Ryan Serhant Dishes on the Realities of CEO Life

Since you all loved our Owning Manhattan Reaction Episode, we thought it would be the perfect time to reshare our 100th episode where we interviewed Ryan Serhant himself!

This episode discusses Ryan's evolving definition of success, the ups and downs of being a CEO and how becoming a dad has changed the game for him.

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Transcript

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In today's episode of Not Nice Clever, we're doing something that we actually have never done before. We are resharing an episode and we're super excited because it is featuring none other than Ryan Serhand. And so on the heels of us almost celebrating our 200th episode, we're resharing our favorite hundredth episode featuring Ryan. And in case you've been living under a rock the last several weeks, you have most likely seen Ryan's new hit on

Netflix called Owning Manhattan. And based on all the feedback and DMs and comments we got from y 'all on our prior episodes of diving into our thoughts on Owning Manhattan, we thought this would be a great treat. So in this episode, we pull back the curtain on Ryan's world, talking about his business ventures, his evolving definition of success, and how becoming a dad has completely changed the game for him. So even if you listen to this the first time around, we highly recommend re -listening to it now.

Thank you so much for making time to hop on with us today, Ryan. We're super excited to dive in. And of course, we know a lot of our audience at Not Nice Clever knows you for your background in real estate, but you are definitely much, much more than just a real estate broker. And so I wanna get right into it wherever your passion, your energy lies and ask you, what is the one thing right now?

that's going on in your world, in your business that you just like cannot shut up about. You can't get enough about like where is Ryan Serhant's head these days? my goodness. What can I not shut up about? So many things. My brain is compartmentalized into like four, right? Say I think about myself, family, personal things. Then I think about real estate.

Then think about education and then I think about production. So I feel like it's unfair to ask me about one thing. You we've been growing a lot this year and, you know, improving kind of, think, everyone's lives as much as possible by building the best companies we can by hiring great people. And I think a lot of people would have wished we hired people quicker, but I'd always rather have, you know, the right people than

hire the wrong people and make a mess and all that stuff. And so we've gotten some really cool people this week that I'm excited about just because like, you know how it is, right? When you're surrounded by really capable, talented people who are uniquely qualified to do what they do and you get to just watch instead of being like, all right, well, thanks for filling the role. Let me show you what to do now. Don't mess it up. you know, it makes a huge, huge, huge difference.

Also, I'm a big fan of like inspiring sports documentaries and there is a new one on Netflix who does a lot of these things. There's two, one is called the playlist about the founding of Spotify, which I think is super cool if you haven't seen it. And then the other kind of controversial is one of the, is part of the untold mini series.

And it's called the swamp Kings about like the Florida Gators and Tim Tebow and that whole thing Very emotional very like in you know, you can do so many things with great music Really really cool. They leave out all of the arrests and like terrible things that that team did like I think like an entire team half the team went to jail and that's not in the documentary whatsoever It just kind of tells you like history books are written by the winners

Trust but verify, right? Like always go to the Google and verify what you are reading and watching. So Ryan, can you tell us how you define success at this point in your career versus maybe how you defined it early on and how that has changed for you? Sure. I used to define success completely singularly. So I was successful if I made X amount of dollars per year. I was successful if I could do

hundred million in sales in one year, I am successful. Even a couple of years ago, it was if I could launch this company in the middle of COVID, I am successful. I've beaten people and I did it against the odds. Now, I define success by other people's success. So I am only a success if you're a success, you know, and so I think I went from being, you know, looking at success as

asynchronous, as if we put it in like our course world to now, I only feel success if it's cohort based. I want to be a co -pilot to success because that's how we land the plane the best, or that's how we fly the furthest. And so like when I see our agent teams crushing it, or if I see a pro member in education dominate, or even our sales team in education, and they have their record days, like, all right.

Great. They're successful, therefore I am too. It's a really unique brain shift for me to not declare success until the other person does. And I think as a sales person, I was always very, very, very selfish. Yeah. Do you think that being a father has impacted the way that you see success? No, not really. You know what?

Because I think a lot of people, and I don't mean this to be offensive in any way, but for men specifically, right? Specifically, I guess, for straight men, a lot of my friends who've had kids, their worlds do flip upside down when they have kids because they go from having zero responsibility, they have a job, you know, to then all of a sudden having the responsibility of a human. And I felt that, like having a baby is a big deal.

And then you look and you're like, I have to survive and you have to survive. We must survive together. And you start being a little bit more careful about what you do. You're like, yeah, I don't know if I should try that or get on that motorcycle. But I've always had responsibility. I've always had people that I have to care for. Like I've always had a significant amount of ownership over

you know, people's livelihoods and their jobs and things. I, I feel like I felt that way for a long time that when I had the baby, it was just kind of added to it, but in a far more personal way, you know, like I can't fire, you know, although I do, I do, I do tell her a lot. She speaks Greek to me, you know, in real life. I'm sure. she, does she take you seriously though, or does she just go back to playing in her frozen dress?

No, she 100 % does not care about what I say or what I do. I'm like, Zina, you're fired. She's like, you're fired. Like, no, you're fired. Okay. Yeah, but in Greek. Yeah, you're fired, but in Greek. I still remember to this day, like when you were talking about success, you had shared at one of our town halls, I believe it was earlier this year, and you were going over the numbers and the metrics, right? How people typically define success. And then you were saying how, when people ask you, like, how many people work for you?

And you're like, well, I don't really think of it that way. I think of like, I work for these people. Like I work for the dozens of people that have signed up to be a part of this rocket ship. And just that simple shift, it was really humble. It was really interesting. And it still sticks out to me months later because, you know, one of the reasons why we wanted to have you on this podcast was because it probably wouldn't exist without you because Candice and I met through Sirhan. And so, you know, we each just celebrated our two year anniversaries. Talk about longevity. It's wild, you know?

crazy, crazy, One, I love that. That's super, super cool. I'm so glad you two met. are quite the team, total dynamos, and everyone loves you. And so I am honored to be lucky number 100 on the pod here. But yeah, I still feel that way. It is something that we have to train as part of our staff onboarding to remind people who they actually work for.

So at the brokerage, even in education, even production, like your customer is the agent we work with. I work for everybody else. Like what is a company at the end of the day, especially like a services company or everything that we do. I don't produce computers. It's not like I have supply. It's not like I have product. at the end of the day, okay, right, well, our company's worth what the product's worth and so on and so forth. Like our company is...

made up of the humans. The humans aren't here. What, what is it? And so I work for them all day. I mean, I have like, I can't even tell you how many sheets I have here with all of our employee and agent names and phone numbers and facts about them that are in front of me at all times. So that consistently doing those like small personal touches, you know, always, always get the check -ins like you, what are you doing? You good? You happy? Can I help you?

Like just making sure staying on top of it, because every now and then you do touch base with somebody who's like having a really, really bad day and that one little outreach goes a long way. again, my success is their success. And so breaking it down a little bit more, what would you say are some like key ingredients? Like if you could boil it down to contributing to your success and don't say having a human CRM, because not everybody can afford to have a human CRM like Sydney.

But what would you say are some key ingredients for those listening,

 people who are newer to being a CEO, they're growing their organizations, what things should they look out for and prioritize? yeah. I mean, could talk to you for 10 hours about that. I'm sure. think it's important to understand that when you're leading a team or an organization,

you're going to be 50 % excited and 50 % terrified at all times. And once you own that, then you can breathe. You know, it's like the people who take everything so personally, it's because they didn't set appropriate expectations for themselves. You know, I heard someone say once to never get attached to anyone or anything because even your own shadow leaves you when it's Damn.

that stuck with me, you know, a little bit because it's like, you you've got to build with blinders on, you got to, you got to make moves. And if you allow one person to steal your time or steal your empathy or steal your gratitude or steal your heart, like you're, you know, you cannot be a codependent CEO. You know, there's you talk about like relationship therapy all the time. And you know,

there are people who have codependency and their happiness is dictated by their partner. That's like an unhealthy way to live. You know, I also think something I've had to learn the hard way, especially being, you know, kind of a solo founder, even though I have a lot all my partners, like I cannot do this without a handful of people. It is very easy to like, chase down every issue, whether it's small issue or a big issue. And then and then you start to add up all that time.

as to how much time you spend on all those issues. And it's like, should I really have been focused on that issue? And so we started asking, like for me, and I put this onto like my assistants and everything to always ask, is this issue a focus? Like this thing that you want to talk about? I totally get it. Sounds super important. But is it a focus for us right now?

It's not a focus. It's not my, I don't, I, I don't want to say I don't care because that sounds apathetic and terrible, but it's, it's not something I want to waste brain power on because it's not something I want to, you know, I want to focus on. And then I think kind of going back to what we were just talking about, you know, people over profits, people before product, people before profits. put the people first, you create an amazing culture, put a bunch of smart people in a room.

That's why I love a great brainstorm sessions. It's amazing what happens when you put brains in the same room and how they work together and what you're able to create. And I think that's a key thing to remember all times. All right, you want me to keep going? Nope, think we're good. think you nailed it. So one of the stories that comes up a lot in our conversations with our clients, that's all like Sir Hans and even on the podcast that we talk a lot about is

In the book Big Money Energy, you share the yogurt story and the time that you couldn't even afford to purchase yogurt, your card gets declined. We've heard that story and we've heard some of those early in your real estate career kind of stories where you had the fake Rolex and you kind of put yourself in the position to play at a level that you weren't yet playing.

As you have grown to the place that you are today, what are the new tough times? What are the new hard stories that are closer to where you are in this place? Because I think that sometimes people think, you have arrived and you don't have those days when you're like, F all this or this is a lot. And I'm sure you do. And so we want to hear like, what are the recent versions of the yogurt story?

We don't pull punches on this podcast, Ryan. God damn it. listen, nothing ever gets easier, right? It just always becomes more relative. So you got to be careful what you wish for. Like when I was making less than $50 ,000 a year, making it was making a hundred grand, six figures, but higher income comes with higher problems.

Right? Higher quality business comes with higher quality problems. You know, the problems just get bigger. And I think, you know, one of the things I knew was going to happen when I became a CEO, if that's what you want to call it, is that, you know, when I was a broker and I had a team and I was just selling all day, life was great. I was involved in all the positives, the deals, the winning.

the closings, the getting the projects, the filming, everything was amazing. And I was involved in all the negatives because the buck stopped with me and it started with me. The minute I started my own company, no one comes to me with anything good. And it sounds weird, but like once you, once you feel that, like I would go months, you know, especially in like a high interest rate environment like we're in right now, like I have not had a single day.

or anyone comes to me with anything positive because rightfully so for them, they don't want to waste my time with something that they can handle, something that's good. So the only meetings I have, the only issues that come to my table are the ones that no one else in the entire company could handle by themselves because they're so hard or so terrible or so tough, we got to take it to Ryan. And that's

every 15 minutes from like 8 a to 8 p every day. And so that, that is like all the yogurt everywhere, right? I would say, you know, that, you know, that, that's, that's right now, you know, so that's a tricky one. I'd also say my other yogurt moment was like, you know, we started the business in COVID and it was the absolute worst time, but it was the absolute best time.

You know, hindsight was no pun intended, but it was 2020. And our ability to build in a market at the bottom where we had no expectations, like I didn't have to spend money on offices, printing. All people cared about was why are you doing this? Like I didn't, you know, our, if I started a company in 2018, I would have had to have a parade, you know, like I would have, you know, it's crazy. And so, and we were then able to ride the market up. So it was all up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up,

And then in the matter of four months, interest rates were doubled, everything stopped. The whole market started to collapse in the summer of 2022. And I got to September and this rocket ship that we had been building, all of a sudden started shaking. And I'd never been in that situation before. My situation was always sell as much as we can, build, build, build, build. don't know, Natalie, our CFO, or my accountant, they'll take care of everything. And they came to me and were like, hey, so we need to have a conversation.

Well, I don't like confrontation. Can't you just figure it out? Like, no. And we had to make tough decisions, you where we really looked around and we said, OK, we hired too quickly, too fast. know, thank God we didn't hire like hundreds of people too quickly. But we had to make tough decisions with people, which really, really sucked. And that was a moment where I just remember sitting around that conference table being like, am I really that guy now?

Like am I that guy sitting in this tough market having to make these like, is this the life that I signed up for? but what I take away from all of it now is, you know, I was so worried and I realized I was spending so much time worrying. and worrying doesn't take away tomorrow's problems. It doesn't actually fix anything. All it does is,

steal today's peace and time that could be used to problem solve. And so I had to figure out a way to stop worrying. And like, you know, it's like they say, you know, don't be a warrior, be a warrior. Like that is why those words so close together. You know, that's a warrior, warrior, you know, a warrior. Don't be a warrior.

and that's real. Like that's like, okay, so whatever happens, we're going to handle it in real time. We're gonna make decisions quickly and we're going to move forward because worrying is not going to make me a warrior. Yep. Love it. One thing that my husband always says is every day that his company grows is the first day he's had a company that size. And with that comes so much.

many opportunities to learn and grow and then continue to lead in a way where you're thinking expansively instead of shrinking back because of worry and fear. Because worry and fear is that energy that causes us to shrink or stop or slow down. And the opposite could be true. You could be problem solving and building momentum. And I think that's a thing that leaders are good leaders are always thinking about how are you continuing to build momentum even when people are shrinking with fear.

which you did through 2020 and you're continuing to do. So it's awesome to see. Yeah, no, thank you. It's, you know, it's, but it's tricky. What is the future of all this? But at the end of the day, you just always have to have, you know, multiple plans ready to go. Like right now we're still on plan a moving forward. If something happens like COVID you, we got to jump to plan B. It is what it is. I can worry forever.

where you can just make pivots and be able to contextualize and keep things moving forward. This

 makes me feel even better now because it's something that I do from time to time. And I don't know if Candice does it, but maybe she will after I share this, but I'll randomly BCC you on a really great email to one of our pro clients. I didn't realize maybe how important it was to do that until I realized that every 15 minutes somebody's bringing a forest fire to your table.

Don't worry about me. God. Not at all. I don't need you guys leaving here. No. Ryan's in distress. We'll just send more wins your way. But that's one thing that I'm really excited about is actually working with clients. You mentioned education's one of the buckets in your mind, one of the compartments. And it's been really cool to see even early on the success that

our clients outside of real estate have had using your learnings and your failures to their advantage so that they can brand themselves and market them. It makes it worth it. So I have another question. This one's a little off the wall. Thinking back 10 years ago, 20 years ago, what did you once dream about for yourself or have a vision for yourself that's now like a reality?

Like what have you achieved that you thought was only a pipe dream once upon a time?

mean, being a dad, right? Like that's real. Like I have a kid who knows me and talks to me. Like that's just so weird. It's real, you know, and she'll never be able to get rid of me. You know what mean? Like she's stuck with So I like, I created a human buddy, you know, and it's a daughter. So she'll take care of me forever. So I gotta like really focus her on smart things so that she can take care of me.

because that's my total fault, Back up plan. That, like running my own business, like being a CEO, like as much as like I hate, you know, our P &L meetings and talking about budgets and stuff. You know, when I was, when I first moved to New York, I would see, you know, businessmen like running down the street on cell phones and being stressed out. And I would see guys on airplanes with laptops doing Excel sheets. And I was like, man, one day that'll be me, you know, with responsibility and business and doing cool things.

you know, and now I do that and I don't think about it. I'm like, God, you know. And so I think, you know, all of that stuff combined is, you know, it just also makes me think about, okay, well, what's, what's Ryan in 10 years going to be doing? Like, what am I, what am I, what are the, God, the pressures are going to be ridiculous. How do I make sure I hedge against all that? You know, where are we going to be? What's it going to look like? What are going to build? You know, the possibilities are, are, are endless, but I think those are the big ones.

Having great people like you two to work with every single day. You know, it's not easy finding great people. To find another Candace and Kat would be physically impossible. We would have to shut down. Perfect. That was the sound bite I was waiting for. Thank you so much. Okay. So, we like to, to wrap it up with a rapid fire series of questions. So rapid fire, just go to gut answer. We have nine of them. So here we go. What was your childhood dream job?

Childhood Dream Job was a action film star next to Jean -Claude Van Damme. Ooh, yeah. My brother loved Jean -Claude Van Damme growing up. He's all of those movies in the background. Go to lazy dinner when you've just had a day. What is your lazy dinner that you're putting together, grabbing on the go, whatever? Honestly, like I'm a

I would easily just probably eat like pizza, like just an easy on the go like food with all. I love it. I thought you were going to annoy me with some like really healthy choice and that was going to be like the worst answer. But I'm glad you said pizza. That makes me feel better about myself. Okay. When you're out with Amelia, is it sparkling water or still water? Tap water. not paying for water. Tap water.

Okay, we're learning. love that. You don't pay for a latte? I gotta focus on expenses these days. No, I'm not paying for that water. Got it. No latte. Tap Water. Got it. No Sparkling water. Got it. 

The best non curse word. One word insult. Cats go to is moron. My grandma likes the word crumb. Is there a word that is a non curse word insult that you use regularly?

stink. Yeah. yeah. You know, and also like smelling someone and being like, if you stink, that's body blow right there. that cuts. That is an insulting. That's the knife in the gut right there. What makes you nervous?

Everything. Everything makes me nervous. I don't know, making the wrong decision. Like the path hasn't been paved yet. it's, which way am I going makes me nervous.

Dua Lipa. We knew you were going to say that. okay. Yep. There we go. We were taking bets. I thought maybe Gal Gadot, but Dua Lipa was on the list too. I mean, also. There we go. What was your favorite recent purchase?

Do I buy anything? guess I have a blue Range Rover now. That is true. And you love it? It's Sirhant blue. It is Sirhant blue. I had an Escalade for 10 years and I would just keep kind of like recycling that thing. so this now has a, you know what, to be honest, in New York, it's sunny now, okay, because it's summer. But once October hits,

for six months, it starts getting dark at three. And so if you're in the back of a car all day long, and I'm on my phone, I'm like hitting the little light at 3 .15 PM, because it's dark outside. No one talks about it. No one acknowledges it. It's brutal. So this car has the full moon roof. And so that one thing, plus I had a light interior, like, it is life changing for me during how I live my life.

Yep. And then I wrapped it in blue and you know, people notice it now. So now as I drive around, people are like, you just sold another one. There it goes. I love it. OK, so everyone knows that I'm at the airport all the time. You're probably the one person in the world who's at the airport a little bit more than me. So are you the person who gets to the airport two hours ahead or two minutes ahead? Trying to settle a debate here between my husband and I.

Two hours is way too aggressive. I would say one hour. I've got like, I've got TSA pre -checked, I've got clear, I'm picking whichever aisle is for. I got that real ID, like the day they said to get it. Not yet, haven't done it. We don't have the little card, come on. Just in case, you know, like I'm updating my passport well ahead of time. So I get there, let's say like plus minus an hour ahead because you never know these days at airports. Two minutes ahead, no way. Because the cost to me,

of potentially missing a flight would be such a blow to future Ryan. Like, why would I do that to myself? To do what? because of poor planning? Not because of poor planning, but just because you know you're going to make it. Candice is clearly the one. She just loves to dash to the gate. I'm the two hours ahead, and I'm about to get TSA pre -check, so maybe I'll bump that down to an hour like you, Ryan. I just, Candice is like right from security to the gate.

can't. That's stress. Life is short. Last rapid fire question is Kat is obsessed with Marvel and she loves spending too much time on our podcast talking about superheroes. Anyhow, if you had a superpower, what would your superpower be and why?

I would have, I would love to be able to go back in time. I think that would be cool. I don't need to go forward. Cause I kind of don't, I don't want to know. And I feel like if I could go forward, then we just ruin it. Like, do you want to know the ending of every movie? You know, but to go back in time, would, you know, I'd go back and like whisper things into my ear.

That and I'd have like the goodwill hunting ability to just look at a book and just know it. Like I think the power of knowledge to know all things, to be able to sit in any conversation with any human anywhere and have an intellectually curious conversation and be able to be, you know, just rapid fire off the tongue and be like, that's so funny you mentioned that because King Louis the 14th on that day and the people would just, you know what I mean? Like that's, I would, I would, I would take that.

you like when he was like, yeah, read your book last night. Like that's that would be great. Love it. Is there anything today that we did not get to talk about that you wanted to talk about? No, you guys are great. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. We really truly appreciate your time and we'll see you in Miami. I'm excited.