June 9, 2025 • 37 mins
Find out how to manage stress, avoid burnout, and keep your HOA board experience rewarding and sustainable!
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Serving on an HOA board is rewarding, but let’s face it, it can be EXTREMELY stressful. In this episode Robert and Julie examine how you can manage stress, avoid burnout, and stay engaged as a board member. Learn to distinguish urgent from important tasks, how to prioritize effectively, and the value of delegation. Plus, see why strong communication strategies and personal time are key to long-term success!
Chapters from Today's Episode:
00:00 Why is serving on an HOA board so stressful?
01:22 How does “always being on” drain board members emotionally?
03:15 What’s the difference between urgent and important tasks?
05:40 How can new board members manage overwhelming to-do lists?
08:20 What role does triage play in reducing board stress?
10:41 How can community managers help board members prioritize?
13:09 Why is delegation essential for preventing burnout?
15:30 How do board members manage community expectations?
18:02 How can strong communication strategies defuse stress?
20:40 Why do so many board members leave before their term ends?
23:12 How do self-care and personal time keep board members effective?
25:36 What are some creative ways to manage stress on the board?
30:02 Why is having a “North Star” so important for board success?
32:15 Final thoughts on managing stress while serving your community
The views & opinions expressed in this program are those of the Hosts & Guests, intended to provide general education about the community association industry. The content is not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or organization. Please seek advice from licensed professionals.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Julie Adamen (00:00):
Realize even you, if you are the president, it's
(00:03):
not all up to you. It's up toyou to kind of make sure
everybody gets things done, orthe association is moving in
that direction. But you don'thave to do it all delegate, and
if you don't delegate, you'renever going to train the
replacement to come up andreplace you as president.
Announcer (00:19):
HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies
that car (00:21):
Association Insights & Marketplace, Association
Reserves, Community Financials,HOA Invest and Kevin Davis
Insurance Services. You'll findlinks to their websites and
social media in the show notes.
Robert Nordlund (00:34):
Hi. I'm Robert Northland of association
reserves,
Julie Adamen (00:37):
and I'm Julie Adamen with Adamen Inc, and this
is HOA Insights, where wepromote common sense
Robert Nordlund (00:42):
for common areas. Well, welcome to episode
number 109 where we're againspeaking with management
consultant and regular co host,Julie ademan. Today we'll be
talking about keeping your coolwhile under stress, the classic
grace under pressuredescription. Your role at the
association is a stressful one,serving without compensation and
regularly facing homeowners whodon't like what's going on at
(01:05):
the association, whether that beassessment increases or rules or
even what you're wearing or yourhaircut. So how do you keep her
cool? Last week's episode number108 featured a great
conversation with a trulynational class board hero, Jan
Newcom. She's from SouthernCalifornia. She served long at
her association, I think, fourterms, as I recall, and she
(01:27):
served well during that time.
She even volunteered for herlocal Cai chapter and in our
leadership role for the NationalCai organization. She's a true
bright spot for board members,and she sets a very high
standard for what a board membercan be and what a board member
can do. So if you missed thatepisode or any other prior
episodes, take a moment aftertoday's program to listen from
our podcast website, Hoainsights.org, or watch our
(01:50):
YouTube channel, but better yet,subscribe from any of the major
podcast platforms so you don'tmiss any future episodes. Well,
those of you watching on YouTubecan see the HOA insights mug
that I have, that I got herefrom our merch store. It
features a cartoon that puts asmile on my face. And you can
browse through the merch storefrom our Hoa insights.org
(02:14):
website or the link in the shownotes, and you'll find that we
have some great free stuffthere, like board member zoom
backgrounds, and we have somespecialty items for sale, like
the mug that we just showed. Sotake a moment, look around, find
the mug that you'd like andemail me at podcast, at reserve
study.com, with your name,shipping address and mug choice
mentioning episode 109 muggiveaway, and if you're the 10th
(02:39):
person to email me, I'll shipthat mug to you free of charge.
Well, we enjoy hearing from youresponding to the issues you're
facing at your association. Soif you have a hot topic, a crazy
story, or a question that you'dlike us to address, you can
always contact us at805-203-3130, or email us at
podcast at reserves, a.comToday's episode comes from a
(03:03):
question submitted by Nick fromDenver, who stated, stress is
high, finances, rules andhomeowners who make life hard.
Sound familiar. Anyone? Doesanyone serve a second term? And
how can I, with a clearconscience, ask someone to
replace me. Well, Julie, if notin those exact words, it seems
(03:25):
like a common sentiment. So verycommon. What? What do you say to
Nick?
Julie Adamen (03:31):
First of all, Nick, thank you for serving
because someone has to do it.
I've done it myself numeroustimes. Probably going to do it
again here in the next year ortwo. So thank you, but I say to
Nick a couple of things. One,actually, I would really like to
talk to Nick directly and seeexactly what is so stressful.
But since I can't do that rightnow, let's just take the normal
things that all board membersthink are stressful, the same
(03:53):
things we would. We have a lotof things to do. We're not
getting paid for it. You havepeople coming at you from all
sides, meeting homeowners,committee members, sometimes
other board members, wantingwhether it's a good or bad
thing. They kind of want a pieceof you. And the next thing, as a
board member, you're almostalways on, if you know what I
mean, it's like, I do a lot ofpublic speaking. Robert does
(04:16):
too. So when you go and do apresentation, you got a couple
100 people, or 400 people,whatever it is, you're on,
right? You're on. But thatdoesn't mean you're just on
there. You're on from the momentyou step into that venue,
because people know you and youhave to be there. You have to
shake hands and talk to peopleand people, oh my god, I haven't
seen you in so long. You have todo all that well over even the
(04:38):
course of several hours beforeand after your talk, or if
you're at a conference, it'skind of the same way you're
always on and it's exhausting.
And I think that so many boardmembers don't know when, or
importantly, how, or even ifthey should turn it off just.
(05:00):
Turn off the association noise.
So I think maybe that's where weneed to go with this. Robert is
how to turn that noise off andhow to discern what's important
and what's not. Go ahead andcomment, and then I say, Yeah,
well,
Robert Nordlund (05:12):
I was thinking back to my experience, the same
kind of thing. There's twopaths. I park the car when I own
my condo, parked the car, and Iwalked to my front door. That
was one route get settled. ThenI walk from my front door to the
mailbox and then back to myfront door. So there's routes.
And I realize I'm RobertNordlund and I'm the president
(05:34):
of the association. I want tosmile. I want to represent the
association Well, I want to tryto spread the aura of I'm a good
guy. The rest of the board aregood people. We're helping you.
How can I do you have any notI'm not saying, Do you have any
questions? But I think what Idid was I separated those two
(05:58):
paths because I needed toprepare myself, yeah, maybe
that's it. Because you are, youare a public figure at your
association. You're a boardmember, whether you're carrying
a clipboard and you're checkingto make sure if the pool service
installed a new heater orwhatever you're doing as you're
(06:18):
walking around, maybe you have apath from your front door to the
laundry room you have to be on.
But what do you are doing toseparate that? Can you just have
a smile? You don't need to betaken care of business.
Actually, maybe that's what youdo. Maybe say hi. Oh, that's
great. Hey, I don't have paperwith me. Can you email me and
I'll I'll look into that. Soyou're separating and deferring.
(06:43):
Is that what you're talking
Julie Adamen (06:45):
about? Yes, actually, that does have
something to do with it, right?
Because no matter what you do asa board member, you are the
public figure, like you justsaid, and you live there, so you
are going to the pool or thetennis courts or the parking lot
or whatever you are going to runinto homeowners. So I think it's
always a good thing to be ableto be friendly. It doesn't mean
you have to listen to four hoursworth of diatribe, but you do
(07:06):
have to be friendly. And I thinkRobert's got the perfect out
with that. So here, this is areally good lesson. Just tell
them, please email this to me,because then I'll have a record
of it, and then if the boardneeds to address it, we'll be
able to do it in an orderlybusiness like fashion, because
when things just come to me whenI'm walking, I'll forget. You
know how that is like you'llforget. And then you just have
(07:26):
to be that. People go, okay,they normally do understand
that. I think what else I wasthinking about? Two things about
what happens with board members.
One is that, especially ifthey're newer to being a board
member, may have lived in thecommunity a long time, but once
you get on the board, yourealize there's a lot more going
on than you ever thought, thatsheer amount of information
(07:49):
coming at you and things tolearn can be quite overwhelming,
and then it, I think when youbecome overwhelmed with that,
you don't know where to start.
First, I was telling Robertearlier, right before we came
on, Robert and I were talkingabout a gal. I talked to her
probably a year ago or so, Ithink it's about a year ago, and
she was a board member on theEast Coast, big Association.
She'd never been on the board,but the place was very messed
(08:10):
up. And they were in betweenmanagers, and they changed
management companies, vendorsthat weren't good. It was just
overall a mess in her eyes. Butshe sounded like she probably
had a decent handle on that, butshe was absolutely so stressed
out that she could basically notfunction. Even just talking to
me, explaining to it she has gottears. I can hear it right, and
(08:33):
I'm just like, whoa, girl, takechill, you know, take a deep
breath. And I really made hertake a deep breath, and I said,
you don't have to do everythingthe first month. I mean, if you
are overwhelmed, you're a newboard member, you come in,
you're overwhelmed by the sheeramount of stuff that hasn't been
taken care of, that needs to gettaken care of, all these
(08:54):
different things that have beena mess or maybe not, you just
all of a sudden realize there'sso much to do triage that. So
you know, the things that reallyneed to be taken care of are
life limit money. So if you havea if you realize that the
insurance premium hasn't beenpaid and it's going to be
overdue in two days, that needsto be taken care of right away,
(09:15):
if that type of thing needs tobe done, if it's another life
safety issue. You know, theyoften have the the gates for,
like, a big associations,they'll have gates that are
closed all the time, except forfire trucks. If you realize all
of a sudden those gates don'twork at all, even for fire
trucks, you got to fix that. I'mkind of stretching on that one,
but this is what I'm talking ifthe spa is 110 you got to fix
that, because someone's going togo in and then they're going to
(09:38):
sue you. The association didn'tget where it is overnight. It
may have been 10 or 12 or 15years getting that way, and you
and your current board are theones who want to kind of come in
and fix it. You have to triagethat stuff. And if you don't
have a community manager or you,or maybe you do, but maybe
they're new themselves, becausethat happens quite often, get
some help from a professionalon. On How To sort what is
(09:59):
important and what's not, how tolearn to triage. In HOA world,
that could be your CorporateCouncil, if you're large enough
to have one on not on staff, butI mean on retainer, or someone
you use, that's really a goodplace to start. If you have a
good community manager orcommunity management company,
have their one of their bossescome in, one of the district
managers or something, maybeyour manager supervisor, if you
(10:22):
think the manager can't do it,and to help you triage what that
goes on. But I think many of youwill find, if you have a
community manager, they probablycan help you understand what
needs to happen and what'simportant and what's not so, and
from there, once you kind of getthat, I want to say calendared
out. It's not necessarily acalendar, but you have your
list. This is first, important.
(10:45):
This is second. This is third.
It doesn't mean it's, you know,it's stone. If something else
comes up, can go in there, inbetween those things that will,
I think, do a lot to take awaythe stress you feel at being
overwhelmed from the sheervolume of information, and your
mind going crazy because yourealize all of this stuff needs
to be done, and you feel likeyou got to do it now you don't.
Robert Nordlund (11:08):
I'm visualizing that four box image of urgent
and important, yep. And was thatthe Eisenhower matrix or
something like that? And justseparating things into like you
say, getting someone to help youseparate. Because maybe you've
put the we're going to updatethe governing documents. Maybe
(11:30):
you stall that while you'reworking on make sure you have
the cash flow to pay theinsurance premium. Maybe you
don't work so fast to get thelandscaper replaced, because,
you know, that's not anemergency. So identifying what
your urgent is from non urgentand important from unimportant.
(11:52):
It just is that what you'retalking about
Julie Adamen (11:54):
here? Yeah, it's kind of like that, yes. And in
fact, it's everything is urgent,but not everything is important.
So the important things are uphere, urgent is always calling
your attention to it just likethis. That's the homeowner
calling you up and saying thegrass is too green, or whatever
is go. Actually had someone callcall me up one time and tell me
that grass is too green way, wayback in the day. Hey,
Robert Nordlund (12:14):
I got a I got a phone one I was on a timeshare
site inspection, and we're doingthe kickoff meeting with the
general manager on site. Andthis was, I'm looking at my map.
It was in, you know, SmokyMountains of Tennessee, and the
timeshare owner, knock, knock,knock, knock, barged into our
meeting. I have somethingimportant. I got to talk to you.
(12:37):
I signed up for an ocean viewroom,
Unknown (12:41):
and all of us thought, this is Tennessee, how, how?
Robert Nordlund (12:47):
What ocean were you hoping to see from
timeshare? Yeah, you know, itjust but, yeah, you're right.
Sometimes it just ridiculous,yeah, and you've got to separate
those things out, yeah,
Julie Adamen (13:00):
exactly, exactly.
So that's, in fact, that was athat everything's urgent, but
not important. I've done, I'vedone it several times, a program
on that. It's based on a sayingby gentleman named Charles
Hummel. He wrote a book on this,but he actually did it based on
the life of Jesus. Because, youknow, Jesus did His ministry in
three years, three years, onlythree years to do all of that.
So that's because if you readingscripture like he was saying it,
(13:24):
Jesus did what was important,not what was urgent. There
Robert Nordlund (13:29):
was people who wanted to get healed, and he
said, I'm sorry. I got to moveon to the next town, and that
was interesting. But
Julie Adamen (13:37):
don't forget, he didn't go, he didn't go to
Lazarus aside, while Lazarus wasstill ill, he waited, because
that would have been the urgentthing to do, but the important
thing to do was to show peoplethat he could, that he raised
Lazarus from the den. So it'sjust, it was an interesting
premise, but I've done severalprograms on it about about
urgent from important. And inour world, in HOA world, board
(13:58):
member manager, it's always goodto be able to separate urgent.
Urgent compels you to dosomething important. Means it's
something you need to do. Andbeing compelled to do something
is, is here, you know, andwhat's important is, up here.
Keep it
Robert Nordlund (14:15):
on the list.
Don't let it fall off the list,but you'll get to it when you
have time. And I think that'sespecially important for the
newer board members, or theboard members who are in
associations that arestruggling. And there are really
some associations out there thatare struggling, and you see
problems everywhere you look.
The siding is old. You had someroof leaks last time it rained,
(14:38):
the asphalt is crumbling. Oh,gee. The entry gate needs to be
fixed again everywhere you look.
And that's not even talkingabout somebody in unit number
13, yep, who is always on yourcase for not getting things
fixed. And they were the one.
Well, I don't know if you evenknow, but you know they there's
a lot of people who don't wantto increase the homeowner
assessments, no pay for all thiskind of stuff. So how do you
(14:59):
how. How do you rub two nickelsand get a quarter? So yeah,
we're talking about sillythings, but truly, we know that
being a board member isstressful, that there's no doubt
about that, and it's a hardthing. The weight of the entire
association is on yourshoulders. You get some help for
the manager. I like Julie's ideaof not just reaching out to the
(15:21):
manager, but to the managersupervisor, not critically, but
saying, hey, from your voice ofexperience, help us navigate
forward. How can you, how canyou help us separate and have
success? They want to retain youas a client, right? Yeah, yep.
So they'll bring the horsepowerin where they can,
Julie Adamen (15:38):
yeah, and if they absolutely need to, for sure
they will because, again, theywant to keep you happy, but they
also want to save themselvesfrom liability, especially
depending on what state you'rein. Yeah, so it's always a good
thing to reach out to theexpert. Again, if you are self
managed, you may want to reachout to your attorney, or hire an
HOA attorney to help you do someof that type of work. If you
have no one else to go to or youcould go to a consultant. I
(16:00):
mean, I'm not, I do that kind ofwork, but there are a few other
folks out there that do it aswell. So there are people out
there to help you. You are notalone. You are not alone. Yeah.
And you know, on that Robert, Iwas thinking before we also got
on, we were talking about golf,of all things. But you know, I
think for board members, becausethe job can consume you, you can
do it eight hours a day, 910,11, because there's always
(16:22):
something to do. Never be done.
You'll never be done, right? Andthat's the same on the
management end, that's the same.
We always are too. The job isnever done, ever. It's it's just
a rolling thing of deadlines andtasks for board members. If you
are finding yourself notenjoying your life whatsoever
because you're so focused on theassociation, I'm going to
counsel you to step back andperform some self care. And I
(16:45):
hate that saying, becauseeverybody uses it too much.
Robert Nordlund (16:47):
But I wrote down in my notes here, I felt us
going there, yes. I
Julie Adamen (16:51):
mean, should you do these things? Yes, but you're
a volunteer. Remember to giveyourself part of a break,
otherwise you're not going tomake it to the end of your term
and bring me back that afterthis is over, Robert, about
people not serving their termsout. I've heard some interesting
stuff on that. But if you're notgoing to make it so, you have to
meter out your own energy. Ifyou have found yourself, let's
(17:11):
just take golf, if you're agolfer, and if you found
yourself, you know, not golfingthree days a week like you used
to. In fact, now you're down toone, and maybe not even that,
because you're so busy with theAssociation. I'm going to tell
you it's okay to say, No, I'mnot going to be available from
two to six. You know, from twoo'clock on this afternoon, I'm
(17:32):
not available this Take, takeyour phone, turn it off, put it
on silent, or leave it at home.
Because I know we can leave homewithout our phones. People of
our age know that because we didit all the time until the early
2000s and all of a sudden, lifechanged. But go golf, because
that kind of golfing is awonderful thing, because you
can't think of anything exceptgolfing. You know, you have to
(17:53):
do that. Back when I was I was alarge scale manager, so I had a
very large Association in PalmDesert, California, and it was a
great job, but it was a very,very stressful. Well, at that
time, many moons ago, when wewere young, my husband and I
would say, We sailed two mancatamarans competitively. So we
sailed a circuit. But I willtell you my job was so
stressful, same type of stressyou all deal with, so stressful.
(18:15):
But when we were sailing, whenwe were racing, I called it the
most stressful, relaxing thing Iever did, because it's going,
you're everything's going reallyfast, but you can only think of
this now. You're focusing,you're sailing. You're sailing.
Yeah, you know, it's likeSchrodinger scat. Does it really
exist over there? If I can't seeit? Yeah?
Robert Nordlund (18:34):
Well, I'm want to connect this, because, yes,
self care is important. And Iwrote down history, realize, and
you said earlier, theassociation got itself into this
jam over the last 10 or 20years. And you got to think of
it with a momentum factor thatlike a supertanker, it's going
to take miles for a supertankerto turn and so nudge it, push
(18:56):
it, push it. But you got to haveenough energy to be able to do
that, pushing. One other thingis the idea of you are a member
of a team. So is that a bigpart? Also to remember that,
hey, I'm not going to deal withthe landscaper, Joe or Fred or
(19:17):
someone else is going to dealwith the landscape, so see
yourself as part of a team?
Well, of
Julie Adamen (19:21):
course, actually, you all should view yourself as
a team, but I'm going toacknowledge the reality is that
oftentimes you're on twodifferent teams. Three are on
this team and two are on thatteam. And that can be pretty
difficult. However, what I wouldsay that even if you have that
kind of you have kind of a twoteam under the umbrella of the
board, divvying up what thosesome of the responsibilities,
(19:41):
and putting people where theirstrengths are, as opposed to
just where you want to stickthem, try to do that, and then
you all kind of have your ownthings to focus on. And then it
all comes back to the board fordecision making, but all of you
are supervising a particulararea. For example, if you're a
CPA, you're probably going to bein charge of the financial end
of it. It right? If you are alandscape architect, you're
(20:03):
probably going to be in chargeof landscaping. So that's which
is, those are good things to do,but for boards that are
fortunate enough to have almostall of you, or even all of you,
if you're really lucky, on, youknow, in the same pew, singing
from the same hymnal, you're allkind of got each other's back,
it can make it a lot morepleasant, but realize even you,
if you are the president, it'snot all up to you. It's up to
(20:27):
you to kind of make sureeverybody gets things done or
the association is moving inthat direction. But you don't
have to do it all delegate, andif you don't delegate, you're
never going to train thereplacement to come up and
replace you as president. Oh,and this gentleman, one more
thing I was going to say, thegentleman, he said that. He
says, How can I What did heexactly say here? He said, How
(20:48):
can I, with a clear conscience,ask someone to replace me? Well,
that's a really good question. Iwould say, is that if you are
doing some of these things we'retrying to talk about, if these
are indeed your problems, thereare ways to make your job
easier. So it's not so bad. Iknow there's a lot of board
members out there who got on theboard because someone told them,
(21:08):
oh, it only takes a two hours amonth because that's the board
meeting, and it's just, that'sjust baloney. It's definitely
going to take time. I mean, Isit on my Swim Club board and it
takes up more than two hours amonth. You know that it's small
compared to an association. Soif you are able to make your job
as easy as you possibly can,easy on yourself by doing some
(21:29):
of these simple things, triage,what's in front of you? Delegate
to other. That's our delegate.
If you're the president, you canbut share with other board
members and even commiseratewith them, if you can, because
no one knows your problems likeyourself and another board
member.
Robert Nordlund (21:43):
Yeah, and I like that idea you talked about
going golfing, for some people,that means jumping in the pool,
swim some laps, or going to thegym or reading a book or
volunteering to be a reader atthe local library on the kids
kids day, whatever it is you'vegot to do that to clear your
brain and make you a betterperson for your association.
(22:05):
Yeah, I like all that. Well.
It's time now to take a quickbreak to hear from one of our
generous sponsors, after whichwe'll be back with more common
sense for common areas. And Iwant to talk about how to
defuse, how to start tominimize, these stresses. So
we'll be back in just a momentwith more on that
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(22:44):
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Robert Nordlund (22:53):
we're back.
Well, Julie, we're talking aboutthe stress that board members
face, and it's everywhere. Wetalked about some strategies to
work with the stress that youhave, but let's turn the topic a
little bit and talk aboutminimizing that stress. And two
words come to my mind. One isdefusing it like a bomb, taking
its power away, and the other isdiffusing it like when you're
(23:15):
watering plants, you know you'respreading it around so it's
spread it out. Talk to me aboutthose things. Are those
effective strategies? Well,
Julie Adamen (23:26):
yeah, they're both effective strategies, because no
matter what we this is a people,business, people, people,
people, and people are messy. Asyou know, it's messy, and when
you're a board member, you'rekind of down in the mess with
everybody. You may think you'reup here, but you're not. And you
know you're in the mess, becauseyou get the calls and the
emails, right? So human nature,such as is, especially today, in
(23:46):
this day and age, in 2025 I havetalked to so many board members
and managers and managementcompany executives, and how
difficult it is to even findboard members and or, or even to
get board members to stay on fortheir whole term, let alone come
(24:08):
into another one. So it's a it'sit's a really tough time, and I
don't envy you, but it, but wehave to deal with it, so we know
what the fact is. And so how dowe deal with that? Well, as as
we talk about a lot, I foundover lo these many years of
doing this, is that probably thebiggest problem that
associations have that theydon't realize they can fix a lot
(24:32):
of problems, and they have thetool right there is
communication between the boardand the homeowners, and I don't
mean just at the board meeting,which, for you may only be every
other month or every two monthsor three, I'm sorry, every other
month or every quarter. I mean,not everybody meets every month,
right? But, but still, even ifyou do, you don't get everybody
there, and you're not reallygiving enough information. So
(24:54):
having a communication strategyand a policy of communication
will go a long. Long Way tostopping, to defusing the bomb
and diffusing anger, you'reactually diffusing, for the most
part, ignorance on the part ofthe homeowners, because they
just don't know what's going on.
And if they don't know what'sgoing on, and you're not telling
them that's a vacuum. And whathappens in a vacuum? Robert,
(25:16):
nature abhors a vacuum. Natureof whores, of vacuum. So what
comes in there is all kinds ofrumors and innuendos. It grows
exponentially at cocktail time.
This is just human nature. It iswhat it is. So how do we fix
that? We have a steadycommunications policy, almost a
drip, drip, drip. If you thinkit's too much, you're probably
(25:36):
doing not enough, but you'reprobably doing right. So I'm my
HOA. I get at least one email aday from things that are going
on on. Granted, there's a lot ofclubs and things, but there is
so much information to be hadthat people can't really say,
Well, I didn't know about thatbecause it's all there. It's
either on the website or it'sbeen emailed out. This
(25:56):
association is a big one, andonce a month they have coffee
with the general manager. And sothe GM is there, and I can tell
you, in the middle of thesummer, there's not many of us
here, but they're all at thatbecause it's coffee and free
donuts. But and they bring in,like, the head of grounds, or
the golf superintendent, or theybrought in the Pinal county
(26:17):
sheriff to start talking about,you know, what's been going on,
just people from the community,or whatever, yes, all of that,
yeah, and so, and that personwill talk and take questions for
about an hour, and people cometo that they like to know what's
going on. So that type of thingwould also be, there's a there's
a many pronged approach tocommunication, and it doesn't
(26:39):
all have to be via email. Itdoesn't you can appoint you can.
There's a lot of programs text,have, you know what? Just via
email? No, it can't be just byemail. You also have to have the
personal touch in there as well.
Some people just want texts youhave. That's just a reality,
especially people that are under50, they just soon get a text.
They don't want to see an email,because a lot of people don't
look at it. Even the youngerthey are, they don't look at
their email. So all of thesedifferent there are many
(27:01):
solutions to it. And for thoseof you out there who I can hear
you right now talking that Ican't write, I don't want to
have to write an email and dothat, you know, write up some
bullet points. You want to say,throw it right into an AI
system, chat. GPT. Grok, what'sthe Microsoft one? Robert, what
is that? Co pilot? Co pilot,whatever. Actually, they all do
that kind of thing really well,really well, and make sure and
(27:24):
read it, proofread it, and boom,there you go.
Robert Nordlund (27:29):
I'm stuck on your idea of communicating in so
many ways. I've seen eight and ahalf by 11 colored pieces of
paper with a message on the doorfrom the garage to the lobby.
I've seen it right above whereyou have the buttons for the
elevator. I've seen it
Julie Adamen (27:49):
somebody in the elevator, in the elevator. Yeah,
I think you have
Robert Nordlund (27:53):
to be careful what you can post in an
elevator. But yeah, yeah, youhave to do many things. I met a
guy at the CAI nationalconference last year that was
had to pass a special assessmentat his high rise. And the board
recruited one ambassador forevery floor to basically speak
(28:15):
the the board message that, yes,we have to fix the what was it
the balconies? We have to fixthe course. Of course, it was
balconies. And was itCalifornia? No, North Dakota,
actually, okay. And they hadambassadors. So every time that
Ambassador was going through theelevator, walking a dog, going
outside, taking their trash tothe trash bin, and they saw
(28:37):
someone else, they were theassociations ambassador to
spread the message that, hey,it's going to be expensive, but
you know, what are we going todo? We got to take care of our
building, unfortunately. Yeah,we need to pass a special That's
Julie Adamen (28:48):
a wonderful idea.
Yeah, that's being creative.
About your about your about it.
You know, sheer where we are allthe all of the home, not
communities. Were ourassociations, one big
Association, then there'sanother, second, big one, but
they have units within each one,and I that's what they called,
basically a phase build out. Butso each phase the unit, there's
a unit rep, and there's a deputyunit rep, and they hold block
(29:11):
parties and they give you theinformation needs to go on. So
some are better than others, butthat's a person that if you have
any questions, you call thatperson and they'll bird dog it
for you. So it's prettyinteresting. There it. You can
be highly creative. And ifyou're the type of person who's
not that creative thinking,someone on your board is get
that person thinking about it,you know, or call me. I'll give
(29:33):
you a I'll give you some ideas.
Off the top of my head, it's notdifficult. I just think as a
board member, especially thisday and age, even if the
association is running well,people are difficult. But if
things are a bit of a mess andthe homeowners aren't happy, and
you feel overwhelmed with all ofthat, you know you get you're in
(29:55):
like a trench, and you never,you never stop digging that
trench. You're down like this.
You. So I would tell you, aboveall, look up, look out and
realize, oh, the sky is bluetoday. Oh, it was such a nice
walk. If I on the golf course,it's quiet. My family loves me,
boy, I'm going to buy that. Imean, you have to focus on
something besides theassociation. I would say that
(30:17):
during Well, oh, this is so longago, I'm going to go back to it,
but when we had the great marketcrash in 2008 Yeah, you know
when that happened? I mean,people were very I mean, it was
bad. It was bad for people. AndI wrote a couple of articles
about that for managers,actually, about how to get
through thinking about thesethings when you had all this
(30:39):
other work to do. First of all,it was hard off the TV, you
know, or in our case, now,nowadays, we're just going to
turn this thing off, stoplooking at things that are that
you can't do anything about thattook place half world away, and
enjoy some small things alongthe way. Because if you don't,
it's you're going to burn out soquickly, and you're going to
remain in the ditch. Don't letthem cover you up in the ditch,
(31:01):
but you're going to remainthere.
Robert Nordlund (31:03):
I wrote some more notes down here. And
there's whether it's electionpressure, every four years in
this country, a lot of stress,and then half the people in the
country are unhappy. And it'sjust the way it's going to be.
There's COVID, there's so manythings, but when you were down
in the ditch, I was thinking,how important is it to have your
own North Star. Why did I jointhe board? What am I spending
(31:27):
all this time for? Why?
Answering that question, why?
And for me, forever ago, when Iwas president of my board, it
was so I can maximize my homevalue, because I was mortgaged
up to my eyeballs, and I wasdoing it selfishly for me and
carrying 70 other homeownersalong with me. But how important
is it to have that North Starthat draws you forward? It's
Julie Adamen (31:51):
incredibly important. And I think everyone
loses sight of what you justsaid, because really, people
mostly serve on the boardbecause they want to do the
right thing. I mean, there are afew nefarious people, obviously,
but for the most part, they'retrying to do the right thing.
And the right thing is to givemy time to this community so the
(32:11):
community is better. When thecommunity is better, property
value goes up. Yep, that's justa fact. It's just a fact. If
your association is a mess,don't think that's a secret out
there in the rest of the world.
When I'm doing I do recruitpeople who manage on site
managers. I recruit and placethem as well as part of my
business. And they believe me,they all know, even if they're
five states away, they know whatassociations are bad, and it's
(32:35):
super if they don't know, theycan make maybe a phone call at
the most too, and they'll findout everything. So if your
association has that reputation,and typically, that's just self
inflicted, mostly over peoplebeing overwhelmed, people not
wanting to put the time inignorance. And I don't mean
ignorance stupid. I mean theyjust don't know what they should
(32:55):
be doing. That's when thingsstart to fall apart and they
keep tumbling. Believe me,everybody knows that. And when
people are coming to look atyour association now to buy, I
think that more and more they'relooking at a couple of things.
One is, do you have anything inreserves? If you are one of
these that are way down andnothing in reserves, you can't
get a loan, typically, anymore,right? Robert, right, right.
(33:17):
Yep, that's a you think aboutthat, folks, if you're associate
your condos, especially, I thinksomeone was telling me, this is
interesting. I won't mention theassociation, but you sure know
it's in the Coachella Valley inSouthern California, big
Association, and very well to dovery and they never, ever have
had a reserve fund, because theyhave so much money. The people
(33:39):
write checks. They just writechecks. That's great, until
someone wants to come in andfinance a purchase. They can't
do it. I just had my friend ofmine who lives there, her
brother in law and sister in lawcame to look for homes there.
They went through thatparticular association, and
they're they, they have money,but they were going to finance.
(34:00):
They can't, yeah,
Robert Nordlund (34:02):
well, as much as we want to talk about
minimizing the stress, youbrought a memory back to me, and
that the reason I was able tobuy my first condo was that it
was a lousy place. I didn't knowit, but I could get a piece of
California real estate. Andquickly was on the board, and I
(34:22):
realized that, yeah, there'sproblems everywhere. But hey,
with every there's so manyproblems I can I can shake a
stick and I can solve a problem,and the association will be
better, and we as the board canshake a stick at that other
problem, and the associationwill be better. And we
measurably made that associationbetter, because it was so easy,
(34:43):
there was problems to solveeverywhere we looked. We didn't
stress about it. We just said,Hey, it's easy pickings. Let's
just make this. Is
Julie Adamen (34:50):
it that one bite?
How do you eat an elephant? Oh,one bite at a time. That's
right. That's right. How aboutthat? So give yourself a break,
folks. I mean, give your as aboard member. If. Thank you for
working so hard, and yes, youwill work hard, but you also can
give your mind a rest and haveyour quiet time in the morning,
if it's no phone coffee, you andthe dog or the cat or your
(35:10):
spouse or everybody, and justenjoy that time. Enjoy the way,
enjoy things the way you didbefore you were on the board.
That stuff's still out there.
You just forget, because there'sso much you're so overwhelmed
with a lot of this. Granted, alot of it is negativity, but
it's up to you, whether you buyinto it or you look out.
Robert Nordlund (35:29):
Yeah, don't let it drag you down. Well, Julie,
as always, it's great talkingwith you. Any closing thoughts
to wrap up this episode at thistime,
Julie Adamen (35:38):
not so many. Just saying, just tell everybody
again. Thanks for serving on theboard. It's a highly needed
thing. I've done it multipletimes. Robert's done it. And
we're this is our business, andyou think we'd know better, but
we do, you know, I because wewant to help. It's our
expertise, and also it helps myreal estate values. So that's
what I want to that's the onlything I want to leave everybody
Robert Nordlund (35:57):
with. Yeah, as much as we do it selflessly, it
does help you real estatevalues, and that estate values?
Yeah, well, we hope you learnedsome HOA insights from our
discussion today that helps youbring common sense to your
common areas. Thank you forjoining us. We look forward to
bringing many more episodes toyou, week after week after week.
We're going to be here, andit'll be great to have you join
(36:18):
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Realize even you, if you are the president, it's
(00:03):
not all up to you. It's up toyou to kind of make sure
everybody gets things done, orthe association is moving in
that direction. But you don'thave to do it all delegate, and
if you don't delegate, you'renever going to train the
replacement to come up andreplace you as president.
Announcer (00:19):
HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies
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Insurance Services. You'll findlinks to their websites and
social media in the show notes.
Robert Nordlund (00:34):
Hi. I'm Robert Northland of association
reserves,
Julie Adamen (00:37):
and I'm Julie Adamen with Adamen Inc, and this
is HOA Insights, where wepromote common sense
Robert Nordlund (00:42):
for common areas. Well, welcome to episode
number 109 where we're againspeaking with management
consultant and regular co host,Julie ademan. Today we'll be
talking about keeping your coolwhile under stress, the classic
grace under pressuredescription. Your role at the
association is a stressful one,serving without compensation and
regularly facing homeowners whodon't like what's going on at
(01:05):
the association, whether that beassessment increases or rules or
even what you're wearing or yourhaircut. So how do you keep her
cool? Last week's episode number108 featured a great
conversation with a trulynational class board hero, Jan
Newcom. She's from SouthernCalifornia. She served long at
her association, I think, fourterms, as I recall, and she
(01:27):
served well during that time.
She even volunteered for herlocal Cai chapter and in our
leadership role for the NationalCai organization. She's a true
bright spot for board members,and she sets a very high
standard for what a board membercan be and what a board member
can do. So if you missed thatepisode or any other prior
episodes, take a moment aftertoday's program to listen from
our podcast website, Hoainsights.org, or watch our
(01:50):
YouTube channel, but better yet,subscribe from any of the major
podcast platforms so you don'tmiss any future episodes. Well,
those of you watching on YouTubecan see the HOA insights mug
that I have, that I got herefrom our merch store. It
features a cartoon that puts asmile on my face. And you can
browse through the merch storefrom our Hoa insights.org
(02:14):
website or the link in the shownotes, and you'll find that we
have some great free stuffthere, like board member zoom
backgrounds, and we have somespecialty items for sale, like
the mug that we just showed. Sotake a moment, look around, find
the mug that you'd like andemail me at podcast, at reserve
study.com, with your name,shipping address and mug choice
mentioning episode 109 muggiveaway, and if you're the 10th
(02:39):
person to email me, I'll shipthat mug to you free of charge.
Well, we enjoy hearing from youresponding to the issues you're
facing at your association. Soif you have a hot topic, a crazy
story, or a question that you'dlike us to address, you can
always contact us at805-203-3130, or email us at
podcast at reserves, a.comToday's episode comes from a
(03:03):
question submitted by Nick fromDenver, who stated, stress is
high, finances, rules andhomeowners who make life hard.
Sound familiar. Anyone? Doesanyone serve a second term? And
how can I, with a clearconscience, ask someone to
replace me. Well, Julie, if notin those exact words, it seems
(03:25):
like a common sentiment. So verycommon. What? What do you say to
Nick?
Julie Adamen (03:31):
First of all, Nick, thank you for serving
because someone has to do it.
I've done it myself numeroustimes. Probably going to do it
again here in the next year ortwo. So thank you, but I say to
Nick a couple of things. One,actually, I would really like to
talk to Nick directly and seeexactly what is so stressful.
But since I can't do that rightnow, let's just take the normal
things that all board membersthink are stressful, the same
(03:53):
things we would. We have a lotof things to do. We're not
getting paid for it. You havepeople coming at you from all
sides, meeting homeowners,committee members, sometimes
other board members, wantingwhether it's a good or bad
thing. They kind of want a pieceof you. And the next thing, as a
board member, you're almostalways on, if you know what I
mean, it's like, I do a lot ofpublic speaking. Robert does
(04:16):
too. So when you go and do apresentation, you got a couple
100 people, or 400 people,whatever it is, you're on,
right? You're on. But thatdoesn't mean you're just on
there. You're on from the momentyou step into that venue,
because people know you and youhave to be there. You have to
shake hands and talk to peopleand people, oh my god, I haven't
seen you in so long. You have todo all that well over even the
(04:38):
course of several hours beforeand after your talk, or if
you're at a conference, it'skind of the same way you're
always on and it's exhausting.
And I think that so many boardmembers don't know when, or
importantly, how, or even ifthey should turn it off just.
(05:00):
Turn off the association noise.
So I think maybe that's where weneed to go with this. Robert is
how to turn that noise off andhow to discern what's important
and what's not. Go ahead andcomment, and then I say, Yeah,
well,
Robert Nordlund (05:12):
I was thinking back to my experience, the same
kind of thing. There's twopaths. I park the car when I own
my condo, parked the car, and Iwalked to my front door. That
was one route get settled. ThenI walk from my front door to the
mailbox and then back to myfront door. So there's routes.
And I realize I'm RobertNordlund and I'm the president
(05:34):
of the association. I want tosmile. I want to represent the
association Well, I want to tryto spread the aura of I'm a good
guy. The rest of the board aregood people. We're helping you.
How can I do you have any notI'm not saying, Do you have any
questions? But I think what Idid was I separated those two
(05:58):
paths because I needed toprepare myself, yeah, maybe
that's it. Because you are, youare a public figure at your
association. You're a boardmember, whether you're carrying
a clipboard and you're checkingto make sure if the pool service
installed a new heater orwhatever you're doing as you're
(06:18):
walking around, maybe you have apath from your front door to the
laundry room you have to be on.
But what do you are doing toseparate that? Can you just have
a smile? You don't need to betaken care of business.
Actually, maybe that's what youdo. Maybe say hi. Oh, that's
great. Hey, I don't have paperwith me. Can you email me and
I'll I'll look into that. Soyou're separating and deferring.
(06:43):
Is that what you're talking
Julie Adamen (06:45):
about? Yes, actually, that does have
something to do with it, right?
Because no matter what you do asa board member, you are the
public figure, like you justsaid, and you live there, so you
are going to the pool or thetennis courts or the parking lot
or whatever you are going to runinto homeowners. So I think it's
always a good thing to be ableto be friendly. It doesn't mean
you have to listen to four hoursworth of diatribe, but you do
(07:06):
have to be friendly. And I thinkRobert's got the perfect out
with that. So here, this is areally good lesson. Just tell
them, please email this to me,because then I'll have a record
of it, and then if the boardneeds to address it, we'll be
able to do it in an orderlybusiness like fashion, because
when things just come to me whenI'm walking, I'll forget. You
know how that is like you'llforget. And then you just have
(07:26):
to be that. People go, okay,they normally do understand
that. I think what else I wasthinking about? Two things about
what happens with board members.
One is that, especially ifthey're newer to being a board
member, may have lived in thecommunity a long time, but once
you get on the board, yourealize there's a lot more going
on than you ever thought, thatsheer amount of information
(07:49):
coming at you and things tolearn can be quite overwhelming,
and then it, I think when youbecome overwhelmed with that,
you don't know where to start.
First, I was telling Robertearlier, right before we came
on, Robert and I were talkingabout a gal. I talked to her
probably a year ago or so, Ithink it's about a year ago, and
she was a board member on theEast Coast, big Association.
She'd never been on the board,but the place was very messed
(08:10):
up. And they were in betweenmanagers, and they changed
management companies, vendorsthat weren't good. It was just
overall a mess in her eyes. Butshe sounded like she probably
had a decent handle on that, butshe was absolutely so stressed
out that she could basically notfunction. Even just talking to
me, explaining to it she has gottears. I can hear it right, and
(08:33):
I'm just like, whoa, girl, takechill, you know, take a deep
breath. And I really made hertake a deep breath, and I said,
you don't have to do everythingthe first month. I mean, if you
are overwhelmed, you're a newboard member, you come in,
you're overwhelmed by the sheeramount of stuff that hasn't been
taken care of, that needs to gettaken care of, all these
(08:54):
different things that have beena mess or maybe not, you just
all of a sudden realize there'sso much to do triage that. So
you know, the things that reallyneed to be taken care of are
life limit money. So if you havea if you realize that the
insurance premium hasn't beenpaid and it's going to be
overdue in two days, that needsto be taken care of right away,
(09:15):
if that type of thing needs tobe done, if it's another life
safety issue. You know, theyoften have the the gates for,
like, a big associations,they'll have gates that are
closed all the time, except forfire trucks. If you realize all
of a sudden those gates don'twork at all, even for fire
trucks, you got to fix that. I'mkind of stretching on that one,
but this is what I'm talking ifthe spa is 110 you got to fix
that, because someone's going togo in and then they're going to
(09:38):
sue you. The association didn'tget where it is overnight. It
may have been 10 or 12 or 15years getting that way, and you
and your current board are theones who want to kind of come in
and fix it. You have to triagethat stuff. And if you don't
have a community manager or you,or maybe you do, but maybe
they're new themselves, becausethat happens quite often, get
some help from a professionalon. On How To sort what is
(09:59):
important and what's not, how tolearn to triage. In HOA world,
that could be your CorporateCouncil, if you're large enough
to have one on not on staff, butI mean on retainer, or someone
you use, that's really a goodplace to start. If you have a
good community manager orcommunity management company,
have their one of their bossescome in, one of the district
managers or something, maybeyour manager supervisor, if you
(10:22):
think the manager can't do it,and to help you triage what that
goes on. But I think many of youwill find, if you have a
community manager, they probablycan help you understand what
needs to happen and what'simportant and what's not so, and
from there, once you kind of getthat, I want to say calendared
out. It's not necessarily acalendar, but you have your
list. This is first, important.
(10:45):
This is second. This is third.
It doesn't mean it's, you know,it's stone. If something else
comes up, can go in there, inbetween those things that will,
I think, do a lot to take awaythe stress you feel at being
overwhelmed from the sheervolume of information, and your
mind going crazy because yourealize all of this stuff needs
to be done, and you feel likeyou got to do it now you don't.
Robert Nordlund (11:08):
I'm visualizing that four box image of urgent
and important, yep. And was thatthe Eisenhower matrix or
something like that? And justseparating things into like you
say, getting someone to help youseparate. Because maybe you've
put the we're going to updatethe governing documents. Maybe
(11:30):
you stall that while you'reworking on make sure you have
the cash flow to pay theinsurance premium. Maybe you
don't work so fast to get thelandscaper replaced, because,
you know, that's not anemergency. So identifying what
your urgent is from non urgentand important from unimportant.
(11:52):
It just is that what you'retalking about
Julie Adamen (11:54):
here? Yeah, it's kind of like that, yes. And in
fact, it's everything is urgent,but not everything is important.
So the important things are uphere, urgent is always calling
your attention to it just likethis. That's the homeowner
calling you up and saying thegrass is too green, or whatever
is go. Actually had someone callcall me up one time and tell me
that grass is too green way, wayback in the day. Hey,
Robert Nordlund (12:14):
I got a I got a phone one I was on a timeshare
site inspection, and we're doingthe kickoff meeting with the
general manager on site. Andthis was, I'm looking at my map.
It was in, you know, SmokyMountains of Tennessee, and the
timeshare owner, knock, knock,knock, knock, barged into our
meeting. I have somethingimportant. I got to talk to you.
(12:37):
I signed up for an ocean viewroom,
Unknown (12:41):
and all of us thought, this is Tennessee, how, how?
Robert Nordlund (12:47):
What ocean were you hoping to see from
timeshare? Yeah, you know, itjust but, yeah, you're right.
Sometimes it just ridiculous,yeah, and you've got to separate
those things out, yeah,
Julie Adamen (13:00):
exactly, exactly.
So that's, in fact, that was athat everything's urgent, but
not important. I've done, I'vedone it several times, a program
on that. It's based on a sayingby gentleman named Charles
Hummel. He wrote a book on this,but he actually did it based on
the life of Jesus. Because, youknow, Jesus did His ministry in
three years, three years, onlythree years to do all of that.
So that's because if you readingscripture like he was saying it,
(13:24):
Jesus did what was important,not what was urgent. There
Robert Nordlund (13:29):
was people who wanted to get healed, and he
said, I'm sorry. I got to moveon to the next town, and that
was interesting. But
Julie Adamen (13:37):
don't forget, he didn't go, he didn't go to
Lazarus aside, while Lazarus wasstill ill, he waited, because
that would have been the urgentthing to do, but the important
thing to do was to show peoplethat he could, that he raised
Lazarus from the den. So it'sjust, it was an interesting
premise, but I've done severalprograms on it about about
urgent from important. And inour world, in HOA world, board
(13:58):
member manager, it's always goodto be able to separate urgent.
Urgent compels you to dosomething important. Means it's
something you need to do. Andbeing compelled to do something
is, is here, you know, andwhat's important is, up here.
Keep it
Robert Nordlund (14:15):
on the list.
Don't let it fall off the list,but you'll get to it when you
have time. And I think that'sespecially important for the
newer board members, or theboard members who are in
associations that arestruggling. And there are really
some associations out there thatare struggling, and you see
problems everywhere you look.
The siding is old. You had someroof leaks last time it rained,
(14:38):
the asphalt is crumbling. Oh,gee. The entry gate needs to be
fixed again everywhere you look.
And that's not even talkingabout somebody in unit number
13, yep, who is always on yourcase for not getting things
fixed. And they were the one.
Well, I don't know if you evenknow, but you know they there's
a lot of people who don't wantto increase the homeowner
assessments, no pay for all thiskind of stuff. So how do you
(14:59):
how. How do you rub two nickelsand get a quarter? So yeah,
we're talking about sillythings, but truly, we know that
being a board member isstressful, that there's no doubt
about that, and it's a hardthing. The weight of the entire
association is on yourshoulders. You get some help for
the manager. I like Julie's ideaof not just reaching out to the
(15:21):
manager, but to the managersupervisor, not critically, but
saying, hey, from your voice ofexperience, help us navigate
forward. How can you, how canyou help us separate and have
success? They want to retain youas a client, right? Yeah, yep.
So they'll bring the horsepowerin where they can,
Julie Adamen (15:38):
yeah, and if they absolutely need to, for sure
they will because, again, theywant to keep you happy, but they
also want to save themselvesfrom liability, especially
depending on what state you'rein. Yeah, so it's always a good
thing to reach out to theexpert. Again, if you are self
managed, you may want to reachout to your attorney, or hire an
HOA attorney to help you do someof that type of work. If you
have no one else to go to or youcould go to a consultant. I
(16:00):
mean, I'm not, I do that kind ofwork, but there are a few other
folks out there that do it aswell. So there are people out
there to help you. You are notalone. You are not alone. Yeah.
And you know, on that Robert, Iwas thinking before we also got
on, we were talking about golf,of all things. But you know, I
think for board members, becausethe job can consume you, you can
do it eight hours a day, 910,11, because there's always
(16:22):
something to do. Never be done.
You'll never be done, right? Andthat's the same on the
management end, that's the same.
We always are too. The job isnever done, ever. It's it's just
a rolling thing of deadlines andtasks for board members. If you
are finding yourself notenjoying your life whatsoever
because you're so focused on theassociation, I'm going to
counsel you to step back andperform some self care. And I
(16:45):
hate that saying, becauseeverybody uses it too much.
Robert Nordlund (16:47):
But I wrote down in my notes here, I felt us
going there, yes. I
Julie Adamen (16:51):
mean, should you do these things? Yes, but you're
a volunteer. Remember to giveyourself part of a break,
otherwise you're not going tomake it to the end of your term
and bring me back that afterthis is over, Robert, about
people not serving their termsout. I've heard some interesting
stuff on that. But if you're notgoing to make it so, you have to
meter out your own energy. Ifyou have found yourself, let's
(17:11):
just take golf, if you're agolfer, and if you found
yourself, you know, not golfingthree days a week like you used
to. In fact, now you're down toone, and maybe not even that,
because you're so busy with theAssociation. I'm going to tell
you it's okay to say, No, I'mnot going to be available from
two to six. You know, from twoo'clock on this afternoon, I'm
(17:32):
not available this Take, takeyour phone, turn it off, put it
on silent, or leave it at home.
Because I know we can leave homewithout our phones. People of
our age know that because we didit all the time until the early
2000s and all of a sudden, lifechanged. But go golf, because
that kind of golfing is awonderful thing, because you
can't think of anything exceptgolfing. You know, you have to
(17:53):
do that. Back when I was I was alarge scale manager, so I had a
very large Association in PalmDesert, California, and it was a
great job, but it was a very,very stressful. Well, at that
time, many moons ago, when wewere young, my husband and I
would say, We sailed two mancatamarans competitively. So we
sailed a circuit. But I willtell you my job was so
stressful, same type of stressyou all deal with, so stressful.
(18:15):
But when we were sailing, whenwe were racing, I called it the
most stressful, relaxing thing Iever did, because it's going,
you're everything's going reallyfast, but you can only think of
this now. You're focusing,you're sailing. You're sailing.
Yeah, you know, it's likeSchrodinger scat. Does it really
exist over there? If I can't seeit? Yeah?
Robert Nordlund (18:34):
Well, I'm want to connect this, because, yes,
self care is important. And Iwrote down history, realize, and
you said earlier, theassociation got itself into this
jam over the last 10 or 20years. And you got to think of
it with a momentum factor thatlike a supertanker, it's going
to take miles for a supertankerto turn and so nudge it, push
(18:56):
it, push it. But you got to haveenough energy to be able to do
that, pushing. One other thingis the idea of you are a member
of a team. So is that a bigpart? Also to remember that,
hey, I'm not going to deal withthe landscaper, Joe or Fred or
(19:17):
someone else is going to dealwith the landscape, so see
yourself as part of a team?
Well, of
Julie Adamen (19:21):
course, actually, you all should view yourself as
a team, but I'm going toacknowledge the reality is that
oftentimes you're on twodifferent teams. Three are on
this team and two are on thatteam. And that can be pretty
difficult. However, what I wouldsay that even if you have that
kind of you have kind of a twoteam under the umbrella of the
board, divvying up what thosesome of the responsibilities,
(19:41):
and putting people where theirstrengths are, as opposed to
just where you want to stickthem, try to do that, and then
you all kind of have your ownthings to focus on. And then it
all comes back to the board fordecision making, but all of you
are supervising a particulararea. For example, if you're a
CPA, you're probably going to bein charge of the financial end
of it. It right? If you are alandscape architect, you're
(20:03):
probably going to be in chargeof landscaping. So that's which
is, those are good things to do,but for boards that are
fortunate enough to have almostall of you, or even all of you,
if you're really lucky, on, youknow, in the same pew, singing
from the same hymnal, you're allkind of got each other's back,
it can make it a lot morepleasant, but realize even you,
if you are the president, it'snot all up to you. It's up to
(20:27):
you to kind of make sureeverybody gets things done or
the association is moving inthat direction. But you don't
have to do it all delegate, andif you don't delegate, you're
never going to train thereplacement to come up and
replace you as president. Oh,and this gentleman, one more
thing I was going to say, thegentleman, he said that. He
says, How can I What did heexactly say here? He said, How
(20:48):
can I, with a clear conscience,ask someone to replace me? Well,
that's a really good question. Iwould say, is that if you are
doing some of these things we'retrying to talk about, if these
are indeed your problems, thereare ways to make your job
easier. So it's not so bad. Iknow there's a lot of board
members out there who got on theboard because someone told them,
(21:08):
oh, it only takes a two hours amonth because that's the board
meeting, and it's just, that'sjust baloney. It's definitely
going to take time. I mean, Isit on my Swim Club board and it
takes up more than two hours amonth. You know that it's small
compared to an association. Soif you are able to make your job
as easy as you possibly can,easy on yourself by doing some
(21:29):
of these simple things, triage,what's in front of you? Delegate
to other. That's our delegate.
If you're the president, you canbut share with other board
members and even commiseratewith them, if you can, because
no one knows your problems likeyourself and another board
member.
Robert Nordlund (21:43):
Yeah, and I like that idea you talked about
going golfing, for some people,that means jumping in the pool,
swim some laps, or going to thegym or reading a book or
volunteering to be a reader atthe local library on the kids
kids day, whatever it is you'vegot to do that to clear your
brain and make you a betterperson for your association.
(22:05):
Yeah, I like all that. Well.
It's time now to take a quickbreak to hear from one of our
generous sponsors, after whichwe'll be back with more common
sense for common areas. And Iwant to talk about how to
defuse, how to start tominimize, these stresses. So
we'll be back in just a momentwith more on that
Paige Daniels (22:22):
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Robert Nordlund (22:53):
we're back.
Well, Julie, we're talking aboutthe stress that board members
face, and it's everywhere. Wetalked about some strategies to
work with the stress that youhave, but let's turn the topic a
little bit and talk aboutminimizing that stress. And two
words come to my mind. One isdefusing it like a bomb, taking
its power away, and the other isdiffusing it like when you're
(23:15):
watering plants, you know you'respreading it around so it's
spread it out. Talk to me aboutthose things. Are those
effective strategies? Well,
Julie Adamen (23:26):
yeah, they're both effective strategies, because no
matter what we this is a people,business, people, people,
people, and people are messy. Asyou know, it's messy, and when
you're a board member, you'rekind of down in the mess with
everybody. You may think you'reup here, but you're not. And you
know you're in the mess, becauseyou get the calls and the
emails, right? So human nature,such as is, especially today, in
(23:46):
this day and age, in 2025 I havetalked to so many board members
and managers and managementcompany executives, and how
difficult it is to even findboard members and or, or even to
get board members to stay on fortheir whole term, let alone come
(24:08):
into another one. So it's a it'sit's a really tough time, and I
don't envy you, but it, but wehave to deal with it, so we know
what the fact is. And so how dowe deal with that? Well, as as
we talk about a lot, I foundover lo these many years of
doing this, is that probably thebiggest problem that
associations have that theydon't realize they can fix a lot
(24:32):
of problems, and they have thetool right there is
communication between the boardand the homeowners, and I don't
mean just at the board meeting,which, for you may only be every
other month or every two monthsor three, I'm sorry, every other
month or every quarter. I mean,not everybody meets every month,
right? But, but still, even ifyou do, you don't get everybody
there, and you're not reallygiving enough information. So
(24:54):
having a communication strategyand a policy of communication
will go a long. Long Way tostopping, to defusing the bomb
and diffusing anger, you'reactually diffusing, for the most
part, ignorance on the part ofthe homeowners, because they
just don't know what's going on.
And if they don't know what'sgoing on, and you're not telling
them that's a vacuum. And whathappens in a vacuum? Robert,
(25:16):
nature abhors a vacuum. Natureof whores, of vacuum. So what
comes in there is all kinds ofrumors and innuendos. It grows
exponentially at cocktail time.
This is just human nature. It iswhat it is. So how do we fix
that? We have a steadycommunications policy, almost a
drip, drip, drip. If you thinkit's too much, you're probably
(25:36):
doing not enough, but you'reprobably doing right. So I'm my
HOA. I get at least one email aday from things that are going
on on. Granted, there's a lot ofclubs and things, but there is
so much information to be hadthat people can't really say,
Well, I didn't know about thatbecause it's all there. It's
either on the website or it'sbeen emailed out. This
(25:56):
association is a big one, andonce a month they have coffee
with the general manager. And sothe GM is there, and I can tell
you, in the middle of thesummer, there's not many of us
here, but they're all at thatbecause it's coffee and free
donuts. But and they bring in,like, the head of grounds, or
the golf superintendent, or theybrought in the Pinal county
(26:17):
sheriff to start talking about,you know, what's been going on,
just people from the community,or whatever, yes, all of that,
yeah, and so, and that personwill talk and take questions for
about an hour, and people cometo that they like to know what's
going on. So that type of thingwould also be, there's a there's
a many pronged approach tocommunication, and it doesn't
(26:39):
all have to be via email. Itdoesn't you can appoint you can.
There's a lot of programs text,have, you know what? Just via
email? No, it can't be just byemail. You also have to have the
personal touch in there as well.
Some people just want texts youhave. That's just a reality,
especially people that are under50, they just soon get a text.
They don't want to see an email,because a lot of people don't
look at it. Even the youngerthey are, they don't look at
their email. So all of thesedifferent there are many
(27:01):
solutions to it. And for thoseof you out there who I can hear
you right now talking that Ican't write, I don't want to
have to write an email and dothat, you know, write up some
bullet points. You want to say,throw it right into an AI
system, chat. GPT. Grok, what'sthe Microsoft one? Robert, what
is that? Co pilot? Co pilot,whatever. Actually, they all do
that kind of thing really well,really well, and make sure and
(27:24):
read it, proofread it, and boom,there you go.
Robert Nordlund (27:29):
I'm stuck on your idea of communicating in so
many ways. I've seen eight and ahalf by 11 colored pieces of
paper with a message on the doorfrom the garage to the lobby.
I've seen it right above whereyou have the buttons for the
elevator. I've seen it
Julie Adamen (27:49):
somebody in the elevator, in the elevator. Yeah,
I think you have
Robert Nordlund (27:53):
to be careful what you can post in an
elevator. But yeah, yeah, youhave to do many things. I met a
guy at the CAI nationalconference last year that was
had to pass a special assessmentat his high rise. And the board
recruited one ambassador forevery floor to basically speak
(28:15):
the the board message that, yes,we have to fix the what was it
the balconies? We have to fixthe course. Of course, it was
balconies. And was itCalifornia? No, North Dakota,
actually, okay. And they hadambassadors. So every time that
Ambassador was going through theelevator, walking a dog, going
outside, taking their trash tothe trash bin, and they saw
(28:37):
someone else, they were theassociations ambassador to
spread the message that, hey,it's going to be expensive, but
you know, what are we going todo? We got to take care of our
building, unfortunately. Yeah,we need to pass a special That's
Julie Adamen (28:48):
a wonderful idea.
Yeah, that's being creative.
About your about your about it.
You know, sheer where we are allthe all of the home, not
communities. Were ourassociations, one big
Association, then there'sanother, second, big one, but
they have units within each one,and I that's what they called,
basically a phase build out. Butso each phase the unit, there's
a unit rep, and there's a deputyunit rep, and they hold block
(29:11):
parties and they give you theinformation needs to go on. So
some are better than others, butthat's a person that if you have
any questions, you call thatperson and they'll bird dog it
for you. So it's prettyinteresting. There it. You can
be highly creative. And ifyou're the type of person who's
not that creative thinking,someone on your board is get
that person thinking about it,you know, or call me. I'll give
(29:33):
you a I'll give you some ideas.
Off the top of my head, it's notdifficult. I just think as a
board member, especially thisday and age, even if the
association is running well,people are difficult. But if
things are a bit of a mess andthe homeowners aren't happy, and
you feel overwhelmed with all ofthat, you know you get you're in
(29:55):
like a trench, and you never,you never stop digging that
trench. You're down like this.
You. So I would tell you, aboveall, look up, look out and
realize, oh, the sky is bluetoday. Oh, it was such a nice
walk. If I on the golf course,it's quiet. My family loves me,
boy, I'm going to buy that. Imean, you have to focus on
something besides theassociation. I would say that
(30:17):
during Well, oh, this is so longago, I'm going to go back to it,
but when we had the great marketcrash in 2008 Yeah, you know
when that happened? I mean,people were very I mean, it was
bad. It was bad for people. AndI wrote a couple of articles
about that for managers,actually, about how to get
through thinking about thesethings when you had all this
(30:39):
other work to do. First of all,it was hard off the TV, you
know, or in our case, now,nowadays, we're just going to
turn this thing off, stoplooking at things that are that
you can't do anything about thattook place half world away, and
enjoy some small things alongthe way. Because if you don't,
it's you're going to burn out soquickly, and you're going to
remain in the ditch. Don't letthem cover you up in the ditch,
(31:01):
but you're going to remainthere.
Robert Nordlund (31:03):
I wrote some more notes down here. And
there's whether it's electionpressure, every four years in
this country, a lot of stress,and then half the people in the
country are unhappy. And it'sjust the way it's going to be.
There's COVID, there's so manythings, but when you were down
in the ditch, I was thinking,how important is it to have your
own North Star. Why did I jointhe board? What am I spending
(31:27):
all this time for? Why?
Answering that question, why?
And for me, forever ago, when Iwas president of my board, it
was so I can maximize my homevalue, because I was mortgaged
up to my eyeballs, and I wasdoing it selfishly for me and
carrying 70 other homeownersalong with me. But how important
is it to have that North Starthat draws you forward? It's
Julie Adamen (31:51):
incredibly important. And I think everyone
loses sight of what you justsaid, because really, people
mostly serve on the boardbecause they want to do the
right thing. I mean, there are afew nefarious people, obviously,
but for the most part, they'retrying to do the right thing.
And the right thing is to givemy time to this community so the
(32:11):
community is better. When thecommunity is better, property
value goes up. Yep, that's justa fact. It's just a fact. If
your association is a mess,don't think that's a secret out
there in the rest of the world.
When I'm doing I do recruitpeople who manage on site
managers. I recruit and placethem as well as part of my
business. And they believe me,they all know, even if they're
five states away, they know whatassociations are bad, and it's
(32:35):
super if they don't know, theycan make maybe a phone call at
the most too, and they'll findout everything. So if your
association has that reputation,and typically, that's just self
inflicted, mostly over peoplebeing overwhelmed, people not
wanting to put the time inignorance. And I don't mean
ignorance stupid. I mean theyjust don't know what they should
(32:55):
be doing. That's when thingsstart to fall apart and they
keep tumbling. Believe me,everybody knows that. And when
people are coming to look atyour association now to buy, I
think that more and more they'relooking at a couple of things.
One is, do you have anything inreserves? If you are one of
these that are way down andnothing in reserves, you can't
get a loan, typically, anymore,right? Robert, right, right.
(33:17):
Yep, that's a you think aboutthat, folks, if you're associate
your condos, especially, I thinksomeone was telling me, this is
interesting. I won't mention theassociation, but you sure know
it's in the Coachella Valley inSouthern California, big
Association, and very well to dovery and they never, ever have
had a reserve fund, because theyhave so much money. The people
(33:39):
write checks. They just writechecks. That's great, until
someone wants to come in andfinance a purchase. They can't
do it. I just had my friend ofmine who lives there, her
brother in law and sister in lawcame to look for homes there.
They went through thatparticular association, and
they're they, they have money,but they were going to finance.
(34:00):
They can't, yeah,
Robert Nordlund (34:02):
well, as much as we want to talk about
minimizing the stress, youbrought a memory back to me, and
that the reason I was able tobuy my first condo was that it
was a lousy place. I didn't knowit, but I could get a piece of
California real estate. Andquickly was on the board, and I
(34:22):
realized that, yeah, there'sproblems everywhere. But hey,
with every there's so manyproblems I can I can shake a
stick and I can solve a problem,and the association will be
better, and we as the board canshake a stick at that other
problem, and the associationwill be better. And we
measurably made that associationbetter, because it was so easy,
(34:43):
there was problems to solveeverywhere we looked. We didn't
stress about it. We just said,Hey, it's easy pickings. Let's
just make this. Is
Julie Adamen (34:50):
it that one bite?
How do you eat an elephant? Oh,one bite at a time. That's
right. That's right. How aboutthat? So give yourself a break,
folks. I mean, give your as aboard member. If. Thank you for
working so hard, and yes, youwill work hard, but you also can
give your mind a rest and haveyour quiet time in the morning,
if it's no phone coffee, you andthe dog or the cat or your
(35:10):
spouse or everybody, and justenjoy that time. Enjoy the way,
enjoy things the way you didbefore you were on the board.
That stuff's still out there.
You just forget, because there'sso much you're so overwhelmed
with a lot of this. Granted, alot of it is negativity, but
it's up to you, whether you buyinto it or you look out.
Robert Nordlund (35:29):
Yeah, don't let it drag you down. Well, Julie,
as always, it's great talkingwith you. Any closing thoughts
to wrap up this episode at thistime,
Julie Adamen (35:38):
not so many. Just saying, just tell everybody
again. Thanks for serving on theboard. It's a highly needed
thing. I've done it multipletimes. Robert's done it. And
we're this is our business, andyou think we'd know better, but
we do, you know, I because wewant to help. It's our
expertise, and also it helps myreal estate values. So that's
what I want to that's the onlything I want to leave everybody
Robert Nordlund (35:57):
with. Yeah, as much as we do it selflessly, it
does help you real estatevalues, and that estate values?
Yeah, well, we hope you learnedsome HOA insights from our
discussion today that helps youbring common sense to your
common areas. Thank you forjoining us. We look forward to
bringing many more episodes toyou, week after week after week.
We're going to be here, andit'll be great to have you join
(36:18):
us on a regular basis. Spreadthe word
Announcer (36:24):
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(37:09):
about the community, associationindustry. You'll want to consult
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