Um, even my kids do it. I mean, I’ve got a nine, six and four year old. My kids are like, Whoa, Dad, look at that truck. Look at that car. I mean, it’s just. Just natural.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: Open house signs. People aren’t even looking for a house. They’ll go through multiple open houses. They just want to see, you know, decorations. What did somebody else do? So there’s a level of just initial emotions in there that people are just excited about new things, checking out new things in a home, your own safety and security of where your family’s going to be living is a massive level of emotion in that. So just knowing that up front is is something that just kind of starts with being excited for somebody who’s looking for a home or looking to sell a home and make a change, whether that’s move up, move down, look for another even something like looking for another investment property, somebody’s like, well, that’s just about the numbers. No, like these investors are excited about their next property. They want to know and like their next property and what area it’s in and what the potential opportunity that property has.

Kevin Stark: Um, so just knowing that up front I think is powerful because then you can be positive about it, you can be excited for them, you can let them know that, hey, you got a step-by-step systematic process to be able to walk them through this, you know, sales process, whether buying or selling and to remove as much of the emotions for them. They’re the ones that write the check or put the down payment down or get the financing. People that are making money and or spending money through any type of a trails, excuse me, a sales transaction, have the emotions involved. Highly emotionally involved. When you start exchanging money, especially tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Um, so when you get somebody kind of a mediator in a sense, you know, it’s more of a sales person at a time, somebody that can help you walk through what it is you really want, and then how we find that and then how we go through the process of buying that. Um, there’s a lot of emotions in there to navigate because not only just with knowing the sales process, but sometimes you get a husband and wife that want to buy a house and they’re not on the same page, even on area or what the house looks like or even what they want to spend, you know, or you get a home seller that you sit down with and you this is where just knowing your profession, your numbers and just being a professional in what you do.

Kevin Stark: You sit down with the home seller and they’re like, Yeah, we’re looking to sell our house and here’s what we’re looking to get. Well, that might be realistic or not realistic. And there’s some emotion behind that number because they got plans for that money. So now you got to sit down and navigate those emotions with data to be able to serve them on a high level to go, this is the market, these are the comps, these are the numbers. Here’s the updates to your homes. Here are the benefits to your homes. Here’s how it compares to other homes in the neighborhood. Let’s even go tour some other homes in the neighborhood so you can walk in and feel them in their views and everything. And then we can sit down and discuss your value and what we believe your home would sell for, to really walk through that emotion with them of why they feel that value might be there, that might not be supported by the current real estate market. But sitting down and going, oh, your home’s not worth that, here’s what your home’s worth. That’s very irrational and irresponsible of someone’s emotions and respect when they’re looking to sell a, you know, five, $800 million home. Really understanding how to walk through that process helps them go, oh okay now I see what you mean. Oh, that home’s remodeled really nice. Our home is in good condition, but we don’t have the brand new open kitchen or the updated bathroom and the view with nothing behind with mountain views.

Kevin Stark: I understand what you mean by what’s selling and what’s not. So with that being said, you know, let’s talk about what that looks like on a sales perspective. So being able to start it up like that is a big one. Um, regarding just going through the process, let’s just take the spouse and any type of personal confrontation and set that aside for a second going into the actual sales process, I firmly believe with all my heart that a good realtor more than covers their fees in every single real estate transaction. And I say that right up front because so many people often sit there and go, well, you you make a good living. Why don’t you just help out with this or cover these repairs or whatever else that might be? I get asked that, you know, that that comes up to the surface of saying, Hey, can you do something for us on on part of this. And the aspect is, is when you take a realtor out of the sales transaction, a good salesperson in the middle, you can you remove your representative and take a buyer and seller working directly together. There’s disclosures, there’s issues that come up like what does the seller know about the home and are they telling the buyer everything? And then is the buyer doing their proper due diligence or inspections on the home to learn about the full condition? Do they have the money up front in place to be able to maybe replace the roof in 2 to 5 years based off its current condition or the air conditioning? Is it functioning properly? Is that at the end of its life? How do we make sure that that’s under some type of a warranty or paid for up front? Or is there any structural issues or are there any plumbing issues, electrical issues? Is there any neighbors around the area that you want to research and kind of know about being anything like crime of the area, offenders in the area, school district, you know, school grades of the area.

Kevin Stark: You know, these are all things that go into researching a home that your representative helps walk you through so that you know, hey, what am I buying kind of buyer beware, right? What am I buying? And and knowing what you’re buying and let alone keeping that excitement up about what you’re buying. You know, sometimes you can go through a home inspection. Buyer goes through a home inspection and see something like the water heater shot and the air conditioner needs $1,500 of the work. And they’re like, oh. Maybe we should just look for a new home. It’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s talk about perspective here for a second. You know, this house is $800,000 and you’re looking at, you know, 2300, you know, $2,500 worth of potential repairs needed. Let’s talk to the seller about potentially seeing if they’ll make some of those repairs or help with some of those repairs rather than jumping ship.

Kevin Stark: Let’s review. First off, do you like what you have? Is this the house for you guys? Why did you choose this again? Let’s recap your goals and see if this is still the avenue you want to walk down. And if it is, we can work through these little details. But when those little inspection details come up between a buyer and seller directly, it’s a it’s unfortunate what happens at times when the buyer is like, hey, you need to fix that or I’m not buying it. The seller’s like, if you don’t buy it, I’ll sell it to somebody else. Fine. Well, then both of them put themselves in a position to potentially not make, the seller may not make as much and the buyer may not get the home for the best deal and the proper protection. Like there’s so many ways, whether it’s condition on the home, whether it’s pricing, whether it’s the market, whether it’s the appraisal and working through what the actual bank value’s of the home at and just being able to be in the proper location of where a buyer wants to be and just exploring all those avenues. That emotion is very much involved in that when you remove the proper process to going through that you’re putting yourself in thousands and thousands of dollars of risk.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: And that’s just where I think that the sales aspect is underestimated. And oftentimes, unfortunately unrespected because they’re like, well, if I can if I can buy this home directly from the seller, I’ll save paying the commission. Oh, man, they bought the home. And then unfortunately, they figured out six months later they have $30,000 worth of damage.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: Or things that they found or things that happened or they found out. Unfortunately, there’s an offender that lives next door that they they didn’t they didn’t want to live next door to. Like, there’s things out there and ways to investigate all this based off National Association of Realtors, Arizona Association of Realtors, and a fiduciary duty to provide a buyer an opportunity to do all their investigations when buying a huge purchase like a home. There’s also, you know, laws out there for having a seller disclose what they know about the home. And if the seller doesn’t disclose, how does that work? What can we do? How can we research that to make sure that all parties, you know, like we talked about earlier, kind of a like it’s like a level playing field of honesty, ethical working transaction. And that’s what we’re after. If buyers and sellers did that all day, there wouldn’t be such a need for a mediator, a representative up front. But the point is, is everybody doesn’t. Not only do they not purposely necessarily lie, they just don’t know. They just don’t know what they have to disclose or what’s important to somebody else. One seller is like, hey, the roof hasn’t leaked. It’s fine. The buyer is like, it’s 28 years old. I can, we can, we can see that half the shingles are rotting away. Well, it hasn’t leaked. Well, then somebody’s got to know that they’re just going to be buying a roof, whether that’s a buyer or the seller. It’s disclosed and out in the open. So this is just a level where emotions can just go rampant, right? And just and then all of a sudden, just even accessibility in homes. Whether that’s a buyer doing their investigations and walkthroughs and inspections and appraisal and the seller’s like, we’re not allowing anybody in today. No, it doesn’t work. No, we got family. No, we got work. No, we’re not feeling well. It’s like, well, hold on. There’s some things that kind of have to happen here through the sales process and to have somebody navigate all that for you and not relay all those struggles or negative attention to the actual client protects their emotions through the process, keeping their excitement up. You know, a realtor that relays all the drama from the seller to the buyer is not a good realtor. That’s what the realtor is for is to take away a lot of that emotional chaos and be able to help the buyer know exactly what they need to know to move forward with a successful selling process that they want to achieve.

Kevin Stark: You know, So there’s just no that was kind of a whirlwind of it. But there’s I can’t tell. It’s exciting to go through this process. I love it. There’s just but there is so much to it. Just, you know, kind of the foundation of your embuffination network. It sparks so much on emotional intelligence and being able to really understand first, what what are your emotions in this process? Are they helpful or are they hurtful?

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: And you start selling something that’s of emotion to you. It’s amazing how unfortunate, sensitive and hurtful emotions can get and how many thousands of dollars that can quickly cost you.

David Enevoldsen: Well, and it’s interesting. I mean, I’m kind of sold on the idea of having, I mean I’m an attorney, so obviously I’m going to think that there’s value to having professional services to kind of guide you through a process you’re unfamiliar with and to see all the different aspects, emotional, legal, otherwise. I mean, I guess another way of thinking of this in my head is to say like, if I’m just going to go say there isn’t another agent on the other side and I just go meet with another person, why not just carve out that extra 3%? You know, now you’re paying 0% on commissions if nobody has an agent. But I don’t think most people really even know where to start. Most people don’t have the contracts. Most people don’t have the MLS access, most people. And then you get into things like the knowledge of what to look for, you know, all these little things like the I wouldn’t have even thought to look at, you know, is there a sex offender living next door, you know, things that you probably you’re going to think of immediately because you’re just doing it all day, every day, and you knowing how to navigate those emotions, all these different things. It reminds me of almost the sales process in reverse. When somebody asks you like, can’t you just waive your fee? Or Why am I doing this? Because in effect, they’re trying to ask you for your time and energy because it doesn’t take nothing to go through a real estate deal.

David Enevoldsen: I know you’re doing work on that. Same thing I’ve experienced as an attorney. Like people will come to me. Can’t you just do this pro bono? I’m like, I spend an enormous amount of time doing any given case, and it’s a lot of work for me to give up. And then if you’re coming to me in a, in essence, you’re going back to what we were talking about earlier about just getting versus giving. And if you’re willing to give something in this case, I’m valuing the house more than I’m valuing the little bit of money here that I’m giving up for the fee, then it makes sense to do that. But if all I want to do is get, you know, there’s very low incentive for you to give anything back to me. So like, why should you have to I mean, even ethically, like, why should you have to be giving up your time for nothing when that’s a lot of work for you, a lot of time away from your family, time away from other ventures you could be doing that could be making money just to give me, you know, something where I’m just getting. So it’s almost like the flip, you know, if I’m willing to sacrifice, if I’m willing to give something to you to get your services, then I’m more likely to get more out of that.

Kevin Stark: But you said a couple.

David Enevoldsen: Sorry, Go ahead.

Kevin Stark: Well, I think you said something there that’s worth repeating. David, you said a few times is just the aspect of adding value.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: And I think that’s where the referral business in a world of sales or attorney or, you know, a car salesperson or whatever it might be, referring somebody that, you know, like and trust is so incredibly valuable because when you’ve had a good friend be like, Hey, yeah, he’s my person. They’re great. You know, like if I know anybody, you know, heading your way or dealing with any type of traffic issues or whatnot, like, like you’re my guy. I mean, I’ve told you that multiple times. Hey, if I can an attorney world, my first call is, hey, what can I do for talk to David, see what David knows. If he can’t help you, he’ll send you in the right direction.

David Enevoldsen: Right.

Kevin Stark: And being able to add value to trust that that person cares more for those people than actually just making a sale. So part of my even listing process, sitting down with a seller is that I say during my listing process, Listen, there’s something I want you to understand up front. I care more for your goals and dreams and what you want to achieve than I do about selling your house. So through this process, if your goals or dreams shift or change, I understand that and I will honor that. I ask for a listing timeframe, but I put in the back of my listing agreement, for example, you know, listing agent, broker or seller may cancel this agreement at any time with 24 hour notice written to all parties as long as we are not under contract. And the reason I do that is because a couple of things. Number one, I’ve seen it where seller’s plan has changed. But number two is I believe in accountability over contracts. If I’m adding value to you and I’m doing a good job, you’re not going to think about letting me go or firing me. If I’m not adding value to you, or if this doesn’t work for you or if you don’t like how I work. Please, by all means, let’s let’s part ways and you go do what’s best for you, and I’ll go do what’s best for me. Um, this idea of at least. In the world of real estate for me, of locking somebody into a contract to work directly with me for a timeframe, on average, just to six months, let’s say. My goodness, if I don’t do a whole lot a couple of weeks later, then we got five and a half months of misery because you’re stuck with me in writing. That sounds awful. I wouldn’t want to be treated like that. Like, if you want to work for me and sell my house, I know you’re making a good commission, and I trust that you’re going to add value and take good care of me.

David Enevoldsen: Right.

Kevin Stark: However, let’s just level the playing field. And should you not be doing a good job, give me the opportunity to call you out on it. You know, and I’ll give you, you know, and that’s just what I ask in return. There’s something that bothers you that I’m doing or something that comes up that I’m not doing and you’re curious about. Say, hey, I’m curious what’s going on with this or do you do this? I’ve heard about this. Have you done this? By all means, let’s have that conversation. That’s a relationship. You know, that’s kind of what works with all the selling process. And that’s one thing about kind of just in real estate is that I’m never like the full representative. I’m the full representative, but the full person that handles the full sale, the realtor teams up with the home seller or the realtor teams up with the home buyer. It’s a team that makes that full decision. The realtor helps make sure everybody’s well educated through the process, well taken care of and well educated with massive value. You know, I just think that’s very important to understand in the sales process, is that if you’re not getting value, it’s hard to pay. Right? If you’re not being served well, it’s really hard to have some type of an exchange there, even for any of us individually. And I agree 100% with what you said earlier about the Napoleon Hill is just going we’re in a world of of giving, of reaching out. And yes, I understand this. How can I help you?

David Enevoldsen: At least we should be if that’s what you want to if you want returns to you.

Kevin Stark: Yeah, I mean, just this aspect of being a professional, right? I’ve also heard it said that way of of go pro, for example, or being a professional at what you do means learning new things, learning new ways, having an actual system and a structure. You’re not just winging it, you’re not showing up. And just even if it’s your friend being like, hey, all right, you guys want to sell and buy, let’s do this. No, like, hey, let me show you my process. Let me show you. Got it. Oh, Kevin, we trust you. We got you. Thanks. I appreciate that. Let me show you my process. Let me show you how we work so that you know what’s expected. It’s just sets the expectations up front. And inevitably, through that process, even with people I know well, it’ll raise questions. Okay. So what about if this happens, you know, do you do open houses? Do we have to do open houses when we sell? What’s your perspective on that? You know, and then we just talk through that of what that looks like. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think that again, just being able to have that perspective of how can you serve, how can you help, how can you add value. And never how can you get because you know, just like the aspect that we can talk on our phones without cords now. Right? There’s frequencies, there’s waves, there’s energy out there. And I know that you you and I’ve talked about this a bit as well before is just this this aspect of going people can feel your energy, you know. And if you’re this person that’s out to get I firmly believe people will feel that eventually and that’ll as soon as that raises a question mark of trust in their mind about you. You’ve just lost. Like you just became worth nothing because the second somebody doesn’t trust you, you are no longer have value to them.

David Enevoldsen: That actually for me raises an interesting kind of question that I think overlaps into the lawyering world. So we’re talking a lot here about kind of providing value, you know, making sure that both sides are getting something and within the client/professional realm. How does this, because, and the reason I say there’s a parallel here is both working as a realtor and working as an attorney, I think are somewhat adversarial processes because you’ve got someone on the other side, the buyer or seller, whoever’s across from you has different interests and you’re protecting your client’s interests. Same thing with lawyering. There’s somebody on the other side of this that’s going to have very often very opposed interests. You know, on a very simple level, the seller wants to get as much as possible. The buyer wants to pay as little as possible. And I’m sure there’s lots of other, you know, potential interests that go into play there. But now having an understanding of all these kind of emotions and whatnot, how do you kind of optimize what your client is getting, like making sure you’re wearing that fiduciary hat and not kind of breaching morals or ethics with respect to the opposing party? Do you have thoughts on that?

Kevin Stark: Yeah, that’s a good question. Um, because number one is you got to understand what those boundaries are. You know, you got to be educated on, on what the contract says. And then, like you said, the key word you said there was fiduciary. Like whole 100% honorable duty to your client in every ethical way possible. And so this is an interesting thing to to, do and leverage honestly in the real estate world. And for example, is that just knowing what you can and cannot answer during the contract time? Because if you know, you got an agent on the a realtor on the seller side, you got a realtor on the buyer side, the realtors are communicating. And it’s like what’s being said there? You know, does the buyer and seller trust what’s being said there? Hey, Kevin, what are you disclosing about my house or about what we’ll accept or not accept or what our condition is like? What are you saying? What are you not saying? And so first off, just understanding that. And another way is just you can even kind of leverage that in a sense from certain aspects of the real estate world. I’ll give you an example is I list a house for sale. It’s a high interest home. We have multiple interest on it out of the gates. We have ten showings, three different offers, let’s say. And out of those three offers, you’re now in a multiple offer scenario. And so agents, you know, especially good experienced agents will call up and be like, hey, great home. Buyers, loved it.

Kevin Stark: Would love to get you an offer over. We’re going to plan on writing something up. Can you give me an idea? First off, do you have offers? Second off, are you at list price? Are you under listing price? Are you over list price? You know what’s important to your sellers? Do they have to move out by a certain time? Do they need to stay there after closing for a short time? Um, you know, are they looking to take anything that’s attached to the house with them and when do they want to close? They start to ask all these questions. So there’s a little check mark on the actual listing documents that gives the realtor for the seller permission whether they can ask, disclose if there are offers or not, and even some of the details of the offer. So we can often disclose, yes, there are offers, but actually disclosing what the offers are is an aspect of leveraging the imagination of the sales process. So somebody calls up and says, hey, you know, my clients love the house. You got any offers on it? As a matter of fact, we do. Can you give me an idea where they at? I do not have permission to disclose where the offers are at. I would just encourage you guys to offer your highest and best. Well, are you below listing? At listing above listing? Again, I cannot disclose where the offers are at. I don’t have my seller’s permission. I would just encourage you to offer your highest and best.

David Enevoldsen: Right.

Kevin Stark: You know. Hey, what’s important to your sellers regarding closing regarding what they want to do? If you want to submit an offer over, I will present it and then we can counter back any details that might make sense for my client at that time. They would rather just see something up front and then we can talk through what that looks like for them. And then so what happens is you start to be able to leverage the imagination of the other realtor and the other buyers being like, Well, first off, what are comps of the area? What’s the value supported? Let’s say I got an $800,000 house listed. Now all of a sudden they’re going, oh man, they got offers already. It’s two days on the market. Maybe we should offer 825 you know, the comps offer, you know, support. 850 Maybe we should do like 50,000 nonrefundable earnest deposit. Should we shorten our inspection timeline? Should we waive our appraisal if we’re getting one? Well, we’re cash, so let’s just stick with our cash. Or maybe let’s move to cash. Right? They start using this imagination to go how strong of an offer can they get for their for their buyers because they’re representing their buyers. And that in turn can represent a strong offer for the sellers. Now, let me give you the reverse scenario. I represent the buyer. I got a buyer very interested in the home newly on the market, multiple offers. I call up the listing agent. I’m like, hey, got a buyer? They really like the home.

Kevin Stark: We’re looking forward to writing up an offer on it. Do you have any offers currently? Probably eight, sometimes nine, eight out of ten times I get answers. A lot of answers that I may not, you know that the listing agent may not always be supposed to be, you know, disclosing. So I’ll ask, hey, you got any offers? And the agent is like, yeah, we actually got three offers right now. Can you give me an idea, you guys, you know, below list deal with any of them or any of them at list? You know, we got one below one at list right now. I’m like, okay, you know, when is your buyer reviewing that,

David Enevoldsen: They shouldn’t be telling you that, presumably.

Kevin Stark: Right. Yeah. Like you start unless they got written permission and maybe they do, but they should kind of disclose that. Is that like my seller gave me permission. I can give all details. Here’s where they’re at. And, um, you know, or hey, we’re not at list price or we got three of them that are over list price. Then my questions go further. You’re over list price, you know, if it’s at like 800 for example, have you guys passed 810 yet? You know, are you guys kind of in the 810 range now? We’re kind of close. You know, we’re pretty close to 810 so nobody’s up to 825 yet? No, nobody’s up to 825 yet. And just trying to find out all the details I can for my buyer so we can put together the strongest offer that makes sense for them.

Kevin Stark: Now, a lot of those stuff you’re just not supposed to disclose unless you have written permission from your seller. So just knowing, you know, I would bet most of them do not have the written permission. Yet, they will disclose it. Now, there’s a certain level in there that I get seller’s permission. If I’m representing the seller, it’s like, hey, we got three offers over asking price. People are coming in with ridiculous offers $875,000 cash close in two weeks if your seller wants. Here’s our proof of funds. We’ll do our inspection in 3 or 5 days. You know, it’s like at some point you start disclosing, somebody comes in and goes, Hey, I got a buyer that can only put 10% down. The highest they can go is 810. Are you guys past it? At that point, it’s fair to be able to get yourselves permission to disclose, hey, we’re way past 810 with a couple different offers. You know, you can write it up as a backup if you like. However, here’s where we’re at. Just to kind of save that time. But yeah, I mean, there’s a level of what you can disclose and what you can’t disclose. And just knowing that is honors that fiduciary duty to your client because that’s what matters. Your client’s best interest at heart. What are their goals and dreams? And you’re hired as their honorable representative to help them achieve their goals and dreams through the world of real estate. You know, or in your case, through the world of law, whatever.

David Enevoldsen: Right. So now maybe tying this all together, how do you feel or do you feel that this and we talked at the beginning a little bit about the idea that sales extrapolates into all other aspects of life, particularly as you’re dealing with other people, although I suppose even with yourself, I mean, sometimes you’re selling yourself on things or trying to persuade yourself of something, that sort of thing. How, all of these concepts that we’ve talked about within the real estate universe, how do you think that translates over this emotional understanding, the kind of understanding your fiduciary obligations, etcetera, how do you think that what are some takeaways that you could translate over into just everyday interactive sales?

Kevin Stark: I think, first off, just understanding that you’re in sales, whether you want to be or not. I think every single day, like, what are you buying? You know, it’s interesting. You go to the mall, right? And we always walk by the Bed, Bath and Beyond.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: Yeah. Bed Bath and Beyond. No, not Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Bath and Body Works. There it is.

David Enevoldsen: Yes.

Kevin Stark: You walk by Bath and Body Works, and we sometimes we buy some of their candles for our house. Right? And it’s crazy. Like they always got this buy one, get one 30% off or 50% off only till the end of the month, whatever it might be. But the point is, is we’ve been going by that store for a decade and there is always a sale sign out there. So just to know that you’re always being sold is golden and just to be able to know, like, should I be buying? Or, you know what? There’ll probably be another deal in three months whenever I’m back or at that point. Um, and just to really understand that you do have emotions in it. You know, I think this, this, there’s so much truth and honesty and strength in the words of, “buyer beware.”

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: You know, in every aspect of life. Is whether you’re doing something as simple as clothes shopping at a department store or buying a car or a home. You know, there’s there’s so many different, especially online, right? There’s so many different underlying fees. Give you an example. A client of mine went to go rent a vacation rental and they went to go rent a vacation rental in Florida. And then all of a sudden, after looking at the cost of the vacation rental and then putting in their dates and going to check out, they realized there’s so many fees that stacked up on top of that. So what are you buying? What does that look like? What are your emotions involved? Is it worth it? Because ultimately, when they looked at the total, it overrode their emotions. They no longer were interested or emotionally invested in renting that place.

David Enevoldsen: Interesting.

Kevin Stark: Because they had a perspective of registering the cost versus the emotions they had involved. So they made a change. You know, and I think there’s so much wisdom in that on managing every part of your life. You know, you look online and everything’s selling you everything, whether you’re on social or or just seeing advertisements as you walk around. And it’s all saying you need you need grab, grab, go, go, go. And there’s so much just truth and wise living to understand that you are being sold all the time and what are you buying. And then what are you selling. Like are you trying to sell, you know, your spouse on raising your standard of living in an area that maybe you shouldn’t? You know, what does that look like financially and what’s the reason behind that? And, you know, why do you have that goal or those dreams and just being able to really understand what you’re selling and what you’re buying. I think there’s there’s so much just foundational truth that you can dive in and recognize that a lot of that is sparked by emotions and you got to override your emotions at times because your emotions will, this is I mean, just your emotions will lead you astray. Your emotions will massively misguide you at times.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: Sometimes emotions can be helpful to just kind of gauge a situation or opportunity. But if you start dealing your checking account based off your emotions, that’s not going to have a very good end. You know, so it’s one of the things is just tying it back into real estate just a little bit is when somebody is looking to sell, I’m like, why are you looking to sell? What’s your plans? Where do you want to go? And having that full picture conversation like, I don’t know, we just want to maximize equity. Okay, great. You want to take the equity out of the house and go where? Where do you want to go? And they’re like, well, we’ll kind of look around a little bit. We might just, you know, rent a little bit. Okay, let’s look at rentals. What’s the cost of rentals? So you have an idea of what you’re moving to.

David Enevoldsen: Right.

Kevin Stark: What’s the full picture here? And it’s amazing. I’ve had multiple people. Matter of fact, about a year ago, a year, year and a half ago, was on the phone with like my fourth seller that talked about selling within about a month and a half timeframe. And I’m like, where do you want to go? Let’s run the numbers. Let’s look at what you want to do and let’s just kind of get a full picture plan in place. And afterward they decided not to sell. And I said, I totally understand. And I hung up the phone and my wife goes, you are an absolutely awful realtor. What do you mean? She goes, you talk more people out of selling?

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: I’m like, I’m not talking them out of selling. And she goes, I know what you’re doing. But you literally just talked him out of selling. I said, I only I only talk them out of selling until they figure out what they’re going to do. What’s their goal? Where do they want to go, what do they want to achieve? And so listening to those emotions like and putting some wisdom behind why you’re buying and why you’re selling can really navigate everything. I mean that can just put a fine little silver lining of truth in your life that you’ve been missing in certain areas and you wonder why you bounce back and forth all the time. I’ve been there. You know, like we talked about earlier in this in the beginning, you know, I’m the extrovert. I’m the guy that’ll go out. You know what? Let’s go do this. You know what? Let’s go do this. You know what? Let’s go buy some four wheelers. Now let’s buy a boat. Now let’s get a camper. You know what? Let’s just get a bigger house. You know all we need more space. We need this. Well, I don’t like my car anymore. Let’s change that. You know what? Let’s go on vacation over here, and you’re going, oh, my goodness. First off, what’s the emotions behind all this? And second off, do you realize what this is costing you? And third off, what do you really want? What are you doing?

David Enevoldsen: That’s this is really fascinating because I feel like this is another way of saying some things that I’ve talked about in Emotional Embuffination even in the book, you know, especially in the Cognitive Dissonance chapter, I talk about this idea that very often, especially in conflict, people are not talking about what it sounds like they’re talking about. And kind of one of my themes is you have to dig deeper to really understand where someone’s coming from. And one of my favorite examples of this is like when people start arguing about creationism versus evolution. It’s very rare that people actually care about the creationistic model versus the evolutionary model. Usually what they’re talking about is something behind both of those things. Either my belief in the secular scientific world versus my belief in in God and theism and, you know, all this stuff. Most of the time nobody cares about, you know, how life came to be. You know, from a kind of scientific paradigm or from an evolutionary or creationistic paradigm. But if you start talking about the surface level facts, you just get caught up in these fights and you’re not really addressing the underlying issues. I find this often in relationship situations where somebody like gets mad about something on the surface, and if you start responding to that thing that they’re responding to, things will inflame. Whereas if you kind of step back for a second and say, what is this person actually mad about? You know, you can dig a little deeper and usually figure it out without too much investigation. And then once you’re there, then you can address that issue, which is really what they’re concerned about. So it sounds like you’re saying the same thing in a sales perspective, especially within real estate, is that somebody comes and says, I want to sell or buy or whatever. If you dig deeper and say, okay, what is it you really want? Like, why are you doing this? I think you can get a lot further. So I really like that.

Kevin Stark: Absolutely.

David Enevoldsen: It’s very much, I think, in line with the stuff that I’ve talked about. All right, I’m looking at the clock, so I don’t want to keep you too long here if, I’ve got one more substantive question. But before I get to that, if somebody does want to reach out to you in some manner, how do they get a hold of you?

Kevin Stark: Uh, you can call text, email. I mean, website is starksells. S-T-A-R-K. Stark sells. S-E-L-L-S.com. That’s just my real estate website. You can find me on Instagram. Tiktok @starksellsaz. Also YouTube. Um, and then Kevin Stark Real Estate on Facebook. So I’m all over the place and again welcome any questions, feedback, thoughts, anyone I can help, of course. I love it. It’s a it’s a great, great opportunity. And just being in this this mindset with you and just discussing this, it just reminds you of how much emotion can be involved, but also how much truth needs to be involved as well. A word that I come back to that you said earlier was just fiduciary. You know, to really care, matters.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: You know? To really care about what you do and the people you help matters. And when I find somebody that really cares about me and wants to help, that matters, right? Like when I have somebody that’s like, hey, you know, tell me how your wife’s doing. How is your kids doing? You know, when they really care, like, I’m I’m loyal. I’ll help. I’ll try and help you all I can. Right? I’m, I know that you now care. It matters.

David Enevoldsen: Right.

Kevin Stark: And so I think that’s where some of the sales industry has lost it as they see a dollar sign in their care level goes down.

David Enevoldsen: For sure.

Kevin Stark: And if you want to be uber successful and I think any business, especially sales, I think that care factor can be one of your greatest, greatest assets.

David Enevoldsen: I, that makes perfect sense to me. I think I agree. Okay. My last question. Well, actually, wait before I get to that, did you want to leave your phone number too?

Kevin Stark: 602-904-1000. I got blessed with an easy one. 602-904-1000.

David Enevoldsen: Okay. Last question for you and I’ll post links to all this stuff in my in the description of the podcast episode here. But so last question is, if you could offer one piece of advice to people about their emotional health or strength, what would that piece of advice be?

Kevin Stark: Um. Ultimately protect it. That would be my one piece of advice. Protect your emotional health. Protect your emotional strength. There’s a pure lining of truth inside each and every one of us. We know good. We know bad. And be careful what you’re buying and what you’re believing. Because it matters. It matters on how you function, how you think, how you buy, how you sell, how you treat those you love. Protect your mind. Protect your health. Protect that whole atmosphere. I mean, you know, just some simple foundational scripture to throw out, right? Hang out with fools and become a fool. Hang out with the wise and become wise.

David Enevoldsen: Yeah.

Kevin Stark: Who’s helping and who’s hurting you? Distance those that are hurting and dive more into those that are helping. What other resources, right? What are we watch as movies? What do we listen to as music? What’s hurting? What’s helping? And I think protecting your mental health is massive. And I don’t think I don’t think we value it high enough.

David Enevoldsen: I totally agree. I think that’s good advice. And again, stuff that I feel like I’ve talked about a lot. Like what are you filling your head with? You know, what are you watching on TV? Who are you surrounding yourself with? What dialogue are you listening to from people? Excellent advice. So, Kevin, thank you very much for agreeing to come on today. I appreciate your time. Again, I’ve worked with Kevin a couple times before and I’ve felt all the things you were describing there. I felt like you actually cared about what was going on, and it dramatically changed the the process of, I’ve done both sales and purchases through you. And it it really makes a big difference in how I’m feeling coming out of it. But I think also what you’re receiving coming out of it. So Kevin’s a great realtor. If you need a realtor, please check him out. I’ll have links in the bio. Kevin, thank you for your time today and I will let you go there.

Kevin Stark: Thanks, David. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.

David Enevoldsen: Well, I hope that you found this useful. I hope you can take away some little nugget to make your life a little bit better. Don’t forget to go on the Embuffination website, which is embuff.com. Sign up for the newsletter and get those weekly Emotional Embuffination tips. Remember, keep working on this stuff. I want you to not just think about this one time and forget it. This is stuff that requires perpetually working on it, continually striving to be better and to learn more and to become a better person and to be able to better deal with conflict. It’s a lot like going to the gym. You don’t just go there one time, do three reps of something and say, I am done forever. I never have to work out again. You keep going. You make it part of your routine. You go on a regular basis and that’s how you start making growth and that’s how you maintain growth. At the end of the day, I want you to become emotionally strong enough to go from saying things like, “The struggle is real,” into saying, “What struggle?” Thank you all for listening. I hope you’ve enjoyed this. Have a great week and I will see you in on the next show.