Ep 57: Why Pain is Your Best Motivator: Working Through Life's Obstacles with Jake Luehrs

William Huffman  0:00  
Hey everybody, William here. And today we're talking about Jake but way more important that my friend was at mn Big G wi ll xiety, by far, and takes that image gushers for like the first 40 minutes, it's super duper fun. And then in the last, like 2030 minutes, we get into some serious like mindset stuff. So it's a roller coaster. It's almost gushing stuff. long intro. Thanks for watching. Welcome to Life behind the highlight reel. The podcast that takes things beyond the curated life we all see online join hosts, Sara and William Huffman, as they dive in with their friends to talk about the good and the heart things that come with a real not perfect life behind the highlight reel. Everybody, William here and Sarah and Jake Luehrs.

William Huffman  0:48  
We're still at take 1.14 and a half minutes into recording. We had to do some camera stuff around. But we are excited to be here with Jake. Jake. How're you doing today? I'm great. I'm excited. Thanks for Thanks for asking me to be on this. Absolutely. So we're gonna get we're gonna ge t what you do out of the way, because we don't really care about what you do here. So you are owner, correct? Why didn't you let Jake tell us? I want to see if I can get this right. Okay. Well, I've been doing my job of caring what? Yeah.

William Huffman  1:18  
You're the owner of is it three or four market signs? Five, five. See, okay. This is why you're here five market centers that you just recently purchased within the last year or so. Correct? Correct. Yep. And before that you were the OPI the operating principle of them. That's what I am now. I

Jake Luehrs  1:31  
was the general manager. Okay. So

William Huffman  1:32  
that's how that works in the KW world. Okay. Cool. As you know, trying to

Sarah Huffman  1:36  
describe as like a flowchart that do not understand. But what the reason that

Jake Luehrs  1:41  
you get it though. Yeah, it's all the same. It's just different terms. Yeah.

William Huffman  1:45  
Okay. So you're a licensed real estate agent as well in Minnesota. Do you currently sell anymore? He doesn't.

Jake Luehrs  1:51  
I am not in sales. Production? Nope. I sell for about 11 years, and then I moved into leadership and focus more of the energy on that.

William Huffman  1:58  
Awesome. All right. So there you go. If you're a kW person, and you've never met Jake, you shouldn't and if you're not a kW person, you've never met Jake. You should because he's amazing. Alright, we're done talking about real estate. Let's do this. Let's go back to the year. Whenever you were born. Wow. Yeah. We're going way back. Yeah. Was it?

Jake Luehrs  2:17  
Is this a pseudo therapy session?

William Huffman  2:20  
Yeah, I mean, yes. Tell me about Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  2:25  
We didn't bring clinic Oh, I do have Kleenex?

William Huffman  2:34  
No, it tells where were you born? Tell us about your parents. Like let's go back to the beginning. Like your first memory and all that good stuff. Cool.

Jake Luehrs  2:43  
was born in essentially, the Twin Cities. Grew up in Rogers still live in Rogers.

William Huffman  2:50  
World Traveler here.

Jake Luehrs  2:53  
I got around. I went to went to college down in Mankato. Okay. Your standards? No, I wanted it.

William Huffman  3:00  
Whoa, whoa. Are you kidding me too. You just went from being born to college. There's like 18 years you just

Jake Luehrs  3:07  
asked my wife. My memory is garbage.

William Huffman  3:09  
That's okay.

Sarah Huffman  3:10  
When did you meet your wife shot? And shot but

William Huffman  3:14  
no. No, okay. Stop. Seriously. And they were? Yeah. So how

Jake Luehrs  3:21  
early? Can I go?

William Huffman  3:23  
Where were you born?

Jake Luehrs  3:25  
I was in Robbinsdale, which would be?

William Huffman  3:28  
Yeah. Yeah. We're very close to us. Yeah. All right.

Jake Luehrs  3:32  
We're neighbors. Yeah. For Well,

William Huffman  3:33  
no, no, no, not at that time. We weren't so so you're mourning North Memorial there. And you folks were living in Rogers at the time. So that's what you moved to as well. Greg, you went with them? took me home. Yeah. That's good. But equally, like I guess we'll keep them. Yeah. So are you the oldest, the youngest, any siblings? I

Jake Luehrs  3:52  
have three siblings. I am the second oldest get Oh, really? I have an older brother that's three years older than me. Younger brother that's three years younger, and then younger sister that's six years younger.

William Huffman  4:04  
So there's four of you.

Jake Luehrs  4:05  
There's did I say? three siblings or you said it right?

William Huffman  4:09  
Words matter that? Well? Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so you're the second oldest, second oldest, second oldest. Okay, so what are your siblings names? And are they still around? Are?

Jake Luehrs  4:20  
We all live pretty close? Like, we're all pretty tight.

William Huffman  4:23  
So is there a clan up there? Like you guys are just like, oh, yeah, you don't? Yeah.

Jake Luehrs  4:28  
We know about it. Like,

William Huffman  4:31  
please add to your town. During my town, you have to ask permission.

Jake Luehrs  4:35  
No, my older brother and younger brother so my older brothers Casey, me younger brothers. Conrad. They're both. They're both in H back. Okay, so they both been in it as since they work for somebody that had their own company. My older brother works for heating and cooling two which is just off of 81 and my younger brother has recently purchased Golden Valley heating and plumbing. Oh, really?

William Huffman  4:56  
Okay. So that's awesome. We see them guys all the time because we're in Golden Valley.

Jake Luehrs  4:59  
Yep. So and then my younger sister is Jessica and and she's she does all she's got kids and she takes care of all of that stuff. She's probably the busiest one of the bunch. I would imagine she Yeah, probably driving more than anybody else.

Sarah Huffman  5:13  
So you have your parents who live C's and jays, essentially, yeah. Okay. Was that plan do you think?

Jake Luehrs  5:19  
Not based on any conversations that we've had? Okay, no.

William Huffman  5:22  
So awesome. So you're born, you're up and Rogers and like, are what kind of a kid are you listening? Let's look like kindergarten first grade. Like, are you kind of like a shithead? Are you a good kid like mama's boy

Jake Luehrs  5:35  
again? I can't speak My memory is you know, a memory of of kindergarten is? So what's it called ants on a log? Yeah. I don't know why that's a memory but celery with peanut butter and raisins. I remember eating that in kindergarten. See, you ask another memory of kindergarten. I couldn't tell you

Unknown Speaker  5:54  
know, you're gonna start slowing they will they will. Unlocking

Jake Luehrs  6:00  
it's like a momentum. We

William Huffman  6:01  
had somebody able to fight to sing. They're like middle school fight song. And they're like, where did that come 30 years. And they're they're just singing rah rah rah rah rah rah rah.

Jake Luehrs  6:12  
I know you guys are agents, but you're also fitter.

Unknown Speaker  6:18  
I think I actually should go back and for more schooling.

Jake Luehrs  6:21  
This is your school and you don't have a real estate.

William Huffman  6:25  
At all. Yeah, get it all. Fantastic. Okay, so you're so you're you're young, you're you know, you're in school, like, like, what are you in school? Like, tell me about that? Like, do you enjoy it?

Jake Luehrs  6:37  
I school was fine. It wasn't exactly the sounds off, but it wasn't exactly challenging. But But I liked the social component of it. I played basketball and baseball into high school, essentially.

William Huffman  6:51  
So when did you start playing basketball in high school? Because as early as early as I can remember. Okay, cool.

Jake Luehrs  6:56  
So the whole, all of us were in sports at some capacity. So the parents were just running us Your mom

Sarah Huffman  7:01  
was driving and dad was driving all the time? Yeah. Yeah. All the time. Now. What

Jake Luehrs  7:06  
did your parents do? They both worked at General Mills. Okay. Okay. Fun fact. If you go look at the while I'm drawing a blank on the when you create a new product that

William Huffman  7:18  
you have registered? Oh, yeah. The Patent Office hadn't?

Jake Luehrs  7:21  
My dad actually. If you've ever heard gushers really? No, you can partially thank him. No kidding. Kid. Oh,

Sarah Huffman  7:31  
my. Like, we could never have gushers growing up. I got them. Oh, they're

Jake Luehrs  7:34  
just Well, we had them all the time because they

Unknown Speaker  7:38  
were they sampling like who? Maybe we should try? Kids. What do you

Jake Luehrs  7:41  
remember? He would bring home he brought home like a 50 pound bag of defective gushers for my uncle that lived up North that would bear hunt. Oh, yes. So he just breathed this big. So he just grabbed some before they went up north and what did

Unknown Speaker  7:56  
your mom do? She knows.

William Huffman  7:58  
Stop.

Sarah Huffman  7:59  
I have stopped. Stop. I never would have

William Huffman  8:03  
thought gushers Gusher. This is we know somebody? You might know Matt. Matt wins. Oh, I know the name. Yeah. Yeah. He actually has a piece of his his college and like the Smithsonian a piece of his college what he did art wasn't an art. No, he was the recordings he did. Oh, Native American. But that might be cooler. The Gushers. I know somebody who has stuff in the Missoni?

Jake Luehrs  8:31  
Probably we're meaning your old man.

Unknown Speaker  8:35  
How did he get that idea?

Jake Luehrs  8:37  
I actually have I have questions to ask that. I haven't asked him.

Sarah Huffman  8:41  
You know, you can use his podcast studio. I have a more we can ask them to me. We can add a

William Huffman  8:49  
mobile version. I can bring this to him. Straight up.

Jake Luehrs  8:54  
He is a guy that loves being by himself. He enjoys that and to put him on a podcast would be really interesting.

William Huffman  9:02  
Okay. Does he drink whiskey or beer or anything to drink beer? I will bring it to how

Sarah Huffman  9:06  
you describe your dad as being someone who likes to be by himself. But he had four kids and a wife. Yeah.

William Huffman  9:11  
Let's not forget,

Jake Luehrs  9:14  
we change change. We evolve as

Unknown Speaker  9:20  
you he's like, Well, I sugared everybody up

William Huffman  9:23  
yeah, that's incredible. Okay, cashiers that's that's that.

Jake Luehrs  9:29  
You guys probably want to shut this down. Like we got what we need. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  9:32  
Wow. We're only 14 minutes in

Sarah Huffman  9:41  
Okay, so now can I ask so your dad was doing the gusher creation

Jake Luehrs  9:45  
worked on like, yeah. Product Development. Department, all of that stuff. Yeah. And then my mom was more on the administrative side. Just she held different roles.

William Huffman  9:57  
Okay. We're we're in like elementary school middle school,

Sarah Huffman  10:02  
like women. I have a question. Yeah. And did gushers happen in your lifetime? Yeah. Oh, good for you. Good question. Middle School.

Jake Luehrs  10:08  
No, it was younger than middle school, I would say a third or fourth grade. Wow. So here's the thing, third or fourth grade, so you don't even realize how special it is. Yeah, you have no idea to have. I mean, it's always what you consider to be normal.

William Huffman  10:24  
Yeah. 50 pounds a Gushers. Just hanging out? Well, not that much. But

Jake Luehrs  10:28  
just they were always there. So did did he do fruit roll ups? Well, they I don't know. Like in the inventing side. Yeah, but fruit roll ups Fruit by the Foot. All the things shark bites, like, yeah, they we had them.

William Huffman  10:42  
Wow. Wow. Do you have diabetes? Yeah, that's pretty impressive. I

Jake Luehrs  10:49  
was also one of those things when something is so readily available. Specialist. So when people look at me, now I can go back. And and buy them now. And they're phenomenal. Yeah. But there was a period in time. I was like, Yeah, I'm good. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  11:05  
Gosh, that's awesome. Okay, so what's your next question? Well, top that?

William Huffman  11:10  
No, I can't. So tell me about like middle school, like what's going on your life in middle school? Again, are you still living in the same house if you guys knew my parents?

Jake Luehrs  11:18  
So my parents got divorced when I was in fourth grade? And that was that was a process to work through at that age? Oh, yeah. I don't know. You know, I remember fourth, fourth grade explicitly knowing that I'm the only one. Nobody knows how this feel. And you just don't say anything. Yeah. And that was a tough, so. So that was far that was hard. into middle school, I had some challenges with with just depression and stuff like that. Not based on that. But just it's part of the family. So it's just this. It's it's kind of working through things and being social and still trying to figure out.

William Huffman  11:58  
So how did you figure if you don't want to talk about that's fine. But how did you figure that out? Like,

Jake Luehrs  12:02  
I can't say it's ever been figured out? What I can say is I've learned to to work through it differently. I actually think everybody goes through periods of that, at some point in time in their life, whether it's whether it's chemical imbalances, or if it's just life like trauma. Yeah, I think it just happens. Yeah. And the the biggest thing that I've learned is, rather than resisting it's just just let it work itself through. The more I pushed it away, the more intense it got. So it was an I didn't. I didn't know that at that age. Particularly sunrise. Great. Yeah. Once you get older and you continue to work yourself through it, you realize that trying to push it away is actually the exact opposite that that worked for me. Yeah. You know, I had talked to people and done counseling and was on medication and none of it really. I labeled it as anxiety but the reality was, it was it was more depression, depression.

William Huffman  12:58  
Yeah. Right on so. Alright, so we're playing basketball. We're playing baseball, you said right. Yep. So we're playing sports. So are we a jock? Are we a nerd? Are we just like the like, what type of kid are we

Jake Luehrs  13:11  
I'm not a jock. I'm not a nerd. I'm just kind of my thing was, you can just be friends with everybody. I don't have to be better than anybody. Now. I didn't always treat everybody perfectly. And I looked back and I was like, Yeah, I could have done something different there. But the reality is just welcomed people in. So I wasn't I wasn't all in like, I'm going to the NBA or the baseball. But, but it was something that I found social structures around and it was fun to just just compete. I was I was on the beat Team for basketball. So it wasn't great. I did make Varsity in high school, only because I was left handed. So were you a point guard. More of a shooting and shooting guard guard. Okay. And I didn't grow up like I had the highest voice until about 11th grade. So I'm the pinball down if I'm trying to get a rebound, I'm the pinball just getting knocked from one guy to the next. getting crushed. Just get so I always had this little bit of fear of like, I'm not going in the lane because I'm just gonna get hammered on somebody's elbow is gonna knock right on top of my head.

William Huffman  14:16  
Yeah, back then. If you had a concussion to shake it off.

Jake Luehrs  14:19  
They let you run down. Yeah, I'm done the court sideways.

William Huffman  14:24  
Just a steer normal. They'll be back straight tomorrow. If he's running straight. We got a real problem actually.

Jake Luehrs  14:32  
Yeah, exactly. Then we're worried. Yeah.

William Huffman  14:34  
Okay, so what about your siblings? Did you play any sports with them? Because three years apart with them, okay.

Sarah Huffman  14:40  
It was always perfectly. No one was in school together. The

Jake Luehrs  14:44  
cadence was very, very clear. Well, you can you can be freshman and senior. Well, when I was growing up, though, freshman was in a different school. So seven through nine. High school was 10 through 12. We were always in a different school.

Sarah Huffman  14:57  
We were always in a different school. Like John I'm a graduate Andrew would go in, like,

Jake Luehrs  15:02  
let's say it was very similar. Yeah, riveting.

Sarah Huffman  15:04  
What was your mascot at? Rogers high?

Jake Luehrs  15:07  
Well, Rogers, I don't remember Elk River. Oh, you went to Elk River. So Elementary. The Elks elementary at that time was was just in Rogers the junior high and senior high. We're both in Oak River. Okay. So there wasn't there wasn't any of that and

William Huffman  15:22  
we sponsored the segment brought to you by uptime. Oh, nailed it.

William Huffman  15:25  
We sponsored the Elk River High School. Baseball senior nice ball

Sarah Huffman  15:30  
last year. Great. And we we our game that we sponsored was senior night and I got to throw the first pitch.

William Huffman  15:36  
Yeah, that's fun. It was really cool. It was.

Jake Luehrs  15:39  
It was a strike. Okay, yeah,

William Huffman  15:41  
we actually meet all the way across the plate. We're surprised Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  15:44  
That's the guy was like, yeah,

William Huffman  15:46  
he was like, oh, good throw. He could throw. I was surprised.

Unknown Speaker  15:50  
Because you wouldn't do it. I

William Huffman  15:51  
wouldn't do it. Because I'm like, I have my right shoulder. I haven't thought of baseball right

Unknown Speaker  15:57  
shoulder.

Jake Luehrs  15:57  
No, it's good to see. Doesn't say no to very many. No.

William Huffman  16:02  
Yeah, okay. Okay, rude.

Sarah Huffman  16:03  
I could have moved up a couple notches.

William Huffman  16:09  
I would have cheered. I would have made it on ESPN. Look at this guy. Look at this.

Sarah Huffman  16:14  
Big Man. So good, Lord. Well, I did it for both of us. You did you did? Sponsor again. The Elk River Elks.

Jake Luehrs  16:25  
stuff we can do for school says Yeah. They can use all the help they can get. Yeah,

William Huffman  16:29  
that's Yeah. We don't have enough time to even start talking about that. Right. Former teacher?

Jake Luehrs  16:33  
Yeah. I didn't realize Yeah, what did what grade? I taught

Sarah Huffman  16:37  
for six years. In Eden Prairie first, second, third grade? Really? Yep. Got my master's degree decided Angel.

Jake Luehrs  16:43  
This was not for me. Yeah, we just had conferences last night. My daughter is three years old. And the stories that teacher has is, are my daughter's and what a third grade third grade eight years old. I say three years. But she's a very smart three year old. The stories he has is

Sarah Huffman  17:01  
all I can say is every parent should either do like a Valentine's Day party or go on a field trip, or do some of that crazy stuff. And then they leave exhausted. And I'm like, Yes, we do this every day, every day. But that's also why I only did it for six years. My friends still do

Jake Luehrs  17:19  
a ton of credit. It's because of my my wife volunteers and go to the classroom and helps teach. I can't imagine it'll last two years. There's an expiration date on the time she spent and there's

William Huffman  17:34  
an expiration date on how long I'm gonna have this conversation. Go with it back. Lead us we'll bring it back, back back. All right. So we're, we're in high school. What's your favorite class?

Jake Luehrs  17:48  
10th grade, I can say it was algebra because it came very natural to me. Oh, yeah. Smarty mix smart. But as soon as I got into geography, I hated awful. It's one of those lessons where you're like, Oh, this is too hard. I don't want to do this. But no, I look at it differently. Yeah. And it's like, I didn't want to put the I

William Huffman  18:05  
think I think I got through as little math as I could. Just because I didn't have the patience for it. Which

Sarah Huffman  18:11  
is ironic, because you're actually really good at math.

William Huffman  18:14  
See, going back like you said it we were if I had the prop, the prop prowess, prowess, whatever. If I had the smarts or the patience or the software that I had now back then it'd be a, it'd be a different

Sarah Huffman  18:28  
human.

William Huffman  18:29  
I'd have like maybe five more dollars. I don't know if I'd have done anything differently. And then, but what about the other years? They require anything that are

Jake Luehrs  18:37  
no, I was not, I wouldn't say as the creative type really didn't, didn't really do much for me. It was it was the social it was the social component.

William Huffman  18:50  
So were you a captain or any of your teams? Nope. Just a just a normal dude.

Jake Luehrs  18:56  
I fly below the radar. But I got along with most people. And

Sarah Huffman  19:01  
it's so interesting hearing someone's like background, because now like where you are today, and that don't worry. Well, I'm not speeding up the story you

William Huffman  19:08  
just did where you are today. Literally, today is a lot sooner than high school,

Sarah Huffman  19:12  
but it's just an it's like, Okay, where did where did all this growth and development like occur? And granted, I'm sure we'll get to that. But it's like to hear some of that and be like, yeah, it was just kind of there. And then here, but see, I'm the same way. Like if you asked me about my high school experience, I wasn't a nerd. I wasn't popular. I was just kind of there. I was cut from choir. I wasn't in any sports. I was like how did I even survive? fistfights Yeah, no,

Jake Luehrs  19:39  
it just proves the point that you don't have to be anything in particular to be anybody Yeah. If you got to label yourself as popular or as something that I think there's a challenge like you can you can be a lot of different things a lot of different just don't be an asshole just don't be an asshole. Yeah,

William Huffman  19:56  
I agree with Yeah, too much of one like that takes more energy anyway. Yeah.

Jake Luehrs  20:02  
Oh, he's got a different take. Yeah. I was an asshole high school for me it takes more energy to be.

William Huffman  20:09  
Yeah, for me it's actually harder to not just like, like to rein it in SNAP. Um, yeah, I have to rein it in a lot. Yeah, to rein it in. I work on it deeply. I know your

Jake Luehrs  20:19  
skill we all need. Yeah, we need to we need to filter and know when to go and when not.

Sarah Huffman  20:24  
So if you write in this guide, what if you didn't work on it? Because people probably think you are very unfiltered.

William Huffman  20:32  
This is not this. This is very filtered.

Jake Luehrs  20:35  
If you didn't filter, you would have a different life.

William Huffman  20:37  
Yeah, yeah. I don't know that prison thing you're talking about? Yeah.

Jake Luehrs  20:44  
Well, you might excel in that one. Yeah, that environment. Yeah. It's just a matter of where you place yourself. Yeah,

William Huffman  20:49  
sir. yells at me all the time. Say Chris. Way too much. But that's that's not about me. Okay, you. We got it. So okay, so we're in high school. We graduate. We're like, yay. And then now we're gonna go be a maverick down to MSU.

Jake Luehrs  21:01  
The only reason I went down there is because I had a friend down there. And we had gone down there a couple times to

William Huffman  21:05  
parties. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  21:08  
That's Mankato. You're typically partying.

Jake Luehrs  21:11  
Well, yeah. So So I went down there not knowing, you know, there's some friends that went down there. So I just went down there. And

William Huffman  21:20  
what were you going for? What was your What was your degree?

Jake Luehrs  21:22  
I didn't know. And I knew I was going to be in business at some capacity. I just didn't know what it looked like.

William Huffman  21:27  
So did you know that like in high school you wanted to be in business or when did like that happen?

Jake Luehrs  21:31  
It was it was a subconscious thing more than it was a conscious, but I had, you know, in high school, I was always I was always doing landscaping. I worked at a constrained concrete company. So I was, you know, cinder blocks and all that heavy work, and I was like, There's no way in hell, I can do this. For a long time. My body is just not built for

William Huffman  21:52  
picking up what you're putting down there. So what was your first job than ever?

Jake Luehrs  21:56  
First job was Dairy Queen. The deal? You gotta get the swirl. You don't mess that up. So are disappointed. Yeah, don't do that on the cold.

William Huffman  22:05  
Could you could you dunk it in the chocolate? And you could Oh, that's so sound like

Jake Luehrs  22:10  
I didn't It's not like I did anything. It's how they make the soft serve. Is that how you can

Sarah Huffman  22:14  
Oh, no Dairy Queen needs to do for those of us that never got to work. They're like have like work at Dairy Queen for a Day experience. Where they go in and learn how to make the cone

Jake Luehrs  22:24  
you already had. That you already got it?

Unknown Speaker  22:28  
I would pay back. I don't want to

William Huffman  22:30  
work there. No, you don't. serratus wants

Sarah Huffman  22:32  
to make you you are the just the one day experience.

William Huffman  22:35  
If it doesn't, doesn't matter. You as teachers parents on a theory clean. I should ask him we should ask them we should be like, Hey, can we go work for free labor? Yeah, undercover. Sick. Like I said, Sarah would literally pay to do this. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  22:49  
It's ridiculous. It's like the Children's Museum for adult furniture.

Jake Luehrs  22:51  
You could find that if you really want

Sarah Huffman  22:58  
was it a brasier? Or was it like a Dairy Queen? brasier or did it serve the food or was it just I suppose

William Huffman  23:03  
food in okay. And also as a grill and shell? Yeah, it was open year round. Okay, so it's called Baby grill and show

Sarah Huffman  23:09  
well no, Jessie link worked at a brasier where I think it closed half the year and it was on the ice cream.

William Huffman  23:14  
So that's just a chill.

Jake Luehrs  23:15  
That was the one up in Rogers which now is right where the subway is. Okay, everything has been torn down.

Sarah Huffman  23:23  
What was your favorite item when you worked at Dairy Queen? The to eat? Yeah.

Jake Luehrs  23:28  
I think it was the blue raspberry freeze. Really? So it was them the slushy the slushy with the ice cream in it.

William Huffman  23:36  
What? You mix them together. That's the thing

Jake Luehrs  23:40  
was when I was there. I don't know if it still is.

Unknown Speaker  23:42  
Okay. And now today if

William Huffman  23:44  
you were to go to dairy No. Would you ever heard? Yes, you have. Oh, okay. I apologize.

Jake Luehrs  23:51  
That's a good question. I don't have like this preference. No.

Unknown Speaker  23:54  
I would get a blizzard.

William Huffman  23:57  
Of course you would get cookie dough want? Yeah, usually cookie

Unknown Speaker  23:59  
dough. Yeah.

Jake Luehrs  24:01  
It would probably be a blizzard. But I was thinking like, what would I add into it? If if I had a choice and there's nothing that really just kind of breaks you the first thing that comes to mind is the score bar.

William Huffman  24:13  
Oh yeah, he's

Jake Luehrs  24:15  
like the heat. Yeah. Okay. That's the first thing that's

William Huffman  24:18  
that's one of my favorites. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  24:20  
Never ordered that. Yeah, I

William Huffman  24:22  
do. I'll get the heat cuz you know you

Sarah Huffman  24:24  
you planned a lot of things.

Jake Luehrs  24:27  
You kind of do like the he goes round the universal

William Huffman  24:29  
Yeah, I do the heat the cookie dough and the Oreo all in one. Yeah.

Jake Luehrs  24:33  
So you don't know what you're getting? That's actually it's so good. So it's one thing to go into it knowing what you're expecting. It's another thing to say there's three options. Yeah, well, I

William Huffman  24:42  
don't get a chunk of cookie dough. Or I can get heat if you get cookie dough and heat at the same time.

Jake Luehrs  24:49  
Guess I was just gonna say I'm gonna have a hard time going into a Dairy Queen and not thinking about this one's brought to you by Dairy Queen. Yeah, exactly. You're welcome Derek. Yeah.

William Huffman  25:00  
When do we decide if at all that we're going to take that seriously? What are we doing for work? Like, what's our life looking like, then

Jake Luehrs  25:04  
I knew I was, I knew I was going to get through. I knew I was going to get a degree. The first easy one was marketing, because it kind of covers everything. But that degree doesn't really cover marketing. It just covers business. So this idea of a degree in marketing is a really interesting like, okay, it includes accounting and includes, you know, business planning and includes, obviously, marketing, but it wasn't just marketing. Okay. And then I had a, what yours is for reference. So that was so graduated high school 98. So 98 to 2000. Oh, we're

William Huffman  25:39  
the same age 42 ish. Yep. Okay.

Jake Luehrs  25:41  
I'm 43. Now, so yeah,

William Huffman  25:42  
old guy. You know,

Jake Luehrs  25:46  
once you hit 43, everything changes. Yeah, no, it does.

Sarah Huffman  25:51  
Well, turns 43 In August, yeah.

William Huffman  25:53  
Just a loving, feel free to send me something.

Jake Luehrs  25:56  
Send me the podcast. So I remember that August 11. Yeah, send some.

Sarah Huffman  26:00  
Well, this text Bethany and be like, hey, but

Jake Luehrs  26:04  
I'll tell you what, I've only been working with her closely. She worked with Jen, who you guys know, but for since January 1, and it has it's changed my evenings.

Unknown Speaker  26:15  
Very cool. Leveraging K h has changed your life. Yeah.

Jake Luehrs  26:19  
Just like not only what's on my mind, but what has to get done and all of that stuff, just the small communications that she's got a handle on that cause me like, the details are a challenge.

William Huffman  26:31  
All right. So we're going for marketing. That's just kind of all encompassing. So did we double major? Like, what did we do?

Jake Luehrs  26:39  
Well, I got a minor in International Business. At that time, I was thinking I could travel the world and do all that stuff. I don't really care to do that. Honestly, I'm kind of boring in that way. But I mean, you live in the same town you grew up in three houses down from where I grew up. At the end, there we go. Here's but here's the thing that was designed by me. So the guy that that sold it to us. Was there when I was young. And when I went to college, I said if you ever want to sell because it's a completely treed lot, yeah, it's all the privacy you could you could ask for. And it's three houses down. So in my mind, I was like, Okay, tell me when you're gonna sell. I'll buy it. And then like kids can literally break down the grandpa's. Oh, I love that. That's pretty genius. That's going to be a memory for them that that very few kids will have. Yep.

William Huffman  27:30  
All right. So we are so when we're through college, we're partying having a good time you keep going back to this party. Well, because it's just we was it's college. Fight Mavericks. And you're in no, we graduate. Did you get arrested in college? Did you ever have to run from the cops?

Jake Luehrs  27:53  
Well, yeah, we had to run from the car. Okay. See? Yeah,

William Huffman  27:56  
that does happen. Is this.

Sarah Huffman  27:59  
I was questioned once by the cops. Well, I don't know why. But we broke into the bowling alley.

Jake Luehrs  28:05  
Oh, you don't know why. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  28:09  
Well, someone like worked there had a key and so we went in and like three in the morning and like bold. Yeah. I mean, I don't think the owner really liked that. Did you also take a shopping cart once and I also drove a yellow Cadillac. So I did a

William Huffman  28:24  
very small town.

Sarah Huffman  28:26  
Like Sarah, the yellow Cadillac was at the bowling Oh,

Jake Luehrs  28:29  
yeah. guilty by association.

Unknown Speaker  28:32  
I went in, I just tell the truth.

Jake Luehrs  28:36  
Well, this has refreshed more than one question.

William Huffman  28:42  
I love $2 on the counter for the rental game.

Unknown Speaker  28:46  
I was there. Yeah, we paid

William Huffman  28:50  
up to 20 on the counter. We even swept up afterwards. Didn't you take a shopping cart?

Sarah Huffman  28:54  
You know, even with a bad culture over like by the police, like when I'm like, a question with a shopping cart. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Once I learned that the because I took one of those like mini shopping carts. This was not a good idea. In a small town. We took one of those mini shopping carts. And then one of our friends worked at the grocery store and was like, hey, they're checking camera. They're checking the tape to see like, who did it and I'm like, oh, Lord, so I had to bring the shopping cart back. Yeah, I took it.

Jake Luehrs  29:25  
Again, no denial. Yeah, I

William Huffman  29:26  
just admitted it.

Sarah Huffman  29:27  
Yeah, and when I've been pulled over speeding, like yes, I was speeding. I was listening to a really good song just jam

Jake Luehrs  29:34  
now. Sometimes you're not paying attention

Sarah Huffman  29:37  
and you're right. I should not be speeding. Just slow down. Here's a verbal warning area. Go

William Huffman  29:42  
deny, deny deny. No.

Jake Luehrs  29:44  
is the best policy. No.

William Huffman  29:48  
That is that is not the best policy.

Jake Luehrs  29:50  
I disagree with you. Yeah, I you're gonna find out another lie all the time. And maybe it's Please show

William Huffman  30:01  
this to your children. Yeah. Okay, so we're so of course we, you know, screw it around no big deal but didn't do anything crazy or nothing like that. Have you

Sarah Huffman  30:11  
met your wife at this point?

Jake Luehrs  30:13  
So I met her the the interesting thing. So we met the very first class that I had. So she grew up in Mankato.

Sarah Huffman  30:20  
Wait, so you were that person who met their significant other like freshman year first class? Well,

Jake Luehrs  30:24  
we did. And then after that, we joke, I knew I was in a much different position, maturity wise than she was. It wasn't going to work, meaning she was much more mature. Like, yeah, it was. Yeah. And I was doing stuff that she wouldn't have wanted to partake in.

William Huffman  30:43  
Never in a million years. Would we even know

Unknown Speaker  30:46  
Will and I made it a meet at 33. Yeah,

William Huffman  30:49  
maybe 33. Now, things happen

Jake Luehrs  30:50  
the way they're supposed to. Yeah. So So we met that first class. And we both read, you know, we we both recognize each other and thought, hey, yeah, yeah, we want to go on a date. Never asked. But we didn't see each other up until about a week before I moved back up here. Oh, so

Sarah Huffman  31:14  
like, freshman year or senior year

Jake Luehrs  31:16  
after I graduated. Oh. So we started dating a week before I moved back. Oh, you're like

William Huffman  31:25  
we can make this work long distance? Yeah. But obviously worked.

Unknown Speaker  31:31  
Yeah. And how many years? Have you been married?

Jake Luehrs  31:33  
It's been 15. Now? Wow. I think it's 50. It was 15. Yeah. 15. Last fall. That's awesome. So we've been together since ever since since 2002, essentially.

William Huffman  31:46  
Alright, so you moved. Back. You graduated. You have this degree in marketing and the other degree in what? We're national

Unknown Speaker  31:54  
studies?

William Huffman  31:55  
Yeah. Okay, cool.

Sarah Huffman  31:59  
What do you wish is also interesting, because like, we all graduated the same year, like our senior year, we had 911. Like, doesn't one? Yeah. 2001. Yeah. Because if you graduated in 2002, so it was like that was the start of our senior. Oh, don't

William Huffman  32:12  
put me in this graduate. No, I was. Like, no, no, no, no, no. We Be very careful with trying to bring me into that conversation. No, no, no.

Jake Luehrs  32:27  
No, I actually came back because a close friend of mine who I did go to college with down in Mankato, ran a big real estate team up in Elk River.

William Huffman  32:40  
So so at this point, you had like no interest in real estate, but you're just like,

Jake Luehrs  32:43  
Well, I came up on the weekends when I was a year before I graduated because I got to know a broker. And he actually taught some classes at the, at the college. Okay. And so he's like, go get your license. You can work with me.

Unknown Speaker  32:57  
I mean, it sounds good.

Jake Luehrs  33:00  
To remember ProSource Oh, yeah. So I drove up on the weekends. I'd come up Friday, go to class all day, Saturday, all day Sunday and drive back back down to college.

William Huffman  33:09  
I mean, the best time ever to get into real estate. Like that was a really good way to do it. Because nothing bad happened to ever in were real estate after 2002.

Jake Luehrs  33:18  
No, nothing. never will. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  33:22  
Smooth sailing.

Jake Luehrs  33:24  
So it actually worked out because she asked. So the person I worked with. I was good friends with her son. And she said you should come up with work with me. And he said, There's no way that no way in hell. But she said, Who would you recommend? And he said one should call Jake. And she called me and eventually it just kind of turned into made sense. Just joined join the team for a couple of years. And then I went at that point, I went off on my own. So it's

William Huffman  33:53  
okay, so hold on. Hold on. You said a couple years. We just skipped a couple years. Oh my gosh. No. Because How is your wife younger than you? Did she have more time to college? She also she was already graduated.

Jake Luehrs  34:05  
She graduated pretty much the same time. She's like six months old. Okay. No, she's older. I always like to say she's older because it's like it's got this connotation.

William Huffman  34:14  
Serious. serious. Serious. The older woman will three months.

Jake Luehrs  34:22  
Yes, make that work.

Sarah Huffman  34:23  
Yeah. The best part is we'll have to repeat seventh grade. I did. So I'm actually a year older in school.

William Huffman  34:32  
Yeah, you are because you guys graduated. 98 Yeah, I was 99 Yeah, yeah.

Jake Luehrs  34:37  
I don't even remember. Didn't matter. No, no, no, obviously didn't know.

William Huffman  34:41  
All right. So you you move back up here. Then she decides to stay there long distance thing. Yeah. Let's talk about that. It actually

Jake Luehrs  34:48  
worked out really well. Because I went all into real estate. You guys know how it how it is? Yeah, it's it's as many hours as you can put in nights. It's weekends. It's all of that. So it actually worked. worked out really well, because I could work almost anytime. And it didn't really matter.

William Huffman  35:08  
So when did how did the conversation be approached that she should move up here?

Unknown Speaker  35:14  
On one knee?

Jake Luehrs  35:16  
Oh, gosh, no. That's a great question. My best answer is it was more organic. Okay, like this is working. And she was like, I don't want to stay in Mankato my whole life. So she knew somebody she worked for. Gosh, trying to blank.

William Huffman  35:38  
It's a clear channel. Get clear channels like EWB and stuff.

Jake Luehrs  35:42  
She worked with some radio. Yeah. So she had she had a family member that that had an opportunity. So she took that.

William Huffman  35:49  
Did she also go for marketing or something?

Jake Luehrs  35:51  
She was more in the arts side then. Then the business side. Yep. So. So she eventually she moved up and was in Brooklyn center, essentially, for a while and then obviously, all that just kind of moved towards us moving in together.

William Huffman  36:10  
What was your first date? Oh, I

Unknown Speaker  36:11  
love that type of question. Yeah. Who said I love you first.

William Huffman  36:15  
Start with a date for crying out loud. So Mankato is

Jake Luehrs  36:19  
gonna end up being in trouble by the end. Oh, not not from any outside but from my wife. Do we need we can I have a phone? That Well, the first date was one night where we just happened to be at the same place and we just was at a party house. There wasn't no but it was. It was like a club. Okay. It's not like a Minneapolis club. It's a Mankato Club, which is a little bit different, but blame it. Oh, my roots. So that was essentially where we kind of like, reconnected and the eyes locked. Like, hear me she's like, so when are we gonna hang out? Like, I don't know. I'm leaving in a week. Like, yeah, move home. Well, then we should hang out. Okay. And the rest is history. Rest is literally.

William Huffman  37:12  
So when did you have?

Unknown Speaker  37:14  
When did you No,

William Huffman  37:15  
no, stop. Was

Unknown Speaker  37:16  
it pretty quick?

William Huffman  37:17  
Stop it. No, no. Oh.

Unknown Speaker  37:20  
First day I met well. Oh, you did?

William Huffman  37:22  
Yeah. In person.

Sarah Huffman  37:23  
The first day we met. The first time I met in person I knew. And I never believed that that could ever happen.

William Huffman  37:29  
You never met me. And then

Unknown Speaker  37:31  
there's Well, hey,

Jake Luehrs  37:32  
that's only takes it only takes well. It's funny because I don't look at it. I don't look at it only because I didn't have the experience. I don't I don't see how that works. Yeah, I don't I can't, I can't process that. Go through

William Huffman  37:47  
some interesting relationships and be 33 and then meet somebody that you can

Jake Luehrs  37:52  
have a conversation with that. That makes sense to me. Yeah, actually, well, I'm actually 33

William Huffman  37:56  
years of experience of what not to do

Jake Luehrs  37:59  
for both of us. And hopefully you learn more about yourself in that process to understand and I

William Huffman  38:03  
wouldn't changes because I always say a million things had to go right. And a billion things had to go wrong for us to meet. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  38:10  
And I honestly think I knew the first night but when I really knew was like our first like, where I didn't feel like I was mad at well, and normally anytime I would get mad. It just never worked out. But Will was like no, you have to tell me what is wrong. And like, once you have that, like safety place where you're like, oh, I can actually be honest and tell you stuff. And you're not gonna like, twist it or turn it against me. Like that's a different different level of a relationship.

Jake Luehrs  38:37  
maturity of a relationship.

Sarah Huffman  38:39  
Yeah. Now we'll probably use the word. Now. He's probably like, please don't tackle Yeah. What I do this time.

Jake Luehrs  38:46  
No, really telling me I want to know. Yeah, please.

William Huffman  38:49  
Yes. conversate about Coming up on eight years.

Sarah Huffman  38:55  
Yeah. Okay. So how many kids three kids? Two kids, two kids in there. How old? Lebanon 811? And eight? Yep. boy and a girl.

Jake Luehrs  39:02  
Boys. 11. Girls eight. Awesome. Yep.

William Huffman  39:05  
But you didn't answer who had who said I love you first. Oh, yeah. Who

Unknown Speaker  39:07  
said I love you first.

Jake Luehrs  39:09  
I don't know.

Unknown Speaker  39:10  
Really?

Jake Luehrs  39:11  
I really do.

Unknown Speaker  39:11  
I told well, I loved him

William Huffman  39:13  
first. Yes. One weekend?

Sarah Huffman  39:15  
No, it was not one week and it was three days. And it was it was his birthday. You were silent. You were Silent Bob. And then a week later you're like I heard you when I love you, too.

Jake Luehrs  39:26  
Did after you said it. Did he say thank you. No,

Sarah Huffman  39:29  
don't say anything. We don't have to go into any more detail.

William Huffman  39:36  
Stop you were incredibly toxic.

Unknown Speaker  39:41  
And you like with courage?

Jake Luehrs  39:43  
Yeah. Welcome that hope. Yeah, it does. Move the relationship.

William Huffman  39:50  
This is what was that place called Wild Bill's saloon. It was terrible. All the peanuts on the floor. Up in circle pines. Yeah. Ah, yeah, I don't even know. Well got some fights. It was a good day.

Unknown Speaker  40:03  
Shocking.

Jake Luehrs  40:04  
How do you label a good night? I don't know. How violent was it? Yeah.

William Huffman  40:09  
Through a couple swings,

Sarah Huffman  40:11  
that okay, but I have questions, but it's gonna speed up the timeline. So I don't know when you want how much? Probably significantly. Let's see what you got. Okay. i One of the things I love about you, Jake is like the mindset work that you put out there. So like the things that you post on Facebook, all the things, how did you get there?

William Huffman  40:29  
Pain? Oh, okay. Pain is a pain is a good motivator.

Jake Luehrs  40:35  
It requires short term. Well, it requires you to face it, I think you can only avoid it so long. I guess that's the way I look at it. So it's funny I've had. So last last January, I made the commitment. I was like, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put out stuff every day of the week. Even if I feel like it don't feel like it doesn't really matter. I'm gonna do it. And it didn't matter up until probably almost November, December, before people actually started saying something. And that's a lesson in and of itself. For me. It's like, Wow, I did that for 11 months and nobody really said anything. Well, I'm

William Huffman  41:10  
gonna bring you back because you've actually been working. I attended one of yous to do these things where you get together. You started doing those pre COVID The Leadership Academy Leadership Academy. Yeah. And like, I was like, people out walking people like, isn't he with that? Others that thing? Like, what's he doing? And I'm like, It's Jayegi this guy's smart. Like it was kind of

Jake Luehrs  41:31  
the beginning of I don't care who shows up? Yeah, I would I limit this to one. Yeah. Brokerage or one? One label?

Sarah Huffman  41:37  
Yeah, but so? Well, honestly, well, kudos to you. Because a lot of people wouldn't even go That's true.

William Huffman  41:43  
I was also starting my journey.

Unknown Speaker  41:45  
I mean, a lot of people wouldn't go

Jake Luehrs  41:47  
would be afraid of the what are they gonna say? Yeah, what are they assume I'm moving. Yeah, different brokerage. Like, because this is gonna be backed by brokers, all of that conference. Yeah. There's just like,

William Huffman  41:57  
yeah, get over it. 100% 100%. But no, I was also studying like, like, I thought I was a leader. Lord knows I wasn't I was. I was in charge. But I wasn't a leader by any means. Right. So I started we started actually, nurses a week me probably more than i You've always kind of been that natural leader. But I started in then, kind of Jake stuff. And but yeah, that was 2020 2018 or something like that. When he started doing that. It was probably 2018 I wasn't I didn't go at that sooner. You went into

Jake Luehrs  42:31  
it. Yeah. You wanted to make sure it was legit. Before he did it. He probably didn't

William Huffman  42:35  
know. But I know in 2017 I was not ready for it.

Jake Luehrs  42:39  
Well, that's a good message in and of itself. It's like sometimes you just if you're not ready for it. Yeah, that's a bunch of bullshit. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Talk to me about how my mind works. Yeah, just go to work. Yeah, yeah,

William Huffman  42:50  
we got to now. We got some hot she's got some bench.

Sarah Huffman  42:55  
Now. Thanks, shit patient and now it's like, that's how we started our day is on mindset. Yeah. It's been a big shout or some

William Huffman  43:03  
40 5am Call everyday with the team. Did you work on your mindset, you work on your skill set used to treat yourself and then did you work on your senior? Um, did you do? Did you work with your sphere? So those are the five questions that people okay today, but okay, you

Sarah Huffman  43:16  
said that you did this for 11 months, and no one said anything. So does that mean like,

William Huffman  43:19  
oh my god, online on social media? Yeah.

Jake Luehrs  43:22  
Okay. So basically putting out the messages on Facebook, Instagram. Yeah, and all of that. Yeah. Yep. So it seems to it's kind of like that. I'm not gonna say on this. Everybody's paying attention. But you know, you're like you can feel when something has shifted? Yes, it feels like it's shifted a little bit. And I don't know if it has to do with where the where the real estate market is where people are starting to pay attention to. This isn't what it used to be. Right. And so maybe it becomes a little bit more scary or more painful that they now are open. Like you said you weren't ready when in 2017. But at a certain point, you realize you needed to be ready to go to that next level. And I think a lot of people are, are in that space.

Sarah Huffman  44:01  
And I think too, like I think one of our big shifts was when we did have pain. Like when we experienced like hard heartache and pain in our life. It forced you to be like, well, this happened.

Jake Luehrs  44:14  
He's the acceptance of okay, this is where we are.

Sarah Huffman  44:17  
Yeah. And then it's like, okay, this happened. We're proud. And at that time, I felt like we couldn't share it with anybody because of the judgment and the shame and all the things. And finally, when we did open up on those painful moments, and for hours, it was around financial. But when we were able to open up around those really painful, like, terrible moments, all of a sudden, we felt better.

Jake Luehrs  44:39  
And the amount of people that you guys helped by having that the amount of

William Huffman  44:43  
that was that was mind blowing.

Sarah Huffman  44:46  
And it still is it still is because now we're safe people to talk to if something's happened, and it doesn't necessarily mean financial stuff, but like we have people that talk to us about mindset divorce, finances, insecurity, His life like

William Huffman  45:01  
depression, depression, mental health, suicide.

Sarah Huffman  45:05  
Kind of the gamut. Because we were willing to put ourselves out there that hey, like, we're flawed, too. And

William Huffman  45:13  
you're Let's go, you're pretty perfect. I really do mean that like you are, you know, like, I like you.

Sarah Huffman  45:19  
It's funny that that's your perception because my perception. Yeah, thank you.

William Huffman  45:26  
I want some free tickets. We got for free tickets to universal. Yeah, just by asking some guy I did not know, really literally did not know him. A friend tagged him in a friend shared my post with him. And he's like, Yeah, I eat some tickets. And I'm like, Wait, are you serious? And he's like, yeah, absolutely. And I'm like that. Wow, that is so incredible. Like, he's like, I don't even know you don't like but he's like my friend said, You're a good dude. So here's four tickets for you. And I'm like, if you ever come to Minnesota, like we're going out to a steak house on me like you're gonna go. Hey,

Jake Luehrs  46:05  
you guys are taking it too far. You just say party with two hours. You don't sound like a pirate. You're ruining. I'm never gonna say it.

Sarah Huffman  46:15  
Sounds better than we say when you pop into our pirate jokes are where does the pirate like to go for dinner? You guys

Jake Luehrs  46:22  
just ruined? Are we ever gonna say that?

Sarah Huffman  46:28  
Okay, so what I was gonna say, though, back to our point, though, is putting the stuff out there. Opens it up for so many other people that like, set their shit down. Yeah.

Jake Luehrs  46:38  
Or just face it like, no, yeah. Yeah, try to walk away from it before. It's people ask like, where do you come up with this stuff? I was like, You think I'm writing it for you? I'm not writing it for you. That's for me. Yeah, that's a reminder for me to process. Oh, so

William Huffman  46:53  
why did I remember you were tying this into like, you run like an Iron Man's. I did one. You did an Iron Man's why? Like, what the hell's wrong with you?

Jake Luehrs  47:08  
That would be a whole nother that I've always

William Huffman  47:12  
legit. I remember you were training for it. And that was one of the first leadership things that you went to. And you were talking about that and I was like, all the lessons that Yeah. And I'm like, Ah, I'm definitely hanging out with these guys. Yeah, there's,

Jake Luehrs  47:23  
I don't. It was it was put to me. It's interesting. If you look at different periods of Well, when I look at different periods of my life, it seems that other people have seen stuff in me before I've seen it in myself. Yeah, right. So you know, I went from getting into real estate being on the team. Eventually. I was 25. And it was this was REMAX associates plus before. Okay, so let's purchase them. But they asked me, Would I be open to running the new Rogers REMAX? I was like, I don't have any. I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah. And people like three people that I respect a lot. So why are you not doing this as like, I am not ready. And you're never going to be go do it? Yeah. Because I went to the office and everybody was older than me that have been in business for 1520 years, highly productive agents that are still in the business. Who am I to go in there and give them direction like, right, but that's just the chatter that I had to get through. So it's in the Iron Man was no different. It's like, you should do it. And I just didn't think I said, Okay, that's all right. Wow. And then I think there's something special to see how far you can push yourself. For me physically leads to pushing myself physically leads to pushing myself in other areas of my life. So it's just kind of a conduit. Yep. Do I want to do it again? I'm gonna say Not right now. No. Now right? That's a good answer. Not right now. It could change but the amount of time and effort it took to train

Unknown Speaker  48:56  
Where was your Iron Man?

Jake Luehrs  48:58  
was Scott it was mad or Milwaukee. Okay. Yeah, so it wasn't even Hawaii. See, I wasn't willing to do that. Okay. I'm just gonna go do and then I'm gonna come home.

William Huffman  49:08  
You came home the same day? No, I

Jake Luehrs  49:09  
came home the next day. Okay. I'm

William Huffman  49:10  
like, I probably would have been like asking for a banana beer or something. I didn't

Jake Luehrs  49:15  
look at it as a vacation I looked at it as I'm right accomplish this and I'm really gonna crush it to go to go do this. That's incredible. So

Sarah Huffman  49:23  
okay, from the outside in right from the outside and it's like you are this successful guy you own five Well, I mean, I'm gonna probably say the wrong words but five amazing companies. Or maybe you call it one but CIC five and now you're working on all this mindset work. So like sometimes like from the outside in, like people might think Oh, Jake, he's got it.

William Huffman  49:44  
Got it together. Like he's never had a tough day in his life. That son of a biscuit. silver spoon in his mouth, right? Not at all. Yeah.

Jake Luehrs  49:54  
It always looks different from the outside looking at Yeah. What what I encourage you to do as part Why I do why I write what I write is? Can we just be honest? Yeah. Because I think it's irresponsible to put a message out there. Like everything is great just because you make all this money. Yes. Like, if you sell this many houses, you're successful. It's like, I know a lot of people that make a lot of money that are completely miserable. Yeah, that's not success to me at all. It's the opposite of it. Was success is being able to wake up happy and excited about what you're about going to do. Yeah, I don't care if you're making $20 or 2 million. If you're happy. Don't, don't get it twisted. Because it gets, you start chasing something that wasn't meant for you.

William Huffman  50:40  
And a lot of people chase the dollar. They think it's going to yes, they think it's going to if you're a miserable piece of shit with $5 You're gonna be miserable shit with 5 million probably

Jake Luehrs  50:48  
going to be more so because you're gonna be afraid of Yeah, yeah.

Sarah Huffman  50:52  
So and you know, I think three years ago, really, I think it was like three years ago, we really had to sit down and redefine what success look like. Yep. Because for so long, it was, well, when we get to this GCI, everything's gonna be everything's gonna be great. Yeah. When we get to this, whatever, it's all the things are going to be fixed. Yep. Guess what? The ball keeps moving down the field. That's how you define it. And so then it was like, Oh, what do we want to do? Like, what does bring us joy? What does bring us success? Where do we lose track of time? You know, because those are the things that we actually want to do. I love that. That makes a lot of sense to me. And you know, when I was my previous careers, like, we talked a little bit that I was a teacher. And then I went into retail management. And that's where a lot of my between teaching and well actually, I feel like I've been a leader since my earlier memories

William Huffman  51:40  
in your own household. Legitimately. Yeah,

Sarah Huffman  51:43  
I mean, leader since fourth grade. Yeah, it's interesting, because I remember, like, when I was teaching, I would always want to look at my watch. And I knew what day it was. And I knew how far away the weekend was. And I knew all the things, and I knew how to like, kind of manipulate my vacation. So it would be longer, or you know, whatever that looked like, same with target and JC Penney, when I worked in store management there. And it's like with with real estate, it is not even real estate with what we are able to do now. Because we do more than sell houses. And so now it's like, I don't even wear a watch. Because I don't feel like yes, I need one to keep myself on time, of course. But I'm not looking at the time thinking when's the day over? Or when do I get to go home? It's like, holy crap today. I'm like, wow, it's already Thursday. June 6, that's a successful life. Yeah. When you're like, Whoa, a week just went by? Because I know what it's like to watch the clock. And I won't choose that life.

Jake Luehrs  52:42  
It's tough. It's just trying to pass time quicker. Yeah, it goes to the same speed. All the time.

William Huffman  52:49  
Yeah. Although it is a made up construct. Okay. Didn't really fill up. Yeah. Let's talk about some geography. For geometry.

Sarah Huffman  53:01  
Okay, so question though. When you look back at your life, when did you realize that you are a leader?

Jake Luehrs  53:05  
I still question it. Really? Yeah. And I, I know I lead. I know, I have a title that that is put on me. But I think it's something you earn every single day. I don't Yeah, I don't think once you are one, you are one. I think I think you have to show up that way every single day. And maybe it's just it's a great question. I don't know if if there's any definitive moment, it's it's earning it. Yeah. In every opportunity. It's tough.

William Huffman  53:37  
But there's nothing not a finish line to being a leader. No,

Sarah Huffman  53:40  
no. Once again, yeah. Guess up moves.

William Huffman  53:43  
Yeah. If you want to make the

Sarah Huffman  53:46  
leadership finish line, no, like, oh, I made it. It's an

Jake Luehrs  53:49  
it's an evolution of who you are as an individual in the state to be out front to help pull people

William Huffman  53:55  
what? But you said you, you question it daily. Like why

Jake Luehrs  53:59  
there's a humility is a big thing for me. And I, I have a very hard time digesting people that call themselves leaders, but don't put people first. And that's a that's a problem for me. So it's a check for me to make sure that I'm not putting myself above anybody else.

William Huffman  54:18  
Okay. When you say you question yourself daily, it's not a self doubt thing. No, okay.

Jake Luehrs  54:22  
I don't I wouldn't call it a doubt. Okay. I mean, there are moments of like, what am I doing? But right you only there are there are those moments understand that, which I think are I think that's healthy. Because as soon as you think you arrive, you're your learning is over. Oh, yeah, that's a problem. But it's it's always maybe it's a matter of more earning it than it is about questioning my ability to do it. Yeah, I know. I can do it. Yeah. But I still have so it's one of those. This lands very, very firmly. I wrote one time it's like, the more I learn, the more you realize what you don't know. It's annoying. It's so it's like, do I want to learn more because that's just going Excuse me two more things that I didn't understand. But when you think you know everything you don't think there's anything else to learn, which is also a very bad place. Yeah.

William Huffman  55:08  
Yeah, I'd rather be annoyed and realize there's so much more to learn than think I know at all,

Sarah Huffman  55:13  
I think even just, let's just put real estate out there for a second, like, back to like, year one or year two for you. And then me, because that's kind of when I joined, I'd have about 30 more

William Huffman  55:23  
dollars, that's a lot more money.

Jake Luehrs  55:27  
By 50 bucks. Really,

Sarah Huffman  55:31  
it's like one of those things where it's like, your ego can take over on so much. And it's like, once, you can just kind of set that down and just be like, feeling more exposed in a way. Like, you're gonna learn stuff, and you just have to be ready to like, take it on, and there is no finish line. When it comes to leadership.

Jake Luehrs  55:48  
You're gonna learn stuff, and you're also going to get judged. Yeah. So as soon as you can let go of the judgment of other people, the reality is that judgments coming from people that are in pain, yeah. Are the people that aren't, you know, that are insecure? Even if they're doing big things from the outside? Yeah, we all we're all, we all got our spots. Yeah. And if you want to hide from it, I hope you're happy. Yeah. Like, I don't wish you ill will. But right, I do hope that you find the piece that I think is evading you.

Sarah Huffman  56:20  
Yeah. So now, when did it become your plan to purchase like to be the owner of these five offices?

Jake Luehrs  56:26  
This is gonna be a super annoying answer. I've learned Oh, no. Well, I don't remember. Yeah, it's one of those things where, and I think, honestly, I think watching what you guys do, I don't think we're that different. It's, I'm gonna go work my tail off. And I'm gonna watch where the flow bring. Because I can have a plan. But I'm not committed to that plan. If if it's telling me to go in other directions is going to go another direction. So when I became a team leader at at, I started up at the Elk River office and then moved to the Minneapolis office. I was provided an opportunity at that point, because of the performance that we that we as a team built. So that that was was the initial part. And then things just continued to evolve where I said, I'm I said, I was done. Being a team leader, I was super tired. I was exhausted. I was it wasn't, it wasn't fitting my life at that point in time. So when I moved into a general manager role, that opportunity opened up more. And I'm not the sole owner of all these just right, yeah, just for clarity. It's there's a portion that each one Yeah. So So it's just kind of evolved. I listened to a book, Michael singer, I've listened to it probably six, seven times called the surrender experiment. And essentially what it is, is it's, yes, have goals work hard. Do your best at everything that you're you're doing in the moment. And also listen to where life is telling you to, to go. And one of the things in that book that keeps ringing in my head is what I think is is the right decision. Is it based on my comfort? Or is it based on the right thing to do for other people? And where I've gotten in is I'm taking steps recently that are super scary for me. But all the directions are pointing me to do it. Because it's, it's, it's helping. So rather than looking at it from a selfish perspective, I look at it from a very, very what's my obligation to serve as it's out there a little bit but I'm here for a reason. We are

Unknown Speaker  58:40  
here for the out there. So

William Huffman  58:41  
there's woowoo hippie shit. I

Jake Luehrs  58:43  
think we're all here for a reason. Yeah. And and we owe it for the opportunity to go step into it. And not avoid it because we're afraid. Yep. And so there's fear in some of the things that I've taken on just all you know, full disclosure

William Huffman  58:58  
like it's scary. Well, your shirt says the best be the buffalo charges storm.

Jake Luehrs  59:02  
There's no other way, the more I avoided the more anxiety shows up. So I'm gonna run right at the problem. And sometimes I'm gonna screw it up, but it's gonna be better than not hitting it anyway. Yeah. So it's just this weird, weird thing where if you if you're, if you're aware enough, you'll know the next decision to make as long as you don't put your preference all over it. Like as soon as you start putting your preferences on everything. It's really hard to make decisions. Yep. But as soon as you start to listen and understand your values, you should be able to follow through on a decision that it may not be the it may be scary, but it's not the right decision. Don't confuse scary with wrong.

Sarah Huffman  59:40  
Yep. And don't let fear stop you. A lot

Jake Luehrs  59:43  
of times people take counsel of their fears.

William Huffman  59:45  
Fear has killed more dreams than failure ever will.

Jake Luehrs  59:49  
100% accurate I

Sarah Huffman  59:51  
when I was a teacher I gave my notice in February of 2008.

Jake Luehrs  59:54  
Really genius frames Yeah,

Sarah Huffman  59:59  
but But at the time, I think some people really thought I was crazy as a 1010 year teacher, like, what in the heck are you paying attention to?

Jake Luehrs  1:00:07  
I thought you were crazy are also the ones that envy dude like and their courage to do that.

Sarah Huffman  1:00:11  
And I've heard that actually, I actually ran into a colleague recently. And she was like, You are so lucky that you did that you got out, you got out, not lucky. And I'm like, I just went for it. What was I was watching my watch. And I don't want to live a life where I'm ever watching my watch like that. And I think like, it's interesting, because I don't know, when I think back to those times, it just, I knew when you can kind of quiet the chatter.

Jake Luehrs  1:00:42  
Like you keep doing what you know, to be accurate.

Sarah Huffman  1:00:45  
People know. And sometimes we think, Well, how am I going to end up there? And it's like, no, I'm not worried about there. I'm just worried about like, the next step. Because the next step and the next step, and it's even just like how will and I met, it's like, you just know. And I think sometimes you just have to figure out how to quiet your mind and just listen to the things that you know to be true. Like, for me, I get a lot of things coming into me. I'm like what we need to do next when I'm on my peloton.

Jake Luehrs  1:01:13  
Yep, I totally Well, that's I mean, you go back to Iron Man, you know, many books I listen to. can't even imagine. I was so sick of music at that time. I can't listen to anything else. I need to listen to something that but it was it was long runs long bike rides. Yeah. Two or three hours at a time. You're just like, Okay, go find someone to listen to.

William Huffman  1:01:33  
All right. I think we're in a great spot to wrap it up because we're about that hour. Mark. Jake, if somebody wanted to consume your content, how would they find you?

Jake Luehrs  1:01:42  
You can Jake Lers? You can find me on how do you spell your last name? l u e hrs?

William Huffman  1:01:46  
Okay? And this is fine. Facebook or Instagram Instagram.

Jake Luehrs  1:01:51  
Yeah, that's same for you weren't Tik Tok yet? I am. I don't actively use a command who is the champ? I got this weird thing in my head with regards to the data. I gotta get over it. Like,

William Huffman  1:02:03  
are you kidding me? Come on, like you tell me. And stuff like

Jake Luehrs  1:02:08  
not saying it was logical. Yeah. And it's real.

William Huffman  1:02:10  
Yeah. All right. Awesome, man. Well, we finish every podcast with asking the same question. What are your top five favorite restaurants and they don't have to be it'd be fun. And they don't have to be in order. And they don't have to be like, we have one gentleman who always says Olive Garden because he goes down with his mom. So it's very nostalgic. He's not like, Oh, I love the soup. breadsticks. Right? But the strategic that makes sense. It doesn't have to exist anymore. So number five.

Jake Luehrs  1:02:40  
I would have to say in Red Lodge there's a Mexican restaurant. And how am I a bow guards. Bogart. Red Lodge Red Lodge. Montana is like the south central part of the state. So we go there every year and that's it's they get great Mexican food.

William Huffman  1:02:59  
Now all right. What's your order?

Jake Luehrs  1:03:02  
They have a beef enchilada with a white cheese.

William Huffman  1:03:07  
Slimy so like the milk stuff. It's not queso. So it's a it's the Mexican street cheese type thingy is like no, it's

Jake Luehrs  1:03:14  
it's a soft and crumbly. No, it's It's melted but it's not case. So say my might just not have the all the peppers and stuff. I need you to call them now and figure out that is DoorDash. You could probably look it up online and yeah, call

Unknown Speaker  1:03:29  
number one answers the phone anymore. Well,

William Huffman  1:03:31  
yeah, I do. Note number four. That's why you have to Venmo me at MF big wi ll

Jake Luehrs  1:03:41  
get one more before?

William Huffman  1:03:42  
Well, that's gonna be that's gonna be the part of the intro.

Jake Luehrs  1:03:45  
That's the title of

Unknown Speaker  1:03:48  
this is Jake's podcast, but I'm not.

Jake Luehrs  1:03:50  
I'm not even gonna say it's, I don't think it's a current restaurant anymore. But my wife and I, when we were younger, we would go to move for lettuce. Oh, yeah. And it was kind of like, Paul. It was St. Paul. Yeah, it was in St. Paul. But but it was one of those places where we didn't have a lot of money at that time. So it was a special kind of treat. Yeah, it was like Star Trek. Yeah. So it's awesome. That's a great one. All right. Number three. Fleming's in Austin, Texas. Fleming Steakhouse.

William Huffman  1:04:25  
Why do I know that name? Or the tic tac? They might be what what's what's your cut of steak?

Jake Luehrs  1:04:34  
It's it used to be ribeye now it's fillet?

Unknown Speaker  1:04:38  
Okay. flays the only way you

William Huffman  1:04:41  
know there's nothing better than a great ribeye.

Jake Luehrs  1:04:43  
But I would actually put ribeye third now and New York a good new year out Yeah, no, a good clean cut.

Unknown Speaker  1:04:51  
No money and how do you like your steak?

Jake Luehrs  1:04:54  
Just above medium rare, medium. Medium rare. We

William Huffman  1:04:59  
can still be friends. Well,

Jake Luehrs  1:05:01  
I'll say the flake can be medium rare. The others prefer a little bit more done. And you don't have to agree with me.

William Huffman  1:05:08  
Yeah, but Yeah, but you're right and you're wrong.

Jake Luehrs  1:05:10  
After the conversation we just had Yeah, you're going to

William Huffman  1:05:18  
100% Remember kids, lie your asses off.

Jake Luehrs  1:05:23  
I'm not geography geography. Yeah. Good. Golly, Miss Molly. All right, number two. Oh, you guys are digging deep into the, into the well. I'm gonna I'm gonna go off script and say, honestly, my wife's for. Oh, get out. Yes. I would never order for a restaurant.

Unknown Speaker  1:05:49  
When are we coming over for dinner? Yeah,

Jake Luehrs  1:05:51  
let's name the date. And we can do that tonight.

William Huffman  1:05:53  
Can we go into the fall is I wouldn't we have gotten Loring Park. Lotus is right behind us there. And that's the best in the city. As far as I'm concerned. Not Maple Grove. Not the Maple Grove one. I would eat there three or four times a week. Just get this far. It's it's moved up here. We tried. This

Jake Luehrs  1:06:20  
is not the same.

William Huffman  1:06:21  
No, they brought Yeah, they tried to trick me once. They're like, Oh, we got you fall from the lotus. And I'm like, Oh, who drove the Loring Park. And like Tyler did yeah. And I took one bite and like, this is not from this is not from like, how the hell did you know that? You know his name. It's not to say,

Jake Luehrs  1:06:37  
well, once you so my mother in law is she's from Vietnam. And so she's brought just delicious. Like she's a phenomenal cook. So now Steph has taken that on and my son loves it just as much as I do. Yes, please. So you can just you can make it how she give lessons. It's one of those things where if you ask for lessons, she's just going to be like, put a little bit of that little

William Huffman  1:07:03  
bit. Yeah, yeah, there's it's an art. Yeah. You said she's artsy. It's an art.

Jake Luehrs  1:07:09  
She's very she's got it. She's got it figured out for her. She makes it look very easy. I am a hot mess with all the stuff. You try putting together it's not gonna work. I just

William Huffman  1:07:19  
here's $100 Give me a gallon of your bra.

Jake Luehrs  1:07:23  
Well, that's that's the big most important probably everything else you can everything else is fine.

Unknown Speaker  1:07:27  
Yeah, however, yeah, the shoots

William Huffman  1:07:29  
the noodles, the basil like the jalapenos to me when I can slice the meat. Yep, just I'll give you 100 bucks. Give me a gallon of the broth. Get her big GWI.

Jake Luehrs  1:07:43  
Promoting that so? Whatever you raise today. Yeah, we'll use that to purchase your phone. Oh,

William Huffman  1:07:51  
careful. Ladies and gentlemen. I have never been more serious in my life. Mirka Dave

Sarah Huffman  1:07:57  
at this one really fast that edit shit out of this part. I mean, like the rest

William Huffman  1:08:02  
of the pod. Said what a Monday? Yeah. If this doesn't what's what's Monday's date? The third? The sixth? What's Oh, is that our anniversary? Oh my god. Well, this needs to go out February 6, so I can have money to do you have reservations for us?

Unknown Speaker  1:08:21  
Not yet. Good.

William Huffman  1:08:25  
We need to have fun.

Sarah Huffman  1:08:26  
No, we've actually learned that if I would have will plan especially event like a wedding anniversary or birthday or Valentine's Day bad idea. Anything because he's gonna be a rebel and be like, holidays are dumb. So

Jake Luehrs  1:08:42  
I'm gonna do it when it's a surprise. Yeah.

William Huffman  1:08:45  
So yeah,

Sarah Huffman  1:08:45  
I like tradition. So I'd like to. I got stuff planned out. America,

William Huffman  1:08:54  
America number. Yeah. Number one.

Jake Luehrs  1:08:58  
Just say McDonald's. No.

Unknown Speaker  1:09:04  
Well, everybody, Jake's a four out of five.

Jake Luehrs  1:09:08  
Top 80% All right,

Unknown Speaker  1:09:13  
how many times we cheat?

Jake Luehrs  1:09:15  
It's actually gotten less because of it's time consuming. It's a lot of work. Yeah. It's a lot of work. Yeah, it's a lot of work for her not just to make it but the cleanup and all of that. So we used to have Fridays. Oh, so every Friday we had it and then even even we were like, Yeah, we don't need it any we don't need it this Friday. We can have something else. But it's probably two or three times a month probably.

William Huffman  1:09:40  
Oh see friends for Friday. I would be there every Friday. I think

Jake Luehrs  1:09:44  
there would be quite a few people that have tried it that would come I will

Unknown Speaker  1:09:50  
be outside the door with like our like big boys. Please.

William Huffman  1:09:55  
Yeah, you're good. Yeah, we got it.

Sarah Huffman  1:09:58  
2023 version of. What's that one movie that you love? Newsies? Yeah, you know when they're like,

William Huffman  1:10:05  
No, that's done in the movie. You're thinking of Oliver Twist. are cruel, please. Yeah, Newsies is not the same movie as Oliver Twist.

Sarah Huffman  1:10:12  
Same same era, not

Jake Luehrs  1:10:13  
even close. BYOB bring their own bowl.

William Huffman  1:10:17  
We have some we have bubbles here. Yeah. Here. Are you here? Yeah. And at home? Absolutely.

Sarah Huffman  1:10:21  
And spoons and chopsticks because you cannot have you

Jake Luehrs  1:10:24  
guys you guys also have your call nights on Wednesday. So you need to have the proper

Sarah Huffman  1:10:30  
the crock pot if you're hungry, but we've actually had it delivered enough times where they don't bring the footballs. Yeah, because they know already know people. So so we'll just had to go out and order

William Huffman  1:10:40  
one time where they didn't bring the balls on purpose. One time they didn't bring them. So now we get to tell them no balls. But

Jake Luehrs  1:10:46  
because then we just. Yeah, that makes sense. All right.

William Huffman  1:10:50  
Well, this was enjoyable. It's been real. It's been fun. It's kind of been real fun to actually

Unknown Speaker  1:10:56  
be around. Yeah, I

Jake Luehrs  1:10:56  
appreciate that. The invite and the conversation.

William Huffman  1:10:59  
Thanks for coming, brother. Appreciate it. As always we out deuces.

Accouncer  1:11:02  
tune in each week. For more in depth conversations about life behind the highlight reel. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform to make sure you never miss an episode. For today's show notes head over to lb thr.com