Episode 390 - Random Thoughts in a Short Cuts Session

00:00:03 - Bill Risser

You're listening to The Real Estate S essions, and I'm your host, Bill Risser. With nearly 25 years in the real estate business, I love to interview industry leaders, up and comers, and really anyone with a story to tell. It's the stories that led my guests to a career in the real estate world that drives me into my 9th year and nearly 400 episodes of the podcast. And now I hope you enjoy the next journey. Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 390 of the Real Estate Sessions podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for telling a friend. Today we're going to do something a little bit different. Yeah, it's going to be another monologue, meaning I don't have a guest and I want to kind of just riff on a few things that popped into my mind this week. You know, I'll call it a shortcut session because this will not be a typical half hour to 40 minutes interview style podcast episode.

00:00:54 - Bill Risser

It's just going to be me rambling a little bit of I hope that's okay because here we go. First, I wanted to give you a little bit of an update on John Biorli. We had an episode a little while back. We talked about John's Die Happy tour 2024, and John's doing actually very well. He was back in Rhode island the last weekend of June checking out the US senior Open with his son. I know they had a great time. And then he had a couple of stops along the way back east before he headed back to Phoenix. So the tour continues. The stories and the anecdotes and the content for his book continues to flow in. And if you haven't been watching John and his sister Lisa on his YouTube channel, I've got the link for that YouTube show in the show notes, you can check that out and see how well they're doing with their duets. It's been great. John on the piano, Lisa on vocals, and every now and then John slips some vocals in as well. So John's doing great. I've had people ask about him. Just wanted to make sure that we got that out there and he's.

00:01:52 - Bill Risser

The tour continues. Second, you know, I don't really play a lot on social media. I post a little bit, but not much. I comment a little but not much. And I've got to step up my game there. So I'm going to start here on the podcast because this is easier. And I just want to throw out some people you should be following, people that are doing some great stuff and people that I know and to be honest.

00:02:16 - Bill Risser

All six of these people I'm going to throw out there all have been on the podcast. Look, if I find interesting people, I'm going to talk to them. I'm going to start with Sean Carpenter. I think you all know Sean. Sean's doing some great stuff online. He's always got, he's just generating questions and having fun with it. But ultimately, what I think you should do is you've got to make sure that you subscribe to Sean's blog. It is called Carps Corner. You can find it@carpscorner.net comma comes out every Monday morning. He's really like clockwork. He's well over 1000 episodes. And Shawn's a very gifted writer, so go ahead and connect with him. Second, you got to connect with Tiffany McQuaid. Now, Tiffany runs her own McQuade and company brokerage down in Naples. A lot of you might already know who she is. And she's written a book called the Nth Degree. I mean, she's done some really cool stuff and her social media rocks. So make sure you connect with Tiffany McQuaid. I'm gonna throw Anthony Malafronte into this group.

00:03:11 - Bill Risser

Anthony's always on top of social. He's a, he's really a good commenter. I know he pays attention to what's out there, but he's also got a couple of great feeds himself. He's worth following. Always doing great stuff. Much like Sean has his build relationship, solve problems and have fun. For Anthony's, it's get up, show up and do the work. Both these guys know what they're doing. Let's stay in Naples for another, for another favorite, and that's going to be Sue Benson.

00:03:36 - Bill Risser

Sue Pinky Benson. She's a must follow. If you're trying to do anything with video, Sue's your gal. She is just fantastic with Instagram. And her content is unbelievable. Rocks. It's whether it's content that's for her business, where she and her husband Josh are selling properties, or whether it's she's just trying to help agents figure out how to use reels and stories better. So I think it's really a no brainer. You've got to stay connected with sue. I'm going to go up to the northeast. This is tough sometimes. You know, in the sports world, they're tough to deal with. But I got to tell you, there's a guy up there, Jeff Chalmers.

00:04:11 - Bill Risser

Chalmers, as we like to call him. Jeff is a lender, but also an expert at connecting people and expert athlete really understanding how to use social to build relationships. I mean, really strong relationships. Jeff is the beef fam of a lot of people. If you don't know what that means, you got to go follow Jeff, get on his. Get on his radar, and soon you'll be a beef fam as well. He's got some really great stuff. And then finally, let's go really on the educational side.

00:04:42 - Bill Risser

And that's going to be Chelsea Pietz. Chelsea is out of Phoenix, and she has, she's really a social media expert, especially video. Here we come back to the video side of things because I just think it's so important. Says the guy who does not record video when he does his podcast. It's kind of funny. So I think, you know, Chelsea's great. Just look her and remember all of these. I'll have links to all of these people in the show notes. So whether you're going through Apple podcasts or overcast, all of them will have a link to the show notes. You want to go there and you can connect with these people very easily, if you haven't already. My next thought is about art, and it's an artist here in St.

00:05:23 - Bill Risser

Petersburg. Her name is Vanessa Levesque. Cindy and I bought a piece. We also bought a piece for Kevin and sarah, and we really enjoy what she does. We saw her at an art show in Gulfport, of all places, and that's where we got our first piece. And she's really, really unique. She's super funny. This is what she writes. And I think this is great. I'm just going to read this off of her website. With my art, I get to challenge the belief that we should aspire to the status quo, that we should squeeze ourselves into boxes that we don't fit into, that we should dim the very things that make us the individuals we are. My art is a reminder to live your life on your terms, exactly how you want, with total belief in yourself. That is so cool. So Vanessa's got a website, I've got a link in the show notes, and she does some really wild stuff. I'm going to say right now, if you're easily offended, maybe don't go there. However, you shouldn't be easily offended. So head on over anyways and check it out. I'd love to hear what you think. It's really cool stuff. She also has a newsletter, so make sure you go to the website. Subscribe for that. She's a wonderful writer and very funny and really unique about, you know, the St. Pete area, her life, her family, just some really good stuff. So that's Vanessa Levesque next. I just want to share a bit about a trip that Cindy and I took.

00:06:43 - Bill Risser

It was kind of tagged onto the end of a meeting with the team that I work with at Fidelity National Financial. But since we were in Reno for that meeting, we ended up going away for a quick weekend getaway to Lake Tahoe with a few of the other people on the team. And it was spectacular. I've. I was there once when it snowed pretty much the entire time I was there.

00:07:05 - Bill Risser

But visiting Lake Tahoe at the end of June was spectacular. Weather was in the high seventies, not a cloud in the sky. You've got the dark blue water of Lake Tahoe with that blue sky above. And we were able to drive around the entire lake, by the way, 72 miles. To do a loop around the lake takes about 3 hours with traffic and the little towns you're going through. It was pretty neat. We saw a brown bear on that trip right on the street, so we had to be very careful. Windows went up quickly and, you know, it really was a blast. We stayed at a Marriott property that was actually right on the state line. So you absolutely know where the state line is because the casinos are on the Nevada side, are built right to the California Nevada state line.

00:07:50 - Bill Risser

So Cindy had a chance to play a little bit there, which is what she likes to do. And I had a little chance to play the Edgewood Country Club, where they host the American Century celebrity golf championship tournament every year. A lot of entertainment stars, athletes all up there playing this course well. Well, I ended up playing that. I got an 840 tee time on a Saturday. Whoever turns that down. I actually chose to take a caddy and walked with the caddy, who was a local guy, and we had a great time talking about a lot of different things.

00:08:18 - Bill Risser

Now, the golf was for me was so, so I was using rentals. No excuse there, but I had a blast. Played with a father and son up from southern California near, near Anaheim. A little better golfers than me, which is always good. Kind of keeps you trying hard. And they were a lot of fun to play with. So just a shout out to Lake Todd because. And also. And a big shout out to Burt's Diner. It was fantastic.

00:08:40 - Bill Risser

We got there just after they opened and got like there were only two tables left. It was a very popular place at 900ft, according to Google Maps. Down the street, Burt's diner has a competitor in Ernie's cafe. Yeah, Bert Nurney, right, right there in Lake Tahoe. So if you're in Lake Tahoe, South Lake Tahoe, make sure you go down to the y. All the locals call it that.

00:08:59 - Bill Risser

It's just kind of a fork in the road. Go down to the y. There's some really cool options down there for food. Literally, there's options for food around the entire lake. So just throwing that out there, if you haven't put that in your plans and you're ever in northern California, it's really close. Couple hours from the Bay Area. Don't forget about Lake Tahoe. We had an absolute blast. And finally, just a quick hit on how things are going with my new role at Fidelity National Financial, the mothership with, you know, we have all the brands underneath, and I work closely with the sales teams on all the brands in Florida, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. So primarily Florida and Texas is where the bulk of the people are. And it's really been a blast to share my knowledge with them, talk to them about what's working, what's not working in the world of technology with real estate agents.

00:09:49 - Bill Risser

And it's been really fun to have this a little more internal role instead of the external role I had for the roughly 17 years. You know, I was doing that sort of thing with fidelity. So it's going great. I love what I'm doing. I'm so happy to be back with the Fidelity family. And if you need a sales executive from your title provider that really rocks and knows what they're doing, reach out to me. I can take care of that and help you out no matter where you're at in the country. Well, that's it for this week. Episode 390. I'm going to officially call it in the books. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it. I understand we're all busy, and I hope I gave you a little bit of information that's going to help you out somewhere down the road. I'll be back next week with another episode. Thank you for listening to the real estate sessions.

00:10:33 - Bill Risser

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