Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Redefining Real Estate: Cyrus Mohseni and the Value of Integrity

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Cyrus Mohseni is a rare blend of real estate executive, award winning entrepreneur, life coach, speaker, and philanthropist, and this conversation digs into the mindset and momentum behind his success. Known for his relentless drive, unwavering integrity, and commitment to personal growth, Cyrus has become one of the most respected voices in modern leadership. His work spans industries with impact and intention, and his story sets the tone for a powerful episode.His achievements speak for themselves. Cyrus has earned the Inman Future Leaders Award, NAR’s 30 Under 30 recognition, the Rising Star Award from the California Association of Realtors, and a seat on the Forbes Real Estate Council. He built The Keystone Team into one of the fastest growing companies in the world and launched Giving Football, a nonprofit bringing training gear, fitness, nutritional education, and life skills to youth in orphanages around the globe. His award winning marketing strategies and values-driven leadership have made him a standout figure in every space he enters.In this episode, Cyrus opens up about the principles and experiences that shaped his path while offering the kind of clarity and perspective only someone operating at this level can deliver. He also shares insights from hosting The Butterfly Mindset, his top ranked podcast focused on mindset, leadership, and entrepreneurship. This is an honest and energizing look at what it takes to build, lead, and create lasting impact in a world moving faster than ever.💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below! ☑️  If you liked this video, consider subscribing to Escaping The Drift with John Gafford *************💯 About John Gafford: After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space.➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production. Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual sales Clear Title, a 7-figure full-service title and escrow company.*************✅ Follow John Gafford on social media:Instagram ▶️ / thejohngaffordFacebook ▶️ / gafford2🎧 Stream The Escaping The Drift Podcast with John Gafford Episode here:Listen On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=2d60fd72329d44a9Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/escaping-the-drift-with-john-gafford/id1582927283 *************#escapingthedrift #cyrusmohseni #leadershipmindset #entrepreneurlife #realestateleaders #mindsetmatters #highperformancehabits #businessgrowth #podcastguest #successmindset #impactleadership #inspirationdaily #levelupyourlife #purposedriven #visionandexecution #eliteentrepreneursSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Let's talk about, go ahead. Because I think the bigger move is not necessarily that stuff. I think the bigger move for me in the last three months was definitely rocket-bying Mr. Cooper. Oh, yeah, this is correct. This is no one talking about that. That's the bigger move. We've got something coming out to counter it, but explain, you, go ahead.

So no one is, yeah, no one's talking about this. I talk about it all the time. And now escaping the drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again, back again for another episode of like it says in the opening man, the podcast

that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today in studio, one of the cool things about living in Vegas is there's a lot of conventions here. A lot of things happen. A lot of your baller friends come rolling through and give you a shout last minute. And they say, hey, dude, about that podcast. I got 15 minutes in the next 30 minutes. You want to do it? And I'm like, yeah, let's go. So today, live in studio, man, we have one of my friends from Orange County that is a real estate baller. I mean, just has done so much. Started his career early playing professional soccer and has gone on to just awesome things in the real estate industry. He's the CEO of a firm called

the Keystone team and he does some really cool stuff and he has a really great insight into the future of where real estate is heading. So if you are a real estate agent or somebody you think you might get in real estate or if you're just interested in the real estate business, today is something you're probably going to want to listen to. So ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Cyrus Mousani. Cyrus. Hell yeah, dude, I appreciate you. What's up, man? I'm stoked to be here. It's such a cool spot. I know, dude. I'm so glad to see you. I'm glad to see you here. I do, I'll be in, I'll be back in my house in December for one day. That's it. One day,

next month and that's it too cold for being down there right now i can't hang out there right now but it's good i'm glad you came in so you came in for uh the big zillow deal yeah um obviously they're bringing all the big swingers from around the country for that and that's going on right now in Vegas uh down in fountain blue or fontaine blue if i know exactly not fountain blue whatever it is so my thing man is is let's talk a little bit about soccer first right because i think that the reason i want to talk about it is because it's such a precursor to who you are And that first time we met, we talked about it. I thought it was really interesting.

So tell me about the soccer stuff. Yeah, I mean, so actually here, I'm going to rewind a little bit more behind soccer because I think this is important to understand my whole story. I'm going to rewind to, wow, 21 years from last week. Okay. You're like, why do you know 21 years? because my grandma in 2004, my uncle in 2004, and my dad in 2005 all passed away. Oh, wow.

So my mom's mom, my mom's brother, October 29th, 2004, passed away at 28 years old. My mom's mom, my grandma was 62, 68, and then my dad, October 29, 2005, went into the hospital and passed away November 1st, 2005. life and the reason that I you know yeah it's a big moment in my life but the reason is is my whole mindset shifted when this happened um my uncle was my favorite person in the world to this day it's like I can't I always I talk to my wife about this is like this is like the person that like I felt like unconditionally loved me more than anything right like that was my uncle how I felt with my uncle and then and then you know my dad so my two biggest male figures in my life on. And my mom, I'm the last of five kids. My mom worked, but she never really had to work

when my dad was around. Yeah. And when my dad passed away, we lost everything. So my mom started working six jobs to keep the house over our head. So it was the first time in my life that I started thinking about other people. I was 11 years old. And it was the first time in my life that I started thinking about other people before myself. And I started thinking how come I make my mom's life easier, you know, how could I make sure that, you know, instead of me complaining about getting out of bed, little things like that, I was just like, no, I got to do this because I don't want my mom's life to be harder because it's already so hard. And the only thing that took my mind off of going, of everything was soccer, right? Everything that was going on in my life, I just wanted

to play soccer. I wanted to do that because it was the only thing that took my mind off of what I was going through. Yeah. And so I was playing, I'd trained before school. I'd go train. I'd walk to school. I'd train after school. And then I was like, I want to play club soccer. I was in like sixth grade. I want to play club soccer. So I go to play club soccer.

I start calling. You'll appreciate this. I go online. I'm 11 years old. I go online, start researching club soccer teams. And I start calling these coaches, finding their phone numbers, calling these coaches. You're already playing like rec soccer at this time.

Yeah, I was playing any way I saw. I was playing AOSO. Got it. Played All-Stars, okay? Big deal. Got it. Okay, sure. So I start calling these club coaches and I'm like, hey, I want to play for your team.

Like, I want to come play for your team. And they're like, okay, well, you know, put your dad on the phone. Like, well, my dad's dead. Put your mom on the phone. Well, she's at work. Okay, well, have your mom call us later. Okay, cool. Over and over and over again until one person was like, okay, yeah, come to practice.

This is what time we play. I like that you called me. And I was like, all right, perfect. So then I'm like, how. do I get to practice? 11. You know, I'm 11. So I call my friend.

I'm like, hey, you want to try out for club? I got us a tryout. Smart. Tell your mom to bring us. So we go, we go, I make this club team. And then, like, six months later, I get cut. And it was the worst thing that happened to me in my life. You know, I was like, what is going on?

Like, I just made this team. I was so happy. I was so stoked. It was like everything I wanted to do. And at that, during that six months, I decided I wanted to play professional soccer. And the reason I decided I wanted to play professional soccer is because before that, I never really understood that you could just play professional soccer. I don't know what I thought, but I thought, like, you had to be like this gifted person,

this like gift from God, like you're there and now you're playing pro. Yeah. And when I played for that team, that coach had said, I played pro in Argentina. And it was like a guy I could touch, I could fill him, I could see him. I'm like, this guy isn't that special. Like, why can't I do this? So I decided I was going to play professional soccer. And then, like, two months later, got cut from my club team.

You know what I mean? And then, but I decided I was going to play professional soccer. So that's what I wanted to do. So then I did the same thing, called a bunch of clubs, went to a tryout, tried out, played for this team. I was, I played goalkeeper. Just to kind of put in perspective when I decided how good I was when I decided I wanted to play pro is I played goalkeeper I was on bronze team which is the lowest level of

club and we lost every game five to zero you were the goalkeeper and I was the goalkeeper yeah and so I was like I want to play pro you're gonna do this okay and so but um one thing that my mom like my dad used to say all the time when I was younger and my mom kept like really strong after my dad passed away was you can do anything you put your mind to like my mom would always tell me that like i was like you know i want to do this she's like you can do anything you put your mind to you just got to do it yeah your dad always said that your dad always said that and um and so i truly believe that like growing up like i was like if i just trained hard enough i could do it like what's the difference between me and that person that person just trained harder yeah right so i made this thought

i was just like there's always someone out there getting better than you by working harder than you I'm going to work harder than everybody else. And so that's what I did. So I just trained more. I went, again, before school, after school, after after school, went before practice. I went and found another coach. I just trained as much as possible when I was 18 years old.

Two days after I graduated high school, I moved to Europe, and I played professional soccer. I ended up playing in Switzerland. I ended up playing in Costa Rica. I ended up playing for Chivas, USA, San Jose, Earthquakes, and the MLS. I played for some of the biggest clubs in the world. Um, and, uh, it was all from me just, like, realizing that you can do it if you just work. Yeah, but that's so, you, I mean, 11 years old, that's so unique.

Yeah. I think it's, again, you know, and people told me this when I was, when I was younger, I remember specifically, like, people telling me like, you know, well, now you're going to have to grow up. I remember being in 11 years old and people saying that like when my dad passed away. Oh, yeah. Yeah. being like what are you talking about like you know in my mind it wasn't processing like you know

people would say like well you're gonna you're not gonna uh have the same childhood blah blah i'm like what do you mean like in my mind it wasn't this something different it was just hey this is what's happening yeah i'm dealing with it and this is what i have to do you know what i mean and but it's very true when i was 11 years old now i look i see my niece she's she turns nine in a week yeah and i'm like I was basically this age. Yeah. Like it's crazy. She's got not a care in the world.

Correct. Not a care in the world. Not a care in the world. So now it like actually, it's really interesting when I think about it now because I put myself like in her shoes. You know? And so let me fast forward. It's very interesting because my niece and I are really close, like super close. That's like my girl.

Her dad passed away eight years ago. from pancreatic cancer. So the same thing, same deal. So my sister had, so it's three nephews and a niece. And so my nephew, one of my nephews was my age when my dad passed away, you know, yada yada.

And like my niece was only one. So like my, I was with my, I've been, since she was a baby. You're the father figure. Yeah, she's with me. You know, I take her to all her stuff. I coat. And so,

but it makes me now, now that I think about it, it's like this weird, like, uh, uh, person, it's this weird thing that like, I realize what it was.

Do you get what I'm saying? But it's almost like, yes, it's, it's obviously a tragedy that your wife lost her husband. That's, that's a tragedy. Yeah. Cancer is terrible.

But it's almost like the universe gave you the opportunity to pay it back. Yeah. For what your uncle did for you. Yeah, it's kind of a trip. You know what I mean? It's like really, weird, kind of way, right?

100%. I was literally talking to someone about this earlier. I was like, because I have these different opportunities to do different things. And one of them involves me moving away from home for a little while, six months. And I'm like, I don't think that that's worth it to me. You could pay me a lot of, you could pay me all the money in the world. But like, I'm away from my family. That's the thing that matters the most.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like that's like, so I'm missing my name. nieces, like, and by the way, I also realize, there's, have you ever seen that graph that, like, it shows, like, time with your loved ones? No. It's a really interesting graph. What is it?

So, it's like, it's like, it starts with, like, it's like a bunch of, it's a bunch of lines. So different colored lines, it's a line graph, right? And it, like, goes up where it's like time with your parents. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then it hits by the time you're 18. You spent 90-something percent of the time you were in your entire life. And then it starts dropping.

Yeah, exactly. Like, it starts dropping. down and then it shoots up with your significant other and yada yada all this stuff. I have seen that graph. That right there is like when I saw that, I saw it one time and I talk about it all the time. I've only seen the freaking thing once. I can't find it again.

I know exactly what you're talking about. And that completely changed my perspective on life because it's like I know my niece, for instance, I have this this much time with her. Yeah. Like, like, why would I give up any time for that? Yeah, my, I have a 17-year-old to soft college next year. It's crazy. He's sitting in the office back there working because I want him working here for that very reason

because I understand that once he leaves the house at 18, that will be the 95% of the time on earth that I will spend with him. I will spend with him, and I get that because he's going to have his own family and his own thing. And I get that. Yeah. So I think about that all the time. It's nuts. It's terrible. Yeah.

So let me ask you this, because when you have something like that that's such a tragedy with you, that's happened like do you have the ability to be empathetic with people when they start talking about nonsense like adversity in their life like how could you

well you lose your father at 11 you know you guys almost lose everything like when people want to start whining about you know oh the leads are weak or why this why the world is against them I mean do you even have like I think it's hard yeah it's super hard so it's pretty interesting

with me because like like What I also realize is that that every single person we walk by, I was in New York a couple weeks ago. And I was sitting there with my videographer. We're sitting in. We're just chilling, waiting for a taxi. And I go, you know what, Frank? You know what's crazy, bro?

And he's like, what I said? Every one of these people that walks by, you know, there's like hundreds of people we're just sitting there walking, driving by. I'm like, every one of them is someone's having the best day of their life and someone's having the worst day of their life. And every one of them's dealing with something. and to me that something might not mean as much as it means to them.

Yeah. You know, and so I think that's an important, like, thing that is important to remember. But, like, no, 100%. Like, I truly believe if you want to do anything, you could just, you can do it if you truly put your mind to it. Just an irrational belief in yourself to doing it. Exactly. Well, it's funny, dude, because I was talking, literally I was on somebody else's podcast

because I'm promoting my book right now, which by the time you hear this will be out, buy it everywhere, escaping the drift, everywhere books are sold. but I was talking about my publisher called me and when you publish a book to normal channels you get reviews right like and they're like not like reader reviews but they're like reviews for bookstores they're buying books yeah and my publisher calls me goes okay we're getting a review tomorrow from publishers weekly

which is a big kind of a big deal he goes don't get too excited they're really not kind normally to self-help books at all there's not kind I said I mean because I mean at this point my publisher put this through a focus group and it crushed the focus group and everybody loved it and it was great and I'm like I'm not worried about it so it came out and the um the review was not complimentary right and I was and I know people listen it's like this dude's trying to sell books why is he telling us this and I'm going to tell you why in a minute stay with me right so I was kind of bummed about it and I woke up the next day and I reread the

review and now keep in mind everybody is their own point of view and their own lens of from which they see the world this was one singular person that read my book and then they had an opinion on it based on their single review of the world and this was the sense that made me love this bad review. I love it, which was this person wrote that my advice can come off as trite because I refuse to acknowledge the myriad systemic issues and I present all problems as solvable. And I was like, you bet your ass I do. One thousand percent because because I've sat in this room 300 times with dudes that came here on a refugee boat from Vietnam that now and a thousand doors.

Guys that lost their father when they were 11, their mom had to take six jobs to keep a roof of their head and went on to play pro soccer because they just decided 11, 11 years old do that. Yeah. What about the systematic issues that married of issues should have held you back? Yeah, of course.

That's what, that's 1,000% when I believe. 100%. This is the thing is like, I think that, and this goes to what you were saying is like, I think most of people just want to make excuses. Like, like, it's easier. It's way easier. It's easier.

way easier to say, I can't do it because of this. Then to sit there and say, you know what, I'm going to go bang my head against the wall for 20 times before I figure out how to get through the wall. Yeah. But I'm going to go work my ass off to get there. But the problem is most people can't ever get there because they don't want to have that radical honesty with themselves and figure out where they are. I talk about all the time.

It's like, think about like when you're trying to get, you're on your phone and you've got to go somewhere near the parking deck. Yeah. And you go to the map and you put. you go to the map and you put the address in and you're waiting and it's spinning because the satellite can't find you and like you can't get direction you know where you're trying to go but you still can't get the directions there because it doesn't know where you are and unless you're totally honest about where you are and those are the people that say not this outside force is why

I'm not where I want to be but what did I do to contribute 100% what did I do like where's my fault in all of this and until you're willing to do that man you're just going to to be stuck. Yeah. And that, in that, I hate to say it, we're both in real estate industry. That is rampant part of what we do here. Well, 100%. And that's with, I mean, that's with everything in life, though, right?

Like, that's like, you know, in your relationship, in your personal relationships, in your business relationships, in your business in general, right? Like, it's like, I mean, I'll give an example. It's like your employees, right? Like you own a business, you own a company. It's like, you know, sometimes we can turn around and say, okay, hey, I don't understand why this person doesn't get it. They're stupid.

Or I can turn around and say, okay, wait, did I give them the exact formula to be able to get that done? Yeah. Now, does that position specifically, right? Like, does that position require that? Does it require more critical thinking, so on and so forth? But then that person can turn around and say, they didn't give me that. Well, why didn't you create that and have the critical thinking to do so? Right.

So it goes both ways, and it's so interesting when you start taking, like, this extreme accountability. I think you can't take it personally, though, because I think you've also got to remember when dealing with other people, and I remind, I remind myself of this a lot, and maybe this sounds egotistical, I don't know, but, you know, I have to run myself.

Like, they're the main character in their movie. Like, I'm supporting actor or background noise at best in the movie of their life. They're the main character, right? So, yeah, the fact that they maybe didn't take exactly what I said, or told them to heart, or, you know, they needed to do that. You've got to remember that people are going to do what they're going to do.

And until they take responsibility for where they are, they just can't get there. And for me, you know, you talk about especially in like real estate or really in anything, man. You know, it's like what makes somebody super successful? And it's honesty with where they are. It's absolute clarity of goal, knowing where they want to go. It's a synchness of plan and frequency of execution. Yep. And as long as you have that workflow, right?

I don't care if it's trying to lose weight. I don't care if it's trying to win the spelling be. I don't care if it's trying to sell houses. I don't care what it is. If you have that workflow, it's going to be really hard to not succeed. Yep. Really hard.

Well, it's, I say the same day. It's consistency plus discipline over time equal success. Yeah. Like as long as you're consistent, as long as you're disciplined with your plan, and you do it over time, you will win. Yeah.

The thing is, is most people want to win now. And they don't realize that like what you've built, what I've built has taken years. Yeah, it's a 16-year overnight success. Because people only see what it is now. It's like this crazy thing. It's like, and I'm, you know, I love social media, right?

Like, I'm like, I love social. I love, like, connecting. I love all of us. But it's like, this is the issue because social media gives us all this instant gratification. You know, it was funny. I, you know, I felt like the old man in the room the other day when my nephew's like, dude, this takes forever to load. And I'm like, you don't know.

dial-up. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. I mean, I'm a little older than you, bro. So I'm of the school of like, if you wanted to watch cartoons, you had to catch them on Saturday

morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn't miss them, if you didn't catch them Saturday morning, you were watching cartoons for the week. And it's just the idea of that, the idea of that, whatever you want, you push a button that shows up at your door within 24 hours. It's crazy. It's crazy.

Yep. And you're right. That instant gratification, people aren't willing to do the long, hard thing. Yeah. In most cases, it's not willing to do it because it's too slow. But the consistent thing that you see with most successful people in anything in life is it's taken time. You know what I mean? Like it takes time.

It takes work. Unless you win the lottery and then those people wind up broke because it didn't take time. Correct. Exactly. Because there was no effort. 100%. Because they didn't earn it. It's because it goes up and then it's like right out because they don't know how to deal with it.

I mean, you can probably go on eBay right now and buy a gold medal, but it's not going to mean anything because you didn't earn it. 100%. Right? Well, let's shift gears, man. Let's talk about real estate. So, you know, where do you think, what do you think the biggest changes in real estate is right now? I mean, where do you think we're headed?

I mean, there's been such a debacle in the last. We'll talk about all of it. I mean, you're here with Zillow, but we'll talk about their little. It's crazy. Last week. They got slaughtered for that. Zillow, I mean, you can name, you know. name the company, whatever the company is. They just don't care.

Like it's a whole, it's a, I think the model that Zillow has is the future of real estate for the masses, for the agents. And I'll explain why. Okay. Because I think it's super important to understand. Guys like you and I can go create business by having conversations, by doing the work, by showing up. You told me when I got in the business, I had, have to give up this huge percentage, let's say 40% right off the top of all my business that I get in. Yeah. Or I can go do an open house and not have to do that. Yeah. You're going to go to the go. I'm going to go do the open house. Yeah. I built my business off of four hours of cold calling a day. So I called my first two years. This is all I did is straight every single day, like a madman.

Four hours of cold calling, 8 a.m. to 12 noon. 12 to 1. I did lunch slash get ready for door knocking. one to three I door knocked and then after that I did client follow up and then every single week I did two open houses like clockwork now that completely changed my life

well do no but you do that again that's clarity of plan and frequency of execution you do that but okay but honestly right now what percentage of agents that are licensed right now do you think are willing to do that

no less than 10% 10 this is I'm talking with the masses we're talking about everything Every licensed real estate agent, half of them sold nothing in the last 12 months. Yeah, it's true. You can wipe them completely off the board.

They just have a business card to say that they do something. I don't know why they pay the dues. Half of them sold nothing. So you got half of them. It's probably less than 1%. It's less than 1% of all agents nationwide will do that. Yep. And it's so funny.

I have a couple of those people that work for us. I mean, we have a lot of great, great people here. I would venture to say that we have more seven figure agents than any brokerage in Vegas. Yeah. And I just know that based on our numbers. But I have a couple people that, you know, once you reach a certain point in this business, you have big dollars for marketing and you can put a lot of things in a lot of people's hands and leverage a lot of dollars into other dollars.

But we're just starting out. You don't have that. So you've got to grind like that. And I have some people that do incredibly well that probably could turn on a giant money marketing machine, but still do business just like that. Yeah. 100 calls a day, open house every day. It works. Every day. Every day. It works. Every day. Because it's just what they like to do. Yeah, and so like, so like, I think it's important to understand, like, there's those people that can and will, and will always want to do that and will rather do that than this. But the masses of the agents, right, we say under 1% are willing to do that. So the masses of the agents would rather sit here on this couch, wait for a Zillow call to come in, answer it, and the script is very simple with Zillow calls.

Where are you? I'll be there in 10 minutes. literally it's hey john how's it going this is cyrus when would you like to see the property it just makes me sad it makes me so sad that is the script that is a script that is a script that is a script that is a script and all they do is then they go we'd like to see it at 1230 on Thursday okay cool meet you at 1230 on Thursday they show up they open the door the goal is now what i mean you a chimp it doesn't make you a professional you're literally a chimp it depends could do that job i don't i don't i don't I don't believe that. What?

Completely. Now, you don't think you can teach a chimp to open a lockbox. Seriously. No, no, no, the reason is.

And they do like this in front of a fireplace. You don't think that's possible? Come on. Look. That's not being a professional. It's getting a chimp. Create value. Create rapport.

And then you close. Those are three steps to close a deal, right? So they still have to create rapport. How do you create value for people when you jump when they, every time they snap their fingers? How is that creating value? So what I tell my... So, yeah, so what I tell my agents is, I tell my agents is, look, when you're showing up to these houses, your job is to operate as if it's an open house.

Your job is not to operate as if you're opening the door. You have to still show them why you're the best agent. You have to still explain what our process is. You have to still sit down with them. Now, again, I've realized this is a bunch of my agents closing a bunch of deals doing without this. and I'm like, you should utilize this for more business, but don't utilize it for all of your business. Okay.

Right now, there are a bunch of companies that utilize it for only their business. It's like the guy I was telling you about earlier, right? Like, Siegfried and Roy, dude. Correct. What about Siegfried and Roan? This is what I compare. I compare Zillow and real estate agents to Siegfried and Roy all the single time. You know why?

Why? Because they love that tiger. They fed that tiger. They fed it. They fed it, they fed it, they took care of that tiger. They got in show business with that tiger. And then what the tiger do, eight, Sigford and Roy. Yeah.

So, just waiting around. So this is, waiting around. Correct. So I have a tiger to eat you. So going back to this thought process of where real estate's going, right? Right. Like I have a theory that I think that, look, with tech, we, I'm sure we can both agree on the, there's going to be 30 to 4.

40% more drop out from the industry. Massive reduction over the next couple years. The good people are going to get more of the business, the people that this is going to, this is less and less is this becoming a business of, I have my license just in case my ancestors, correct. And this is, I think,

which is good. Correct. This is a big piece of why the whole compass and anywhere acquisition happened because Compass realizes like they're so agent heavy. Like, they have to acquire a bigger company because they're going to have a huge loss of agents, I think, just overall. Yeah. We see that. That's just what's going to happen.

So they're going to buy into this side over here. It's a lot of debt with anywhere, though, man. It's crazy. This is, most people don't understand what that deal actually entails. Yeah. And when you start looking at it, you're like. It's a heavy lift. It's insane.

It's a heavy heavy lift. And then also like to like this is a whole different conversation, but to roll. roll out the tech to that many agents is going to be nearly impossible when you're operating on 33,000, like people don't realize it's 33,000 agents with the tech that they have to operate, to roll out tech to 330,000 agents, you don't understand what nightmare that's going to happen. I try to roll stuff out to 585 agents, and it can be, like, still, like, we rolled out re-chat, you know, five weeks ago.

Yeah. I did it really hard and really heavy and really heavy. And to this day, people walk in and I'm like, hey, are you using ReChat? Like, good agents, they're like, what's ReChat? Yep. Like, we say, you text, literally, I could not go, I couldn't skywrite it over your house. Dude, it's insane. And that's not even, that's just agent, that's just agent adoption.

Yeah, yeah. Now, what if all your agents adopt it and Rechat wasn't ready for that much adoption? You broke the bandwidth, snapped it. Yeah, that's a good point. There's a whole different thing that I don't think anyone's talking about yet, right? And so this is a whole different deal. But my point is that I think that where we're going with the real estate industry is you're going to see this real estate concierge. It's not going to be a real estate agent anymore.

That real estate concierge is going to probably have their hands in making sure that, okay, hey, you got the right property. You got the paperwork done. But you also, here's your mortgage over here. here's your title over here and they're probably going to get pieces that's already what we do correct but they're probably going to get smaller pieces of every everything around it but rest was not going to really allow that because you can't pay you cannot pay real estate agents based on title a mortgage can't do that per deal you can't correct can't do that unless unless the the real estate professional gets licensed as a L.O as an LO or it's a bank and that it can just hire you yeah

because banks can just hire employees yeah so it'll be I I think that the industry I mean that job of a real estate agent is going to become even more with tech is going to be less hands-on. So they're going to be doing more of the transaction. Yeah, I think that for me, I think that dealmaking is becoming a lost art in our business. Oh, 100%. And, you know, it's funny when I talk to a client and I tell a story during my listening presentation, I'll tell you what it is. you know when people are like oh what's different about you than this other guy if they're talking

about multiple people i tell a story i tell this story i say and it's stories in my book and i go listen when i was a kid when i was in eighth grade i wrote a i wrote a i wrote a check that my mouth with my body wasn't willing to cash right it's a mouthy kid and this guy ended up turned and wanted to like get a fist fight and i was not a position i thought so to get a fist away with this guy and as a result all of my good friends growing up like ostracized me like my whole eighth grade year. And it was, it was really hard. Yeah, it's super hard. And it, and it was like hardcore bullying that whole year. And it, uh, it turned me into like a people pleaser. And I realized this became like a weakness in

my 20s, right? Yeah. It was like, I was always a people pleaser would say whatever to please people. But what I realized was I kind of flipped that into a little bit different. And I said, my EQ is through the roof. I know exactly when I have people. I know exactly when I'm losing people. I know exactly how far I can push people and exactly when to pull back. Yeah. I, that weakness, I, I'm the best dealmaker that will ever sit at a table with you. Yep. I know exactly how to make a deal and how to get it closed. And that is an art that is being lost.

100%. You know, I think that part of that is because of like million-dollar listing. You know, these guys get on the phone and, you know, they watch that show and they saw those guys yell at each other on the phone for the drama of the show and they think this is how real estate gets done. And it's like, dude, I'm trying to help you get with your client get this finished. I'm trying to get this across the finish line so we can both make money here. and it's just crazy

and it's become like almost like if you send an aggressive house been on the market for a long time you send an aggressive offer you know the other agent wants to respond to you like there's civil war general

it's like I am deeply offended by the ludicrousness of this offer I will not be presented this to my client as they will be most upset with my ingenuity it's like what are you talking about dude pretty good action yeah solid civil war general right there like just like dude

it's that the offer so you know I think the responsibility of that lies within the people that run our companies. I think everybody is, you know, I think we really try to balance that here, which is like, yes, we want you to have the best tech. We want it to do things and we're building AI with all of that stuff to help you. But at the same time, you still got to understand the people side of the business. Because that's what people are losing.

I think the fastest in this. Yeah. Everything, it's fast, fast. Just like you said, you know, send me the offer. Send me this. Okay, no, there's no context to it. Everybody wants to text. Yeah, this pisses me out.

Oh, God. There's no context to it. Yeah, correct. I love that key and peels. It's not negotiating. No, I love the key and Pell sketch where he's like, do you even want to go anymore? And he's like, oh, do you want to go anymore?

That's thoughtful. He's like, in that kid, like, no context. So, yeah. So how do you think, I mean, do you think that the big players are falling behind there or? I think, yeah, I think that big players is in Compass and anywhere. Yeah. I think they're definitely falling behind.

I mean, you talk about the debt. You talk about what, like, the company, they have, Anywhere has to make some sort of move in order to continue there. And, you know, again, people will look at me and think I'm crazy because I don't operate a company like anywhere, right? But if you just look at the company as anywhere and you look at like their financials and you look at like the debt that they had, it's horrible, right? So what do they do? They say, hey, what's a great thing?

Let's get rid of our debt. And Compass came around and said, we'll take all your debt. And we'll take more debt to take your debt. Yeah. Which is insane, right? Quite the bet. Which is exactly. But I think they have to make that bet because strategically, right, they need that market share where it is right now in order to push the agenda that they need.

Well, that's sort of to say. I think, I think Refkin did it really just so he could muscle Zillow on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, or muscle the NAR on clear cooperation. Yeah. Which is, if you're listening to this, you don't know what that is. And you're not in real estate. So we have a deal. If you're a member of the board and we have a rule as being a realtor, which says that if we have a listing, it has to go in the MLS within like 24 hours.

Yeah. It has to be syndicated everywhere, including Zillow. Well, Robert Refkin, who is the CEO of Compass that we're talking about, kind of is at war with Zillow because he wants to be able to do office exclusive listings where they're not feeding to Zillow. Yeah. And, of course, Zillow's business model 100% is dependent on getting everyone's listings. Yeah.

And so now, Refkin is with the purchase of anywhere, now I think, what is it, like 62% or something they control of the entire market? Is that right? Is that the number I heard? I think it's a little less, but yes. Let's say it's 62%. Yeah, but it's definitely beyond, it's beyond standard. It's huge.

Yeah. So now they control that much of the listings and it puts a lot of, a lot of pressure on Zillow to do that. So let's talk about, go ahead. Because I think the bigger move is not necessarily that stuff. I think the bigger move for me in the last three months was definitely rocket buying Mr.

Cooper. Oh, yeah, this is correct. This is no one talks, no one's talking about that. That's the bigger move. We've got something coming out to counter it, but explain, go ahead.

So, so no one's, yeah, no one's talking about this. I talk about it all the time. Rocket bind, Bine, Mr. Cooper, like this is,

and Redfin. A funnel. Do you understand what that does? Very well, I understand. This is insane when you talk about they're controlling the transaction there. It's a closed loop system from beginning to end now. Yeah.

So for those of these, again, they don't know what we're talking about. Which is way scarier than Zillow to me. Wait, well, because Zillow's super app has never really gotten to where they are. Yeah. Although the move of fallout boss, and we'll talk about that in a second

because that's insanity last week. But so Rocket Bot Redfin, which is an online search portal, second busiest trafficked, I think, behind Zillow. And they did that because they want to get up funnel. Traditionally, mortgage people are dependent on real estate agents to refer them the business because people start by looking at houses and they start with a real estate agent.

Now Zill, our rocket mortgage figures they can get up funnel because now we're looking at a property, they can put the mortgage people right on you. So now what they've done is they've gone about Mr. Cooper, which is the third largest mortgage service in the United States. And why is that important? Well, you used to get a, you get a piece of mail every month that says, here's your mortgage statement, here's your escrow account, here's all your stuff. and here's where your payment goes.

Now most of that is digital. So because now they own this digital thing in your inbox, now what's going to start to see, and you'll start to see it very soon is your Mr. Cooper statement isn't just going to say, here's your escrow account. It's going to say, hey, by the way, here's some houses that sold around you. Here's what we think your estimated value is.

Here's the equity amount you have if you wanted to sell. Here's what you could get if you refide, click this button. And here's all of the stuff. So it's going to become this portal for homeowners every month to look at. And then now they figure if you are even thinking about something, you'll just stay in their ecosystem because when you click one of those buttons, you go right back to them. Yeah.

That's what they're doing. Think about the data that they have. They know exactly what's happening, when it's happening, how to hit you. You're laid on your mortgage. Hey, here's a solution. I mean, it's a lot of... It is. And people think that, oh, it's not a big deal.

You know, for us, what we've done is we've partnered with a company that's building us a white label product that we can go out with that is going to create a similar homeowner hub. for people, but on something I thought was really, really smart and much more practical, which is, you've got appliances that you're like, your hot water heater is going to break. Yeah. Your ice maker's going to break. Something's going to happen in your house.

So this creates a hub within your house that's powered by AI, has 90,000 different appliances from hot water heaters to HVAC to everything that you could go wrong with your house. And all you got to take a picture of whatever's happening in your house, and it will pull up the user's manual, the warranty information. It'll pull up the troubleshooting for whatever you have. and then if it doesn't if it can't be if you can't figure it out it's got these are the three people that in your area that are approved to work on that thing so it solves the problem and also included on that hub is hey here's some stuff that sold around your house you can also set up to

like tell you when to change the smoke the smoke batteries and then change the filters but it's things you're actually going to use and it'll track all that stuff in one place kind of like a carfax for your house so you have all of that warranty information all that stuff and so we're creating a hub to put people in there but now as many people we put in every time you if you're if your freezer and I was your agent, now I'm calling you up like, hey, what happened to the freezer? It's a touch point. So now I'm continuing to stay involved in your life. And the reason this is happening with these closed-loop systems is because notoriously,

realtors are terrible at saying in touch with their clients. Oh, they're the worst. 80% of people don't use the same realtor twice. It's insane how terrible they are. And, you know, what do they send? They send a stupid, like, Thanksgiving cars and turkey. Here's some recipes. Here's a pop pie recipe or some garbage, right?

So by creating something of value that works, it's going to be huge. I think that's a huge change. And I think if you don't move now, like I think you're going to see Zillow counter that, they already are starting, by trying to get everybody in America to claim their house on Zillow. Yeah. Same idea. So now you give them your day they can market to you. Well, and that's, so this is the thing is like now we take that a step further with where AI is going.

And this is why I think you're going to see a huge fall off of agents, right? It's because of this technology, because of this. Yeah. It's not because that exists, meaning that technology exists, meaning this portal that you're building, this AI. But now take that portal, and now when they do click it, now as an agent, you don't respond. But your AI sends a message says, hey, what happened with the freezer?

And now has a whole conversation, from you, has a whole conversation. And then they say, oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah. And you say, hey, do you want an update on your home value, blah, blah, blah. Oh, yeah, sure. now your AI sends a CMA already done, blah, blah, blah, and sets and books the appointment online. Oh, yeah. Right?

Like, that exists. Yeah. Right? And so it's going to make agents like you and I way more productive. So I will take more market share than the agents that don't utilize the technology. I will say this about that. It has got to only be a matter of time. The clock has got to be ticking on AI outbound calling.

Oh. The clock has got to be ticking on that. Like, there's no way the government's not going to be. going to regulate that because I don't know anybody that gets that hi is this john yeah okay i no i hate this there i hate it i actually earlier today so you know a big reason everyone's always like you go to every conference you know i speak at a lot of the conferences yeah i do you know it's i do podcasts i interview people yada yada i run masterminds when i'm there why i really go is because i want to meet the people that are doing that are building the next tech yeah as soon as

possible. Well, it's like Inman, that startup alley is the only place I ever go at Emin. Literally. I want to walk down startup alley. It's all occur. Literally. That's it. And I just want to.

Not the big booth. The little ones. And I want to see what's happening. Yeah. Right. I want to connect with maybe one or two people. I mean, like us, we connected at that inman. Yeah.

Yeah. And I want to connect with one or two people, build a good relationship, build something that, you know, and then, and then I want to see what's coming. I sat down with the tech company earlier. Yo, you would not be able to tell that. that was an AI. See, but here's the problem. Insane.

I'm telling you, here's the problem. Insane. One of my good friends is a change agent for major corporations. He flies around the world when they're doing a major thing. He's like the bobs from office base. He doesn't only fire people. He's just there to implement change. Yeah.

And he said all of these companies, here's one of the problems, right? All of these companies are implementing AI at the lowest level hanging jobs, which a lot of places are the most customer facing. It's where you touch your customer the most. That's where it's being replaced. And the problem is with AI is AI starts with logic and is trying to get to reason. We're trying to get to emotion. We as humans start with emotion, and then we try to get to logic.

So there's this disconnect in the conversation, and he goes, the best way I can explain it is it's like Spock talking to Kirk. Yeah. And you can just kind of tell that it's there. And there was the drop-offs, the pauses, it's just not quite there. Not saying it won't get there because it absolutely will. But I think, again, that's the difference. I, like, for example, we just, for my team that works for me.

We generate a lot of leads through Google and just online in general through SEO and everything else. And we were, you know, we had our smart plans set up to like text and power and do all that stuff and the TCP compliance changes with, you know, texting anymore. The first text has got that opt out. And we're not texting anymore at all. We're just making calls. And I'm telling you, my team is more successful now making calls and having better conversations with people. I think, you know, anytime somebody starts looking for a house, they sign up on like five different rules.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And because I think they're getting pounded with AI bots, when they get a real person, it's refreshing. Oh, yeah, for sure. But again, who's willing to do four hours of cold cally and sit an open house and go doorknock for three hours ago? Correct. I think it's, I think, like, I don't believe that AI will ever take my job.

No. I believe that I will take other people's jobs while utilizing AI. I think that's the most important piece. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. Like, like, like, like, I don't believe that AI is going to be like, oh, now I don't, you know, I just know I'm going to be way more productive than most agents. So I'm just going to take on 100 clients instead of 10, whatever it is. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's the important piece to know.

And so like, it goes back to what we were talking about is like, who's implementing it and utilizing it. And like, are you studying it? Do you understand it? And if you don't, like, you're way behind already. Well, right now. is the greatest gold rush in real estate. Hang on saying, the greatest gold rush in like 10 years

and nobody's talking about it, which is this. Nobody's talking about this and there's a gold rush going on. The agents in the know are doing well and they're doing well, and look, because if you listen to this podcast and you deserve to know

because you're listening to me, which is great. So, right, I don't, people don't realize this. Google search is down 30%. It's off 30% in a year, 12 months. Where did that 30% of Google search go? It's all in chat, GBT, open AI. People think that ChatGBTGBT is like the end all be all. Like if it says,

hey man, call Bob, I got to call Bob, right? They believe that. So if you understand how to, like SEO is dead. You need to be AEO. You need to understand how to feed the robots. So when somebody goes in and has a conversation with them about who is the best listing agent in Orange County, California, your name gets spit out. Because it is, not extrapolating that information from any data set that makes sense. Nope. There is no like, let me look at all of the data, analyze the data sets that I'm getting fed from Zillow who is now hooked open AI.

That's not how this works. This is being fed from places like Reddit. It's being fed from blogs under individual website. And the more stuff that you have that is heavy AI keyword dense, I use the word AI keyword dense, meaning it's built for conversational AI. So when you ask a very specific question in plain English, are you built for that? You have the opportunity, because I do, I test a lot. Luckily, we have established a beachhead that I'm very proud of.

So you start throwing around luxury realtors in Henderson. I'm always at the top. Yeah. And I think I've established that beachhead and we fight very hard to protect it. But I think that you have the, there's some names that pop up in different markets or different neighborhoods. I've never heard of these people. I don't know who these people are. and I know they don't have any sales.

I could go and court it and pull them up, and I know they don't do any business, but yet there they are. Yep. Because they're feeding the machines from the back end. And again, people still think this is the end-all-be-all. Which is 100%.

100%. This is my point is like, if you understand how to utilize AI and you utilize it to the right way, like you'll absolutely crush. Yeah. Because now, again, that's what people are doing is people are going into chat GPT

and saying, the best agent in this area. Hey, I need a real, or hey, I need some advice on buying a house. What's the process? And then if you set it up the right way, you set your blog posts up, you set your stuff on you. It spits you out. It's going to. You're the source. And then, and then all of a sudden, who are they, when they click the thing, it goes to you. Yeah, we've gotten several, several. We're already getting lots of listings from people that how'd you find us? Ask Chad GBT. That's why you're here. So sick. Because you ask that, right? So, Yeah, times, man, they are a changing.

It's so, it's so cool. Dude, if you're an agent out of today's world, what's the number one thing you're doing right now? Are you, so are you, because you can swing the pendulum either way. Yeah. Because blunt force, like you said, still works. Oh, 100%. Oh, 100% going to knocking the doors over here.

I'm trying to get super techie. I mean, what are you, what are you doing? I think, I think that, so the reason I did so well in the business is not just from the blunt force, but because I brought like a lot of the new school stuff in, right? like I brought the tech, I wanted the right tech behind it. I think that the most successful agents that I see and what I would say for an agent to do right now is you should be listening to every single podcast and book and any information on AI that you can at any given moment, not just about real estate AI, not just from the big real estate coach, right? from from actual you know AI developers listening and watching open AI stuff and like really studying this and becoming a student of this because this is what our future is in general

our kids that's what they're going to operate on I mean even when you open your iPhone iPhone now you click the button and it freaking opens a image so that you take a picture and ask chat GPT what it is yeah this is our world yeah we're going to have I think Everybody in the next two years, three years is going to have listening devices on them at any given moment. Bro, do you see the neobot came out? You see that thing? Yes. I mean, literally, you can have a slave in your house now for 500 bucks a month.

Correct. Do all your work. Yeah. So this is my point, right? Like, we're here. We're going to have, everyone's going to have listening devices on them. It's going to, I think that what's going to end up happening is we're going to have all these listening devices on us. We're going to be having conversations.

It's going to be taking notes. It's going to tell me what to do, how to do it. It's going to optimize my meals. it's going to order my meals for me. This is where our world is going, right? And if you don't truly understand it or you don't, you're going to fight it, you're going to fall behind. So I think that this is very important.

But I do really truly believe that it's about the basics in this industry. Like I don't think that I think you can get all fancy and, oh, social media this and AI this. But I think that if you don't know and understand how to do the basics, you'll never do extremely well in this business. Right. And, you know, the cold calling got me business, but the cold calling did more than getting me business. It taught me how to talk in the business. Yeah. Right. And so if you don't do, if you don't like

cold calling because you're like, I don't get anything, well, that's probably because you're not good at it. So you need to do more of it. Yeah. And as you do more of it, you're going to get better at it. So use it as training, right? Like as an athlete, as a professional athlete, you show up to training every day and you have an off-season and you still train and then you go into your season and you're training six days a week to have one game for 90 minutes as a soccer player yeah right and most soccer players don't play 90 minutes maybe maybe you got 30 minutes so you trained all week two hours a day minimum to go play 30 minutes on the weekend that was it and that was it yeah and so this is business like if you're not

training on a daily basis, then you're, how do you expect to win in the games? How do you expect to get more minutes? How do you expect to go from 30 to 40 minutes to 90 minutes? You know what I mean? It's one of the things I always preach is there's no such thing as a bad appointment. No. Like I love the, I love agents that get on the phone or whatever. They're calling leads or cold calling, whatever they're doing and they're trying to sift

so hard to that person wants to buy house two day that has perfect credit that wants to qualify. Well, dude, if you only sat in front of those people, how many people who sit in front of a month like exactly like I don't care if you have a 500 credit score I want to meet with you because at least then I can do my presentation I'm sharpening my skills at the end of it I go look I don't care if you can buy house today or if but if it's a dream of yours we're going to work with you and get this fixed and we're going to accomplish this dream and in the meantime if you know anybody refer me 100% they love you because you treat them a respect it's fine but it gets you better right so you know take as many appointments as you can that's why open houses are great

place to do that because at least you're face to face with people yeah and that ability i'm telling you in this new age i got tell my kids this all the time the ability to look and connect with other people and understand what they're doing is going to be such a lost cause because everybody's walking around right now with their phone in front of their face oh yeah i mean you see it you see it i mean probably with yeah your your your son's age and like this age you know 20 probably 23 and under right where covid was really a big thing during yeah they're like these kids don't talk to each other anymore. They don't talk to each other. They're sitting here and texting each other. You know what I mean? And it's like, it's like these, you know, if you want to get in this

business, especially like being a young agent getting into this business, like you're going to have to learn how to have conversations with people, how to put yourself out there, how to get rejected over and over and over and over again, right? And the best way to do that is by doing the basics, It's by cold calling, freaking door knocking, and open houses. Like, just get as many at bats as you can. But I think it's also, like again, I said earlier, my superpower is being able to read the room. Yeah.

And it is, I mean, how many times you've been in a room with people and they're telling some long, drawn-out stupid story? And everybody at the table, here's a little tip for you, people. This is how you know if you're telling a terrible story. If everybody at the table just starts going, that's crazy. Yeah. If anybody ever says that's crazy to me, I just stop mid-sentence and I'm done talking about whatever.

I was talking about because somebody's like that's crazy yeah they're bored all right they're bored that is new human language for I am bored stop talking so just do that but learn how to read the room watch learn body language like read Chris Voss's stuff understand how to like pick up on those subtle cues that let you know how you're impacting somebody in that moment yeah because that's where this that's where the real sales is happening that's where the real relationship building is happening 100% yeah The script can be as good as you want, but if you're not connected with them on that level,

you're not getting there. It's not going to work. Not going to work. Well, dude, if they want to find you, how do they find you? Best way to find me, Instagram. It's at Cyrus Andre, C-Y-R-U-S-A-N-D-R-E. Best way to find me, connect with me, message me, so on and so forth.

Cool. Well, brother, I appreciate you coming in, man. I appreciate you. I appreciate you. Welcome every time you're here. Hell yeah, dude. All right, well, listen, if you listen to that, the world is changing. Look, even if you're not in real estate, the world's changing.

Keep your eyes up. Learn as much as you can, stay focused, keep control of your life. We'll see next time. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthrift.com. You can join our mailing list.

But do me a favor. If you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review. Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. And anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.