BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 465: How Ryan Serhant Uses "Big Money Energy" To Make Millions

Episode Date: May 2, 2021

If you don’t feel amped up to accomplish your goals, you definitely will after this episode. Today we talk to real estate agent, entrepreneur, author, and Million Dollar Listing New York star, Ryan Serhant. You’ve probably seen Ryan selling ridiculously nice (and expensive) homes on TV, but today you’ll be the private audience to hear his backstory, his work ethic, and how he developed his big confidence. Ryan moved to New York to become the next big star in theatre, but after seeing the financial position of those “successful” actors he looked up to, he made a pivot. Ryan got his real estate license and started listing apartments to pay his bills, but was given a golden opportunity when an foreign buyer specifically chose him to find her next multi-million dollar home in New York City. Ryan still remembers the lack of confidence he felt when he got the listing, and knew the only thing to do was educate himself and practice his pitch. Long story short, he helped the buyer find her dream home, and the rest is history. You’ll hear Ryan talk about the importance of confidence, not only in this podcast, but in his new book Big Money Energy. Brandon and David both agree with Ryan on how important, and often undervalued, having confidence is. Not just confidence in your work, but confidence that you’ll be able to accomplish the most challenging tasks you set for yourself! In This Episode We Cover: Selling the most expensive home in Florida Using the pandemic to springboard a new career or venture  Taking on a task, developing the confidence, and succeeding  Leaning to own the things that make you different from everyone else Stop focusing on the deals and start focusing on “the work” Many, many multi-million dollar deal stories And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Webinars BiggerPockets Blog BiggerPockets Bookstore BiggerPockets Podcast Serhant Brokerage Ryan's personal website Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show465 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 465. I am very, very focused on making sure that my future self doesn't come back in time and kick my ass for not putting in the work today to make his life better. Because I don't care about my life today, to be honest. I want to live it to the best of my ability, but it's over today. I can't change what I did yesterday. I did it already. I want to work and do as much as I can today for future me. So how can I be future?

me today. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everyone? It's Brandon, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David, the Burr. Burdiful man, Green. You like that? That's very nice. Very good. Burdiful. I don't know. People that have no idea, you wrote a book called Burr, have no idea what I'm talking about.

But what's up, David Green? I'm excited to have you on the show today talking with a real estate agent. One of your kin, I guess you could say, not literally kin, but we don't get to do that very often. We don't. But this is exciting. We get to talk to someone who's at the top of his game, real estate broker like me. He's on the East Coast. I'm on the West Coast. He's on TV. I'm on a podcast, potato, potato. Pretty much the same thing. He's written some books. He's got 25 million people love him. Whatever. We'll get to that in a minute. David, I love you too. Thank you, Brandon. You're worth 25 million to me. I love Ryan Serhant. This show, we just got finished recording it was phenomenal. I think you guys are going to love every second of it. You don't have to be a real estate agent to care about this show.

In fact, we don't really talk much about brokerage or agent stuff. We just talk about just general principles for success in any area. Specifically, a lot about energy. Now, You might be thinking, like, that's lame. What did they talk about energy? I don't know. Foo-foo stuff. No, what I'm talking about is the way you portray yourself to the world around you and how that leads to so much success.

I mean, we're talking about a guy here who went from, like, living out of some crappy apartment eating rice and beans to making millions of dollars a month in his business. And you're going to learn the exact characteristics and traits that took him there. So all that and more to come. But first, let's get today's quick tip. His quick tip is very simple. Ryan, our guest today, wrote a book called Big Money Energy, and I would highly recommend checking it out. Now, Ryan is a star of a TV show, actually,

several of them. And you might be thinking, oh, a TV show guy, you know, I'm not going to read his book. Read his book. It is phenomenal. Like, I wish I would have read this book 10 years ago. I think it would have, 20 years ago, this thing would have changed my life. I'm going to even give this to, like, every, like, college graduate. I think it's going to be like my go-to graduation gift for kids because, like, I wish everyone would read this book. So it'll help you, every area of life. Check it out. That's today's quick tip. Here's why savvy real estate investors are obsessed with bonus depreciation. It lets you take that rental property or commercial building you own and depreciate most of the cost against

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With that, we're going to get on with today's show. Now, hey, real quick note about today's show, is important. Ryan, our guest, is awesome, but he curses like a sailor. So just, FYI, if you got kids with you in the car, you may want to throw some earmuffs on or listen to it a different time. But we're warning you now here so that you don't freak out later and be like, they never told me. I'm telling you right now. So be warned.

But again, you're going to love this show. It's phenomenal. So without further ado, David, anything you want to add before we get into an interview? No, Ryan crushes it. I'm just excited to bring him to the BP community. All right. Here we go. Let's get to our interview with Ryan Sirhant.

From struggling actor to struggling real estate agent to figuring out a thing or two about what it really takes to succeed. at life to being the star of million dollar listing in New York. He's done over four billion dollars in sales now. He makes millions of dollars every single month, recently helped sell the second most expensive house in American's history. He's an author, a family man, and he's shaking up the way brokerages are run. Ryan Sourhant, welcome to the show, man. Thank you so much for having me, man. This is awesome. I've been looking forward to this for a while. Well, sweet. Well, let's take into this thing. So I devoured your book over the last couple of days. I have four million questions to ask you today. But we won't get to them all, but we'll get a few done here. So first question,

big money energy. I want to know, like, what the heck is big money energy? Because this is the concept that actually I fell in love with. I guess I got to take you back for a second. Please. Big money energy is my second book. My first book was called Sell It Like Surhant, which was really my sales toolkit, right, for the gig economy. For real estate agents, yes. But for for anyone who's in the business of sales, which is everyone. And I put that together over the course of 10 years. I got into the real estate business

the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and taught myself how to sell, how to rent apartments, how to build a sales career, how to follow up, how to structure my day, all of that over the course of the next 10 years, and everything that I learned, everything I knew about how to talk to people,

how not to talk to people, to communicate in general and how to operate as an entrepreneur who has to wake up every day with no inventory other than what other people control and go make a percentage off of that. I put into that first book. But what I didn't put into it became very clear to me once I put it out because, you know, we had a lot of people read it and they said, listen, after reading your book, I know what to do. I know exactly how to build my career. I know how to sell. I know what to do, but I can't. I'm freaking out. I'm 18. No one's going to trust me. I have imposter syndrome. I'm in a new city. I tried to open my mouth, but my palms are sweaty. My stomach is

in knots. So what I realized was, wait a minute, so it felt like Sirhant, which then became a show on Bravo, which then became a large online sales course, which we have now and it's been a big part of our business where we teach people how to sell all over the world. It is a toolkit, but the secret sauce is being able to have the confidence to use it, right? You can give anyone a toolkit and say, go build a house. But if they don't have the confidence to put up that house and make that foundation and do the carpentry and do the plumbing, then they're, you know, they're, then they're book smart, but they're not street smart.

And so big money energy is really big, magnetic energy, right? It's all about how to adjust your mindset so that you can start attracting success immediately and start becoming the person that you absolutely know that you can be. And one of the big things for me when I got into this business was I'm not from New York City. I wasn't born a real estate agent. Last thing I ever wanted to do in my life was sell anything, right? I came to New York City to do theater. I thought I was going to be doing Shakespeare on Broadway until the day I died. It turns out you need to make money to live in New York City.

And they don't teach you that in theater school. And so I had to figure out how to pay my bills. And I didn't want to have a job that tied me down and wouldn't let me audition. So that ruled out waiting tables, bartending, and temp work. And I didn't want to go back to school. And a friend said, listen, get your real estate license. It's the greatest thing in the world. You make your own hours, rent an apartment every month or so.

and you'll pay your bills and do whatever else you want. And I just became addicted to the business. I became addicted to the limitless possibilities. But I didn't have a suit. And I saw all these people, these big brokers, bankers, developers, attorneys, they'd walk into a room or just walk down the street with that air of confidence that they knew what they were doing. Like I, you know those people when you see them.

You trust them and you haven't even talked to them. Like I would do what that guy said. says, he clearly looks like he knows what he's doing. Or she's got her shit down. I don't have that. I don't have that. And so I had to create it. And that's what big money energy is all about.

It's how do you create the confidence that you know you'll have in five years? But how do you do it today so that you don't waste time? And I wrote this book during quarantine. I didn't really have an intention of writing a second book. I don't know the time. I'm a full-time real estate broker in New York City. but then COVID hit and I had to go to New Hampshire with my baby, my wife and my asthmatic mother-in-law because we thought New York City was going to shut down the bridges and tunnels and it was going to be like Will Smith versus the world, which is funny now, but at the time, that was very real. And I was like, what do I do now? All my deals are dying. A million people are leaving New York City. I guess I'll write my second book and I'll start a new business. So I left my brokerage and I started my My real estate firm, I went out on my own and started in September last year.

And that brings me to you guys. Can you walk us through that? I know we're starting to kind of the end of your story and then I want to transition back in a minute. But what's that like to like, I mean, what was going to your head mentally to quit? I mean, you're a big agent. You were a huge agent at this other brokerage. And then you leave that to go start your own thing on your own during a pandemic. Like, yeah.

Some people might call that crazy. Like, what was going through your head at the time? Everyone called it crazy. No one told me to do it. Because everyone much smarter than me was pulling back, was cutting jobs, furlowing people, cutting expenses, and I was about to drop a bomb on my life and go and spend all of it. But listen, I've always lived by the idea that I'd rather regret the things I did

than the things I never tried. I am very, very well aware that I've got one life to live. It's the whole reason I got into real estate because I saw 50 and 60 year old actors in New York City, people that I was trying to be like who were desperate to get represented by an agent, who were desperate for that big break. And they've been doing it for 30 years. They lived in the same apartment. They had awful lives as far as I could tell. Now, listen, they might have loved their life and that's fine. But for me, that wasn't living.

And I didn't want that. And so I wanted something better for myself. And so screw it. Sure. Power of yes. You know, I say yes to as many different opportunities as I can, even if they don't seem like there's like there's something that I should be doing because you just never, ever, ever, ever know. You never know. And so, you know, quarantine hit.

I was like, you know what? I haven't left to start my own firm for two reasons over the years. And I've been at the same firm for 12 years since I got into the business. One, what can I really bring to the table that's different? Like, how am I going to separate myself? Just because it's me, I don't want to go start my own firm to make more money because that's stupid. That's never going to happen.

Only two is spend more money. The firm I'm at now spends all the money. I just make it. That's fine. And two, it's really hard to leave when you have, you know, $2 billion in active listings that are tied to your brokerage, 350 active listings, you know, 500 million in contract and a team of 65. So like, how do I dismantle all that solely but surely or or I could leave? I would just have to leave it all on the table. Then a pandemic hits. Every active deal in listing dies on

March 22nd, 2020. It was like D-Day for real estate in New York City. Activity in, it's funny now because it's April, right? And so every week that happens now in 2021, we get the market updates. You're like, oh, activity is up 725% year over year. And I'm like, because we died, right? It's now versus death. And so I had a window of opportunity where it was incredibly scary, but, you know, a terrifying time to do anything that was that was around massive change. But I didn't think I was ever going to get another window like that to escape.

And so we just pulled the rip cord and bounced. And it was a freaky 2020. I actually have notes in my calendar when I was so stressed out for in 2021. I put them into the future saying, just writing out like, hey, it's June 12th, 2020 right now. You feel like crying. You're freaked out. Did it work out? And that's coming up in June.

Because I remember putting it in. And yeah, it worked out. Well, it kind of ties the first two questions I have together. And I know, David, I'm hogging the mic here today. But I'll wrap up with this one is this. this in the book you have a series of codes that you go through like codes that maybe have guided your life or your success principles and the very first one I underlined it circled it I love this thing it says when you can't change your circumstances there's one thing you can

change your energy so I wanted to kind of tie those two things together the fact that like COVID hit the world melted down like in a lot of different areas people struggled so how do those like how did that how did you apply that principle in terms of the pandemic if you change your energy you couldn't change the pandemic or the world, but you change your energy about it. How does that look? I've talked about this in the past where, you know, mental health notwithstanding, okay, most of us have the option every day. You get in the car and you can look out the window on the right and you can choose cloudy skies or you can look out the window on the left

and you can choose sunshine. It is up to you. I've been in lots of situations that are terrible and there are people who are acting like it's terrible, and then there are people who choose to find the sunshine. And for me, life has just always been too short to choose clouds. And when it rains, it cannot rain all the time. And so I always want to look for the best in a current given situation. So I couldn't change the pandemic, but my energy going into it was nervous, afraid, terrified, on the couch, Netflix, what do I do, pause, hold, wait.

Because that's what everyone else was doing. And so we just follow the pack, right? Follow the pack, follow the pack. Let's watch the news. What's going to happen at 5 o'clock? Or I could flip it. Or I could say, what is exactly happening right now? It's the middle of the spring selling season.

everyone is forced to stay at home. This is about to be a multi-trillion dollar PR campaign for the value of your home. I should take advantage of this time and get ahead while everyone else is streaming TV shows. While you're watching Tiger King, I am going to start writing my business plan. While you're watching, whatever else is you're watching,

I'm going to start. building out my org chart for the company that I've always wanted to build, but I've never had time. Guess what? The world just gave me time. And so I'm going to shift my nervous, my scared, my, my, my very kind of still energy into excited energy, motivated energy. I'm going to take this time and actually put it to use. And it's kind of like, listen, when I write about it in the book, but when I got into the business, I was the type of person who I just wanted to do what was easy. right i didn't really want to be a broker i had my license because i could rent a four thousand a month apartment and make two grand and if i did that once a month then i could have 29 to 30 days to

myself right um the problem is you do that and you're like oh i could do that again oh imagine if i did that every day holy shit my life right um but i would do rentals because new york city is 70 percent rental. And so I would take the rental deals that came through. And any sale client that would come through, I just, I didn't feel like I was the guy that could handle it. Again, I had that imposter syndrome. I was nervous about it. I didn't know the difference between a condo, a co-op, a townhouse, multifamily, you name it. I had no idea. And then this woman from China reached out to me named June Shen, that you'll remember if you went through the book. And she found me on Craigslist. and she said she was looking to buy an apartment on behalf of her daughter who was not yet born, by the way, and she wanted to come to Manhattan and she wanted me to advise on her purchase and her budget was a couple million dollars.

And I remember that day like it was yesterday because my energy in that moment was turn left, look at Ben or Mark or Eddie and say, hey, I've got a sale client reaching out. can you guys take care of this? I don't really do this. Knowing that it could make money if I could sell it, but that's not the way that I do it. And I just feel uncomfortable. And what am I going to do with a Chinese investor? Are you kidding me?

But something came over me and I just said, yes, let's do it. Condos are great. I sell a lot of them in the future. Let's figure this out. That's what I did. I completely shifted my energy. I went and got my first suit. I put a driver and car service for when she showed up on my credit card.

I shifted the way I thought about everything. And I went and I did exactly what I did when I was acting, which is if you go out on stage and you don't know your lines, you freak out, right? You're unprepared. What do you would do, the actor's nightmare? As an agent, okay, all I really have to do, what confidence really is is just knowing my stuff.

So I'm just going to go memorize everything. The same way I did for the last 23 years. I'm going to go up and down the west side where she wants to be. I'm going to memorize everything about every building. I'm going to memorize every coffee shop, every guy behind the bar. So in case she gets hungry there, I'm going to pull over the car and I'm going to go in there and be like, hey, Bob. Hey, latte, please. I've got a jet lagged pregnant lady in the back seat.

And I met Bob yesterday. But Bob will seem like he's known me forever. And I did that. I felt more calm and more sure of myself than I ever had before. all I had to do is put in the work, took her around for two days, and did my first deal over $2 million with her. And that day changed my life because I changed my energy. That's all I did. I didn't change me.

Like nothing changed about me, right? I didn't change anything other than my first impression. I wanted to wear a suit because she's coming here from China. Okay. And I wanted to know my stuff. I never wanted to say, um, I never wanted to say, uh, I never wanted to say like. I never wanted to say, huh, and I want to present that image of confidence that I knew I would have in five years.

I just want to have it right now. And that's what having big money energy is all about. Yeah, that's so good. Yeah. And I don't know why there's not, like, as I was reading the book, I realized, like, I've never read a book on, like, energy, like, just that, that concept of the confidence in projecting out there. And you go into some specific things and, you know, the clothes you wear and the education

that you prepared yourself with. But I'm like, this is so important. Why are we not talking about this more often? Like everyone talks about, you know, like I can read 100 real estate books out there and go learn how to be a real estate agent or an investor. But at the end of the day, like most people who do that, you and I mean, we all know this, right? Most people that come to you say they want to be an agent.

They're never going to be an agent. Like they just don't whatever, whether there's confidence or whatever. So do you have any like, like, what is that difference? Like what makes some people just like, wait, I'm going to put on the energy. I'm going to, I'm going to fake it so you make it. I mean, is that what we're talking about here? Or what do you think that is? I think people, people who fake it until they make it are the people who say they're rich,

but they live with their mom. They're the people who will lie. They'll say, oh, no, I've totally. I sold that building. I sold those lists. I did that, that, that. And they never have. And they can't back it up.

And I never lied. If she had asked me, Ryan, have you sold in this building? I would have said no, but doesn't mean anything, right? Because I know everything about it. I haven't sold in this one, right? That's true. but she never did. It's amazing what questions people don't ask you when you present yourself as someone who knows everything already, right?

You can walk into a room and know everything about this investment, this house, right, this cap rate. And people are going to say, ah, he sounds like he's done this before. You might have just, you might have just memorized it. You have no idea. And so, like, that was a perfect kind of concept for me to learn. And so what I do that's different than fake it to you make it is I've always been very clear on who I want to be in the future because I know I'm going to be that guy tomorrow. Before we know it. Like, listen, it's it's April 2021, right?

A year ago is already, it's already happened. Like how slow that time was moving. We couldn't leave. We were stuck at home. It was insane. And in our heads, we're like, this is going to be over in two weeks. I wonder what life is going to be like next year. Are we going to be on fire?

Like, what's going to happen? And here we are. And I am very, very focused on making sure that my future self doesn't come back in time and kick my ass for not putting in the work today to make his life better. Because I don't care about my life today, to be honest. I want to live it to the best of my ability. But it's over today. Like, I can't change what I did yesterday. I did it already.

I want to work and do as much as I can today for future me. So how can I be future me today? And I actually write down on a piece of paper because when you type with your thumbs, you don't remember what you're typing because there's no muscle memory associated with it. So I write on a piece of paper with a thing called a pen. And I write down all the time.

Is that a thing? Yeah, exactly. I write down where I want to be in the future, right? So right now I'm on this kick of kind of planning myself out three years in advance. And I write it down and I put it in a piece of paper and I put it in my pocket. And I carry it around with me.

And I forget that it's there all the time. And I'm like patting around looking for my phone. And then I feel like, oh, right, that's me in the future. It's there. And I swear to God Almighty. There is no, nothing better to motivate you to become the person you want to be than reminding yourself that that person exists already every day. And you already wrote his story and he's in your fucking pocket.

And so that's what I did. I knew that one day, if I put my mind to it, I could take around a Chinese investor and sell a small condo in the Upper West Side. Like, people do much bigger things than that. I just didn't have the confidence in myself to do it that day. So I'm going to project myself to me three years from now, five years from now, who does this every day before breakfast. And I'm going to carry myself with the confidence of him.

I'm going to project myself into the future. And it worked. And I do that now. Like, I do that now. I put myself in situations. Dude, I walk into rooms now, virtually, with other CEOs. Like, I don't know, not a C. I'm just, I'm a real estate broker who, like, named a company after himself.

And now you're putting me in this, but yes, absolutely, dude, CEO, let's go. I'm going to put myself out there because in five years, I know I'll have five years of this confidence built up. I don't want to wait until I get to that guy. I mean, it's the best way I found to be able to propel myself forward. I think what I love about what you shared was that the difference between fake it, so you make it and what you did was you took that effort to go memorize the stuff. You said, I don't need to wait until I've sold the house to learn how the building works. I'll just go learn it right now.

And I have the exact same information and therefore value to offer the client, whether I've sold the house or whether I didn't. And that's definitely a trait I notice in successful people that unsuccessful people, that unsuccessful people tend to wait for someone to give them an opportunity. I just want to wait until life presents me with this knowledge, where a successful people like you say, I'm going to go take it. I'm going to learn Bob's name and I'm going to put myself in a position where it doesn't matter where she wants to stop for coffee. I will look as if I know this area really, really well. I don't want us to gloss over that because that's incredibly powerful, no matter what you want to be. You want to be in the army. You want to be a firefighter, whatever it is that you like to do. Start practicing right now what those people do. Something else that you mentioned. in your book that I was a big fan of, was that you control the narrative. And I think that that's incredibly important, especially when you're new. People think that that's for successful people, but it's almost less important when you're successful. Do you mind digging in and sharing how you do that and why you believe that that's an important trait? If think about any relationship,

boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, husband, husband, broker client, right? Any relationship. the one in the relationship who holds all the power is the one who cares the least right and the one who cares the least is the one who controls the narrative because they dictate which way the conversation gets to go which way the situation gets to go um and so i've always been the one i want to write my own story right so when it comes to doing deals I know where this deal is going to end up before the deal starts. I know the purchase price, right? The final contract price.

I know where we're getting to. I'll write it down sometimes. And then I control the narrative on the way into that negotiation. I know how I'm going to have to deal with this buyer. I know how I'm going to have to work with the seller or the seller's agent. But I know where I'm getting to because the narrative has already been written. I know where we're going. Now, are we absolutely going to get there?

I hope so, because I'm controlling the narrative to get us there. Might we get somewhere else? Yeah, of course, but who cares? Right. I'm going into this conversation and to this negotiation with a plan, right? And things might come out of the blue. A deal I talk about in the book that revolves a lot around selective communication is I was selling a house in Bridge Hampton on the ocean for $40 million. And I had to really control the buyer because he was buying it, sight unseen.

And the seller was a complete lunatic and changed his mind about everything up and down, left and right, crazy, crazy, crazy. And the seller came back after we sent out the contract and sent us an exclusion list, right? This was a $40 million deal that, by the way, included everything in the house. He was getting all the furniture. He didn't want to think about anything. Just give me whatever it is in the house. and let's just close this.

Seller came back and said, yeah, okay, but I'm taking this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. And a blanket. And I knew that if I don't control this narrative, this deal is going to die, right? Chances are really, really high that it will die because my buyer is the kind of guy who's like, hey, we had a deal, $40 million, everything in the house. If you're going to start nitpicking now, you're going to nitpick all the way until closing, and then I'm going to show up, and then things are going to be missing. And it's be this, I don't want to deal with you. I'll go buy something else. And I know, because I'm controlling the narrative, there is nothing else to buy.

This is what this guy wants. It's the only one where everyone's bedrooms are on the ocean and that's really important to him. Yad, yeah, yeah. So I go back to the seller and say, listen, I'm not bringing this to my buyer. And they said, you have to. This is but the deal. We're killing it.

The fiduciary responsibility, your license. I said, ah, you need to rethink this. You need to rethink the rider you just sent me. If I send this to my buyer, there is no deal. I don't care how stupid you think some of this stuff is. And they went back and they took out everything except a fucking blanket. Mind boggling. And in my mind, I'm like, okay, if I'm the guy who fakes it until they make it,

I don't even tell my guy, right? I buy him a new blanket. I lie to him, whatever. It doesn't matter. It's a deal done. But that's not really the way I do things. And so I went back to the seller and I said, you have to include this blanket. I don't care that it's a family heirloom.

It's not my fault that you mentioned it to me. Now, I'm a salesperson, right? Ignorance is money. So you didn't have to tell me about the blanket. I never would have known about it, right? I could have told my client if he was like, hey, what about that blanket? You showed me in that video one time and said,

I don't know, it's probably in a closet. Let's go look for it. But now that you brought it up, now we have to fix it. And I held firm. And I said, listen, you keep your blanket. My guy keeps his $40 million, totally up to you. and they acquiesced and they gave us the blanket.

And we controlled the narrative and we got that deal done. And, you know, I find oftentimes that most deals actually can get done. Most deals that die, that agents lose or that investors lose, are not lost because of the deal. They're lost because you didn't control the narrative and you didn't control the communication. You either let your personality do the talking. You let your own personal wants or desires do the talking. You either cared too much or you care too little. And you weren't working for the deal.

You were working for some other agenda that got in the way, right? Like a damn blanket. Yeah. Did you ever find out with the blanket was like what made it so special to them? Honestly, no. I asked and like I got some ridiculous rigmarole of an answer. And I just didn't really care. It's like I, I, you told me about the blanket, you know, anybody else were just going

and taken it and then left because we're never going to remember. This house is like 15,000 square feet. You think we're going to remember a towel, you know, but you brought it up. This comes up all the time when agents are negotiating deals and the best ones will never let their clients know that they had to go through that because you're protecting them from this garbage. But this is the difference between a good agent that can get you the deal and a poor one. I'd say this all the time is there's a lot of people that are salespersons who or call themselves

that, but they're just order takers. They let their client tell them, go to this, go to this, go to this, go to this. And I'm bringing this up because a lot of our listeners have fallen into this mentality where they're going to tell their real estate agent, you go write this offer and you write it at this price and you tell them that if they don't give me this, then I'm not doing it. And then the agent goes and does exactly what they said and the seller responds with that same energy. Okay, you want to be a jerk? Well, then I'm going to be a jerk. And I'm going to dig my heels and over over the fence board or over the blanket. And the deal falls apart that would have meant half a million dollars over 10 years of time.

And what I'm getting at here is when you're trying to figure out who do you want your agent to be, who's going to represent you, do you want somebody that can stand up to you? It's actually good if they can do that, but they can do it with class and skill and get you to recognize maybe where you're being unreasonable. If you find a puppet,

that same person that you can control like a puppet is going to get controlled by the other side or by the other seller. It's not actually good. And that's why I love that you had the guts to come out and say, this is an important skill to have in this business. We are in this business for a reason. And I don't tell people that I'm your agent, right? I am your advisor. I'm your advisor on your investment. You know, like you can bark at your investment advisor at Morgan Stanley and you can bark at me. But I know what's better for you. And you should listen to me or you should work with somebody else.

right but listen i i have clients that bark at me all the time they tell me exactly what to do when to do it they yell to hang up the phone i'm dealing with one guy right now at the corner of my eye i got this one guy who's screaming at me over email right now and how dare you is this that the other it's a it's a it's a 10.1 million dollar deal he's a total luneitune but i don't work for him i work for the deal he can yell at my computer all day long i'm working for the deal i know how this deal is getting done. I know how to work with him. I know how to handle him. I don't take it personally, right? He's got his own shit. He's got to work out afterwards. I am going to laugh and smile all the way to the bank. And so, because you can't take it personally, man. Everyone is crazy. Even you. But like you said,

right, there's there are three types of salespeople. There's the car salesman who pushes, pushes, pushes, pushes, and they don't understand why people don't like them and they don't understand why they only get one type of client. There's the tour guide who just takes orders, who's the waiter, who just turns on lights for a living, right? Who's like, this is a kitchen. This is your bathroom. That's the offer you want to make. Hey, Bob, here's the offer we're making. Ba-da-ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

And then you have the third. The one that can actually make a difference, make a dent. And that's the one who doesn't work for the buyer or the seller. They work for the deal. I work for the deal all day, every day. When you have to come prepared, too, right? Like in January, what was it? Yeah, kind of middle of January.

I met a person who was looking to rent an apartment on the Upper East Side. And he had a big budget, right? And he was a big range, $20,000 to $50,000 a month for an apartment. And I was talking to him and I was like, why are you renting in New York right now? It's like, well, the rental market's really down. Like, yeah, I know that because everyone's gone. But why, why are we renting an apartment? You know, what do you do?

Why don't we look at purchasing? I just sold an apartment at 157, West 57, the first tower on billionaire. The seller paid $34 million. I brought the buyer. He got it for 16. Wow. It's the bloodiest deal during the New York City in like 20 years. So 51% off for a high-end condo.

It's like, let's go get something like that. Listen, I represent you. On the sell side, I will tear apart any buyer who brings me that kind of offer. On the buy side, let's go out and find blood. And then we started talking about a lot of things. Well, I don't know if I want to be here long term. Oh, okay. Well, what do you think?

He's like, well, I don't really need to be in New York City. anymore. I'm like, so why are you looking to pay? He's like, well, we don't know what we want to do. Okay, what about Florida? Why don't we look at Florida? How much do you pay in taxes? Let's look at Florida. The governor, DeSantis, is the greatest salesperson I have ever seen. Talk about someone who looks at the United States like a business and says, I'm going to make my state, my business, the most attractive out of all you bitches. And now he's bringing in a thousand permanent residents a day.

I'm not from Florida. I just know this stuff because we do so much business there now. And they said, what about Palm Beach? What about Miami? Let's go take a look. I'm not really a Florida guy, but send me some things. I sent him some things. He liked this stuff in Palm Beach.

Let's go down and check it out. It's Tuesday. When do you want to go down? Thursday. Great. Awesome. You do Palm Beach, right? Yes.

I do now. I memorized the Palm Beach market on Wednesday night. It took me like three hours. all the streets, all the intersections, the flight path over freaking Mar-a-Lago, all the restaurants, everything about Palm Beach Island, West Palm, North Palm, Seminole, everything. Flew down with him on Thursday morning with my Upper East Side rental client, took him to a Wow House just to see what his reaction would be that was asking $140 million, and he bought it for $133. Whoa.

It is the most expensive house ever sold in Florida, second most expensive single-family home ever sold in United States. There's about six weeks ago. And that's big magnetic energy, right? And it's about knowing your stuff. Had I not known my stuff, had I not controlled the narrative to really figure out what he wants, then I would have done, listen, I would have done an Upper East Side rental deal because that's what he said he wanted. That would have fine, right? I could have done a $30,000 a month rental and that would be totally okay. Maybe he would have bought another time, maybe. Probably not, though. Or I can control that narrative and get the deal to its maximum potential. You know, I want to highlight, there's a lot of people listening that may think, well,

you did something wrong because he didn't want that. Like, as if Ryan's the one that talked this person into buying that house. People that buy 133 million dollars properties don't need someone to tell them what they're supposed to do. What Ryan did was you jumped in and you helped him realize that what he actually wanted was this. He had objections in his own mind. he thought that the other deal was better or he didn't deserve to buy something that expensive or he just didn't realize what was out there. But your preparation in being able to highlight, here's all the benefits of living here as opposed to where you were brought clarity in that person's mind.

Yeah, listen, Steve Jobs. People don't know what they want until you show it to him. Right. And so that's my job. Now, at the same time, you know, he presented himself to me as somebody who needed to see options. And I knew that, you know, I wanted to just sort of feel him out. See what's going on in that head of his. But there's a lot of people too where I'm not going to show you any options because this person has a hard time ordering off a menu at dinner. And so if I give you too many options, you're never going to make a decision. I'm only presenting you with a finite, limited list. And we're going to narrow it down because the process of purchasing is not a process of options.

It's a process of elimination. Right. And so I want to make that very clear because I don't work on salary. I have zero benefits. I work by the hour. right and you don't even have to pay me if you don't buy right I can work with you for 10 years for free it's great for you know and so I want to make the best use of my time with every single person I'm with and I want to make sure they make the absolute best investments I talked to a lot

of agents you know our course or sales course now has I think just about 7,000 members in 109 countries or something like that and I talk to agents all the time that are in these very very hot markets right New York City by the way not one of them, uh, everywhere else the hottest sellers market the world's ever known, right? Houses being sold intraday, hundreds of thousands of dollars over the asking price. People have too much money, credit's too cheap, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and talk to them and they're like, well, how do I differentiate myself? These sellers to put their houses on the market by themselves, they don't need me, right? Or they could call up like open door and just sell it with a click of a

button, but they don't understand the fees. I can explain it. Like, listen, your job, is not to be a real estate agent. Your job is to guide and advise on a decision that the client was going to make anyway. They're just going to make it with you instead of the internet. And they're going to make it with you because the internet doesn't talk back. The internet doesn't have an opinion. Why do we watch the news? You can just go to Alexa. You can go to Google, type, get the news, read it yourself. But the voice in your head isn't nearly as enjoyable as that guy on the screen because you're getting his opinion and you're getting his personality. And it's nice to hear what other people have to say. And that's just sort of the way we are wired. And that's why we are

always going to be needed. Real estate agents just get more and more and more powerful as the time goes on. And this comes back to the energy thing we talked about earlier. Like I'm never going to feel that way. Like imagine watching the news and the guy's like, yeah, so some people in some city in Florida, they died. Like that would just be, it would be right. It's the energy in anything you do. That's what makes me want to listen to a real estate agent. So if you're a lame agent or you're, again, if you're an investor, if you're a whatever you are, an insurance salesman, just having that confidence, that energy to say, you know what, this is what we're going to do.

I'm like, okay, that's what we're going to do. That's amazing what people can get me to do just when they're confident about it. And nobody teaches that stuff. I feel like it's so, I don't know. Maybe people consider it sleazy. Like, oh, it's the car salesman going to tell me to go buy a car I don't need. But it's not that. It's just there's an air of confidence.

People will do anything if you just tell them to do it, right? I mean, we could take this conversation down an incredibly bad path. And we probably shouldn't. But like, people, especially men, will do anything you tell them to do. Yeah, yeah. If you own a large or complex rental property, congrats. And I'm also sorry. One day you're building a portfolio.

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That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Oh, have you ever heard of that study they did back in the day? I can't remember some psychological study where they like made people, like the scientists made people zap this other person, like electrocute another person to see how far they could push them. And the scientists just kept saying like, oh, just give them a little more juice, give me a little more juice.

And the person's like clearly like hurting another individual. Now the whole thing was all fake. But it was designed to see how much with just confidence and energy, you can basically, people were like killing other people just being told to do it. I mean, it's insane what energy can do both in a good and a bad way. You know, just real quick anecdote. Back in the beginning of the pandemic, there was, you know, the whole world's melting down. And like, we represent a lot of landlords, right?

And, you know, thousands of landlords listen to our show. And everyone's freaking out. What do we do when tenants don't pay rent? And like you said, like I wanted to kind of like retract and say, I don't know what? I don't know what to do either. I'm freaked out too. I got, you know, hundreds and hundreds of tenants. What if they don't pay rent? And instead, I was like, you know, what if I just come at this with that energy? I didn't have the cool phrase you got. But with, like, with confidence and say, you know, this is what we're going to do. And I made this YouTube. And I made this YouTube. If tenants don't pay rent, this is my plan. If they do with this, this is what I'm going to do. And it took me like an hour to think through kind of like what I would do. And then I just put it out there. It's like the third most popular video I ever put out on YouTube. millions of people now have credited that as like, oh, Brandon knew what he's doing.

And I'll say this. This is funny, but like, I shouldn't say this, but I will. I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, I had no idea. Like, I don't say I made it up. Like it was informed, but it's amazing how many people were like, oh, good. Brandon figured it out. Like, I don't know what I was doing.

I just thought, well, let's just pick something and go confidently into it, do my research. And yeah, I think a lot in life, just if you're trying to attract private lenders to your deals, you're trying to kind of put together something, just being. confident in moving forward in in that difficult circumstance can take you so far we could do a whole separate podcast about raising money and you know attracting lenders and attracting investors and i would say honestly like it's when you raise money it is i don't know i'd say it's like 30 percent, maybe sometimes 40 percent about the deal, everything else is about your ability and their confidence in your ability to execute that deal.

Okay. Because like there, it could be the greatest deal ever, but if they're not really confident in you because you don't have confidence in yourself, then there's other places to put money. Right. So your ability to sell that dream and sell that story to raise money is why there's some landlords and developers who are just prolific, right? They are just amazing at walking into a room with that magnetic energy that attracts money and attracts success because they could be talking about the worst deal in the world. But the way they frame it, it's only the worst deal in the world to everybody else.

But to us, here's why it's unique and here's why it's interesting and here's why you need to be in on it with me. I think what I love right about what you're sharing is it's not a false confidence. It's basically saying say yes to the challenge and then go figure out what the hell you got to do to be ready for it, right? That person's challenge you to a fight, take it on and then go hit the weights and then go start training. As opposed to the slimy people that say, yeah, take the fight and then figure out a way to duck out at the very end or do something wrong. That when you commit to greatness, when you write down in a piece of paper you keep in your pocket, here's who I'm going to be. And you actually write out that check. it creates a natural incentive in you to cut through the BS and your own excuses and to actually

jump in there and become the person you need to be, which was really what was stopping you from having confidence in the first place, right? It's almost like a brain hack that you're sharing here that anyone could build genuine confidence. We're not saying go sell people something that's bad. We're talking about the fact that you can highlight the elements of something that's good that unconfident people won't do. They'll wait for the person they're talking to. I guess the way I describe it to the agents on my team is quit letting the client. give you your confidence. Oh, they like me. Now I'm all puffed up and now I feel confident because the client likes me. You need to be inspiring that in them. And I don't know that I've ever heard

anyone give such a clear, concise answer to this is as simple as it takes to build up that confidence. What do you think, Brandon? I want to fire this at Ryan again real quick here. It's something you brought up in the book. I don't want people to think that this is just like self-confidence for like, oh, I'm amazing and I'm going to figure this all out. Like, there's a lot of self-awareness that has to go into confidence building. And it's something you talk about in the book about like, like asking people you know to be painfully real with you about your limitations and your problems. Can you talk about that? Yeah, I would say one of the first steps you need to do, if you haven't done it yet, is to do

something really, really, really, really uncomfortable, which is find a friend. Typically, it's not a family member because they're always going to be biased, right? And it's not someone who works from you because they're never going to be honest. but it's like a super honest friend and you ask them the following question okay you ask them can you define me to myself without using my name as if you were describing me to someone else if they were asking you who you're hanging out with right now uh i had a friend named alex who i asked that to i guess this is in 2009 uh i lived in tribeca and he said uh that uh that Oh, the, that young, the kid with the weird gray hair.

It was pretty tall, funny sometimes who walks around staring at the ground. It's like, what? First of all, it's just very odd to me that the first thing he talked about was my hair. It's like the last thing I think about. But clearly, people recognize me based on the fact that I'm younger and I have like a full head of gray hair. So, okay, fine. Maybe that'll help me as a real estate agent. and people will think I'm older.

Boom, I'll use that. Tall, okay, fine. Kind of funny. That's weird. But I look at the ground when I walk. Like I had no, dude, I had no idea. First, I thought he was lying because I thought he was like trying to come up with something. Turns out the next couple days, I started noticing that I don't make eye contact with people

as I walk down the street, nor do I even like look up. I'm either choosing to look at my phone or I'm looking at the ground. And as I dug deep to try to figure it out, it's like, why do I do this? Maybe am I tall, my neck? I don't know, like, I don't even know. I realized that I was giving off this sheepish, unconfident physical energy the minute I walked into a room without even opening up my mouth. Because when I was younger, I had really, really, really bad skin. I had cystic acne.

and it made me so self-conscious and I was so embarrassed by it that in high school through college, I hated looking at people as I was walking through the campus or down the street because I would see their eyes dart around my face and it would make me, it would make you feel bad. And so I would just keep my eyes on the ground or look at the phone or do something else. So I didn't have to have those confrontations with their eyes. And that never left me. It became like muscle memory. I had to like really figure out how to stand up with my shoulders back and like walking down the streets with someone like like someone who gave a shit.

He was like, hey, I deserve to be on this street too. What's up? How are you? What's going on? It's like that one thing. I didn't even know I did changed my life. And so, you know, I tell everybody like there is probably if you are listening to this and you're trying to figure out a way to do more or be better. If you actually want to make a difference, if you want to start leading a bigger life, and it's not just about being a bigger life, it's about leading the absolute greatest life you possibly can.

So you maximize that potential. You need to know what your perception is to other people. When I talk about building personal brand, which we talk about a lot, right? Because I focused on brand a lot in building my career. brand if you reverse the math brand is reputation reputation is perception perception is core conviction like what you believe in yourself is the perception that you put out there so if i'm nervous about the way i look and i walk with my eyes on the ground the perception i'm putting out there is nice guy kind of shy kind of sheepish not confident that becomes my reputation as people who

know me, which becomes my personal brand. And so you have to break that. Right. And so find somebody that you can do a self-audit with and make it be uncomfortable. And you probably know, right, but maybe you don't. Like, you might want to know that you're the person with sweaty hands or bad breath or the person who talks too much or the person who doesn't let other people talk, right? Or the one with the really weird laugh or I don't know, like maybe there's something you do that's weird that, you know, is fine. And you also have to be willing to roll what the punch is. You have to say, okay, so I have gray hair. You don't like it. I really don't feel like dying my hair every day for the rest of my life. So I'm just going to own it. Yes. At that time, what was I? 24, 25, something

like that. Yeah, 25 with a full-headed gray hair. Screw it. Great. People will think I'm much older. They're not going to ask me about my confidence level because they're going to assume I've been doing this for a long time. I just have a young face. So I'll own that, you know, but there are other things that you just need to be very, very well aware of, right? You need to be self-aware. It's the only way that you can change that energy and start moving forward. That's so good. That's really, really good. Now I'm going to ask some of my buddies. I'll ask David here later after the show what my what my faults are here. I want to pull those out. But I know, how tall are you, by the way, Ryan? Six-three. Okay. So I'm like six-five-ish. So I'm awkward. I always say I'm awkward. You're like handsome tall.

And then the next level up was like awkward tall. So I'm like the awkward tall. So I get in a group of people. I naturally do the same thing. I slops down. Get down by them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I spread my legs apart in crowds when I'm standing. Yeah. I'm like three inches shorter. Yeah, my dad is six foot six and he does the same thing. Brandon looks like one of those tire jacks in your car that you stick it under there. Then you pump it up really high when he's standing around people. Super spread out legs and then a really long torso. That's funny. Well, and then there's the things that we think are insecurity. Like your gray hair, right? Like at one point, that may have been a little bit of insecure. for you. But in reality, it's actually benefited you so much. It's interesting that like, growing up, I have a list, a little bit of a list my entire life. Like now a quarter million people listen to my podcast every week because I have like, and I'm like, it's the thing that made me so insecure when I was younger, added character for some, some reason that I don't know. And so like, yeah, that's the difference between knowing, like, that's self-awareness. Is this a trait I need to fix or is this something that is benefiting me? Something that's going to actually improve me in life.

So like posture, that's not improving me. But, you know, growing a beard, like, that's character. Dude, and it's, listen, it's, it's also, it's what makes you memorable, right? How do I, how do you make, how do you make yourself memorable? What is memorable about you? And maybe it's something that you hate about yourself. But like you said, that that's actually what makes you memorable and draws attention and brings you business.

So own it, right? There's a whole other part of the book that's all about just sort of, you know, owning your character traits and owning your flaws, which aren't flaws at all, right? They're your own personal, unique strengths. Otherwise, you're just like everybody else. And that's how you blend into the crowd, which is not what we want to do. That's literally why I grew the beer.

That sounds stupid to say. But back in the day, I was like, I just looked like every other tall, you know, awkward white guy. You know, like, so I was like, what could I do differently? And I was like, what if I grew a long beard? And so, like, I literally do it, did it because I was like, I want to look a little bit more memorable. So I don't know, maybe that's. You will forever be in my. memory, man. Good, yeah, forever. Actually, that's a part of the book. We don't need to dig into it,

but one of the parts of the book that I really liked is you talked about, it was like, like, when you meet somebody new and you're networking, like try to find something memorable about them, right? Like, they're a beekeeper, I think is the example used in there. Or you're the guy with a beard. I love that. That was phenomenal. Yeah. It'll also help you with follow up, right? And it'll help you remember them and it's a unique trait. And most of the times, like when you talk to somebody about what makes them memorable, they will think it's an awkward, weird, funky, quirky trait. But if you're positive about it, you are building that trust circle so much faster because you're talking to them about something that they think about a lot.

Yeah, that's such a good point. David, what were you saying? Forgot you off so rudely to talk about my beard. No, I like that. Now, he's known as beardy Brandon, right? Like your beard has got a lot of people listening to you. And now you help more people because they can find you. The only point I wanted to make is there's a lot of people that will have fear when

they hear this, I don't want to ask people what they think about me. What if it hurts when I hear it? And that's a normal response. The problem is you're already being hurt by those traits every single day. You just don't know it. It's the same part of you that says, I don't want to make a budget because I don't want to see all the money that I'm losing. You're being negatively affected by these traits already. Knowing about them is empowering. And that's sort of the reward for the people like Ryan that are willing to jump into that space is that you start to get advantage over all your competition. Yeah, man, thousand percent. All right. Well, before we get out here, I think it would be, it would be sad to miss a chance to ask you, you know, one of the top real estate guys in the

world. Like, for those people who want to be a real estate agent, what have you seen as some of the things that really help, like the people who become successful agents? What do they have? Like, what are they doing differently other than what we've talked about today? But what are they doing differently? What makes a good real estate agent and what should they be doing to try to improve? there's a lot of things, okay? But a couple different things are, well, one, we've talked about it a lot today, so I'll talk about it for one second,

but they have great energy. And it doesn't mean they're like Jim Carrey, right? Who they are, they have great energy as that person. Even if they're quiet, right? They're energetically quiet. They own the fact that they're quiet. But they have great energy. Two, they have enthusiasm.

for what they're doing and what they're selling. Whether they love the house or not, they're enthusiastic about selling that house. I've told a lot of people this, and people are like, what, no. I'm not like obsessed with real estate. Like, I don't, you know, I'm in a townhouse in Tribeca right now.

My office costs like $10 million. I got these exposed beams. I don't walk in here and I'm like, damn, look at these beams, you know? Like, I, it's a room to me. Like, I, I'm wired, you know, differently. But I am enthusiastic about this house. People come through.

They want to see our office. I walk them through our house model. The fact that we don't have desks, the fact that we just have houses in every market, right? I'm enthusiastic about what I do because I'm not really selling real estate. I'm selling enthusiasm. That's what sales is. It's a transfer of enthusiasm, right? The other thing that they have, successful salespeople, is they have the ability.

to empathize. So they can be happy when their client is happy, but they can also understand when their client is unhappy. I see a lot of unsuccessful agents who are one tone, and it's almost like they do that as a defense mechanism, but they don't know how to talk to their clients when deals go south. And they don't also really know how to like be excited with their clients when things are good. Or when they get a deal done.

They don't know how to transfer that enthusiasm to actually lock in the deal, right? They just pass on the information like we were talking about before. And then all of a sudden the client's like, well, they're not excited because I'm not excited. And so what do we? Maybe this isn't the deal for us. No, no, no, wait, wait, wait, you should do it. Now all of a sudden you're enthusiastic about your own commissions and then it's all over. So that's what I would say.

And then, I mean, we could talk about it forever. But, you know, discipline, being relentless and following up, right? My follow-up rules are the three Fs, follow-up, follow-through, follow-back. That is the secret to this business for me, right? I do deals. The guy that bought that mansion for $40 million. I met him in 2012. I followed up with him every other week for seven years.

Wow. He finally got back to me and said, hey, sorry, Ryan, I've been a little busy. And a couple weeks later, he was finally ready. Because we think about this all the time. We're like, oh, they're not responding to me. Fuck them. But really, like, people have lives and kids and jobs and, like, shit going on. They're not as focused on real estate as you are, even if they told you they were in the moment.

The same way when you go into a shoe store, you're really excited about those shoes, but then you leave and you're like, well, I was excited because I was in the store. Now I've got to go to work, right? The salesperson isn't like, God damn it, Brandon, you were so excited about those converse. How come you're not calling me back? Like, well, I don't know, I didn't really need the shoes. You know, and so, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, really, really, really, really, uh, really important. And so that guy that I, sorry, that, um, uh, followed up with, uh, we, I sold him a Soho penhouse for 16 million. Next year, we did the beach house in Bridgehampton for 40. And then in December of 2020, so four months ago, uh, I sold him the most expensive condo ever in surfside of Miami Beach for $33 million. Um, um, So thank goodness I followed up with him, right? And he knows every broker.

He knows everybody. But I say persistent. And last but not least, man, at the end of the day in this business, whether you're investing in real estate, you're lending against real estate, you're buying it, you're selling it, you're brokering it. Deals come, deals go. You're not judged by the deal you did today or the deal you're going to do tomorrow, right? You're judged annually. What did you do last year? okay which means that if you take care of the work the work will take care of you you don't live deal by

deal by deal you roll them off your shoulders take care of the work the work will take care of you you just put in that work don't focus on the money focus on the work and the work has an amazing amazing way of paying us back well i definitely think that that answer one of the best answers i've ever heard for the whole like what makes somebody successful in any area whether there's real estate agents or being an investor or anything. Doesn't matter. Like, that was phenomenal. I think that should also, like, let everyone know if they didn't already realize it. Like, you know, it's probably easy for you as a, as somebody who's been on TV, it's probably easy for people to look at you and go, oh, he's just a TV agent. He just does this for TV. But like, clearly you are like the best at what you do.

You are good at this. But I'm wondering, how does that, like, this is just a personal question because I was curious while I was reading the book. Do you get a lot of flack because of the TV stuff from other agents and people in industry, oh, like, you're the guy on the TV thing? Or is it like, oh, you're the guy on the TV guy, the thing I want to work with you? Is it a positive or a negative for you? And I'm having the celebrity attached to you. With other agents, I mean, listen, there is a small group of agents that are actually the ones who champion other people's success. And so they're excited. They want to work with me. They want to use me to co-list things all the time, especially in my core markets where I actively sell. And other markets, yeah, I mean,

people are, people are super excited about it. But more often than not, I mean, real estate agents are pretty inherently envious and jealous and a lot of them just, you know, think it's bullshit or, oh, he only got successful because he went on TV and that made his whole career. He doesn't work the way I do. I'm like, dude, you're, you're making these comments from your beach house. Like, I'm in the office every day, all day. I need to take a day off my first three years. No one called me from the TV show for years. When was the last time you watched TV and you picked up the phone, right?

Like, like, you, would you, did you call Kim Kardashian last time you watched that show? No, I don't think so, because they're on TV, right? It's weird. So it took years, like three years. People would reach out after the show came out, but it was like, hey, I saw you on this show. Can you please sell my farm in Panama?

I'm like, well, maybe. But it was more me saying, okay, dude, someone just opened a door, I am going to run through it as fast as I can. I'm going to use this to open as many doors as I possibly can. Like I still cold email every day. I send cold email to billionaires every day. I send cold emails to their circle of trust every day.

Touching base. Introducing myself. Here's what I just did. I would love to meet. And the responses get better and better as time goes on. And then I follow up, right? I got an email filter that tracks every single email I send that does not get a response because I will follow up with you until you die.

Well, man, I have four million more questions, but I know we got to respect your time today and get out of here soon. So let's move to the last segment of the show. This we lovingly refer to as our famous four. The famous four are the same four questions we ask every guest, every week. We're going to throw my you. First question of the famous four. Is there a habit or trait you're currently trying to develop in your own life? Anything you're working on right now to improve?

I am working on so many things. I am working on being a CEO, man. Like, I'm working on that. Like, how do I handle employees? I used to have like five admins. Now I have 30. And as I go on, I'll have more and more and more. Like, how do I, should I care about them?

Like, do I not care? Do I, what do I do? How do I do this? Like, what, it's like, it's weird. I'm trying to figure that out. This is not one of the questions, but I just want to selfishly ask you, do you have any insight you can share on what skills you're recognizing you're lacking? Because I'm in the same boat and it's the hardest thing I've had to do in business yet. As far as being a CEO.

I like clear, honest, and brutal feedback. It is the only way that I will actually grow. When I was a little kid, I hated it. But my dad, who is the strictest, most honest guy you will ever meet. I would not lie to a fly. you know, pulled me off the baseball field in fifth grade in the middle of the damn game because I playing right field. And he told me, this sport isn't for you in front of everybody, right? I appreciate when people tell me, like, hey, this is how I feel about the way you act. This is what

you're doing. Because, you know, we're all in our own heads, right? Like, I'm in my own head thinking about so many different things. I don't know the way that I'm coming off sometimes or the way that I appear and I want to be aware of that. And so I just always ask for feedback. I love I love great honest feedback. And I love the idea that we can all change. Like, you know, the person you are today isn't the person you have to be in a year. The person I am today is definitely not the person that came to New York.

And that's not to say that I lost myself or that I'm different now. Like, fuck yes, I'm different. Older, different. I have a job. My life is different. I want it to be so. And that's totally okay. I'm actually more nervous for the friends I talk to where I'm like, man, you haven't changed

a day since 10th grade, you know? And you're like, yeah, man, still doing me. I'm like, wow. That sucks. Like, what do you do? What do you do? Yeah. Okay.

Next question. Is there a business book that has made the biggest impact on you? There are two. They're not my own. When I got into the business, I read a book called The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR. I'm a marketer, right? I'm a salesperson, but I'm a market.

And that book taught me what I needed to know about the power of publicity and the power of PR and the fact that people don't trust advertising, but they trust editorial. They trust reporters. So that's why you see now 13 years later, I am in the news in some way, shape, or form every day. In some way. My name is in the news somehow some way because I'm building that personal kind of global trust. That and a shoe dog randomly by Phil Knight about the founding of Nike. It's just such a crazy story that just shows you anything is possible.

Anything. And it is just so cool. Like, hey, they make these cameras in Japan. Those do well. People should run also on things from Japan. Let me figure that out. Fucking Nike. It's crazy. It's a brand we all know. And people love that founder story. Right. Like jobs, right? Jobs. You know, Ray Kroc founding McDonald. Like, how did you build something so big? What did you do? And what kind of shit show was it? Like, I want to know. What did you do? What did you do? Right? We're looking. for tips, we're looking for tricks, and what do we end up always finding is, man, they just went for blood. And they just said yes to everything. And they didn't stop. Right. They just didn't stop. And when they saw opportunity, they went for it. And then they pivoted. And then this and then that. Like, you know, it was messy. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What about some of your hobbies? My hobbies? I work out every day. Um, I love theater. I wish I could keep going to it, except Cuomo shut it down. You know, movies, great TV shows, scripted series.

You know, it's what I always wanted to do. And I have a baby, like playing with Zina. I have a two-year-old daughter who's a lunatic. And hanging out with her. Other than that, I really do love work. Like, I love work. I love building. I love planning.

I love executing. I love problem solving. I love the fact that, like, the things that I can do, will make a difference in my life tomorrow. Right? Otherwise, I am just a chicken with his head cut off. I got a four-year-old and an 18-month-old.

So there you go. Right there with you in the thick of it. Good times. All right. My last question of the day. What do you think? And we've covered this at length today. So you don't have to go too long on this one if you don't want to.

But what separates, like ultimately what separates successful people from those who give up, fail, or never get started? If you had to boil that down. You have to have a wall. Right. Like what is that thing that your back is up against that is pushing you forward? And that's why we hear that story all the time. It's so cliche. But the person that became successful started with nine bucks, right? Like the rock, right? His production companies, nine bucks, came into the year with nine bucks. So everyone said no, failed in football. Right. Like

everybody. Every, like every successful person started, but even like me, right? Like, I, ran out of money in 2008. I can, you know, debit card declined. It was go home to Colorado or figure it out. And had I not had that wall, I, I, I honestly, I don't know, maybe I'd still be doing on something else. I'd be too comfortable. My comfort is the killer of dreams. And so you've got to find that wall. And if you are lucky enough, not to be broke. What is that wall? Like, figure it out and actually think about it. What is that thing that you would hate to be doing? And run away from it as fast as you possibly can towards success. Everyone else does not have those clear goals or clear ambitions. They have no wall and they just choose the easy way out,

which is quitting or doing what everybody else does. Phenomenal. All right, David, get us out here. Last question of the day. Where can people find out more about you? Everywhere. My brokerage is Sirhant, S-E-R-H-A-N-I-N-N-E-A-N-N-T-A-N-T-T-I-T-E-E-S-N-T-T-T-E-S-N-T-T-T-T-E-S-E-N-T-L-E-R-H-H-H-E-N-T-L-E-R-H-L-E-N-E-R-E-N-E-L-E-L-E-L-E-E-L-E-E-E-L-E-E-R-E-E-E-R-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-R-E-E-E-E-R-E-E-E-E-E- I'll just recommend to everybody out. Honestly, everyone, this is one book that you definitely want to put into list for 2021. Big money energy is fantastic. So nice job writing that one.

Let's go. Let's go, man. Thank you very much. David, close up shop. Thank you, Ryan. This is David Green for Brandon the Beer Turner. Signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio.

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