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.
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.
All right, welcome everybody to another episode of the Stoic Agent podcast. Got a super amazing personator view here and this is Al Stasik, and Al's a good friend from our company here, but obviously this is a brand agnostic, but Al's a representant, as he would, because he's got courage. We're gonna dig into that a little bit later, but welcome to the podcast, alby. Oh man, thanks for having me out, absolutely, man. So let's dig right into it. Man, you know I always like to get a background. A lot of people know who you are. Some of the people watching this evergreen might be two, three, four years from now, when your vice president in the United States, are gonna know you. But what did you tell the audience? A little bit about your background. A lot of Gene Fredericks tell me about you. Man. What's been your journey through real estate specifically, and maybe a little bit of your life and what brought you here.
Speaker 2: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 real estate office and I had been going in and out of real estate offices my whole life because my dad was a part-time agent with C21. He put on the gold coat, you know, puzzled after his blue collar job that he worked on the docs and so I took a run at college wasn't for me ended up going into trucking and the long of the short of it was is that I knew that I've always had the ambition but I really just wasn't really surrounding myself with the right environment, with the right people and I knew that there was more to what I wanted to do with my life than work the docs and stuff like that. Not that that was a bad thing. My dad actually, you know he was a union doc worker and retired, so to speak, on that. And if I shared with you you know what he after 31 years, what he takes home every month. It's below poverty level and so I didn't want that to be me. I know that we need truck drivers, we need doc workers. I did my time in both of those arenas and knew that at one point there had to be more and I didn't have a college education. It wasn't like I could go and get some six-figure salary somewhere. So I sort of landed in the realm of if I were to go sell something, what would it be? My dad was already in real estate.
Speaker 2:I was going in and out of real estate offices and back in the 80s if anyone listening ever poked their head into a real estate office in the 1980s it's nothing like what you're seeing today With our you know our modern offices are. You know, they're more fun, they're more vibrant, you have better energy. Back then it was very male dominated, very chauvinistic, very old school you know, guys smoking 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 me was the competitiveness. But I just went in, you know, knowing so little about the business, blindly and just saying you know what, I'm gonna make this work or it's nothing, you know, like I really had nothing to lose. So I kind of turned in my CDL I was over the road truck driver for a bit there, went into the real estate school, took a part time job as a collector until I could get a couple of deals under my belt.
Speaker 2:And I will say this as a collector, I was making $19,000 per year salary and no bonuses that you know any more money than that.
Speaker 2:I had to make on the weekends, working overtime, and it was sort of a horrible job. But what it did was I was collecting on delinquent mobile home mortgages and that when, in looking back everything's you know 2020, looking backwards it gave me the skills on the phone that helped me excel, because I wasn't afraid to pick the phone up and get hung up on, because I was literally doing that every day. When I was collecting for mobile home mortgages, I was getting hung up on, called every name in the book, and if you're gonna, you know, make that a success, you have to be able to water off, a duck back and keep going. So I just sort of fell into the real estate realm because I didn't have anything else really to fall back on and I knew that if I was gonna sell something, I wanted to be a high ticket item and something that everyone needed. So I checked both of those boxes and away I went. That's how I sort of got started, hmm.
Speaker 1:Well, there's so much we can unpack in that man. You know, when we were talking a little bit off air about the philosophies, you know, of the stoicism and this is the Stoic Agent podcast and I was thinking about you before we were doing this pod and I said, man, what do I think about when I think about Albie? And there's a lot of things I think about, but you know, the biggest one man would be courage. Like if you could talk to and you alluded to it a little bit here. You know that you were afraid and the antithesis of that is being afraid or being afraid but then having the courage to move through something because you know there's something on the other side that could be.
Speaker 1:I was talking to Brent Gove the other day and said the quintessential is like charging the machine gun nest. Right, like that's courage. Your life is literally on the line, you're afraid, but you're doing it for a higher reason and so forth. And we're not talking about charging machine gun nest here, but we're definitely talking about fear. So one of the things again that came up was courage and what you did, you know, with EXP, and again, this is not about EXP here per se, but it is about doing something that you might have been a little afraid of because 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 room and they didn't. You know, they kind of had poo-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 that fear of that other people hadn't done it, and especially your peers and then to actually make the move?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when you mentioned courage, the first thing that I thought of is you know, is courage, you know, really a real thing or is it just lack of fear? You know, I don't know, and it's probably both. You know, but if we're getting deep on the stoic you know podcasts I like going deep into concepts that I'm not familiar with, and this is a concept that I'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't know enough to be fearful of anything because I really didn't have much to lose. I know this is gonna sound like I'm like maybe beating myself up too much, but you know, I was a bit of a loser, you know, and what I mean by that, like in the context of what I mean, is that I was, I had really what I thought was a great group of friends, but none of them had any ambition, nobody was pulling me up. In fact, the group I was surrounding myself, they wanted everyone to stay right down here, right in that comfort zone, and you know I just couldn't. There was something drawing me that I can't really describe to you right now, that I knew there was more for my life.
Speaker 2:I was lucky enough. I grew up in a blue collar town called Parma, ohio. Everyone worked hard. There was no one in that town. If you're living or born or even like being raised in Parma, your folks you know you weren't really privileged. I mean there might have been a very small sliver of people that inherited money or inherited a business. Most of them were all blue collar and so that's. You know, that's how I was raised. However, I had some friends that had. You know, their parents were entrepreneurs and they saw success.
Speaker 2:One I'll just mention was they owned 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 this little town that we that I grew up on, from where it had, like you know, three or four pumps, to a multimillion dollar car wash, 12 bays, a whole restaurant built into it, like they built an empire.
Speaker 2:Growing up, they gave me a taste of the good life. You know they had a foe they had. You know we have some islands up here in Lake Geary, right on Ohio's shores, and they call it vacation land and it is where the wealthy go to play up here. Now, we were not wealthy, so I never got the play there, but when I hung out with them, they gave me a taste of what the other half, what you know what I mean Like there's something else out there I would have never even had known, yeah, so I was lucky enough to get exposure to what else is possible other than doing the same thing over and over and over again and being satisfied with it, and it enabled me to bust out of that bubble, you know.
Speaker 2: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 losing anything. You know, it's like I didn't have a bunch of money that I was trying to hold onto and hope that I didn't lose it. I just knew that I had the ambition that I was gonna stay on the treadmill longer than the next guy, and it wasn't because of my you know, it wasn't talent that was keeping me on there, it was just pure grit and will. So, luckily, I ended up after many, many years of just trying to figure this out. I luckily ran into my business partners now, and they're my best friends Jay Kinder and Mike Reese. They started sending me emails and getting in my inbox in 2009.
Speaker 2:This is coming right out of the recession, where I completely lost.
Speaker 2:Everything went broke.
Speaker 2:I was with Remax trying to build my team, going deep into debt Like I know a lot of people probably listening to this if you were in business in those years, it was rough and I met some great people in Mike and Jay who made me think bigger.
Speaker 2:They made me think differently about my real estate business and they really turned me into a marketer first and real estate agent second. One ended up happening is I never had to worry about another transaction. It was I built systems that had flows of business coming in where I got off of that real estate roller coaster where one month it's great and then the next is bad, and so it just really took one interaction, one group of people, that literally can change everything, and so I would say that a lot of your people like that are listening to. This is that if you're not seeing the level of success that you know you can be achieving, then it's probably the circle that you're hanging with on a daily and a weekly and a monthly basis. Change your circle up and you're gonna change your results.
Speaker 1:I love that man. I like that you're digging a little further into what is courage, and maybe there isn't any fear and maybe it comes from different places. So you're talking about the group that you ran and you're talking about leaving that group that only wanted to be here. Do you think that maybe getting alongside those people helped you with the courage? Because there's something that you did past that which they didn't see, and so you weren't even satisfied, nothing. You weren't satisfied. You were appreciative and you had some great friends and they taught you how to do systems and taught you how to run a business and so forth.
Speaker 1:But then you went a little bit further, man. You know, you went and did something that at the time a lot of people, especially these guys who were extremely well respected. You stepped outside of that comfort zone to go and explore something that was very different. And so talk to us a little bit. I wanna just keep digging into that man. So I think the sphere that you're in helped to build you, and then you even went past that man. So talk to us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:I think, when I'm thinking back to when I took my remax team and I opened up an independent brokerage I don't like a racehorse has these blinders on. That's sort of how I grew my business a lot I noticed that once in a while, when I would looking up and look around, I'd see a lot of people comparing themselves to other people and luckily and I don't know why I can't say here and tell you why that I operated the way I operated but I never really did. One of the best things I could have done was get out from the circles around this Cleveland Ohio area Not that there's bad people here. It's just that when I started expanding my circle to outside of Ohio and I, you know, some of my best friends were living in South Carolina, florida, texas, oklahoma, you know what I'm saying Like I have to get on an airplane to go see them. That's really when everything changed and when, you know, when you talk about courage, I remember someone saying to me man, it took a lot of balls for you to open up your own brokerage. That's ballsy, you know, and I honestly, I listened to them and I was just observing what they were saying and I honestly didn't agree with them. I'm like I don't think it takes a lot of guts to open up a brokerage, like for me it wasn't, it was just the natural next step.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to solve a problem. Usually that's what I'm always trying. I'm always trying to solve a problem that would stop me from getting from point A to point B, and if I can help myself solve that problem and I can help others solve that problem, I'm gonna get to my goal quicker. Now all I saw was a problem in scaling my team, and when I was with Remax which I love Remax still to this day, I love Remax the brand was so good to me and I almost bought a franchise. I liked it so much. So it wasn't like I liked it, I loved it. I decided that there wasn't enough value for me to pay the $70,000, $80,000 in fees every year and it made sense for me to just go independent. It wasn't a courage thing, it was just the next. It just made the most amount of sense that that was the next step in my journey and I don't let, I guess in looking back, I didn't let my ego get in the way and if I did, I would have never made the move because I would have been thinking what are all these Remax people gonna think of me leaving? And if you're gonna get hung up on what other people are gonna think about your moves, you're never gonna hit your potential. You will never hit your potential Because if what I just said is true, then what that means is that your potential has a ceiling on it because you're allowing what other people are thinking about your move to get in the way or be a constraint for you getting to your point B quicker. So stop thinking about that. And I think that that little move of Moving my, my, my team from a remix team to a small indie brokerage Made it real easy for me to look at exp, because I said, well, I have a problem in scaling right now.
Speaker 2:Well, what are those problems? Well, a, I don't know how to recruit. The proof that I didn't know how to recruit was I. The most amount of agents I had in my little indie brokerage was 12, not 1200, like 12. So I didn't know what the skills were. I knew how to sell lots of houses with those 12 agents. We sold over 300 ohms. That part. We have a check in the box. Like, we know how to market. We know how to get fine buyers and sellers and train ISAs and all that stuff. Like we, we Masterminded on that and learn those skills, but we did not a recruit.
Speaker 2:So I'm looking for a solution To a problem to scale my business, and I was just open-minded enough, thankfully, to look at what are all of my options, what are all the ways of solving the problem? And I think that more people are gonna see a higher level success with their business, whether they're a solo agent, whether they're a team leader trying to grow their team, or whether you're an independent broker owner. What are all the ways of solving your current problem that you have that's stopping you to getting from your to your B to your, your, your ultimate goal. And if you're honest with yourself and if you leave your ego to the side and you look at all of the ways, only then will you, the enlightenment will happen. Where you can, I'm like okay, well, you know what? I think I need to Say yes to this until I have to say no like is this the right thing for my, my agents, is this the right thing for me and my family and my trajectory and growing my business?
Speaker 2:For me, those answers were yes, when I, you know it was just check, check, check, check. When I saw the exp platform At that point it just became like, okay, are you gonna let your ego get in the way of the right decision or you just gonna make the 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 to solve a problem and not let anything getting my way to solving the problem mmm, there's a couple different ways we can go with this, because there's two things I see in there.
Speaker 1:I see I see some justice. You know we talked about it like doing what is right, not what is easy. And what you really talked about there was hey, is this good for my agents? It might not be an easy thing because it's gonna be a change and people don't like change right even if even if they're in a Place where they are uncomfortable, they're comfortable with the discomfort because they know it. You did something that you really believed would help the agency you're with. So we know another brand out there that talks about win-win. But really is it a win-win when you have a franchise owner? Right, like you did something where you gave up being a franchise owner or not an independent. You gave up being an independent where it was you and you went and did something. There were it was we. So you talk about that a little bit like I know there's some justice in there, man, of like doing what was right, not was easy. Was that, was it a heart? And I know you talked about it. It was maybe not a hard decision.
Speaker 1:You're a problem solver, you're a very I think you're very wise, actually, and wise is learning from others. You learn from. You know. You put yourself into a circle that had more Information than you had, had other ways of looking at things. So that is. Hey, I'm putting my ego aside, you mentioned that, right, and you did something that I think you know my grandfather used to say and I'm from New England man, so you smat if you weren't learned from your mistakes, you wise if you learn from others, and Right. So, like you wanted to go and seek knowledge. So there's the wisdom that you deployed, and then there's some justice. So which? Which way do you want to go? Do you want to go with like that? What does wisdom mean to you? Do you feel like there was some wisdom in that move that helped your agents and you think might be some justice in there too?
Speaker 2:well, it's always easy to look backwards and say that was a wise move. If I'm being a hundred percent transparent, I never threw my signs away. I did now, but I never threw my sense. So my independent brokerage that I had, I thought that was it like. When I opened the brokerage up, we celebrated and I was like I'm here, like I felt like the holy grail. It felt like there was nothing that could stop me from reaching all my goals and building the business and building wealth and and building investments and, ultimately, happiness I had, you know, building a happy life that I don't feel like I need to take a vacation from. That's always been the goal and I thought. I thought that that that was the North Star.
Speaker 2:When I made the move, I didn't throw my signs away. I kept them in storage because in the back of my mind, although it felt like it was the right decision, I wasn't a hundred percent sure. There was only four thousand, four thousand agents at the company at the time. We weren't in we we weren't in 24 countries, we weren't even in 50 states. We're in like 47 states. At the time I remember West Virginia was not open yet and there was a couple that were just not open, that were opening, and we'd celebrate every time a new state would open, and so I hung on to it. But the what, what made me like and this isn't. This is so like generic and my decision-making, you know, but I really looked at it like this. I said what's the worst that can happen? Now, this is a you know. I'm not saying that that everyone should should make decisions this way. This is the way I made my decision to leave.
Speaker 2:When I decided to leave Remax and go independent, I said to myself what's the worst that could happen? Okay, well, I could fall on my face and they're gonna welcome me back to remax because I was a great agent for them and real good Relationship with the broker owner. They they ran a great organization. I didn't leave them because I didn't like them. I left them because there was an opportunity that if I stayed there, I would not be able to take advantage of, and it was just part of my growth journey.
Speaker 2:When I, when I decided to close my brokerage and merge it into exp, I asked the same question what's the worst that could happen here? Well, the worst that could happen is that this company was a fraud and everything that they're telling me here was was all BS and and my agents hate it and they're gonna, they're leaving and I'm just gonna have to go back and open my own brokerage back up. I'm like, well, I already did that, let's hang on to the signs. This is a very neanderthal the way I made my decisions, but it works for me because I truly, when I'm looking at like the elimination of fear, it's how we're able to make a decision, a tough decision, a big decision. You gotta eliminate the fear, and you're not gonna eliminate it completely, but you have to eliminate it enough to be able to make the decision, otherwise you never make it and a lot of people find themselves in that comfort zone. They find themselves stuck in the comfort zone and I'm just here to tell you there's I've never had growth when I stayed in my comfort zone. I gotta get out of it.
Speaker 2:So one way of figuring out and beating fear whether you're beating it with Courage, justice, wisdom, whatever it is is Look at what's the worst case scenario. What could, what could be the worst thing that could happen here, and is that really that bad? Like a because because you're, you're, they're gonna live with one or two regrets, right, the, the regret, what is it? The regret of? Of indecision, or or the regret of of too much discipline and or or having them the gumption to actually make make a big decision, and Then, if that decision was wrong, you, you have to look at well, okay, now what? I'll go ahead and look at that scenario. What if my decision was wrong to make the move? And and that's not always the best thing, because there's there's another philosophy that says don't have a plan B, it's plan a or die. Yeah, and so I went all in on the plan a.
Speaker 2:Truthfully, if it would have been a flop, I could have opened my bone, my brokerage back up again, and will it would have sent me back maybe six months, maybe would I have been able to recover Absolutely and everything would have been just as good, but I would have learned more and come out of it better for it. But it just so happened. We were right that, glenn Sanford, it was everything you, he, was promising it. He came through. And then some, and we, we followed we, we bet on the put, we bet on the pony and the horse Excuse me, the, the jockey and the pony. We bet on them both and and it turned out to be the right bet, and Not just for me, but literally for tens of thousands of ages that this has changed their life. Hmm.
Speaker 1:Well, you've mentioned a great leader. You know, glenn absolutely is. And you know, one of the things that comes up for me Is it as you, as you talk about? It's almost like you. You're so pragmatic in your approach and you're so good at bifurcating, saying, hey, this is ego. What is the worst thing that could happen? We're literally back to the back, to the courage. We're not talking about charging machine on this. All you were really risking was your ego. Would you say that's correct.
Speaker 2:That's. That's well. That's better articulated than I did. I like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and and when you looked at that, you were humble enough to say and you're not a narcissist, when we all get those tendencies, a narcissist, I heard the other day and it was great Aha, so narcissus really isn't all about them. A lot of narcissism is we care what other people think, and so maybe you can dig into that a little bit about hey, don't worry about what other people think. I've made a good decision here. I've got you talked about the pragmatic approach this, this, this, those checks, all those boxes. I make the decision, and you weren't worried what other people would think.
Speaker 2:If, again, in pole transparency, I'm not gonna lie and say I don't think about what other people think I think everybody does, mm-hmm, I think the biggest growth I for me over the last we could say 14 years from when I started working with Michael and Jay and John Kitchens and fast forward to today is I have an awareness of it and I'll catch myself. The more that you put yourself out there, the more you have to practice the art of not caring what other people are thinking, and I don't care who you are. Everybody thinks about that, Even the biggest influencers I don't like using that name, but the successful entrepreneurs that are out there, have on video have even said I gotta check myself and stop worrying about what these other people are gonna think about the move. So I believe that it's a practice. I don't think that it's something that you arrive at, but I wrote this down.
Speaker 2:I love doing these things because I learn as much as anyone else does and I just wrote are you willing to risk your ego? Because what is really at risk? Is it money at risk? Sure, but can I always make more money? Yes, I think that the biggest risk that we face in big decisions and we may not know it, but it's time. We're the only thing that's really risking like true, true is time, and because we can't get that back. That's the one thing we can't get back. And I think if you practice the art of that awareness and you start to catch yourself reeling in your own brain and you're stuck in indecision because you just won't make the decision, it is really your fear of risking your ego. I think you nailed it and I don't even know if we went off topic here, because I don't remember what you if you had a question.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was kind of a loose question. I love where you went with it. I guess digging back into, I still wanna keep going on your courage, man, because you're saying which is great, not caring what other people think. And the only thing at play here, really, if you don't care what other people think is if you care what other people think. That is a lot of ego, right. That is, what are they gonna think of me? What are they gonna get? It's a stupid decision. I totally respect them. So I'd love you to dig into when you I wanna dig into this story because I think that the audience would appreciate your perspective because it's such a unique one. And we talked about influencers and I love how you just brought up I don't like that term either, but there is influence that's out there, like if Veronica has influence, I recently made a big decision that had a lot to do with Veronica because I trusted her, so she influenced me due to her decision, because I respected her and I think she's done a lot of great things.
Speaker 1:But I think the audience would like I think it'd be a great kind of look in here. They love to kind of hear behind the scenes, like what happened there and I kind of remember the story a little bit about you saying to Jay, and Jay was like I, I, I, EXP, and then you said you said him down to Florida and you said he's gonna get him drunk, they're gonna tell him the truth, like I don't wanna, I don't wanna get too much into it, but like that took a lot of courage man. And Jay God, you know he's one of 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 you know I know it all and he's just not. But in that particular instance could you talk about that a little bit, the inside story there, like when you brought it to Jay and that's where he was.
Speaker 2: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 your audience so that they can take it and adapt it to, maybe, where they're at. Because a lot of people ask well, you know, how did you, how did you get to? You know, or you know, honey Badger Nation, our, our organization, has over 13,500 agents in it where we we serve them by helping coach them every week and and this and that, but how did it get there? And it got there. Primarily, I mean, the one thing that we can point at is that it didn't take five and a half years. I've I've been with the company five. It'll be six years in August this 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 started building our networks of friends, connections, business associates, mentors, coaches, people that we that influenced us into making decisions with real estate, and then circles that we ran with and those relationships we put the we've been putting deposits in those types of relationships in for years, before we even knew that AXP was a thing, and so I went to Jay not to recruit him.
Speaker 2:We were already in learner mode. We were trying to figure out a problem. That problem was how do we scale our, our small independent brokerage, and start to gain momentum and and attract agents? And then, you know, really, pair that with coaching and partner with agents to help them grow their business without charging them a coaching fee. That was Michael and Jay's vision. Was called NAEA partner and that was the. That was the. The journey we were going down, you know, like we were. We were trotting on that pony and what through when. When you're, when you're vulnerable enough to open up to the possibilities like this might be the way, you're automatically in learner mode because we're trying to build something as an entrepreneur. It's a lot of hit and miss, you don't. You don't just sit there and hit singles and doubles and triples and home runs. You're striking out a lot and you're having to get right back there in the batter's box, learn from it and try to like straighten it out.
Speaker 2:Through that process, cliff Freeman brought me this platform, this business platform that we can move our business on to, that we could scale it, which is what we were trying to do anyway. So when I brought it to Jay, I didn't bring it to him cause, honestly, I never thought they would come. I wasn't even. It wasn't even a thought my mind that they would. They would want to, because they were so so vested in an AA partner and their goal was to get to 2000 partners by 2024. Now this is back in 2015, 2016. So that was their runway, right. It was going to take them all those years just to get to 2000 partners by 2024. And we're at 13.5 before that.
Speaker 2:So it was just me seeing it and saying, hey, dude, will you talk me off this ledge? Literally like, just look at this, 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 good reasons why I shouldn't bring my brokerage over and start growing it this way, then I'm doing it. I'm transferring the licenses in two weeks. I need you, as a friend, to just tell me what I'm missing here, because I can't.
Speaker 2:For 60 days I beat this thing up and I can't poke a hole in it, other than the fact that I have to, you know, close my brokerage down, move those agents over. Little bit of a pain, no big deal. I might have to rework my financial model a little bit, but I'm willing to do all that if it's the right thing to do longterm. What am I missing? And he just said dude, you're not missing anything. I can't poke any holes in it. This might be the best business model ever, and so it probably was the easiest.
Speaker 2:To be honest, easiest person I've sponsored to the company was because he was open to receiving it. You know, like I'm not super religious, but I know that I was raised Catholic. I'm a recovering Catholic no, I'm just kidding, but I love that. You know. The truth is that you could have the best preacher, the best priest, but if you're speaking to an audience who's not open to receiving it, then it's gonna fall on deaf ears. But if they're open to receiving it, then all the all the difference in the world happens. So we just happen to have the right moment in time where we were open to receiving.
Speaker 2:Is there a better way and I think that there's anything to write down from your audience is that 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're trying to grow an indie brokerage out there and you're stuck beating your head against the wall, still going on listing appointments, opening up lockboxes, you know? Ask yourself, not, not that that's a bad thing. I loved when I was in sales, but if, if you're bumping your head up against the ceiling and you're not figuring it out, I had, I hate to tell you, but there'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 the better way. They're good right there. They want to stay right there, and there's nothing wrong with that for them, but not for me and not for the people that we like people like yourself. Or we just think that there's a bigger Opportunity than maybe what's sitting there staring us in the nose. You just have to date for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that man. Do you think so, within the, is there a better way? And there definitely is. So there's an old saying would you rather be happy or would you rather be right? If you're right, right is I know this is the best way and no one's gonna tell me otherwise. I might not make you happy, but you're right. So within that, maybe talk a little bit about.
Speaker 1:And you know, one of our great friends, mr Keller, there, talks about identity and Do you think sometimes, deep down, there's like an identity, maybe for some of those independent brokerages and and you didn't sound like you had it because you would just want to solve a problem I want to scale. I want to scale what's the best way to do it? I don't need to know, I just want to know the best way. So do you think that sometimes and that could be an independent agent, could be someone that doesn't think?
Speaker 1:I'm talking to a lot of people now that, hey, they never thought about joining a team, but I could show them that there's so much more value, even with the splits within the team, that it makes sense for them to do it Right. So if you put your ego aside and say I never thought I'd be on a team. It's like, well, what do you? You want to make more money, or do you just not want to be on a team, right, like, do you want to be right or do you would you rather be happy and make the money that you want to make? And if I can show you how to do that, why wouldn't you look at this? So do you think that sometimes that's maybe what holds a little people back is that I got identity of, maybe I built something and I and I have too much pride to kind of let it go for it.
Speaker 2:It's probably one of the biggest, and you can you can describe identity as ego, and right isn't that? Wouldn't that be fair? I think, I think, yeah, I think it's in there for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's yeah, that identity, how, how you think of your surroundings, are you part of something that you're, you're connecting with, like yeah, that's me. And I Think with real estate it happens all the time. There are real estate brokerages and I'm not here to name names, but there's real estate brokerages that you would consider a traditional brokerage that is operated the same way that it was operated in 1980, 1981, and they never changed their model, you know, and they're still making it work today somehow. And I believe that In order for them to make it work, they still have to nail the components of culture. They're still has to be somewhat of a financial Alignment with the agents, because they're it can go out and get a better split somewhere else, but yet they're still staying.
Speaker 2:Yeah and so I look at it from a standpoint of its, its identity. I was literally just meeting with one of my agents yesterday for about an hour. He was a team leader at one of these companies that I'm talking about a very traditional older school model type of company and came over and you know we are going through all the names of people who this might help solve problems, because this is helping solve a problem for this Gentleman, hmm, and I started going down the line of other agents that were at that company. And he goes out, he'll never leave, she ain't going nowhere, and and then it just made me start thinking to myself. I wonder why he thinks that, even if it's true and it might be true for some of them, some of them will never, never make a move anywhere, ever, and but some will. What, what's what? Why is there even that? Like when you, when you think about how absurd that actually sounds, we're all independent contractors. You know what I mean It'd be like.
Speaker 2:I Really really love chocolate bars, okay, and I have a chocolate, say I had a chocolate addiction. I might have one, by the way, I like chocolate a lot, but let's say I have one and I have an opportunity to buy. This chocolate bar is such a great chocolate bar, it's amazing. But it's five bucks and I can get Like the equivalent of two of those chocolate bars for two dollars and it's even better chocolate. But I'm just gonna keep buying that. There's really no common sense. I'm gonna keep buying the same one, even though I can get double the amount. Double said differently, double the value over here.
Speaker 2:Yeah but I ain't going nowhere because I'm just. You know we see this with. You know I Hate to say our parents or whatever, but you know our past generation. They didn't like change. They were, they were very opposed to change and I think that with this new generation it's just it's not that they're, they're not even opposed to it the new generation coming up, it's part of how they were raised changes happening all over, whereas before it's just like same old, same old.
Speaker 2:We're gonna make it work and a lot 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 of mentality, you know it's, it's just, it's just, you know, and it's very old school. So it's versus.
Speaker 2:If we went down to say, like Phoenix, or I, you know I've spoke all over the, the United States in in front of many, many big crowds and the people that that, for whatever reason, like down south, like Orlando, you know, texas, louisiana, arizona, like especially Phoenix, there they're just more open-minded to change and it's a culture thing. It's not because they're better or 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 better it's gonna be for their family's financial wealth, they don't care. And and that's just a culture thing. I think you know you ain't gonna change. One person ain't gonna change the culture. It's got to be Multiple people that are gonna, you know, change an entire Community that's so used to doing the same thing over and over again. So make sure you're surrounding yourself with people who are open to change, you know.
Speaker 1:Look, let's dig into that a little bit more. Heroes, we wrap up, man. There's another philosophy that I, that I've loved over the years, and it's Buddhism, and there's Buddhist. Three noble truths are that. The first noble truth is that life is suffering, and not so much that you know it. Suffering is inevitable, yet it's optional. So that's the first noble truth. There is gonna be suffering, no, no matter what. And the secret within it to not suffer is to understand that everything will change. So, if we understand that everything will change, and then the last noble truth is don't get attached. So if we're attached to something and then it changes, we suffer. So why not embrace change, which is what you're talking about, right? And then we, we thwart off the suffering because we, we, we embrace change, because ultimately, we know that we don't need to be attached to something, or that, hey, being attached to something can actually make us suffer. You think there's any truth in that?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, of course I just wrote that down too, because back 30 years ago I did my fair share of studying Buddhism and I haven't dug back into it, but you just reminded me why I love the philosophy so much in studying it and reading it. But yeah, I think we all, we all get attached and I think that it's a we're victims of comparison, and I know that for me I am right there, guilty as charged. Comparing myself, you know, kind of coming up in the business, I was always looking at the person, you know, at first it was this little century 21 office that I was working out of and I was watching the top agent over there make six figures and I was barely cracking 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 said differently, I'm, I'm, I'm basically Making my happiness rely solely on only if I can get 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 can only make 250 thousand dollars, and then that just kept going to 500, to a million, then a million and a half, and and so then you know at what point? At what point are you stopping, just just like you're gonna stop attaching your happiness to that thing? The?
Speaker 2:The book that I'm gonna refer to you right now is I'm sure you've probably read it as the gap in the game. Yeah, I'm in the middle of it right now, thank you. Oh, are you really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna highly recommend that book to people and yeah, and I I love reading you know, mainly audiobooks, and and what I found is actually reading it and listening at the same time is it stinks in the most, but that book is such it's probably one of the best reminders of you that you can do to have the awareness 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.
Speaker 2:Right, there's always gonna be someone that has more, and, and it's an ugly trap to start falling into the. The good in it, though, is that for some, it would help them. It helps you that that North Star that you're looking at it, you, you know if, if you achieve your North Star, you You're gonna you know us higher cheevers You're gonna need another North Star. So there, there is some good in it, but I think I'm gonna go back to the awareness thing is that make sure that that isn't the measure that you're measuring your success and happiness off of, because, if I want you know, I can just be Really raw right now and tell you that they're probably they're not probably, but a hundred percent true.
Speaker 2:I've never made more and Kept more income, been more profitable, had more shiny objects Ferrari, yacht, all this stuff, multiple houses, and you know I've hit times of, just in the last couple months, that I've fallen into depression. So that's just the truth of it. You know, and I've been I've been a little vocal about it, not much I. I I moved my social media apps off my home screen, the best thing that I think I've done in I don't know how many years. The downside to that is that my a lot of my business, you know, is Predicated on my, my presence on social media, but my mental health was was number one priority. Over the last couple months. I ended up falling playing hockey. I, I play hockey and some other crazy sports and I I tore my rotator Cuff and had to get surgery about six weeks ago and and just threw out a lot of different little things With my personal life and physical and stuff like this. I felt myself Falling into a sadness of depression and I'm thinking I even said the J jokingly. I was like dude, there should be zero reason why I should be sad right now. I don't know why I'm sad, but I'm sad right now, you know, and I think that that's just.
Speaker 2:If you're listening and thinking that, that, the, that, the nice car and the, the, all, the, every vacation you could Possibly want to go on, and a boat and all this, these are all fun things. Go out and get them if you want them. I'm not telling you not to. All's I'm saying is don't fool yourself into believe me that that's gonna fix all your problems. If you have shit, then you need to dig in and find the shit. Okay, like it ain't gonna solve it. In fact, what those things will do if you have shit that you're burying, is it just gonna cover it up and band-aid over it. Well, it's good for a while, you know. Go out. Oh man, feel a little bummed out. Go buy another car. Great That'll, let'll hide it for a minute, but it ain't really. It's not really gonna solve what you got going on in here.
Speaker 2:I think solitude is something that I'm learning to practice. Something I've been terrified of has been solitude and you know, after my divorce about three, four years ago, I was like terrified of being alone. It's, it's actually the thing that I actually really need more of. I need to go on more vacations by myself. I need to spend more days alone with just me and my dog snoop over there like I didn't need to do more of that, and Sorry for going off on a tangent, but you know, I think that, hey, maybe this is helpful for people who are putting false, false weight into, in a materialistic, things like that.
Speaker 1:Thank you, man. Thanks for being so vulnerable, alby, because I think a lot of people out there that do know you like oh man, he's made it and he's got to be so great and the 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'm probably gonna paraphrase it poorly was a was a notion about Alexander the Great, and I'm gonna again paraphrase it poorly, but it slipped through the effect of and then Alexander stood in dismay as there were no more lands to conquer. Yeah, you know, like someone who had Basically conquered all of the known world.
Speaker 1:Yeah and when he got into China and in a Mongolia and that and literally to couldn't go any further and he was sad. Yeah, because and this is another thing that I've been ruminating on is what people are playing sometimes in their mind is a finite game. Right, when I win the game, I'm gonna be happy. And Then so many great athletes and folks like yourself that have achieved success that others pursue Think that when that moment occurs, happiness is going to be theirs. But what they don't understand and back to the stoicism is that the obstacle is the way. It's the obstacle.
Speaker 1:That actually is what you want to continue to pursue and you're a problem-solver, so, and you do bring a lot of value to people and all that. I genuinely appreciate you bringing that vulnerability in, and you know Simon Sinek talks about. You know, once you understand that it's an infinite game, there is no end, that then you can find happiness in working through those challenges and realizing that those challenges are the way. That is the way to happiness, to To continue to overcome and to find the next thing to overcome, and it's infinite, there isn't gonna be an end of. Like I made it.
Speaker 2:I just wrote that down. What what it made me think of earlier in this interview? You were saying that I'm pragmatic and I believe that you're you're right. I've never thought about myself that way, but you probably drew that conclusion by just listening to me ran. But the problem with being pragmatic is what you just said is that it's an infinite game and If you think that it's a finite meaning there's an end. If you're pragmatic, then you're gonna constantly keep running into walls of unhappiness. You know, saying so, that that was a big aha for me, man. I think I need to Park it on your, your, your couch more often. And you know, start with my childhood.
Speaker 1:Anytime, albie, come down to Florida. Man, I got it. I got a spare room.
Speaker 2:Man, we'll shack you up and We'll be looking at, I'm looking at homes in T T West right now, in fact, my lender, right we're texting right before we came on here and I'm we're getting my pre-approval. I'm gonna. I think I'm making an offer on something. Key West cool.
Speaker 2:So that's. I definitely know that warmth ain't gonna solve all my problems, but it'll solve a couple. Up here in Ohio, february's not the most fun, and neither's January, and Sometimes even a little bit of April. But yeah, I'm looking, I'm looking. Florida is in my sights right now. Brother, we're gonna be closer than we are right now very soon.
Speaker 1:Awesome, man.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe we can smoke a cigar together and and shoot the shit a little bit more.
Speaker 1:I know you have a meeting coming up and you give so much back to our community and I do really want to thank you for that you guys deliver just massive value.
Speaker 1:And you know one of the things and again, this is an agnostic thing, but I came for folks like you and back to your thing about you know, glenn, you guys have delivered more to me than I could have asked for and so I am 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 and deliver value to our audience. You've delivered massive value here and I really appreciate, really, really appreciate, your moments of vulnerability because you know it shows people that, hey, you're human, you go through the same stuff we do and the shiny objects don't fill you, and you've realized that and you're aware of it and you talk to people about it, like your friends of Jay and that and man, I just I think you delivered massive value and to you I'm grateful for that, man. Thank you, thanks, brother, appreciate you, alex.