From Childhood Challenges to Real Estate Empire: Johnny Christensen's Journey

Summary

In this episode, Johnny Christensen shares his inspiring journey from a challenging childhood to building a successful real estate empire and leadership system. Discover his insights on leverage, talent, models, and life lessons that can help you design your own path to success.

Keywords

Real estate, Leadership, Leverage, Success, Business models, Personal growth, Entrepreneurship, Real estate investing, Building teams, Life lessons

Key  topics

Johnny's early life and challenges
The importance of leverage and building teams
Using models and systems for success
The role of talent and hiring in growth
Lessons on patience, persistence, and life balance


Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Podcast Overview
05:02 Jonny's Journey: From Sports to Real Estate
10:11 Building a Real Estate Empire
14:58 The Importance of Leverage in Business
19:51 Finding and Attracting Talent
24:52 The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
27:32 Finding and Utilizing Business Models
31:40 The Power of Learning from Mistakes
35:12 Reframing Life Questions for Growth
38:31 Defining Moments and Their Impact
40:42 Influential Books and Their Lessons

 resources

The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller - 
Tony Robbins Platinum Program 
John Maxwell Leadership Books 


 guest links

Instagram - https://instagram.com/redsignteam
Website - https://redsign.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, everybody, welcome back to the Grind Design Podcast. I am Michael Walters um flying solo today, as my uh partner in crime is out doing some shenanigans. But um I've been looking forward to our guest um that we've got today for quite some time. Um one because uh I work indirectly with him uh in uh Keller Williams, Utah, and I've known him and have seen from afar uh what he's been able to do over uh my 10 plus years in the business. And so to have this one-on-one time is is super special for me today. And I think you guys will find it uh the same as well. And uh the other piece is I know he's got a story that uh we'll probably end up going uh going down the road on that uh some of you guys may resonate with because our mission on this podcast is to bring people in who have uh built something and who maybe have uh made a transition out of you know something in into something bigger. And in between, we'll we'll talk about that messy middle sometime. So um without further ado, um I'd like to welcome Johnny Christensen to the show. So Johnny, welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Thank you, thank you. Happy to be here. Excited to be a good one. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, no, thank you. So for I mean, I know you and I've I've known um I've known of you from afar uh for over a decade, but for those who don't know who you are, give us uh give us the intro. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

I was born then what happened, right? Yeah, I'm a Utah guy. I was born and raised here in Utah, spent you know, the majority of my life here in Utah. I grew up uh American Fork, Utah, primarily from a single mom. You know, I always have a soft spot for single moms. Uh it was me and my older brother and my mom for a long time. Uh I was always a sports kid kind of growing up, learned a lot of just, you know, maybe some of my initial work ethic and just you know coaching and all that type of stuff from playing city sports and high school football. Uh I graduated uh 2003. You know, one of the big events in my life, uh right after that, shortly. Actually, my mom passed away about five months after I graduated high school when I was 18. And I just kind of had to grow up really fast. You know, I was always pretty independent in general, but I think just me kind of getting tossed out into life uh early was uh you know a pretty big um you know learning moment for me, you know, and I had some friends going this way and some other friends going this way. I ended up, you know, going on a Mormon mission to Poland actually for a couple years, 2004 to 2006. Religion aside, like it was, you know, probably a very important thing for me to just leave a boy, come back a man, just taught me how to work, taught me how to use my time, communicate, all those things. So when I got off my mission, I just flew into life. Like I was sprinting into life, jumped into college, uh, got my real estate license, and I was working a job all at the same time, you know, just trying to just grind through everything and set myself up. Uh, one of the things you might not know about me is uh pretty much my whole high school period, even uh when I got home and jumped into college, uh, my goal was to be an FBI or CIA agent. I want to do something bad A and be cool. And that was kind of my plan. I did my accounting degree at Utah Valley University, primarily because that was one of the ways to get into those uh federal law enforcement uh programs. I'm assuming white collar crime or something, but I got my license, uh, like you know, probably many of your listeners on this podcast, but I got my license uh back in 2007, uh early, early, you know, in that year. Yeah. There was pros and cons, and we can talk about that. But I just fell backwards into real estate and fell in love with it. I thought I would just get into dabble, but I just it turned into a career, a business, and just pretty much spent my entire adult life, you know, the last 19 years in the real estate world since then. So we can kind of dive into that, but really just uh real estate, real estate's been my business and my passion for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yeah, and I yeah, I thank you for that. Because that's I mean, I'm there's lots of things we could probably go down and probably will on many of them. Just to maybe complete that loop. Okay, so you got into real estate, you know, 17, 18 years ago. But you're you I mean, I know it started like most of us, where we're helping buyers, helping sellers, investors, whatever. But um talk about, okay, so you got into real estate, fast forward to what you've done since then, because I know you still do pieces of that, but you got much larger responsibilities on top of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, so we uh, you know, I got in in 2007. I was pretty much a solo agent for about a year uh back then. And again, I I had heard there was a good market before me, uh, you know, 2000s, uh, but I really knew nothing but the recession time period. I think I was kind of a sweet spot age where I was, you know, hungry and was in there at the right time, but I hadn't lived a successful enough life before that buying rentals or anything like that. So I actually didn't have, you know, the negative part of writing, you know, it down. I only kind of knew what I started with, and it kind of built a lot of the great habits, how to grind, had to work hard, had a, you know, it was a it was a very hard-working time to be in real estate back then. But I started selling within a year, I partnered up with my real estate partner, Clay Winder. We've been partners since 2008. Uh, and we started, we read uh, you know, Gary Keller's Red Book. We wanted to go build a real estate business that was beyond just us being solo agents. Uh, we started the Red Sign team back then. So I still own that 50-50 with Clay. He's been our sales machine of that. I've been more on the leadership, the management, the built working on the business side. So that's still one of my babies foundation of my uh my world uh today. We've sold, I don't know, probably 3,400 homes at this point through Red Sign. Uh, but like you said, I've gone different paths. So it was probably maybe the end of 2010 uh that just you know circumstances changed. I started filming pulled to more of the leadership aspect. So I ended up taking over uh a Keller Williams franchise uh as far as leading that, being the CEO brokerage management. I kind of really enjoyed the management of the brokerage side of things, got into the Keller Williams leadership, so I basically spent the next decade, 10 years in the team leader role of the Utah County Keller Williams office. I grew that office from about 60 to 300. So pretty much my day job was you know working on the office, working on some of the systems of Red Sign, and then we kind of would just partner up on both of those. And then really the third uh third leg of the stool back then, we started buying rentals uh 2009, 2010-ish, you know, kind of every dollar we would make, we would try to save, you know, 15, 30 cents of it, move it over what to I what I call our our right side of the world. My left side is kind of the businesses, me swapping time and energy for money. We save money or pay ourselves first. It goes onto the right side, and then we've just been accumulating assets, you know, either personally or you know, with partnerships. So we've kind of grown that side to just, you know, some commercial properties, a ton of residential properties, that type of thing. But uh, right before COVID was my next shift. So right before COVID, uh, I bought out uh more of the ownership of the franchise, became the majority owner of uh my brokerage here in Utah County. I became the operating partner of that. I also was at that point adding some leadership to my real estate team. So I kind of stepped out of more of the sales directorish roles out of the real estate team, so kind of built some great leverage, but I also stepped into the state director role. So I am the state director for Keller Williams, Utah. So I work with not only my franchise, but the other franchise owners around the state and kind of the person between Keller Williams International and that. So that, and then just a handful of other little businesses that kind of all stack in that same uh system. Got into some South America stuff and some land development and stuff like that, but just really I've uh never stopped doing something. I've almost kind of kept accumulating whatever we're doing, whether it's a business or an asset, and just tried to keep everything moving forward and just keep adding value to everybody.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

So yeah, that that's like when I think of your story as you just told it, I the one word that I just kept on thinking was your ability to find, attract, and implement leverage, right? Like for when you were a solo agent to okay, you and Clay you know start building this team, and and I knowing the Red Sign team, it's a it's a very big team, uh very strong team, but but you now incorporated leverage there. And then you know, in order for you to get out of that team leader role and to uh sprout into additional opportunities, you had to find the right pieces of talent for your next push. And I I think you know, for for people that are listening to you know, you can I guess the the thing, the phrase I remember is you can go um you can go far by yourself, but you go further with others. And like that's that's what I think of when I just hear your story is man, you've you have done well at finding people to go further with. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah, yeah, I think so. You know, we've brought in a lot of just great partners and leadership into our organizations. Uh, you know, and even Gary Keller says that uh that you know eventually it'll click in your head that the best investments in in your life will be in people, not in businesses and investments. Uh and I think that it's it's kind of a multi-step process. I think number one, you got to learn how to to like recognize talent, how to go out and actually attract talent, and then how do you actually go build things with them and actually you know uh have the reward of some leverage? And a lot of it's just you just kind of got to be a selfless leader to some degree. But you, you know, the saying of help enough people get what they want, you get what you want, is very real. Sometimes the payoff's immediate, sometimes it's a decade until you start seeing some of that payoff. But we've just found great people that have similar perspectives on what they want out of life. They want to build stuff, they want to make a bunch of money, they want to have a great, you know, set of integrity and principles that guide it, but they also want to have fun, you know, going out and doing it. So I think we've attracted a lot of those people and we've helped them win, you know, uh in in in those roles. And you know, you look up and it's just it it almost becomes part of your family, you know, because you just care about these people so much and they've just you know been a lot been there for quite a while. So yeah, it's been it's been a cool ride.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

That's that's so impressive. And you know, um I I kept on hearing uh various words of of invest, right? Not an expense, but an investment. And I I think for as many people as we've talked with on this show, that's one of the biggest um roadblocks or hurdles that people have to get around is first making that commitment of understanding that it is an investment rather than an expense. And it typically takes the runway with new talent tends to be longer than maybe what we would want. In fact, I would tell you probably more times longer than what we would want. So we're both shaking our heads, right? Because we know that, but how do you, knowing that, how do you um help yourself and the others that you lead understand um not only the that it's an investment, but the the runway typically is gonna be longer and they have to be able to stick to it when they do that.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah, you know, I think well, I think part of it, it's funny I did uh a different experiment uh several weeks ago. I I texted probably my five or six favorite married couples, uh, where I have the husband and the wife's phone number, and I just texted them, like, hey, you know, I've always admired that you got a successful marriage. What are some of the habits uh that you can you know feel like contributed to the success of your marriage? And it was interesting to kind of get the wife's perspective, the husband's perspective. And I, you know, I got a lot of great, uh I wrote them all down, I put them all in my notes, and I got a lot of great habits that clearly they dedicated to having a successful marriage. But the other thing I realized too uh through that experiment is just you know, there's there's a lot of like anything great when it comes to a relationship requires work. But the second thing I noticed was a lot of them just kind of got lucky by picking the right person at the beginning, you know, that was kind of signed up for the long haul when problems would show up they were willing to invest into, you know, fixing it. It's you know, us against the problems, not the problems, you know, dividing us type of thing. And a lot of that is very similar to just business, you know, real relationships, too. I think A, you gotta pick the right people, you know, and and I think part of the challenge that some business owners make is they'll they'll need to fill a position, they'll throw out, you know, ads and they'll try to just recruit people to apply for this job, and they don't really know exactly what they're looking for, they don't have a standard for that missing person in their organization. So all of a sudden, all these people apply, and then what happens is there's no nines or tens or maybe even eights that ended up applying in that short time period. So they end up just interviewing and picking the best seven. And then once they get in the road down that long-term road, like you said, with that seven, they realize that that person's not talented enough to actually grow anything, and then it starts feeling like an expense. So, hey, you gotta just slow down enough to pick the right people that are gonna be the right person to come in and and and partner up with you and do that job very well. But then the second thing is for sure, during that period of time, you've got to have uh all those right habits that are nurturing that relationship. And in business, it's different. It could be accountability, could be managing your time well, getting clear on what their most important activities are that are gonna lead to the biggest results. So I think, you know, I think kind of getting granular and tactical and understanding those processes uh, you know, are very important. But I I just it's hard for someone to just come in, grow something, and just totally make a giant impact in a short term, you know. I, you know, when I picked real estate to be my career path, I didn't pick it because it was the fastest way I was gonna make money. You know, I almost probably should have gone out and sold door to door for a year or two to put some money in my bank because I started out so broke. You know, sometimes you go get quick money paths, but I picked real estate because it seemed like the the most predictable long-term path that I was gonna be successful. You're never gonna get rich just owning rental properties fast, as you know, but over a long period of time, like a lot of wealth can be built in real estate. So it's the same thing with relationships. The best partnerships and relationships I have are the ones that have survived three, five, ten, twenty years of you know, just being in the trenches together building something, you know. Totally agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Yeah. How uh so how do you or what do you look for? Because you you do a I mean you're constantly surrounding yourself with really good, talented individuals. I'm just thinking of your organization. I'm thinking of uh K Dub Westfield, and like, my gosh, like very, very high talent. When you are talking like with these people, when you're interviewing and and uh uh trying to get underneath the hood, so to speak, like what are you looking for in people that you have real in that you have business relationships with?

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah, my mantra, one of the one of the mantras I say in my head often when I'm looking for, you know, the a position or recruiting or trying to fill something is is hungry, humble, smart. Hungry, humble, smart. So hungry is just I I look for hungry, ambitious people that just want to go build something, you know, or they want to go, uh, you know, I think a lot of people in life just get what they get. Like they live such a reactive, they wake up and just whatever happens to them happens to them. Like I want the people that kind of have made, whether they know how to do it or not, somehow in their soul, they've made a decision they want a bigger life, you know. And I think even me, I didn't know how to make money. I had bad financial programming from the beginning, but it's almost like I knew I didn't want to be poor. Like I'd been poor growing up and it sucked. Uh, you know, people would make fun of me because I had crappy shoes when I'd go play city basketball or whatever. Like, I knew I wanted to go do it. Uh, so I just I had this like inner hunger that you can almost like sense when you're having a conversation with someone, you know. Logic makes you think, emotions make you act. I think you can emotionally sense that someone has that hunger. The second thing is humble, you know, the humility part. Like, it's not necessarily that they're just this humble, you know, sweetheart, whatever. I think humility is great, but teachable is important, you know, something that is very learning-based. The people, I don't know about you, but the people that I look up to the most aren't people that just went out and did something cool. It's the people that just over five years, ten years, twenty years, like I always just see them finding a way to grow and progress in life as a human being. So I think part of that is to be humble and learning based. You have to have someone that lifelong dedicated themselves to just improving and getting better, you know, because one of the things we see in real estate all the time, which drives me crazy, is just someone gets in, and because they, you know, A, it takes a lot of courage to get into real estate because they go from this job to all of a sudden 1099 independent contractor, commission based, like you got to be a little crazy to go this route with us. But part of it is they go out and they find some level of success, 100, 200 grand, and their success in their brain almost validates that they're doing all the right things. Versus, like you and I know, like, are you successful because of who you are and what you do? Are you successful in spite of who you are and what you do? Like, so part of it is just the people that don't let that ego disease and genius disease creep in because you have no idea your potential if you don't self-limit yourself, you know. So I think that's number two. And then the last one is just smart, you know, it's not just general intelligence, uh, you know, like clearly we're looking for people that are you know embracing AI, we're looking for people with experience and just you know, read books and all that. But part of that for me is is emotional IQ. It is they are aware of how their behavior affects everyone else around them, you know, and and you have to learn that lesson once, maybe twice only, that someone just with a giant ego comes in, they have to be the superstar, and you can just see what that does to your internal organization. It corrodes it, it's toxic, you know. So I think part of that is just you got to people that just generally care about other people and respect other people's points of views. We're all living a, you know, a different life, you know, in the same path.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

So yeah, I think it's fascinating because you know, as I uh my past roles, like I was recruiting at a high, high level, lots and lots of different people in interviews and onboarding and etc. And so like when you when you're talking with people for various roles, like what are some of the ways you uncover that first age hunger? Because you know, people people can tell you what you want to hear, and you and I have all heard it. But how do you how do you intercept to understand? Okay, is it just BS or like do they have it?

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah, yeah, and I think most interviews people need to learn the principles of just a staying neutral, you know, because the more you want to talk, the more you know that person's learning what they need to say to be the person that they think you want to be. So you gotta be neutral, but you also kind of have to drag out a little bit of the hiring process so they really can just show up who they are. You know, the hiring process we follow, you might spend 30, 40 hours with a candidate before you end up hiring them for the for the big positions. You could pretend to be someone for an hour, two hours, but you spend 20 hours with someone, like it's very hard to. And you also just have to make sure that it's clear that like I'm just trying to find the right spot on the bus for you. So who you are might you know equate to a different, you know, pathway or something. But the the other one is you know, some of sometimes you just learn quick questions and stuff like that. Like one of my favorite questions, I think it came from Mo Anderson maybe back in the day, but you know, since your last uh end of formal education, whether it was college or high school, whatever, you know, tell me what are the things that you're most proud of, you know, and and usually someone that can kind of jump, be like, oh, you know, I did this and I was proud of that, I did this and proud of that. Like, you kind of see a track record, whether it's something silly, that they were number one, you know, marching band person or whatever. Like they they clearly have developed a track record of succeeding one way or another, or gravitating to towards leadership positions. It's funny when when I ask that question, and people are just like, poof, you know, and they've had 15 years since their last formal education. They're just like, honestly, I can't think of a single thing. I'm like, you can't think of a single thing that you're proud of the last 15 years, like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Yeah, it's interesting. I I always asked, you know, whether it was directly or indirectly, I I always look for people who um have done hard things, right? And and hard is subjective. It could be um they ran a 5K and they've never ran before, or they had learned a new language, right? I mean, where they had to really um extend themselves. And I always ask those types of questions to understand their track record because you know, in our business in real estate, especially somebody coming you know uh out of a of a of another environment, it's it's challenging. So if they don't have those chops of having work through something, um I I don't see the success rates that I do with people who maybe have.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah. Yeah, because so often success is just right on the other side of this like wall or pressure point that most people give up when they hit that, and then they end up, you know, bouncing back, starting over or whatever, and then they just end up with this kind of life of mediocrity. But it is those people that can kind of get right close to that success level, and it's that persistence, it's that grit, it's that like consistency, perseverance, whatever you want to call it, that actually just lets them push through it. And a lot of times pushing through it is not that crazy of a process, it's just they just don't give up, and then success is right there on that other side, momentum can start coming on that. Other side. There's a lot of positive things, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Okay, so we've we've dabbled uh quite good in in here in the in the people side of thing, but I want to maybe backtrack to you know when you and your business partner started your team, like you had this red book, and for those of you that don't know what we're talking about, it's the millionaire real estate agent book by Gary Keller and Jay Papson. It's awesome. It works in any literary, it it applies to so many industries other than real estate. So if you haven't looked at it, go look at it. But you guys had this tool, this manual, this this set of models to follow. Um for for somebody who maybe who's not in real estate and they're trying to start something, but they don't have this model to go by. Like what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Um there's probably not really a business on the planet that their those models for their success path don't exist. I think it could just be a little bit of their naivety or or just you know their current understanding that they don't have models. So my first point or my first challenge would be go find those models. You know, and I think even the models that we abide by, they always kind of existed. It was just unique that like our guy, Gary Keller, put groups together, surveyed it, and just like what are those and found those models, and then he just wrote a book at it. Like none of them were even his ideas, like he just actually publicized the best things that were happening. And and and it really is just a handful of categories. Like, number one, you know, anything important in life, there's math attached to it. Like the path is always in the math, you know. We call that our economic model. You know, we know how many conversations it takes to get to appointments, to get to listing agreements, to get to under contracts, to closings. You know, it's kind of just the sell cycle, but you're gonna have that in every business, every business service, every product business. So you got to kind of understand what are the numbers, you know, or the dashboard that you got to be looking at. You know, whether you're mowing lawns, whether you're a plumber, whether you're a salesperson, like everything will kind of have those numbers. So I think finding what those are and just you know, Google, what's the conversion ratio from this? So I think that's one thing. But then, you know, most businesses, small businesses, well, I can't remember the ratio, it's like 90% of businesses fail after a few years or something. And it's usually not because of uh that they're bad at the actual job, you know, or the business. It's always comes down to bad financial management, usually, right? Or legal management. So even us, you know, having a budget model, like when a dollar comes into your business, do you know what's supposed to happen to it before you know it actually hits your bank account? You know, same thing. Like, I'm I'm not like I'm not unlike anybody else. Like when dollars hit my personal checking account, somehow I'm a magician and they magically evaporate. They just poof, right? So if I don't have plans for dollars before they get into my bank account, it'll all disappear. You know, I just, you know, one of my traits is I just said, every dollar I make, I'm gonna live off 50 cents of it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna invest 30 uh 30 cents, I'm gonna give 10 cents, I'm gonna make sure 10 cents are always there for taxes, whatever, right? So I just you got to kind of almost have a budget model to some degree. And then the the other one's just the the you know organizational world. Like if you, you know, you start growing your business, everybody can get to that point. You either have a business problem or you have a leverage problem, you know, or a sales problem or a leverage problem. And if you don't know what position you're going to be hiring for next, how are you gonna allow the universe to let that person be attracted into your life? A lot of the best talent I have in my life isn't because I went out and found them, job ads, you know, or whatever. It's just I kind of always knew the next step in my business. So my my radar was always up. So when somehow a conversation popped up or I meet someone or whatever, I knew instantly that I could handle that opportunity, you know. So it's kind of those, you know, things that are always boiling my head, but those are the same principles you could attach to any business, you know.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah, I what I really thought was interesting is one of the first things you said, which is, you know, um maybe shake the naivety and look at because there's there's probably models out there, inevitably there is, and I'm thinking, my gosh, it's probably never been um easier to find information to do anything, right? In this world of you know, AI that we're in, I mean, you can literally probably go find how to do X, Y, or Z on anything. Right? I mean, it it doesn't mean that the actual doing of it is easy, but getting a playbook, a model, um, you know, design systems for whatever industry you're in has never been easier. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Totally. Yeah. Yeah, I one of the things that you probably don't know about me or Red Signs, you know, history is pretty much from 2007 to 2010. I blew up our team like nine different times. Like, I we didn't read the books, honestly, until probably 2010. We didn't go to classes. We were always part of like Keller Williams, but we didn't partake of all the cool stuff that's at Keller Williams. We had churned through, I think, nine or ten different assistants part-time. We'd share an assistant, you know, we'd hire this seven or whatever. We had sales agents, but it just kept blowing up. And every time it'd blow up, we'd end up back on uh, you know, uh square one. We'd look back and we'd be like, we just wasted this much time, this much money, and it just it hurt our lifestyles, you know, whatever. So it honestly wasn't until probably 2010, end of 2010, that whole next year I said, we are not making a decision in our dang business unless there was a model, a book, or someone did it before us and told us the success path. And we went a whole year without hiring anybody, changing anything, and we just grinded for a year. I went to a hiring class that you know KW has like nine times. I read this book that you're talking about like 12 times, and then finally, when I had learned enough from my pain and mistakes, that I'm like, I'm just gonna follow a model now and actually make the decisions uh based on that model. Because again, it almost felt easier to start creatively and entrepreneurial and shoot from the hip and just you know, the energy and ambitious, and we'd out outwork things. But as it wasn't until I found the model and then I channeled all of our ambition and motivation and you know, work ethic behind models is where the success came. We just kept starting over.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Yeah, yeah. It's you know, we you would we hear the phrase success leaves clues all the time. But you know, you that are listening, I mean, if listen to what Johnny just talked about, how he kept on reinventing and blowing up and starting from square one when really the roadmap was there all along. And it's um I think it's about getting uh whether it's ego, whether it's you know, uh you know, excitement of having you know this entrepreneurial spirit, whatever it is. I think if there's assuming there's a model out there and there's people that have done it before us, like go trust it until you have a reason not to trust it. But my gut tells me, I mean, just because we know the models that we know that they're those successful folks out there who have gone before you, like, go go interview, go um study what they've done because you can ride those coattails into that business that you want to go do.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yeah, the lesson is you have to slow down to speed up, which is so contradictory to like people like me and you that are just driven, we're fast-paced, like we just want to go, you know, run and sprint. But a part of that is you just you have to have the the discipline, you know, to just slow down, you know, get a little bit more analysis in, you know, pick the direction, plan your goals out a little bit, find the models, read the books, whatever, and then run, you know, like being a little analytic up front and then be driven versus just run, run, run, because you could find yourself running in circles.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Well, yeah, it's my coach is like he's been challenging me for months and now he inspects my calendar. He he expects me to be spending at least 10% of my calendar time on my business. Like that type of stuff, um, the thought process, the thinking, the analyzing, rather than the you know, spending all of it in the business putting out fires or helping clients or whatever the whatever it is. So okay. Like one of the things I would do as we were listening to your story, um talking about how you as you got older and your uh your mom left you way too soon, and then you're sort of already independent, but you were sort of thrown out into the world to become a man probably before you were um ready. And then you went on a mission and and all that stuff. But like how do you feel like looking backwards, like how do those events and what you went through, how did that impact where you're at today?

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Yeah, uh, you know, what I one of the things I did last year was I joined I hit 40. Uh so I was having my midlife crisis, just trying to plan out the last half of my life. Uh, and I joined Tony Robbins Platinum program, which is just like awesome and intense, ton of travel. I did like six or seven Tony events throughout the year all over around the world. Uh you know, and one of the things uh that he teaches in his date with destiny class is he calls it his uh like your your filtering question, you know, like pretty much everybody has through their childhood and upbringing and all that have like created a question in life that they filter all data and all incoming information through this question, and then they kind of warp the you know the answers from that. And and and he kind of takes you through this process to then go rewrite this question, uh and then that kind of changes the trajectory of a lot of different stuff. So, so to to be you know transparent on it, through that process and and how I grew up and just everything to do with the way I've lived my life the last you know 20 years, my filtering question has been how do I go build, how do I build a life where I never need anything from anybody? So, like part of that is like financially, like how do I go build and be so financially free that I never need anything? Just because you know, even growing up, like I just didn't have those outlets where if I needed $20, I can go get $20. So I was on my own, you know. So like that was one, like even emotionally, some of the trauma you know that has come emotionally or whatever, like I've almost built this like you know, uh armor-plated, you know, uh, you know, armor around my heart and stuff. And and I realized I'm like, that served me in like ambitiousness and like creating an empire and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, when I fast forward that question, I'm like, I don't want to be alone. Like, why would I want a life that didn't need anything from anybody, you know? So I kind of had to rewrite that question in a few different ways. And one of them is just like, how do I just live my life where I'm just giving and spreading love wherever I go, you know? And almost it's kind of changed a little bit of my slowing down, smelling the roses, enjoying life, you know, a little bit more versus just go, go, go, business, business, business, you know. And I've always had a good balanced life, I think. But I think part of that is just if I could go back, I'd stay just as driven. But I think I would find the joy in the journey, the sweetness into the journey. I would pay attention to the roses a little bit more, you know, and just just enjoy, you know, the ride a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Oh, that's awesome. I mean, literally reframing a question, right? And and living through that new reframe. Wow, powerful. Um, okay, in a couple minutes we have left. Um you know, it when you think about your journey, we all have moments that have you know defined or um had greater greater emphasis on like where we've gone or what we've done. And so I'm curious for you is there one that you can think of that has really had a bigger impact on like how you show up today in a book? No, no, like an like an event or an experience. Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

I I think in general, like one of the biggest messages that I've received from you know our company Keller Williams, uh there's a class called Quantum Leap, uh, that that that is taught by a real estate company that has almost nothing to do with real estate. It's about just life, you know, and and I think it's it wasn't just one big light bulb, but it was a consistent like turning up the light bulb over, you know, several year period. But like the biggest, the biggest experience is just coming to grips with my life and the life that I want really is in my control. You know, I think so many people, like we said, get what they get what they get in life, or they feel like you know, kind of just uh that they're a victim to just the life that they have or a life by default. And I think just over a period of you know, early on in my career, understanding that I have control, the ability to go build a life by design. You know, most people are one, three, five years away from having anything they want in life if they understood that it's in their control. They took that, you know, commitment and then they basically just committed themselves to being the best version of themselves to go get it, you know. So I think that was probably a longer answer, but I think there's a several things that probably contributed to that.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Right on, right on. You did mention books, so I'd be um be remiss if I didn't ask, okay, because I know you read a lot. Um give me a couple books that you know you've just have had that impact on you, like how you run your business or how you run your life.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Yeah. Yeah, if you looked at my whole book library, up until probably two years ago, it was nothing but business, finance, legal books. I probably read a lot of boring books, uh, not really a lot for uh, you know, joy uh or fiction books or whatever, but I you know, one category for sure just be all the OG books. Like they I did start with them, you know, Think and Grow Rich, Cash Flow Quadrant, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Millionaire Next Door. Like I really wanted to understand just the psychology and how I have to think to actually attract and go get some some money and wealth in my life. So I think all of those were pretty great in their own ways of building a foundation. I think the second chunk uh of books is probably a lot of the tactical ones that, you know, even selfishly are just in our own company, you know, a lot of the Keller Williams and and whatnot, like they're more tactical. Like, all right, now that you know what you want, let's go get it, which is the millionaire real estate agent, the millionaire real estate investor. I'd also say, even the whole book, you know, that they're very real estate oriented, that we built, you know, million-dollar businesses on top of those models. Uh, and then I'd probably say, you know, leadership way, there's there's no one better than John Maxwell. I've read every one of his leadership books and we'll do themes on those. But eventually you just reach a point where you just don't have enough time in the day pretty early on in your career. And I think even the one thing uh book, you know, uh, and some of those productivity-based, like how everybody has the same time in a day, but how do I actually put more day into the time that I'm dedicated to certain things, you know? So I think uh that's one. And then just even shout out to Tony, like Tony Robbins. I've read a ton of his books uh for sure.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

That's a nugget right there. How to put more day in your time. So go chew on that, everybody. Um, okay, so um fascinating discussion. Um people are gonna want to know where they can connect, where they can find you. So uh where can they?

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Yeah, yeah, my Instagram, you just Google Johnny Christensen, even just our you know, main website, redsign.com, uh kind of funnels into all of our what we're doing in life.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

So cool. Well, um expect to get uh some you know either uh direct messages or additional follows when people uh get to hear this. Um thank you for just carving out time on your day. Um I'm better for it. I think our audience is better for it and uh look forward to maybe connecting down the road with you. Yeah, happy to help. Glad you have me on. All right, man. Take care, be well. Thanks, buddy.