R.E.A.L. Real Estate Agent Life Podcast

From Marine Discipline To Real Estate Mastery

• Shane Kilby and Duane Murphy • Season 2 • Episode 54

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He started with a dead-end factory job, grabbed a phone book at lunch, and called the Marine Corps. Years later, he’s sleeping outside a developer’s office to secure lots, flipping an option with relentless builder calls, and discovering the kind of opportunity that hooks you for life. We talk with Mike Coke, founder of Terra Firma and a former Marine, about what it really takes to build a durable real estate career when the market is moving and your confidence is not.

Mike walks us through the full arc: early land sales, scaling into leadership, then the gut punch of the 2008 housing and mortgage crisis when banks stop renewing development notes and a booming business gets forced to shut down. Instead of quitting, he pivots into managing and liquidating distressed developments, running HOAs, and rebuilding into a brokerage that he runs like a “teamridge” to keep leverage high and liability low. He also shares why he ultimately aligned with EXP to create a bigger world for his people and reclaim time from compliance.

We go deep on the fundamentals that still win: discipline, consistent prospecting, and measuring the right leading indicator: real conversations. Mike breaks down the trap of “flexibility” without structure, why hiring and culture are often the hardest lessons, and why splits are a distraction if you cannot point to real receipts like training, support, and proven agent growth. If you want more closings, more freedom, and a stronger pipeline, press play, then subscribe, share this with an agent who needs it, and leave us a five-star review.

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Cold Open And State Rivalry

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to another episode Talking It's Hard Today of Real Estate Agent Life. I'm Dwayne Murphy. That's my Southern co-host, Shane Kilby. Sweet Home, Alabama before he chops that all up. Yeah, Sweet Home, Alabama, before I I can't talk anymore. Apparently the uh monsters and the energy drinks are kicking in just a little bit quick today. And uh as everybody knows, or if you don't know, I'm from the great state of Wisconsin, because I tell you what, there is no better state. And we're gonna take a really quick poll, you know, before we introduce our guests, Shane, and just say who's what's the greatest state in the entire country? All those that all those that vote for Wisconsin. It's Alabama. We won't even bias vote. So majority rules on this, but uh before we get into any more straw votes, at least it was an honest poll, right? It was an honest poll. We can yeah, it's an honest question. Nobody even knew the question. We included college football in that. Oh boy, here we go. Everybody knows the Big Ten dominates all of the all the other conferences nowadays. I mean, it you had your time. Now it's the Big Ten. So you don't play anybody all year long. Before we go down any more rabbit holes, before we get started, typically we wait until the guest is introduced and then we chase rabbits. But in this episode, just like all the episodes, we always promise to bring you some of the greatest talent that's out there, whether it's in our backyards or it's across the country or it's even overseas, because we've done that once when you we went to Hawaii, right? Yes. And we've and we've been to Canada.

Meet Mike Coke And His Mission

SPEAKER_03

So we go to other countries, we go overseas, we'll go wherever we can find the talent uh to bring to you. And today is no exception to that. Shane, what do we got?

SPEAKER_01

So today we have a good friend, Mike Coke. He is happens to be from Wisconsin. So that is why, ladies and gentlemen, that Wisconsin, for no other reason, got a majority vote on the number one state. But besides that, my good friend and Dwayne's good friend, Mike Coke, uh, he is the original founder to Terra Firma Realty that is now part of the Terra Firma team at EXP. Mike has had the pleasure. Well, then not all transactions are pleasurable, but Mike has been a part of over 4,000 transactions. But here's what is very special about Mike, and I did not even realize this. I've known Mike for a little while, but I did not even realize this until I started doing my due diligence for this podcast today. And what's more important above transactions, it is Mike is a former Marine with our U.S. military, previous uh Marine time, and we greatly, greatly appreciate his service for that and keeping our freedoms free of what we enjoy so much in this great stressful world we live in of real estate. Quick interview. Once a Marine, always a Marine.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I hate to correct you so early into this. I was gonna say, once a Marine, always a Marine.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes, I stand corrected.

SPEAKER_03

I was waiting for that. I'm like, I gotta, I gotta jump in. He's gonna hit it. He's gonna hit it. He's gotta hit it.

SPEAKER_01

He's that that cross is like impartial. Actually, I was testing Mike to see if Mike would make that correction. Pass the test. I did leave out the part of Mike being uh also being a workman uh success coach, right? So Mike is very well-rounded. You know, he's he is a great thought leader and innovator in the real estate space uh and abroad, not just there in Wisconsin. But Mike, it's a pleasure to have you today. I do apologize for chopping it up, but you made that correction, and I appreciate that. But most of all, I appreciate the time and the service that you provided for so many of us to enjoy these great freedoms that we do get to enjoy today. So thank you very much for that.

SPEAKER_00

My pleasure. It's a it's a pleasure to be here with you guys. I I love you guys, and um, you know, I hope I get to share a lot that's gonna impact your audience the way that you guys are impacting your audience on a daily basis. So thanks for having me here.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely, absolutely. So we'll go ahead and get started, Mike. And so we've kind of you know opened up the floor a little bit about you

Factory Job To Marine Corps Shift

SPEAKER_01

know your background in real estate and of course, you know, some time there in the Marine Corps. But as we open up this conversation, give us a little bit more insight about Mike Coke, like like how did you get started in real estate and share a little bit of the military time where you began your military service as a Marine?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. Um and military was definitely before real estate. I realized after high school that the work I was doing and the knowledge I had through my first 18, 19, 20 years was not going to carry me to where I wanted to be. And uh I was working a really bad dead end job. I mean, I was working in a factory re-treading truck tires for a living. It was some of the dirtiest, nastiest, hardest work in terrible conditions that you can imagine. And um, it was one day over lunch that I went, grabbed a phone book, called the Marine Corps recruiting station, and said, you know what? I think I want to meet. And it was shortly after that that I was signed up 60 days later, shipped out to San Diego for boot camp. Went through boot camp, went through comp came home for 10 days, went back for combat training. After combat training, I was shipped to Johnson, uh Jacksonville, North Carolina, where I did my MOS training. And then after my MOS training, I was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Did my tour, absolutely amazing. Would do it in again in a heartbeat. I won't get into my thoughts on the military and our society, probably needing a little bit of military as a whole. But uh it was after the military that I got out and I was a diesel mechanic in the civilian world and uh just stumbled into real estate about six years after that. And so it's really funny, Shane, because uh Friday I share I celebrate my 25th anniversary in real estate. And um, I was doing some purging and cleaning in my garage on Sunday, and um I went through a box that had been sitting in my garage for a long time. Turns out it was circa 2003 to 2005, and it was just like a catch-all box. And um, and I went through it and I found a couple things that were relevant to my real estate career, and I actually brought them into my office, a little nostalgia. I haven't shared it with my team yet, but when we talk about getting started in real estate, my start came about because when I was in the golf industry as a diesel mechanic, there was a new development that was going in next to the golf course, a new country club. And I went there and met with the developer, found out what was going on, and learned that they were gonna put these lots, these residential lots, on the market for sale before they were staked out, before anything was done. It was all off a conceptual map. And they were gonna start selling these lots on Saturday. And I said, you know what, I'd love to buy a lot out here because it's really close to where I'm working at right now. It's closer for my wife where she's working in the downtown Madison area. And uh I said, I want to buy a lot. Got to befriend the uh developer, and uh the Friday beforehand, I call him and I say, Hey Jeff, just want to check in. Everything's still go for nine o'clock tomorrow morning. I'm gonna make sure I get there a little bit early because I want prime selection out there. And he goes, Well, if you want prime selection, you probably should come get in line later today. And I said, What? And he goes, Yeah, there's been some talk about people getting in line. So literally, I'm at work. I call my brother who was working third shift and I said, Hey, I have to work until 3 o'clock. Can you go start a line or get in line today? And he goes, sure. So he got in line at 12 p.m. that Friday, and he was the second person in line. So I went and got in line after work. I spent the night with about 30 other guys outside this real estate developer's office who were bringing these lots to market. We slept overnight out there, we bonded, we had a lot of fun. I realized the opportunity with all that demand that was happening, and I called my wife and I said, Hey, we need to buy a couple lots out here because I see a resale flip opportunity. I had no real estate experience other than buying my first house back in 1993. Other than that, I had no experience. And um I got her to buy into it, and the only reason we could do that, because we were living paycheck to paycheck at that time. Military doesn't pay good, and my first job in the civilian world didn't pay so great either. And so um the cool thing about it was in order to reserve a lot, you only had to sign a contract and put down $100 per lot. And I said, Let's go get four lots. We can come up with $400. And she's like, Are you nuts? Like, what happens after that? I said, Well, in 60 days, we got to come up with 10 grand per lot. She says, There's no way that we can do that. I said, Well, I got 60 days, so let me worry about that. And uh, so we signed our option and uh put down 400. I got to work on flipping at least one of those lots to make enough profit that I could put down 30 grand for the other one.

SPEAKER_01

And I should you not uh when he said that, I'm like, uh, he better had come back and said he went stacks.

SPEAKER_00

He went stacks. My friends that are really young and don't know what this is, this is a telephone book. And this is the 2006 edition. It's not the one I use because I did this in the year 2000, but it was the same principle. In the year 2000, once I had my option on these four lots, I came home and I opened this phone book to the yellow pages and I looked up builders. And I had no real estate experience, I had no sales experience, I was just a dumb jar head that was willing to work. And I literally looked this up. And if you don't know what a phone book is, it's categorizing these yellow pages by business. Okay. And so I literally went through with that phone book in a yellow notepad sitting right next to me, and I called every single builder, starting with the letter A, until I could get some appointments set up so that I could go meet with them, share with them what I had, what I was looking to do. And uh, after making a lot of hundreds of phone calls, I found one developer that I was able to sell one of my options to and get more for my option than the $30,000 that I needed down payment on the other three. And so I struck that deal within that 60 days, had that cash in my hand, we assigned that option to him. We went to um secure the properties, I gave him my 30 grand, we moved

First Real Estate Play With Lots

SPEAKER_00

forward. I had so much fun doing that, you guys, that I decided, you know what? I think I might want to do this for a living. Easy, easy money. Real estate's easy. Easy money, right? Like you don't have to even work for it, it just falls from the trees. And uh, so, anyways, I started watching the newspaper because my friends that are young and on this watching this today, that's where you went to find a job was the job ads in the newspaper. And I happened to find one for a real estate development company that was looking for a land specialist, basically a salesperson to sell land. I put in my my application, I didn't get a call back. I called several times. Finally, I got an interview. After three interviews, I was hired, I got my license and I got into real estate, and that was my entry into real estate May 15th of 2001, being a salesperson for a land development.

SPEAKER_03

And then you got to see, so 2001, you got to see the ramp up and like holy crap, like honey, look at this. We got into real estate, real estate's going crazy, probably making all kinds of money. You're probably making way more than you would have as a diesel mechanic, all the way up to about when, because that was down in the Madison market. So, I mean, the Madison market didn't get hit by the Great Recession at quite as hard as everyone else did, just due to it's you know, it's the hub of Wisconsin, the political hub of Wisconsin, but it's still hit.

SPEAKER_00

We lost about 12% on market value in Madison. So you you're right, like it wasn't nearly as significant as other places that we're losing 50% and more.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we were we lost 30, 35 to 35 percent pretty quick. Interesting. So then, so got into it, rolled that up, rolled through it, and seen a few different markets since then. 25 years worth that's uh that's a little bit longer even than uh Shane and I. We started about the same time. We have each about 20 to 21 now. I think 21 this fall. But oh six. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's been a wild ride, and and I'll tell you, it's it's been an amazing career, an amazing industry. Uh, real estate's incredible. Obviously, it takes a lot of work, but man, there's there's no ceiling on what you can accomplish. If if I can not go to college and uh serve in the military and come out and be a diesel mechanic and like fight my way into getting my first flip, fight my way into getting my first interview to now being living an amazing life. I mean, anybody else can do it if you're willing to do the work.

SPEAKER_01

Well, there's and a couple of things that stood out to me right there. And, you know, one is is you know, we're all around you know, new agents and seasoned agents, and it's I think we've all had it. It's like that one deal that just hooks you. It just hooks you. And I think it's and I think it I it always hooks those who have had discipline and a strong work ethic and have done some pretty tough work, good pay, but not the kind of pay that you can generate when you have that deal. That deal you're like, did it just happen? Like, let me check everything. Is this legal? Did I make this ethical? Like I just made ten times in call it thirty days, but I really generated it in thirty minutes or three days or a weekend. Collected it a few days later. More than I had would have made in that job, back breaking job for 30 days or even 90 days, six months in some aspects. Then the other piece that you mentioned was you know, real estate is is hard work and it is. But when someone consumes this content, uh you know, for me, I want them to think about like what employer ever hires you to not give it 110%. So it's like you, you know, people go and they they interview for a job and they make all these promises, and then when they the weight of the responsibility is on the shoulders, it's like, man, they want it's they want me to work hard, you know, and it's like, well, yeah, that's that's why they had the interview process and selected you to carry that weight. Well, it's like if those same individuals that are in real estate struggling in real estate or want to be in real estate and wonder, like, can I make it? It just takes work ethic and just work as hard at this as you were expected to work, or that you do work in your current job now. And the money's great, but the freedom. I mean we joked a lot before we started recording, and you there's a lot of bittersweet laughs in there, you know, because of the hours spent in real estate, and it it I don't think it's really 40 hours. It I think it's uh I think 40 hours is part-time in real estate. 40 hours is by Wednesday. If we can say Wednesday if it's it's it's pretty. Maybe if it's a good week, it's like, you know, maybe you don't pay for 40 till Thursday. Yeah. Good week. By the time you get to Friday, you're if you're not if you're not 50 plus hours, you're not you're not really you're not really going at it, right? You're dabbling. You're dabbling. Yeah. Or you've or you have got it so dialed in that I would love to buy that recipe from you because I have not got it dialed in that good.

SPEAKER_00

You know what's funny, Shane, is that you know, when I when I meet with agents and talk to agents and ask them, you know, why did you choose to get into real estate, you know, they they talk about this freedom thing. And, you know, I believe that there's a difference between flexibility and freedom. And, you know, they they want the flexibility to do whatever they want to do, but unfortunately, that flexibility leads to poverty when they're not doing the things that they need to do, right? Like flexibility in real estate leads to poverty. And and I'll challenge them and I'll ask them, I'll say, is it the flexibility that you really wanted? Or is it the freedom to do what you want to do when you want to do it, what you want? Because in order to have freedom, you have to have money. You can have flexibility without money, but you can't have freedom without money. And so many real estate agents, you hit the nail on the head about the employer, right? When you're the employee, you have to answer somebody and you're giving 100% or you're losing your job. If you don't show up, if you don't put in your time, if you don't do the work, you're losing your job. But in real estate, you're the supervisor and the employee. And the problem is that most real estate agents are shitty employees for themselves, right? Like if they were to honor the relationship to their supervisor role like they did in a nine to five, the results they would experience in real estate would be a lot different than 87% of them do experience.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, without doubt. Speaking of that, Mike, and I know Shane's got a question on the tip of his tongue, but I wanted to jump back into your history because I don't know the

Scaling Land Sales And Leadership

SPEAKER_03

timeline super well. Uh so you got into real estate, land sales, land developer. Somewhere in there, a team came along, or you launched, I believe you launched your own independent brokerage, correct? Yeah, it's uh what's can you just walk me through that really quick? Where there's a little bit of a timeline there, and and a lot of people listening this are you know have aspirations of opening up their own brokerage or they have, or maybe starting a team, or they have a team. And I always like to hear that that I look, I guess a little bit of a time frame because obviously there's a few other steps between Len a brand new sold one piece of dirt, became a dirt salesperson, and then all of a sudden, boom, now you got this, you know, now you got this mega team under EXP. Uh so somewhere in between there, there's a little bit more story.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, there's a lot of shift and a lot of evolution, uh, both personally and and professionally. 2001 started as a salesperson for that company. Um, in my first seven and a half months from May 15th to the end of the year, I led the entire company in sales and had sold more in that seven and a half months than any agent had sold in a year before then. Um I ended up tripling that the next year and then almost doubling that again the next year. And then this company was just exploding. They were on the Inc. 500 list for four years in a row. And we were opening other states. And the guy who brought me into real estate, my boss at the time, who to this day is still one of my best friends, moved to North Carolina to open an office for this company in North Carolina. And then they came to me and asked me if I would run the Wisconsin territory. So I became the general manager of Wisconsin where I oversaw the acquisition, development, marketing, and sales of these large tracks that we developed into residential and recreational lots that we then sold. So I did that from 2005, and then in 2000 is when the mortgage and housing crisis was coming. And if you don't know development loans, these were all one-year notes and they had to be renewed each year. And when we got into that window of time, the banks just saw development as too speculative. And this company was really strong. They were only leveraged about 35%. So they had a lot of equity in these properties, a lot of cash in them, but the banks stopped renewing those notes, which we didn't have enough cash to then buy those notes out. So we tried to raise cash, we tried to look for other banks. I was not part of ownership group, I was part of leadership, but I wasn't part of the ownership group. And so we couldn't find investors at that time to take over that position. We couldn't find other banks that would give us an opportunity. So they just one by one would call these notes, they'd foreclose on these developments, and that ended up forcing this company out of business. Amazing company, amazing leader. But what that did is it forced us to pivot. And he was very transparent about what was happening. And at the end of 2008, he says, Hey, um, you know, put your staff on notice, get their have their resume sharpened up. At the end of the year, we're gonna be shutting the doors. And so they gave us a lot of notice. We all did that. And um, I talked to my wife and I'm like, hey, there's gonna be some people out of jobs, I'm gonna be out of job. I'm the primary breadwinner of the family, we need to do something. And like real estate has provided us a life in that seven years that we never thought we

Surviving The 2008 Development Crash

SPEAKER_00

could have even imagined. So we ended up starting our company, and it was called terra firma management. And the first thing that we did is I called all those lenders back and said, hey, you guys have taken these developments back. Some of them are finished and need to be sold either wholesale or retail. Some of them are still going through development. You got contractors overseas. Many of them have HOAs that need to be run. Like you guys aren't good at liquidating or running projects. You can hire my company that I just created to do that. And so we ended up taking on all the business that the other company had lost in that moment. And so we took back all these developments, we ran the HOAs. I charged a management fee so I'd have cash flow coming in and then charged the marketing and commission on top of that. And we did that too well for a year. And by the end of 2009, uh, we had sold through everything. So just over a year, we had sold through everything in a really difficult time. And we said, holy crap, we have to pivot again, but it's too. It's too financially stressful and um not the right time to get back into development work because you know this this recession, this crisis went on for a couple years, and so we said, let's get into brokerage, let's let's go leverage other people and their assets. We're really good at marketing sales, let's go into traditional brokerage. So then we pivoted to Terra Firma Realty. Um, and then it was just a group of four of us at the time, my wife and I, and an admin, and then one other salesperson. And um we started brokerage in 2010 is when we opened. So we started that we pivoted that company at the end of 2009, started doing brokerage at the beginning of 2010, ran with a really small team for a long time, and then only you know, more recently, we decided to get a little bit more aggressive and and and build the company. Now, when we when we had Terra firma Realty, you guys is I didn't run it as a brokerage, I just ran it as a team, right? We call it a team Ridge. And even as I decided that I wanted to grow, I didn't want to bring in brokerage agents because I didn't want all the risk and the liability and the compliance for the little bit of squeeze. And so we just we continue to run it as a team all the way up until last year. And then the middle of last year is when I decided, you know what, I need to create a bigger world for my people. I also wanted to create more opportunities for them, and I wanted to step out of being the broker, the compliance, the responsibility, the liability. It was consuming about 25 to 30% of my time, and it was the least desirable part of my job. And uh, we started looking all over the place. You know, we looked at all the cloud-based brokerages, we looked at the brick and mortar businesses, and at the end of the day, after a pretty extensive due diligence period, we decided to align with EXP. And so we did that in June of last year. So we're not even quite a year in with uh EXP. So that's that's the evolution of my story. No, thank you.

SPEAKER_03

I I that helps fill in a couple of gaps for me on what that what that evolution had looked like.

SPEAKER_00

So thank you. Yeah, we never never said I was the smartest guy. You know, it's like, okay, you go start a company during this housing and mortgage crisis. Like that doesn't seem like the smartest move, but um I've always been a good, I've always been good at surviving, and we did that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's always good to, you know, wherever that rebound curve is, you know, that hockey stick rebound curve is, that's that's the the the perfect sweet spot. But you know, sometimes you don't know where that, you never know where that's gonna be. And oftentimes, you know, on the other side of the coin, Mike, is like you wait too long, you're like the hockey stick's halfway to the top. You're like, I better get in there now, you know. But then the mind's like, well, maybe I've waited too late. Maybe it's about to crash again. So I I think you do have to jump in on the on the way down. I mean, it's like, all right, it's been running a pretty good bit. I mean, I that doesn't mean it won't run a good bit longer, but at some point in time, it has to rebound. It has to go in reverse. It's like our another another location we have is in Huntsville, and we leased that space and uh signed the lease 20 January 1st, 2021. And we negotiated that lease in uh in October, November 2020, and we got them to hold that lease and make that lease effective January 1st, because we're trying to stretch that out as long as we could, too. Knowing that we were, you know, in the kickoff of this thing, right, without getting compressed on this uh podcast and going too far down that rabbit hole. But you we found we fought a lot of uphill battles after that because materials, right? The product chain supply was interrupted. So when we had materials on site to do our build out, we had no labor. It's like, okay, no have materials, no labor, at least running the clocks running. And so we thought that it took us what would have taken a six-week build out, uh, end up turning to a turn a six-month build out. But we we did feel like we we're we're coming up on the other side of the thing. And in Huntsville, where we're located, Huntsville is is is sounds a lot like Madison. It just doesn't have it never really has a crash. It has it has a dip down,

Building Terra Firma And Joining EXP

SPEAKER_01

doesn't really have a crash because it's the second leading aggregator of government contracts only behind Washington, D.C., right? And so a lot of military stuff there, so it really thrives. But but we rolled the dice the same way. I want to go back a second though, and you've cut your teeth the right way. You've had some trying times in the beginning, and and I I do want to I do want to commend you for that because where the it what you faced in the beginning is where most people go, you know, hey, this was this was good while it lasted, right? I made my money, but um, you know, I probably need to go back to something more what what do we call it, stable, like a real job. Like I heard that for the first five years I was in real estate. You need to get a real job. I'm like, real estate never stops. What what what would you refer to as real job? And it's funny because those real jobs now have been bought out and you know, closed down or relocated and you know, or these jobs have been replaced with automation, you know, not just AI today, like automation's been coming since horses to the Model T Ford, to the flat screen television, and so on and so forth. So facing those adversities, Mike, what would you, on the other side of coin, what would you say your your greatest success has been thus far through your trials and tribulations in business?

SPEAKER_00

I would say my greatest success has been the personal growth that I've been able to experience. Yeah, there's a lot of wins in terms of helping clients, there's a lot of wins in terms of helping agents, there's a lot of wins in helping coaching clients, but um, the biggest win that I've experienced is man, I'm I'm a very different person than I was 20 years ago. And um, and I've actually grown a lot even in the last 10 years. And so I would say my biggest win has been my ability to evolve and not really and get away from that. I'm a young Marine, I'm invincible, I can do anything to, you know what, it's time to temper that down a little bit. Get out there and develop yourself from the inside out so that your emotional intelligence and your emotional maturity can open doors for you that you wouldn't have otherwise. So I think just personal growth and development, I'm still seeking that, right? Like we're getting in the same rooms together. You guys are chasing that down too. Neither one of us are giving up on evolving and becoming a better person so that we can contribute at a higher level to those people around us.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's um it's interesting you say that. It's um a big part of my growth over the last, I guess, probably 10, 20 years is been learning and understanding that everyone doesn't appreciate personal growth and development the same capacity. And at a younger version of myself, like, well, what's wrong with you if you don't want to grow and become wealthy and have freedom? And I mean, seriously, and it took me a long time. I'm like, dude, like you're off your rocker. Like, you have to meet people where they are, you have to appreciate them for their journey, appreciate them for the sack the the lack of pain and suffering that they may not have experienced, and everyone's journey hasn't been yours, and a lot of those journeys have been much tougher than yours. So that's uh, and in in these same rooms that you're talking about, and many before that, and will be many down the road, I hope, um, has has taught me to understand that and appreciate that. That um, you know, not everybody's idea of success or goals or freedom or flexibility is the same as is what I have. But opportunities continue to expose themselves at every level that that I continue to to to aspire to climb to. And I know it's the same way for both of you.

SPEAKER_00

I don't remember who I heard this from, but um a friend of mine said to me that when we pass and we go through the pearly gates, we're introduced to the version that God created us to be. And are we going to recognize that version? Are we going to tap into the time that we have here and do the things that allow us to evolve and become how similar or dissimilar to what he created us to become are we going to be? And um, I think about that a lot, especially when there's something I don't want to do, but I I know I need to do it. So that's um that's just a takeaway I had from a friend of mine that really makes me think of, hey, we need to we need to continue to press forward.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I've heard I've heard

Freedom Versus Flexibility For Agents

SPEAKER_01

Ed Milet make that profound statement uh on several occasions, or or or version of, you know, that that when when his time comes, he wants to meet that person and know that he he he went all out. I yeah, just I went all out and hunted for the the very elite best version of myself that was possible. Because I do believe, I mean, you know, I I do believe that we are all been given a certain skill set. And I firmly believe that, you know, whether it's God, it's universe, like whatever whatever your internal system believes in, I'm faith-based, but I do believe that if you do not max out that set of skills that you've been blessed with, I do feel like you run the risk of it be take to be taken away. And I don't I don't believe we were created to be comfortable because the world hasn't always been comfortable. We've created a lot of comfort, but I don't believe we were created to be comfortable. I believe that we were created to max out, and when we max out doesn't mean we we gotta have fast cars and big boats and all that stuff. But you can't help too many people if you're broke. Right? And I think that when you get to that level, every level has its devil. So I believe those skill set takes you there and then it's up to you. What are you gonna do with that now? How are you gonna positively impact someone else around you that is less fortunate by no choice of their own?

SPEAKER_03

Well, I think I think I think it does another thing as well, um with building that foundation around the education and and bettering yourself and and putting yourself in those situations to to be better uh and to do more. That even if it happens that you lose everything, everything gets taken away from you, everything gets stripped for for whatever reason, right? Self-inflicted, maybe, maybe not, right? Life happens. Sometimes we don't we as much as we like to think we control it, we control all of it, sometimes you just can't. But the all that work and time that you put into that is going to allow you, if that happened, I believe without a shadow of a doubt, you're gonna be able to build bigger, better, and larger than what you ever were before in a quarter, in a in a fraction of the time that it took you to get there the first time. I mean, there's all kinds of situations and you know, in in real life occurrences of that, you know, with some great business leaders and and and different people in this world that, you know, have for whatever reason, right, maybe just bad luck, you know, have lost, lost everything, had to start over from scratch, and then built back bigger than they ever were before, stronger than they ever were before, financially better than they ever were before, um, in a in a just a fraction of the amount of time because they they already had, you know, here, you know, what they need in order to go and and replicate it, build it, you know, do it. You know, that's and that speaks to you know all of us and and Mike being in those rooms and being in some of these rooms that sometimes make you uncomfortable, make you look around and go, dang, like there's a few of these dudes playing in another stratosphere. Like it, like we ain't even in the same ship, much less in the same like latitude-longitude, like dang, right? You know, it makes it kind of self-check imposter syndrome, but but it's putting yourself in those rooms to to be able to learn and to do. So with that success, and uh, and you've had some great milestones, you shared some of them with us. That's that's awesome. Um, obviously you're setting more and more of them all every single day right now in your business as you're growing and growing with intent and purpose. Somewhere along the way, you also sometimes take a pretty big gut shot or you take a pretty big loss or failure. Right? There's two sides to all those coins. What would be what would be one of those for Mike?

SPEAKER_00

I think it's important to identify failure as like something that's not fatal, right? Like um a lot of times people think that they failed at something and they might give up, they might not even try again. But I do believe in that acronym FAIL being the first attempt in learning. And I believe that you are either winning or you're learning. And so if you're not winning, you might have failed, but that's a learning opportunity. I think that for me, probably the greatest learning opportunity, call it failure, is in hiring the right people and generating the right culture within an organization and learning about that entire process, whether it's um the support person who doesn't fit who's a cancer, or it's that top producer who thinks that they're above the rest of the team. You know, it's just the dynamics of getting different personalities together to collectively work as a team for the benefit of all, and realizing that I mean, how many days do we not want to burn it all down and just start over? Right? Like, I don't think you're doing it right if you're not wanting to do that on a consistent basis.

SPEAKER_03

So you asking, we're asking how many times so far today, because I mean it's almost one o'clock where I'm at. Um and you know, there might have been already like once or twice, already just today.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So I would say just you know, learning that dynamic of building a team, building an organization, understanding that you're just not an independent agent, that you're a piece of this greater overall good that's gonna provide for you better, but um is hiring, managing, letting go. That just that whole process, I think, has been an incredible learning experience. And you you can't read a book and get it, you can't go to a podcast, get it, you can't go to one event. You have to experience it. That I don't believe that you can have success without failure along the way. And so when you fail, when you fall down, you just realize that's another step towards you reaching your goals or success. And I

Personal Growth And Defining Success

SPEAKER_00

think success looks different for everybody, right? But failure looks the same for everybody. It's it was the inability to meet your expectation. So I I think that's probably my my biggest one there, Dwayne.

SPEAKER_01

Very well stated, very good question. Very good question. One of those questions that typically gets a pause, you know, and kind of makes you sit and think and um potentially be vulnerable. Speaking of vulnerability, in that pause, none of us got where we are by ourselves. None of us will ever get to where we're going by ourselves. We've all got some type of influence, some type of role model, some type of impact that someone has made on our life. The athlete, preacher, teacher, coach, motivational speaker, somebody, somewhere, friend, family, loved one. Mike, who is who who has been the greatest? And this is a tough question we ask because it's been asked of us, uh, and it's a tough question at times to specifically name one, and that's okay if it's multiple. But Mike, who has been the greatest influence in your life and business?

SPEAKER_00

You know, I I'd I'd I'd want to share a couple, and I'll do I'll just do it quick because I want to recognize them for the impact they've had in my life. But, you know, going back in my military days when I was in the Marine Corps, I was pretty good at volleyball. And the services have these teams that you can qualify for. And so I actually qualified every year I was in the corps to play and represent the All-Marine volleyball team. And so my volleyball coach, Bobby Kellum, was a huge influence in my life early on and still makes a big impact. And uh unfortunately he just passed away of cancer within the last month. But I also want to recognize the guy who hired me into real estate in 2001, Leo Kalinowski, who's still a great friend and was literally in my office last week. And then Mike McKeoh, who ran that company, owned that company that I got started in. There's a lot of times where I ask, what would Mike do? As a leader, what would Mike do? He's extremely well respected, seemed to always do things right. Burl Workman's been a massive influence in the last 10 years of my life. John Cheplock's been a big influence in the last six years of my life. And uh my coach that I had for about seven years, Jim Nolton, taught me a lot personally and professionally. But when we talk about the biggest influence, that's actually pretty easy for me. It'd be my wife. You know, um, we've been together for a long time, been married for 33 years now. She's been through the ups and downs. She was there while I was serving my country. She was back here raising our two young kids because she didn't want to move. She had a great job, she had the healthcare, and Madison's a great spot to raise a family. And so, like, I did my entire tour with her being back here and she basically being a mother of two, surviving all that. She's my business partner, my life partner. She's an incredible human being that's very well respected by everybody, not a bad bone in her body, and her support along the way, like just having an influence on me and that evolution. I I couldn't imagine doing this without her. So easily my wife has been the biggest influence and the biggest reason why I still continue to go hard even when I don't need to. I want to provide her with a life that she didn't think she was going to have before we met. And quite frankly, I didn't either. Back in the military days, my first job, she was the primary breadwinner. And when I finally got into real estate and could make a lot more money, that was huge for me because it could give her the relief to do the other things that she was passionate about instead of having to be glued to a nine to five corporate job.

SPEAKER_01

Very good. Very good, very good. And that was not scripted, ladies and gentlemen. That was straight from the heart. So that's impactful. Very impactful.

SPEAKER_03

Not one of those uh the children you have how many uh kids? I have two boys, two adult boys.

SPEAKER_00

So one of them was in real estate? Yeah, one of them's in real estate. Actually, he's gonna be celebrating his 10 years in real estate uh this year.

SPEAKER_03

So you started him at like 12, then yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Before I knew what an ISA was, Dwayne, I had him when he was in high school in here making calls on behalf of our team to set appointments before I really even knew what an ISA was. Love it. So, yeah, so he got started early, and he's uh he's elite. He's really good. He's our sales manager, our lead listing partner, and he's actually also a coach for Work and Success, and he has coaching clients all over the country too.

Hiring Mistakes Culture And Team Pain

SPEAKER_00

Excellent, excellent.

SPEAKER_03

Let's see. So you've stacked up a lot of experience. Uh you've had a lot of great influences and people that have helped you direct your business and and and just grow and evolve. I mean, evolve is if there's one word that the AI machines are probably going to scrape from today, it's the evolve and evolution. Because even when you were talking before and your ability to survive and ability to survive a lot of those different changes throughout your career, I mean, uh, that's evolving. I mean, you were you were able and willing, right, to adapt and overcome, you know, to to steal a slogan from someone, right? But you were able to go ahead and essentially evolve into okay, what does that next version of me need to be in order to provide for my family, in order to lead my people, in order to do what I do? But if you could wind back the clock like 25 years, it's a long time for some. For some of us, it's just a blink. But if you could wind back that clock for for 25 years, and there's someone out there right now, it's it's a young Mike looking to get into real estate and looking to change careers and and get into this thing called real estate from turning wrenches to turning doorknobs, right? What what's a few things that you would you would have wished that somebody would have told you back then?

SPEAKER_00

You know, I just posted today on Facebook about my 25-year anniversary coming and how a lot of things in this industry have changed, but a lot of things have not changed. And the fundamentals work, work works, and you have to have a really strong foundation. You guys weren't prepared for this, but uh one of the things I happened to find on Sunday, in addition to that phone book when I was cleaning out some stuff, was um I literally found my old briefcase. Okay. And I opened that up. And so I think there's a timing thing with me finding that and this happening today with you guys, is that I opened it up and it's like it just it got into a time machine and came forward. 24 years because it was unchanged. I have price lists of developments in there, lots in there. I have credit applications in there because I used to carry those with me. You didn't go online and fill them out. And as I started going through there, there's some takeaways, and I'm actually going to build some of this and do a team training. And I want your audience to understand that in order for them to have success, that didn't change from 2001 to 2026. Okay, the fundamentals are still the same. And when I when I opened this thing up, I've got literally receipts in there. And one thing that I found in here was an expense statement. And this is an expense statement where I submitted my cell phone bill in 2002 to my employer to reimburse me for it. And it was for $200 because back then, you guys, like you buy a plan, and if you went over that plan, you were charged by the minute. And my bill was $200. Put a note on here that said, Mike, now that the big push is over in the future, make sure the phone bill caps at $75. I'm going to call him up now and be like, Leo, what kind of leader were you that you were trying to get me off of the phones? Okay. But here's what I want you to know. That year was um 2002, and it was my first full calendar year in real estate. And I sold 76 properties that year. Wow. And when I look at this phone bill, you guys, I don't know if they're still this way because I don't I don't even look at the phone bills. My wife just pays it. But it's literally itemized, it'll show you every call you made, how long you were on that call, what number it is. And I pulled up my phone, and I want you to know that my cell phone was only used outside of business hours because when I was in the office, which I was in there. My cell phone was used for outbound prospecting in the evenings and the weekends when I wasn't in the office, because when I was in the office, I used my phone on my desk. It was tethered to the wall, right?

Who Shaped Mike Most

SPEAKER_00

Well, when I looked at that phone bill, you guys, I had a thousand and thirty-five phone calls in a 30-day period on the on this bill. There was 65 hours of talk time in 30 days. Keep in mind that when I was in the office, I used my office phone. So whatever this number was, you could you could definitely double that. All right. So I was on the phone for about four hours per day talking to people about real estate. Amazing. And when I see the numbers today, people expect so much more was so less. And what I want to really hit home is that the work works. And I believe one of the simplest forms of measuring your success in real estate is how many people do you talk to every day about real estate? You talk to five, 10, 20, the more you talk to, the odds are the better your return's gonna be, and you're gonna grow as a person because you're getting more reps. And so, like, here's a receipt from 2002 that it's an action-based game. You got to get into it. Other than the action, right now, I would say join a really great team. If you're a new agent looking to scale, or you're an existing agent and want to get your life back, like teams aren't just for new agents. Teams can be for top producers that want to go about running their business in a different way. Teams are about leverage. Okay, it's not like who's it for, it's about putting leverage around yourself, whether it's people, systems, processes, technology, you name it. And so I would say join a team, but make sure you join the right team. Not the team with the best splits, not the team that's going to give you leads, not the team that looks sexy or you like what you see on social media. Find a team that's run by a team leader who's going to help you grow because that's going to be the biggest differentiator and the success you're going to get in real estate is being in the right environment, surrounding yourself with the right people. You know what?

SPEAKER_01

And yeah, like you nailed it. Work works. And I spend a lot of time on that topic teaching students to become agents and teaching agents to become top producers. And there are times it's like, well, it's easy to say you don't do it. I'm like, let me help you with something. Any day of the week, any week of the month, any month of the year, you could like to cough that coin up and put that money on the table. I will gladly come scoop that up. We will start in the same database with the same leads, because you know, my message to them is if I hadn't done what I'm asking you to do, I wouldn't be in the position that I'm in today to help you do the same thing. And then if you did

Advice To Younger Agents

SPEAKER_01

half of what I do every day starting at 4 30 in the morning at 5 a.m., then you wouldn't have a pipeline issue. You wouldn't have a pipeline issue. And at the end of the day, the consistency is the key, right? You're your share, that's it's you know, 17, 18, 20, 22 hours a week on the phone. That's documented. That's not the conversations uh face to face that those conversations led to on the phone. But you know what, I you know, and I know we gotta put a uh a bow on this, part of the struggle, and you guys probably already see this, but part of the struggle is there is a generation that doesn't know how, and I'm not taking shots at anybody, they do not have the confidence to have a phone conversation with another human being because they've never used the phone for phone conversations, right? They've used it for I don't know what you're talking about. Right? But I mean, look, the phones I mean it's a it's a pocket computer. It has done miraculous things. Don't get me wrong. Like, I mean, we're able to communicate on so in so many different forms. But that one aspect is like my business partner, we've joked before because her girls, which they're grown, they're older now, but just a few years ago when they were in high school, she would be like, Why are y'all not gonna go do anything on the weekend? You're 16, 17 years old, and they're like, No, we're we're we're texting. We're texting like they would have friends over, and they're nobody's saying anything. They're all sitting in four corners of the room, sitting beside each other, and they're all conversating, but not out loud. They're all on devices. So I think the art of the conversation is something that's a a challenge. It literally is a challenge for a lot of individuals today. It is a big, big hurdle, big obstacle. And I don't I don't know how I mean I I do I do think at times that these agents think, oh, I'm gonna get in business, I'm gonna get in real estate now because there's AI, and AI will will, you know, I guess bring me a commission check because I had to a human has to have a license with the state to be responsible, to be reprimanded if I guess AI screws up and I and I signed off on it. But I'm like, AI automation technology is the lever that allows us to do more phone conversations, more face-to-face conversations, and more attacking the problem each and every day of the buyers and sellers that need us to be front center. But you got to take action. You got to take action.

SPEAKER_00

All this technology that we have is meant to support us. It's not to replace us. We still have to have that conversation. I had this the other day, a conversation with uh one of my team members, and I said, How much real estate since you've been in business have you sold and closed on without having at least a two-minute conversation with the person who closed on the other end of that? Zero. Okay, that's the most important metric that we track in our business as it relates to our agents, is like the conversations come before the closings. The closings

Prospecting Proof From Phone Bill

SPEAKER_00

are just the outcome. That conversation is the leading indicator. And so if if you haven't closed anything, and I've probably only closed a handful of them where you haven't had that two-minute conversation, then why are we not trying to have more of those?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, because if you're waiting on that needle in the haystack to not have that two minute conversation, you'd be you'd make a lot more money at Taco Bell. You'd like a lot more money at working at the convenience store. You know, and and you hit something else too, on the the splits. Like I always love that conversation. I love that conversation with new agents. I love that conversation. Because here is a documented fact. In 20, soon to be 21 years, I've never, ever, ever sat down with a wealthy, six-figure, consistently generated, successful agent that discussed splits. Never. Never. Not one time. It's all but always value proposition. What's the admin support look like? What's the broker support look like? What is the transactional support look like? What's the marketing support look like? What's the tech stack look like, right? And who's got the receipts to all these things that I can interview, discuss, and talk to about the leverage?

SPEAKER_03

That's the most important part is the receipts. Right? Do they have do they have the everybody can talk a great game? I mean, my gosh, right? Especially with today's world and AI and all the tools available and all the, you know, the inexpensive costs that tech is, in my opinion, compared to what it used to be. Who can back it up? You know, who has the who has the not only the sales transactions to back it up, but who has the people growth and and the people success that can back that up. As Shane said, the receipts. It's anybody can talk a good game, anybody can launch a brokerage, in my opinion, anybody can launch a team and and do all that nowadays. There's there's very few, in my opinion, that can honestly back it up with proven success. And I'm not talking about selling a house. Anybody can sorry to dumb it down, but anybody can sell a house, any dog can hunt, right? That you're gonna trip. All you gotta do is if you talk to anybody or just walk out there once, you're probably gonna trip over a house sale just because it's but you can't trip over developing people and making people the best versions of themselves. You can't do that. And that that is something that is is you know, as Mike, Mike has alluded to, Shane was alluding to that in itself is the proof of the pudding and and what you should be measuring by of going, okay, this is where I'm gonna go next, or maybe this is where I'm gonna start, or this is where I'm gonna finish. Whatever the heck that decision you may be looking at or facing, like you best judge it right with the right spoonful of pudding, just to stay in that trend. You better judge it with the right with the right set of receipts.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and and any any body can be a successful professional if they want it bad enough. And I'm not gonna sit here and tell you it's easy because it's not, but you want to take that to the next level? Show me the people that you've taken to the top with you because of you, directly or indirectly. They had to do the work, of course. But you know, show me the people that you've poured into while balancing your own cup and help and taking them to the top. Yeah, see, you see that all the time, especially Mike and everybody like this. You said it, you can with AI, you can be in a bro, you could have a uh a real estate shop in 24 hours or less. But when you're willing to put your success on the side in direct correlation to help others get to their success first, and your success is completely determined on their success, yeah, that's where the meat that's where the meat is the pedal right there. That is that's the that's the the differentiating factor in this business as you continue to grow and lead and rate. Yeah,

Teams Leverage And Real Conversations

SPEAKER_01

yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Are you you know when you're looking to have a surgery, when you need an attorney to represent you, how often are you interviewing them and asking what their cut is gonna be? We never are, right? Like we want the person who's the best qualified to get me the outcome that I desire. And if the outcome that the agent desires is to grow their business, again, the split is a hundred percent irrelevant. It's who is going to be a part of you growing yourself and growing your business. That's gonna be the number one thing, just like hiring the best surgeon, just like hiring the best attorney, who is gonna be the best leader that's going to help develop you because the money will come, right? Like when you're developed, the money will come.

SPEAKER_01

And yeah, it's the same, it's the same conversation. We're split uh better than Zillows.

SPEAKER_03

It's not a podcast unless Shaden gets in just one little jab onto that Zillow train. No, no, I I love Zillow.

SPEAKER_01

I wish I was Zillow. I wish hey, hey, I wish I was Zillow. I'm not gonna, but I'm but it's the truth though. Like the agent that wants to, you know, what's your split? What's split? I I'm curious, what's your split with Zillow?

SPEAKER_03

58%. Yeah, and even better than that though is is I always look at it and and explain it. It's like, okay, you know, yeah, you can go here and get a hundred, you can go there and get eighty, ninety, ninety-five, ninety-seven, whatever. Irrelevant number there, but take that and divide that into zero. I mean, you can go get a hundred percent of nothing and still have nothing. Right? So it's like, you know, you can go ahead and feast on a on an entire field of watermelons and and never-ending opportunity, you know, or you can go ahead and hunt and search and and come up with nothing because you're getting all of it.

SPEAKER_00

You know, you're focused on the split, you're really focused on the now, right? Like the split is the now transaction. You're not thinking five and ten years down the road. No way. And that's where agents need to be thinking is where do I want to be with my real estate business five to ten years down the road? Now all of a sudden, who you're aligned with is more important than the split you're getting right now.

SPEAKER_03

All day long. If you're gonna do this as a career, as a profession, you're going to um not only survive but thrive with it. Um, it's got to be the what's that long-term, what's that long-term look? To wrap up, Mike, something that that I like to ask, and as we all kind of keep walking down our paths, and you've been on the path of life for a little while, and you, you know, real estate 25 years, as you just alluded to. Um, but ultimately, uh, for all of us, life is finite. Uh it's not going to go on forever. And uh unfortunately, with that, we don't always know. I don't think we probably ever know uh when that clock stops. Uh when yours comes to an end, how do you want to be known?

SPEAKER_00

Dwayne, that's deep. Well, the first person I think about how do I want to be known is how how do I want to be known amongst my family? Like my kids. When I when I'm gone, what do my kids think about me? The lives they had growing up. Like, that's that's the most important thing to me is you know, my dad was there for me, my dad supported me, my dad helped me grow. My kids will talk about being raised by a Marine, and it wasn't easy, but they're both doing pretty damn good right now. My wife had more to do with that than I did. But it's it's how am I known amongst my kids and they know that I love them, that's reciprocal, and we just want to spend as much time together as we can. Like the limelight and and how my kids and my wife look at me is the most important. On one hand, I kind of don't care what other people have to say because I don't want to live my life concerned about, but I want to live my life in a way that if people were to express their opinion about Mike, it was that I was a better person because I was around Mike. You know, whether it was his integrity

Stop Obsessing Over Splits

SPEAKER_00

or his desire to help, support, move me forward, he saw more in me than I saw in myself. He took time out of his Sunday to be with me, to help me grow through this moment. I wanna I want to be known for the impact that I made on others, and I don't want to be six feet under feeling like I didn't make enough impact on enough. Appreciate that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's uh that's always that's one of my favorite questions. Uh I'll let it always let Dwayne ask it because he originated with that question uh a while back, about halfway uh through this podcast journey. But uh it is such a it is always such a good question, such a good, you know, closing uh question. Mike, so folks are gonna consume this, listen to this, watch this content, uh this podcast on several different platforms. But how would someone go about reaching out to you, connecting with you, following you to kind of take uh a deeper, closer connection uh to that Mike Coke world?

SPEAKER_00

Best way would be just connect with me on Facebook. You know, I have a newsletter, I have a Facebook group, I have other things going on, but um rather than me throw a QR call or give you a website, just find me, Mike Coke, C-O-K-E, just like the name spelled down there. Find me on Facebook because then you'll have access to me and everything else that I'm putting out. I'm putting out newsletters frequently, I'm putting out content frequently. The reason I'm doing that is because I want to support our agent network. I want to help other people grow, even if they're outside the industry. So find me on there and then we can have a conversation about um connecting at a different level or maybe how I can support you at a different level or meet up at one of these conferences that we're all at.

SPEAKER_03

And you are uh just to clear you are taking on some additional coaching clients? Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm definitely taking on coaching clients. I love being at EXP because I get to partner with people at a deeper level through that that brokerage and that brand. But uh yeah, I'm definitely taking on coaching clients and I'd love to support anybody who's seeing this on their journey.

SPEAKER_01

Sounds good. Sounds good. It's been a pleasure uh with you hanging out for the last little bit, Mike. And ladies and gentlemen, like uh we'll try to uh I I caught some of the early stuff before actually recording the podcast. Maybe I can get some of those clips back for you guys because it was it was it was good stuff. You'll you'll definitely want that. But I guess go ahead

Legacy Connection And Closing Requests

SPEAKER_01

and take a side here, Dwayne, as you so do so well. Yeah, I tell you what, loud Wisconsin fashion.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I well, you know, I'm trying to be a little more subdued today. The uh I tell you what, it is all of you that are listening, that are tuning into this, that are watching the clips, the reels, uh the YouTubes, wherever you're wherever you're ingesting this today, uh it's because of you that we do this and uh and we appreciate it. It's uh it's the only way we do this. We're not we're not sponsored, we don't have major sponsors that put this together. We we put this together with our time to again introduce you to people like Mike and some of the best in the industry from all over, and and we appreciate you and we hope you continue to uh tune in and listen to our and listen to our future podcasts and catch up with our past ones. One of the ways that you can do that is somewhere on your screen, on your mobile device, on your desktop, laptop, wherever the heck you may be, there's a there's a button, button, right? We need you to smash that button, right? Smash, like Hulk smash, right? It's called subscribe. It's pretty easy, right? Subscribe, and then guess what? You get notified every time we do one of these. What a great thing, right? Super amazing process. There's also another thing that we need you to do. If you've got somebody that could use what you heard today, and and some of what Mike has shared, and what and what Mike has learned along his way, and it will help them, share it with them. There's enough. I say it all the time. There's more than enough business in this business for all of us. We're not gonna run out, right? So so do yourself a favor, do them a favor, um, share it with somebody you know. Um, there's somebody that could use the message, or somebody that probably needs to connect with Mike or one of us. Please do share it with them. And then uh one last little favor, and this is a this is a personal favor of uh of Shane uh and myself, uh, and that's somewhere in the here, there's there's a way to to review us. I mean you can troll us if you want. I mean, we we love trolls too. You know, we get some of those. It makes us show up even more. So hey, troll away, I guess. But if you're not trolling on us, we would love for you to leave a five-star review. All right, not one, not two, like five. If you're gonna if you're gonna if you're gonna leave a review, click the five stars. We'd appreciate it. Because uh Mike, did do you know what five-star reviews give you? Tell us, Dwayne. Google juice. Google juice. I tell you what, man. I don't always drink anymore, but I tell you what, I will take a big old slam of Google juice anytime I can get it. And I everybody on here will as well. So I tell you what, we appreciate it. Thanks for tuning in again.

SPEAKER_01

I don't even know what episode this is, it's like number 55, 58, 60, somewhere, fifty, fifty, sixty.

SPEAKER_03

I don't know. I thought. I don't even know if they're numbered, but 5060. We appreciate you. Thanks for tuning in. Mr. Mike, thank you. I will see you soon in Chicago. Yes. Looking forward to it. That's going to be a great room to be in with our friends from Rooster and uh from everybody listening, from all of us. Peace. Peace. Peace out.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks for joining us on this episode of the REAL Podcast. Don't forget to connect with us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for more exclusive content. Keep striving for success, and we'll see you in the next episode.