The Byron Effect: A legacy of leadership, service and results

Just before Thanksgiving, my husband, best friend and business partner, Byron Van Arsdale, died from Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a rare, highly aggressive blood cancer. You’re reading this column today because back in 1997, Byron coached me on how to lead virtual meetings by phone (teleclasses).

Under his mentorship, I shifted from being Dr. Ross, the college professor and expert, to becoming a coach, columnist and professional speaker. In 2001, Marc Davison hired me to write for Inman because “You write like a coach.” 

I first met Byron when Lou Piatt, the president of Jon Douglas Company, where I was Executive Director of Training, told me, “You need to figure out how to deliver training to our 60 offices and there’s no budget.”

As I thought, “You’re dreaming, Lou,” Piatt then told me, “Coach University is delivering their training by phone. Go check it out.”

When I learned more about the Coach U model in late 1996, I was excited to enroll in their coach training program. My first experience with Byron was on a CoachU teleclass he was leading called “Challenging.”

I was impressed at the level of intimacy, support and results I saw taking place during the classes he led. It was much more effective than any face-to-face meeting I had ever experienced. 

Piatt decided to implement the teleclass/coaching model for our agents, so I signed up for the teleclass leader program. It turned out Byron was the mentor for the program, plus he was a former broker-owner. We naturally clicked. 

What made Byron’s coaching approach different

Byron was an Eagle Scout who lived by the Scouting principles: Give more than you receive, remain ethical and honest, accept life fully, and enjoy each day. He didn’t just write about and train these ideas but practiced them daily.

If someone was struggling with their groceries or needed help with something at their house, he was happy to help. To our friends, neighbors and his golf buddies, he was “Byron the Baker,” who was always making cakes, cookies and pies to share with them. 

It’s not surprising that he was a natural coach and mentor. He rejected the expert, guru and sports coaching models. Instead, he asked insightful questions, listened closely to what his clients said and had a gift for helping others see what was possible, then nudging them to act.

He assumed his clients were capable, resourceful and functional, even when they didn’t yet see that themselves.

These principles shaped both his life and his work. His influence extended across senior leadership in numerous industries, organizations and continents, in both the private and public sectors. Byron trained over 2,000 business and professional coaches worldwide.

For more than three decades, his Six-Principle Model of Effective Leadership in virtual and face-to-face environments has shaped leadership conversations across the globe. 

Personally, Byron showed me that what creates happiness was not my custom house in Beverly Hills with the new Jag in the garage and the designer clothes in the closet — but being of service to others, listening to them and giving back for the sheer joy of making someone else smile. 

Byron’s approach to real estate coaching

The two articles and videos below illustrate how Byron coached both real estate professionals and senior executives in multiple industries across the globe. 

In, “New to real estate? Focus on these two things,” Byron summarized what matters most about the coaching process, especially for new agents.

“Training tells you what to do and how to do it, while coaching focuses on creating high performance. Coaching is about the six inches between your ears. To succeed, begin by taking small daily action steps that allow you talk to people about real estate.

“Second, ask lots of questions. When you carefully listen to what the other person is saying, you create a sense of rapport. You start to understand what matters to them. This builds the trust that results in transactions in every price range, and at every level of experience.”

After coaching and mentoring for over 25 years, Byron had two powerful takeaways about what almost all coaching clients share as well as how to remove one of the most common blocks that keeps most people from achieving success. 

In 10 powerful coaching strategies to boost your performance in 2023, he had this to say:

“The people who seek coaching usually end up trying to solve the wrong problem because they’re focused on the symptom rather than the source,” Byron said, likening the situation to playing Whack-a-mole. “The idea here is that if you really understand what the real source of your challenge is, it’s usually pretty easy to solve.

“Another common pattern he observed was how many people are stopped by old stories about who they are or what happened to them. Before a client would get too deeply into the story, he would often ask, “How long have you been working on this challenge?” 

If it was more than a few years, he would tell them, “OK, your statute of limitations has run out. You’ve had more than enough time to work on this story. It’s time to let it go, just put it to sleep and not worry about it anymore.” 

He explained:

“In coaching, the goal is for the client to actually experience performance. Sometimes, I have to be really blunt and to the point. I don’t care why, and I don’t care if my client understands what really happened. The key is today, in this real estate market, can you perform? And that’s the bottom line.”

‘The Byron Effect’

One of the most powerful moments at Byron’s Celebration of Life came from our close friend, Yutaka Saito. Saito was the first business coach in Japan at Fujitsu. In 2001, Saito mentored with Byron for two months here in Austin. Today, Saito’s company has 50 coaches serving major corporations in Japan, including Honda. 

In the following video, Saito shared how Byron changed his life and coined the term, the “Byron Effect.” Saito then shared a life-changing conversation he had with an ex-client about Byron, as well as the best advice Byron gave him about having a happy marriage. 

Until Saito named “The Byron Effect,” I never considered how massive Byron’s reach actually was, not only through his coaching, training and books we wrote together, but his influence that resulted in me being hired by Inman because I wrote like a coach.  

The ‘Byron Effect’ on you and your business

The real impact of your work rarely shows up at the closing table. Instead, it echoes throughout the years as your clients live their lives and make the memories that matter to them. Your job matters, and its impact matters more and longer than you may ever know. 

Unwinding ‘we’ to ‘me’ 

Byron taught me what it means to “hold space” for another, not only in coaching and our business, but most importantly in our marriage. I could never have done the work I’ve been able to do without him quietly handling so many of the logistics of our daily lives. Every day, he told me how much he loved me, strived to make me laugh and always reminded me, “Together we’re better.” 

There is no cure for Mantle Cell Lymphoma, only potential remission. The last time Byron walked was on Sept. 2, 2025. I was told that for every day he spent in bed, it would take him five days of rehabilitation to regain his strength — over 400 days, with no certainty he would ever walk again. That was not the life that either of us wanted.  

Unwinding “we” to “me” is the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. With his death, I lost the love of my life, my best friend and life partner, but he gave me back the rest of my life, along with the responsibility to live it as fully and happily as possible. 

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