Spring Bengtzen started in real estate while she was only 22. A developer refused to hire her at that time because they thought she was too young. However, she was determined to prove herself, so she agreed to work for free for the first couple of months. After learning the trade, she was able to sell her first house just by transacting over the phone. This impressed the developer, and they decided to keep her.
She worked her way up to being their principal broker and sold thousands of properties while she was there. But when the economy tanked in ‘08, they filed for bankruptcy. At that time, Spring was listed as one of REALTOR’s Magazine 30 under 30, and she had the opportunity to join Keller-Williams. From 2010 to 2019, she built and grew her team to become the largest in Utah.
Eventually, Spring felt she was ready for something more. So in 2019, she started her own brokerage under Realty One. While she loved its branding and transaction model, she realized that she’s really not meant to be a broker-owner. She had to let go of her ego, sell her brokerage, and ultimately joined REAL Broker LLC.
Today, Spring is the CEO of the Utah Life Real Estate Group & REAL Broker LLC. at Real Broker USA. In today’s episode, we talked about her plans for building wealth, what she loves about joining REAL Broker LLC, and the biggest challenge she ever had to deal with in her life.
Top Takeaways:
02:47 The projects that Spring is currently working on
04:57 How Spring manages to continue to double her business every year
06:06 How you should do morning huddles
08:18 What one-on-one sessions look like in Spring’s business
11:24 How does “special agent attraction strategy” work?
16:36 Why Spring decided to buy a brokerage
19:34 What Spring loves about REAL Broker LLC
23:59 The value of having a plan for building wealth
28:07 How to achieve work-life balance when you and your spouse are both in real estate
31:35 How Spring’s determination helped her get to the next level
32:29 Why you need to believe that the worst day of your life has already happened
33:41 The worst trauma Spring had to deal with in her life
36:28 Why you should live your life as a choice
To get in touch with Spring, check her Instagram page @springbengtzen. You may also send an email to spring@liveutah.com or contact 801-641-1431.
Podcast Transcript:
Brian Charlesworth 0:35
Alright, everyone, welcome back to the Grit podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth, the founder of Sisu and the host of the show. And one of the things I love most about this podcast is I get to dig in with people like our guest today, and learn about their grit and just what makes them so successful. And this guest today happens to be a very special guest for me, and I actually get to dig into this stuff quite a bit with her because Spring Bengtzen happens to be my wife. She is the founder and CEO of Utah Real Estate Group. And she is one of the most powerful women in real estate. I hear that from everybody who meets her so sometimes I don't think she realizes that yet, but it's true. And she just happens to be my wife. So it's been a huge year for her. I watch her double her business almost every year, which is so fun to see. And last year, she bought a brokerage and then sold the brokerage within a year. She's just had a ton going on. So I wanted to dive in, talk to her about the industry and talk to her about her business, mainly about her business, because I think she does a lot of things that many of you guys are gonna want to duplicate and learn from. So welcome to the show Spring.
Spring Bengtzen 1:51
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Brian Charlesworth 1:54
Yeah. I mean, what do you want to tell the world about yourself?
Spring Bengtzen 1:59
I think I'm good. Thank you. I was asked to quiet the introduction. The other day, I said, Hey, Brian, when are you gonna put me on your podcast? He goes, how about this week? And like, Alright, there we go.
Brian Charlesworth 2:10
There you go. So anyway, I'm going to be traveling a lot over the next few weeks. So having Spring on today is great gives you guys an opportunity to not have me miss a week on the show. And for you guys to get some great content. So one of the interesting things is Spring, we live in the same house. We work in the same office. And yet here we are on a zoom. We're not in the same room. Doing podcast. Neither of us have like this cool podcasting room that we're talking about putting into a new building that you've been working on. So that's the first thing I want to talk about today. I want to talk about our new podcasting room. got done and, and more about this building project you have going on?
Spring Bengtzen 2:55
Yeah, so yes, it's gonna have a rad podcast studio, it's also gonna have a really cool training area and club workspace. And so it's interesting about a year ago, well, as you mentioned, I purchased the brokerage and then sold it because I figured it was not for me, we can talk about that too. But I went under contract on an old bank or credit union, probably about a year ago. And we're supposed to close and then due to the construction delays with COVID. It just got delayed and delayed and delayed and ended up closing in December. And we're in the middle of construction, it's going to be about a 5500 square foot office building. Now they don't have the brokerage quite large for just our team. So we'll be putting in title and mortgage and doing some cool stuff. I do a lot of videos, we'll do a really cool podcast room right now I'm squatting. You can see the wall back me as is white because I'm just in a conference room it ventures x which is like we work. But it's fun. I'm super excited about and hopefully, Sisu will take out part of that office space as well. So
Brian Charlesworth 4:03
I was gonna say, aren't you saving part of that for us?
Spring Bengtzen 4:07
I hope so. Yeah. We'll see.
Brian Charlesworth 4:09
Yes, we are planning on it. So spring, one of the things I've noticed since COVID hit you when COVID hit you got really, really intentional with your business. And I think that's actually played a big role in you elevating your business, not just the fact that real estate has gotten hotter. Right, then I think where you really elevated were those months of March and April and May, when a lot of the industry was actually shutting down and you guys doubled your efforts to have conversations and things like that. So last year, you did 104 million in volume. This year, you're at about 100 million in volume today, which happens to be early July. So like, how have you guys done that? How do you continue to double your business? Every year?
Spring Bengtzen 5:01
Well, there's a couple of things. So as you spoke about the whole COVID thing, I mean, the way that I looked at it is there's always a market, meaning I went through 2008, 2009, 2010. And yes, it tanked. But there were so home selling, it was just a different type of transaction, right? And so, when COVID, I took the same mentality, like, Hey, we're doubling down, like, just because there's a there's this obstacle doesn't mean my goals are negotiable. And so we went really heavy on accountability, implementing our morning, huddles, training, etc. We just kept all of that as part of our culture. But a big part of our culture is also agent attraction. We know that we can generate the business that we have the lead sources, we have the systems. And so we're doubling because we're attracting quality agents that want to be in our world and on our team, and putting them through our processes and systems and getting them into a high level of production. Okay,
Brian Charlesworth 6:03
so I want to drill in a little bit deeper on a couple of those items. You talked about morning. huddles? Yes, I think this is something that most team leaders would like to do. Yes, maybe think it's a little bit monotonous? It's a little bit hard to do. Yeah. Am I really committed to do that forever moving forward? Or is that something I'm going to do for a month? So like, tell me about what do you guys do in that huddle? So that I really want the world to know like, this is what you do?
Spring Bengtzen 6:36
I so to back up, I agree with you. I didn't do the huddle consistently, Intel COVID hit and then it was like we were all working virtually. And so I needed a way that we were all connecting at least on a daily, we'll do a little bit of a knowledge bomb, keep it quick and or motivation and then report out our rocks, our commitments for the day. So we all use Sisu, obviously, I'll have them look at their Sisu and say what their intention was for the day prior? Did they hit their goal? And what is our goal for today, so as to keep that top of mind of them looking at their dashboard at least once a day in the morning to see what they need to do to accomplish where they want to be at.
Brian Charlesworth 7:17
Okay, so one of the things that I hear there is managing with dashboards, so you actually have dashboards for that one on one or that? We'll get to one on ones in a minute, I guess. For that morning huddle.
Spring Bengtzen 7:32
Yeah. So we have dashboards and all of our offices like yours behind you. But we Yes, but we have them look at their specific, like they pull up their phone, and they're like, this is what I have to do today, or this is my intention. So all sorted out is what was your intention today? Well, if it's a Monday, what's your intention today? Great. And then on Tuesday, it's like your intention yesterday. Was this. Did you hit it? And then what is your intention today? So we keep it quick? It can be monotonous and long with 20-30 agents. So it is a quick like, what was your rock? Did you hit it? Yes or no? What is your rock for today?
Brian Charlesworth 8:10
Yeah, okay. I brought up dashboards just there was obviously in my mind. So let's talk about or one on ones. Let's talk about one on ones what what is a one on one look like in your business?
Spring Bengtzen 8:23
So one on ones or weekly mine are all on Mondays for the agents that I do. So I just got off of them. Today's a Monday. And so they're 20 minutes long, we will go over started off with what's amazing in their life right now. Something good. And then I'll say, Okay, let's dive into your business. I'll pull up their dashboard, their dashboards, we'll look at the metrics of the week. And so far for the month, we'll go over what they have in their pipeline, conversion ratios if there is something off. So like the one I just had, just simply not talking to enough people. Like he's just not in enough activity, or the one I had prior to that man, her pipeline is stacked. And so it's just it's getting clear on who her top priorities are. So every one of them is different. We'll review what they need to in their business this week to propel forward and then if for the remainder of it, we'll do for whatever coaching, that if they're having issues with converting leads by today, we listened to some other Zillow calls, we do have a VA that rates all their scores on those below and all the calls that come in. So we just did feedback on what they did well, and where they could have improved and let them listen to them. So it changes but a big chunk of it is around the dashboard and what their pipeline looks like and how we can have them help hit their goals.
Brian Charlesworth 9:43
Okay, so one of the things you're talking about a lot, you're in this data you have in front of you. You can see, okay, this person has tons of people in their pipeline, this person isn't making enough calls this person's conversion ratio. are horrible on setting appointments, those types of things that I've seen a lot of team leaders, and I've talked to a lot that a lot of times, if you don't have that kind of information in front of you, in that one on one, what you end up talking about might be personal issues, and you kind of become their counselor. Is that still an issue? Do you still find that in your business?
Spring Bengtzen 10:23
Yeah, the only time I have that be an issue is if they're not performing. So one of them today, for a matter of fact, am like dude, I can't have this same redundant conversation. Like it unless you're gonna log your activities or actually get into a higher level of production, then there's no point of us having this one on one. Because I don't need to coach somebody who needs who's only going to sell one house a month. And so I know that sounds harsh, and they actually thanked me for that conversation. But yeah, we use the data to be able to have a quality conversation. If not, it goes very much into a just chatty Cathy and it's a waste of time.
Brian Charlesworth 11:00
Yeah. Okay. Great. You talked about agent attraction a minute ago. Yes, I know, you've been on a lot of different podcasts, you've been invited to several different to present at several different masterminds or conferences or different things about your agent attraction. So you've got this special In my opinion, I'm close to it. I think you've got a special agent attraction strategy that a lot of people don't have. So I wanted to dive into that today. And have you shared more about that?
Spring Bengtzen 11:32
I thought you were just gonna say you've just got this special thing about you
Brian Charlesworth 11:35
You have this special way of attracting everyone. I mean, I don't know what it is about you Spring?
Spring Bengtzen 11:44
I love you. Um, so yes, we do have a super solid agent attraction program. I signed up and I'll give them a shout out Frank closets. Viral Marketing helped me probably three years ago, create a solid plan. So if anybody is interested, check it out. But it really comes down to just creating value and putting it out there. I mean, agents need us. agency teams, agency structure, agents, needs, consistency. And teams, I believe, create that with everything that we provide. So I'm unapologetic about putting it out there. So we have sponsored ads running all the time, Agent testimonials, we do a lot of events. I do events every other week of just knowledge-based of like this one on Thursdays, we're bringing in somebody who's amazing at door knocking. And then I just believe to become the White House. And you will attract people. Yes, their systems. I know that sounds cliche, become the lighthouse, you'll just get it. But we do have systems in place have a VA that calls I have somebody who writes my ads and puts them up, I have a separate CRM only for agents tracking, like if they're coming to events, or they're opening the emails, like I said, we are doing events, we do masterminds, we're pretty good at it. So there is a system to it. But I would say regardless, if you have the system, if you aren't becoming that knowledge broker and creating value, it doesn't matter. So yeah, we create the value we put it out there.
Brian Charlesworth 13:16
Okay, so doing events every two weeks.
Spring Bengtzen 13:18
So yeah, but I but it's not recruiting. So here's what I want to say. Yeah, I never talked about the brokerage. I never talked about the team. It is 100% calm to my ecosystem, see how we do it, come to the training. I don't care if you're a Coldwell Banker, KW, whatever, like, you're never going to hear about anything brokerage specific or recruiting just come. And then generally what happens is people are like, Man, what are you doing? This is cool, or Hey, how can I be part of your world? And then the conversations go from there?
Brian Charlesworth 13:49
Yeah, I'm glad you pointed that out. Because I think it's, it's so true if you're calling people. And as you know, I'm licensed. So I get these random phone calls from some, you know, you can tell it's some assistant or somebody that doesn't really know anything about real estate, and they're, they're reaching out to me to see if I can go have a meeting with their broker or whatever. Yeah, that's not the strategy. Right? bring people in your world provide value, and then they want to stay in your room.
Spring Bengtzen 14:19
Yep, for sure. Yeah, so that's all it is. I mean, I just recently joined Real, which is a virtual brokerage. It's nationwide and it's the same approach like you're never gonna see me go be a crazy recruiter, or I mean, I'm just all about will attract the right people that want to be in our ecosystem by creating value and growth. So
Brian Charlesworth 14:42
So you just brought it up. You're a real brokerage now. So let's talk about that. You. Well, before we do, let's talk about you talked about your in a CRM platform for recruiting. I know you use Sisu for your agent onboarding. Do you guys use Sisu? I don't even know if you use Sisu for tracking those appointments and stuff or not, do you guys?
Spring Bengtzen 15:03
Yes and No, we use Active Campaign for our actual agent CRM, and then it connects to Sisu. So we track all of our appointments and meetings and everything in Sisu, we also do all of our agent learning through Sisu. So I have it built out of all the steps from their first appointment through their first 90 days of that whole process.
Brian Charlesworth 15:29
Okay, so appointments through the first 90 days are signed, only when somebody comes into the brokerage, right.
Spring Bengtzen 15:36
We use it for like, if we go on an appointment, we'll make the notes on it, because not everybody is ready, you know, so we use it for that. But we connected with the Active Campaign and making notes who comes to the classes and all that jazz.
Brian Charlesworth 15:49
Yeah. Okay. All right. So moving back over here to realty one. So a year ago, I got sick this year and so 15 months ago, something like that.
Spring Bengtzen 16:02
Yeah, it was a year and a half ago,
Brian Charlesworth 16:03
Year and a half ago. Okay. So a year and a half ago, you decided you were going to you wanted to have your own brokerage. And so you bought a Realty One brokerage. You recruited just through what we just talked about you recruited, I think 100 agents in that year. Is that right?
Spring Bengtzen 16:22
Yeah, we did about 120 within like 10 months.
Brian Charlesworth 16:26
Okay, so that's amazing. Like, if most people thought about how do you recruit 100 agents in 10 months? Go back and listen again, to what spring was just talking about 10 minutes ago? Yeah. And you can dive into that deeper. So let's talk about you bought this brokerage. Give me the story. What, what happened there? What did you love about it? What did you not?
Spring Bengtzen 16:48
So I've had a team for a long time now. And I wanted to move into that ancillary business of title and all that jazz. So we opened up a title company, and I just thought, you know, I'm gonna own a brokerage, like, my team can sit underneath the brokerage we can, I can provide that extra value. And then when people leave the team, they can just, they can still be in our ecosystem of being in the brokerage. And it was really because people weren't leaving when they leave the team. They weren't necessarily leaving me. They'd be like, spring, I love you. I'm just ready for something new. And it was awesome. Like, I actually really love Realty One. Like I love the branding. I love the people like I have 100% awesome, everything to say. But when I got into it, I'm like, man, I have to attract a lot of agents to make the income I want to make off this brokerage. And this is not my jam. Like when I say not my jam attracting agents is my jam. But the day to day operations, I'm making sure people are getting paid and the broker and just everything really wasn't my thing. I also didn't love that it was really just pigeon holed to my backyard. So like we live 20 minutes outside of Salt Lake City. And so being as you know, like, it's just a little ecosystem of maybe 200 agents Max, and that would be a huge brokerage for our area, you know, and I mean, I think most brokerages have 80 to 100 Max, and those are big brokerages. So I just the more I started thinking about it and doing the research and being exposed because of Sisu in the world of like what's happening in that virtual brokerage space. I was like, Oh my gosh, like this is amazing. You can be in business with people all across the US, you can network and grow and mastermind and also because you all are in business together, you all financially benefit from each other, you want to have that growth, you want to help them succeed. And so we ended up selling the franchise rights to another realty one and we opened it up, we moved over to rail probably 60 days ago, and I'm having a freaking blast for you. You guys like I every day I'm like Brian, this is so great. Like I all of a sudden know why so many people and another model I won't name names have been so loud and proud because it's fun. Like this is a really fun model and you're just collabing with cool agents across the US and so I finally get it. Like this is so awesome. So it's fun.
Brian Charlesworth 19:22
Yeah, I mean I've gotten used to seeing Spring looking at her phone she's constantly staring at her app and seeing which agents came in and what she's getting paid and all that kind of stuff so spring Why did you choose real I mean, I know you just meant mentioned reasons but like I know you had some hard decisions because it wasn't wasn't an easy decision for you but what is it came down to that made you choose that brokerage.
Spring Bengtzen 20:01
Yeah, so there are obviously a couple models in this space. And I was really attracted to both models and, and the people that were in both. So my ultimate decision came down to really more of a business decision of I wanted to get in somewhere that was early like I was Agent 2000. At rail. How crazy is that? So being Agent 2000, an entire company gave us a massive opportunity. So that was a huge one. I really like their rev share model. So their rev share model is built more you get paid more off of your frontline, which your frontline is the people you're actually connecting with and can create value with. So that was really attractive to me, too. And then their stock agent, attraction stock program, and their stock program they have just now because of getting in early, was really attractive, too. So it really was the fact of getting in early, the alignment with some of the people that were coming in at the same time, their rev share model is awesome. And then their stock program is great. I mean, you hear me say this all the time, right. But I'm like, as an agent, we have to pair our cap to somebody or commission's to somebody, so why not do it somewhere that you're gonna cap. And then why not do it somewhere that you have a cool stock program because they'll if you invest in their stock, they grant you back additional stock or award, you stock additional stock, and also that you can have alignment with other agents and you all benefit off of each other's transactions. Like I just simply don't understand. If you're producing agent, why you wouldn't look at this model.
Brian Charlesworth 21:39
Alright, so yeah, I was gonna ask you something else about that. But I know that you had a coach for the last year. A year and a half. I don't know. Maybe longer than that. But yeah. Oh, like the main thing you've been coached on for the last few years, or at least the last year is not real estate. It's building wealth.
Spring Bengtzen 22:03
Yes, yes.
Brian Charlesworth 22:04
It's building wealth. So I mean, this has been a big thing for you. You posted something about a week ago on social saying, Hey, you know, I'm not one I buy houses, I buy real estate, I'm not wanting to necessarily invest in the stock market. Now, you are getting all this stock regularly. I mean, is that part of the reason you chose that? Or what?
Spring Bengtzen 22:28
1,000,000%? I mean, I hate this turning into a real conversation. So we have to change it after this guy know, people don't want to hear about it. Or maybe they do. I don't know. But yes, it's the SOC programs crazy. Awesome. I mean, the fact that you can just diversify. As you mentioned, I changed a lot of my real estate coaching over to wealth building. And so creating the opportunities in the wholesale like, fix and flips, that commercial building, we were talking about earlier, able to, we bought that so we could cost segregate it as well, which is a huge tax savings. I'm doing we're doing investment properties. And so this was just the extra of like, Oh my gosh, revenue share that you don't really have any expenses on but you're collecting revenue. And for those of you guys that don't understand how it works, it's you pay your company at 85-15, split 15% goes to real, if they're on your front line, you get 5% of that 15. So, so 33% of it comes back to you. So I'm making 33% of that commission coming back on my front line, and then it tears down from there. But to have that residual income plus the stock was just an added like no brainer to my wealth and investment strategy.
Okay, so are there any other things? And yes, no more, no more talking about real, but is are there any other things that you want to share with regarding building wealth? Because I talked to team leaders all the time. And I think everybody is in that mindset right now? How do I build wealth? I don't think everybody goes out and hires a coach to train them on how to build wealth. So are there any things that you want to share along those lines?
You know, the best advice I ever got? And was it most people are not wealthy because they don't have a plan. So we spend the entire our careers mapping out business plans, and we spend time planning vacations, but nobody sits down and says, Where do I want to be in 10 or 20 years? And then how am I going to get there? So when I went through the coaching, it was interesting, because it's a coaching and it's a coaching and a mastermind. And they make you map out a 50 million to $100 million dollar wealth plan. And it was an aha to me to see actually how easy in 30 years that was to actually create that massive wealth and my coach, I'll give him a shout out Brett Tanner. You guys can look him up, or I'll connect you DM me? And he was like spring, how many? How many seven year olds Do you know? That's where $100 million? And like, not really any He's like, Yeah, well, it's because I didn't take a plan and that I'm 40 right now. So it'd be in 30 years worth 100 million by following the plan. And so the key is, I think is mapping out how you want to get there, like, where are you going to invest your money, whether it's fixing flips, or rentals, or the stock market or your IRA or whatever, and then being consistent looking at it every single month to see if you're on pace to do that. But if you take it month by month, and year by year, it's insane to see how fastly how fast it compounds. So that was a long answer to my number one thing was sit down and figure out a plan. And honestly, invest in yourself. Like, there's so many masterminds out there and stuff that you can participate in, that are not in the real estate space, if you want to learn to do some of this stuff.
Brian Charlesworth 25:51
Yeah, I mean, here's the thing, most team leaders make really, really good income, right? Yes, yeah. Are you spending it all? Or are you mapping out a plan to invest it and the thing and, you know, I think the first time I probably heard this was Tony Robbins, but now I hear it all the time. We overestimate what we can do in a year. But we underestimate what we can do in a decade. You talk about three decades. So I mean, I think for most people, if you thought about Okay, Spring just threw out these 100 million dollars in 30 years? Well, if you look at compounding, it doesn't take you selling a software company to make $100 million. Yeah, if you have a plan, over decades, you can definitely get that kind of number with the way things multiply and in the compounding and all of that stuff.
Spring Bengtzen 26:42
Yeah, I mean, I have $100 million wealth plan, as you know, it's really not very complicated. It does take the dedication of like, I'm not just blowing all the money I'm making, that I am reinvesting I'm buying properties, I'm taking risks, I'm investing in the market, things like that. But one of the things that I'm I know, I'm gonna hit it. And the other thing that is super fun for me right now is everything I'm getting clutching on rev share, I'm just reinvesting back into investments. So that's just cool to see that extra can go to that direction as well.
Brian Charlesworth 27:15
Great. Alright, so changing this topic a little bit. You work in real estate, I work in Real Estate Software. So we're in the same industry, I remember when I was actually in real estate, and we were in the same office selling homes. Back then you had a small team of maybe five agents or something like that, boy, how times have changed. But anyway, I see a lot of couples that work together to build real estate teams. I mean, I, I talked right before this meeting, I just got off a zoom with a couple and their business, they're now doing, you know, like 1000 transactions a year and awesome, hundreds of millions in volume. But they are husband and wife, and a bunch of other women on his admin team. Yeah, that are like, there were seven of them. And just to see that work-life balance, and you know, let's, let's talk about that for a minute. Because I know, with us if we go out to dinner, rarely a time that we're not talking about work. So I want to get your perspective on this publicly.
Spring Bengtzen 28:26
That might not be good. I can't I did. So when we worked in the same office, it was a little brutal at first only because we were in the same world. And I think actually, you came in one day and was like you started working from that room in our home is a bonus room and you're like, I just can't do this. Like we have to have the separation. And so quickly, we realized for us that if we were going to be in real estate that you had to do your thing, I had to do my thing. And we didn't commingle and so you had your role. I had my role, like I would help you in some capacity or vice versa. But for the most part, we didn't come into anything. And then when Sisu started, I think it's been fun. Like we obviously we talk about work a lot. I guess I'm just a believer of like your work, if you're passionate about it is your lifestyle. And so we travel a lot, we raising kids, like I don't have an issue that our work is such a big part of who we are, just because it really is it's like 8, 9, 10 hours a day minimum, you know, so we're talking about work-life balance, like we still have fun, like we go with our friends and do things and we have other topics of conversations, but it does lead to a lot of work conversations. I honestly think partially though, because like my work is I want to say it's boring compared to yours. But you have a lot of cool things happening right now. Like Sisu is on the move. It's growing like it's got some cool stuff. So it was just fun to talk about. So That's a really long answer to being like, I don't think there is balance. I don't and if there is, I'd love to hear about it. But I just think it's lifestyle.
Brian Charlesworth 30:09
Yeah, I would add to that it's truly lifestyle. If you're passionate about what you're doing, it becomes your life. Right? So
Spring Bengtzen 30:21
Well, I think the difference is, is you and I are in the same industry so we can have these conversations. I mean, I if I didn't understand your world, then I probably would be bored as hell or whatever. Like, I'd be like, Oh, my gosh, Brian, can we please stop talking about this? Like, our kids are? Okay. It's like, they're talking about work again, but I understand it. So it's fun. So I think there's just depends on what your world looks like.
Brian Charlesworth 30:48
Yeah. So I mean, my advice there would be find your passion, right? If you're passionate about something. And it may be real estate, if you're in real estate, it may not be real estate, if you're in real estate, it may be what the real estate is creating, which Springs always said this to me. It's what real estate creates the opportunities, but now I'm seeing her really passionate about what she's creating. So it's
Spring Bengtzen 31:13
Freaking awesome.
Brian Charlesworth 31:16
Alright, so one of the things that obviously this podcast is called the grit podcast. I mean, I've watched you go through some challenges over the last year as you've been growing, obviously, it wasn't easy to leave one brokerage, sell another brokerage. That change, changing brokerages if you own a brokerage is not that easy, right? So you've definitely had your share of challenges. And I really look at just I would call this Grit but or I'd call it Sisu. Look up Sisu. But your determination to get to that next level to get in a position to create the things you want to create in life. It's been very, you've been very determined to make sure you make that happen no matter what.
Spring Bengtzen 32:03
Yeah, I think I need the changes, I look at it. And I'm like, there are two components of it is usually not the how it's the who. So I've been surrounded with great admin that have been able to do the backend, because that's what really changing brokerages right is all the backend stuff. So my who's are fantastic on that. I also have maybe a different perspective on life of an I really, I heard a saying years ago, and they've said like, the worst day of your life has already happened. And that just resonated with me. And what they meant by that is like, if you think about something that was traumatic for you, and just gave you that gut bomb, and just mined f you and all that stuff, and at the time felt like it was so heavy. And then now you never even think about it. Like it's so far in the past. And so whenever there's anything that's hard or heavy, I'm like, I don't even ever think about this in six months, or a year or two months, you know, and so I try not to let things really consume me. Because in the realms of life and everything, it's like, it's really not a big deal. And in the business world, it's really not a problem if you have the money to fix it. And so I heard that saying, and it's just true, like, if you have the money to fix that, it's really not a problem. So I just don't overthink things. And it's been a wonderful blessing of mine.
So okay, well, you led to this, I wasn't gonna get into this today. But you just led to this. So we're gonna go there. This is this really the last question I have for you Spring, but you just talked about, you know, what's the worst thing you've had to deal with in your life was the worst trauma and go back and compare what the challenges you're going through now to that which you got through? So, you know, I know you made a post recently because it was your 20 year anniversary on your biggest challenge. So you want to share that with the world? Because I think a lot of us, I know I've never had any challenge anywhere near that difficult. And sometimes those biggest challenges can be your biggest strengths. So now you have bigger strengths than I have because you've had bigger challenges. So if you want to share that with everybody.
Sure. Well, to give you a reference point, that comment of like your worst day wasn't even in relative it wasn't in terms of this event, but what you're referring to is when I was 20 and I was on a boat in Lake Mead Las Vegas for Fourth of July weekend, and it blew up. And when I say it blew up like it was a cabin cruiser. So I was downstairs and it literally blew up like people blew in the air, all that jazz, but my body was burnt at 85%. So I'm one big giant scar. I could tell the story about the first not the first time but one time, Brian, when we were first words together, you're going to kill me for telling the story. I'm like getting dressed for going somewhere and he's like, nice tan lines. And I'm like, dude, they're a scar. Because nice body is, is a big giant scar besides where my swimming suit was? Because where my swimsuit was with what so it didn't burn. But yeah, anyway, why you referenced that is yes, I was burned. And the takeaway that I have from that is multiple like I could take a whole podcast on this. But what you're referring to is, a couple of weeks into it, I was super sick, like they my lungs, a collapse and blood disease, pneumonia, like my family lived in Utah at the time had all gone home except for my mom. And they actually made the call to be like, we don't think she's going to make it, you guys need to come back. And I in the burn unit, I shared a room with a lady and she ended up passing away. And all the sirens are going off in the middle of the night. And I'm like, holy shit, Am I dying? And I remember asking the doctor and you know, retrospect, I don't even know if as a doctor, I don't know what really happened. But this is what happened in my head is like, Am I dying? And they were like, no, it's your choice if you live or die. And right then I was like, Oh, it's that easy? I haven't seen I'm married, haven't seen my kids like haven't like, okay, cool, you know, and probably like three or four days later I started like getting on the mend of like coming coherent and starting my body started responding and all that stuff. So I live by that your life is a choice. And it's has been a huge heart for me and my whole entire life of that your whole entire life is a choice how you respond to things. Like you can't always be responsible for what happens to you. But you can be responsible for how you respond to it. And though I just choose to be free and happy, and it's great. So there you go. There's your answer.
Brian Charlesworth 36:53
Okay, thanks for sharing that. I wasn't planning on going there today. But I think people deserve to hear that. So how do people get ahold of you? If people want to get a hold of you? Because I may have some questions for you.
Spring Bengtzen 37:05
Let's connect. I love people. You can DM me on the gram. It's just spring Benson but my name is spelled funky. You can my email is Spring@liveutah.com you can hit up Brian he knows how to find me. And yeah, or you can on my cell phone, but it's out there. It's 801-641-1431.
Brian Charlesworth 37:27
So yeah, so email spring it live youtube.com that's probably the best way to reach her or her cell phone. I would say
Spring Bengtzen 37:35
No, the gram is the best way cuz you actually look at your DMS emails. How many emails do you have, Brian?
Brian Charlesworth 37:41
I don't even know.
Spring Bengtzen 37:44
I say that because we are polar opposites.
Brian Charlesworth 37:48
I scan my emails
Spring Bengtzen 37:50
Right? So you guys know Brian has 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of emails, where my emails are my to-do list. So I love to have a clean inbox. We really are water and wine. If you guys know I drink wine, he drinks water. And we just laughed because we were polar opposites on so many things.
Brian Charlesworth 38:09
Well, the next podcast that I have spring on, it'll be called water and the wine and take it from there where we left off. Spring thanks for being on the show today. Thank you so much.
Spring Bengtzen 38:21
Thanks for having me.
Brian Charlesworth 38:22
All right.
Spring Bengtzen 38:23
Bye.
