With over twenty-five years of experience leading esteemed real estate firms, Rainy Hake Austin, President of The Agency, is passionate about strategically growing companies through her unique expertise and vision. She focuses on providing the best resources, tools, and support to The Agency’s residential real estate brokerage arm, the global new development division, and the internal creative teams that provide full-service marketing to nearly 1,000 luxury real estate professionals and 50+ offices affiliated with this global lifestyle brand. Rainy excels in solving complex problems, empowering her team, and working collaboratively to develop best-in-class services and offer an unmatched experience to customers. Rainy’s extensive accolades include being named the recipient of the Bisnow Woman of Influence Award, featuring as a regular contributor to Real Trends, Inman and other industry publications, and serving as Board Chair for MLSListings.

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John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. I’m very excited to have with us today, Rainy Hake Austin. She’s the President of the agency. Welcome to the Impact podcast, Rainy.

Rainy Hake Austin: Thank you, John. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

John: This is just a joy for me. My daughter-in-law, Bridget Shegerian, was the one who suggested we have you on. She’s a huge fan of yours, actually, so is my son, and they were very excited about having you on, so I’m very grateful that you are taking the time to join us today. Before we get talking about all the great things you’re doing as the president of the agency, I’d love for you to share with our listeners and viewers out there, Rainy, your background. Where did you grow up, and how did you get on this fascinating and important journey that you’re on already?

Rainy: I appreciate that. It’s been… I know, Mauricio[?] teases me. He says I look like I’m 12 years old, and I’ve been in the real estate industry for almost 30 years now, so it’s [crosstalk]

John: That’s almost impossible, because even when our cameras went live, I didn’t know what Mauricio[?] told you, but I said to you, you just look so young, whatever you’re drinking or eating, you’re the fountain of youth. That’s great.

Rainy: Well, I appreciate that. That’s amazing compliment. I’ve had a wonderful journey to get me to where I am. I fell into real estate at an early age. I was born in East Coast, but I’ve lived in California most of my life. I would do stints in property management when I first started off, and it was just supposed to be a summer job. I just was going to be a receptionist, and I ended up becoming the office manager, running the office, opening the sales division. We did some M&A, we bought a smaller company and then a bigger company. I oversaw all of that before I finished high school. I computerized the office, I figured out how to incorporate website, I learned how to do Dreamweaver on my own just by being born into that digital age, figuring out the technology pieces of things, and just the puzzle pieces of putting things together was always really intriguing for me. It wasn’t real estate, per se, that got me interested in my path. It was problem-solving, and so I went away to college. I went to Berkeley in California and worked full-time and went to school full-time, commuting back and forth to the office. I don’t remember most of those years, a little fuzzy, not a whole lot of sleep, and then I left that company to go work for another company that had a bigger brand along Pennell Realtors, who, after my stint with them actually became the fifth largest real estate company in the country. Now, we’re located just in the San Francisco Bay Area, a lifestyle company, and I, again, left my VP role to become marketing coordinator, marketing manager, VP of marketing, and then I decided to take a little bit of a break, and I went across the pond to England. I got my MBA because why not quit your job and spend your life savings just to improve? It’s my journey as a life-long learner. It was really important to me, and if I didn’t do that, I was never going to do it. It was 2008, 2009, I graduated during the downturn and got thrown back into real estate again, so they created a new position for me back along Pennell to be the head of corporate affairs and eventually the COO, where I ran marketing, technology, training, strategy, and operations, and I say [inaudible] grew the company to a 12.5 billion dollar firm, then, we were acquired by Compass. I oversaw the integration of the big acquisitions they were doing in the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California, eventually took over all the West Coast for Compass operations, and decided that that wasn’t necessarily the right place for me but learned a lot being a boutique, and then at a larger, growing company, and the opportunity to move to the agency came forward, and I really felt like it was the place where I could take everything I’ve learned in my career and the best brand that took me inside of real estate. That point was really just a regional LA- based company and take that and really fulfill the vision that we had, and I met Mauricio and Billy, the founders. I almost didn’t take the call. This interesting brand that I’ve been following was interested, but in my mind, I was like, “I’m not LA. I’m not Beverly Hills. That’s not really my vibe,” but smart business mentors have always told me, “You never turn down an opportunity,” so I said, “I’ll just see what this is all about,” and I did. I just fell in love with Billy and Mauricio. I went down and spent several days with them. I brought my family down. We really just looked at the world the same way, looked at business-solving the same way, and it was an amazing opportunity for me to really take everything I learned, all of my talents, and bring it to this amazing brand and this shared vision we have of creating a truly international luxury lifestyle company. I’ve had opportunities in the past to be part of organizations and entities who said that they were international or were luxury, but a lot there was a lot of smoke and mirrors involved in that over the years of different marketing companies that existed and other brands I had worked with, and I just really felt like now is the time to get on the ground floor and build something the right way with the right people who are passionate about really redefining real estate. It’s been an amazing journey. That’s a bit of how I’ve gotten to where I am today.

John: What year was that that you were being courted by the agency and that you took that position?

Rainy: I joined the agency just about four years ago, and it was an amazing transition because I had a two-year-old toddler at home, and I just had my six-month old baby, we’re in the middle of Covid, that I remember the very first meeting I had at the agency, I was breastfeeding my little one, and her little hand was coming up, and I was addressing the whole company and is trying to be a mom and running a business in the middle of Covid and just make it all happen, so a little bit of everything.

John: Just going to the essence of how humble of a human being that you really are, when you said you want to cross the pond and you got educated, you got your MBA, you just didn’t go across the pond. You went to University of Oxford, and you got your MBA. Was that always a dream of yours? When you went to Berkeley, was Oxford somehow a dream or a part of your family lineage, or was that just something you decided to do just to give yourself more exposure, more experience?

Rainy: It was not necessarily… I always said that I want to get a higher education degree. Oxford was really about my desire to be more internationally-educated. I applied to all the big Ivy Leagues and got in everywhere, but I really didn’t want that just traditional American education, and so the idea of getting international MBA, I felt, gave me a better, more well-rounded education, given that we’re in such a global market and a global world where I feel like international business is really what the future is, and rather than I feel like most American business schools are American-centric in how they teach business, and so it was more of a strategic decision and making sure that I [inaudible] just the international network that I now have because of that is really amazing, and that was a good, intentional… not to mention, I got to travel to 33 different countries while I was there, that didn’t hurt either.

John: Wow. Just for our listeners and viewers, the agency’s website, to find Rainy and her colleagues, you could go to www.theagencyre.com. Talk a little bit about the size of The Agency, where we are today, where you are in your journey. How big is The Agency in terms of offices? How many real estate professionals are underneath you now as the president of The Agency?

Rainy: We have almost 115 offices and growing across 12 countries and about 2,500 sales associates. It’s actually a very small boutique footprint when you think about it. It’s a wide web and is very intentional where we’ve chosen to go and what we’ve selected.

John: It’s always interesting. Everyone’s origin story is fascinating because everyone has a story, but it’s always fascinating when people break out and do really spectacular things in industries that typically weren’t covered before. For instance, my wife used to work in real estate. This is 40 years ago. It was a very male-dominated industry. It’s still somewhat male-dominated. When you were growing up, will you always encourage that, “Hey, don’t worry, Rainy, that you’re a girl. You can do anything.” Was it a feminist household? Was it a capitalist household? Was it a mixture of both? Were you just told there’s nothing in to hold you back, there’s no ceilings anywhere? Where did you get the general feeling that nothing is going to hold you back from anything you want to do?

Rainy: It’s a great question. I actually grew up and came from humble beginnings, and we didn’t have a lot when I was growing up, and I just grew up in a household that was just full of love. It was not the whole… it wasn’t very goal-oriented or specifically what you’re going to achieve. That was a lot. That was innate in me in looking around at what was around me and saying, “I want it more. I want this for myself and that for myself,” so I was very goal-oriented from a very young age, and so a lot of that was, “I’m going to do this,” and I was certainly encouraged that you can do anything you want, but I remember the first time I went in for the job interview, my mom was like, “Are you sure? You’re interviewing against people who are 30 years old,” and I was like, “Well, I’ve got this, mom. Don’t worry.” I don’t know where that came from, per se, just innately was in me that if you work hard, you’ll earn what it is that you deserve in life, and that’s just always served me so well.

John: Talk about it. You came off, you were successful already. You’re obviously classically highly educated, but then you’ve also had all the success from high school days and college days in terms of your ability to manage and grow larger organizations and with a lot of success. You joined The Agency about four years ago. How has that gone? What’s gone to your plan? We all make plans, but as you and I know, man plans, God laughs, and what has been really off-plan that you really weren’t expecting but having enjoyed the challenges that have come your way?

Rainy: Challenge is the name of the game. I joined, and it was an amazing opportunity to assess where we were and begin putting real operations in place for a franchise division, expanding new development, expanding our ancillary services, so we really staffed up. We began expanding into Northern California, which was my backyard, company-owned, and we start expanding our franchise. We call it franchise, but what we call franchise is really just an asset way for us to expand. One of the things I love about our model is every global partner is what we call the owners of our franchises or franchisees on my manager meeting every month, and we’re hoping to onboard them, hire people, train them very robustly. I mentioned that because the vision that we sent out for was to grow and create an international luxury lifestyle company. We’ve accomplished that in so many ways, getting the TV show picked up for a PR perspective. We’re noted in the press five to six times a day, 365 days a year, and we are just 2,500 agents in comparison to some of these other major brokerages that you’re talking about. It is about surrounding myself with the most amazing people, so I have the best franchise person [inaudible] both taking our existing team who was there and in elevating them up, finding people’s talents and strengths, part of my passion is bringing highly effective teams, and so figuring out what the right seats on the bus are, making sure we get those people in place, and then backfilling, and that’s people who are both strong, culture drivers, as well as strong in their area of expertise. That all went well. We acquired a new technology platform, expanded into New York, and then literally, the next month, the market crash, dropped 40% and has been down for the last two years. Since so, we knew that we were looking like there would be some sort of a downturn with their interest rates going down and all that, but the anticipation of how long that was going to last and the overall impact, so in my four years, we had the two best years, the Covid years, of real estate, and then the two worst years of real estate in the last hundred years. To have that dichotomy, that pendulum swing, the challenge of moving from this operating procedure to that operating procedure and doing it effectively, keeping morale up, focusing on what really matters, making sure that you’re prioritizing your resources accordingly, all of those things have been the greatest challenge and opportunity because we figured out different things that we never would have been pushed to do, and really at The Agency, our core competency is reinventing ourselves and real estate by being innovative and creative in our thinking, not just in our marketing and branding, which is absolutely our core competency, being innovative, but being nimble and thoughtful about how we approach things. We’ve learned much more into franchise that I thought we would have grown more company-wide, and by being more constrained on financial resources for growth, which was different than the original plan, made me figure out that, actually, it was a better long-term strategy to be asset light and how we could go in in a very humble way into a market and not going to assume we know everything and plant our flag, but rather find the best person in that markets, find someone who’s smart, who’s capitalized, knows the local market, who’s already basically producing in a positive light, and teach them The Agency ways and give them the tools. So many people have just been raising their hand. They’re so hungry for a brand and a brokerage that allow that, that we have a waiting list of people across the globe who are interested in joining. That’s been that where the success has fallen but not without the bumps and bruises and adverse opportunities inside of that that that have really led us to rethinking what we thought was important and actually finding new priorities inside of it.

John: You’re saying it’s been a powerful one-two punch, taking what is now an international brand, which has been fueled partially by television and partially by social media, which we’re going to get into in a second, with a local budding superstar, and you put that combination together, and that really works. That one-in-one really does equal four when you when you put that delicate dance together in the local markets that you then get your franchisees coming into.

Rainy: Absolutely. It’s that combination of we’re local and we’re global and those two things coming together and a really compelling way that has been our recipe to success for the last few years.

John: When you look back on your being recruited by the two co-founders, was it by design? Was this really part of their master plan to be out front by putting a woman leader in charge of the agency beside of your skill set, the fact that you’re a woman, and in what was historically a male-dominated industry, was that part of their wisdom and vision? Obviously, it’s worked out tremendously, but was that what they were aiming for back then?

Rainy: I think that both Billy and Mauricio have very strong, powerful women in their lives, that they appreciate and love… obviously, Mauricio and his wife and four daughters, I think he appreciates the female perspective. I think he saw where we complemented one another, and I think he brought the company along as far as it could from an operational perspective, and then I think that he appreciated the female perspective of how I problem-solved and I approached things and how that complemented with what they already had in place with the existing leadership team.

John: Got it. For those listeners and viewers who have just joined us, we’ve got Rainy Hake Austin with us today. She’s the president of The Agency. You can find Rainy and her colleagues at www.theagencyre.com. Did TV come to you or did you bring The Agency to TV? I know my children watch your great show, and I know it’s made you a worldwide brand and much beloved and covered it, like you said, in the media all the time. Whose idea was this, and how did it come about?

Rainy: That is all Mauricio. Mauricio is, I think, often considered to be the first celebrity real estate agent out there. He really was the brains behind the Housewives of Beverly Hills and bringing that together, and he and Kyle launched the idea of The Agency being born as his brainchild on the show, so that was another reality TV show that wasn’t real estate-related, but that understanding the power of television and creating that using as a platform to launch the brand, and then obviously, he was very involved in Million Dollar Listing and the other television shows, and he had been given many offers along the years and waited until he got the opportunity with Buying Beverly Hills with Netflix to really control and own something where he felt like it could be more than just the flashy drama that is out there right now and that there could be a more of a thread behind what The Agency is about, which is the luxury lifestyle but also the family, and not just his family, but how we all collaborate and work as a family and could really tell an interesting story. All of that, that whole vision was Mauricio’s, and he really saw that that could take a boutique brand of our size and give us millions of dollars and global exposure just in our television presence alone, and then that drives traffic to our website, it drives viewers to our social media platform, which is why we’re one of the most followed real estate brands in the world, even though we have such few agents. We have 1/10 of the agents in comparison to some of the other brands that we compete against, yet our followers and our engagement and our ability, then, to expose our properties uniquely in an interesting way, both with our newsletter, our blog, our social media platform, all of those things, it really has just turned into a tool for us, and it’s been exponential in terms of its return on investment.

John: As a leader, though, how do you manage? You and I know a blessing can become a curse and a curse can become a blessing. How do you manage that delicate dance of letting the TV element of Buying Beverly Hills be a blessing and continue to drive all this wonderful branding and traffic without letting it become a distraction to the greater organization? You’re the leader that is really in charge of that delicate dance. How do you manage that?

Rainy: That’s a great question and often the elephant in the room, right? For every thing that someone loves, someone else hates it, right? That becomes [inaudible] in recruiting [inaudible] or agents going out for a listing presentation or for talking to a new franchisee opportunity in there, well, the show. Now, the show is television, and while they call it reality television, it’s not all reality. Tere’s a lot of drama that they have to create and put in there to make it good TV, and in doing that, it doesn’t always paint the best picture of everything, but ultimately, we focus on the value behind it. Even if reality TV isn’t your cup of tea, you have to recognize that as a real estate professional, it does drive. We’re seeing before all of this value to you and to your clients, and so leverage it for what it is. I don’t watch reality TV, and that’s okay. I can still run a business that is super successful in that world, and I think there’s a lot of real estate companies who look at themselves as a real estate company but also tech company or a real estate company but an ancillary services and relocation company. I look at the [inaudible] luxury lifestyle company, who, in many ways, is a media company [inaudible] real estate or new development projects and properties. That’s the product that we have, but really, we are a media company who is fulfilling a luxury lifestyle need for those, and that fits into the television piece that’s why we have a luxury magazine. All of our content that we create, we have a newspaper in New York that we launched, and part of that’s also our guerrilla marketing tactics. We were always just in New York at our East Coast headquarters, we have wild postings app and interactive opportunities. We’ll have street performers who are donating money. who are performing in The Agency name, donating money to our cause and our charity. We like to think about things differently. We like to catch people’s attention. We like to surprise and delight, and there’s good and bad that comes with all that. It doesn’t always hit everybody, but I always say, Mauricio will say, “We’re going to be vanilla[?],” but I see it like, “You can’t be everything to everyone, and so you have to know who your niche is and who you’re targeting,” and stay true to that. If you stay true to that and believe in your values and what you are and [inaudible] doing good and being good is good business, you’ll get to where you need to be even though there’ll always be haters out there. Take a breath and not focus on that, and we’ll really work with the team on that to not to be distracted by it. It is the inevitable, other side of the pendulum.

John: It’s a great point. Like you said, when you look at it that way from a holistic approach, there’s negatives to everything in life. You’re saying that the positives far outweigh the little nuisances and negatives that come with all that kind of visibility and publicity, that makes so much sense. Rainy, if I was interviewing to become one of your franchisees, I’d ask one of your executives to send me a list of two or three other franchisees I could talk to just to get a feeling of how it is to become part of your greater agency. One of my questions would be to them is, “Well, what’s it like to work with Rainy? What is she like? What’s her leadership style like?” What do your franchisees say about your leadership style? If you could be a little fly on the wall when they’re talking about you, what do you think your leadership style is perceived as by the franchisees across The Agency?

Rainy: I think, in general, the team would probably describe me as having a fairly warm approach to how I approach our leadership but also very customized approach. I like to meet people where they are, so it’s not a rigid, dogmatic way. My management style is customized to the individual that I’m working with. What is the need of the franchisee out there? Are they a large franchise who’s converted and they need my marketing and strategy expertise? Are they someone smaller who is, maybe, this is the first time, and they’re just apprehensive about making a shift and they need me to meet them in the place of building trust and respect on like, “I’ve made these big ships in my life before, too, and this is how I’ve thought about it or how I’ve accomplished things,”? I try to lend myself to being a good listener and always focusing on solving the root cause or root problem that we’re looking at. People ask me all the time, “What do you do?” My husband’s always like, “Oh, she’s a real estate executive.” I’m like, “I’m a problem solver. I solve problems all day long. That’s what I do. I happen to be lucky that I do it very well,” but my husband calls it my Jedi mind trick, but I am able to figure out what needs to happen. I can translate things from multiple people in the room who all think they’re saying the same thing, but I tend to have a talent to go say, “You think that you’re saying the same thing that that person is saying, but they’re receiving it differently.” I can see that. I’m going to help translate and also make sure that when you see it accomplished, it gets accomplished. For me, it’s not about getting credit for it or being in the spotlight, per se. It’s about getting things done and done well, and so it’s very collaborative. I feel like the team appreciates being empowered to know what the vision is and how they fit into it, and so I think that my style is clear communication, clear expectations, and then empowering everybody to see how they fit into that to the best of my ability.

John: That makes sense. That sounds like great leadership to me. Now, as you said to me earlier, there was two years of greatness, of great real estate activity during the last four years, and then two very challenging years. You’re on the 50/50 balance, but there’s some new challenges that have come out, just like life changes and business evolves. Talk a little bit about it’s gotten a lot of publicity, the NAR Settlement, the National Association of Realtors Settlement. What does that mean for the future of your industry, and how does the agency adjust for that change that’s coming?

Rainy: Change is always hard for everybody, but I feel like we’re really wrapping our arms around them on this transition. There’s just so much unknown, and I think that you have a settlement, and then it takes a while for things to get ratified, and then what are the implications of it, what are the changes going to happen? Everyone’s talking about it, and there’s all these new cycles, but no one actually knows what it means yet, and so going back to your question before, I’m just trying to keep everyone focused on business is business until it’s not. Everything’s the same until it’s not, but we have a lot of leadership inside of the real estate industry and a strong voice, and so our team is helping to structure how this unfolds with updating contracts and being proactive in the industry to make sure that our vision as a company is always to be redefining the way that real estate is done, and that means being thought leaders. As things like this come up, we say, “Okay. What is the opportunity here to do things better?” Obviously, this came up for a reason in terms of whether it’s the support that people thought they were getting from NAR or not, whether it’s the transparency on commissions or not, and so how can we approach this in a way to solve those problems in a meaningful way?

John: Interesting. Like you said, I’ll go back to something you just said, part of what you do as a leader is keeping everybody focused. All these externalities that most of us have no control over can just become noise and distraction, so keeping everyone focused on that the mission is the mission and the goal was the goal, I think, is really probably, like your husband would say, one of your Jedi mind tricks on making sure everybody stays focused and things of that such. Talking a lot, another micro issue that’s come up, because it’s still just relegated to one market, in LA, the Mansion Tax came up. Now, again, what effect does that have on your business or industry? Is that going to be pretty much confined to LA, or do you see that potentially getting bigger in California and maybe even bigger outside of Los Angeles?

Rainy: It already exists in some other marketplace in Chicago, and there’s other markets already have something similar in place. I think that it’s unlikely to grow a ton from what I’m hearing and seeing. There’s obviously a lot of mixed pushback. There’s so much misinformation around these types of initiatives, and it’s always the struggle for people who are out there, knowing how to vote or how to execute on these different things. Whether it’s impacted our businesses, and certainly, we
saw a big upswing just before the tax got passed and then the luxury market has stagnated a bit in Southern California, specifically in LA around that, but I still see these pockets of activity [inaudible] where deals are happening or need to happen. It’s not really impacting everyone. Again, what people don’t necessarily understand is they try to put regulations in place. My economic background tells me [inaudible] supply and demand, and the market will always hit its own natural equilibrium. When you try to artificially impact that, you usually break it some way, and so there’s always ramifications there, and so the ideas that there are still opportunities out there for the wealthiest individuals aren’t really that impacted by those types of things, and so people are still going to buy and sell, and they’re not really accomplishing, I think, what they want to accomplish inside of it, and it is has disproportionate unintended consequences and believe it’s hurting more than it’s helping in so many ways. Again, I hope that it gets revisited. We’re certainly pushing to have it be the case. I don’t see that becoming an epidemic across the board because it really is a more localized political issue, but like I said, it does exist in other marketplaces, and it’s unpopular in those markets, as well.

John: Talk a little bit about there’s not a day we can wake up and not reading the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, or watching Bloomberg or CNBC that we don’t hear about Nvidia and AI in this hype cycle we’re in, the AI hype cycle. How is AI affecting your industry? How are you leveraging AI to keep the agency as one of the leading brands in luxury real estate in the world?

Rainy: It’s really timely. AI has been around for a long time. I’ve been dabbling in it for more than a decade when it comes to the different ways that we’re looking to use that we’ve partnered with companies over the years from a technology perspective that would help agents, for instance, when they’re doing listing presentations or writing ad copy, or if they were working on listing alerts, it would write natural language emails for them. Let’s say that you were looking for a two- bedroom two-bath house. There were some companies that we’ve partnered with that would have computer learning that would look at the photos and actually know that the agent missed the fact that it was light and bright, and that was one of your criteria, and so it’d bring that property up to the forefront or maybe would be missed otherwise. It would give our agents advantage over others when many of these tech markets know the inventory really makes a difference for you, where it would write a natural language email, saying there’s this beautiful property with bright lights that matches your search, and it feels like a customized email coming from your agent to you because I took the time upfront to set the criteria, but it allows me to have what I consider to be a high-touch approach to being a real estate agent where it feels customized, but it’s also scalable and repeatable. We focus a lot on how to provide these amazing customer service experiences, and we try to start a technology to enhance the human experience, and so AI has really helped us in that regard. Now with all the ChatGPT and other things like that, a lot of our agents are using that to quickly and easily write things like ad copy, which would be laborious for them before or customized materials. We remind them that it doesn’t always know things like fair housing rules, and you have to picture that you are using technology with your brain still turned on and that you’re not just using it passively, but as a company, we’re also trying to figure out, because within our branding or marketing, it’s a core competency, but how do we expand on that above and beyond and do more? We really encourage our agents due to a lot of interactive things on social media, content creation, video. A lot of agents get stuck in, “Well, how do I do scripting for that? What do I do?” How could you use AI to help you figure out some of those different pieces? We’re really diving into it on a marketing and operations perspective, also behind-the-scenes and in all of our departments. We’re not ones to chase the shiny object or just use the new thing that everyone else is using, but we are always trying to look forward to not the trends or the fads, but undertow that is consistently moving forward, so you can miss the peaks and valleys but catch the thing that is for removing momentum. For us, this idea of automation, computer-generated content, AI, big data, that’s all that’s been something that we’ve been into for, like I said, over a decade now, and trying to figure out how to use predictive analytics to really help us in our business planning and our prospecting, so there’s a lot of ways that we’ve leveraged and utilized it both at a company level and encouraged our agents to use it at a localized one-on-one level.

John: It’s so interesting. Rainy, let’s go back and talk about you a little bit. The old adage that you can’t have it all, you seem to disavow those who get to know you or get to understand you a little bit better, that that’s not actually true. You’re a wife, obviously, and a supermom and also a very successful businesswoman. How do you manage, from a time perspective and from a focus perspective, to make it all work?

Rainy: I just don’t sleep. That’s the hot… I do. My imbalance is my self-care piece. I always do try to fit that, and I’ve started to do things like take my meetings while walking or do other things like that to work it in. I’m the master of multitasking. If you look at my calendar, my husband has anxiety attacks. It’s color coded and triple blocked for everything that I have to get done in a single day, but it’s about being president intentional[?] [inaudible] I’m at work and focused, and that’s the time I’m there and I’m at home. My team knows kids get home and I’m with them, and we cook dinner together and we have our bedtime routine, and they go to sleep, and then I’m back online and I’m answering all the emails and whatnot. I also set that expectation for our team, as well, which is you have to have a life and that’s what energizes you so you can come back the next day and give it your best, and so it allows you to be focused and intentional when you’re not constantly burning the candle on both ends. I do try to make sure that I’ve got family time and work time. I don’t get maybe as much me time as I’d like to in there, but I figure that’s from the kids are all grown up and I’ve got an empty nest, and I know what to do. That’s when I can travel somewhere and spend some more time at the spa. Until then, I’m happy just do what I do every day. I’m very lucky. I feel very blessed.

John: You’re still very young as the arc of life goes and as love, we’ve all… Charlie Munger died 34 days before his 100th birthday, and he was still sharp as a tack and going strong when he passed, and you’re in your early 40s. Talk a little bit about who inspires you and where do you find your inspiration and aspiration external from the agency?

Rainy: Yeah, I love that. I look at the kind of person that I want to be. I’ve always looked at myself as being a little bit more in my head, and so at a young age, Albert Einstein, stuff like that was always… someone, a personality, who was a really creative problem solver. I took four years of Advanced Physics at Berkeley, rocket science, not for my major, but just because I love this idea of figuring things out in the larger universe around us and how we fit into a bigger picture and having purpose inside of all of that. For me, it’s about I share a birthday with Abraham Lincoln, and I love that he is a person of fortitude, and even though it’s hard, you make hard decisions. As I look at who I have become as a person and how that’s informed me as a leader, being a creative problem solver, being someone who knows that my values are and sticking to those in terms of having a business acumen and fortitude inside of that. I also really, with great intention, approach life with as much grace and ease as I possibly can and try to bring a positive, really gratitude-filled, maybe a sense of abundance is where I come from, versus a place of scarcity, very much into the more spiritual, more positive way of setting motivations and inspiration. Actually, I’ve got Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations on my desk here.

John: Oh, you’re becoming a stoic. Ryan Holiday is your new guy. I see what’s happening here. I love it. Awesome.

Rainy: That was something that I actually was turned on to [inaudible] my head of new development [inaudible] he said that he reads a little section each day. Just those little things that keep you centered, I think, are a great way of remembering that history repeats itself, and as a lifelong learner, if we can figure out how to learn from others…

John: That’s my [inaudible]. This is from Ryan Holiday. He’s been on the show twice, and this basically is like, We could go at any moment. Let’s make the most of every moment we have here. This is on my desk and a reminder every day.” I’m a huge fan of [inaudible], and I think you’re spot on. When you’re talking to… like I said, Bridget, my daughter-in-law, was the one who said, “You be got get Rainy on the show,” you become a leader and an inspiration to a whole other generation of young woman out there. When you speak with them, when you speak to them, when you have a chance to be in front of them, what do you want them to come away with when they see you up on the stage?

Rainy: The same thing about my little four and six-year-old walk away with. It’s just like, “You can be anything and do anything that you want to be, our gender, who we are.” I had a lot of adversity, growing up, that I overcame and actually shared my story to our team last year on stage and had so many people come up to me and was just like, “Thank you so much for sharing that,” and having been through so many different things and looking like you’re 12 years old and being the only female at the table of leaders who are almost all older White men and feeling like you have to prove yourself, and it’s like, “Don’t be scared by that. Rse to the occasion.” It really is about being true to who you are and having confidence in that, and I just believed that if I knew what my talents were and I worked really hard and I came from a place of giving value first, and so it wasn’t being apologetic for that, but it was like, “I have value to give, and I’m just going to freely and abundantly give that,” and that it’s just a belief that the world pays you back with that. Again, just coming from this moment, in this place of being good and doing good is good business, I approach that with everything that I do. I encourage others to do that the same. I just try to hold a space for people to be their authentic self, to come to the space knowing that we don’t all want to be the same. There’s not one type of leader that’s successful. I use wisdom and grace and empathy to bring out the best in people. Others are more decisive in their leadership abilities. Others are more poignant in how they speak to people and are able to draw out parts of them. I feel like everyone has something special to share in the world. I just want to ba around amazing, smart people who are doing their best, as well, so there’s a benefit to do that, as well. It’s not holy. There’s all selfishness in it, too, because you reap the rewards about being around people who are like that. I’ve definitely seen that in my life.

John: Maybe The Agency has been noted by the Financial Times as one of the fastest growing companies in the world, and you’ve been on Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies in the Country for I think six or seven consecutive years. You have a lot of success in your way. You’ve been there four of those years, driving the success with your two co-founders. If you look at the last four years in your review mirror[?], what’s the one or two things that you’re most proud of of the last four years? When you get out of bed in the morning now every day, what do you look forward to accomplishing the next couple of years at The Agency?

Rainy: So much. I feel like everything for me is about the people, so I look at what we’ve accomplished in such a short period of time. It has been about being nimble and quick and adjusting to the adversity that’s out there, I feel like my whole life just may be suitable for that. It’s just like also believing in the universe that things are meant to be and going with the flow on it and not being overcome by the stress and anxiety and allowing the team to do that everything’s going to be safe and be okay, as well, has really allowed us to accomplish what we have accomplished, while other companies have been merging, morphing, and disappearing, we’ve been expanding. I’m super proud of our expansion in this market. It is incredible growth and a healthy market. In a recessionary market, it’s extraordinary. What I’m most proud of is the team that we’ve been able to build and hold together, who are so passionate. I wake up every day just excited to work with them. Every day is a new adventure and be able to come together and collaborate with brilliant new ideas and vision, and I’m so excited for what hasn’t been accomplished yet because we have this huge vision of being the predominant luxury lifestyle company, really owning the entire ecosystem of real estate to make that the best possible human experience, being able to control our supply chain, being able to control every aspect a consumer or client can come in, fill out an application for a mortgage to get pre-approved, never have to fill another piece of paperwork. I just feel like we’re in stage 3 of 10, and so there’s so much runway and so much blue sky, I think, is what fuels me.

John: That’s awesome. Rainy, thank you so much for joining us today. Not only do I really enjoy hearing all of your vision and what you’ve accomplished so far, but it’s really exciting to think what you can do in the years ahead of the agency. For our listeners and viewers to find Rainy and her colleagues, please go to www.theagencyre.com. Rainy Hake Austin, you are truly an inspiration to a whole group of young people out there today. Like I said, my kids were the ones who asked me to get you on. I’m so thankful they did, and I’m so thankful for the time that you took with us today. You’re always invited back on the Impact podcast. More importantly, thank you for the impact that you’re making on the world today and for the positive inspiration that you continue to share. You’re just a delight. Thanks again for your time today.

Rainy: Thank you, John. Thank you, as well. Thank you for all that you do. Appreciate it. Thank you.

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