From Homeless at 15 to Leading Montana’s Most Trusted Real Estate Brand...The Mark Kuhl Story

In this powerful episode of the R.E.A.L. Real Estate Agent Life Podcast, Shane and Duane sit down with Marine Corps veteran, former firefighter, and Montana brokerage owner Mark Kuhl — a man whose story redefines resilience, leadership, and culture.

From being homeless at 15, to being shaped by the Marine Corps, to becoming a firefighter for 20 years, to stepping into real estate and rebuilding a brokerage almost from scratch… Mark’s journey is a masterclass in grit, service, and conviction.

Mark shares:

• The accidental chain of events that pushed him into the Marine Corps, firefighting, and real estate
• How he and his wife Marcy went from 21 agents… to 3… and rebuilt a culture that thrives today
• Why the most successful brokerages hire slow, fire fast, and protect culture with everything
• How loyalty, faith, and family built one of Montana’s most respected real estate brands
• What it actually takes to lead people without burning yourself out
• How to coach, mentor, and elevate people using life skills—not scripts
• Why ambitious agents desperately need to “ask without fear”
• What compounding interest, father wounds, and Tony Robbins have to do with real estate success
• And the one leadership lesson he wishes he learned 30 years earlier

Whether you’re a seasoned broker, a new agent, or someone who’s clawing your way toward a better life…
 Mark’s story will remind you that nothing is wasted. Every chapter prepares you for the next.

This is one of the most raw, real, and impactful conversations we’ve had on the show.

➡️ Subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share this with someone who needs a spark today.

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Transcript

Shane Kilby (00:00.364)
Watch this. Watch this, Mark.

Duane Murphy (00:00.891)
today. Welcome to another episode of Real Estate Aged Life. I'm Dwayne from the great state of Wisconsin and that's my co-host

Mark Kuhl (00:11.788)
you

Duane Murphy (00:15.739)
full gas today.

Shane Kilby (00:15.822)
Shane Kilby from sweet home, Alabama the home of Talladega and we'll get into that shortly stay tuned Yeah The little hint will drop

Duane Murphy (00:21.741)
Ooh, nice little nuggy there. Nice little nuggy there. The mic dropped. All right. And then today, whoa, sorry about that. I just all of dropped my chair. Today we have a special guest with us. Someone that I've known for a long time, Mark Cool, pronounced correctly. Yes, cool, see? Love it.

Mark Kuhl (00:42.105)
Yep, cool. Like the clothing brand, I wish it was mine.

Shane Kilby (00:45.987)
Just asked that question earlier today. I reckoning and hook us up on some discounts

Mark Kuhl (00:50.334)
Hahaha!

Duane Murphy (00:50.417)
So Mark is a Marine Corps veteran turned entrepreneur Mark his wife Marcy took a leap in 2018 and bought performance real estate in Kalispell, Montana the Since then he's transformed into one of the Flathead Valley's most recognizable brands and a company built not just on transactions, but also on trust

250 five-star reviews in my research. I was like, holy crap. A guaranteed sales program and proof that when you combine discipline, vision, and commitment, you can build a movement. I've known you for a while. We met way back, way back when a hatch mastermind. yeah, and you were just, you were just,

Mark Kuhl (01:37.083)
Yeah, 17, 18, somewhere in there,

Duane Murphy (01:44.081)
You were still I think then an agent we're gonna say that whole backstory of what got you into real estate and all that but at that point you were just getting ready to buy that or you had just purchased it I can remember some of that pain. Maybe we'll get into that a little bit but Mark welcome welcome welcome welcome. This is this is awesome to have you from the great state of Montana Shane and I both absolutely Well, I love that state

Mark Kuhl (01:58.308)
yeah, there was pain.

Shane Kilby (02:08.79)
No, it's my favorite state in the world.

Mark Kuhl (02:12.091)
Yeah, I love it. It's great here. I appreciate you having me, Dwayne. Shane, nice to meet you.

Shane Kilby (02:16.842)
Yeah, and so before we get started, know, as a Marine veteran, I do want to upset it off air. want to say it again. We're deeply, deeply thankful and appreciative for your time served. We couldn't do what we do here on this podcast or out here in this world of real estate and chaos without the good men and women just like yourself. So thank you so much for that.

Mark Kuhl (02:38.799)
Thank you. And as I was told years ago to change my verbiage of saying, appreciate it too. You were all worth it.

Shane Kilby (02:48.142)
Well, can't guarantee that all the time, but we appreciate it nonetheless, but the way we um, We have some friends out there around that area. Um I know that's where they try. know sandra and mike travel from cowsbell No, but I think they live in whitefish. Is that where it's at that whitefish where they live now somewhere? Okay They're associated with it. They move all over the place or they they have multiple markets. They work in uh south patota

Mark Kuhl (02:51.088)
Hahaha!

Duane Murphy (03:03.013)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Kuhl (03:06.095)
Yeah, it's worth me 15 minutes.

Duane Murphy (03:16.709)
Yeah, North Dakota. Yep.

Shane Kilby (03:18.038)
North Dakota and then in that area. So yeah, you might bump into them sometime.

Duane Murphy (03:25.241)
Only a few degrees of separation everywhere.

Mark Kuhl (03:27.408)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (03:27.806)
Absolutely, absolutely beautiful country out there. We actually have several real estate contacts and friends out that way. so Mark is Dwayne kind of shared a little bit as you stepped into the real estate world, why real estate like and share with the viewers and the listeners your backstory. Of course, you know, if he was listening, they can't see the uniform in the backdrop, which is makes for a great setting.

So if you're listening this on audio, make sure to catch the video as well But mark mark walk us through a little bit of backstory how you came from there to here

Mark Kuhl (04:01.123)
Yeah, so I grew up, I was homeless at 15. Mom abandoned me, so I was running around sleeping on floors here and there, blah, blah, blah. Marine Corps saved my life. It gave me discipline, it gave me structure, it gave me drive, all that kind of good stuff. In the midst of that, right before I joined the Marine Corps, I had met my beautiful then girlfriend. And I actually tried to...

break up with her without breaking up with her because I didn't think she would stick around with me. She was still in high school and I had just gotten out and she did. She stuck around and stuck around and stuck around and said, I'm going to marry this girl. So I did. We got married in 1992 right after I got back from, I went to Persian Gulf and then I went to Okinawa, Japan. And when I got back from Japan, we got married and just been great ever since, a couple of kids and stuff. after I got out of the Marine Corps, was lucky enough to

I have my pump house burned down. The brand new house, just bought an old pile of crap house, but new to us. Burned down and a bunch of firefighters came and put it out and I thought that's pretty cool. And I put my mind to it and started volunteering. And within a few months I got hired on. It was one of the first people ever hired in this department. I spent 20 years with Whatcom County Fire District 7, which you barely see the other uniform right there. That's my fire department uniform.

right next to my Marine Corps uniform. So I did 20 years in that. While I was a firefighter, that was in Washington State, my brother-in-law had started this company, started another company, I think in 2008 or so, somewhere in there with another guy and they were building it up and then they separated and he started this company in 2013 and that's the year I retired from the fire department. And he had asked me, hey, have you ever thought about real estate? So was an accident that I became,

a Marine because I ran into a guy that said you should join the military before you get in trouble. Forgot that part. It was an accident that became a firefighter because my pub house burnt down and I met some cool guys putting it out in my backyard. And it was kind of an accident. My brother-in-law said, hey, I'm starting this new company. I'm building a new company from scratch. You want to be a part of it. So I literally got my real estate license while I was still a firefighter in Washington. And when I retired the day after I retired, I got here and started.

Shane Kilby (05:59.743)
Hehehehe

Duane Murphy (06:13.54)
Okay.

Mark Kuhl (06:25.155)
in real estate. So that's how I got into real estate. My background of service, I'm an access service guy, so that's my love language. I love to serve people. I'm high dominance on the diss thing, I'm a high influential on the diss thing. I want people to love me and I love to serve. And so think that's kind of propelled me to leadership positions within everything I've done. was an officer in the fire department pretty much my entire career.

And I just love serving other people. So my brother-in-law had this company and it was a different company. He came from a background of business as business and you keep your business and personal separate. And I don't know how to do that. I spent 24 years with people to my right and left that we, our kids grew up together. We camped, we fished together. And now I own them. Well, I didn't know it at that time. I worked for a company that you're not supposed to fraternize with your people.

And I didn't like that much. So I did everything for my brother-in-law, anything he needed me to do. did. I started running the business. He hurt his back really bad. This is kind of what got me to buy it. I had to have back surgery. And so he was out of the office for over a year and I ran the company for a year without him being around. I didn't get paid for it because I just wanted to serve him. And one of our coaches said, you know what, you should just buy it from him because I think he's burned out.

because he'd been doing a lot longer and the model that he had created, which is the model I currently have, had the wrong people in it because he didn't have the right, not right or wrong, he didn't have the proper mentality to operate the model that we're currently operating and I do. And we both recognize that. He's an amazing business guy, like Wicked had been investing in things since he was 19 years old. I haven't.

Duane Murphy (08:03.472)
Hmm.

Mark Kuhl (08:23.451)
And so all government stuff thinking that government was going to be the best and the government retirement is going to be best. And when I turned 53, the fire department said, you have to start taking your retirement. And here's your. Eighteen hundred dollars a month. Oh, my Lord. Good thing I wasn't counting on that for retirement. Right. So in 2017, Brett and I started talking about that's about the time I met you, Dwayne, I think, and go. And yeah, we started talking and about.

Duane Murphy (08:47.759)
It was right in that time,

Mark Kuhl (08:53.327)
potentially buying it. so Marcy and I scraped up everything that we had saved in the 30 years of our marriage or at that time, 20 some, and we bought it from him in 2018. The people who worked here at the time were his people. And I was ignorant enough. So all of you out there that think that people won't quit when they knew, I thought everyone loved us. Marcy's the most amazing thing on the planet.

Anyone who knows Marcy knows that. Dwayne, know, my wife is incredible. I don't know why she's with me, but...

Duane Murphy (09:26.831)
You, there's a term, right, where you out kick your coverage. You and Marcy, you're like kind of the poster child for that, my friend. She's an amazing individual, super sweet.

Mark Kuhl (09:29.39)
She was.

Mark Kuhl (09:33.027)
Yeah, yeah, yeah

Mark Kuhl (09:39.213)
Yeah, thank you. Yeah.

Mark Kuhl (09:43.533)
She is, she is. since we've been dating since she was 15, she didn't know any better. So I think that's why she's still with me. She doesn't know any better.

Duane Murphy (09:49.874)
I didn't know it was that long. I thought you met in the fire service, but way back in high school. That's amazing. continue with your story. Sorry.

Mark Kuhl (09:54.423)
Oh No, no Yeah her Yeah, her sister and her mom actually showed up on my boot camp graduation. I thought we were gonna be broke up I'm like, oh my gosh, yeah, you know my family didn't show up and she did but anyway So 2017 we decided to talk about buying it and so we scraped everything up. We ended up purchasing it we told the company and we had 21 agents at the time and

We wanted to get rid of some of them, a lot of them actually. Some of them we were okay to probably keep. But within nine months, we were down to three agents, myself and two others. It was a rough, rough, rough role. There were some very extremely unethical things that were thrown at me. Commissions stolen, clients stolen. It was a very, very bad...

interaction and me owning a new company and being a man and a lot of them were women I couldn't fight back because if I started fighting back, I'm already guilty before I'm innocent and and so it's just kind of a mess and Because of the mastermind because of my coach because of some people that are in the mastermind al Iverson being one of them saved me from from

basically doing some stupid stuff and keeping the business and to keep the business. And my coach said, you know what, this is your time to rebirth and start your own company the way you want to do your company. And that was the rebirth words were my opportunity to say, know what, Mars, we can do this the way we want to do it now. We don't have to whittle through everything. We're already there.

And it worked out fabulous. We're up to 14, 15 people now. They're all our people. They're all very much Christian faith. They're all loyal. They're all amazing. We have four married couples in here. And the reason we ended up with four, the eight of us out of 14 are married because we interview the husbands or the spouses. If we're hiring a guy, we interview the spouse. If we don't like the spouse, we won't hire you.

Mark Kuhl (12:08.571)
We do back, like I said, in the Marine Corps and Fire Department, we do everything together. And so I changed that. This model and our culture is we all take care of each other. I hire extremely loyal and trustworthy individuals and teach them how to be realtors. And that's what fits my bucket. I don't want to have to be dealing with explaining to everybody, he's just that way. He's a jerk. He's always a jerk. Don't worry about it. He does a good job.

I don't want have to make excuses for it, but I want to throw my people out in the world and know that I'm going to be smiling when they come back because I'm going to get all sorts of great praise because of them. So that's what we built.

Duane Murphy (12:47.825)
Kudos, kudos really quick, kudos to you on that. I think as a society as a whole without going down a rabbit's burrow on all that, but I think that's missing in society as a whole. And it's definitely missing with a lot of leaders and a lot of leadership of being able to say, are my values, this is what I stand for, this is who we are. And then going after those people that fit that.

And, a lot of people speak it, but they don't write, they talk it, but don't walk it. And you go and you always have, like, I, couldn't, I was having like flashbacks to some of our, conversations way back when, that was in those masterminds and, and it koodles to you again on that, that, that whole part of it, the struggles that you were having and the

Mark Kuhl (13:24.431)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (13:46.034)
the fights you were fighting and trying to bring the culture and alignment with where you and Marcy wanted to take it and all the stuff that was going on. mean, a lot of that is kudos to the two of you for having full transparency on what it was you were feeling, what you were going through, what your challenges were, and then saying like, this is what we're dealing with. This is what I'm feeling. I'm ready just to walk away from all of it and be done.

I can still yet to this day still feel your pain from back then in those calls when I was first getting to know you and obviously Al and some of the others and what you went through with that to get your company, your family in alignment and to get it to where it is today. So a massive achievement by every stretch.

Mark Kuhl (14:40.475)
And I went through it. mean, honestly, right. I'm honored that I went through it to change who I am as well, because as a Marine and as a firefighter, you go fix things right now and you realize that something's just got to it burn a little bit. It'll fix itself. And some things you just can't knee-jerk react to. You can't do things right away. And you realize it taught me a lot. It taught my wife a lot.

Shane Kilby (14:40.738)
Yeah

Mark Kuhl (15:06.827)
It's been really good for us to have gone through that. So thank you to all those people that didn't align with me and I hold no grudges. We were just different. We were on different alignments.

Duane Murphy (15:15.409)
Mm-mm.

Shane Kilby (15:18.412)
Well, too, think that, you know, so and I picked up on this right as you started this story about the business model and the brother-in-law and the back injury and, and, and we, I think we've all been through this at some point in time. whether we start from scratch, whether we went to franchise model or corporate model, whatever model we decided to go. I think that, there are oftentimes we have the bus that's the business model.

And a lot of times we get the right people on the bus. We don't necessarily have them in the right seats of the bus, in the right positions of that bus. And then, you know, that's not a plug for her, but my wife, she is a branch manager for a mortgage company. And so she has her team as well. And oftentimes, you know, we get to a certain point in that business.

And we finally get the right people on the bus in the right seats. And we come to a bus stop and some of those people get off, right? And it's like, my God, the end of my perfect life has come to a crossroads at this moment. But then it's like, for me, once I learned, if you get them on the bus to follow this model and this vision and you get them in the right seat,

Even if they don't stay on that journey with you indefinitely Right, you still got to appreciate them where they as far as they rode with you, right? and so now I'll even take it a step further like If the Wayne's on the bus and then he's you know director of ops or whatever that position might be and it's time for him to get off that bus Because he wants to pursue it and hunt down his vision. Hey, I'm like, hey, how can I help you? Like how can I contribute?

Mark Kuhl (16:53.947)
secure.

Shane Kilby (17:14.262)
You've contributed to this vision, right? And you've helped build this vision as far as you could go. How can I help you? How can we help you make it closer to that destination and that vision that you're trying to achieve? So I think a lot of times it is, we get frustrated and I know I've gotten frustrated in the past and you get everything, all the ducks in the pond, bases loaded and everything, rock and rolling. Then you have somebody come out of those seats and get off that bus. So you sharing that kind of just

Duane Murphy (17:31.121)
Thank

Shane Kilby (17:43.864)
Played that same song right back through my head, right? And it's like like you said the model and then there's times where you you got down to three Do you say three agents? Great. It's like you man like man. I got it. I got a sale I got a list they got to lights on turn lights off get coffee get toilet paper get paper. We've got to do all these things now It's like why don't I just go do this for someone else? Right. You still wouldn't be happy

Mark Kuhl (17:47.429)
Yeah.

Mark Kuhl (17:53.424)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (18:09.614)
Right you still wouldn't be happy and a lot of times we have to We talk about all the time like if you haven't thought about burning it down this month Then you probably not really deep in trend and entrenched into the business, but it does it gives us that opportunity to To get the people that we really need that we didn't know we needed if that makes sense

Mark Kuhl (18:20.837)
Cheers.

Mark Kuhl (18:28.411)
Yeah, 100%. And you know, our attrition rate in the last five years has been one. Some people haven't made it that we've tried to bring on. We've only had one leave the company in last five years. And I attribute that to, it's not easy to care about these people so much. you know, my wife and I, we've been together 35, 36 years almost.

We have some knowledge about marriage, have knowledge about kids, got knowledge about finances, we got knowledge about real estate. So when we sit down with these folks at least once a month, we talk about that stuff. Hardly ever do we talk about real estate. We talk about life. How can we better your family life? How can we better your finances? How can we better your relationship with your children? All that kind of stuff. And it just gets us closer to what that does for an empath like my wife.

is it makes it that much harder when any of these people in here are struggling. Because everybody struggles a little bit. You you're not making as much in the last couple of months, and then all of sudden you take off, and it's this roller coaster. We try to keep it an Amtrak and not a roller coaster, but it's inevitable. And so it's much more difficult for my wife to not be an empath, because she is, when they're struggling.

And so it's not for everybody. It's not. It's really, really tough when it comes to that. And you can burn out just because you don't have one family. You have 15. So it does get taxing because we care. If I didn't care, yeah.

Duane Murphy (20:08.079)
Mm-hmm.

Shane Kilby (20:08.171)
Mm-hmm.

Duane Murphy (20:12.121)
I was going say with both of your, both of your personalities are that, I mean, she's definitely more of an empath than you, but, and I mean that in a good way, but like both of your, you have that driver personality where you, right. You're driven and you want to see people succeed and you want them at the highest level. She wants to see them succeed on, you know, just as bad, but in a different way for the same reason. it, you know, we, Shane and I have had many a guest and we've had many a podcast on.

Mark Kuhl (20:21.593)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (20:42.629)
And where you almost want it sometimes more for them than they do for themselves. And some people just aren't meant for this type of lifestyle. They aren't meant for this type of business. at the end of the day, if you know that you did everything that you could do as a leader, you just sometimes just have to let them go and be okay with that. And I know all of us have gone through our journeys of

Mark Kuhl (20:49.528)
Yeah.

Mark Kuhl (21:07.803)
100%.

Duane Murphy (21:10.481)
of coming to grips with that and being okay when that happens. mean, Shane had mentioned, you're like, hey, you know, right? The bus stops, you didn't expect anybody to get off and then all of sudden two get off and you're like, whoa, what? Like, okay, well, in the past, my gosh, I'd have probably, you know, I'd probably driven the bus into a telephone pole because they're like, oh my gosh, like, they don't love me. They don't like me, right? Or whatever it be. like, oh my gosh, I didn't make them successful. what?

Mark Kuhl (21:23.641)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (21:37.253)
What am I doing wrong that I didn't make them uber successful in doing real estate? And you carry that burden, you wear that burden, and sometimes it's just not meant to be, and that's okay.

Mark Kuhl (21:51.075)
Yeah, I love what Shane said. mean, if you're off the bus, I'm going to help you do what you want to do. And there's been several people that couldn't make it in the industry. If you can't make it with our model, it's going to be really difficult in the industry at large. several of those people still, they're out of real estate or they're at another brokerage and they still call me for advice. And guess what? They have a supervising broker, but I still give them advice with the caveat.

You better talk to your broker about this because I don't know what your policies are over there, but this was what we would do here at Performance Real Estate. So I'm not going to not answer my phone for them. They're still human. I still have a connection with them. They just didn't make it in my model and that's okay. This isn't everybody's cup of tea.

Shane Kilby (22:40.812)
Yeah, what's it? What is it? What is it they say a season the reason or a lifetime? A season the reason or a lifetime? Yeah, and it's it's much wiser to to Keep those relationships Solid, you know, mean You have to ask yourself, know what I would I dislike this human being, you know in any other setting It's like no like so why would I have a why would I have a bad, you know?

Mark Kuhl (22:47.172)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (23:07.374)
bone against this individual just because it didn't work out in our model. Just like you said, I I kind of look at the same way in our house. It's like, you can't make it in our model. It's gonna be difficult elsewhere, because we're the same setup. When I went through real estate school, my instructor, he was retired military, and that's why I went to him, because he could hold my attention.

You know, he's like, hey, the first thing in this that you need to understand is you need to leave emotion out of the equation. Like you need to execute at a high level, at a high standard for your clients. If you get emotionally connected, you're not going to give them the best representation you can. And it's true. And it's true. It's not completely possible all the time because we go, we see so many emotional changes through this industry, buyers and sellers together.

But when you're running a brokerage or a team, right, any type of organization, I don't really know if it's possible to keep emotion out of the game. just, everything we do is connected to it, you know?

Mark Kuhl (24:18.277)
You just have to control it, right? You have to control it and use it to yours and whoever you're working with's benefit. Now don't make that decision right now. I know you're upset right now. Let's sleep on this. Let's talk in the morning. Your brain's going to reset. You're going to think a little bit more clearly. We call it red light, yellow light, green light. If you're

Shane Kilby (24:20.258)
Yep, that's the key.

Shane Kilby (24:26.466)
Yeah, absolutely.

Shane Kilby (24:32.193)
Yeah.

Mark Kuhl (24:39.321)
Talking to somebody and everything's all good and you can talk about anything your green light you guys are communicating back and forth It's great all sudden something gets said now. It's yellow. It's like proceed with caution If it gets red, you got to agree Hey If it gets to red let's back away for 10 minutes or a day and then come back again when we can talk because Nobody's listening when they're in red and you're just barking at a brick wall and they're barking back at a brick wall and nothing gets solved so

Shane Kilby (24:48.398)
Good.

Duane Murphy (24:59.793)
think that's

Shane Kilby (25:00.429)
Mm-mm.

Duane Murphy (25:06.181)
That might be a... We should deem that little section that last bit you did as like marriage advice 101.

Mark Kuhl (25:13.275)
And that comes straight from, I coached with Tony Robbins for a year and one of my coaches was Keith Wagner. So he's the one that told me about it. And actually he was coaching me for business. I got so much business coaching advice in three months. I said, stop, I can't do this anymore. I got so much to do. So much to do. I can't do this. He says, well, you I was a marriage counselor for many years. I said, beautiful. I always love to make my marriage better. Right? So that's where it came from.

Shane Kilby (25:17.155)
Yeah.

Mark Kuhl (25:42.991)
And he talked about me being a microwave because I want things done right now. And my wife being a crock pot, she's really got to, you got to warm up to it and she's got to think about it. And she's going to, it's going to take forever to cook that thing. And mine's cooked in 30 seconds and it takes hers all day. And, and that's where the red light, green light, yellow light came from was that same coach, Keith Wagner with a torch for Coney Robbins coached for Tony Robbins. Yeah.

Duane Murphy (25:46.693)
It's...

Shane Kilby (25:46.776)
Okay.

Duane Murphy (25:49.585)
Mm.

Duane Murphy (26:07.344)
love it.

Shane Kilby (26:08.384)
Yeah, I bet the crock pot version is better. When you're both in the same room, I bet that question comes up. We're always going to eat the crock pot. That's going to be the best way to go.

Mark Kuhl (26:13.211)
Yeah.

Mark Kuhl (26:21.499)
Yeah. Yeah.

Duane Murphy (26:23.067)
Yeah, that nice little sever. So,

You shared a lot of successes and the turnaround and where you have the brokerage today and where you have the company. What would you deem as your biggest success in business?

Mark Kuhl (26:43.747)
I'd say the biggest success is the reputation that the company has for anybody who knows us. It's always, whether it's a rival or a title company, a lender, anybody says, man, I get so many compliments about you guys. our ethics and our stuff is up high. And I think that, you know, that started right there with the military of...

of having that pride and that honor and that integrity and we just portrayed that right in here. And so I think the success is all these people that have worked with us have that in them. And it's just fun to watch because I listen to them talk to their clients or even their children or another agent and they're holding themselves to that standard. it's like a proud dad. mean, it sounds

Condescending but it's not you know it's a proud dad going this is this is pretty cool And and the fact that I get hit by a bus tomorrow That's gonna carry on and that just makes me tick I want to make you better than me I want you to be my boss someday that makes me tick straight up

Shane Kilby (27:59.212)
Very good, very good insight. I see Dwayne taking notes. You know, the benefit of having guests on here is like, not even gonna lie, like we get a lot of coaching. We get a lot of opportunity. I mean, just great value, like 10X value. Okay, so having that side of the conversation, we've all got that unique.

special person that plays that thing that Athlete, you know, there's always an influence in our life and it sounds like you you had a a questionable Challenges as a young man facing the world could have went either way I'm glad it went the way that it did. I know that where the world's better because of it What do you think would or what would you contribute?

to be in the greatest influence in your life and business to this point.

Mark Kuhl (28:59.067)
I would say Sergeant Jimmy Williams and Sergeant Jimmy Williams was my platoon sergeant in the Marine Corps when we went to the Middle East. And, you know, I grew up in not a good family life even before my dad passed away when I was 10. And just it was kind of a mess, pretty messy. it made me who I am. So there's no regrets of what happened there. But Sergeant Jimmy Williams, he's a mere image of Denzel Washington. I mean, they could be twin twin brothers.

And so in the Marine Corps, you don't call people Asian, black, white. They're light green, medium green and dark green. So he's a dark green Marine. And one of my favorite humans to this day, his demeanor, his intellect and his pouring into me as a squad leader in times of stress and

calm that stuff down and just giving me that discipline was probably the turning point of understanding. Because I didn't have a dad in my life. you need fathers in your life to give you discipline. It's back up to the head and say, don't do that and all that kind of stuff. And he did it with such grace. And I would say he was definitely my guy. And I have not spoken with him since I got out of the Marine Corps. can't find him.

Duane Murphy (30:09.848)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Kuhl (30:20.315)
I'd love to find him. So Jimmy Williams, if you're out there, Sergeant Jimmy Williams, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, I want to see you. I want to talk to you. You are a good man and somebody who I look up to. So I'd say that's my guy.

Shane Kilby (30:34.05)
That's awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome. There's always that key individual, that key person or, you know, or persons. We get that a lot. So that's, that's awesome.

Duane Murphy (30:35.345)
We are

Duane Murphy (30:44.657)
Us three, I know Shane's past and obviously hearing yours a little bit, we all have that preteen, teen life path. Ours are all same, all very similar. I know Shane says it all the time as well. I do from time to time as well. It's made me who I am.

Both both good and bad. It's made me but it's made me who I am and and You know, it's the same same with knowing both of you gentlemen you know, it's you know, get you get forged in fire and And that's why when that fire when that fire comes early in life right that that steel gets hardened and and strengthened more so than than it will at any other time, so

Mark Kuhl (31:28.08)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (31:28.84)
and sharpened iron.

Duane Murphy (31:43.451)
Let's go.

Mark Kuhl (31:43.579)
Yeah, and through those heartaches, you don't realize how well they're going to shape your life for a good way. I mean, just as an example, watching family members at 10 years, I'm 10, watching family members cooking this black substance on a spoon and doing some stuff in the kitchen and you're going, what is going on over there? And then they're acting all dumb and doing stupid things and breaking things. my brain was, I don't want to ever be like that. And so to this day, I've never taken a drug.

Thank goodness my personality, I'd probably go crazy with it. But I just don't feel that need because that shaped me. So thank you guys for doing that. I don't fault you for that. We just had a father pass away, a husband pass away in 1982 is when that stuff was going on. And it got worse from there. regardless of the fact, I'm not going to judge my family for what they did and didn't do and how they dealt with the death of my dad and things like that.

I just chose to go a different direction.

Shane Kilby (32:44.782)
Well, you know, get, you know, I think there's different stages of life. you know, as a young individual, you know, there's some anger, there's some frustration and there's some confusion, right? You just kind of, you kind of, don't understand, you don't have the answers, right? You need direction. You don't have the direction that you need. And now you're pushing back on anything that feels like it's, it's working against you. Um, but then it's like, you get to a certain.

age in life and you've lived through enough experiences and you survived through enough things you look back and you reflect back on that and you go you know what

I really appreciate the struggles and strife that those individuals went through because without them, the three of us and several other guests that we've had on would not have been so driven to succeed at a higher level and able to give back and contribute to so many people's lives around them, right? That may hopefully have never seen things like that.

many of which probably have that have not shared those deep dark secrets, but because of those individuals way back then Because of what we did not want to become We had they they're the ones who lit the fire to make us who we are today. I truly believe that truly believe

Duane Murphy (34:10.501)
Yeah. There are so many, so many, and the term successful can be defined a lot of different ways. It's how someone sees success may be completely different than how I see success or how you see success. I'm going to put it out there without putting a definition of success. But there are so many people that are successful, right? It could be marriage, could be wealth, could be job, position, career, everything. But there are so many people that are

that are successful due to those hardships that they did overcome. There's many that unfortunately do not overcome those and they do get pulled into those trenches, but there's many others, two of which I'm looking at on my screen in front of me, that overcome them and become successful in so many ways.

Mark Kuhl (34:46.063)
For sure. Yeah.

Mark Kuhl (35:02.939)
All those heartaches bat, you know, they they make you An expert if you will for those that are struggling with the same types of things so and I say this a lot When I'm when I'm coaching and mentoring my people You can't have a 20 year old single never had a baby woman trying to counsel a third time pregnancy woman on on

what it's like to have postpartum. It just doesn't work. Even though she went to school for that and she knows everything about it and book smart, but it just goes on deaf ears because you haven't been there. You can't have a civilian try to talk to me about PTSD and what it's like to see what we saw in the fire department or the military. It just doesn't work. So having that pain, you can now impact many more lives that have gone through it because

People, they always think they're the only one. And that's not a dig on anybody, but most people think I'm the only one going on this, I'm gonna keep it quiet. No, you're not, you're not alone. You are not alone. Believe me. I love Simon Sinek's, I just watched his thing the other day and he said, be the idiot in the room. If you haven't watched that, go to YouTube and it's be the idiot. And basically he went into this corporate room just to watch and see what's going on and.

This guy was blabbing all this stuff and and ad lib this bit blabbing all this stuff and Simon's like I have no sir I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what that means I don't know what that means about that means so the guy explained it to Simon and By the time the guy gets done explaining to Simon all the other CEO's or CEOs are in the room went so glad you asked that question I had no idea what he was talking about either and So they would have left that meeting with zero knowledge

Zero stuff, but be the idiot ask that question. You're not the only one that doesn't understand You're not the only one that's gone through that trauma. You're not the only one there's so many out there and with teamwork comes Comes such a better better light and a better life to realize that you're not in this alone

Shane Kilby (37:18.528)
Yeah, it's like what's the quote and we know it. We've all lived it and eat it and breathe it. Never take advice or input or suggestions from someone that A, hasn't been where you're at or B, is not where you want to go. And I try to remind myself of this and everyone around me, one, you need coaching.

You're not that great. No matter how good you are, you still have full potential. But never be coached by someone who doesn't have a coach. so because it's you're gonna you're you've set your ceiling low again because whatever they know it's it's going to be outdated if they themselves don't have a coach and invest in coaching.

Mark Kuhl (38:00.283)
for destroying.

Duane Murphy (38:11.525)
Yeah, because they're not raising, that is a golden nugget there, because they're not raising their ceiling, right? So sooner or later, you're to hit their ceiling because they're not, they're not continuously raising their own. And if they're continuously raising their own, right, that's something you're always chasing and striving to get to.

Mark Kuhl (38:18.309)
Yeah.

Mark Kuhl (38:26.875)
100%. Yeah. Tony Robbins, arguably one of the best coaches on the planet, right? Arguably. I love him. I think he's great. He's got several coaches. As a matter of fact, I was honored enough. I know some friends, Lionel and Jonathan, their mom was Tony Robbins' coach. And I got to spend several hours with her in Hollywood at one of these mastermind events. And what a fascinating human being.

Absolutely fascinating and I missed the entire tour of the entire Houdini estate on purpose because I was talking to her and it was just this most amazing couple hours of every that's like sitting to get in the opportunity to sit down with Tony Robbins, you know, we're finding a cynic. It's just yeah, you guys. Yeah, you guys go go look at the thing. I'm going to talk to mama cats, you know, here she is. So yeah, it was amazing. So yeah, I think that's great. John Shin, who is a who is a

Shane Kilby (39:09.186)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (39:09.258)
yeah, I mean that's a six figure check that, right.

Yeah.

Mark Kuhl (39:25.179)
Pretty well off, great guy, fantastic guy. He's got an insurance company. He's just a great dude. He had said something on stage one time that really rocked me to the core because I'm an outgoing guy. You know me, Dwayne. I'll go out talk to anybody, right? So we're at a conference and he says something up there. He says, without fear.

And I thought about that for a second. thought, know, six years in a row, I went to this fire service conference down in California called the California Fire Instructor's Workshop in San Jose, California. And I got to meet some of the most amazing humans on the planet. I got to meet Frank Abagnale from Catch Me If You Can. I got to meet Jack Canfield, Chicken Soup for the Soul, John Walsh with America's Most Wanted, just a bunch of these guys. And I was the only firefighter that had the cojones.

They were over by the green room. Everyone's standing around and kind of looking, going, there they are. And I just walk over there talk to them. But until John Shannon, I wish I had met him before, until he said ask without fear, I never once thought to say, hey, Frank, Mr. Abagnale, Mr. Walsh, Mr. Canfield, can I have 30 minutes of your time to ask you some questions?

Mark Kuhl (40:41.461)
how my life would be changed today because I do it all the time now. I have no problem I got I'll meet him and then I'll say can I have 30 minutes of your time and I did that with it with John and I didn't get 30 minutes of his time I've probably had about 10 hours of his time For zero dollars because I asked Wow, I mean ask without fear John Shin. Thank you for that. And those of you that are out there

Duane Murphy (41:06.033)
Hmm.

Mark Kuhl (41:06.447)
You don't ask, you may never know the nuggets that can come out. There's that kid that goes around on the podcast and he talks to billionaires. He asked the billionaires, how did you get there? He's asking, well, that kid asked without fear, without quite, he doesn't take no for an answer. He just jumps in and dives in. And now he's getting a little bit more known, but when he started, that's pretty amazing.

Shane Kilby (41:15.363)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (41:15.968)
yeah yeah.

Shane Kilby (41:27.576)
Well, you know, it's the the the

People, the influential people like that, that truly are passionate and purposeful to give it back, they want to give it to the folks that are hungry, that are bold, because they know that they were once that person, and they know that that person's going to take advantage of all of that opportunity and knowledge and information that they give them, and they're going to run with it, right?

They know that the folks that tip the toe in it and get all waist deep in the Kool-Aid, they'll write the checks, they'll pay the subscriptions, they'll pay for the coaching, and yeah, they'll get a lot from it. But the bold, that fearless individual goes beyond that and asks those bigger and longer questions and asks for that time. They want to give it, they want to give it, especially if it's possible. It makes perfect sense, perfect sense.

Duane Murphy (42:23.867)
you

Mark Kuhl (42:28.539)
for sure.

Shane Kilby (42:29.516)
We teach and coach in our organizations every day. We sometimes forget to take our own medicine. Sometimes forget to take our own medicine.

Duane Murphy (42:37.144)
So Mark, you're talking about coaching and, and asking those questions and not being fearful of that. And so over your lifetime and, and through, through real estate now you've been, been in it for a decent amount of time. You've learned some stuff, uh, sometimes the hard way, uh, sometimes through others. If you go back in time or if there's a, uh,

If you go back to a younger you, maybe somebody who is a younger you right now, what is something that you wish somebody would have told you?

Mark Kuhl (43:15.615)
100%. So I wish someone would have told me about compounding interest as a simple thing, right? Tony Robbins wrote a book sitting right over there, Money Master the Game, right? I wish someone would have told me about that because who would have thunk that the amount of money you could be sitting on if you just let that stuff compound and just put it in there. That's one thing. Financially, finances don't give you happiness, right?

I wish someone would have told me to...

How do I put it? Think of others before myself earlier in life, because now all I do is think about others. I'm a high, high guy, so I want people to look at me, look at me, look at me. But the older I get, I used to love being in the center of attention and have everybody, and now I don't. I like to put others there. The zig-ziggler thing, know, help as many people get what they want, you'll get what you want type thing, right? And I wish someone would have told me that

Shane Kilby (44:15.502)
Thank you.

Mark Kuhl (44:21.453)
earlier in life, the more you serve others, the more you get served without even knowing it and it'll come back tenfold and it does. And that's my goal with this company and it has been for a while is to serve them and get them exactly what they need. Because when they get what they need, I get what I need. And I would push that off and I do that with our new gal, Maddie. I mean, just sit down and tell her, she says, hey,

I did another, on the weekend, she's just a daytime social media for us. And she asked us, you mind if I work on the weekends sometimes? No, absolutely. You're a W2 employee, go for it. So she made like, I'm not gonna tell you how much she made. She made a pretty good chunk of money doing this other job. And she goes, I don't need the money, what should I do with it? And I said, well, let's sit down. You're 20 years old, she just turned 21.

21 years old, what if we compound that for 40 years? Let's go into MoneyChimp, go to MoneyChimp, let's add it up, they do it. And her eyes got about that big. She went, you've got to be kidding me. And I said, there you go. That's the absolute power of compounding interest. Cause you have 40 years to do this. I have not that long.

Shane Kilby (45:29.233)
Hehe.

Duane Murphy (45:40.721)
was gonna say, if I did the reverse math now at my age and all the compound interest I did do, I'd cry. I'd cry.

Mark Kuhl (45:50.073)
Right. We bought that truck because we wanted to look cool. Right. We bought that. you know, and it goes, be coach. So pick your coaches wisely. Also, special financial coaches. What's their net worth? That is such a, that's such a, we're, we're diving into net worth really big this year for our people, for us and Aaron West out of, I think he's out of Oregon or.

Shane Kilby (46:02.092)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Kuhl (46:12.229)
California camera he came on and really opened her eyes to net worth and stuff And so you got these guys that'll run a successful business. They're driving Rolls Royces They got they got Rolex's on all this kind of stuff, but if you look their net worth of broke They look flashy, but they're broke do I want to take advice from that guy? No Do I want to take advice from the guy that's driving the same pickup? He's driven for ten years dresses like me has got a net worth of five six seven million dollars

and you got there and how long, how did you do that? That's the guy I wanna talk to. So net worth is a big deal and it shouldn't be embarrassing. It shouldn't be, it should be to the one who doesn't have it. But if you wanna coach somebody, then I'm not afraid to say what my net worth is and why and how I got there. I mean, I've been on this earth a long time and I've been married a long time with two incomes and we got government background plans, 401ks and IRAs we've been doing for

35 plus years, that's different than the 20 year old, right? So I think finding out what someone's net worth is, is a big thing. If you want net worth and doing it for the right reason, you really got to figure out what's your coach's net worth.

Shane Kilby (47:16.204)
Mm-hmm.

Shane Kilby (47:27.21)
Very good. Very good.

Duane Murphy (47:27.323)
Great advice. Oof.

Shane Kilby (47:31.702)
Listen if you if you have pages viewers listeners myself the way like you should have notes on notes on notes on notes and Mark is funny because we get into these calls and Nuggets come out and we will start turning we're like always do we've got to keep this thing good We're not listening like we're actually producing this so we got to stay focused But we were talking earlier today like a lot of our own episodes we go back and listen to

Like man, did you you hit this one piece of this call or this conversation? We had like we shot the episode But we got fixed on this one nugget and we missed two other nuggets and when you go back it's like so you have you dropped all sorts of value today like greatly appreciated greatly appreciated mark insight out the wazoo like you listeners viewers like you need to Make notes of this and put all of this into action

Duane Murphy (48:13.553)
Bye.

Mark Kuhl (48:27.161)
Here's another coach thing. Another coach thing told me, knowledge, you have the knowledge now because you heard some things. Knowledge without action is pointless.

Shane Kilby (48:38.808)
Thanks.

Mark Kuhl (48:39.449)
You have to take action on it. Tony Robbins says that. My coaches say that. You got to take action on it. It's one thing to get all fired up. The problem with us usually going to things like this is when we come back and we try to plop it onto our people, they didn't experience what we experienced. So they're just like, okay, he's crazy. can do something else on it. Right. So yeah. Yeah.

Duane Murphy (48:40.229)
Boom.

Shane Kilby (48:55.928)
wearing headlights.

Duane Murphy (48:57.937)
Yep, program of the month, here it comes. Oh, he just came back from an event, like, here we go, you're gonna be all jacked up for a month.

Mark Kuhl (49:03.801)
Get them

Shane Kilby (49:06.252)
I'm taking my vacation, the day DeWayne gets back.

Duane Murphy (49:09.841)
You

Mark Kuhl (49:09.849)
Yeah, yeah. So taking your team and your group to your stuff with you to get them fired up too is wow, we want to talk about, that's what Hatch has created, right, with the coach with his coaching is bring your teams. And if everybody gets fired up together, you'd be amazed on these newer people you've got that have these amazing ideas and things that will blow your business up in such a good way if you allow that culture of let's innovate together.

Duane Murphy (49:16.753)
Mm-hmm.

Shane Kilby (49:39.384)
Mm-hmm.

Duane Murphy (49:40.357)
Yeah, interlinked arms is so powerful. So powerful.

Mark Kuhl (49:43.021)
Of course, yeah.

Shane Kilby (49:45.132)
Very true, very true.

Duane Murphy (49:46.802)
Well, I tell you what, almost want to take this down a couple more paths, but we'll stretch this sucker out to like two and a half hours and everyone's gonna be like, what the heck? But yeah, that just means we get to do another session. And on the next one, we've talked about it, doing spouses in business. And on the next one, we'll have to get Marcy involved in this and she'll be our

Shane Kilby (49:51.672)
Yeah.

Mark Kuhl (49:59.147)
I'll come back that again.

Shane Kilby (49:59.352)
You got go Joe Rogan!

Duane Murphy (50:16.273)
Cross-check on everything that you state will be like, is that true mercy? So

Mark Kuhl (50:20.301)
Yeah, I'm the eternal optimist. She's the eternal pessimist. So Yin and Yang works really well. She she slows me down. I speed her up and it works really well. We know that about each other. So you'll hear definitely a different mindset from hers like well hold on a second. This isn't as great as it you say it is. I know it's not but I'm not gonna you know, life is hard. Marriage is hard, you know all that stuff. But that's why you don't see Facebook. You don't see the bad stuff. You see all the good stuff, right?

Duane Murphy (50:29.114)
Yes.

Duane Murphy (50:41.616)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (50:46.551)
Always, always. it, but, but I tell you, you talk about that yin and yang and you, you nailed that. Knowing the two of you for, for as long as I have and seeing your, interactions and, then being able to not only see your interactions between the two of you, but then to hear each one of you describing a certain situation and the way you see it, which is like you said, seeing it almost two different ways, the same, but yet different.

Shane Kilby (50:46.702)
That's true, that's true.

Duane Murphy (51:17.932)
is extraordinary and it's reflecting in all the success that you guys are having and that's phenomenal. if someone wanted to, one of our listeners, and we've got people that listen to us all over the United States, Canada even, I don't know if we're anywhere else, but we're United States and Canada for sure, how would they reach out to you? How could they connect with you?

Mark Kuhl (51:39.931)
You can Google my name Mark cool. There's it's KUHL You can go to performance real estate in Montana You're gonna we're probably the first one that pop up for any kind of looking for real estate in Northwest, Montana type of thing my culture keeper podcast Is spelled like my last name. It's a play on the words KUHL ture culture keeper I'm big on that. I love I love that makes me tick on that. So

Yeah, you can Google me if you can find me. Pretty easy to find.

Duane Murphy (52:12.145)
And you've had some pretty big guests on that, just a little sidebar. Shane kind of teased it right at the beginning, but you've had a couple of big guests on your Culture podcast.

Mark Kuhl (52:23.003)
Yeah, I run into some amazing humans in real estate and one of them is Mark Martin. Mark, you brother. NASCAR Hall of Famer, just an awesome human being. His wife Arlene, his son Matt, they're just dear friends of ours and he's a fan of the show. So we came on the show for two different episodes and talked about the culture between Rouse Racing and Hendrick Racing. That's who his career was with. And it was very, very interesting to listen to that.

the different cultures, neither one is better or worse than the other, they're different. Yeah, right? And so your brokers, my brokers, everything, they're not better or worse, they're different. We have a different culture. New York, downtown Chicago, you probably couldn't have what we have right here, it's gonna be different. And that's okay. Yeah, pretty cool.

Duane Murphy (52:56.657)
just different.

Shane Kilby (52:57.016)
Mm-hmm.

Shane Kilby (53:04.131)
Mm-hmm.

Duane Murphy (53:13.489)
Exactly right.

Shane Kilby (53:13.708)
Yeah, difference is not necessarily bad. Different is just like you said, different. We're all chasing the same checkered flag. We're all chasing the same checkered flag.

Mark Kuhl (53:17.403)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (53:17.851)
Yeah, there we go.

Mark Kuhl (53:21.496)
Yes, sir.

Duane Murphy (53:23.097)
And we always, and all of us, I know I've heard it from each of you and something that we gurgitate as well is there's more than enough for all of us. The good will keep winning. if you're that, the success and the wins are just, they're never ending. They're out there to be had and there's more than enough for all of us. So to all of our listeners,

Mark Kuhl (53:31.747)
Without question. Yeah.

Duane Murphy (53:49.073)
Everyone who's subscribing or maybe just popped in and like well, I don't know. I just listen to this podcast I found it pretty cool. I tell you what there's something that we need you to do and Shane. What is that?

Shane Kilby (54:00.172)
We need you to smash that like button. Smash that subscribe button.

Duane Murphy (54:02.034)
Smash, we call it smash that subscribe button, smash that share button, send this out to somebody you know, one of the greatest ways to get back is to help others. And that could be this episode and some of the nuggets of knowledge that Shane and Mark have shared. Share it with someone else, help them, it will come back to you tenfold. It will come back to you tenfold. There's also another button somewhere on the podcast or ApplePod or whatever the heck, what place you're listening to this.

there's a place to leave a review. And I tell you what, we love five star reviews. Five stars. So if you can leave us a five star review, we'd really appreciate that because, yeah, I think you just said it. What's it give us?

Shane Kilby (54:35.022)
We greatly appreciate those.

Shane Kilby (54:44.362)
It gives us that Google juice the algorithms like.

Duane Murphy (54:46.383)
Google juice and I tell you what if you haven't experienced Google juice there's nothing better the Google juice is where it's at and it's by subscribing sharing and giving us five star love that our Google juice continues to do what it does it also allows us to bring out amazing people such as Mark and and that's what makes it happen so yeah

Mark Kuhl (54:47.279)
No, no, is!

Mark Kuhl (54:54.476)
that's awesome.

Shane Kilby (55:10.764)
Yeah, reach out to us and send somebody. you got someone you would love to have on the podcast, send them our way. Or it might be you. It might be you. We'd love to have you on as a guest.

Duane Murphy (55:19.909)
Yeah, we'd love to talk with you and love to get you on the podcast and introduce you to everybody else. And from all of us here at Real Estate Agent Life, we're going to say, peace. Have a great day.

Shane Kilby (55:32.248)
Peace, see you guys.

Mark Kuhl (55:34.041)
Peace!