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Creating Special Moments
7 Plays18 days ago
🎧 Welcome to Thoughts For Rent — the podcast where real estate gets real (and local)!
Hosted by Jenni McKenna, a Las Vegas born and raised seasoned broker, and Owner of McKenna Property Management, this show is your inside look at what’s really happening in the Vegas property management and real estate world. With over 20 years of experience herself - Jenni brings not just knowledge, but heart to the conversation.
Whether we’re talking market trends, property tips, community happenings, or just the everyday quirks of Vegas living, this podcast is all about keeping you in the know.
💬 Real talk. Local stories. Professional insight – provided from a company who has their boots on the ground and hearts in the community.
In this episode, we’re covering the importance of special moments and the importance of creating the memories that matter.
McKenna Property Management, proudly managing Las Vegas homes since 2005 (and loving every minute of it).
Hit subscribe and comment down below to join the conversation! 💛
✨ Stay connected with us!
Instagram: @mckennapropertymanagement
Facebook: McKenna Property Management
TikTok: @TheMcKennaTeam
Website: McKennaPropertyManagement.com
Phone: 702-434-HOME (4663)
Owner/Broker: Jenni McKenna B.29819
#ThoughtsForRent #McKennaTeam #LasVegasRealEstate #JenniMcKenna #PropertyManagement #MarketTrends #PropertyTips #Community
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Transcript
Introduction and Convention Excitement
00:00:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
Ladies and gentlemen, we are back to Thoughts for Rent, Keeping It Real. That's the name of our podcast, right? It's Thoughts for Rent, Realtors Keeping It Real, Max Thoughts Rent, Realtors Keeping It Real. I am Max Zerflu, and this is my wife, Jenny McKenna.
00:00:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
That is me, owner-broker of McKenna Property Management. Wow, you're kind of a big deal. I'm ah a broker salesperson for the McKenna team, the sales side of the McKenna
Mega Agent Camp Insights
00:00:51
Irelynn Zurflueh
group.
00:00:51
Irelynn Zurflueh
And we're excited to be here today. We actually just came back from a real estate convention and learned a lot of good stuff. And there's a lot of high energy present presenters and a lot of really intelligent people talking about all kinds of different stuff. So probably sometime we'll talk further about that adventure.
00:01:10
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, we went to, it's called Mega Agent Camp. And what's really fun about it is it's kind of exclusive. You have to pretty much, you know, be producing of a certain level before you get the invite and,
00:01:24
Irelynn Zurflueh
Everyone that was there, it's a nationwide. Actually, it's international. But definitely everyone that was there was of ah of a level that when they brought out some of the speakers and the panels, it just blows your mind. blows your mind what you can accomplish. It's like dream big.
00:01:41
Irelynn Zurflueh
Apparently we're going to talk about it right now. No, no, no. It was something that was just a big thing about just dream big. Don't let anything stop and it can't be left unsaid that Cal Williams is the biggest real estate company in the world by numbers of agents, number of deals.
00:01:58
Irelynn Zurflueh
So to be able to sit in the room with a bunch of high-minded people from such a successful company is pretty exciting. It was. It was really good.
Balancing AI and Human Touch
00:02:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
You know, one of the things that they talked about a lot this year was ai but then also how to keep it human.
00:02:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. We can't all get caught up in AI and chat GPT and having computers do stuff for us and forget that we are human beings having a human experience on this planet.
00:02:24
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I liked hearing that because I'm a bit old school. Everything that I've put in McKenna Property Management to build the business has a bit of a human touch. I do know that I could ah lean in more to AI, which I plan on doing because it is the wave of the future.
00:02:40
Irelynn Zurflueh
I just liked hearing that you could lean into AI, take advantage of everything that AI offers you, and yet still learn. have the human touch.
00:02:51
Irelynn Zurflueh
I liked that part. i have to. You just, you absolutely have to.
Simple Joys in Life
00:02:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
And it kind of brings to to the point that I want to kind of talk about today is how we all get very excited about trips and adventures and big, you know, fancy restaurants and going out and doing all kinds of fancy stuff and posting it on line and social media.
00:03:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
You and I go on lots of trips, go to a lot of cool places. And what brought, what came to my mind today is that with all those amazing things we've done, sometimes the funnest, best experiences are just sitting around a table with your family and talking about memories and funny stories and, you know, or sitting around table with a bunch of friends. You don't have to go on a big trip.
00:03:40
Irelynn Zurflueh
You don't have to go, you know, spend a hundred bucks per person on a fancy meal. Some of the greatest things that you and I have done together has been just sitting around talking about our lives. I agree. That's what I want to talk about.
00:03:51
Irelynn Zurflueh
It's the small things. It's the sacred small moments in time. And i agree with you a hundred percent. And we actually had one of those moments last night.
00:04:03
Irelynn Zurflueh
We, yeah Max celebrated his birthday. Congratulations, Max, another year older and wiser. And we were able to um get the family around the dining room table.
00:04:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
And we didn't do a big dinner. It was ah Max's mom that did kind of a variety of things, just kind of random fruit cucumbers, um I don't know, a loaf of bread. Artichoke hearts, deviled eggs. It was odd. It was an odd setup.
00:04:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
both for sure yeah It was definitely not what you normally would plan as a meal for a birthday celebration, but we sat down and It was about sharing memories. And we laughed and we remembered things that we had forgotten. And I mean, my my son, Kai, our son, our son, Kai, he almost rolled over twice in his chair. He was laughing so hard at things that we were talking about. but you can also we also had a couple of times last night when, you know, mom and and John, my stepfather, were talking about things that our kids hadn't even heard about, didn't even know about.
00:05:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
correct So when you sit around a table with multi-generations, you're going to find that there are some experiences, stories, some funny things that some people haven't even heard about.
00:05:17
Irelynn Zurflueh
And they go, whoa, that my dad did that or my mom did that. So it's really cool. I mean, Ireland kind of started it years ago. We sat down for it. birthday dinner and she said, okay, on birthdays, we like to go around the table and see what everybody's favorite experience is with the birthday person. I think she calls it popcorn. Cause it just like you pop in as soon as you think of something, you can pop in and then you talk about it.
00:05:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
So that's, that's what happened last night. And you know, you and I will go out to dinner.
Hilarious Restaurant Incident
00:05:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
And, you know, we can go to a really fancy dinner or we can go to Del Taco, but the conversation is ultimately what drives the experience.
00:05:51
Irelynn Zurflueh
And you and I can, you know, we'll go and talk about things that we've done together in our life. And those memories are really what is entertaining. i've got one I've got one I want to share.
00:06:02
Irelynn Zurflueh
Okay, you can share. and We might share a couple. Who knows? Okay. But Jenny and I were at a, she's going to laugh right away, and it's going to be hard for her not to laugh. Okay. Jenny and I went to a restaurant near Phoenix, Arizona once.
00:06:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
I know. See? And and you wait we went to this restaurant, just the two of us. It was a Mexican restaurant, kind a really big restaurant, multi-levels. But we got sat at a two-top behind ah an older woman in her and her, I think it was her son.
00:06:29
Irelynn Zurflueh
Definitely son. Felt like her son. And they were having dinner, and but we had just gotten there. So they were done and they got up to pay their bill and they were gonna leave. So the guy was paying the bill and the mom got up, she had a cane and she was about three feet behind Jenny, but Jenny could see her and I could see, we both of us had a view of her.
00:06:47
Irelynn Zurflueh
And she stood up and her loose pants just fell straight to the ground. it it was really i mean you tell these stories and obviously if if you were there it's a whole other experience but this one made us laugh we will we had to try not to laugh we couldn't laugh because we didn't want to make somebody feel bad she didn't even realize that the pants had fallen down until she has tried to start walking and then she realized and she tried to pull it up and it was awkward even trying to pull it up the sun came over but you're watching this and you're like I can't laugh. I can't laugh. I can't laugh. But then I'm looking at Max and he's trying not to laugh. And then as soon as we we acted like we said a joke, I think something you said something sort of loud. And then I was like, Oh, you're so funny. Once they're out of earshot though, once they're out of earshot, we kind of cackled.
00:07:34
Irelynn Zurflueh
But the thing is that was really funny at the time, but you and I, anytime we bring it up, we can have another laugh and we can have another joyful moment because I think, i think laughter is the biggest thing.
00:07:45
Irelynn Zurflueh
It's the greatest energy that there is. Smiling and laughter, I think, really drive the human existence.
Creating Sacred Moments
00:07:52
Irelynn Zurflueh
I agree with you. And I think that in this world where we're so busy and we always feel like there's something else that we should be doing, something else that we should be checking off our box, um I think we forget that laughing is essential.
00:08:07
Irelynn Zurflueh
It really is essential. And if you don't have a Maxxer flu in your family that makes you laugh all the time, You can find things. You can find things on YouTube or just go out with a friend that makes you smile and laugh. Everybody's got one of those in your life. Yeah, you're right, though. But, you know, it's social media, you can go on TikTok, YouTube. and you know, you can see TikToks of failure TikTok, people falling or dogs running into walls.
00:08:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
You know what our favorite TikTok is right now? we We have a boat. And when you're on a pontoon boat, you always think that you know how to um park it, dock it, get it on or off your trailer.
00:08:44
Irelynn Zurflueh
And when the wind's there and the waves are there, the things just don't go as you're planning. We know this, but we like to watch others when they're doing it. And there's...
00:08:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
so many funny boat docking or a trailer docking that just cracked me up as well as dogs. Dogs make me laugh too. Now the king of those is that family guy. There's a family guy video of a boat docking that is about four minutes long and you can't not laugh at that thing.
00:09:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
It's the best. it's If I'm ever in a really depressed mood, all I would have to do is look that up and all of a sudden everything looks better to me. no But speaking of what we did last night, not only did we go around the table and just go through memories and talk, I think what really made it different is not one of us had our cell phones.
00:09:35
Irelynn Zurflueh
Not one of us. that's true. Went in and we did show a couple photos. I think you pulled up your cell phone. Yeah, because we tell a and then we go, this when it happened. Yeah, but the good thing is that cell phone didn't come back in and you didn't go in and Google something or you didn't go in and get caught on what your text was or what your email was. And I think that being present in the moment is also secret for creating these very special moments. Yeah, that's true.
00:10:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
I call them sacred moments. Sacred moments. Sacred moments. I think that we are missing a lot of the sacred moments and there's a lot of great dates that, that we can go on. um I think TikTok's actually a culprit for this.
00:10:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
TikTok will send you things like, Oh, go to this really great restaurant or try this or go to this or, and they're big deals. They're big events. You plan them either on your date or they're on your event. You get with your friends, whatever.
00:10:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
And you're trying to create these memories off of, Big moments. And in my world, big moments aren't always the things I remember. It's the small, funny yeah little moments that that come up that you didn't even expect.
00:10:49
Irelynn Zurflueh
does not have to be elaborate. It doesn't have to be exquisite or unique. Just got to be a table with some chairs and some people. But don't you think that the society right now is trying to convince that it needs to be big?
Value of Simple Interactions
00:11:03
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, that's also social media has had a lot to play on that because people post their pictures of their You know, the ladies go out for a bachelorette party and they have their sashes and they flew to they flew to Charleston or San Antonio or Nashville and they made a four day trip out of a bachelor party.
00:11:17
Irelynn Zurflueh
You and I of our age, we look at that and go, what the heck? You know, that takes so much work. But then people see that and they go, I got to do that. I got to do that. That's that's what's going to make my event better is if I spend money and travel and go to a fancy place. But and my thought is it's not true.
00:11:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
What makes the event better is the people. The people make the event. I agree. And I do believe that society right now is not a people-to-people society. Lately, a lot of the stories, like last night going around the room, a lot of the stories ah about me are my failures, my falls, my this, my that.
00:11:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, let me tell everybody what your nickname is. When I met Max, his family had nicknamed him Maxident. And I thought, oh, that's kind of mean to call somebody Maxident.
00:12:07
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, let me tell you, he is a walking accident right here. I'm a little accident prone sometimes. A little bit. But but now I'm getting a little older. My knees are a little weak. ah Now I fall over sometimes and people start laughing at that. I fell in Germany a couple years ago. or was it France?
00:12:22
Irelynn Zurflueh
Was it France? Anyway, and you didn't try to help me. You just started laughing at me. I couldn't. I could not move because you did a yard sale. Everything just flew on that's on the steps of a cathedral. Well, it's at my expense. And you got to be able to laugh at yourself or you're just.
00:12:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
you're you're You're screwed if you can't laugh at yourself. But the memory of that has been repetitive, and we've talked about it a lot. No question about it. Yeah, you've got to laugh at yourself. And when you do silly things, then that becomes the the funny moments that you get to share at the dining room table. Speaking of dates, I i made a reservation for tomorrow night. You probably don't know that because you when you work, you don't look at your text that I sent you. But we have a reservation tomorrow at a restaurant.
00:12:59
Irelynn Zurflueh
Oh, nice. Oh, good. You're going to go? You accept my invitation Well, I better check my texts and figure out if I can go or not. Well, somebody referred the steakhouse at the M to us.
00:13:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
Oh. So we're going to go there tomorrow and see what that's like. We'll be creating some memories. And they don't have to be big. They can be small. yeah We just have so many memories with our kids, too, that are just so important. Because we learned at our seminar that by the time our kids are 18 years old,
00:13:27
Irelynn Zurflueh
we have spent 95% of the time we're going to spend with them. and Jenny and I feel like we maybe we're above the curve a little bit. I don't know. We spend a lot of time with our kids now, even though they're in their twenties But the memories of when they were younger really is eventually all you have when they either they move away or they got their own families and you're not spending time with them, to be able to look back and look at the memories of when they were babies and kids and some of the fun things they did.
00:13:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
That's really, to me, those are really cool conversations to have. Well, they're, they're very fun too, because now that they're in their twenties, they can give us their perspective, perspective perspective on what happened.
00:14:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
And sometimes, you know, you always, you had it as what you thought that was, and you thought that was funny, and then you get their side of it and it's even funnier. So we, yeah, there's a lot of back and forth now that the kids are in their twenties about some of the stuff that they did and in Yeah, how they've got little, i don't know, we'll call them nuances, little nuances that we remember of each one of the kids and what they did. Yeah, yeah, true.
00:14:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
So one of the things that that was a shocker, 95% of your time, once the kids get into their 20s, you've already spent with them.
Family Time Over Work
00:14:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
And there was a story and That really hit home with me with one of the keynote speakers, which was the fact that him and his wife had a really hard time um getting pregnant.
00:14:49
Irelynn Zurflueh
And so they did everything they could. There were prayers. They did the fertility um doses. They did all the stuff that you do when you want to try and have a baby. And there were many years that it was really tough. And then finally, she gets pregnant and she has a little boy.
00:15:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
And so this little boy is in their life now. And he's around two at this time. And the keynote speaker was, he's a he writes books. And he was in the middle of maybe a chapter or his thought pattern. And he was really focused in on it.
00:15:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
And his little two-year-old boy, as boys do, come bouncing into the office, really disturbing everything. And he was frustrated and he wanted to get, you know, that little boy out of the room. He wanted to finish what he wanted to do.
00:15:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
And thank goodness he took a second and he was like, what am I doing? I prayed for this little boy. i did everything to have this little boy. i need... moments with this little boy because he's going to be gone soon you know it's going in a minute he's going to be 18 and he stopped what he was doing he went down on the floor he spent some precious moments with him just a little bit and then was present in the moment creating that sacred moment and then he went back to what he was doing and I thought that was a big lesson to learn you can't get it back you cannot get time back
00:16:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
But sometimes you think that project that you're working on so important. You can always go make more money. but You can't get the time back. So I think it's very important to remember that.
00:16:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
Actually, Father Time is undefeated. I've told you this many times. I'm trying to defeat him. Yes. If possible, Jenny is trying to fight Father Time harder than me. I'm working on it. A friend of mine posted a picture. i said, another the more evidence that Father Time is undefeated.
00:16:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
And it was ah it was a video of David Lee Roth singing. it He's 70 now, David Lee Roth. Don't tell me that. He's so old. I remember David Lee Roth when he was like bouncing around the stages. No, he was high energy boy, let me tell you. He was.
00:17:00
Irelynn Zurflueh
You got wealth, right? You got money. Yay. But it doesn't mean you got happiness everywhere else. So while we all chase that, you know, that dollar all the time, we got to remember that we have to have happiness and physical health. And we got we got to be aware of our surroundings and our family and spend time with them.
Promoting Laughter and Happiness
00:17:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
and have fun with them. I hope that we got a few more minutes left, but I want to encourage everybody when you're done with this podcast, take a video of you telling your story, a story that you have that really made you laugh or type it up and send it to us.
00:17:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
Or a TikTok. Or a TikTok, but send it to us so we can see it. I'd love to hear what some of your fun, ah fun stories are. You know, we had a story where our son had, has an eye that was not quite as strong as the other. And he had a patch that he wore when he was younger.
00:17:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
We were on a family trip and i got we all laughed at this too much, but we were at Kentucky Fried Chicken and we were around the corner from the counter. We ordered our food, went to go sit down. And then when the food came, we sent Kai out to get the food.
00:18:07
Irelynn Zurflueh
Go back and get the food, Kai. And Kai ran everywhere. Yeah. never walked anywhere. So he had his patch on and he took off running to go get the food. And we heard this splat and this wet floor stand.
00:18:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
It was on the side of his face where the eye patch was. So he didn't see it. It's horrible that we're laughing at it, but we laughed at that so hard. Yes. And i I want to hear some of your experiences, something like that, that you could share with us.
00:18:34
Irelynn Zurflueh
Is anything really, really funny that you want to share? I just think of one. I think that a lot of people are trying to find the secret sauce in life. They buy books.
00:18:45
Irelynn Zurflueh
They listen to podcasts. They are always striving to find the secret recipe, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's laughing. i think it's finding the sacred moments, remembering them, and then talking about it with friends, family, coworkers.
00:19:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
We start our mornings at 8.50 here at McKenna Property Management. And we have times where we'll just sit around before we even start the work day and laugh. In fact, yesterday, Ireland, it was a throwback Thursday, and she put pictures up on our TV screen of so many years ago, like some of them were 15, 16 year, year ago photos.
00:19:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
And we laughed at so many of them. And I feel like yesterday, my morning, i was energized. I was just ready to go, go, go.
00:19:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
You look back on and you go, why was, what was different? I think it's because it started with laughter. Very well. could we Yeah. Yeah, so start your day with the laughter and don't forget to laugh at yourself. Be okay with that. I know we're talking about Karens and I don't know what the male name for a Karen is, but people get all excited about the the small things that happened to them and they get angry and they get frustrated.
00:20:01
Irelynn Zurflueh
But I think if they can have more laughter in their life, their life they would be able to pass those moments off as not so stressful. Be able to laugh at yourself, laugh at your surroundings. And know that we're here for a moment in time.
00:20:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
And let's not lose that moment by being frustrated and angry. Let's laugh and smile. And you'll I think you'll honestly see more success in every aspect of your life. Amen to that. Anything else you want to throw out there, Goodie?
00:20:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
Just make sure that if you like what you're hearing on Thoughts for Rent, Realtors Keeping It Real, that you hit the subscribe button or share this episode with somebody that you think might get a kick out of it.
00:20:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
And of course, we always would love to hear from our subscribers. We would love to hear from our subscribers. Reach out to us anytime. We'll talk to you guys soon. That was Realtors Keeping It Real on Thoughts for Rent.