From Tragedy to Transformation: John Tiller’s Journey to Faith-Fueled Leadership and Real Estate Mastery

What happens when your first day in real estate becomes one of the most tragic days in American history — and your life is shaken to its core just two years later?

In this unforgettable episode of R.E.A.L. Real Estate Agent Life, we sit down with John Tiller, founder of F4 Realty brokered by Real, motivational speaker, team leader, and the heart behind Tiller Family Ministries. John pulls back the curtain on his journey from banking to real estate, building a 500+ transaction mega team, and how the near-death experience of his son Eli forever shaped his mission, mindset, and leadership.

We dive deep into:

• The early coaching investments that transformed John’s trajectory
• Why most teams are “sweatshops” and how to build real career paths instead
• What faith, family, and leadership really look like after your world is flipped upside down
• Why giving it all away is the most powerful leadership tool you’ll ever use
• How building wealth the right way empowers you to serve others in times of crisis

Whether you’re a team leader, a solo agent, or someone navigating the storms of life—this episode is raw, real, and filled with the kind of wisdom only adversity can teach.

👉 If you’ve ever questioned what truly matters in this business and beyond… you need to hear John’s story.

🎧 Listen, take notes, and be ready to shift your perspective.

🎙 Thank You for Tuning in to the R.E.A.L. Real Estate Agent Life Podcast!

We appreciate you joining us for another powerful episode where we dive deep into the world of real estate, mindset, and business growth. If you found value in this conversation, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network!

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Transcript

Shane Kilby (00:00)
Okay.

Duane Murphy (00:02)
Welcome to Real Estate Agent Life. We have an incredible guest joining today, a leader in real estate space, an entrepreneur, and a passionate speaker dedicated to helping others succeed in both business and life, and a friend of ours that we keep running into and chain who we have today.

Shane Kilby (00:23)
Well, it's funny to say that it is you start making the right contacts when you are in the right places. So we have had the benefit of bumping into John more than one time. And so now we have become friends. And to introduce John to the rest of you guys out there that might be catching this episode via video or via audio here in the near future, this is John Tiller. He is the owner and broker of F4 Realty that is brokered by Real.

They are based out of Richmond, Virginia and they serve the Richmond area He has an extensive background in real estate previously working as a broker and realtor at Mission Realty before founding the F4 Realty group there with real brokerage in 2016 I do believe that's beyond real estate though. This is where it gets interesting John is also a motivational speaker and a leader at the tiller family ministries

where he shares his journey and inspires others to overcome challenges and hurdles in life. He brings years of experience in real estate sales, brokerage leadership, and coaching and helping team leaders and entrepreneurs reach new heights in their business. Based out of the Richmond, Virginia area, John has strong roots in the real estate community and is passionate about service, faith, and leadership. He's followed by hundreds in the industry and has built a strong reputation for excellence, integrity, and results.

John Mann, welcome to the show.

John Tiller (01:49)
Hey, thank you, fellas. I appreciate the invitation. And if you'd share that introduction with my wife, maybe she'll think more of me. That's awesome.

Duane Murphy (01:57)
You

Shane Kilby (01:58)
the same my wife when I start my wife hands these around she's like are these the same people that like the way from Wisconsin to Wayne I said yeah yeah it's like I don't believe anything on that introduction there so

John Tiller (02:06)
That's

Duane Murphy (02:10)
The

hype statement is always the best. The hype statement's always the best.

John Tiller (02:11)
right, if you ever want to...

It's always the best. And if you ever want to be humble, just come home.

Shane Kilby (02:17)
There you go. There you go. What's

the saying like no one no one No one believes in your success until you get outside the local market that you serve So so John you have some interesting stuff that I want to get into here momentarily But but real quick just just tell us and everyone else. How did you end up? Getting into real estate. So what's your backstory?

John Tiller (02:26)
That's right. That's right.

Yeah. So I was in banking. got my first real job at 20 years old in banking and they just, what I learned was if I showed up early, I did what I was asked and I stayed late that I would, ⁓ kind of quickly accelerate through the organization. worked with a regional bank here based in Virginia. And, ⁓ in seven years there, they had offered me a lot of opportunities. And in that seventh year,

One of them was a job promotion, which was convenient because we were pregnant. My wife was pregnant with our first child and we felt like staying home was, she wanted to stay home, but we needed her income. So I needed that promotion. So the downside was that they wanted me to move to Atlanta, which is a short flight away from here and would relocate us completely. And so I thought, well, that's what we're going to do. So I called the only guy I knew in real estate.

And I said, Hey, I need to sell my house and actually signed a listing agreement with him. And he jokingly said, you ought to stay here and sell real estate instead of going to Atlanta. And I realized that, you know, as a commission job, I needed my, couldn't work on a commission. Well, we ended up staying in Richmond and, ⁓ cause we didn't want to leave family and I just really couldn't shake that idea of getting into real estate though. And so I called that guy back and.

And about a year later, I got my real estate license and I left banking. My last day of salaried employment was September 11th, 2001. That was also my 28th birthday, maybe my 27th birthday. And of course that was a day that for those of us who were there, his whole generation now who wasn't there, but for those of us who were there, we all remember it. And I remember it for...

Shane Kilby (04:27)
you

John Tiller (04:38)
You're really kind of a trifecta there of my birthday and being the first day in being unemployed. And I've been unemployed ever since, like a lot of us entrepreneurs. And I was told to get into a great coaching program. And so I did. And I found a guy who was specializing in marketing. You guys might remember Craig Proctor from back in the day. He still does some stuff, but he was my first coach. And he said, if you back in the early 2000s,

Duane Murphy (05:01)
Yeah.

John Tiller (05:07)
You write me a giant check and you can, you can go side by side with me and learn how I sell 600 homes a year, working 20 hours a week while I coach the other 20 hours a week. And I said, that's, that's the kind of guy I want to learn from. And I learned what I could and had the top producing team in our market by 2004. So within three years, just thanks to learning from others, you know, I'm not, I'm never.

I never want to be the smartest guy in the room, which is good because that'd be hard for me to be the smartest guy in the room. And whenever I can learn from somebody else, like that's what I'm going to do and just try to learn and implement. that's been a really effective strategy. So 2005, I became a broker owner. I decided I wanted to have another, the business model of Teams where it was kind of like a sweat shop.

And where you hire new agents, make them work really hard, do all the hard kind of cold call prospecting that you don't want to do yourself that they don't really want to do, but they learn it until they can go on their own. That was kind of the team model back there in the day. And that was, was, I felt like there was maybe more that we could do for agents, training agents and building a career path for them. So I was a broker owner.

Shane Kilby (06:01)
sure.

John Tiller (06:26)
starting in 2005 with a franchise model for 10 years in that franchise model and then independent for a short period of time after that. And hired 120 agents with three offices at our peak and then got into the virtual brokerage model. Joined up, partnered with a friend, a competitor and friend of mine in the same market. And we saw the virtual brokerage model about eight years ago.

and we thought that one plus one could equal 10 if we got together to build it together. And that deal kind of ran its course. We're still really good friends, but we have built separate businesses now, both in the virtual brokerage model, two separate teams, but we both coach and we both kind of lead in that virtual brokerage model, some of the same people, but.

With my you know with my own team and so we hit that reset button about a year ago I also started coaching team leaders about a year ago because in that the team that I grew about seven years ago I'm merged mine into my friends and together we were doing about 200 transactions a year. We called it family served and Over the next few years Under what I was privileged to lead we we grew that to over 500

home sales a year here in our market. And we learned a lot of lessons along the way. We had a lot of people that would come to us asking questions about, come to me asking questions. How do you do this? And so that was the spark behind starting a team leader coaching program. There's lots of great agent coaching programs out there. There's a handful of good, really good team leader coaching programs out there.

What I've learned in, in, I said, in a lot of time in the industry, there's anybody I can learn from the reason why coaching I think is expanding so fast, especially by people who've actually done what they're coaching. We can talk about the other at another time, but the people who have actually done what they're coaching, like I want to be in the room with them. I want to learn from them. And, and there's always, you there's always something to learn from, from guys like that.

Duane Murphy (08:30)
Okay.

Shane Kilby (08:31)
You

Yeah, so it's interesting to me. had this conversation all the time and had this conversation earlier about having good mentorship and good coaching. And you made the statement, write the big check, right? And you can ride alongside me and see what I do and do what I coach you to do and you'll have the success that I promise you. And it's funny today, it's, I mean, I'm an instructor.

You know pre-license post licensees that sort of thing And it's it's funny that once once you know We know agents will get will get a license in eight days or less We discussed that on previous episode that we shot earlier today And we have some five-week classes and ten-week classes and online classes But it's like once they get out of that class like that is it's a challenging hurdle to get them to understand that like

John Tiller (09:38)
It is.

Shane Kilby (09:41)
You just you're in the game now like you're not you're not in the All-Stars. You're not you're not even been chosen to play on a championship team You're you're an athlete your ballplayer, but now you have to grow and develop so so With your background your knowledge, you know How do you find the ability to overcome that obstacle? That's I guess that's a curiosity I have myself from just working with agents hand-in-hand is the length of time that I have is

John Tiller (09:43)
That's right.

Duane Murphy (09:47)
Hmm.

John Tiller (09:49)
Mm-mm.

Shane Kilby (10:10)
is how to overcome that hurdle to get them to see that coaching that they need. And it's not free. Free coaching the CEs, the stuff that we get from our board offices, not knocking it is great, but let's face it, it's the bare minimum to keep us legal.

Duane Murphy (10:26)
Good legal disclaimer there.

John Tiller (10:28)
That's right, that's right.

Duane Murphy (10:30)
I love our board and stuff.

John Tiller (10:32)
We love our boards.

Duane Murphy (10:34)
You

John Tiller (10:37)
Yeah, you know, man, I think that's where the team model has changed dramatically and where agents coming in the business especially need to realize that. So there's always been this option to go work with somebody who knows what they're doing. That's kind of intuitive. Like people want to do that. I think what people don't realize is that there are still teams that are sweat shops.

where they're just going to kind of squeeze you and get, you know, give you the, the proverbial phone book back when the phone numbers were in the, were in a book for those of you who are 30 or less years old, the phone book is this thing that used anyway. So they, the team today's model of a forward thinking team is really more like a teamerage. There's a few different guys in our industry who

who have kind of coined that term or somebody coined it and a bunch of guys started using it. Yes, yes. And so it's to have a place that's got a career path and to be able to plug in that. think the important thing that agents need to know and the thing that, know, lot of the team leaders I coach, kind of the difference maker that when I say this out loud, their eyes open up and they're like, yeah. And that is you have to get

Duane Murphy (11:33)
I might have ripped it off once upon a time as well.

John Tiller (11:58)
productive. As a team leader, you have to get your agents productive. As an agent, you have to get productive like in a hundred days. Like you don't, it's not a long window. You don't have a year to get productive because there are expenses, obviously, that come along with being in the business. And there are also just the opportunity cost. nobody's going to be self-employed for what the average real estate agent makes. There's no sense in taking on that risk of being self-employed.

If you're not going to have a reward that's more than what you could get paid going to work a salary job somewhere. so getting, getting in a team where they're doing, where they're doing big things and getting on board that ship and learning how to do big things, just being coachable, being humble, hungry and smart and, ⁓ smart, meaning emotionally intelligent. Like it's very hard to make it in this industry. If you don't have some level of emotional intelligence.

The rest of it is choice, being humble and hungry, just be coachable and like go after it and get productive quickly. And if you're not committed to getting productive quickly, real estate is not a business that you try. Like it's just not a business that you try. I think in the hundreds of agents that I've coached, maybe one of them has done all right starting part-time. Like, never, never fully committing. Like you can start part-time.

and then fully commit, but part-time is just, you have such a big learning curve, it's so tough. so, you know, getting a good coach and having a sense of urgency are the two things I would tell a new agent.

Duane Murphy (13:37)
Yeah, on a couple of things that you had mentioned. One, when you mentioned your early years of coaching was with Craig Proctor. right away I'm like, and I mean this with all love when I say old, because all three of us are probably in the same category, but that old Proctor crowd, that is, apparently.

Shane Kilby (14:00)
except John's hair looks better than both of ours though.

Duane Murphy (14:05)
Some of us age backwards. I mean, but ⁓ that old proctor crowd I mean, there's some of the best of the best in the industry that you know have built some mega organizations and gone on to coach others and train others and That have come off that original proctor tree. I was a off branch of that right that National Association of expert advisors JK near my crease Yeah, I believe so was any I was trying to go through I'm like boy was it

John Tiller (14:23)
That's right. awesome.

Right, that's where we met the first time I think.

Duane Murphy (14:35)
Was it National Association, was it SRE? I'm like, I know we ran across each other again after that, Jeff Kukumat is like, wait, where's all the different crossings, right? But they were a offshoot of Proctor, I believe Jay Kinder head coached under him. amazing, amazing, amazing stuff there and you've been with a good crowd.

Shane Kilby (14:37)
You're trying not to go that far back, Scorch. You're trying not to do.

John Tiller (14:52)
For sure.

Duane Murphy (15:02)
The other thought that I had off of something you had mentioned is with your team lead training. And I think, I think there's something really important for team leads, brokerage owners, inspiring team, team owners, team leads to take from that is, is don't be afraid, right? Of helping someone get to where you are. Right? I think, I think in this industry, unfortunately, even though, right. Teams are more of a thing.

There's a lot of teams out there, unfortunately even brokerages, where I don't know if they're truly helping you try to get to your highest level and maybe help you open a team or help you run a team or teach you what it is you need to learn in order to lead people. I think too many people have a scarcity mindset when it comes to that. And you're filling that gap, that void a little bit of like...

Okay, here's probably what you're not getting taught at your brokerage, or here's maybe what you're not getting taught by your team lead. Sometimes because of a scarcity mindset, boy, if I teach them everything, I teach them how to run a team, and I teach them how to be successful, and I teach them how to be a rainmaker, and how to be profitable, then they don't need me anymore. They're just gonna go out and do it on their own, rather than, boy, if I could teach someone all of that.

Pour that knowledge into them imagine how strong we could be side by side or Versus right like I'm just training my I'm just training my next competitor so

John Tiller (16:38)
Where I find that

that scarcity mindset comes from John Maxwell, arguably the predominant leadership expert in the world, calls it the law of the lid, right? And he says that you're only going to have people follow you who have leadership skills up to your ability to lead. And once they grow beyond that, if you don't grow your leadership lid, then they're going to go somewhere else where they can learn from somebody who has a higher leadership lid.

than you do and if you have, if you're a team leader and you're not growing yourself as a leader, then that's exactly what's gonna happen. It takes an abundance mindset and a sense of security in yourself that, listen, if somebody goes on to do something bigger and greater than me, like isn't that actually the objective? Where they can be, like that's a trophy on my mantle. That's not.

a threat to be squashed, right? And you can see that in people that difference, like you said, Dwayne, between the abundance and scarcity mindset, you can see that pretty quickly. And those leaders are unfortunately just not going to go very far. And agents know that. So trust yourself. If you're on the other side of that equation looking for someone you can learn from, you'll be able to tell pretty quickly. And listen, we all have seasons of people we can learn from.

good bosses and bad bosses and good leaders and bad leaders and good coaches and bad coaches. And so the only thing that's, the only thing that's a failure is if you stay in that same cycle with that partnership, with that person and don't move on once you've learned everything you can from them. And it's okay. We just have seasons that we hang out with each other, we learn from each other and then sometimes we're just meant to go on something else.

Duane Murphy (18:29)
No, that's a great point. know over the years, in the beginning I was scared or just didn't want to fire my coach. okay, well, you know, like, there is a point sometimes, right? And that you do outgrow your coach, that you do pass your coach or your mentor or whatever it may be. And you can't be afraid to take that next step, to find that next one that's going to...

John Tiller (18:49)
Yes.

Duane Murphy (18:58)
bring you to that next level, right? Because like you said, everyone's got a chapter. might be a paragraph, might be an entire chapter. In your story, you just never know how long they're gonna be there.

John Tiller (19:00)
That's right.

One of the things I was most proud of on our last team where we were selling 500 homes a year, we had eight agents. We're in an average market, a $400,000 average sales price very much follows national averages where we live. So not real high, not real low, just right in the middle, right average. And we had eight agents who were taking home net income of north of $200,000 on the team because we were investing in them.

And you know, I mean, they were getting recruited every day and we told them you're going to get recruiting calls every day from other people. But our job is to make the opportunity for you bigger every day so that you can live into that bigger opportunity. And, and as a team leader, sometimes that comes with a co-investing. A lot of times it's investing in real estate. Okay, listen, you've, you've reached the, the height of selling 50 or 75 or a hundred homes a year or more. And.

you want to, what's the future plan? How do we get you additional streams of income as an agent, income as an agent so that you can, so that you can someday work your way off the transaction treadmill, know, have some supplemental income and then, you know, and then build wealth. Like, how do you do that? And so, but as leaders, we got to be willing to invest. Talking about writing big checks, one of the biggest checks that I wrote was a couple of years ago, I spent two years in a coaching program with investing

billionaire named Don Winner. He's under 40 years old and owns $4 billion of real estate, 28,000 doors across the country, mainly across the Southeast. he, know, in 5000, I that's crazy. It's just crazy. But he had a coaching program. So when I said, hey, I got to be a better investor because I want to help my agents invest. I want to teach them how to invest.

Shane Kilby (20:50)
That's crazy.

John Tiller (21:06)
So I gotta go, I gotta raise my leadership lead, right? I gotta raise my level of knowledge. How can I do that? Who's the best out there? And for me at the time, was Don and those were big checks to get in that room and worth every bit of it, worth absolutely every bit of it. And now we have a funding program for agents that we, you know, we co-invest with them and we help them build wealth and we set out with the expectation that if it's what they want,

We want them to be a millionaire before they're done in their time with us. that's what it's about is helping people with improving their lifestyles and legacies. That's the mission of our team is to elevate lifestyles and legacies.

Shane Kilby (21:54)
That's awesome. so to the back to the mindset of abundance and scarcity, like in leadership, when you get to a certain level of leadership, like that becomes common threads, that's common conversation. And what's interesting about that is, I guess the question comes to mind is, can you really be a

John Tiller (22:12)
Yes.

Shane Kilby (22:22)
the best leader or a leader in general, if you stop learning, if you stop growing, if you stop raising that lid per se, because I mean, it's just like expanding beyond the list and sale process, investing into your agents and giving it all away, which we've all frequented.

You know the John Chepilack mentality and mindset and of course, know, it's and it's the same It's the same philosophy even with Maxwell got Maxwell books everywhere, you know is is giving it all away and It's a it's a certain Place in this, know for me. It was a certain mile marker where I crossed over and and I realized that No matter what you give away has still a various a very small percentage are going to

John Tiller (22:54)
Yeah.

Yep.

Shane Kilby (23:21)
put it into action, gonna take and run with it, right? So it's very interesting that you frame it like that. Let me ask you this, on our intro, the Taylor family ministries, what's that about?

John Tiller (23:23)
Yes. Yeah.

Duane Murphy (23:33)
Bye.

John Tiller (23:36)
Yeah.

So it's about trying to bring good out of something not good. So I told you September 11th, 2001 was my first day full time in real estate. On January 9th, 2003, I was out walking a piece of property. It was my largest sale yet. I'm still pretty new in real estate. was 27 acres. It was prime for development. It was a homeowner who was selling and

He was interviewing other agents and it was going to be tough, man. Like this was the biggest listing appointment of my career. And so I go walk the edge of the 26 acres with him. And you know, back in those days I had the Motorola StarTac on my hip, know, and so it was, it was awesome, man. It was a great day. And so it was, yeah, it was the first one that was not a brick phone. It was great. So the, but my phone was buzzing on my hip the whole time that we're, that we're walking this property and I,

get in my vehicle and I start checking my messages after the appointment. It went well. I kind of pulled to the end of the driveway and I had seven messages waiting for me. One of them was my buddy just asking, you hey man, you want to go to lunch? The other six were ones that changed my life, changed my life and my family's life really forever. The first one was my wife saying that Eli, our three year old son has been hurt. Meet us at the local hospital.

And she didn't really describe it. but it was, she was, there was fear in her voice. The, ⁓ the next message was, ⁓ was another message from her with a lot more fear. John, come quick. Now I need you to come home right now. Eli's hurt. And, ⁓ he was three years old at the time. our only child, still our only child to this day. And he, ⁓ I got another message from.

The Virginia, from a Virginia State Police Special Agent who said, John, this is Special Agent Adams from the State Police and your wife and her mother are with me. Your son has fallen from a window at your house and he's in critical condition. He's being med flighted to the University Hospital. They've changed route. He's not going to the local hospital. He's being med flighted to the University Hospital. Meet us there. And then the next call was from the chap.

at the hospital and she said, John, I need you to meet me at this specific location when you get to the hospital. I want you to come see me first. Don't talk to anybody else. And all I knew was that my son's life was on the line. I thought that chaplains only called you when your loved one had already died. And so I didn't know what to think. You know, I kind of squealed out of that appointment. It was about 30 minutes.

drive to the hospital, to the university hospital. There's clearly nothing I could do anymore. These calls all came in. I checked the messages later. Clearly nothing I could do but go meet at the hospital. And what I had found was that that morning I kissed my wife and my son and I prayed for him. That's what I did when I left them in the morning. And it turns out he had taken a little play school chair that he shouldn't have been able to drag across the room, drug it across the room.

up to a window that he shouldn't have been able to climb up to and pushed out a screen that he shouldn't have been able to push out and fell 13 feet head first onto the asphalt driveway there at our house. And my wife didn't just heard this silence that kind of mama knows, especially that, you know, something is something's really wrong. And so she called his name and didn't hear a response, went and saw him, looked out the window. The room was empty, looked out the window.

Shane Kilby (27:12)
⁓ my god.

Duane Murphy (27:14)
you

John Tiller (27:30)
saw him laying lifeless, bleeding from the head on the asphalt driveway there. so, you know, she called 911 and they med flighted him and I met him there. And the doctors had stabilized him, but they said, listen, we've done all we can do. He's got pressure, intracranial pressure from a brain contusion and crushed his skull when he landed. And we've drilled a hole to relieve the pressure. And all we can do now is watch and wait.

and pray. And so for the next three weeks, we didn't know if he was going to live. Lots and lots of stories both in that time and after that. The great news is he did live. He is now 25 years old and he still lives with us. He's got physical and intellectual disabilities from that accident. We've learned lots of lessons along the way.

There's nothing broken spiritually about that kid though. He is, and I still call him a kid because that's what we do. No matter how old they are, they're always going to be our kids. He's got a level of joy in him that most people just don't have. He just has it kind of as his default. Faith has always been super important to us. We don't know how we would have gotten through that without faith.

Duane Murphy (28:37)
Thanks.

John Tiller (28:51)
in our lives without a strong faith. Most marriages break up when you have an accident like that or when you're facing the death of a child and our marriage is stronger. We've been married 31 years now. So a lot of lessons learned in marriage and lot of lessons learned in helping him to get well. So fast forward from that 2003 about to 2011.

And we had been through, I know on this podcast, you guys talk a lot about, hey, everybody talks about their success, but they don't talk about the hard times. Well, I'm happy to talk about the hard times with you also. If you'll notice, my career has been 25 years and it was just a few years ago that I had all this success. Well, there's a reason for that, right? Because there was 20 years before that, that was brutal, man. And it was, the business has been great to us for sure, but you learn lessons along the way.

Duane Murphy (29:40)
you

John Tiller (29:44)
and then hopefully at some point you kind of pick them up. one of the reasons though that it was also that it was 20 years, the business has certainly been good to us. in 2008, Warren Buffett says that he was quoted at that time, he still says that he says, when the tide goes out, you find out who's swimming naked, right? And that was me and a lot of my real estate buddies. We were really wealthy or at least we're making high incomes before 2008 and then in...

Shane Kilby (30:04)
Yeah.

John Tiller (30:12)
Then we just kind of lost it all. so we were rebuilding and in 2011, everything was good, man. Like it was, it was good. We're rebuilding everything that kind of went south in the 2008 recession. And, and we didn't have a lot of savings because we had blown all of that in our, in 2008. And it was good. Like, like it was good. And, and long story short, my wife and I felt called to leave real estate.

and pursue ministry, pursue the ministry of sharing our story and sharing our son with people. And so for two years, I actually took off of real estate, 2011 to 2013, and we shared, we traveled the country and shared our story, generally in churches, in Christian conferences, also some chapel services at business conferences, and just shared our story and what had happened and what we attribute to God's grace in our life.

and what he did for our son and tried to really answer some of the hard questions that people have about faith. Like, why do good things, why do bad things happen to, you know, innocent children? And why would a good God allow such bad things to happen? And how do you keep a marriage together through stuff like that? And so ever since then, so in 2013, we had shared with tens of thousands of people, never a dry eye in the house.

And, but we realized that Eli likes food with his meals, as Brian Buffini likes to say. And so we, we, I went back to real estate. And what I realized when I went back to real estate is every day that I was doing real estate full time, I missed ministry. And every time, every day I was doing ministry full time, I missed real estate. And so we founded this nonprofit during that time to really just share, share the story and inspire folks.

maybe answer some of the hard questions about life and about faith. It's been a gift to be able to do that. So we kind of do that on the side now. My wife and I will speak at marriage conferences and we do some other things also that are related to that.

Duane Murphy (32:15)
Hmph.

Shane Kilby (32:23)
Strong testimony. I did not know the insight of that when I asked that question. I just knew that that had some type of significant ties. So I'm glad that you shared that. That's very, very powerful. And it just, means a lot. It means a lot. Yeah, you see, I've got, still have, and it's not that type of podcast, but I mean, I have friends, real close friends. So I don't judge, I have real close friends.

John Tiller (32:42)
Thank you, my friend. Thank you.

Shane Kilby (32:53)
that the questions you just mentioned are the questions, they're good people, they're good people. Their questions in faith is, those questions? Why do those things happen to innocent children? And those are questions that I'm not qualified to answer. every time, they're getting, mean, they're older hunting buddies, what they are. We just, when something happens to them, we just don't have those type of influential people in our lives.

John Tiller (32:58)
Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure, yeah.

Shane Kilby (33:22)
Every time we spend some seasons together. I'm like, hey, what do you think about this? You you doing anymore praying here lately or you know, and it's like no, know, and this is I'm like, all right Well, let's go back to the woods. Let's give me let's get off that subject, know, cuz it's it's always we come to that conversation It's always looks me directly in the face and goes we'll answer this I'm like, I'm not I can get you with the right people they can answer that I'm not qualified to explain that in great detail, but you know

John Tiller (33:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shane Kilby (33:50)
being at the age that you are, I wish that you would connect with some of these people and have those deep conversations for that reason.

John Tiller (33:56)
Yeah.

Well, I appreciate

that man. are, obviously it's a gift. I know you would tell me that it's a gift not to have been through. I don't know your story, your full story. I don't know that you haven't been through suffering, but there's a lot of people who haven't and that's like, that's good. That's not, it's not like, Hey, this is a cool club, the cool kids club to be in. And I never wanted to be the guy who became the expert on suffering. But it turns out that especially when

Duane Murphy (34:16)
Thank you.

John Tiller (34:28)
you're grounded in faith, you can actually turn something that was meant for evil, meant for bad, and turn that into something good. And that's been a gift to us. And it's not that, dude, I would give my right arm, I'd give my life for my son to be completely restored, just like you would for any of your kids. But that's also not the way that it works.

Shane Kilby (34:48)
Hmm.

that is true. So true. So true.

Duane Murphy (34:54)
Yeah, yeah.

God is is pitch, you know, you and Eli, right? Your family for a different path and you know that that path is helping many others, you know, along the way and and you know, and you're guiding them through that. So that's pretty amazing. I know I've I've watched your story and been a little in tune with it more for for quite a few years. I know one of the happy moments that you had shared publicly, which

still I remember and remember seeing and I think we even talked about a little bit, is when you had taken the home that you raised, you raised Eli in and I think it was your first home that you had purchased and not too long ago, in the last couple of years, last two years or so when you sold it, is it about three now?

John Tiller (35:44)
Yeah,

the home we're in now has just been a year. Yep. Yep.

Duane Murphy (35:48)
Okay, here,

I remember the emotions you were sharing with, right, right, closing that chapter, right, and closing that page and moving on to the next one, but being able to move into a home that, you know, that was able to be provided, right, through you helping others and everything that you do.

John Tiller (35:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

built for the long term. Yeah.

Duane Murphy (36:13)
Right is is the reason why you're able to have the home that you're in today, which which completely meets right? The family needs so much more. I know with like you're talking like right countertops that are the right height and doorways that are wide enough and all these things that that you were just right. Just overwhelmed with on the fact that you're able to be able to provide that for right for your family and and you know, and just make it make it fit better and and.

John Tiller (36:20)
It does.

right?

Duane Murphy (36:42)
that it's still just even reminiscing on that a little bit. And I'm living, you know, second party. was, was, was, it was emotional to watch.

John Tiller (36:53)
Well, thank you, man. Yeah. When, when he, know, before he was turned 18, we, every day it was about how can we get him better? Like how can we get him better tomorrow than he was yesterday? Right. Or better today than he was yesterday. And he learned a lot of discipline through that. we spent tens of thousands of dollars a year on uninsured alternative treatments to just get him better. And then, you know, we, there were different times, not, not even before he turned 18, when we were trying to balance.

How do you live life with disability versus just trying to get better from that disability? And how do you, how do you balance that? It's a balancing act, certainly as a parent, but then when he turns 18, it's like, okay, wow, he's an adult now. We got to make a long-term plan. And so what real estate has done for me is to be able to make him a long-term plan. You know, I, before he got hurt, I subscribed to the idea that I should die broke, right? Like spend all my, I don't need to, you know, just die broke.

But now it's important to build a trust fund for him. And the first step in that was to build a accessible home that we all can live in, that he has his own area. He calls it the West Wing for Beauty and the Beast. The Beast has the castle and in the West Wing is where he goes and nobody else is allowed to go. So it's kind of like his man cave, but it's completely accessible for him. And then the rest of the house is built for all of us.

Yeah, it's been a big gift and I know all three of us and everybody that all of our friends who have had any level of success in real estate, it's one of those businesses that earns more than we deserve, honestly. It just earns more than we deserve and there are people who work just as hard as us who are in different industries. But part of that is making sure that we pay it forward, right? And so, yeah, thanks Dwayne. Thanks for

Duane Murphy (38:48)
And I think they're so, it's still all soul related to real estate and success and mindset and just overcoming hurdles, because we're all gonna have them. Everyone has some, right? And some are more severe, right? Maybe it can be measured different, but unless you're in that person's shoes, right? Their major crisis or their major hurdle is theirs, right? And that might be a 10 on their scale.

John Tiller (39:04)
for sure.

That's right.

Duane Murphy (39:18)
Like you might look at and go like, eh, that's a two. really, you're calling that a 10? Like, on my scale, that's a two, right?

John Tiller (39:18)
That's exactly right.

Well, and I think what we've learned,

yeah, I think what we've learned is that my scale matters to me. Like I don't have a bad day in real estate anymore. Ever since my son got hurt, I can come home and he's alive. And so try to compete with that, right? Like you can't, there's no bad days in real. Certainly there are worse days than others. And there are plenty of days where I'm ready to go home and put real estate aside for sure. There are many and many of those. But there's nothing that

rocks me in the real estate world because I get to come home to my son being alive. But on the flip side of that scale, while you may think that you feeling depressed today is no big deal because on my scale, well, here's what I can tell you. We've met a lot of people who have also been through suffering and suffering that's worse than ours. of the ones that I'm most in awe of are the parents who have lost their children, like their children.

They've been through suffering because their children died. And I can't fathom that. I faced it for sure, but I never lived it. And so we all, think just to have compassion about what you said, Dwayne, which is we don't know what each other is going through, but to understand what my story has done for us is it's helped us, it's helped.

break down kind of barriers and help people become a little bit vulnerable with us and share what they're going through. And let me tell you, everybody's going through something. Everybody is going through something. And to have just a little bit of compassion toward humans, that's why we're here. Like that's why we're here. And there's so little of that, especially in the competitive world of real estate.

Shane Kilby (41:11)
Well, there's and there's a couple of things that that I see in this in this story and then and correct me if I'm wrong but this this this Chapter of your life has probably made you Contributed to you becoming a better leader becoming a better mentor becoming a better coach and that all ties back into Coaching and helping team leaders

John Tiller (41:29)
for sure.

100%.

Shane Kilby (41:39)
Because

it's you know, you know, they just need coaching and in guidance and mentoring But they who's going to deliver that typically that's going to be a team leader of some sort So I can see this tying back into probably contributing to make you such a great leader and coach and mentor to those people Through such a trying situation. You didn't like you said you didn't have a choice. You didn't have a choice and also this is

This is when I always struggle with because I see so many talented agents in our industry that produce so little and it's not about the money. It's not about the money. It's the potential. And I see now I know your story and I didn't apologize. I didn't know that deep of the story with you. Now I'm very grateful for that, very humbled with that.

John Tiller (42:19)
Hmm

Shane Kilby (42:38)
like your story and then like John's story with Lexi and her open heart surgeries. And it's like, if you guys wouldn't have been going all in with that abundance mindset and that, you know, lead, you know, lead with value thought process and maxing out, you know, most of the world looks at maxing out as a negative, like

trying to have all the cars and trying to have all the things and it's just all about money. But I look at you two guys and think how much different it would be if you didn't go as hard as you go and have the additional means to be able to provide the additional, like you said, uncovered medical expenses, you know, and outside the box treatments to better the lives of your children.

Right and make the positive impacts on the people that you make so it's not always about maxing out to See how big you can make the bank account. It's about being able to Help other people so I caught a little griefy recently You know because one of my posts was was taken in a negative light. It was in a group I didn't have a good feeling that group and I know better next time however, I kind of got I caught a little slack because

John Tiller (43:58)
You

Shane Kilby (44:04)
of it was a post about choose wisely who you're sitting at the table with. know, don't talk about people, talk about solutions and helping others and know, and faith and even income and even income. And so I got a little slack from the income. Income doesn't belong there with faith. And I'm like, well, I mean, know, I tithe and the better off I am, the more I can help others.

And then it was, you know, just, it was taken in a negative light. What it meant to be in a negative light, but like I said, that was a group I wasn't completely familiar with. And I didn't retract, it wasn't going to retract. I used that opportunity to explain my position and, you know, whether they took it that way or not. It's always something I'm trying to transfer to individuals who, you know, they come through your life, they come through your team or your group, your

Duane Murphy (44:52)
you

Shane Kilby (45:00)
Operation and you just know you like man this this they're special. They're special They can go a long way do big things and they don't always reach those Potentials and so I just I say that say this that you know I see now how the dots connect to make you to have contributed to you being such a great influencer to the people around you and I'm just humbled by your story and I'm glad that you shared it. I really am really am

John Tiller (45:12)
That's right.

Hmm.

Well, I appreciate

that, man. I appreciate that. think, you know, a few things just kind of dovetailing on a few things that you said. Money, money's just a tool, right? It's just a metric in it. It's also a magnifier, right? We all know that it's some, if I was a bad dude and I got lots of money, I'm still a bad dude. I'm just magnified what I, you know, the things that I care about. And if I'm trying to be a good dude, which, you know, that's, that's also impossible to be all the time.

⁓ then money's going to magnify that. And that's, that's my hope is that I would, I would use my influence and my income to help other people. ⁓ but I don't need it. It's not a, it's not a direct correlation. don't need money to be who I am. Right. I need money to, money's like oxygen. Like I needed to pay the bills and Eli needs somebody to make some money. And, ⁓ and I've been given an opportunity to be able to do that. And so that's great. know lots of.

Lots of parents who are in my same situation who probably don't have the income potential that real estate gives all of us. And I don't know why that is, man. I don't know. I just consider it a gift that's to be stewarded well, right? To be managed well. that's what the money's about. Money's about making a difference in people's lives. And listen, if you don't wanna...

Duane Murphy (46:32)
⁓ huh.

John Tiller (46:53)
If you don't want the things that money can buy, that's great. Go make a lot of money so that you can go give it away. Like, you know, there's a famous pastor who was famous for reverse tithing, right? He's like, I'm gonna give away 90 % of what I make. And so, and you can do that too, whether it's a faith-based thing or not. But I'm a big believer that money can solve a lot of problems. There are definitely problems it can't solve, but it sure does make things easier. And to have the right perspective that...

The money though, I have to be in control of the money, not the other way around.

Duane Murphy (47:24)
Yeah, right. There's always so many misconceptions around it and I'm not going to try to quote, because I'll probably get it wrong, right? But it's, not to get into politics, right? But guns aren't evil, right? It's the people using them, right? It's the same way with money, right? There's a lot of misconceptions that money is evil. Money is not evil, right? It's what are you doing with that money, right? How are you impacting others? How are you helping others, right? What are you doing with it?

Shane Kilby (47:24)
That's it. That's it.

John Tiller (47:43)
Sure. Yep.

That's right.

Duane Murphy (47:54)
money in itself is not, you know, it's not evil, right?

Shane Kilby (47:55)
Like John said you're

good or bad with or without money money just amplifies it money just

John Tiller (48:01)
Well, and

not to get too deep into faith, but the truth is we're all bad. Like we're all bad and we all have some good and we have some bad. hopefully my goal is to wake up every day and check my heart and make sure that I'm doing the things I'm doing and using the money that I'm using for good. And I promise you that when I take an inventory of that, it is not always a green light.

Duane Murphy (48:07)
Yeah.

John Tiller (48:29)
Sometimes there's a red light there and things that I gotta change, right? But I think if we use it as a reflective tool, I think it can make us better for sure.

Shane Kilby (48:40)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So John, let me ask, so let's go a different direction. Let me ask you this. So we've, we all have that special person or that book or that quote or that mentor or that movie that has made a great impact on our life. has influenced us in the direction and the paths that we've taken to find success.

and overcome hurdles and obstacles in that path. Who would you say or what would you say has been your greatest influence in life and business to this point?

John Tiller (49:19)
Yeah, I mean, you know, there's the there's the family answer that says, you know, my wife and which is very true. There's no one more important in my life than my wife. I think a lot of people who don't invest that that is a product of both of us investing in that relationship. It was not naturally easy. No marriage is naturally easy.

But I'm going to skip that answer because that's kind of the pie in the sky answer. I'm also going to skip the Jesus answer as a person of faith because that's also kind of a churchy answer. And it's true, right? But beyond those two things in my life, probably, without a doubt, the most influential person in my leadership we've already talked about is John Maxwell. And I've never coached personally with him. I've had a privilege of meeting him a few times because I've been trying to get in the room.

for decades now with people who I can learn from. And John has written over 70 books on leadership and they're all just amazing. that's the, that's for me, that's what made him my mentor is I can deep dive in these books. And his, my favorite quote of his is that everything rises and falls on leadership. Everything rises and falls on leadership. And I learned that when I started my team in the early two thousands and ever since then I've tried to become a better leader.

And so I grabbed stuff on leadership as much as I can find. And the truth is that there's still even after him and many others, I've associated myself and mentored under lots of other great leaders. I do believe that when the leader gets better, everybody gets better. I think that despite how true that is, for some reason, there's still a leadership vacuum in our society. Like leaders are in

like, hi, Maxwell's newest book is called high road leadership. He makes the case that there's high road leaders, low road leaders and middle road leaders. Right. And the, his, the truth is that there are very few high road leaders. There's very few high capacity leadership focused, ⁓ level five, ⁓ leaders, top level leaders. And, ⁓ and I think a lot of that has to do because leaders to be a great leader, you're, you,

Leaders go last. You focus on yourself last. You focus on others first. And that's not naturally how we're wired. So we have to choose to lead ourselves differently to be great leaders. so anything that I can pick up that Maxwell has written, I get my hands on and that's actually, and I'll usually put together a group. have a group, a leadership group going together right now, getting together right now on Friday mornings. And we're studying that.

Duane Murphy (52:05)
Thanks.

John Tiller (52:06)
that study and so that allows

me to deep dive and also invest in others. And when I do those groups, I'll invite a group of people I can learn from and then a group of people that I feel like I want to invest into. And Maxwell taught me most everything I know about leadership.

Shane Kilby (52:23)
It's interesting that that is the same philosophy for all great leaders. And so to compare that, John Maxwell and Jaco Willink, right? They both have the same philosophy. Jaco's philosophy is there are no bad teams. There's only bad leaders, right? There's only bad leaders. So and that's the same, even though John doesn't put it exactly like that.

John Tiller (52:40)
Yep.

Yep. Yep.

Shane Kilby (52:53)
It's basically saying the same philosophy on leadership, right? Put others first, right? what's the greatest? The greatest leader is the greatest servant to their people, their followers, right? So yeah, very, very impactful, very impactful.

John Tiller (52:56)
That's right. That's right.

Duane Murphy (53:12)
Yeah,

in to sorry, cut off Jane there. The in order to be respectful of your time, I do have we have probably one more question or a couple more. But but in order to to try to to try to be respectful of your time and over running a little bit long, but the story like your story had to be shared, right? It had we had to have it right. So so I have no regrets on that at all. Right. So I'm just

Shane Kilby (53:15)
Now go ahead.

Duane Murphy (53:41)
Very glad that you shared it and very fortunate to know you.

Shane Kilby (53:46)
I'm

very thankful, very humble. I will go give my child another hug after this call. Absolutely.

Duane Murphy (53:48)
Yeah.

Yeah. So with everything that we've talked about and with all the experience and the journey that you've had thus far.

If you were to talk to either your younger self or maybe someone that's new in this journey or, or, or right, getting started in real estate, right. Headed down this path. What is something that you wish someone would have told you that, that you would share with others?

John Tiller (54:23)
Yeah, I think probably the, probably the three things are get in the room, do the work and give it away. Get in the room, meaning just like get in the room with people who are better, stronger, smarter, faster than you. That thing, I don't really, that must've been modeled for me somewhere. I don't know why that was, that was kind of natural for me getting into it, but it, was the number one thing I did for the younger me.

was to get in the room with other people. All the opportunities come that way when you get in the room and associate yourself with other people. I think one of the things though that's way underrated is doing the work. There is no way around the work. The way I'm wired, I love the phrase work smarter, not harder. And then guys who work harder, always outperform me. Always.

Right? So it's like you do, I would rather somebody, Will Smith said, Hey, listen, you might be smarter and faster than me, right? But you're not, if we're on a race on the treadmill, I will either outlast you or I will be dead. One of the two. And I know people like that. You know, a lot of people like that. think you guys are some of those guys who will outlast anyone like in, in that's that brings success. So doing the work, how about, how about in

Duane Murphy (55:28)
you

Yes, love that chord.

John Tiller (55:50)
How about we work hard and smart? And so that's number two. And then just giving it away. We talked about earlier, and I think it's really important to talk about what that means, giving it away and this philosophy that Ceplak talks about coming from a point of contribution. And I have lots of other folks and this has really kind of come into focus for me as I've gotten older and more seasoned in the real estate business.

There's a thing that I do that monetizes my knowledge, right? And I have a few things now that I'm older, you guys are, we have maybe a few things that monetize our knowledge, right? Things that we charge money for. But outside of the thing that we charge money for, it's all free. Like it's all free, all of it. And whenever I can, if somebody's willing to, it doesn't matter who they are, like I don't turn down, I don't turn down appointments and I don't, I don't turn down.

coaching calls. Now it might be two or three or four weeks before I'll take somebody who is not in my, you know, in my commitment circle, if you will, somebody I'm committed to coaching. might, it might take a while to get one-on-one, but everything I'm trying to do in life now is give away, give it away. And I think in very beginning, I had a mentor who, when we were in banking, I had, it was really privileged to be coached by executives there and

We were always giving away everything but personal information and client information. We would literally be an open book. And back then in the banking world, that was completely innovative. Nobody did that. we were at our regional bank. Capital One is headquartered here in Richmond and we would talk to our peers, competitors at Capital One and we'd be like, basically, you know, we'll show you everything we've got. And we'd love it if you don't mind.

Shane Kilby (57:26)
You

John Tiller (57:44)
If you don't mind sharing, you, you know, and if you don't want to share, it's okay, but here's what, here's what we have. So anyway, giving it away and adding value coming from a point of contribution, John Maxwell calls it adding value. If we just spend our lives, we wake up every day and look for a way that we can add value to others. ⁓ then we're gonna, we're gonna be okay.

Shane Kilby (58:04)
That's good. you know, what's very, very, you unique is we asked that question, I don't know, 30, 40 times thus far on this podcast. And I would probably say nine out of 10 times that is in that conversation is giving it away. In order, giving it away.

being in those rooms, you know, and then doing the work. It's like if we were to make a cookbook on how to be successful in life and business, and especially real estate, it get in the rooms, give it away, do the work, right? And there would be few things left to put in that recipe because it's always the same thing. If you're in the right places, you're gonna, the people above you are going to give it all the way to you, right? So in the room, someone gave it to you, there's only one thing left.

John Tiller (58:32)
Yes. Yep.

Yes.

Shane Kilby (58:59)
to go put it in action, put it in action. So we're not done. We're going to have a John Tiller part two, ladies and gentlemen. This was been a very, very enlightening call podcast and in due respect for John's time and for the rest of you guys and gals out there in podcast land.

Duane Murphy (59:08)
This is it.

Shane Kilby (59:23)
John, could anyone else out there, how could they connect with you, follow you, get more insight from you? What's the easiest way to make contact with

Duane Murphy (59:29)
You mentioned something

about finding you in the telephone book, like the rotary phone.

John Tiller (59:32)
Yeah, right. There's this thing called a telephone book, right? Yeah, that's

right. That's right. Yeah, you can just find me, John Tiller Real Estate. You can find me anywhere online. And we do a podcast called the Mega Team Mastermind. That is a, that's again, from a point of contribution where we interview a hundred million dollar and above team leaders and the coaches and people that support them and that you don't have to be at a hundred million dollars yet, but you can certainly learn something in that podcast. It's the Mega Team Mastermind.

podcast that we have out there and you can find me on social and connect with me that way anytime.

Shane Kilby (1:00:08)
And we'll be sure to put all your information into the show notes and get those uploaded to the podcast as well. In the meantime, everyone out there in Podcast Land, you would, if you've taken away some value from this episode, please do us a huge favor. Like and subscribe and as always, give us a good thumbs up and a good review on this podcast. It helps with the algorithms. And in the meantime,

Stay tuned and we will bring you some more fantastic content from great guests just like John and And we will have a John tiller part two ladies and gentlemen, so just stay tuned And with that I'll put a bow in it guys. It was great connecting with you again Thanks for taking opportunity out of your busy schedule, and we will see you all again real soon

John Tiller (1:00:57)
Thank you guys.

Duane Murphy (1:00:58)
Peace.