Founder's Story - $5B Real Estate Mogul Reveals The Price of Success | Ep. 411 with Mauricio Umansky Founder and CEO of The Agency

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Daniel and Mauricio Umansky trace his journey from growing up in Mexico City, delivering pizzas at 16, and becoming one of the most successful luxury real estate figures in the world. Mauricio reflects on selling the Playboy Mansion, the fascination with luxury real estate, and why success eventually becomes less about money and more about making chess moves that shift an industry. The conversation then turns deeper as Mauricio shares the sacrifices of fame, the loss of privacy, his complicated feelings about reality TV, and how he is now pushing for change in real estate through new organizations, global expansion, AI adoption, and a more collaborative industry model. Key Discussion Points Mauricio shares how his background as a Mexican Jew with Eastern European immigrant roots shaped his early life, identity, and ambition. He reflects on delivering pizzas at 16 and how far that journey has taken him, including selling the Playboy Mansion in the first $100 million residential sale in Los Angeles. Mauricio explains why people are so fascinated by luxury real estate: it gives viewers access to beauty, aspiration, celebrity lifestyles, and the possibility of a bigger life. He describes success as a chess game, saying that at a certain point it is no longer about “enough money,” but about impact, moves, influence, and not being bored. Mauricio breaks down why he launched the American Real Estate Association and why he believes the National Association of Realtors protects itself more than real estate agents. He explains the current real estate downturn through transaction volume, noting that the country has dropped from around seven million annual transactions to roughly 3.6 or 3.7 million. The episode explores how AI could make agents more efficient, allowing top performers to handle more deals, while also potentially eliminating roles for people who do not adapt. Mauricio opens up about the price of reality television, including losing privacy, finding a paparazzi tracker in his car, and always being watched in public. He shares one of the hardest parts of fame: his children were put on reality TV because of decisions he and Kyle made, without getting to choose that life for themselves. Mauricio talks about the future of The Agency, including expansion across Europe, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Qatar, and eventually London once he finds the right partner. He closes with a more personal reflection on journaling, learning to understand his emotions, and discovering the power of being truly alone without a phone, book, or distraction. Takeaways Success has a price, and for Mauricio, that price has included privacy, friendships, public judgment, and the emotional weight of exposing his family to fame. At the highest level, business becomes a chess game: the goal is not just money, but influence, impact, and changing the rules of the industry. Real estate is entering a chaotic reset, and Mauricio believes agents must become more efficient, more collaborative, and more willing to adapt to AI. Luxury is changing too; Mauricio sees time, wellness, longevity, mobility, and health as the new status symbols. True solitude is not just being physically alone. It is removing the phone, the noise, and the distractions long enough to understand yourself and create again. Closing Thoughts Mauricio Umansky’s story is not just about luxury homes, billion-dollar sales volume, or reality TV fame. It is about what happens when success gives you a platform, but also takes pieces of your privacy, your friendships, and your family’s anonymity. This episode captures a founder at a turning point: still building, still expanding, still controversial, and still trying to reshape an industry that he believes is ready for a new era. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What has been the price of success for you? I found tracker from a paparazzi in my car. My kids, they were on reality television as a result of the choice that Kyle and I made. And they never had the choice to make that decision for them. At 16, he was delivering pizzas. Today, he's closed over $5 billion in sales, sold the Playboy Mansion, and built one of the most recognizable brands in luxury real estate. This is Maricio Umanski.

I mean, you're doing something really controversial right now that a lot of people might be hating on you for. I don't read them and I don't look at them and I don't get my . I really want to make an impact on the real estate industry and I want to move it and I'm willing to be very controversial on that. It's the National Association of Realtors. It's the largest trade association in the country. They're protecting themselves, not the real estate agents, not the realtors. The big lawsuit that costs the Association of Realtors $5.3 billion.

today we're at 3.6, 3.7 million. So 50%. There's so much change in real estate. There's so much chaos. And you're influential in an industry. That's a chess move. Normally when we kick this off, we start going back in time because we got a lot of things we're going to talk about. I mean, you're doing something really controversial right now that a lot of people might be hating on you for around this new organization that you started. But there's also going to be people that will love you for it. We got this new fire, by the way. I just love the way it crackles, too. It's just so perfect. It's got the great noise and all that stuff. Yeah, smells good, too. I feel like I need a cigar in here. I don't know why. This is desk. I don't even smoke cigars.

You have an interesting story, and I was talking to you right when you came. We just had Daniel Libetsky on, also from Mexico, family from Europe, moved to the U.S., and he talked about how that impacted his life. So your story, though, you were in and out of the hospitals. Yeah. How did that and growing up in Mexico then moving to the U.S. impact your life? I think it greatly impacted my life. You know, I grew up, you know, as immigrants from Eastern Europe. All my four grandparents are from different places of Eastern Europe. Mexican Jews. You know, I was born, second generation born in Mexico, Mexico City. I love Mexico City. We got the World Cup coming up. I want to go to Mexico City. Everybody asked me if I'm going for USA or Mexico.

and I think I'm going to go for Mexico first and USA. I don't think the USA is going to win, though. I don't know. Well, just who you root for, right? That's true. I mean, Mexico's never won a World Cup either. But, you know, did you know a funny fact? Just a tangent real quickly.

I think only six countries have won World Cups. Spain? Italy. Italy. France. France. England. England.

Germany. Germany. Brazil. Brazil. Brazil. Okay. I think that's, it. I could see why. I don't know if the U.S. could ever win. Do you think so? I think the U.S. will

win one day for sure. Okay. 2030. Not now, but one day, 100%. Seems like it's getting more popular. We're getting more popular. We've got great athletes. We just need to get more kids, you know, wanting to play soccer instead of football or basketball or anything like that. But we've got some of the best athletes in the world. I mean, look at the Olympics. The USA wins the most, you know, gold medals out of anybody. So did you play soccer? I love soccer. Did you play growing up? I did. Like professional?

No, not professionally. High school, high school soccer. No, the only thing I did more serious in my life was snow skiing. Snow skiing? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so I was a big slalom, a giant slalom razor. What area?

What mountains do you like? I skied primarily out of Vale, Colorado. Okay. And now I have a home in Aspen, and I love it. Love Aspen. You know, I skied out of Park City all the time. And in the summers, I used to go down to Chile. Wow.

Yeah. How's that? It was like Patagonia? Yeah. It's pretty amazing. It's amazing down there. One time my dad, when I was younger, he went to Patagonia and he invited me. And I said, no, because I had a really crappy job at 16 years old.

What was the job? I think I was at like a kiosk in the mall or something. I was delivering pizzas at 16. Yeah, how is that? When you look back to delivering pizza to now. Now I deliver a lot of pizzas. More expensive pizzas. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You sold the really expensive pizza. called the Playboy Mansion. I did, yeah. My wife and I went to the Playboy Mansion party one time. It was like one of the last parties sadly Hugh could not come out because he was like sick at the time. Yeah. But I was just thinking how much history is in this place but how did that come about? Well, it was a great I mean it was such a great experience to sell that. I mean I used to love showing that property. How can you not you know I mean it almost had multiple microclimates you know it had the rain, the forest in there the sequoia the red the sequoias, not the

Sequoias, the red, what do they call them, the red tree, whatever they're called. The huge trees, yeah. They're huge trees. You know, he had the zoo in there. He got bamboo. I mean, it was just a five and a five point four acres right on the golf course there. But all the history and all the stuff that went, you know, on down there. It was just so much fun.

They've got this little room that still looked like this. Everything that still looked like it was in the 70s. The grotto. The grotto. You know, the Scooby-Doo room. Yep. It looked like the back of Scooby Doo's van. And I just loved showing that property.

It was the best. And I got a chance to have lunch one day at the mansion with Hugh. And as you know, as everybody knows, you know, he was dying when we sold it. And one of the conditions of buying the property was that you had to let him have a life estate and live in the property until he passed. So that was, you know, one of the complications doing it. But that was the first $100 million sale in Los Angeles, which was kind of cool. So when you sell something like that, because I've seen this stuff that you sell, which by the way, before I get into the next question, what is our fascination with luxury real estate?

Like, why do we like to watch shows about it? Like, why do we love it? Yeah, that's a great question. I think it allows, you know, look, I mean, we've been watching, you know, that's the motivational level, right? We've been watching the, you know, lifestyles of the rich and famous since I was a kid, right? Like we've been watching, you know, why do we like to watch James Bond, right? Like, why do we like to watch Mission Impossible? Because it's these things that we get to see, right?

So when it's, you know, when you have a luxury real estate, like you're seeing such amazing beauty. And it gives you something to drive for. It gives you something that you, you know, you may want, right? Whether it's, I mean, luxury yachts, right? Luxury boats, luxury real estate, mansions. Like, what are the rich and famous, how do they live? How do the celebrities live? What are they living in?

What are they doing different? And I think there's a great fascination over that. If you could have any luxury item, any luxury item, doesn't matter the cost, what would it be? But if you could only choose one. Oh, man, that is a hard question. I mean, I'd have to pick one that you can't buy. Time. Mm.

Right? I think that that's the new luxury item, you know, longevity. I think that's what people are really into right now, you know, even in your homes, the way you're setting up your, you know, your, your centers, your wellness centers. I mean, that's kind of the new newest amenity. It's all about longevity. It's all about time. How old do you want to live to?

As long as I'm healthy. Let's say you could be healthy at any age. What would be? I mean, I'll take anything. 120, healthy. 200? Sure. I don't want to die.

I'm not scared of dying, though. Are you scared of dying? So my dad put a lot of fear in me about dying, to be honest with you. Yeah. Yeah. He told me he was dying every day since I know what I mean? He's like 80. Okay. So he did put a lot of fear about dying. And then my wife, though, she's like very fearless.

So she helped me get out of that, that rut of like, I always was worried about it. Yeah. I know it's crazy it sounds, but. But yeah, when you love life, you don't want to, when do you think, though, when you look at success, when is enough enough, when you don't want to sell real estate, you don't want to have a broker. is there a time you think where you're like, I just want to sit in front of the fire or sit margaritas and just chill? Well, look, when is enough enough? I mean, enough is enough for depending on who you are, right? And what you do. I mean, you know, $5 million, you know, liquid, you could be doing anything you want, right? Like, I mean, you could be great, you could be good,

you can retire, all of that stuff. But I think that the most aspirational people and that the most successful people are not doing it for the for an amount they're doing it because that's what they love to do right I work my butt off and I know I mean you look at you know people I'm not even putting myself into this category but you know the Elon Musk's of the world the Jeff Bezos of the world like I mean you know that it's a chess game they're in a deal right like this becomes it becomes more it becomes more than about making money it becomes making moves it becomes you know a way of living It becomes a, you know, it's like, what's my favorite thing to do?

Well, my favorite thing to like thing to do is to play chess with my money, okay, with investments, with, you know, the industry that I'm in. You know, you started off by mentioning that I started the American Real Estate Association. That's a chess move, okay? And all of these things, that's the chess. And when you have that vision in your head and you have, you know, and you're moving stuff and you're moving, changing an industry, in my case, you know, real estate. You know, I really want to make an impact on the real estate industry. And I want to move it and I want to change it. And I'm willing to change it.

And I'm willing to be very controversial on that, you know, whether it's through American real estate association, whether it's through launching a national listing platform, you know, whether it's, you know, really creating, you know, all of the firms to work together and to collaborate instead of working as competitors. You know, all of these things that are happening right now, there's so much change in real estate. There's so much chaos. And when there's chaos and you're influential in an industry and you can actually help affect the industry, that's a lot of fun. That's a fun place to be. And so it's not about what's enough. It's about one of my bored, right? And right now I'm not

bored at all. I'm really happy, right? So I loved waking up every morning. I mean, I woke up this morning. I was up at 4.30 in the morning. I was ready to go. I mean, I had nobody to call. I called Qatar. I had a conversation with guitar. Then I called the client of mine in London. You know, and then finally it was 7 a.m. And I can get the New York people up because they're not, you know, they don't get in the office at 9 a.m. They get in the office at 10.

And yeah, that's, you know, you just get going. Are you a textor or do you like to phone call? Because I like to call people. Some people think it's weird because I'm like, I hate texting. Like I want to have a, I want to wake up a 5 in the morning and have friends in Asia so I can call them. I like both. I like to, there's certain things that you can only get done on a conversation. I love voice texting.

Voice texting, right? Just sending a voice memo. And then the text message to me is really more about, it's not about communicating. It's just more about just a straight like message, right? It's not, because I'm not trying to negotiate a deal on text. Like that's a $130 million deal. Yeah, that's a conversation. But texting is really good for just,

bouncing back and forth. Quick, yeah, quick bounce backs. So why is it so important right now to start this organization? And then at the same time, I just read some news that a lot of agents are quitting real estate because of the market. The market's terrible. You know, we, we, but, but in everything, it bounces back and forth, right? I mean, we just had an amazing market going into 2020 and, you know, COVID, you know, post-COVID. The market was incredible. We were doing seven, you, You have to understand that real estate agents, we look at the real estate market differently than a real estate investor. Real estate investor looks at price, right? Where's my price?

I lost money because my price went down. Did I make money because my price went up? A real estate broker, a real estate agent, we care about transaction volume. Okay. So, you know, 22, 2021, we were averaging about, I'm going to round up, 7 million, transactions per year. We the country, not we the agency, we the country was advertising. One day. So I wouldn't. Yeah, let me just, I'll just keep my little 20% share of that and I'm happy. Seven million transactions per year. Today, we're at 3.6,

3.7 million transactions. So 50% when you think about that. Okay. So that's what the market has reduced. When that happens, there's multiple reasons people are getting out of the business. it's not as easy as all these television shows made it look okay they make it look really easy they make it look really easy are they real or is it fake a little bit of both okay I mean most of the transactions are real but then they fake them to make them look for television okay right sense okay so they kind of reenact it if you will yeah but it depends on the show most of you know I can tell you our show buying Beverly Hills was really real I mean we had to make some stuff for

for for television like a sense we got to make like a storyline. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it was pretty real. Okay. Um, and everything that happened there, every deal that happened there happened. We never faked a deal. I don't know if others haven't or haven't. I'm not even beginning to question that. There's a lot of turmoil going on with National Association of Realtors. It all started with, you know, the lawsuit, uh, the big lawsuit that, you know, cost the Association of Realtors $5.3 billion, um, you know, which was a lawsuit that had to do with commissions and commission fixing and price fixing and NAR did not do a good job at defending it and protecting us. And then they left all the big brokerage firms hanging high and dry

when they created the settlement. And so all the big brokerage firms, you know, had to pay a lot of money. We had to pay a lot of money. And we all got very upset with NAR for that. They have not been good at protecting the real estate. It's the National Association of Realtors. And in in my opinion, they don't protect the realtors. They protect themselves. It's a company that is the largest trade association in the country, larger than the bar, larger than the medic, the doctor's association.

It is the largest association, 1.3 million members. Wow. And they have a for-profit arm. They make a lot of money. And they're protecting themselves, not the real estate agents, not the realtors, which by the way, you know, whatever. And so we, I really want to protect the real estate agent.

I want to protect our industry. I want to get the industry back to an amazing industry. And I don't think we need to have 1.3 million real estate agents in the country. I think that, you know, A, with AI and everything that's happening with AI, like, we can be way more efficient. Right. And the more efficient I become, you know, I should be able to do if I do, I do approximately 35 transactions a year still, believe it or not. Wow. Personally.

And with AI and the usage of all the tools, and my efficiency. I could probably do 50 to 55, right, with the same amount of time. Right? So if I'm a consumer owner out there and I want to give, you know, my, you know, somebody calls me up and I can only handle 35, I'll pass them off to somebody else. I'll refer them. I can't handle more, right? But if I can handle more, I'm going to take it on.

That's going to eliminate somebody else's job. Right? So the crazy thing about smaller and smaller. The crazy thing about the AI is like the people building platforms with AI are 100% trying to replace the people. I had an argument of someone recently who's building something. I said, if you're telling me, what you're telling me is, the further you go down this road,

you are 100% trying to replace the human. They said, no, I'm like, that's impossible. Like, you are 100%. But obviously, the people don't want that. So it's an interesting mix. Now you have the builders who are really trying to build platforms to replace humans, and then obviously the humans don't want to be replaced. How do you see this going with,

with AI. I mean, obviously Zillow, I'm sure, like, that whole changed a lot of things, I imagine, but this is probably bigger. There is such an, it's such an interesting thing because as a business owner, I can tell you I need my efficiencies to get up, okay? And, you know, when I ask the people that work for me, are they using AI? They tell me yes, right? But then I just did a survey to really find out like, well, what does yes mean?

Right? Does that mean that you're, you know, talking to your chat GPT and just saying, hey, you know, help me out with such and such, right? you're using AI to be more efficient, right? And the problem is that you start hiring people to start implementing AI, but then they realize quickly that they're, they're being hired to replace their own job, right? So then it's like, it's almost like a sabotage thing, right?

Because it's like, well, wait a minute, I'm going to replace my own job. Like, how does that happen? I think there's going to be new jobs that are created that are still require people. You know, the agentic AI is really interesting, which is going to be replacing a lot more people. That's that whole robot situation that's going on. There's so many great AI stuff with that. But I personally think that we all need to incorporate AI into our businesses.

And it's pretty simple. If you work for somebody and you're not using AI, you're going to get fired because you're less efficient than somebody else using AI. So it's all about efficiency levels. And you've got to be the best at it and be the best at using it for your own efficient. I don't see AI replacing us. Like the world's not going to be man like all like like we'd have to have a whole new economic system, right? Like if all of a sudden we just, it becomes a robotic world, right?

Then it just, I guess then we just go to communism. I don't know. Let's say hypothetically, hypothetically, we are all replaced by AI. Let's say there's a universal basic income. This is total hypothetical. You don't have to do what you're doing right now anymore. Super sci-fi right now. This is super sci-fi.

You don't have to do. You could do anything to give you purpose throughout the day. What would it be? Anything. Money does not make it. It does not matter anymore. What would you do? I think I'd be a DJ, by the way, but what would you do?

I like DJ. I mean, I probably would have a bunch of different habits and stuff. I love to hike. Okay. So explore. I probably would become a full-on outdoors explorer. Yeah. Where in the world do you want to explore that you haven't explored yet?

Great question. There's a bunch of Alaska I want to explore. Okay. The Antarctica, I want to get to. Oh, that looks amazing. It looks amazing. It looks amazing. There's yet.

I think people go from like Chile, right? Or some around there. Yeah. Okay. That's the roughest waters in the world. Yeah, that pass. That pass or I think it's called or something like that. I've heard it's like either it's calm and it's still rough or it's like everyone's

rough. Yeah, that's right here. Yeah. But I'd love to explore that. Love to explore Norway. Oh, okay. You know, the fjords and all of that. kind of seeing there's a lot of Africa that you know I was going to go on I was going to

I was supposed to go in September on a trip to go explore the guerrillas in the Congo oh wow but there's been a little bit too many yeah too much news with you know I think is it the Ebola yeah okay yeah yep so I canceled that trip because it's all right in the right in the Congo yeah yeah that would be an amazing trip though I'm like all right we'll do that another time next year that'd be an amazing trip like I said I'm not afraid of dying but I'm not putting myself in a Yeah, yeah, yeah. I definitely don't want to die for Ebola.

No. I think I does henta virus. I'm like, no. I think we're all like, I think we're all traumatized, but we haven't really faced the trauma since COVID. I feel like that. Anytime you hear anything, it's like a trigger. I agree.

By the way, do you like saunas? We love saunas. So I was in Norway. They have a floating sauna where you go into the sauna and then you jump into the water because the water's freezing. Yeah. Do you do anything like that? I see you're obviously in great shape.

Do you have any sort of, how are you going to live to 120 healthy? Mobility, staying strong, bone mass. Okay. You know, and then whatever science is out there to help us. Is there anything that you're using or doing right now that you're like really excited about? Not really. I started to play around a little bit with the peptides now for the first time. I mean, I'm about to turn 56 years old in a couple of weeks.

And just now started to play with the peptides. I take care of my skin, which is super important to me. I think that's important just to look good. I'm not sure that, you know, and then, you know, strength and mobility to me is what keeps you good. Like, I mean, I broke a rib six weeks ago. Oh, shoot. That's all good.

I heard that takes a while to heal. Yeah, it's almost good. I broke my clavicle a year ago. Oh my God, what were you doing? Like soccer? Well, the clavicle I broke in playing a skiing. I try to do a little jump that was more than a little jump, but I missed it. That's why I don't ski.

I love that. It's my favorite thing to do. And the ribs I broke in a fight club situation. Fight club. Okay. I took a punch to the ribs. Nice. How is the other person?

Better than me. Okay. It was a big man. Really? It was a big man. Six foot nine, 265 pounds. I'm not quite six. won and I'm only yeah I was 65 pounds underdog and I was a nine inch underdog I mean that's like

taking taking a bite out like Jake Paul right like he fights people much bigger so I I appreciate it right it's like you're you're you're going for the you're not going for the title match you're just going for the I think they called the badass belt exactly the badass belt I've lost every fight I've been in to be honest with you yeah even when I tried to do martial arts I got kicked in the face because I dropped it on like I'm not I'm not built for this. It takes a, it's a special thing. In my head, I am.

I've asked this question to other people who've been on the show. It's a two-part question, but I'll ask the first part. What has been the price of success for you? Because every part, we've had, like you said, billionaires, crazy successful people like yourself. And it seems like there's always a certain price of success because people like you, people like, us, it's like we can't stop, but unfortunately it can come out of price. Why has that been for you?

Two, two things. Number one is a lot of my successes come because of reality television. I've used reality television in order to grow the agency, to grow my brand, to grow the company, to grow all of that stuff. The price of that has been losing privacy, and that's a huge price to pay. You know, having a, I mean, I found a tracker from a paparazzi in my car. I'm like, how do they keep finding me? I went through my whole car.

I found a tracker. I'm like, okay, now I know where that's finding me, right? The, you know, whenever you're at a restaurant, everybody with the cell phone is a paparazzi nowadays, right? And that cost of privacy is a huge sacrifice, a huge sacrifice. That's number one. number two when I started working I had no money I didn't have anything and I had to work my butt off and I've always been the hardest worker I you know in I'm the first one of the office the last one to leave my friendships my friends was a huge sacrifice you know you only have 24

hours in the day right you need six to eight of those for sleeping right yeah depending on who you are but you should sleep at least six and then you know you need a few hours for for yourself and for your family and I have four daughters, four gorgeous daughters. I sacrificed my friends. And it was a huge sacrifice. Talking about the reality TV, knowing what you know now about that sacrifice, but at the same time, it's also what you're, to me it sounds like it's also led you to, you know, a higher level of success starting from literally zero.

Would you do that same path again? You know, I think about that all the time. and I don't know. There are days when I wake up and I say, yeah, I would do it all over again. And then there are other days, you know, that when I wake up and I'm like, it would have just been so nice to just, you know, be me

and not, you know, be judged and looked at. But there's been a lot of benefits that have come from it. I've got a chance to experience a lot of things, not only success and money, but just different experiences that I've done in my, life because of television. I changed my answer on that every single day and I think about it all the time. I'll tell you what's hard and what drives me a little bit crazy is the fact that my kids, that I didn't give them that choice. They were on reality television as a result of the choice that

Kyle and I made. And they never had the choice, you know, to make that decision for them. Yeah. And that hurts me a little bit. I did good kids and they're in good shape. I'm not afraid of like they're old. They're good. My youngest is graduating high school tomorrow. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm super excited about that.

But it does hurt me that I didn't give them the choice. It was forced on them. If they had the choice, do you think they would want the fame? I think we have, I have four daughters, and I'm going to say that two of them like it and two of them don't. I'm going to go 50-50 again. Look at this. We keep kidding that 50-50 mark today. Yes.

I, if somebody says like one bad, if I get one bad comment, it breaks me down. My wife always yells at me. She's like, why do you care so much? I'm like, I don't know. I'm not sure why I care. Yeah. But, I mean, I'm like very small. Like, two people know me.

Like my wife knows me and then one other person knows me. So if it's one bad comment, it's coming from one of them. It's 50, 50. 50. It could be 100% depending on how she sees me in that day. But for you, how do you handle that? Like you're saying, anywhere you go, you could be walking around. I mean, a tracker, that would drive me insane.

How do you handle these comments? And do you think it's because there's a misconception about you? Well, first of all, the way I handle the comments is it's simple. I don't read them and I don't look at them and I don't give a shit. I like that. Okay. So that's that simple. I don't read them. I don't look at them. I don't give a shit. Okay. I'm going to live by that. Very simple. Thank you. The end of story, right? Yeah, I haven't looked at one comment in 20 years. I've not read my comments on anything in forever. Articles don't read the comments. Don't give the comments. Don't give it. Like I said, I don't give a shit. Okay. I've read some great comments about you. Good.

Just because you have, I'll read them for you. Thank you. I'll filter. And they've all, I read some great ones, too, by the way. Good. Good. So. So. What is next for you, right? You had the reality show, over $5 billion in volume, you're opening up this organization. Where do you take the agency? Are you expanding to more countries, more places, more offices? I want the agency to be a global brand and a global name.

We're currently in 16 countries. I want to see us, you know, we still have a lot of expansion in Europe. We just opened up Italy. I'm super excited about that. Wow, why Italy? Sardinia for a spot. Luxury, luxury locations, Sardinia. I mean, we need to hit all of Europe eventually.

So, you know, Italy was just the next. The way we look at, the way we open up is based on people. It's people first and then location, right? So we look for the right people. Like, for example, I'd love to open in London. I've been trying to open in London for 10 years. I just haven't found the right partner there yet. And believe me, there's tons of them.

I just haven't found the right partner for me yet. So, you know, the second we do, we will open London. I mean, that has to happen. What excites you about London? Well, it's a financial. capital of the world, right? I mean, you've got, you have certain financial capitals that you kind of need to be in today. You need to be in Dubai. You need to be in London. You need to be in New York. You know, Hong Kong. I mean, there's just, you know, Singapore, whatever. There's just certain financial capitals, right, that are global.

And so I think that, you know, that's what the excitement part of it is. I mean, London is, is a mecca for, you know, finance and for people, you know, from all over the Middle East going there right now. and you know you just need to be in London but right now in Europe you know we're in Spain and Portugal and Italy and Amsterdam so we've got a lot of growth there we just opened our first office in the Middle East in Saudi Arabia wow so I'm excited a lot of growth there a lot of growth opportunities there we've got some growth you know into Dubai and Qatar I'm in the middle that's conversation I had this morning yeah closed closed baby close it ABC that's it what's the first thing sold in life in life yeah so like pizza pizza yeah okay if you could sell a pizza to me right

now no um you remember sell this pen that's great yeah they should switch it to sell me this pizza sell me this pizza i love it that's it sell me this pizza well okay you know we're gonna starve you to death for the next you know six hours done so i already bought it what kind of pizza do you like to make or what is your favorite pizza to eat it's simple it's it's it's pepperoni and holley Piperoni and jalapino. Yeah. Spicy. Spicy.

I'm a spicy guy. If you eat at like a Thai restaurant, what's your level? If the five being the spicy. I like spicy, five. Wow. Okay. We went to India. I had a hard time.

They liked spices in India. I was like negative spice. Sure. Yeah. So I literally ate bread and desserts for a week. They like spices in India. That must have been a fun trip. I've never been there.

Yeah. Bangalore. Yeah. Wild. It's like the tech capital of India. Interesting. Highly recommend. I got to check that. I was just in Malaysia a couple of weeks ago.

How was Malaysia? It was all right. It was cool. Yeah? Yeah. Better than you like it, different than Singapore, I guess? It was very different, yeah. Very humid, very similar climate in Singapore. Oh, yeah. You were in Southeast Asia. I was also in Southeast Asia, but I was in the Philippines. Gotcha. Which, very hot. Also hot, right? Extremely hot. Yeah. Go to Manila and let me know. We have some real estate in the Philippines. Oh, I love that.

I hear those beaches are beautiful. The best beaches in the world. Yeah. Yeah. I need to visit that too. There's so many places to visit in this world. I know. Final question is this.

My wife and I wrote a book called Unlimited Possibilities. What it means is unlimited possibilities breaking through a barrier that you did not think was possible. What was an unlimited possibility moment for you? So that moment that you broke through a barrier that you didn't think was possible? God, that's a great question. I can think of that from multiple facets, whether it's just mentally, self, me as a human, right?

Or business-wise, right? There's lots of barriers that you know that you break through in your life that make you who you are. I would say reason, you know, I'll take a little more an intellectual approach on that versus just a straight-up business approach because I think I've done some incredible barriers

in business. Recently I started journaling, which I never did that before. And I can tell you that one of the things that I always had a hard time with is really understanding my emotions and understanding my feelings. And I had a hard time expressing them. And recently through journaling, I have learned how to start expressing my emotions, how to start expressing my feelings. And I think that's a great breakthrough that has made me a much better man. I love that. I think that's, I think as I've gotten older, I've come to realize like emotions and like it's so important.

I think as a man when we're younger, it's like machismo, like we can't express our emotions, but then we realize like it's really important. It's really important. Yeah. What maybe it makes us even more of a man. I think it does for sure. Well, it also makes you even, even if it's for yourself to understand yourself a little bit better and to be able to improve as yourself to self-improve yourself. You know, the other thing that I've learned how to do, you know, is recently is how to be, how to be alone. Wow.

And that's a very interesting thing. I've never, you know, again, with the shows, with reality, with, you know, having 4,000 people that work for me, et cetera, et cetera. I'm never, you know, four kids. Yeah. A wife, you know, I mean, I've never been alone. And learning to be alone has been fantastic. Was it hard? Yeah.

But when I'm talking about alone, you know, when you go to a restaurant, you sit and you eat alone. and you look around people eating alone they're always on their phone yeah like that's not being alone yeah you're still connected you're connected yeah like when I'm talking about being alone

like I'm talking about like not reading is also not being alone no phone no silence just silence like being your thoughts being by yourself like you know making yourself laugh telling yourself jokes making yourself cry

telling yourself you know like all of these things that's what that's what being alone is really all about being creative being you know how to you know how to think about improving your business how do you think about where you want to go

how do you think about what that next innovation is where where is that creativity that to me is what happens when you're alone and you can actually do something like that right when you're when you're not in your own thoughts and you're distracted by whether it's a book uh a person uh your phone you're not alone i think it was steve jobs that would go he'd go for like weeks in some house alone it's the best thing and i just spent seven days I just spent seven days in the nature in the jungle. And my phone stayed in the hotel in the in the, I didn't even have it.

Forget about not having, forget about not having reception. Yeah. No phone. It stayed home. It stayed in the safe. Yeah. Right, in the hotel, in the safe. I kept the room.

Yeah. Even though I wasn't using it. I didn't know when I was going to leave. I'm like, if I ever need to get the fuck out, I'm getting out. But the phone stayed back. Wow. I think we all need that. We all need that. We're way too connected.

It's too much. We're too plugged in. We're too connected. It's impacting our mental health, our mind. Like, it's, I don't know if social media will in the end be the worst thing for society, humanity, or the best thing. I'm not sure yet. I'm still, I'm still 50-50 right now. But I think we're seeing younger generations now disconnecting or finding a way to now disconnect from technology, which I think is great.

I hope that everyone does. I love the journaling, but thank you so much, by the way, for joining us today. It wasn't too controversial. No, it stayed away from controversy. I was a little disappointed about that. I don't know. We'll figure it about. I mean, Spencer Pratt, Karen Bass.

Oh, wow. That's controversial. Who's going to win? Well, I mean, I don't know. There's a lot of controversy about whether the votes are even being counted properly, right? Wow. I don't know. Are they?

I have no idea. I wish I knew. I don't know either. It's definitely a conspiracy though where, you know, so who knows? There you go. We got something in. We got some controversy. Thank you so much for joining.

Thank you.