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Join former CBC radio host Mark Connolly as he sits down with real estate insiders to bring you behind-the-scenes perspectives that answer your questions about home ownership.
With topics that matter whether you’re buying, selling, or staying put, this is the place to get the latest market updates for the Edmonton housing market, hear conversations about housing affordability, learn about mortgage options, and so much more.
Join us twice a month for episodes that cover local trends with context you won’t find in the national news, and get actionable insights that give you confidence for your next move.
The RAEdio podcast is presented by the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton.
Welcome to the RAEdio Podcast brought to you by RAE, the Realtors Association of Edmonton. So that's the RAE in our radio. We deliver easy to understand market insights, some homeowner tips, perspectives from industry experts so that you can feel informed and empowered wherever you are in your homeownership journey because better decisions start with better information. Doctor Jody Carrington is a clinical psychologist, author, and global speaker with Carrington and Company. She's gonna speak to us about how to navigate performance pressure and well-being in environments that demand constant responsiveness and self management.
Mark:That's something that realtors know all too well. So welcome, Jody, and thanks for joining us.
Jody:Thanks for having me, Mark. I'm so excited.
Mark:So what tends to happen to people psychologically when they're expected to be constantly on call, I guess?
Jody:Well, it's I mean, let's just start with the easy question. I mean, I I think this is really what the globe is experiencing in this moment. K? So the only system that has not been updated in particularly our lifetimes is the human operating system, and we are not designed for this much noise. We are wired for connection.
Jody:In fact, you know, I've I've been a psychologist for twenty five years, and I started the U of A, actually. And I I gotta tell you. I think there's two rules to the human race. One is whoever made us. It doesn't matter what we believe this human race.
Jody:We all start in exactly the same place. We all end in exactly the same place. K? We're way more alike than we are different, every single human on this globe. Our DNA is 99.98% the same.
Jody:And whoever created us said two things. I would have made you neurobiologically wired for connection, but the hardest thing you will ever do is look at each other.
Mark:Oh.
Jody:And that's always been the rule of this human race, and we've now never had so many opportunities to look away. How do we stay calm and fill up and navigate inter human interactions? We need rest and breaks and downtimes. Never before in the world of leadership or building a business, particularly in, you know, the world of realtors, have people had so much access to you? And historically, I mean, this you you have to be available all the time.
Jody:I mean, you're showing on a Sunday night. You're available to do a, you know, whatever. Sign something in the middle of your kid's soccer game. We used to, even just one generation ago. You know?
Jody:People had to wait sometimes to sort of get to a landline before they could get to us, or they could, you know, just sort of wait until, like, it was an maybe an appropriate time. Now we are strapped to our phones and our watches and our rings, and some of us have all three of them going at the same time, which means every time we get some a notification, our cortisol spikes just a little bit. K? So never before in history has that happened. We're the first generation of parents, leaders, adults to have access to all of this, and we're tired.
Jody:And and we should be. Because at the same time, we're the first generation in human history to be these two things, this sleep deprived and this attention fragmented, which means we usually have a million things going on. So we're doing this podcast, but in the background, you know, our email notifications are on. You may have, you know, whatever. I mean, the TV's on in the background, all the things.
Jody:And so although we are doing one thing at one time, we're so scattered in the way that we do it, and we need that constant noise. Right? We can't just watch the Eulers play. We need to have you know, we're playing Blockbust at the same time, and we're listening to music, and we're doing all these things. Right?
Jody:So the subtleties of human interaction and the ability to sort of refuel is the one thing we're not talking about these days. We're worried about social media and the kids and all that. That's the least of our worries. Right. If we're not okay, these big people, the next generation doesn't stand a chance.
Mark:Well, yeah, there's a lot there. That okay. That question, we went in a lot of different directions, but really, we focused it in on on on exactly what the issue is. I guess for people when they're thinking about their jobs, especially if there's like a contractor or if you wanna call them gig workers, like a lot of people are, not necessarily realtors, but anybody who's listening to this, that separation, that ability to maybe not be on call all the time, is a difficult one to navigate. Right?
Mark:Because you want to be available, you wanna get that job, at the same time, you're trying to protect yourself. So where do you start with, say, a structure, maybe, that helps you do that?
Jody:I think it's it's gonna be the hardest thing we will do in this next generation, and it's sort of like the discipline of connection that is going to result in in those of us who choose to to to do that sort of be the healthiest among us. Right? And it's like, it's always been the discipline of anything that's good for you, like exercise, like, a spiritual practice, like, you know, whatever those things. It it is a practice to be able to do this, and it's never been so sexy not to. It's never been so alluring.
Jody:Our phones are designed specifically to keep us there. And, like, data like this gets me all the time. You know, I restaurants last year, 72% of all restaurant orders in our country were not eaten in a restaurant.
Mark:Really?
Jody:And crazy. Right? And why that matters is because it means that we're either you know, we're eating while we're standing. We're just, you know, bringing it into our houses because we don't want more people. We wanna throw punch everybody like we used to like people, and now we're just done with people because they're just so dumb.
Jody:And, like, everybody is just in this heightened state a little bit and understandably so. So the ability to be disciplined, to do the things that that feel even a little bit harder, like shut our phones off, like not take our phones into our bedrooms with us, which is so easy. We feel like we deserve it. You know? We really should after we've just saved the world of humans that want us to sign contracts and do another showing, and they're never gonna frigging buy it anyway.
Jody:And you're just like, you know what? I you know what I wanna do? I wanna go to bed by myself, and I wanna watch somebody get murdered.
Mark:I'm not watching
Jody:Dateline. Yeah. What's like, on the show on the show.
Mark:Of course. Of course.
Jody:And again again again to to sort of interact with our nervous system, it's not like we're in bed meditating or doing anything that's good for our bodies. We are watching other people do really I mean, we want the pit. We want I mean, all of the number one shows right now are, like, crime scene documentaries or
Mark:Yep.
Jody:The worst of people, which our bodies don't understand. Like, if I'm watching Narcos in bed, my body doesn't understand that I'm not with the greatest Colombian drug dealer of all time. It doesn't know that. Right. It just knows that I am my cortisol is spiked.
Jody:I'm like, hurry up. Run. So to your to your question, the the idea for me is really all about this discipline, and I think we're new here. We don't realize how much we need it yet. We're I think we're gonna have to get a little sicker before we get motivated to to make some of these changes.
Jody:But, I I mean, the data already is irrefutable. We're we're this for the first time in history, we are dying faster from emotional illness than we are dying from physical illness For the first time in history. And we've never had this much access to resources or research. We've never talked this much about mental health or therapy, and we're sicker. It's not working.
Mark:You know, I I get the feeling too that, you know, we're we're we're over scheduled, but the one thing we don't schedule is downtime. Unless unless you're a really healthy person. If you are, you probably do. I know my wife, for instance, has lots of clients. She has they come in and and they'll say, well, can I get a a 10AM appointment?
Mark:She's, oh, no. I'm full. She's not full. That's when she works out. So she protects that at all costs.
Mark:So, you know, communicating with clients and even your boss about when you're available and when you're not, it it can be a difficult thing, but in the end, it it's probably very beneficial to them and to you because of your performance at that point.
Jody:And and we've always known that to be true. Right? And so I think there's a little bit of a I I think as in any industry, anytime in your career, there's a rite of passage. You know, early on when we're trying to build our clientele or we're we're younger, we have more ability to do things. Yes.
Jody:That's when I mean, if I look back at my career, I mean, it was ridiculous how hard I worked early on. And then I think you start to understand the importance of scheduling after you build up your clientele or after you do those things. But here's the here's the point. If you are not okay, the people you serve don't stand a chance. If you and and, I mean, I say this in in any industry or organization I get to speak to, like, the most important people you work for are the ones you go home to.
Mark:Right.
Jody:And that should be and sometimes needs to be our biggest motivation. And so if we get sick, if we aren't able to sort of do anything, I mean, then you can't close the next 100 deals because we we didn't prioritize that ability to sort of rest our neurophysiology. Never before in history people had to consider that. Never before. Right?
Jody:But this human operating system used to have built in one day one generation, I think about my dad all the time. In our in my lifetime, your lifetime, Sundays were a day of rest.
Mark:Right.
Jody:Stores were closed at 06:00. Nobody could access you. Like, the our nervous system, you and me, do not understand what's happening right now because the introduction of the smartphone was 2006. Introduction of the forward facing camera was 2009. We didn't see a a dip in overall global mental health, an increase in anxiety and depression until about 2015 2013, 2015.
Jody:So this this this nervous system experience globally right now is is only a decade old. And many of us are just like, you know what? Like, how great is it as a realtor to have access to anybody you want at twenty four hours a day? You could be running prices. You could be checking the markets.
Jody:You could be doing all this kind of stuff. That's really so awesome, and it still feels awesome for the vast majority of us who wanna make a lot of money until suddenly it kills us.
Mark:Yeah. All of a sudden and all at once.
Jody:Because rest is lazy. All of us also have our dad sitting on our shoulders going like, hey. Make hay while the sun shines. We're in this interesting conundrum in our bodies where the world has developed so the pace of change is unprecedented. Have we always been involved in an evolutionary state?
Jody:Yes. But we've never seen pace like this before, and our bodies are not keeping up.
Mark:You know, I often thought I often talk about comparing it to sports in some ways because, you know, athletes can't go twenty four seven. They they book rest. They know that, like, if you're a hockey player, you get an afternoon nap. You need that, and as you get older, especially say you're in your thirties, which is old as a hockey player, you gotta get that full eight to nine hours sleep. You've gotta you know, you periodize your workouts.
Mark:You work hard one day. The next day, take it a little bit lighter. We don't think about that from a emotional and psychological point of view as as regular people sort of thing, but it's something that's a lesson we could take.
Jody:Yeah. I mean, again, this is not new. Like, we we know this. Like, it the data's irrefutable. Right?
Jody:We know this in the world of health. We know this in the world of of anything, parenting. I had this conversation for a really long time about, like, you know, you're worried about your kid. You know, he's struggling or we're going through a divorce. And people would say to me all the time, can you see my kid?
Jody:Can you see my kid? And I would be like, absolutely. I'd love to see your kid, but I need to see you first. And then many people are like, do you think I'm the problem? And I I'm like, no.
Jody:You're not the problem. You're the solution. Because, you see, I can see your baby if for gold standard treatment, one hour a week, could do all the magic that I have in my back pocket, give them all the breathing strategies and talk other things. But if I send them home to a disregulates dysregulated system, it's a waste of time. Yep.
Jody:Hiring me is a waste of time. So it's the systems in which we're in and the bodies in which we sort of choose to live. So many of us can go hard for a very long period of time. What we will see increasingly is this sort of historical adage of particularly in men where you work, work, work till you retire, and then you die. Yeah.
Jody:Because the body keeps the score. And what's really interesting to me is highest rate of suicide in our country by a landslide by a landslide is middle aged white men.
Mark:Really?
Jody:Like, I mean, this is men men's mental health months while we're taping this. Right. And by a landslide. K? So if I take these four boxes, white, straight, able-bodied, male, if you check those four boxes inclusively, you have access to the most privilege on this planet, irrefutably.
Jody:K? Sure. Whether you use it or not, it's up to you, but irrefutably. That exact same cohort by a landslide is killing themselves at a much higher rate than any other group on the planet. Why?
Jody:Here's the interesting thing. We've done a massive disservice to men, I think. I have two sons and a daughter. I think we've done a massive disservice to 50% of the population because we have grown so exponentially fast that we forgot to give half of us emotional language, an ability to name it. And anxiety and depression will not kill you.
Jody:Not talking about it might. And one of the greatest disservices that we do is we say things like this. And I heard my husband say this last week as a hockey coach. Boys don't cry.
Mark:Oh.
Jody:You're skating like a girl.
Mark:Oh, boy.
Jody:Suck it up. Yep. I mean, it's in our boat. I mean, this is how we were raised. And we just hired Mike Babcock.
Jody:Are you kidding me? I mean, you can you made me wanna cut that. Anyway, the No. We'll leave it to you.
Mark:It's fine.
Jody:But but the expectation is we're really up against what used to work. And, I mean, I I I was raised in Viking, Alberta, Canada, home of the Suther brothers. I mean, those six I tried to marry one. Didn't work out. Fine.
Jody:But that mentality is where many of us in rural Canada was raised. Suck it up. You got it. You got it. You got it.
Jody:And it was kind of okay to do that because we came home to square footages that were 700 feet. We came home to kitchen tables, and we ate together every night so I could get eyes on my hockey players. I could watch my boys when they were upset, and I knew when my daughters they would they would be we would all have eyes on each other. Now we have more single parent households than ever before. We live in much bigger houses than we ever did.
Jody:We have less access to grandparent and grandparent like figures, and we're tired. So I can't text my kids and be like, how you doing, kid? And if I you know, my son say this to me all the time. Three words. Like, I am good.
Jody:But the second I get eyes on, I know. Yeah. Right? But if we're looking it's this is the the cool stat too. It's estimated that our great grandparents looked at their children 72% more of the time than we look at our babies today.
Mark:Really? That is an interesting stat, and it speaks to that whole piece about being connected to people. Right?
Jody:Think of the size of the beds that our grandparents slept in. Yep. You had you had to knock down, shoot them out. You had to figure your stuff out. You know?
Jody:Mhmm. Like, my personal husband and I, we got a king-size bed. I don't even know where he is most of the time. Yeah? And it's it's a measure of affluence.
Jody:It's a measure of success. The bigger the square footage, the more Mhmm. You know, properties that we own. All of those things in in your world, you know, you you know this stuff very, very well. And the idea again comes back to, for me, this discipline of connection.
Jody:That you it's there's no shame. In fact, there's it should be celebrated if you can sort of afford things or to upgrade. I mean, the average person, I mean, you know this better than me, but, like, you know, does five major home purchases in their lifetime. Right. And what's gonna what's gonna matter more in this next season in your role as realtors is not your access to the markets or how much data you can get your hands on.
Jody:It's your ability to walk people through one of the most important decisions of their life.
Mark:Yep.
Jody:And if you are if you are present when you do those things, it's that's gold.
Mark:So let's move on to a few things that we can tell people that work for them. So how do people stay grounded and focused when they're in that kind of environment as we all are, I guess?
Jody:Three things. I think these are sort of it's like a basic strategy for me that I think it comes down to. K? Sounds like this. You come home to yourself, then you give it away, and you put that on relentless repeat.
Jody:That's it. I'll explain to you what I mean, but people say this to me all time. Is it really that simple? Yes. Because the human operating system has not been updated.
Jody:We do not need to complicate this. Coming home to yourself feels like this. It's regulating your nervous system. So in this moment, as you're listening to this, you drop your shoulders.
Mark:Will do.
Jody:Relax your jaw. Drop your tongue from the roof of your mouth. The most primitive response to stress is we we lock our jaw because our ancestors would lock their jaw when the bad guys were coming over the hills for hand to hand combat. Now what locks our jaw is an email notification. So we spend the vast majority of of the of our days signaling to this very archaic nervous system that bad guys are coming.
Jody:Our cortisol is just shot a little bit of spiking every day. What happens when you get a shot of cortisol in your system is your shoulders just screech up to your lobes. K? And your blood pressure spikes just a little bit, indicating that there there might be, like, a a cougar coming. Okay?
Jody:So you're like this all day and an email notification. A 147. We get those. That's the average. A 147 email notifications a day.
Jody:If you're a busy realtor, you're getting a whole lot more than that. Let's hope. I mean right? And what happens is that every time that comes in, it's like this. So the reverse engineer of that is going to become the most important conversation we have because we haven't had to teach this to kids before.
Jody:We haven't had And certainly, this generation of humans, particularly men, do not understand the importance of regulating the system. I I speak to hockey coaches about this all the time. You can practice all the skills you want, but unless you can regulate that nervous system, unless you can take a deep breath and get your prefrontal cortex back on, you lose access to all your skill that you practiced. So the reverse engineer is this. You drop your shoulders, relax your jaw, wiggle your toes, let your gut out.
Jody:That's a relaxed body. And we spend very little time here during our days Right. Unless we do it by design. And what happens for most of us, when I give people permission to do this, either in my office or in a talk, people get tired. They start to yawn because it's the first time that we've indicated to our body that they're safe.
Jody:Because generally speaking, we're hooked up to a watch and a ring and three phones, and we're on our computer, which would indicate that all the things are happening. And we don't just sort of take a second. So the the the reverse engineer to that is a couple of things. I want you to sort of microdose regulation as much as you can. Put the word shoulders on your bathroom mirror, on your computer screen, in your car, before you step into a showing, twenty seconds in your car.
Jody:Back to the best of me. We know this client's gonna be hyped up. This is a big decision for them. They just got divorced. They don't have the finances.
Jody:All the things are gonna be happening. I need you to be like, mhmm. Mhmm. Yes. Tell me more.
Jody:When you're like that, you're creating a sense of safety for your client, which means they're gonna come back to you every single time. K? So this internal system of coming home to you, there's lots of practices we'll talk about over, you know, my years to get us back here because this is a thing we're not good at. Then we give it away. This is the part that many of us tend to be good at as humans, but this is what burns us out.
Jody:So when we give it away, I'm talking about things like kindness and empathy, the benefit of the doubt. What that looks like is waving at your neighbors, giving a compliment, stopping on the street to ask the name of a homeless person, demonstrating to your children that it has multiple benefits when you buy coffee for the guy in the in the line at Tim Hortons behind you. K? That's back to the best in us. Right.
Jody:And you only have access to that after you come home repeatedly. So the idea then is we just put those two things on relentless repeat, and we will be the healthiest, most happiest individuals on the planet. It's not hard.
Mark:Those things speak to a lot about what's going on with people, specifically for folks who are maybe having trouble separating the home life and the work life. Where where does that come in? Is is there is there something they specifically should think about when when they're tackling that problem if they have that where it's leaking into their home?
Jody:You can't. Home life balance is dumb. Be be it's nonexistent. Okay? So if if we consider if we are trying to sort of think that that's gonna happen, we're not good at it, and people have access to us all the time.
Jody:So there needs to be, again, that discipline, that strategy. It's gonna happen. Right? We're humans. We're gonna be thinking about while we're serving our kids dinner or we're coaching hockey, did I close that?
Jody:Oh, the email notification is coming in. You're like, just a second. I mean, I somebody was telling me this the other day. I think I was doing a call, and they were like, yeah. Like, they're she's at her daughter's wedding, and they gotta close the contract.
Jody:You know? So she's in the corner, you know, just being like, just one just just one second. I'll you know? And so it's it is such a disciplined practice right now. And so so things like, you know, your wife already sort of being able to say things like 10:30.
Jody:I'm I'm booked every day at 10:30. You know? And and we don't necessarily share that with our clients, not every day at 10:30, but, oh, shoot. Okay. I will be more than more than available at eleven.
Jody:I'll be more than available at noon. Know, booked all day this Sunday. I won't be available to do a showing. Now, again, it's building up that reputation, building up those things like in any history that, you know, has come before us. You do have to put in the work to create your portfolios, your relationships, those things work hard.
Jody:But I think there's always that microdosing of protecting you that allows you to not to to stay regulated. And the number one key for me when I know I haven't done that well and I mess it up all the time is resentment.
Mark:That's the
Jody:tell. I show up and I those like, hey. Can you do a showing on Sunday? I, like, I know I I have my kid's soccer game, but should I really want this deal? And, like so then I'm like, fine.
Jody:So then I show up on Sunday, I'm mad about it. Right. Yeah. You know? So, like, I agreed to it, but I'm, like, five minutes late because I'm like, do you know what I'm doing here?
Jody:I should be at my kids' talk. The the you agreed to it. It it but when resentment sets in, and if I say, you know what? I cannot Sunday, but I will tell you what. I will be available 06:00 Monday or 07:00 before you go to work, both of those things work for me Monday.
Jody:Yep. And I'd be glad to do it. And if they're like, ugh. Fine. 06:00 Monday.
Jody:Then I'm showing up at 05:30 Monday ready for you.
Mark:Right. Let them be resentful.
Jody:Yeah. And and, again, like but but, like, if if I'm worried about my position, if I'm worried about you, then that's the only thing that I need to consider in this moment. And it it is sort of setting those boundaries. Boundaries have nothing to do with other people. They have everything to do with you.
Mark:I think though, some people feel like if I set boundaries, or if I slow down, I'm not gonna be as successful as I wanna be. I gotta go, go, go, go. How do you get away from that mindset?
Jody:You you just really gotta ask yourself what the cost is. Because there's many of us that are much more motivated than the next guy. There are some people that are just very happy to have a whatever that is. You've gotta be clear about what you want for you, and you set your goals, and you do those relentlessly. If you wanna be making $5,000,000 a year in this in this business, then you've gotta really be even much more disciplined with your time and energy to be able to be that successful.
Jody:I'm on the road. I do a 100 talks a year. I've written three now, almost four books. I have a beautiful husband and three successful children, and they are my priority. I move my body as much as I possibly can.
Jody:I mean, we're in a red eye to get to Quebec City today. This is where we're taping this from. And there was not a conversation in my head whether I would have a nap before we got on here today. I'm here a day earlier because I know my babies are gonna be really busy this week, and it's one of the biggest talks I have in my life. So I'm gonna spend tomorrow prepping for it.
Jody:I know I'll deliver, and then I come home and we have the best summer ever. So it's it's really about managing. It's it's not about you need to do less or be less successful. I don't I don't think that's actually true. I think people who sort of are like, I'm gonna give up the career because, I gotta put my kids first, in my opinion.
Jody:That's not true for everybody, but I get fueled from my work. I love this. I know I'm changing the lives of the people that I get to spend time with, and I'm showing my kids how to be successful. I can't tell them how to chase their dreams. I gotta show them.
Jody:I also have to show them how to look after myself.
Mark:I think that a lot of what you said, you know, people also have to sit down and think about these things and make these decisions. Like, take that time is the key to do it. Like, you've given some really good strategies for people, but they need to take the time to think about it and decide what works for them. Right? They can't just sort of, okay, I'm gonna do this, or I'm gonna do that.
Jody:Yeah. I I think so, and I think we know more than than we already do. Like, I think so many of us right now are getting sort of pressured into, like, you need to go into the hills of Somalia and do goat yoga for three weeks until you can find yourself. Like, I don't I also don't know that, like, that that you need to take a massive amount of effort. Right?
Jody:It's like, where do I feel my best? Where do I know my limits are are too great? Answer those questions for me. And what that's gonna need what I'm gonna need you to do is go in. I'm gonna need you to come home to answer those questions.
Jody:So find that sacred space, whether it's on your way to work because you've shut the you don't have a podcast on, you have no music, and it's fifteen minutes just you talking your goals out loud. Right? I this is what I need to prioritize. And and, again, why relentless repeat is so awesome is because you're gonna have to return again and again and again. You're gonna mess it up.
Jody:You are going to have seasons where you close a million deals and you just you can't say no. You gotta give yourself grace in those moments. Then you're gonna have to be, like, walking away from things if you don't wanna pay the price for that. You get so it's I think just really, as you said, being consciously aware of those things. And so don't let that be another barrier.
Jody:Like, oh my god. I gotta plan it. I'm not ready for it. Just really think about the fact that, like, you know when you're at your best. You know when you're struggling.
Jody:What are your tells? Do that a little less. Drop your shoulders for the love of Jesus. It's that easy.
Mark:Jody, some wonderful advice here. Thanks so much. We do have one last question that we ask from her. This is from the the realtor part of the whole story, it's it's the question is, for you personally, what makes a house a home?
Jody:My people. Yeah. Anywhere's home for me as long as I'm with my people. And I think, you know, when you said that, I I thought the question was gonna be like, who is your favorite realtor? But I have to tell you, I we have bought and sold three houses in our marriage.
Jody:Wow. One of those we built, and I will tell you, I can tell you the first and last name of every realtor who walked us through those things. They were pivotably pivotally important. You will have so many clients that you probably can't name them all for me, but I promise you that you are woven into the trajectory of people's most important decisions. And do when you remember that, if you're regulated during that process, like, what what holy work this is in a time where people feel so disconnected and lonely.
Jody:It's I think it's gonna be never more important to be human in this industry, and then then it'll be never be easier to build a business.
Mark:Doctor. Jody Carrington, clinical psychologist, author, and global speaker. Jody, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
Jody:I loved it. Thanks, Mark.