September 15, 2023 • 53 mins
Welcome to another stimulating conversation, this time featuring the inspiring journey of real estate mogul, Al Stasik. With humble beginnings, Al has built an impressive portfolio and reputation, making his mark in the real estate world. His story, marked by courageous decisions and an unwavering desire to take risks, is a guiding light for anyone yearning to break free from their comfort zone.
This episode offers a deep dive into the role of courage in shaping our lives. Al reveals how his blue-collar upbringing and exposure to new environments paved the way for his ambitious approach. A striking discussion on the essence of courage sets the stage for Al's decision-making anecdotes that saw him transition from being a solo agent to joining a larger company. This move transformed his professional journey, allowing him to provide a win-win scenario for himself and his agents, thereby setting a precedent for others in the industry.
Wrapping up this journey, we turn to Al's philosophical musings and his studies in Buddhism. His understanding and application of the Three Noble Truths have played an integral part in his ability to avoid suffering. He warns us about the pitfalls of comparison, and how shifting our focus to a North Star can yield rewarding results. Al shares his exciting plans to move to Florida and his aspirations to give back to the community, reminding us that success and happiness are found beyond material possessions. This conversation promises to leave you inspired, motivated, and ready to conquer your own journey.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome everybody to another episode of
the Stoic Agent podcast.
Got a super amazing personatorview here and this is Al Stasik,
and Al's a good friend from ourcompany here, but obviously
this is a brand agnostic, butAl's a representant, as he would
, because he's got courage.
We're gonna dig into that alittle bit later, but welcome to
(00:20):
the podcast, alby.
Oh man, thanks for having meout, absolutely, man.
So let's dig right into it.
Man, you know I always like toget a background.
A lot of people know who youare.
Some of the people watchingthis evergreen might be two,
three, four years from now, whenyour vice president in the
United States, are gonna knowyou.
But what did you tell theaudience?
A little bit about yourbackground.
(00:41):
A lot of Gene Fredericks tellme about you.
Man.
What's been your journeythrough real estate specifically
, and maybe a little bit of yourlife and what brought you here.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Well, I've never been some big person that's spoken
on stages and stuff like that.
I was a small, just solo agent,started at Century 21 here in a
little Cleveland Ohio realestate office and I had been
going in and out of real estateoffices my whole life because my
dad was a part-time agent withC21.
(01:16):
He put on the gold coat, youknow, puzzled after his blue
collar job that he worked on thedocs and so I took a run at
college wasn't for me ended upgoing into trucking and the long
of the short of it was is thatI knew that I've always had the
(01:36):
ambition but I really justwasn't really surrounding myself
with the right environment,with the right people and I knew
that there was more to what Iwanted to do with my life than
work the docs and stuff likethat.
Not that that was a bad thing.
My dad actually, you know hewas a union doc worker and
(02:00):
retired, so to speak, on that.
And if I shared with you youknow what he after 31 years,
what he takes home every month.
It's below poverty level and soI didn't want that to be me.
I know that we need truckdrivers, we need doc workers.
I did my time in both of thosearenas and knew that at one
(02:22):
point there had to be more and Ididn't have a college education
.
It wasn't like I could go andget some six-figure salary
somewhere.
So I sort of landed in therealm of if I were to go sell
something, what would it be?
My dad was already in realestate.
I was going in and out of realestate offices and back in the
80s if anyone listening everpoked their head into a real
(02:47):
estate office in the 1980s it'snothing like what you're seeing
today With our you know ourmodern offices are.
You know, they're more fun,they're more vibrant, you have
better energy.
Back then it was very maledominated, very chauvinistic,
(03:07):
very old school you know, guyssmoking and drinking at their
desks and it just.
It wasn't a very you know,highly competitive too, which I
actually like.
That's.
The one thing that attracted mewas the competitiveness.
But I just went in, you know,knowing so little about the
business, blindly and justsaying you know what, I'm gonna
(03:30):
make this work or it's nothing,you know, like I really had
nothing to lose.
So I kind of turned in my CDL Iwas over the road truck driver
for a bit there, went into thereal estate school, took a part
time job as a collector until Icould get a couple of deals
under my belt.
And I will say this as acollector, I was making $19,000
(03:54):
per year salary and no bonusesthat you know any more money
than that.
I had to make on the weekends,working overtime, and it was
sort of a horrible job.
But what it did was I wascollecting on delinquent mobile
home mortgages and that when, inlooking back everything's you
know 2020, looking backwards itgave me the skills on the phone
(04:17):
that helped me excel, because Iwasn't afraid to pick the phone
up and get hung up on, because Iwas literally doing that every
day.
When I was collecting formobile home mortgages, I was
getting hung up on, called everyname in the book, and if you're
gonna, you know, make that asuccess, you have to be able to
water off, a duck back and keepgoing.
So I just sort of fell into thereal estate realm because I
(04:41):
didn't have anything else reallyto fall back on and I knew that
if I was gonna sell something,I wanted to be a high ticket
item and something that everyoneneeded.
So I checked both of thoseboxes and away I went.
That's how I sort of gotstarted, hmm.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Well, there's so much we can unpack in that man.
You know, when we were talkinga little bit off air about the
philosophies, you know, of thestoicism and this is the Stoic
Agent podcast and I was thinkingabout you before we were doing
this pod and I said, man, whatdo I think about when I think
about Albie?
And there's a lot of things Ithink about, but you know, the
biggest one man would be courage.
(05:16):
Like if you could talk to andyou alluded to it a little bit
here.
You know that you were afraidand the antithesis of that is
being afraid or being afraid butthen having the courage to move
through something because youknow there's something on the
other side that could be.
I was talking to Brent Gove theother day and said the
quintessential is like chargingthe machine gun nest.
Right, like that's courage.
(05:36):
Your life is literally on theline, you're afraid, but you're
doing it for a higher reason andso forth.
And we're not talking aboutcharging machine gun nest here,
but we're definitely talkingabout fear.
So one of the things again thatcame up was courage and what
you did, you know, with EXP, andagain, this is not about EXP
here per se, but it is aboutdoing something that you might
(05:57):
have been a little afraid ofbecause you talked about that
group.
I know you're with the guys,with Jay and Michael and those
guys that you looked up to.
You put yourself in that roomand they didn't.
You know, they kind of hadpoo-pooed, I think EXP and as
many have before they.
You know, take a look at it,but talk about that courage, man
, how did you work through thatfear of that other people hadn't
done it, and especially yourpeers and then to actually make
(06:20):
the move?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah.
So when you mentioned courage,the first thing that I thought
of is you know, is courage, youknow, really a real thing or is
it just lack of fear?
You know, I don't know, andit's probably both.
You know, but if we're gettingdeep on the stoic you know
podcasts I like going deep intoconcepts that I'm not familiar
(06:44):
with, and this is a concept thatI'm not super familiar with.
But I guess what I would say,alex, is that you know, when I
was kind of coming up, I didn'tknow enough to be fearful of
anything because I really didn'thave much to lose.
I know this is gonna sound likeI'm like maybe beating myself
(07:06):
up too much, but you know, I wasa bit of a loser, you know, and
what I mean by that, like inthe context of what I mean, is
that I was, I had really what Ithought was a great group of
friends, but none of them hadany ambition, nobody was pulling
me up.
In fact, the group I wassurrounding myself, they wanted
(07:27):
everyone to stay right down here, right in that comfort zone,
and you know I just couldn't.
There was something drawing methat I can't really describe to
you right now, that I knew therewas more for my life.
I was lucky enough.
I grew up in a blue collar towncalled Parma, ohio.
Everyone worked hard.
(07:47):
There was no one in that town.
If you're living or born oreven like being raised in Parma,
your folks you know you weren'treally privileged.
I mean there might have been avery small sliver of people that
inherited money or inherited abusiness.
Most of them were all bluecollar and so that's.
You know, that's how I wasraised.
(08:08):
However, I had some friendsthat had.
You know, their parents wereentrepreneurs and they saw
success.
One I'll just mention was theyowned a.
They bought a gas station.
This guy bought a gas station.
He was a mechanic.
He bought this gas station,grew it to a multimillion dollar
little enterprise in thislittle town that we that I grew
(08:30):
up on, from where it had, likeyou know, three or four pumps,
to a multimillion dollar carwash, 12 bays, a whole
restaurant built into it, likethey built an empire.
Growing up, they gave me a tasteof the good life.
You know they had a foe theyhad.
You know we have some islandsup here in Lake Geary, right on
Ohio's shores, and they call itvacation land and it is where
(08:54):
the wealthy go to play up here.
Now, we were not wealthy, so Inever got the play there, but
when I hung out with them, theygave me a taste of what the
other half, what you know what Imean Like there's something
else out there I would havenever even had known, yeah, so I
was lucky enough to getexposure to what else is
possible other than doing thesame thing over and over and
(09:17):
over again and being satisfiedwith it, and it enabled me to
bust out of that bubble, youknow.
And so I had nothing to lose.
When you say, you know courage,there was no fear, because I
didn't have any fear in losinganything.
You know, it's like I didn'thave a bunch of money that I was
trying to hold onto and hopethat I didn't lose it.
I just knew that I had theambition that I was gonna stay
(09:44):
on the treadmill longer than thenext guy, and it wasn't because
of my you know, it wasn'ttalent that was keeping me on
there, it was just pure grit andwill.
So, luckily, I ended up aftermany, many years of just trying
to figure this out.
I luckily ran into my businesspartners now, and they're my
(10:06):
best friends Jay Kinder and MikeReese.
They started sending me emailsand getting in my inbox in 2009.
This is coming right out of therecession, where I completely
lost.
Everything went broke.
I was with Remax trying to buildmy team, going deep into debt
Like I know a lot of peopleprobably listening to this if
you were in business in thoseyears, it was rough and I met
(10:30):
some great people in Mike andJay who made me think bigger.
They made me think differentlyabout my real estate business
and they really turned me into amarketer first and real estate
agent second.
One ended up happening is Inever had to worry about another
transaction.
It was I built systems that hadflows of business coming in
(10:54):
where I got off of that realestate roller coaster where one
month it's great and then thenext is bad, and so it just
really took one interaction, onegroup of people, that literally
can change everything, and so Iwould say that a lot of your
people like that are listeningto.
This is that if you're notseeing the level of success that
you know you can be achieving,then it's probably the circle
(11:17):
that you're hanging with on adaily and a weekly and a monthly
basis.
Change your circle up andyou're gonna change your results
.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I love that man.
I like that you're digging alittle further into what is
courage, and maybe there isn'tany fear and maybe it comes from
different places.
So you're talking about thegroup that you ran and you're
talking about leaving that groupthat only wanted to be here.
Do you think that maybe gettingalongside those people helped
you with the courage?
(11:46):
Because there's something thatyou did past that which they
didn't see, and so you weren'teven satisfied, nothing.
You weren't satisfied.
You were appreciative and youhad some great friends and they
taught you how to do systems andtaught you how to run a
business and so forth.
But then you went a little bitfurther, man.
You know, you went and didsomething that at the time a lot
of people, especially theseguys who were extremely well
(12:07):
respected.
You stepped outside of thatcomfort zone to go and explore
something that was verydifferent.
And so talk to us a little bit.
I wanna just keep digging intothat man.
So I think the sphere thatyou're in helped to build you,
and then you even went past thatman.
So talk to us a little bitabout that.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I think, when I'm thinking back to when I took my
remax team and I opened up anindependent brokerage I don't
like a racehorse has theseblinders on.
That's sort of how I grew mybusiness a lot I noticed that
once in a while, when I wouldlooking up and look around, I'd
see a lot of people comparingthemselves to other people and
(12:48):
luckily and I don't know why Ican't say here and tell you why
that I operated the way Ioperated but I never really did.
One of the best things I couldhave done was get out from the
circles around this ClevelandOhio area Not that there's bad
people here.
It's just that when I startedexpanding my circle to outside
(13:08):
of Ohio and I, you know, some ofmy best friends were living in
South Carolina, florida, texas,oklahoma, you know what I'm
saying Like I have to get on anairplane to go see them.
That's really when everythingchanged and when, you know, when
you talk about courage, Iremember someone saying to me
man, it took a lot of balls foryou to open up your own
(13:30):
brokerage.
That's ballsy, you know, and Ihonestly, I listened to them and
I was just observing what theywere saying and I honestly
didn't agree with them.
I'm like I don't think it takesa lot of guts to open up a
brokerage, like for me it wasn't, it was just the natural next
step.
I'm trying to solve a problem.
Usually that's what I'm alwaystrying.
(13:52):
I'm always trying to solve aproblem that would stop me from
getting from point A to point B,and if I can help myself solve
that problem and I can helpothers solve that problem, I'm
gonna get to my goal quicker.
Now all I saw was a problem inscaling my team, and when I was
(14:12):
with Remax which I love Remaxstill to this day, I love Remax
the brand was so good to me andI almost bought a franchise.
I liked it so much.
So it wasn't like I liked it, Iloved it.
I decided that there wasn'tenough value for me to pay the
$70,000, $80,000 in fees everyyear and it made sense for me to
just go independent.
It wasn't a courage thing, itwas just the next.
(14:35):
It just made the most amount ofsense that that was the next
step in my journey and I don'tlet, I guess in looking back, I
didn't let my ego get in the wayand if I did, I would have
never made the move because Iwould have been thinking what
are all these Remax people gonnathink of me leaving?
And if you're gonna get hung upon what other people are gonna
(14:57):
think about your moves, you'renever gonna hit your potential.
You will never hit yourpotential Because if what I just
said is true, then what thatmeans is that your potential has
a ceiling on it because you'reallowing what other people are
thinking about your move to getin the way or be a constraint
(15:20):
for you getting to your point Bquicker.
So stop thinking about that.
And I think that that littlemove of Moving my, my, my team
from a remix team to a smallindie brokerage Made it real
easy for me to look at exp,because I said, well, I have a
problem in scaling right now.
Well, what are those problems?
(15:40):
Well, a, I don't know how torecruit.
The proof that I didn't knowhow to recruit was I.
The most amount of agents I hadin my little indie brokerage
was 12, not 1200, like 12.
So I didn't know what theskills were.
I knew how to sell lots ofhouses with those 12 agents.
We sold over 300 ohms.
That part.
We have a check in the box.
(16:01):
Like, we know how to market.
We know how to get fine buyersand sellers and train ISAs and
all that stuff.
Like we, we Masterminded onthat and learn those skills, but
we did not a recruit.
So I'm looking for a solution Toa problem to scale my business,
and I was just open-mindedenough, thankfully, to look at
(16:22):
what are all of my options, whatare all the ways of solving the
problem?
And I think that more peopleare gonna see a higher level
success with their business,whether they're a solo agent,
whether they're a team leadertrying to grow their team, or
whether you're an independentbroker owner.
What are all the ways ofsolving your current problem
(16:44):
that you have that's stoppingyou to getting from your to your
B to your, your, your ultimategoal.
And if you're honest withyourself and if you leave your
ego to the side and you look atall of the ways, only then will
you, the enlightenment willhappen.
Where you can, I'm like okay,well, you know what?
I think I need to Say yes tothis until I have to say no like
(17:06):
is this the right thing for my,my agents, is this the right
thing for me and my family andmy trajectory and growing my
business?
For me, those answers were yes,when I, you know it was just
check, check, check, check.
When I saw the exp platform Atthat point it just became like,
okay, are you gonna let your egoget in the way of the right
(17:27):
decision or you just gonna makethe decision?
And it wasn't that difficult,so I don't know that it was
courage that made me move.
I think it was the desire tosolve a problem and not let
anything getting my way tosolving the problem mmm, there's
a couple different ways we cango with this, because there's
two things I see in there.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I see I see some justice.
You know we talked about itlike doing what is right, not
what is easy.
And what you really talkedabout there was hey, is this
good for my agents?
It might not be an easy thingbecause it's gonna be a change
and people don't like changeright even if even if they're in
a Place where they areuncomfortable, they're
comfortable with the discomfortbecause they know it.
(18:05):
You did something that youreally believed would help the
agency you're with.
So we know another brand outthere that talks about win-win.
But really is it a win-win whenyou have a franchise owner?
Right, like you did somethingwhere you gave up being a
franchise owner or not anindependent.
You gave up being anindependent where it was you and
(18:27):
you went and did something.
There were it was we.
So you talk about that a littlebit like I know there's some
justice in there, man, of likedoing what was right, not was
easy.
Was that, was it a heart?
And I know you talked about it.
It was maybe not a harddecision.
You're a problem solver, you'rea very I think you're very wise,
actually, and wise is learningfrom others.
You learn from.
You know.
You put yourself into a circlethat had more Information than
(18:50):
you had, had other ways oflooking at things.
So that is.
Hey, I'm putting my ego aside,you mentioned that, right, and
you did something that I thinkyou know my grandfather used to
say and I'm from New England man, so you smat if you weren't
learned from your mistakes, youwise if you learn from others,
and Right.
So, like you wanted to go andseek knowledge.
So there's the wisdom that youdeployed, and then there's some
(19:14):
justice.
So which?
Which way do you want to go?
Do you want to go with likethat?
What does wisdom mean to you?
Do you feel like there was somewisdom in that move that helped
your agents and you think mightbe some justice in there too?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
well, it's always easy to look backwards and say
that was a wise move.
If I'm being a hundred percenttransparent, I never threw my
signs away.
I did now, but I never threw mysense.
So my independent brokeragethat I had, I thought that was
it like.
When I opened the brokerage up,we celebrated and I was like
(19:50):
I'm here, like I felt like theholy grail.
It felt like there was nothingthat could stop me from reaching
all my goals and building thebusiness and building wealth and
and building investments and,ultimately, happiness I had, you
know, building a happy lifethat I don't feel like I need to
take a vacation from.
That's always been the goal andI thought.
(20:10):
I thought that that that wasthe North Star.
When I made the move, I didn'tthrow my signs away.
I kept them in storage becausein the back of my mind, although
it felt like it was the rightdecision, I wasn't a hundred
percent sure.
There was only four thousand,four thousand agents at the
company at the time.
(20:31):
We weren't in we we weren't in24 countries, we weren't even in
50 states.
We're in like 47 states.
At the time I remember WestVirginia was not open yet and
there was a couple that werejust not open, that were opening
, and we'd celebrate every timea new state would open, and so I
hung on to it.
But the what, what made me likeand this isn't.
(20:55):
This is so like generic and mydecision-making, you know, but I
really looked at it like this.
I said what's the worst thatcan happen?
Now, this is a you know.
I'm not saying that thateveryone should should make
decisions this way.
This is the way I made mydecision to leave.
When I decided to leave Remaxand go independent, I said to
(21:16):
myself what's the worst thatcould happen?
Okay, well, I could fall on myface and they're gonna welcome
me back to remax because I was agreat agent for them and real
good Relationship with thebroker owner.
They they ran a greatorganization.
I didn't leave them because Ididn't like them.
I left them because there wasan opportunity that if I stayed
there, I would not be able totake advantage of, and it was
(21:38):
just part of my growth journey.
When I, when I decided to closemy brokerage and merge it into
exp, I asked the same questionwhat's the worst that could
happen here?
Well, the worst that couldhappen is that this company was
a fraud and everything thatthey're telling me here was was
all BS and and my agents hate itand they're gonna, they're
(22:00):
leaving and I'm just gonna haveto go back and open my own
brokerage back up.
I'm like, well, I already didthat, let's hang on to the signs
.
This is a very neanderthal theway I made my decisions, but it
works for me because I truly,when I'm looking at like the
elimination of fear, it's howwe're able to make a decision, a
tough decision, a big decision.
(22:21):
You gotta eliminate the fear,and you're not gonna eliminate
it completely, but you have toeliminate it enough to be able
to make the decision, otherwiseyou never make it and a lot of
people find themselves in thatcomfort zone.
They find themselves stuck inthe comfort zone and I'm just
here to tell you there's I'venever had growth when I stayed
in my comfort zone.
(22:41):
I gotta get out of it.
So one way of figuring out andbeating fear whether you're
beating it with Courage, justice, wisdom, whatever it is is Look
at what's the worst casescenario.
What could, what could be theworst thing that could happen
here, and is that really thatbad?
Like a because because you're,you're, they're gonna live with
(23:02):
one or two regrets, right, the,the regret, what is it?
The regret of?
Of indecision, or or the regretof of too much discipline and
or or having them the gumptionto actually make make a big
decision, and Then, if thatdecision was wrong, you, you
have to look at well, okay, nowwhat?
I'll go ahead and look at thatscenario.
(23:24):
What if my decision was wrongto make the move?
And and that's not always thebest thing, because there's
there's another philosophy thatsays don't have a plan B, it's
plan a or die.
Yeah, and so I went all in onthe plan a.
Truthfully, if it would havebeen a flop, I could have opened
my bone, my brokerage back upagain, and will it would have
(23:47):
sent me back maybe six months,maybe would I have been able to
recover Absolutely andeverything would have been just
as good, but I would havelearned more and come out of it
better for it.
But it just so happened.
We were right that, glennSanford, it was everything you,
he, was promising it.
He came through.
And then some, and we, wefollowed we, we bet on the put,
(24:10):
we bet on the pony and the horseExcuse me, the, the jockey and
the pony.
We bet on them both and and itturned out to be the right bet,
and Not just for me, butliterally for tens of thousands
of ages that this has changedtheir life.
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Well, you've mentioned a great leader.
You know, glenn absolutely is.
And you know, one of the thingsthat comes up for me Is it as
you, as you talk about?
It's almost like you.
You're so pragmatic in yourapproach and you're so good at
bifurcating, saying, hey, thisis ego.
(24:48):
What is the worst thing thatcould happen?
We're literally back to theback, to the courage.
We're not talking aboutcharging machine on this.
All you were really risking wasyour ego.
Would you say that's correct.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
That's.
That's well.
That's better articulated thanI did.
I like it.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah, right, and and when you looked at that, you
were humble enough to say andyou're not a narcissist, when we
all get those tendencies, anarcissist, I heard the other
day and it was great Aha, sonarcissus really isn't all about
them.
A lot of narcissism is we carewhat other people think, and so
maybe you can dig into that alittle bit about hey, don't
(25:23):
worry about what other peoplethink.
I've made a good decision here.
I've got you talked about thepragmatic approach this, this,
this, those checks, all thoseboxes.
I make the decision, and youweren't worried what other
people would think.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
If, again, in pole transparency, I'm not gonna lie
and say I don't think about whatother people think I think
everybody does, mm-hmm, I thinkthe biggest growth I for me over
the last we could say 14 yearsfrom when I started working with
(26:03):
Michael and Jay and JohnKitchens and fast forward to
today is I have an awareness ofit and I'll catch myself.
The more that you put yourselfout there, the more you have to
practice the art of not caringwhat other people are thinking,
(26:26):
and I don't care who you are.
Everybody thinks about that,Even the biggest influencers I
don't like using that name, butthe successful entrepreneurs
that are out there, have onvideo have even said I gotta
check myself and stop worryingabout what these other people
(26:48):
are gonna think about the move.
So I believe that it's apractice.
I don't think that it'ssomething that you arrive at,
but I wrote this down.
I love doing these thingsbecause I learn as much as
anyone else does and I justwrote are you willing to risk
your ego?
Because what is really at risk?
Is it money at risk?
Sure, but can I always makemore money?
Yes, I think that the biggestrisk that we face in big
(27:13):
decisions and we may not know it, but it's time.
We're the only thing that'sreally risking like true, true
is time, and because we can'tget that back.
That's the one thing we can'tget back.
And I think if you practice theart of that awareness and you
(27:34):
start to catch yourself reelingin your own brain and you're
stuck in indecision because youjust won't make the decision, it
is really your fear of riskingyour ego.
I think you nailed it and Idon't even know if we went off
topic here, because I don'tremember what you if you had a
(27:55):
question.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Oh, it was kind of a loose question.
I love where you went with it.
I guess digging back into, Istill wanna keep going on your
courage, man, because you'resaying which is great, not
caring what other people think.
And the only thing at play here, really, if you don't care what
(28:17):
other people think is if youcare what other people think.
That is a lot of ego, right.
That is, what are they gonnathink of me?
What are they gonna get?
It's a stupid decision.
I totally respect them.
So I'd love you to dig intowhen you I wanna dig into this
story because I think that theaudience would appreciate your
perspective because it's such aunique one.
And we talked about influencersand I love how you just brought
(28:38):
up I don't like that termeither, but there is influence
that's out there, like ifVeronica has influence, I
recently made a big decisionthat had a lot to do with
Veronica because I trusted her,so she influenced me due to her
decision, because I respectedher and I think she's done a lot
of great things.
But I think the audience wouldlike I think it'd be a great
(28:59):
kind of look in here.
They love to kind of hearbehind the scenes, like what
happened there and I kind ofremember the story a little bit
about you saying to Jay, and Jaywas like I, I, I, EXP, and then
you said you said him down toFlorida and you said he's gonna
get him drunk, they're gonnatell him the truth, like I don't
wanna, I don't wanna get toomuch into it, but like that took
(29:21):
a lot of courage man.
And Jay God, you know he's oneof the more humble people I know
for giving what he's done right, cause he could be very, very
cocky and and you know, and youknow I know it all and he's just
not.
But in that particular instancecould you talk about that a
little bit, the inside storythere, like when you brought it
to Jay and that's where he was.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, yeah, and it's not a, it's not a simple story,
but, again, and I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna try to communicate
this, the story, to youraudience so that they can take
it and adapt it to, maybe, wherethey're at.
Because a lot of people askwell, you know, how did you, how
did you get to?
You know, or you know, honeyBadger Nation, our, our
(30:03):
organization, has over 13,500agents in it where we we serve
them by helping coach them everyweek and and this and that, but
how did it get there?
And it got there.
Primarily, I mean, the onething that we can point at is
that it didn't take five and ahalf years.
I've I've been with the companyfive.
(30:24):
It'll be six years in Augustthis is, we're recording this in
March 1st of 2023.
So in August it'll be six years.
But it didn't take us six years, it probably took us 20.
And it's because we startedbuilding our networks of friends
, connections, businessassociates, mentors, coaches,
(30:45):
people that we that influencedus into making decisions with
real estate, and then circlesthat we ran with and those
relationships we put the we'vebeen putting deposits in those
types of relationships in foryears, before we even knew that
AXP was a thing, and so I wentto Jay not to recruit him.
(31:09):
We were already in learner mode.
We were trying to figure out aproblem.
That problem was how do wescale our, our small independent
brokerage, and start to gainmomentum and and attract agents?
And then, you know, really,pair that with coaching and
partner with agents to help themgrow their business without
(31:29):
charging them a coaching fee.
That was Michael and Jay'svision.
Was called NAEA partner andthat was the.
That was the.
The journey we were going down,you know, like we were.
We were trotting on that ponyand what through when.
When you're, when you'revulnerable enough to open up to
the possibilities like thismight be the way, you're
automatically in learner modebecause we're trying to build
(31:51):
something as an entrepreneur.
It's a lot of hit and miss, youdon't.
You don't just sit there andhit singles and doubles and
triples and home runs.
You're striking out a lot andyou're having to get right back
there in the batter's box, learnfrom it and try to like
straighten it out.
Through that process, cliffFreeman brought me this platform
, this business platform that wecan move our business on to,
(32:12):
that we could scale it, which iswhat we were trying to do
anyway.
So when I brought it to Jay, Ididn't bring it to him cause,
honestly, I never thought theywould come.
I wasn't even.
It wasn't even a thought mymind that they would.
They would want to, becausethey were so so vested in an AA
partner and their goal was toget to 2000 partners by 2024.
(32:37):
Now this is back in 2015, 2016.
So that was their runway, right.
It was going to take them allthose years just to get to 2000
partners by 2024.
And we're at 13.5 before that.
So it was just me seeing it andsaying, hey, dude, will you talk
me off this ledge?
(32:58):
Literally like, just look atthis, give me your feedback and
tell me why I shouldn't do it,because you're it After this.
If you can't give me any goodreasons why I shouldn't bring my
brokerage over and startgrowing it this way, then I'm
doing it.
I'm transferring the licensesin two weeks.
I need you, as a friend, tojust tell me what I'm missing
here, because I can't.
(33:18):
For 60 days I beat this thing upand I can't poke a hole in it,
other than the fact that I haveto, you know, close my brokerage
down, move those agents over.
Little bit of a pain, no bigdeal.
I might have to rework myfinancial model a little bit,
but I'm willing to do all thatif it's the right thing to do
longterm.
What am I missing?
And he just said dude, you'renot missing anything.
(33:41):
I can't poke any holes in it.
This might be the best businessmodel ever, and so it probably
was the easiest.
To be honest, easiest personI've sponsored to the company
was because he was open toreceiving it.
You know, like I'm not superreligious, but I know that I was
raised Catholic.
I'm a recovering Catholic no,I'm just kidding, but I love
(34:02):
that.
You know.
The truth is that you couldhave the best preacher, the best
priest, but if you're speakingto an audience who's not open to
receiving it, then it's gonnafall on deaf ears.
But if they're open toreceiving it, then all the all
the difference in the worldhappens.
So we just happen to have theright moment in time where we
(34:23):
were open to receiving.
Is there a better way and Ithink that there's anything to
write down from your audience isthat that question?
Is there a better way?
Is there something I'm missing?
Am I open to it?
If there is one like if you'retrying to grow an indie
brokerage out there and you'restuck beating your head against
the wall, still going on listingappointments, opening up
(34:46):
lockboxes, you know?
Ask yourself, not, not thatthat's a bad thing.
I loved when I was in sales,but if, if you're bumping your
head up against the ceiling andyou're not figuring it out, I
had, I hate to tell you, butthere's probably a better way.
You just haven't found it yet,mmm.
So Are you open to finding it?
Some people don't want thebetter way.
They're good right there.
(35:07):
They want to stay right there,and there's nothing wrong with
that for them, but not for meand not for the people that we
like people like yourself.
Or we just think that there's abigger Opportunity than maybe
what's sitting there staring usin the nose.
You just have to date for it.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, I love that man .
Do you think so, within the, isthere a better way?
And there definitely is.
So there's an old saying wouldyou rather be happy or would you
rather be right?
If you're right, right is Iknow this is the best way and no
one's gonna tell me otherwise.
I might not make you happy, butyou're right.
(35:42):
So within that, maybe talk alittle bit about.
And you know, one of our greatfriends, mr Keller, there, talks
about identity and Do you thinksometimes, deep down, there's
like an identity, maybe for someof those independent brokerages
and and you didn't sound likeyou had it because you would
just want to solve a problem Iwant to scale.
I want to scale what's the bestway to do it?
(36:05):
I don't need to know, I justwant to know the best way.
So do you think that sometimesand that could be an independent
agent, could be someone thatdoesn't think?
I'm talking to a lot of peoplenow that, hey, they never
thought about joining a team,but I could show them that
there's so much more value, evenwith the splits within the team
, that it makes sense for themto do it Right.
So if you put your ego asideand say I never thought I'd be
(36:26):
on a team.
It's like, well, what do you?
You want to make more money, ordo you just not want to be on a
team, right, like, do you wantto be right or do you would you
rather be happy and make themoney that you want to make?
And if I can show you how to dothat, why wouldn't you look at
this?
So do you think that sometimesthat's maybe what holds a little
people back is that I gotidentity of, maybe I built
something and I and I have toomuch pride to kind of let it go
for it.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
It's probably one of the biggest, and you can you can
describe identity as ego, andright isn't that?
Wouldn't that be fair?
I think, I think, yeah, I thinkit's in there for sure.
Yeah, it's yeah, that identity,how, how you think of your
surroundings, are you part ofsomething that you're, you're
(37:07):
connecting with, like yeah,that's me.
And I Think with real estate ithappens all the time.
There are real estatebrokerages and I'm not here to
name names, but there's realestate brokerages that you would
consider a traditionalbrokerage that is operated the
same way that it was operated in1980, 1981, and they never
(37:32):
changed their model, you know,and they're still making it work
today somehow.
And I believe that In order forthem to make it work, they
still have to nail thecomponents of culture.
They're still has to besomewhat of a financial
Alignment with the agents,because they're it can go out
(37:54):
and get a better split somewhereelse, but yet they're still
staying.
Yeah and so I look at it from astandpoint of its, its identity.
I was literally just meetingwith one of my agents yesterday
for about an hour.
He was a team leader at one ofthese companies that I'm talking
about a very traditional olderschool model type of company and
came over and you know we aregoing through all the names of
(38:19):
people who this might help solveproblems, because this is
helping solve a problem for thisGentleman, hmm, and I started
going down the line of otheragents that were at that company
.
And he goes out, he'll neverleave, she ain't going nowhere,
and and then it just made mestart thinking to myself.
I wonder why he thinks that,even if it's true and it might
(38:39):
be true for some of them, someof them will never, never make a
move anywhere, ever, and butsome will.
What, what's what?
Why is there even that?
Like when you, when you thinkabout how absurd that actually
sounds, we're all independentcontractors.
You know what I mean It'd belike.
I Really really love chocolatebars, okay, and I have a
(39:01):
chocolate, say I had a chocolateaddiction.
I might have one, by the way, Ilike chocolate a lot, but let's
say I have one and I have anopportunity to buy.
This chocolate bar is such agreat chocolate bar, it's
amazing.
But it's five bucks and I canget Like the equivalent of two
of those chocolate bars for twodollars and it's even better
(39:23):
chocolate.
But I'm just gonna keep buyingthat.
There's really no common sense.
I'm gonna keep buying the sameone, even though I can get
double the amount.
Double said differently, doublethe value over here.
Yeah but I ain't going nowherebecause I'm just.
You know we see this with.
You know I Hate to say ourparents or whatever, but you
know our past generation.
(39:45):
They didn't like change.
They were, they were veryopposed to change and I think
that with this new generationit's just it's not that they're,
they're not even opposed to itthe new generation coming up,
it's part of how they wereraised changes happening all
over, whereas before it's justlike same old, same old.
(40:07):
We're gonna make it work and alot of Culture with real estate
comes from a low locality.
I'm up in Cleveland, ohio.
It's a, it's a very blue collar.
You know town, come from behind, you know Cleveland.
Versus the world type ofmentality, you know it's, it's
just, it's just, you know, andit's very old school.
So it's versus.
(40:29):
If we went down to say, likePhoenix, or I, you know I've
spoke all over the, the UnitedStates in in front of many, many
big crowds and the people thatthat, for whatever reason, like
down south, like Orlando, youknow, texas, louisiana, arizona,
like especially Phoenix, therethey're just more open-minded to
(40:51):
change and it's a culture thing.
It's not because they're betteror worse or anything like that.
But I could go into like Toledo, ohio no offense Toledo, but
ain't nobody.
They're digging their heels in,crossing their fingers and they
listening to nothing.
They don't care how much betterit's gonna be for their
family's financial wealth, theydon't care.
And and that's just a culturething.
(41:11):
I think you know you ain'tgonna change.
One person ain't gonna changethe culture.
It's got to be Multiple peoplethat are gonna, you know, change
an entire Community that's soused to doing the same thing
over and over again.
So make sure you're surroundingyourself with people who are
open to change, you know.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Look, let's dig into that a little bit more.
Heroes, we wrap up, man.
There's another philosophy thatI, that I've loved over the
years, and it's Buddhism, andthere's Buddhist.
Three noble truths are that.
The first noble truth is thatlife is suffering, and not so
much that you know it.
Suffering is inevitable, yetit's optional.
(41:55):
So that's the first noble truth.
There is gonna be suffering, no, no matter what.
And the secret within it to notsuffer is to understand that
everything will change.
So, if we understand thateverything will change, and then
the last noble truth is don'tget attached.
So if we're attached tosomething and then it changes,
(42:18):
we suffer.
So why not embrace change,which is what you're talking
about, right?
And then we, we thwart off thesuffering because we, we, we
embrace change, becauseultimately, we know that we
don't need to be attached tosomething, or that, hey, being
attached to something canactually make us suffer.
(42:38):
You think there's any truth inthat?
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Well, yeah, of course I just wrote that down too,
because back 30 years ago I didmy fair share of studying
Buddhism and I haven't dug backinto it, but you just reminded
me why I love the philosophy somuch in studying it and reading
it.
But yeah, I think we all, weall get attached and I think
(43:05):
that it's a we're victims ofcomparison, and I know that for
me I am right there, guilty ascharged.
Comparing myself, you know,kind of coming up in the
business, I was always lookingat the person, you know, at
first it was this little century21 office that I was working
out of and I was watching thetop agent over there make six
(43:27):
figures and I was barelycracking thirty thousand dollars
in my first year in commissions.
And and I said to myself, oh,my gosh, if I can only make a
hundred thousand dollars,comparing myself to the
essentially said saiddifferently, I'm, I'm, I'm
basically Making my happinessrely solely on only if I can get
(43:49):
to that.
And then I, when I got to that,then there was another thing
that I needed to make me happy.
Then it was like, oh, if I canonly make 250 thousand dollars,
and then that just kept going to500, to a million, then a
million and a half, and and sothen you know at what point?
At what point are you stopping,just just like you're gonna
(44:12):
stop attaching your happiness tothat thing?
The?
The book that I'm gonna refer toyou right now is I'm sure
you've probably read it as thegap in the game.
Yeah, I'm in the middle of itright now, thank you.
Oh, are you really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonnahighly recommend that book to
people and yeah, and I I lovereading you know, mainly
audiobooks, and and what I foundis actually reading it and
(44:36):
listening at the same time is itstinks in the most, but that
book is such it's probably oneof the best reminders of you
that you can do to have theawareness of not falling into
the trap of comparison hmm,because there's always gonna be
someone richer, unless you're,you know, jeff Bezos or Elon
Musk.
(44:56):
Right, there's always gonna besomeone that has more, and, and
it's an ugly trap to startfalling into the.
The good in it, though, is thatfor some, it would help them.
It helps you that that NorthStar that you're looking at it,
you, you know if, if you achieveyour North Star, you You're
gonna you know us highercheevers You're gonna need
(45:17):
another North Star.
So there, there is some good init, but I think I'm gonna go
back to the awareness thing isthat make sure that that isn't
the measure that you'remeasuring your success and
happiness off of, because, if Iwant you know, I can just be
Really raw right now and tellyou that they're probably
(45:40):
they're not probably, but ahundred percent true.
I've never made more and Keptmore income, been more
profitable, had more shinyobjects Ferrari, yacht, all this
stuff, multiple houses, and youknow I've hit times of, just in
the last couple months, thatI've fallen into depression.
So that's just the truth of it.
You know, and I've been I'vebeen a little vocal about it,
(46:02):
not much I.
I I moved my social media appsoff my home screen, the best
thing that I think I've done inI don't know how many years.
The downside to that is that mya lot of my business, you know,
is Predicated on my, mypresence on social media, but my
mental health was was numberone priority.
(46:22):
Over the last couple months.
I ended up falling playinghockey.
I, I play hockey and some othercrazy sports and I I tore my
rotator Cuff and had to getsurgery about six weeks ago and
and just threw out a lot ofdifferent little things With my
personal life and physical andstuff like this.
I felt myself Falling into asadness of depression and I'm
(46:45):
thinking I even said the Jjokingly.
I was like dude, there shouldbe zero reason why I should be
sad right now.
I don't know why I'm sad, butI'm sad right now, you know, and
I think that that's just.
If you're listening and thinkingthat, that, the, that, the nice
car and the, the, all, the,every vacation you could
Possibly want to go on, and aboat and all this, these are all
(47:06):
fun things.
Go out and get them if you wantthem.
I'm not telling you not to.
All's I'm saying is don't foolyourself into believe me that
that's gonna fix all yourproblems.
If you have shit, then you needto dig in and find the shit.
Okay, like it ain't gonna solveit.
In fact, what those things willdo if you have shit that you're
burying, is it just gonna coverit up and band-aid over it.
(47:28):
Well, it's good for a while,you know.
Go out.
Oh man, feel a little bummedout.
Go buy another car.
Great That'll, let'll hide itfor a minute, but it ain't
really.
It's not really gonna solvewhat you got going on in here.
I think solitude is somethingthat I'm learning to practice.
Something I've been terrifiedof has been solitude and you
(47:53):
know, after my divorce aboutthree, four years ago, I was
like terrified of being alone.
It's, it's actually the thingthat I actually really need more
of.
I need to go on more vacationsby myself.
I need to spend more days alonewith just me and my dog snoop
over there like I didn't need todo more of that, and Sorry for
going off on a tangent, but youknow, I think that, hey, maybe
(48:15):
this is helpful for people whoare putting false, false weight
into, in a materialistic, thingslike that.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Thank you, man.
Thanks for being so vulnerable,alby, because I think a lot of
people out there that do knowyou like oh man, he's made it
and he's got to be so great andthe yachts and all this stuff,
and thanks for being vulnerable,man and let people know that
that isn't bringing happiness.
And one of the things and I'mprobably gonna paraphrase it
poorly was a was a notion aboutAlexander the Great, and I'm
(48:48):
gonna again paraphrase it poorly, but it slipped through the
effect of and then Alexanderstood in dismay as there were no
more lands to conquer.
Yeah, you know, like someonewho had Basically conquered all
of the known world.
Yeah and when he got into Chinaand in a Mongolia and that and
(49:10):
literally to couldn't go anyfurther and he was sad.
Yeah, because and this isanother thing that I've been
ruminating on is what people areplaying sometimes in their mind
is a finite game.
Right, when I win the game, I'mgonna be happy.
(49:31):
And Then so many great athletesand folks like yourself that
have achieved success thatothers pursue Think that when
that moment occurs, happiness isgoing to be theirs.
But what they don't understandand back to the stoicism is that
the obstacle is the way.
It's the obstacle.
(49:52):
That actually is what you wantto continue to pursue and you're
a problem-solver, so, and youdo bring a lot of value to
people and all that.
I genuinely appreciate youbringing that vulnerability in,
and you know Simon Sinek talksabout.
You know, once you understandthat it's an infinite game,
there is no end, that then youcan find happiness in working
(50:16):
through those challenges andrealizing that those challenges
are the way.
That is the way to happiness,to To continue to overcome and
to find the next thing toovercome, and it's infinite,
there isn't gonna be an end of.
Like I made it.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
I just wrote that down.
What what it made me think ofearlier in this interview?
You were saying that I'mpragmatic and I believe that
you're you're right.
I've never thought about myselfthat way, but you probably drew
that conclusion by justlistening to me ran.
But the problem with beingpragmatic is what you just said
(50:53):
is that it's an infinite gameand If you think that it's a
finite meaning there's an end.
If you're pragmatic, thenyou're gonna constantly keep
running into walls ofunhappiness.
You know, saying so, that thatwas a big aha for me, man.
I think I need to Park it onyour, your, your couch more
(51:15):
often.
And you know, start with mychildhood.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Anytime, albie, come down to Florida.
Man, I got it.
I got a spare room.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Man, we'll shack you up and We'll be looking at, I'm
looking at homes in T T Westright now, in fact, my lender,
right we're texting right beforewe came on here and I'm we're
getting my pre-approval.
I'm gonna.
I think I'm making an offer onsomething.
Key West cool.
So that's.
I definitely know that warmthain't gonna solve all my
problems, but it'll solve acouple.
Up here in Ohio, february's notthe most fun, and neither's
(51:50):
January, and Sometimes even alittle bit of April.
But yeah, I'm looking, I'mlooking.
Florida is in my sights rightnow.
Brother, we're gonna be closerthan we are right now very soon.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Awesome, man.
Well, maybe we can smoke a cigartogether and and shoot the shit
a little bit more.
I know you have a meeting comingup and you give so much back to
our community and I do reallywant to thank you for that you
guys deliver just massive value.
And you know one of the thingsand again, this is an agnostic
thing, but I came for folks likeyou and back to your thing
about you know, glenn, you guyshave delivered more to me than I
(52:23):
could have asked for and so Iam eternally grateful to you
guys for all of that.
And I just want to say as well,man, thanks for taking time out
of your busy day to come anddeliver value to our audience.
You've delivered massive valuehere and I really appreciate,
really, really appreciate, yourmoments of vulnerability because
you know it shows people that,hey, you're human, you go
(52:45):
through the same stuff we do andthe shiny objects don't fill
you, and you've realized thatand you're aware of it and you
talk to people about it, likeyour friends of Jay and that and
man, I just I think youdelivered massive value and to
you I'm grateful for that, man.
Thank you, thanks, brother,appreciate you, alex.
All right, welcome everybody to another episode of
the Stoic Agent podcast.
Got a super amazing personatorview here and this is Al Stasik,
and Al's a good friend from ourcompany here, but obviously
this is a brand agnostic, butAl's a representant, as he would
, because he's got courage.
We're gonna dig into that alittle bit later, but welcome to
(00:20):
the podcast, alby.
Oh man, thanks for having meout, absolutely, man.
So let's dig right into it.
Man, you know I always like toget a background.
A lot of people know who youare.
Some of the people watchingthis evergreen might be two,
three, four years from now, whenyour vice president in the
United States, are gonna knowyou.
But what did you tell theaudience?
A little bit about yourbackground.
(00:41):
A lot of Gene Fredericks tellme about you.
Man.
What's been your journeythrough real estate specifically
, and maybe a little bit of yourlife and what brought you here.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Well, I've never been some big person that's spoken
on stages and stuff like that.
I was a small, just solo agent,started at Century 21 here in a
little Cleveland Ohio realestate office and I had been
going in and out of real estateoffices my whole life because my
dad was a part-time agent withC21.
(01:16):
He put on the gold coat, youknow, puzzled after his blue
collar job that he worked on thedocs and so I took a run at
college wasn't for me ended upgoing into trucking and the long
of the short of it was is thatI knew that I've always had the
(01:36):
ambition but I really justwasn't really surrounding myself
with the right environment,with the right people and I knew
that there was more to what Iwanted to do with my life than
work the docs and stuff likethat.
Not that that was a bad thing.
My dad actually, you know hewas a union doc worker and
(02:00):
retired, so to speak, on that.
And if I shared with you youknow what he after 31 years,
what he takes home every month.
It's below poverty level and soI didn't want that to be me.
I know that we need truckdrivers, we need doc workers.
I did my time in both of thosearenas and knew that at one
(02:22):
point there had to be more and Ididn't have a college education
.
It wasn't like I could go andget some six-figure salary
somewhere.
So I sort of landed in therealm of if I were to go sell
something, what would it be?
My dad was already in realestate.
I was going in and out of realestate offices and back in the
80s if anyone listening everpoked their head into a real
(02:47):
estate office in the 1980s it'snothing like what you're seeing
today With our you know ourmodern offices are.
You know, they're more fun,they're more vibrant, you have
better energy.
Back then it was very maledominated, very chauvinistic,
(03:07):
very old school you know, guyssmoking and drinking at their
desks and it just.
It wasn't a very you know,highly competitive too, which I
actually like.
That's.
The one thing that attracted mewas the competitiveness.
But I just went in, you know,knowing so little about the
business, blindly and justsaying you know what, I'm gonna
(03:30):
make this work or it's nothing,you know, like I really had
nothing to lose.
So I kind of turned in my CDL Iwas over the road truck driver
for a bit there, went into thereal estate school, took a part
time job as a collector until Icould get a couple of deals
under my belt.
And I will say this as acollector, I was making $19,000
(03:54):
per year salary and no bonusesthat you know any more money
than that.
I had to make on the weekends,working overtime, and it was
sort of a horrible job.
But what it did was I wascollecting on delinquent mobile
home mortgages and that when, inlooking back everything's you
know 2020, looking backwards itgave me the skills on the phone
(04:17):
that helped me excel, because Iwasn't afraid to pick the phone
up and get hung up on, because Iwas literally doing that every
day.
When I was collecting formobile home mortgages, I was
getting hung up on, called everyname in the book, and if you're
gonna, you know, make that asuccess, you have to be able to
water off, a duck back and keepgoing.
So I just sort of fell into thereal estate realm because I
(04:41):
didn't have anything else reallyto fall back on and I knew that
if I was gonna sell something,I wanted to be a high ticket
item and something that everyoneneeded.
So I checked both of thoseboxes and away I went.
That's how I sort of gotstarted, hmm.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Well, there's so much we can unpack in that man.
You know, when we were talkinga little bit off air about the
philosophies, you know, of thestoicism and this is the Stoic
Agent podcast and I was thinkingabout you before we were doing
this pod and I said, man, whatdo I think about when I think
about Albie?
And there's a lot of things Ithink about, but you know, the
biggest one man would be courage.
(05:16):
Like if you could talk to andyou alluded to it a little bit
here.
You know that you were afraidand the antithesis of that is
being afraid or being afraid butthen having the courage to move
through something because youknow there's something on the
other side that could be.
I was talking to Brent Gove theother day and said the
quintessential is like chargingthe machine gun nest.
Right, like that's courage.
(05:36):
Your life is literally on theline, you're afraid, but you're
doing it for a higher reason andso forth.
And we're not talking aboutcharging machine gun nest here,
but we're definitely talkingabout fear.
So one of the things again thatcame up was courage and what
you did, you know, with EXP, andagain, this is not about EXP
here per se, but it is aboutdoing something that you might
(05:57):
have been a little afraid ofbecause you talked about that
group.
I know you're with the guys,with Jay and Michael and those
guys that you looked up to.
You put yourself in that roomand they didn't.
You know, they kind of hadpoo-pooed, I think EXP and as
many have before they.
You know, take a look at it,but talk about that courage, man
, how did you work through thatfear of that other people hadn't
done it, and especially yourpeers and then to actually make
(06:20):
the move?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah.
So when you mentioned courage,the first thing that I thought
of is you know, is courage, youknow, really a real thing or is
it just lack of fear?
You know, I don't know, andit's probably both.
You know, but if we're gettingdeep on the stoic you know
podcasts I like going deep intoconcepts that I'm not familiar
(06:44):
with, and this is a concept thatI'm not super familiar with.
But I guess what I would say,alex, is that you know, when I
was kind of coming up, I didn'tknow enough to be fearful of
anything because I really didn'thave much to lose.
I know this is gonna sound likeI'm like maybe beating myself
(07:06):
up too much, but you know, I wasa bit of a loser, you know, and
what I mean by that, like inthe context of what I mean, is
that I was, I had really what Ithought was a great group of
friends, but none of them hadany ambition, nobody was pulling
me up.
In fact, the group I wassurrounding myself, they wanted
(07:27):
everyone to stay right down here, right in that comfort zone,
and you know I just couldn't.
There was something drawing methat I can't really describe to
you right now, that I knew therewas more for my life.
I was lucky enough.
I grew up in a blue collar towncalled Parma, ohio.
Everyone worked hard.
(07:47):
There was no one in that town.
If you're living or born oreven like being raised in Parma,
your folks you know you weren'treally privileged.
I mean there might have been avery small sliver of people that
inherited money or inherited abusiness.
Most of them were all bluecollar and so that's.
You know, that's how I wasraised.
(08:08):
However, I had some friendsthat had.
You know, their parents wereentrepreneurs and they saw
success.
One I'll just mention was theyowned a.
They bought a gas station.
This guy bought a gas station.
He was a mechanic.
He bought this gas station,grew it to a multimillion dollar
little enterprise in thislittle town that we that I grew
(08:30):
up on, from where it had, likeyou know, three or four pumps,
to a multimillion dollar carwash, 12 bays, a whole
restaurant built into it, likethey built an empire.
Growing up, they gave me a tasteof the good life.
You know they had a foe theyhad.
You know we have some islandsup here in Lake Geary, right on
Ohio's shores, and they call itvacation land and it is where
(08:54):
the wealthy go to play up here.
Now, we were not wealthy, so Inever got the play there, but
when I hung out with them, theygave me a taste of what the
other half, what you know what Imean Like there's something
else out there I would havenever even had known, yeah, so I
was lucky enough to getexposure to what else is
possible other than doing thesame thing over and over and
(09:17):
over again and being satisfiedwith it, and it enabled me to
bust out of that bubble, youknow.
And so I had nothing to lose.
When you say, you know courage,there was no fear, because I
didn't have any fear in losinganything.
You know, it's like I didn'thave a bunch of money that I was
trying to hold onto and hopethat I didn't lose it.
I just knew that I had theambition that I was gonna stay
(09:44):
on the treadmill longer than thenext guy, and it wasn't because
of my you know, it wasn'ttalent that was keeping me on
there, it was just pure grit andwill.
So, luckily, I ended up aftermany, many years of just trying
to figure this out.
I luckily ran into my businesspartners now, and they're my
(10:06):
best friends Jay Kinder and MikeReese.
They started sending me emailsand getting in my inbox in 2009.
This is coming right out of therecession, where I completely
lost.
Everything went broke.
I was with Remax trying to buildmy team, going deep into debt
Like I know a lot of peopleprobably listening to this if
you were in business in thoseyears, it was rough and I met
(10:30):
some great people in Mike andJay who made me think bigger.
They made me think differentlyabout my real estate business
and they really turned me into amarketer first and real estate
agent second.
One ended up happening is Inever had to worry about another
transaction.
It was I built systems that hadflows of business coming in
(10:54):
where I got off of that realestate roller coaster where one
month it's great and then thenext is bad, and so it just
really took one interaction, onegroup of people, that literally
can change everything, and so Iwould say that a lot of your
people like that are listeningto.
This is that if you're notseeing the level of success that
you know you can be achieving,then it's probably the circle
(11:17):
that you're hanging with on adaily and a weekly and a monthly
basis.
Change your circle up andyou're gonna change your results
.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I love that man.
I like that you're digging alittle further into what is
courage, and maybe there isn'tany fear and maybe it comes from
different places.
So you're talking about thegroup that you ran and you're
talking about leaving that groupthat only wanted to be here.
Do you think that maybe gettingalongside those people helped
you with the courage?
(11:46):
Because there's something thatyou did past that which they
didn't see, and so you weren'teven satisfied, nothing.
You weren't satisfied.
You were appreciative and youhad some great friends and they
taught you how to do systems andtaught you how to run a
business and so forth.
But then you went a little bitfurther, man.
You know, you went and didsomething that at the time a lot
of people, especially theseguys who were extremely well
(12:07):
respected.
You stepped outside of thatcomfort zone to go and explore
something that was verydifferent.
And so talk to us a little bit.
I wanna just keep digging intothat man.
So I think the sphere thatyou're in helped to build you,
and then you even went past thatman.
So talk to us a little bitabout that.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I think, when I'm thinking back to when I took my
remax team and I opened up anindependent brokerage I don't
like a racehorse has theseblinders on.
That's sort of how I grew mybusiness a lot I noticed that
once in a while, when I wouldlooking up and look around, I'd
see a lot of people comparingthemselves to other people and
(12:48):
luckily and I don't know why Ican't say here and tell you why
that I operated the way Ioperated but I never really did.
One of the best things I couldhave done was get out from the
circles around this ClevelandOhio area Not that there's bad
people here.
It's just that when I startedexpanding my circle to outside
(13:08):
of Ohio and I, you know, some ofmy best friends were living in
South Carolina, florida, texas,oklahoma, you know what I'm
saying Like I have to get on anairplane to go see them.
That's really when everythingchanged and when, you know, when
you talk about courage, Iremember someone saying to me
man, it took a lot of balls foryou to open up your own
(13:30):
brokerage.
That's ballsy, you know, and Ihonestly, I listened to them and
I was just observing what theywere saying and I honestly
didn't agree with them.
I'm like I don't think it takesa lot of guts to open up a
brokerage, like for me it wasn't, it was just the natural next
step.
I'm trying to solve a problem.
Usually that's what I'm alwaystrying.
(13:52):
I'm always trying to solve aproblem that would stop me from
getting from point A to point B,and if I can help myself solve
that problem and I can helpothers solve that problem, I'm
gonna get to my goal quicker.
Now all I saw was a problem inscaling my team, and when I was
(14:12):
with Remax which I love Remaxstill to this day, I love Remax
the brand was so good to me andI almost bought a franchise.
I liked it so much.
So it wasn't like I liked it, Iloved it.
I decided that there wasn'tenough value for me to pay the
$70,000, $80,000 in fees everyyear and it made sense for me to
just go independent.
It wasn't a courage thing, itwas just the next.
(14:35):
It just made the most amount ofsense that that was the next
step in my journey and I don'tlet, I guess in looking back, I
didn't let my ego get in the wayand if I did, I would have
never made the move because Iwould have been thinking what
are all these Remax people gonnathink of me leaving?
And if you're gonna get hung upon what other people are gonna
(14:57):
think about your moves, you'renever gonna hit your potential.
You will never hit yourpotential Because if what I just
said is true, then what thatmeans is that your potential has
a ceiling on it because you'reallowing what other people are
thinking about your move to getin the way or be a constraint
(15:20):
for you getting to your point Bquicker.
So stop thinking about that.
And I think that that littlemove of Moving my, my, my team
from a remix team to a smallindie brokerage Made it real
easy for me to look at exp,because I said, well, I have a
problem in scaling right now.
Well, what are those problems?
(15:40):
Well, a, I don't know how torecruit.
The proof that I didn't knowhow to recruit was I.
The most amount of agents I hadin my little indie brokerage
was 12, not 1200, like 12.
So I didn't know what theskills were.
I knew how to sell lots ofhouses with those 12 agents.
We sold over 300 ohms.
That part.
We have a check in the box.
(16:01):
Like, we know how to market.
We know how to get fine buyersand sellers and train ISAs and
all that stuff.
Like we, we Masterminded onthat and learn those skills, but
we did not a recruit.
So I'm looking for a solution Toa problem to scale my business,
and I was just open-mindedenough, thankfully, to look at
(16:22):
what are all of my options, whatare all the ways of solving the
problem?
And I think that more peopleare gonna see a higher level
success with their business,whether they're a solo agent,
whether they're a team leadertrying to grow their team, or
whether you're an independentbroker owner.
What are all the ways ofsolving your current problem
(16:44):
that you have that's stoppingyou to getting from your to your
B to your, your, your ultimategoal.
And if you're honest withyourself and if you leave your
ego to the side and you look atall of the ways, only then will
you, the enlightenment willhappen.
Where you can, I'm like okay,well, you know what?
I think I need to Say yes tothis until I have to say no like
(17:06):
is this the right thing for my,my agents, is this the right
thing for me and my family andmy trajectory and growing my
business?
For me, those answers were yes,when I, you know it was just
check, check, check, check.
When I saw the exp platform Atthat point it just became like,
okay, are you gonna let your egoget in the way of the right
(17:27):
decision or you just gonna makethe decision?
And it wasn't that difficult,so I don't know that it was
courage that made me move.
I think it was the desire tosolve a problem and not let
anything getting my way tosolving the problem mmm, there's
a couple different ways we cango with this, because there's
two things I see in there.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I see I see some justice.
You know we talked about itlike doing what is right, not
what is easy.
And what you really talkedabout there was hey, is this
good for my agents?
It might not be an easy thingbecause it's gonna be a change
and people don't like changeright even if even if they're in
a Place where they areuncomfortable, they're
comfortable with the discomfortbecause they know it.
(18:05):
You did something that youreally believed would help the
agency you're with.
So we know another brand outthere that talks about win-win.
But really is it a win-win whenyou have a franchise owner?
Right, like you did somethingwhere you gave up being a
franchise owner or not anindependent.
You gave up being anindependent where it was you and
(18:27):
you went and did something.
There were it was we.
So you talk about that a littlebit like I know there's some
justice in there, man, of likedoing what was right, not was
easy.
Was that, was it a heart?
And I know you talked about it.
It was maybe not a harddecision.
You're a problem solver, you'rea very I think you're very wise,
actually, and wise is learningfrom others.
You learn from.
You know.
You put yourself into a circlethat had more Information than
(18:50):
you had, had other ways oflooking at things.
So that is.
Hey, I'm putting my ego aside,you mentioned that, right, and
you did something that I thinkyou know my grandfather used to
say and I'm from New England man, so you smat if you weren't
learned from your mistakes, youwise if you learn from others,
and Right.
So, like you wanted to go andseek knowledge.
So there's the wisdom that youdeployed, and then there's some
(19:14):
justice.
So which?
Which way do you want to go?
Do you want to go with likethat?
What does wisdom mean to you?
Do you feel like there was somewisdom in that move that helped
your agents and you think mightbe some justice in there too?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
well, it's always easy to look backwards and say
that was a wise move.
If I'm being a hundred percenttransparent, I never threw my
signs away.
I did now, but I never threw mysense.
So my independent brokeragethat I had, I thought that was
it like.
When I opened the brokerage up,we celebrated and I was like
(19:50):
I'm here, like I felt like theholy grail.
It felt like there was nothingthat could stop me from reaching
all my goals and building thebusiness and building wealth and
and building investments and,ultimately, happiness I had, you
know, building a happy lifethat I don't feel like I need to
take a vacation from.
That's always been the goal andI thought.
(20:10):
I thought that that that wasthe North Star.
When I made the move, I didn'tthrow my signs away.
I kept them in storage becausein the back of my mind, although
it felt like it was the rightdecision, I wasn't a hundred
percent sure.
There was only four thousand,four thousand agents at the
company at the time.
(20:31):
We weren't in we we weren't in24 countries, we weren't even in
50 states.
We're in like 47 states.
At the time I remember WestVirginia was not open yet and
there was a couple that werejust not open, that were opening
, and we'd celebrate every timea new state would open, and so I
hung on to it.
But the what, what made me likeand this isn't.
(20:55):
This is so like generic and mydecision-making, you know, but I
really looked at it like this.
I said what's the worst thatcan happen?
Now, this is a you know.
I'm not saying that thateveryone should should make
decisions this way.
This is the way I made mydecision to leave.
When I decided to leave Remaxand go independent, I said to
(21:16):
myself what's the worst thatcould happen?
Okay, well, I could fall on myface and they're gonna welcome
me back to remax because I was agreat agent for them and real
good Relationship with thebroker owner.
They they ran a greatorganization.
I didn't leave them because Ididn't like them.
I left them because there wasan opportunity that if I stayed
there, I would not be able totake advantage of, and it was
(21:38):
just part of my growth journey.
When I, when I decided to closemy brokerage and merge it into
exp, I asked the same questionwhat's the worst that could
happen here?
Well, the worst that couldhappen is that this company was
a fraud and everything thatthey're telling me here was was
all BS and and my agents hate itand they're gonna, they're
(22:00):
leaving and I'm just gonna haveto go back and open my own
brokerage back up.
I'm like, well, I already didthat, let's hang on to the signs
.
This is a very neanderthal theway I made my decisions, but it
works for me because I truly,when I'm looking at like the
elimination of fear, it's howwe're able to make a decision, a
tough decision, a big decision.
(22:21):
You gotta eliminate the fear,and you're not gonna eliminate
it completely, but you have toeliminate it enough to be able
to make the decision, otherwiseyou never make it and a lot of
people find themselves in thatcomfort zone.
They find themselves stuck inthe comfort zone and I'm just
here to tell you there's I'venever had growth when I stayed
in my comfort zone.
(22:41):
I gotta get out of it.
So one way of figuring out andbeating fear whether you're
beating it with Courage, justice, wisdom, whatever it is is Look
at what's the worst casescenario.
What could, what could be theworst thing that could happen
here, and is that really thatbad?
Like a because because you're,you're, they're gonna live with
(23:02):
one or two regrets, right, the,the regret, what is it?
The regret of?
Of indecision, or or the regretof of too much discipline and
or or having them the gumptionto actually make make a big
decision, and Then, if thatdecision was wrong, you, you
have to look at well, okay, nowwhat?
I'll go ahead and look at thatscenario.
(23:24):
What if my decision was wrongto make the move?
And and that's not always thebest thing, because there's
there's another philosophy thatsays don't have a plan B, it's
plan a or die.
Yeah, and so I went all in onthe plan a.
Truthfully, if it would havebeen a flop, I could have opened
my bone, my brokerage back upagain, and will it would have
(23:47):
sent me back maybe six months,maybe would I have been able to
recover Absolutely andeverything would have been just
as good, but I would havelearned more and come out of it
better for it.
But it just so happened.
We were right that, glennSanford, it was everything you,
he, was promising it.
He came through.
And then some, and we, wefollowed we, we bet on the put,
(24:10):
we bet on the pony and the horseExcuse me, the, the jockey and
the pony.
We bet on them both and and itturned out to be the right bet,
and Not just for me, butliterally for tens of thousands
of ages that this has changedtheir life.
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Well, you've mentioned a great leader.
You know, glenn absolutely is.
And you know, one of the thingsthat comes up for me Is it as
you, as you talk about?
It's almost like you.
You're so pragmatic in yourapproach and you're so good at
bifurcating, saying, hey, thisis ego.
(24:48):
What is the worst thing thatcould happen?
We're literally back to theback, to the courage.
We're not talking aboutcharging machine on this.
All you were really risking wasyour ego.
Would you say that's correct.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
That's.
That's well.
That's better articulated thanI did.
I like it.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yeah, right, and and when you looked at that, you
were humble enough to say andyou're not a narcissist, when we
all get those tendencies, anarcissist, I heard the other
day and it was great Aha, sonarcissus really isn't all about
them.
A lot of narcissism is we carewhat other people think, and so
maybe you can dig into that alittle bit about hey, don't
(25:23):
worry about what other peoplethink.
I've made a good decision here.
I've got you talked about thepragmatic approach this, this,
this, those checks, all thoseboxes.
I make the decision, and youweren't worried what other
people would think.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
If, again, in pole transparency, I'm not gonna lie
and say I don't think about whatother people think I think
everybody does, mm-hmm, I thinkthe biggest growth I for me over
the last we could say 14 yearsfrom when I started working with
(26:03):
Michael and Jay and JohnKitchens and fast forward to
today is I have an awareness ofit and I'll catch myself.
The more that you put yourselfout there, the more you have to
practice the art of not caringwhat other people are thinking,
(26:26):
and I don't care who you are.
Everybody thinks about that,Even the biggest influencers I
don't like using that name, butthe successful entrepreneurs
that are out there, have onvideo have even said I gotta
check myself and stop worryingabout what these other people
(26:48):
are gonna think about the move.
So I believe that it's apractice.
I don't think that it'ssomething that you arrive at,
but I wrote this down.
I love doing these thingsbecause I learn as much as
anyone else does and I justwrote are you willing to risk
your ego?
Because what is really at risk?
Is it money at risk?
Sure, but can I always makemore money?
Yes, I think that the biggestrisk that we face in big
(27:13):
decisions and we may not know it, but it's time.
We're the only thing that'sreally risking like true, true
is time, and because we can'tget that back.
That's the one thing we can'tget back.
And I think if you practice theart of that awareness and you
(27:34):
start to catch yourself reelingin your own brain and you're
stuck in indecision because youjust won't make the decision, it
is really your fear of riskingyour ego.
I think you nailed it and Idon't even know if we went off
topic here, because I don'tremember what you if you had a
(27:55):
question.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Oh, it was kind of a loose question.
I love where you went with it.
I guess digging back into, Istill wanna keep going on your
courage, man, because you'resaying which is great, not
caring what other people think.
And the only thing at play here, really, if you don't care what
(28:17):
other people think is if youcare what other people think.
That is a lot of ego, right.
That is, what are they gonnathink of me?
What are they gonna get?
It's a stupid decision.
I totally respect them.
So I'd love you to dig intowhen you I wanna dig into this
story because I think that theaudience would appreciate your
perspective because it's such aunique one.
And we talked about influencersand I love how you just brought
(28:38):
up I don't like that termeither, but there is influence
that's out there, like ifVeronica has influence, I
recently made a big decisionthat had a lot to do with
Veronica because I trusted her,so she influenced me due to her
decision, because I respectedher and I think she's done a lot
of great things.
But I think the audience wouldlike I think it'd be a great
(28:59):
kind of look in here.
They love to kind of hearbehind the scenes, like what
happened there and I kind ofremember the story a little bit
about you saying to Jay, and Jaywas like I, I, I, EXP, and then
you said you said him down toFlorida and you said he's gonna
get him drunk, they're gonnatell him the truth, like I don't
wanna, I don't wanna get toomuch into it, but like that took
(29:21):
a lot of courage man.
And Jay God, you know he's oneof the more humble people I know
for giving what he's done right, cause he could be very, very
cocky and and you know, and youknow I know it all and he's just
not.
But in that particular instancecould you talk about that a
little bit, the inside storythere, like when you brought it
to Jay and that's where he was.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Yeah, yeah, and it's not a, it's not a simple story,
but, again, and I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna try to communicate
this, the story, to youraudience so that they can take
it and adapt it to, maybe, wherethey're at.
Because a lot of people askwell, you know, how did you, how
did you get to?
You know, or you know, honeyBadger Nation, our, our
(30:03):
organization, has over 13,500agents in it where we we serve
them by helping coach them everyweek and and this and that, but
how did it get there?
And it got there.
Primarily, I mean, the onething that we can point at is
that it didn't take five and ahalf years.
I've I've been with the companyfive.
(30:24):
It'll be six years in Augustthis is, we're recording this in
March 1st of 2023.
So in August it'll be six years.
But it didn't take us six years, it probably took us 20.
And it's because we startedbuilding our networks of friends
, connections, businessassociates, mentors, coaches,
(30:45):
people that we that influencedus into making decisions with
real estate, and then circlesthat we ran with and those
relationships we put the we'vebeen putting deposits in those
types of relationships in foryears, before we even knew that
AXP was a thing, and so I wentto Jay not to recruit him.
(31:09):
We were already in learner mode.
We were trying to figure out aproblem.
That problem was how do wescale our, our small independent
brokerage, and start to gainmomentum and and attract agents?
And then, you know, really,pair that with coaching and
partner with agents to help themgrow their business without
(31:29):
charging them a coaching fee.
That was Michael and Jay'svision.
Was called NAEA partner andthat was the.
That was the.
The journey we were going down,you know, like we were.
We were trotting on that ponyand what through when.
When you're, when you'revulnerable enough to open up to
the possibilities like thismight be the way, you're
automatically in learner modebecause we're trying to build
(31:51):
something as an entrepreneur.
It's a lot of hit and miss, youdon't.
You don't just sit there andhit singles and doubles and
triples and home runs.
You're striking out a lot andyou're having to get right back
there in the batter's box, learnfrom it and try to like
straighten it out.
Through that process, cliffFreeman brought me this platform
, this business platform that wecan move our business on to,
(32:12):
that we could scale it, which iswhat we were trying to do
anyway.
So when I brought it to Jay, Ididn't bring it to him cause,
honestly, I never thought theywould come.
I wasn't even.
It wasn't even a thought mymind that they would.
They would want to, becausethey were so so vested in an AA
partner and their goal was toget to 2000 partners by 2024.
(32:37):
Now this is back in 2015, 2016.
So that was their runway, right.
It was going to take them allthose years just to get to 2000
partners by 2024.
And we're at 13.5 before that.
So it was just me seeing it andsaying, hey, dude, will you talk
me off this ledge?
(32:58):
Literally like, just look atthis, give me your feedback and
tell me why I shouldn't do it,because you're it After this.
If you can't give me any goodreasons why I shouldn't bring my
brokerage over and startgrowing it this way, then I'm
doing it.
I'm transferring the licensesin two weeks.
I need you, as a friend, tojust tell me what I'm missing
here, because I can't.
(33:18):
For 60 days I beat this thing upand I can't poke a hole in it,
other than the fact that I haveto, you know, close my brokerage
down, move those agents over.
Little bit of a pain, no bigdeal.
I might have to rework myfinancial model a little bit,
but I'm willing to do all thatif it's the right thing to do
longterm.
What am I missing?
And he just said dude, you'renot missing anything.
(33:41):
I can't poke any holes in it.
This might be the best businessmodel ever, and so it probably
was the easiest.
To be honest, easiest personI've sponsored to the company
was because he was open toreceiving it.
You know, like I'm not superreligious, but I know that I was
raised Catholic.
I'm a recovering Catholic no,I'm just kidding, but I love
(34:02):
that.
You know.
The truth is that you couldhave the best preacher, the best
priest, but if you're speakingto an audience who's not open to
receiving it, then it's gonnafall on deaf ears.
But if they're open toreceiving it, then all the all
the difference in the worldhappens.
So we just happen to have theright moment in time where we
(34:23):
were open to receiving.
Is there a better way and Ithink that there's anything to
write down from your audience isthat that question?
Is there a better way?
Is there something I'm missing?
Am I open to it?
If there is one like if you'retrying to grow an indie
brokerage out there and you'restuck beating your head against
the wall, still going on listingappointments, opening up
(34:46):
lockboxes, you know?
Ask yourself, not, not thatthat's a bad thing.
I loved when I was in sales,but if, if you're bumping your
head up against the ceiling andyou're not figuring it out, I
had, I hate to tell you, butthere's probably a better way.
You just haven't found it yet,mmm.
So Are you open to finding it?
Some people don't want thebetter way.
They're good right there.
(35:07):
They want to stay right there,and there's nothing wrong with
that for them, but not for meand not for the people that we
like people like yourself.
Or we just think that there's abigger Opportunity than maybe
what's sitting there staring usin the nose.
You just have to date for it.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, I love that man .
Do you think so, within the, isthere a better way?
And there definitely is.
So there's an old saying wouldyou rather be happy or would you
rather be right?
If you're right, right is Iknow this is the best way and no
one's gonna tell me otherwise.
I might not make you happy, butyou're right.
(35:42):
So within that, maybe talk alittle bit about.
And you know, one of our greatfriends, mr Keller, there, talks
about identity and Do you thinksometimes, deep down, there's
like an identity, maybe for someof those independent brokerages
and and you didn't sound likeyou had it because you would
just want to solve a problem Iwant to scale.
I want to scale what's the bestway to do it?
(36:05):
I don't need to know, I justwant to know the best way.
So do you think that sometimesand that could be an independent
agent, could be someone thatdoesn't think?
I'm talking to a lot of peoplenow that, hey, they never
thought about joining a team,but I could show them that
there's so much more value, evenwith the splits within the team
, that it makes sense for themto do it Right.
So if you put your ego asideand say I never thought I'd be
(36:26):
on a team.
It's like, well, what do you?
You want to make more money, ordo you just not want to be on a
team, right, like, do you wantto be right or do you would you
rather be happy and make themoney that you want to make?
And if I can show you how to dothat, why wouldn't you look at
this?
So do you think that sometimesthat's maybe what holds a little
people back is that I gotidentity of, maybe I built
something and I and I have toomuch pride to kind of let it go
for it.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
It's probably one of the biggest, and you can you can
describe identity as ego, andright isn't that?
Wouldn't that be fair?
I think, I think, yeah, I thinkit's in there for sure.
Yeah, it's yeah, that identity,how, how you think of your
surroundings, are you part ofsomething that you're, you're
(37:07):
connecting with, like yeah,that's me.
And I Think with real estate ithappens all the time.
There are real estatebrokerages and I'm not here to
name names, but there's realestate brokerages that you would
consider a traditionalbrokerage that is operated the
same way that it was operated in1980, 1981, and they never
(37:32):
changed their model, you know,and they're still making it work
today somehow.
And I believe that In order forthem to make it work, they
still have to nail thecomponents of culture.
They're still has to besomewhat of a financial
Alignment with the agents,because they're it can go out
(37:54):
and get a better split somewhereelse, but yet they're still
staying.
Yeah and so I look at it from astandpoint of its, its identity.
I was literally just meetingwith one of my agents yesterday
for about an hour.
He was a team leader at one ofthese companies that I'm talking
about a very traditional olderschool model type of company and
came over and you know we aregoing through all the names of
(38:19):
people who this might help solveproblems, because this is
helping solve a problem for thisGentleman, hmm, and I started
going down the line of otheragents that were at that company
.
And he goes out, he'll neverleave, she ain't going nowhere,
and and then it just made mestart thinking to myself.
I wonder why he thinks that,even if it's true and it might
(38:39):
be true for some of them, someof them will never, never make a
move anywhere, ever, and butsome will.
What, what's what?
Why is there even that?
Like when you, when you thinkabout how absurd that actually
sounds, we're all independentcontractors.
You know what I mean It'd belike.
I Really really love chocolatebars, okay, and I have a
(39:01):
chocolate, say I had a chocolateaddiction.
I might have one, by the way, Ilike chocolate a lot, but let's
say I have one and I have anopportunity to buy.
This chocolate bar is such agreat chocolate bar, it's
amazing.
But it's five bucks and I canget Like the equivalent of two
of those chocolate bars for twodollars and it's even better
(39:23):
chocolate.
But I'm just gonna keep buyingthat.
There's really no common sense.
I'm gonna keep buying the sameone, even though I can get
double the amount.
Double said differently, doublethe value over here.
Yeah but I ain't going nowherebecause I'm just.
You know we see this with.
You know I Hate to say ourparents or whatever, but you
know our past generation.
(39:45):
They didn't like change.
They were, they were veryopposed to change and I think
that with this new generationit's just it's not that they're,
they're not even opposed to itthe new generation coming up,
it's part of how they wereraised changes happening all
over, whereas before it's justlike same old, same old.
(40:07):
We're gonna make it work and alot of Culture with real estate
comes from a low locality.
I'm up in Cleveland, ohio.
It's a, it's a very blue collar.
You know town, come from behind, you know Cleveland.
Versus the world type ofmentality, you know it's, it's
just, it's just, you know, andit's very old school.
So it's versus.
(40:29):
If we went down to say, likePhoenix, or I, you know I've
spoke all over the, the UnitedStates in in front of many, many
big crowds and the people thatthat, for whatever reason, like
down south, like Orlando, youknow, texas, louisiana, arizona,
like especially Phoenix, therethey're just more open-minded to
(40:51):
change and it's a culture thing.
It's not because they're betteror worse or anything like that.
But I could go into like Toledo, ohio no offense Toledo, but
ain't nobody.
They're digging their heels in,crossing their fingers and they
listening to nothing.
They don't care how much betterit's gonna be for their
family's financial wealth, theydon't care.
And and that's just a culturething.
(41:11):
I think you know you ain'tgonna change.
One person ain't gonna changethe culture.
It's got to be Multiple peoplethat are gonna, you know, change
an entire Community that's soused to doing the same thing
over and over again.
So make sure you're surroundingyourself with people who are
open to change, you know.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Look, let's dig into that a little bit more.
Heroes, we wrap up, man.
There's another philosophy thatI, that I've loved over the
years, and it's Buddhism, andthere's Buddhist.
Three noble truths are that.
The first noble truth is thatlife is suffering, and not so
much that you know it.
Suffering is inevitable, yetit's optional.
(41:55):
So that's the first noble truth.
There is gonna be suffering, no, no matter what.
And the secret within it to notsuffer is to understand that
everything will change.
So, if we understand thateverything will change, and then
the last noble truth is don'tget attached.
So if we're attached tosomething and then it changes,
(42:18):
we suffer.
So why not embrace change,which is what you're talking
about, right?
And then we, we thwart off thesuffering because we, we, we
embrace change, becauseultimately, we know that we
don't need to be attached tosomething, or that, hey, being
attached to something canactually make us suffer.
(42:38):
You think there's any truth inthat?
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Well, yeah, of course I just wrote that down too,
because back 30 years ago I didmy fair share of studying
Buddhism and I haven't dug backinto it, but you just reminded
me why I love the philosophy somuch in studying it and reading
it.
But yeah, I think we all, weall get attached and I think
(43:05):
that it's a we're victims ofcomparison, and I know that for
me I am right there, guilty ascharged.
Comparing myself, you know,kind of coming up in the
business, I was always lookingat the person, you know, at
first it was this little century21 office that I was working
out of and I was watching thetop agent over there make six
(43:27):
figures and I was barelycracking thirty thousand dollars
in my first year in commissions.
And and I said to myself, oh,my gosh, if I can only make a
hundred thousand dollars,comparing myself to the
essentially said saiddifferently, I'm, I'm, I'm
basically Making my happinessrely solely on only if I can get
(43:49):
to that.
And then I, when I got to that,then there was another thing
that I needed to make me happy.
Then it was like, oh, if I canonly make 250 thousand dollars,
and then that just kept going to500, to a million, then a
million and a half, and and sothen you know at what point?
At what point are you stopping,just just like you're gonna
(44:12):
stop attaching your happiness tothat thing?
The?
The book that I'm gonna refer toyou right now is I'm sure
you've probably read it as thegap in the game.
Yeah, I'm in the middle of itright now, thank you.
Oh, are you really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonnahighly recommend that book to
people and yeah, and I I lovereading you know, mainly
audiobooks, and and what I foundis actually reading it and
(44:36):
listening at the same time is itstinks in the most, but that
book is such it's probably oneof the best reminders of you
that you can do to have theawareness of not falling into
the trap of comparison hmm,because there's always gonna be
someone richer, unless you're,you know, jeff Bezos or Elon
Musk.
(44:56):
Right, there's always gonna besomeone that has more, and, and
it's an ugly trap to startfalling into the.
The good in it, though, is thatfor some, it would help them.
It helps you that that NorthStar that you're looking at it,
you, you know if, if you achieveyour North Star, you You're
gonna you know us highercheevers You're gonna need
(45:17):
another North Star.
So there, there is some good init, but I think I'm gonna go
back to the awareness thing isthat make sure that that isn't
the measure that you'remeasuring your success and
happiness off of, because, if Iwant you know, I can just be
Really raw right now and tellyou that they're probably
(45:40):
they're not probably, but ahundred percent true.
I've never made more and Keptmore income, been more
profitable, had more shinyobjects Ferrari, yacht, all this
stuff, multiple houses, and youknow I've hit times of, just in
the last couple months, thatI've fallen into depression.
So that's just the truth of it.
You know, and I've been I'vebeen a little vocal about it,
(46:02):
not much I.
I I moved my social media appsoff my home screen, the best
thing that I think I've done inI don't know how many years.
The downside to that is that mya lot of my business, you know,
is Predicated on my, mypresence on social media, but my
mental health was was numberone priority.
(46:22):
Over the last couple months.
I ended up falling playinghockey.
I, I play hockey and some othercrazy sports and I I tore my
rotator Cuff and had to getsurgery about six weeks ago and
and just threw out a lot ofdifferent little things With my
personal life and physical andstuff like this.
I felt myself Falling into asadness of depression and I'm
(46:45):
thinking I even said the Jjokingly.
I was like dude, there shouldbe zero reason why I should be
sad right now.
I don't know why I'm sad, butI'm sad right now, you know, and
I think that that's just.
If you're listening and thinkingthat, that, the, that, the nice
car and the, the, all, the,every vacation you could
Possibly want to go on, and aboat and all this, these are all
(47:06):
fun things.
Go out and get them if you wantthem.
I'm not telling you not to.
All's I'm saying is don't foolyourself into believe me that
that's gonna fix all yourproblems.
If you have shit, then you needto dig in and find the shit.
Okay, like it ain't gonna solveit.
In fact, what those things willdo if you have shit that you're
burying, is it just gonna coverit up and band-aid over it.
(47:28):
Well, it's good for a while,you know.
Go out.
Oh man, feel a little bummedout.
Go buy another car.
Great That'll, let'll hide itfor a minute, but it ain't
really.
It's not really gonna solvewhat you got going on in here.
I think solitude is somethingthat I'm learning to practice.
Something I've been terrifiedof has been solitude and you
(47:53):
know, after my divorce aboutthree, four years ago, I was
like terrified of being alone.
It's, it's actually the thingthat I actually really need more
of.
I need to go on more vacationsby myself.
I need to spend more days alonewith just me and my dog snoop
over there like I didn't need todo more of that, and Sorry for
going off on a tangent, but youknow, I think that, hey, maybe
(48:15):
this is helpful for people whoare putting false, false weight
into, in a materialistic, thingslike that.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Thank you, man.
Thanks for being so vulnerable,alby, because I think a lot of
people out there that do knowyou like oh man, he's made it
and he's got to be so great andthe yachts and all this stuff,
and thanks for being vulnerable,man and let people know that
that isn't bringing happiness.
And one of the things and I'mprobably gonna paraphrase it
poorly was a was a notion aboutAlexander the Great, and I'm
(48:48):
gonna again paraphrase it poorly, but it slipped through the
effect of and then Alexanderstood in dismay as there were no
more lands to conquer.
Yeah, you know, like someonewho had Basically conquered all
of the known world.
Yeah and when he got into Chinaand in a Mongolia and that and
(49:10):
literally to couldn't go anyfurther and he was sad.
Yeah, because and this isanother thing that I've been
ruminating on is what people areplaying sometimes in their mind
is a finite game.
Right, when I win the game, I'mgonna be happy.
(49:31):
And Then so many great athletesand folks like yourself that
have achieved success thatothers pursue Think that when
that moment occurs, happiness isgoing to be theirs.
But what they don't understandand back to the stoicism is that
the obstacle is the way.
It's the obstacle.
(49:52):
That actually is what you wantto continue to pursue and you're
a problem-solver, so, and youdo bring a lot of value to
people and all that.
I genuinely appreciate youbringing that vulnerability in,
and you know Simon Sinek talksabout.
You know, once you understandthat it's an infinite game,
there is no end, that then youcan find happiness in working
(50:16):
through those challenges andrealizing that those challenges
are the way.
That is the way to happiness,to To continue to overcome and
to find the next thing toovercome, and it's infinite,
there isn't gonna be an end of.
Like I made it.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
I just wrote that down.
What what it made me think ofearlier in this interview?
You were saying that I'mpragmatic and I believe that
you're you're right.
I've never thought about myselfthat way, but you probably drew
that conclusion by justlistening to me ran.
But the problem with beingpragmatic is what you just said
(50:53):
is that it's an infinite gameand If you think that it's a
finite meaning there's an end.
If you're pragmatic, thenyou're gonna constantly keep
running into walls ofunhappiness.
You know, saying so, that thatwas a big aha for me, man.
I think I need to Park it onyour, your, your couch more
(51:15):
often.
And you know, start with mychildhood.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Anytime, albie, come down to Florida.
Man, I got it.
I got a spare room.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Man, we'll shack you up and We'll be looking at, I'm
looking at homes in T T Westright now, in fact, my lender,
right we're texting right beforewe came on here and I'm we're
getting my pre-approval.
I'm gonna.
I think I'm making an offer onsomething.
Key West cool.
So that's.
I definitely know that warmthain't gonna solve all my
problems, but it'll solve acouple.
Up here in Ohio, february's notthe most fun, and neither's
(51:50):
January, and Sometimes even alittle bit of April.
But yeah, I'm looking, I'mlooking.
Florida is in my sights rightnow.
Brother, we're gonna be closerthan we are right now very soon.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Awesome, man.
Well, maybe we can smoke a cigartogether and and shoot the shit
a little bit more.
I know you have a meeting comingup and you give so much back to
our community and I do reallywant to thank you for that you
guys deliver just massive value.
And you know one of the thingsand again, this is an agnostic
thing, but I came for folks likeyou and back to your thing
about you know, glenn, you guyshave delivered more to me than I
(52:23):
could have asked for and so Iam eternally grateful to you
guys for all of that.
And I just want to say as well,man, thanks for taking time out
of your busy day to come anddeliver value to our audience.
You've delivered massive valuehere and I really appreciate,
really, really appreciate, yourmoments of vulnerability because
you know it shows people that,hey, you're human, you go
(52:45):
through the same stuff we do andthe shiny objects don't fill
you, and you've realized thatand you're aware of it and you
talk to people about it, likeyour friends of Jay and that and
man, I just I think youdelivered massive value and to
you I'm grateful for that, man.
Thank you, thanks, brother,appreciate you, alex.
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