My oldest son had a desire to be a Division I competitive golf. All the golf pros said he has no chance of being a college competitive player. I just kept asking him questions Out of the top players practice are you practicing similar? Do you want to change how you practice? Well, he changed his habits dramatically and in turn his swing got significantly better and he played Division I competitive golf. My other son was all about being a league college and I never pushed him to say, well, do this, do that. I just kept asking him why, if you didn't get in, how do you feel about that? How do you think the top people that get selected to a Harvard at a 4% acceptance rate might get in? Through that process of asking those open-ended questions, he got into every Ivy that he applied to, plus Stanford, plus Rice, and chose Harvard. Because you know same principles in senior housing we're shifting the staff.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Senior Housing Investors Podcast. If you are an owner operator, investor, developer or buyer of senior housing, you've come to the right place. The best way to stay connected with us is to sign up for our weekly newsletter at HavenSseniorInvestmentscom. This podcast doesn't exist without you and our community. Thank you for listening and reach out to us anytime.
Speaker 3:Welcome back everyone. Today, our host, john Haber, has the privilege of speaking with Bill Bent. Bill's experiences with speaking, being a life coach and author as well as a top mortgage executive, is what makes his leadership program so successful. Turn in as they dive into energy and how it can help your organization overcome anything.
Speaker 2:John. Thank you, kelsey. In today's episode, we're honored to welcome Bill Bent, a transformative figure in the world of business and personal development. Bill's journey is nothing short of remarkable, having rebounded from a near fatal accident in 2014 to become a beacon of resilience and growth. Bill's work as a speaker, author and life coach centers around empowering CEOs, executives and sales professionals to navigate change, set priorities and maintain integrity.
Speaker 2:Before his life took an unexpected turn, Bill was a luminary in the mortgage industry, recognized five times as one of the top 100 most influential mortgage executives. Under his leadership, academy, mortgage Corporation evolved from a regional entity into a national powerhouse, marking a significant achievement in his career. His earlier tenure at Waterfield Financial Corporation further underscores his prowess in leading teams to unparalleled success, accumulating and managing $1 billion in annual production. Bill's commitment extends beyond the boardroom. He is passionate about helping individuals achieve holistic success mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Bill continues to inspire through his life's work and hobbies, including running, hiking and golfing in Evergreen Colorado, where he resides with his family. Join us as we delve into the inspiring narrative of Bill Bent, a man whose life and career embody the power of transformation and the spirit of perseverance On the show.
Speaker 1:Bill. Thank you, john, I'm excited to be on the show.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm excited to speak with you. This is the first time I've interviewed one of my business partners. This is going to be so good, since both you and I fully embraced energy, leadership and personal assessments to transform individuals and companies. Bill, give us our audience an overview of how you've moved toward and embraced the fact that a powerful mindset coupled with dynamic skillset can position any organization to overcome key obstacles.
Speaker 1:Great question, john. And so as we get going in life, we go through our own development and everything around us keeps developing, whether it's technology or other items that I'm going to mention in a second. So back when I graduated college I'm going back to 1983, it was all tied into skillset and skillset very important whether you're going to be an accountant, whether you're going to be in sales. And while the assessment world didn't exist back then at least it might have been a little bit but the ability to help people from skillset and really help them feel where their passion was, really start to kick in and come along. Well then, the 90s come along.
Speaker 1:And then I just bumped into a gentleman in the later 90s that had just gotten into coaching and I didn't even know what coaching was about. And I'm on a golf course, I get paired up with him and he goes. Isn't it amazing what science has proven? And I said, tell me more. He goes. Well, quantum physics, a study of matter, study of small, has scientifically proven that we are energy, we're a spiritual being wrapped into a body. And so he explained a little more and I was like, oh, that's interesting, but left it alone.
Speaker 1:Well then, a few years later go through divorce and that's when I got really hands on and introduced to coaching. Now we're in 2003. And that coach very spiritual based really introduced me to spiritual psychology and mindset and I started shifting how I handled the divorce. I started shifting and I didn't personalize certain issues. I started to realize how other parties, other individuals, how they handled issues and I didn't have to take ownership of how they handled things. Through that process I really handled my divorce issue, which really helped me handle my raising of my children my two boys in a different process, which was very beneficial. Well then it really kicked in.
Speaker 1:Another five years later, 2009, I got introduced to work by a guy named David Hawkins and it was all on consciousness and on consciousness, all on energy. And then I started to research it and apply it personally from the standpoint of how can I be most Christ-like as a person, highest level of energy. But then I really went into how to organize a business in high energy, how to synthesize a business, and not to prove anything, but how to allow the power of connection to occur. We came from one, with God coming along, and then the big explosion we're going to go back to one, we leave our body and I learned how to synthesize a business which led to the growth of Academy Mortgage from 130 employees to 2300 and becoming the largest national mortgage originator, measured by purchase volume. And all of that was more mindset-based coupled with skill set.
Speaker 2:Well, that's fascinating. As you and I know, we understand energy. We understand how our energy radiates out, either positive or negative. And we hear the word spirituality quite a bit, and I've had this discussion with my mother regarding spirituality and my Christian faith. It kind of sounds a little woo-woo. Tell me about this in a practical way.
Speaker 1:I think the practical way is as I learned it and studied it first, I started also down the spiritual path of religion with it and I start down the path of the Christianity and the Higher being being God and Christ. Here on earth. Other religions have their Higher being. They also operate under. We are spiritual love and that the Higher being is within you. And so at that point I didn't really see a business application. But then, as I kept researching, I that my aha came on of how to synthesize a company.
Speaker 1:Now the simple part of synthesizing a company comes down into systems, database policy, procedures, how to communicate things from a perspective of everybody sees issues from their role.
Speaker 1:If their roles in compliance, they're going to see it more from that perspective. That their role in sales, they're going to see it more from that client basis. So I got very adept at communicating more from the middle and explaining how it impacted the different departments but why it really felt that the leadership felt it was in the sweet spot. And then I came along on really understanding attitudinal of each employee and understanding back to what you said, john how they vibrate into that negative energy of times, positive energy, and just help them have some degree of understanding and they might shift a little bit their attitude on an issue and that really enhanced retention. That occurred with that mortgage company. We went to a very high retention level, which was a key component of that growth and so that level of understanding, consciousness and applying it one direct benefit was that retention. The other direct benefit was introducing change and getting the organization to embrace that change and not resist change from their role and it was key components of tactical, practical things and applying the concept of consciousness.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate that. I mean you're very astute. I mean to go from the number of employees to over 2000 and to be able to manage that effectively and manage all those energy levels effectively is quite amazing. And so when you look at problems in business and the senior housing business, one of the biggest is turnover. And so where do you start with your evaluations of individuals within an organization?
Speaker 1:Actually a question, john, and I really don't start on the individual level, I really start on the process level. Every business is a process. Every business has sub processes with how they deliver their product, their services and senior housing. By all means, and certainly with what it delivers is can be very life changing for individuals, and that turnover issue tied into staffing and senior housing is highly problematic and there are things that a company can do internally, but so much of it is external too.
Speaker 1:We didn't create the pandemic. We didn't create the significant pickup in inflation, the much higher interest rates, the push up on wages that occurred literally overnight at a high level that we didn't have the system accommodating In turn. Where does this all come from? Where does the cost of all this come from? So, as we looked at the process and also included in that process, what is our hiring practices? What type of individuals do we hire? Why do we hire? Do we help people understand the vision? Do we help them feel purposeful within what they do? Or are we really hiring people just on a need basis? And here's a paycheck?
Speaker 1:And so, by looking at that process and then getting down to the individual and what type of individuals fit best we were able to in a three senior housing portfolio with a staffing of about 45 people over a one year period, of introducing coaching both skillset and mindset into it, significantly reduce the turnover and have much higher retention. And we even had a couple of employees. We decided mutually it was better to part ways and then a few months go down the road and they kept knocking on the door wanting to come back because of our culture. We went ahead and resolve the issues that we had and brought them on board and from a skillset perspective, in their role they are stellar. What's shifted their mindset and they're seeing things, understanding that component and seeing things more from a higher level or a positive perspective and when their stress button gets it, they're able to de stress in a much more healthy, effective way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've learned so much from you as it relates to that, and really understanding how our team members deal with stress and being able to be cognizant of what they're going through and how they respond in a stressful situation gives me a greater level of empathy. You know it's something internal, or something from their childhood, or it could be something from just their overall personal lives. What's going on in their personal lives currently? And so how do you do the employee team members get analyzed in the problem solving process?
Speaker 1:That's one of the heart and soul issues, john. I'm glad you asked that question, because it's all about, as I mentioned, process management, but then the core of its people, and if you want to orchestrate without developing your people, that's out of sync. And so how to help the people have at least a baseline and understanding of who they are and what they bring to the table, and that relates greatly to what's gone on with assessments. The assessments kicked in more in the 90s, and the two highly known ones, dish and Myers-Briggs many others kept coming along and developed and enhanced further, and so now many of the assessments on leadership or type of roles are a little more personality-based. One of the leaders that I'm a big fan of, predictive Index is really a data approach to helping people understand their strengths and weaknesses and what type of roles they have a better probability in doing very well at and what type of roles they have a lower probability of doing well at, and introducing your staff to that type of model and just letting them know that, from an assessment purely perspective, it kind of casts this umbrella. Now that umbrella, though, is not 100% accurate. That umbrella might be 80, 85, 90% accurate. There's always going to be aberrations or people that excel, even though the assessment world says, well, it may not be their best fit. And as long as you help people understand that you're helping them naturally be authentic and not be who maybe they're naturally not, and that helps an individual optimize who they're going to be.
Speaker 1:The other component of helping people gets back into the energy side.
Speaker 1:That brings in another very powerful assessment that's been developed by one of the leading coach training programs internationally and that company is called Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching let's start in the late 90s and then over the last 20 plus years has become very well known as one of the leading coaching schools by the International Coach Federation.
Speaker 1:They are very unique in the assessment of developing one that measures energy, leadership or really consciousness and consciousness. Again, for the group that's listening to this will be your thought process, your emotion, feeling in the moment and then your actual behavior. Do you contract and pause and get into negative energy and don't engage? Do you go to a higher level of engagement? Do you go from the me world, the I world, to the we world to trying to accomplish, or do you go to the highest level, which is the all and the all, from an energy perspective is universal and we're all energy and if you can start to see issues more that way or at least have a basic understanding, baseline almost 100%, I'm going to claim 100%. The people that I've directly worked with, which is close to a thousand people, all want to be that higher energy and you get them comfortable. It's okay to go negative at times and then how to vibrate higher.
Speaker 2:So what does that type of employee within business and the senior living community look like when they're resonating at a very high energy level?
Speaker 1:I'm getting chills when you ask that question, john, just because of who I am and how I help people optimize who they are, and so that's a spot on question to talk about the power of this. And so what we kicked off with this portfolio was a leadership base for the executive management team. This was a new concept for them to get introduced to the assessments, both predictive index and energy leadership index. We went through a seven month program and really they embraced rewiring themselves, if you will, to see issues from a different perspective. We've had a couple individuals that were big champions on it and have shifted dramatically with handling issues and really that leadership from the top does drip down. So they are so much more empathetic and compassionate when the stress button gets hit on the staff member, but they're able to ask them really open and empowering questions that help them distress themselves. What do you think? For example, john, my staff member that's a caregiver just had an issue with a resident and she's highly concerned with how she handled it and she's coming to me to say, oh my gosh, or she saw another staff member handle something she thinks was totally wrong and then just by asking that staff member open and empowering questions. Well, you saw that and that's very stressful. Why do you think it is stressful? Tell me more that just getting them to converse and talk about it is going to be their own element of de-stressing. And then you help them get to the core what I learned by embracing coaching and energy leadership. I helped I'm going to get out of this senior housing world for a second. I went through divorce. I started shifting how I handle things.
Speaker 1:My oldest son had a desire to be a Division I competitive golf. All the golf pros said he has no chance of being a college competitive player. I just kept asking him questions Out of the top players practice are you practicing similar? Do you want to change how you practice? Well, he changed his habits dramatically and in turn his swing got significantly better and he played Division I competitive golf.
Speaker 1:My other son was all about being elite college and I never pushed him to say, well, do this, do that. I kept asking him why, if you didn't get in, how do you feel about that? How do you think the top people that get selected to a Harvard at a 4% acceptance rate might get in, since they all excel in their board scores and their GPAs Through that process of asking those open-ended questions. He got into every Ivy that he applied to, plus Stanford, plus Rice, and chose Harvard, not because I told him anything. Those same principles in senior housing. We're shifting the staff and we're getting those individuals that left, that are stellar on their skillset, knocking on the door saying I want back because of the culture that culture leads from starts at, from our management in the field.
Speaker 2:Let's address that management in the field side. So, as you and I know, predictive Index has a back-end system that really allows us to build our teams effectively. Tell us about the quadrants that make up a team in the Predictive Index assessment.
Speaker 1:On the Quadrant approach with Predictive Index. They develop first, for each individual that takes assessment, 17 different profile types. This is all database driven, by the way, with creating this, those 17 profile types have four different category types but then they blend into a leadership of four quadrants. Those four quadrants are one is employee team, more in nature type leader. That's going to be more relational in nature, maybe not quite as on top of the details of a system type issue. Another quadrant is going to be in Agile and Innovative. Some of your leaders that are great at creating businesses and getting them going are from that profile. By the way, john, you are one of those great creators with who you are in that quadrant. Another quadrant is really that results discipline type of individual CFOs, accountants, compliance individuals that profile into that category tend to do very well in those type of roles.
Speaker 1:The last quadrant is into process and precision more in mindset. Each one, if you start dividing the quadrants into groupings, gets into more the extrovert side or the introvert side. Get more into the analytical side or the gut feel side by the leadership team understanding and trying to build a balanced leadership. It really gets into your top leaders out in the field being much more effective in delegating when to delegate, how to delegate and allow it to occur, and not just delegate with only then not giving them that responsibility or the authority with that delegation. It greatly enhances team and it understands the dynamics. Maybe the team's a little out of balance or we want to grow in this local market in our senior housing portfolio. Sally is great at running this facility. Sally, you're in charge of growing Will. Sally profiles as great in support. She doesn't profile great in being that business builder. You're really miscasting Sally in that situation and there's a higher probability she's not going to enjoy it and a higher probability she won't succeed at it. That's the power of using predictive index.
Speaker 2:Bill. What I like about it mostly is it gives me printouts of exactly how I communicate with my profile with another profile on the team, because the way I communicate with one person whose process and precision versus what I am, which is a venture, which is a big thinker and always six months ahead, I've got to be very careful on how I communicate to most of the team members on our team regarding my vision, because it'll just throw them off. They think it's going to happen today when I'm thinking way ahead in the future. Address that with us. How does this system allow those individuals within the team to understand each other and be able to work with each other very effectively?
Speaker 1:Another powerful aspect, john, of predictive index. Now, if you really start getting into the details of predictive index, all that it can do. It's a very broad-based system and can handle aspects of communication. That leadership style certainly can handle access components in team building. But back to specifically that communication. They have a beautiful tool that's been database-driven that will let you know based upon specifically how you profile.
Speaker 1:Now, john, thanks for sharing your adventurer.
Speaker 1:Let's say, you as a venture, you might profile as a venture type A and another venture might be a venture type M, if you will.
Speaker 1:It really helps specifically to the type of profile into the more trench level of that profile type. Specifically to another individual that's been through the assessment how they profile and specifically in there Now they might be, as you mentioned, that I'll use a operator as a profile type into the process precision bucket and they might profile more like an operator A level versus a M level operator. Then it will give you a tool that will say, and let's go back to using Sally as a name, sally's the operator and it gives you a tool specific to your venture type in communication strength and weaknesses with an operator of Sally's type. It's such a powerful tool that you can keep it on your dashboard Anytime you have a scheduled meeting with Sally to say oh yeah, sally and I in our communication, here's where we synthesize well, but here's where we may have some gaps and we don't listen quite so well because of those gaps and in turn enhances team building or back to synthesizing that team, connecting it even deeper. Great point, john, on the communication aspect to predictive index.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to get a little vulnerable here. I'm really good at starting companies, getting them going, finding great talent to add to the team, but I get a little impatient when it comes to not being able to continue to start different companies, such as from going from Haven Senior Investments growing that and having an amazing team, to now building Haven Co Capital and then starting from scratch Again. I find great joy in that the team was able to point out that my venture profile did not work really well within a process and precision growing organization, because I was way out there. So comment on that. I mean it was really enlightening for me for one and second of all, ego didn't come apart of it. I know who I am, and so for me to move out of a role of leadership within one company and then go lead another company is very empowering, knowing who I am.
Speaker 1:I believe, john, you're really talking about the impact you can have on that five-year, seven-year, 10-year company that's trying to grow. And so, john, thanks for being vulnerable and for the group. I want to applaud John and as John talks about it, he talks about the ego. Didn't get in his way. I'm going to be to the group. Each one of you out there, we all have an ego. I have an ego. We all have situations that our ego wants to lead, our ego wants to control, our ego wants to be right, our ego wants familiarity, what we're used to, and our ego wants a situation habit-forming.
Speaker 1:My applause for John is high because John had to wrestle with his ego earlier in this process.
Speaker 1:John is such a great creator and has created one of the leading senior housing service-based organizations for owners and operators in broker services, consulting services, market feasibility services and also into lending services, and the company was growing to the point that John's strengths really weren't needed anymore and actually could be viewed as a little bit of a prohibitor for their growth, because John's not loving daily getting into the process, procedure, management, the nature of who he is.
Speaker 1:So, through a process with John looking in the mirror, you need that leader to look in the mirror. John got in front of the mirror and John got very humble and John got very respectful to who he is and John really came to the point of saying for my wings to keep flapping at a high level. This shift is so much better for me and shift for the organization. For all you leaders out there, if you have that chance to check in to get John's help on how he worked through this, use it. It's powerful because our ego wants to control and be right and we did develop something, something we led, and maybe that shift is more powerful for you individually as a leader and the organization.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for calling me out on that. Sometimes forget I do have an ego and I guess I wouldn't start companies unless I did. But thank you very much. And I concur with Bill bottom line leaders in all businesses, and especially in the senior housing business, understand yourselves, understand your team and what it takes to work as a team, because we have a crisis on our hands. We need to create safe and secure housing for our most vulnerable populations and we need to create 775,000 units over the next six years. We cannot do it the old way. We have got to do it in a way that creates wellness internally and externally within ourselves and our organizations. And so thank you, bill, for continuing to really promote these assessments within organizations nationwide. So is there anything that is so important for you in your path toward owning and operating senior housing, as you've done, that really stands out of a aha moment.
Speaker 1:Yes, I've had my share of aha moments, john, as I moved into senior housing, of course, my background being in home ownership and on the mortgage origination side and I got more passionate and more feeling purposeful and helping home ownership and the value of that. I didn't know what I was getting into when I moved into senior housing. I was entranced in it. I saw that gosh, this is a good way to be purposeful in life and I had to get educated on the reality of what the audience that is in senior housing does on a daily basis. And my aha was how significant we are for the elderly, how we can help their lives continue to vibrate at a good level feeling healthy, feeling purposeful to a degree, feeling significant, building good communities, activity-based and fun and enjoyable.
Speaker 1:But I am not clinical-based, so my knowledge on that was just reading a few books when I was much younger and never studying it, and that was my a-ha on the amount of healthcare that's tied into it and so many leaders out there are stellar at it and your ability to be stellar is thankful and grateful.
Speaker 1:As you develop that people leadership, I think it will only allow to enhance your model to continue to vibrate at best levels. So my a-ha was I'm not there the clinical side, but I am there on the mindset, coaching, skill set side and how to try to marry the two together. Because if you marry the two together, that culture is going to greatly enhance and it's going to go beyond your staff, it's going to go beyond your residents, it's going to go to the residents' families and trickle through their families and it's going to go to your staff families and it's going to start shifting how they go about things, how they do things and that ripple effect is going to go to a larger population that you really don't even realize with what we do. And that was, you know. I would say that was my biggest a-ha with this.
Speaker 2:Thanks, bill. And so, as you know, this is the Senior Housing Investors Podcast. We get a ton of individuals around the world tying into this podcast to listen to how, financially, they can succeed in senior housing, how they can get started in senior housing, and it sounds like culture focus is a top priority. Where are the KPIs and financial returns as a priority?
Speaker 1:They're important priorities and so I would you know my way of defining this in the mortgage world. I use the same kind of soft formula Culture is priority 1A and the KPIs and financials are priority 1B. They don't go down to 2, 3, 4, 5 type of priority. And in that perspective is I found that when you have the ability to greatly enhance the culture plus be able to analyze the process and then get to the people in that process, it becomes very powerful.
Speaker 1:I'm going to bring up another example on the portfolio I'm very involved with, besides the retention, with what went on, because the size of these facilities, the ability to staff and leadership roles we have to be flexible.
Speaker 1:So we have a little more of a hybrid in the sense of marketing, lead management and part of the sales process where it's not local, because these facilities are in the 20 to 40 bed range and the size of these facilities in the revenue lines really doesn't allow to have a direct staff member local handling that marketing, that lead aspect. And so through this process of coaching and helping people understand mindset, along with the analyzing skill sets at a predictive index, we've been able to Be highly efficient and infilling beds when we have a resident that either directly moves out or does pass away, and we have direct results that prove our approach, with process management, mindset, skill set combined, how our senses has vibrated much stronger Now. There are little things that happen externally that create that. I don't want to claim our internal process focus is the only reason to it, but it's a core reason to it and that allows the model, financially then, to perform better on its NOI, perform better on sustainability and continue to allow other ways to look at growth. That's always good to hear.
Speaker 2:And I hope our audience really clams onto that because it is extremely important and you both you and I have experienced it in our organizations and that's why we're so enthusiastic about these processes. So let's get to you real quick, bill, in regards to what are you doing today? Where's your focus? What are your dreams? How can people get a hold of you? And let's promote you. What are you doing today? Thank you, john, to let me do my quick little info on the little infomercial.
Speaker 1:So, with my situation, I've been an active investor outside of senior housing too and manufactured housing and also in the coaching industry, and I'm allowing to shift my focus to be more on helping others outside of my senior housing direct network and portfolio that I'm involved with and that focuses into keynote speaking, which I highly enjoy and I've had a highly trained background in that, and my claim to fame on that is talking at Harvard University and getting great reviews. That's my claim to fame on being a very good keynote speaker. But then on the other front in the coaching and then the model that we created for the portfolio that I'm a key owner in, that model is can be replicated for other investors owners out there. And then I have a network of certified coaches that are trained on senior housing directly too. That can be a key component to help other organizations out there. And my view, john, everything in our life happens for a reason and one thing we didn't touch on for the group I had a life changing accident 10 years ago and I was in the hospital for 10 months and I've been called a miracle many times because of a very severe traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 1:And that severe traumatic brain injury had this shearing damage version called the diffuse axonal injury, severe grade. It's statistics that category 50% mortality, 90% survivors vegetable, like 10% survivors that are non-vegetable, I had no, so cognitive impairment. I am an absolute rarity to where I'm at. Many things I did energetically, like using pulse, electronic magnetic field devices, using low level and for light devices, sound devices Really sound meditation too, and some other work I did with a chiropractor, et cetera. But one thing I worked on was my own spirituality, if you will.
Speaker 1:Again, I had to relearn to energy, relearn consciousness and vibrate at better levels, which is more fueling and healing in nature, and so I'm out there to spread the word on consciousness and energy, along with skill set though, and really help leadership and organizations Optimize to the highest level of who they're going to be and what they can do, and so any opportunities out there in the network to that I can provide help to them. To reach out to me, my email is bill, at bill bent, bntcom, and then my phone number. You can text me if you want to call me to. Probably won't be in the position to answer it, though, so please call me at 303-419-6539. And you get my commitment to help what you're trying to do within your organization and your group being set out there.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, bill. I want to thank you very much for being a mentor to me, for really supporting my direction and my focus, our company's focus over the last three or four years. You've been instrumental in the growth of the Haven Co companies and I truly am very, very grateful for you and I wish you the best as you move forward with your speaking and your coaching and fully support that and what you're doing. So please reach out to Bill and amazing human being, incredible energy, and I thank you so much for what you've done for us and those who have impacted the family.
Speaker 1:My pleasure, John. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Have a great day, Bill. Thank you for being on the show.