KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Building a Profitable Real Estate Team Machine with Tina Caul

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Summary:This episode features an in-depth conversation with top real estate coach and team leader, Tina Caul, on the essential strategies for building and scaling a profitable real estate team. Agents will learn the key systems and models necessary to transition from a solo agent to a successful team leader. Tina breaks down the critical first hires, the importance of scripts and role-playing in team training, and the mindset shifts required to lead a high-producing team. This is a tactical guide for any agent considering or currently building a team and looking to enhance profitability and operational efficiency.

Seven-figure success starts when you start thinking like a CEO. Welcome to the John Kitchens Coach podcast Experience. This is your host, John Kitchens. You're ready to think bigger and transform your business into a path to lasting freedom. What is up, everybody, man? Thank you guys. Turing into another episode of Expert Mentors Live 282. And we've got the one and only Ms. Tina Call back in the house with us.

I really appreciate you jumping in. And I know you're being, you know, saying, like you said, before we jumped on, saying no a little bit more this year to things. And I love that. I think, you know, there was a statistic that PBD shared on the podcast yesterday on the, on the contraband David on his podcast. And it was a statistic going all the way back. And I love your take on this too. Going all the way back to 1910. And it talked about kind of the percentage of attention.

that is us as humans. And I don't know if you saw the study, but it was from a consumption and learning standpoint, a percentage of waking time on content. So he said learning, but I don't think it's learning. I think it's just information. And it could be noise. It could be valuable or invaluable.

But in 1910, it was 10% of the waking time. And to today, it's 80%. of the waking time is spent on consumption of information. And so, like, how do people get anything done if you're spending 80% of your time consuming content and information? Yeah. You know, that's the big theme for this year. For me, John, it's like, you know, I just, I really had to take a step back and say,

how do I slow down? Because I think our brains are wired to consume. And especially if you have an analytical brain and you're like, like, oh my God, I love to learn. I think you're like me. We love to learn. And so I think because our mind is so distracted, then we put a book or an audible or, you know, Instagram or something in our face to keep ourselves occupied. And I think we're so distracted these days that people lost their joy. They lost their sense of self. They don't even know what makes them happy anymore. And I think, you know, and I think back, you know, thousands of years, we didn't, we only had nature and our

We had quiet time. We would, if you said, hey, I'm going to invite you over to lunch or dinner, it's because I saw you in a village and invited you a week later. And then I got in my horsebug and carriage and, you know, road to your house for 45 minutes. And then we sat down by candlelight. Like we had a lot of time to be in our own head. And now we've lost that. And so Kevin and I are on a mission of peace, but peace within inside inner peace.

Well, and that's where it starts, right? It's the whole, you know, you can't lead and coach another human until you can coach and, you know, lead yourself first. And, you know, first rule of leadership, you know, lead by example. So how are you, you know, making yourself the best version of you and oxygen mask concept, right? Why do you put your oxygen mask on first? And I think, you know, it's that introspective and deep dive. And I think, you know, the, you know, where you make yourself like extremely impactful, right? You can be valuable. but how are you impactful? That's the inner, the inner workings. That's the, you know, the high level of emotional intelligence

and just understanding yourself at a high, high level. And it was interesting. I watched the, as did many, the conversation with you and Brent and Leo and Glenn to kind of kick the year off. And one thing that I noticed

when I was paying attention and I was looking at all the previous expert mentors that you and I've had over the years. This is number seven, you know, the seventh expert mentors of having you on. But I was just looking at kind of the conversation is what we talked about. And then the conversation there, and it's an evolution. And I just see you as a human and as a leader,

just in our conversations over the years, just what you talked about on that episode and just kind of where you're at and to your whole point there, saying no and being more self-reflective. And it's just really cool to see, you know, that that continuous growth. And to me, it's right. I mean, it's, it's the direction that we all really need to go down and go down that path if we really want to, you know, live an impactful life. Totally. Totally. Thank you for noticing that. I think all of us, you know, we're just, I'm, I always think, like, I'm so underqualified to do most of things that I start. And I'm just like a, you know,

an airplane in the air with duct tape on the wings. We're going, let's go. And start for you're ready. And so, yeah, I love to learn and grow. And, you know, and again, I'm still going to make a ton of mistakes, but I need to lead in a way where it's like vulnerabilities there. And I go through shit just like everyone else. And but I just try to figure it out and do the best I can.

So from an evolution standpoint, you know, for you and the business side of things, where is the direction and the growth? Where do you see, you know, the evolution of this industry, the business, and, you know, how organizations are going to be ran and things that are, you know, obviously your crystal ball that you have with you, but kind of the direction that you're leading yourself and the organization into the second half of the decade, really. Yeah, I think for me, you know, when I really study the, history, the evolution of just being a real estate agent, a salesperson. If you look at the 1990s,

most agents were on 50-50 splits, even at big box brokerages. And so the concept of like making more, making more, making more, making more, as the brokerages started to evolve and seeing the power that the agent brought to the table, they started to give the agent more, meaning more commissions, but something's got to give because you know as running a business, you keep giving. You've got to take away experience. You've got to take away support. You've got to take away services. So I think what happened was we started to all, you know, we went from 50-50, coal banker in 1905 to Century 21, 70-30 to to Remax 5 percent to Keller Williams, 70-30 plus, you know, profit share and other thing, and the capping, which was an industry massive change in 1984. They've been around 40 years with that cap.

Now people are starting to cap at traditional brokerages. What I see now, the next evolution is the team ridge, the brokerage that functions as a team that gives back all the services, all the support, all the training, all the camaraderie, all the feeling of collaboration that brokerages of the past could have had, but there wasn't enough financial, you know, weight to be able to give that to the agents. And so now I'm looking at, you know, bigger is not always better. You know, our team had almost 70 agents on it at one point. We were Zillow Flex team. I didn't like the way it was going. I felt it lost its, it's, it's heartbeat. I, you know, Veronica says this so well, you kind of give your heart to, you give your heart up too fast to the wrong, you know, people.

And that happened to me as well. It was like, here, just you guys run it. I'm good. I've got, you know, this going on. And so this is my year of coming back to say, no, no, this is, this is our team. We built this. This is the core foundation of who we are. These are our standards and principles. We're not going to lose that. I'm one that I'm so hard on myself. I want to be efficient. I want to always be growing. I want to be excellent in anything I do. That's what I want our organization to be. And so now we've shrunk into about 40 agents. We're only hiring agents that are proven, proven agents. They've had to have deals now. They come in and, you know, we don't just keep everyone because they're nice. If I've kept everyone that was really nice,

you know, we'd have 300 agents on my team and we'd have to rename our team to just a big box brokerage. That's how most brokerages operate. So I think it's, we're going to see the shrinking of independent brokerages, the shrinking of traditional brokerages, the agents understanding that if I go position myself with an operator that understands how to leverage my current business and then add to it that I'm going to make more money. I mean, I have, I have agents on my team making four or five hundred thousand dollars a year. Like they're making almost as much as what we net. So I think that my goal is to bring in an agent and then show them how I can build their sphere for them, how I can add another deal a month to their spear, which is another 12 deals a year on top of their 12. And then another

deal a month to two deals a month with the machine that we've built. So they can go from, you know, selling 12 homes to 42 homes. And the other thing is sometimes they say, I'm scared of that teen. I don't want to sell 42 homes. Well, you're not going to sell them right away. It's a 24-month blossoming. You're going to be a caterpillar first. You'll turn into a butterfly. But I know when my coach used to say, I can get you from 40 to 100. It was the opportunity to learn how to delegate and take things off my plate and learn to trust. When you trust people and you say, you can do this for me and I trust you, you're going to see that the least amount of things you can do and stay in your competencies, you're going to just explode. And so that's what our team is now. We're like, let's get our agents to 30, 40, 50, 60 deals. Let's show them how to leverage. Let's give them all the support. And if they can make an amazing living, you know, I just, I know that they can outsell and have happiness more so than a solo agent struggling to sell 12 to 30 homes doing it all themselves.

A hundred percent. And I think, you know, it's the, it's also that value exchange and looking for the, the right individual. So to, to your point, it has to start, to me, you know, it starts and stops on on values, core values and principles and alignment, right? If you're out of, if you're out of whack there, there's, it's just not going to work. It's just inevitable. And I think, you know, for for folks listening in, get those core values dialed in and your people have to be more than 50% of your values. So if you have, you know, if you have six core values that you, you know, hire, fire, train, coach, lead, make decisions on, then your people have to align with at least four of them. If, if they have three or less, it's, they're not going to work.

But that's where, but that's where character and trust come in. And I think if you evaluate character and trust, then we'll measure the skills and the other attributes and the things that you bring. And there's a standard there to be able to, to be able to tap into the resources in the machine that you built. And so to your point, too, like you said, you know, I,

I think, like you said, nice. I don't, I don't like nice. I like kind. But I don't like nice. Nice. Nice to me. When I hear that, you know, hey, I'm being nice. To me, that's being fake.

You're not being authentic. You're not being genuine. I want to kind to people around me. And I always joke, right? Like, Leon's like, will you explain to the kids what, what, you know, kind and nice, the difference is? And I said, well, a kind person will tell you that you got food in your teeth. Right.

A nice person will just say, you look great. And go on. So I think it's super important to be able to have that distinction in, have have the right people that are willing to do the work because it's a different beast right now. And you know, you and I've been playing the game long enough. We know the cycles. And one of my favorite distinctions is from Ben Horowitz's book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things. And, you know, you have peacetime generals and you have wartime generals. And we need a wartime general. And that doesn't mean that you lead with an iron fist.

You lead by example, but you have standards and accountability. And that's really what people need a lot of right now is they need a lot of just direction. They need great leadership. And you and I've talked about this before. It's your obligation. You have to lead the entire transaction. You have to lead the other agent. You have to lead the other clients.

You have to lead title. You have to lead the lenders. You have to lead the inspectors. Yes, that is your job. You have to lead through this. And like I said, you know, your evolution and as a leader, so spot on, right? Leadership to me is like one of the most critical skills that we have to arm ourselves with and constantly develop. And you guys are, you know, definitely well on that path into that direction.

So let me ask you kind of a technical question because they hear that, right? So, you know, I go to, okay, well, what is a fair value exchange from compensation? And to your point, like the 24 months. So as a leader, guys, you have to be able to frame in our, ours was, hey, on target earnings, on target earnings. You're going to make more in your first year in the, in the second six months, then you will the first six months being here. And then that going into year two, and then the second. half of year two, let's look at that. I need to frame that to you so you understand.

How do you articulate that? How do you show? What is a fair compensation exchange for the value you provide? You know, I think it's, again, it's just a matter of showing them that success takes time. You know, it's a cliche, right? We've heard it a million times, but it all it sinks in. And it's, it's how do I take this, you know, if it's a brand new agent, there's, you know, the first, I don't know if you saw my passion pyramid, John, which we talked about it on the last, the last episode you and I did hear. Yeah, it was amazing. And so, well, just that feeling of like the foundation is the process. I've got to teach you the process of, you know, learning this. Then we've got to, you know, second phase is practice, then having patience. And then you're

going to be empowered. And then you'll finally have passion and purpose in your job. So the exchange is, to me, most of the agents that stay on our team, they've been there 11 years, nine years, seven years, eight years. Like we've got my first five agents are still with us today. And it's because they've always adapted and grown in their own leadership journey. I've had to push them and say, no, you're going to speak. You're going to help EXP do a buyer's presentation. We're always trying to find opportunities for them to be uncomfortable. And they embrace that now. Like I'm so proud of five, six, seven of them that have really, you know, grown and involved. And that's the exchange. that's the value.

As somebody believes in you to keep pushing you, and who's in your corner doing that? Who's in your corner making you better and pushing you into those opportunities? So it's got to be, yes, a value exchange from, hey, you're going to have a T.C. service for me and you're going to be there when I need you. But what is the environment of value?

Ashley on our team will say, you know, for her, she's like just being around your energy helps me continue to elevate because you're always pushing yourself. So if you're here, I'm here, and you're then moving here. And so she's just always trying to keep up. Maybe she wasn't ready to grow as fast. But she's just like you said, I'm completely different from seven years ago when we met.

She's completely different from nine years ago when I met her. And she didn't want any of this. And she just slowly evolved, not even realizing she was evolving. So I think set and setting is huge. Your environment is huge. Because if you have a leader that's constantly pushing, growth for themselves, you can't help but just follow along. And there's value in that. Now, if you have a leader that's just commanding, demanding, you know, they're just, they're worried about the buck.

You know, I had an agent that joined us and she said her last team leader was like, you guys got to sell more homes. I got to pay my bills here. Oh, that's so inspiring. That's ridiculous. Like, my thing is, I don't need you guys to sell one home. I don't even need this team, to be honest. Like, I get to be here. I don't have to be here. And so I've decided to be here on this journey when I have to deal with all the issues and problems and, you know, things that we have to deal with on a daily basis. But I get to do that. And so that's why like this year I'm very mindful about, you know, like gossip and, you know, people that are complaining about this or that. I know that always happens. But it's their responsibility to co-create the environment. I'm trusting you in this environment that I've tried to create. You're a co-creator. If you're bitching and moaning and complaining and saying, well, they must be successful because they got this or that handed to them, please leave. It's just not the right mentality for our team. So I'm just very much, after coming back from Costa Rica, one of my truths that I got to see in the mirror was I was actually too nice. I knew

what I wanted to say, and I'm a kind person, but I was not being that leader that said, hey, you've got shit in your teeth. And that's who I am naturally as a person. So I was diminishing that because I was too afraid to, you know, maybe they won't like me or maybe, you know, they will, you know, I don't know, just appeal to everyone. And you just can't do that. And so, yeah. So I've grown. So being able to grow through that, I think, you know, most of us struggle with how do we have that conversation?

Is that something that you've had to learn how to step into that conversation? Oh, my God. I call them now, you know, I love feedback. So if you're like, Tina, you sucked at that podcast or you could have done better on stage here. I want that. In fact, we've all asked each other, like, how do we get better? So I seek that. But I realized in the past that I was more redirected by people that were not willing to have feedback or they turn things around. Like, I love self-development tests and assessments. And so when you're not ready to self-develop and somebody asks you to do an assessment and you're just worried about, all your weaknesses and you're focusing on that and not your strengths. Like it can mentally mess with people. I love to do that with people, but I realize not everyone wants that feedback. Not everyone's ready for that self-development. So because of that, I pulled back as giving feedback as a leader because I was sort of like,

oh my God, if I make people cry or they're uncomfortable, I can see when people are uncomfortable when you're giving them feedback. So then I kind of backed up. Now I treat them as, hey, John, I want to have a developmental conversation with you. It's just development. That's all it is. It's not feedback because feedback feels like a punishment. Hey, I want to tell you what you're doing wrong, John. I want to give you feedback. I think feedback's the same as a PIP. I'm going to put you on a PIP, a PIP. A performance improvement plan. If I bring an agent to my team, you're on a PIP from day one. Don't you want to performance improve your land every day? Every day. Every day you're on a PIP. Yeah. Be on a PIP. Give me the T-shirt. So as a leader, it's just changing and reframing things that people had negative connotation. with to say, okay, can we have a developmental conversation?

And now they're like, yeah, what are we developing? You are developing, you know. No, I love that. You got to name it. And that was one of our early mentors that really pushed us around the leadership side of things, Clayt Mask, CEO at InfusionSoft, now it's Keep. And they called it buckle up. Can we have a buckle up conversation?

And so we use that. And I think understanding, you know, the first rule of communication is get permission. Can, and it's the whole gate of the mind closed and open. And if you get permission, then, you know, the gate of the mind is going to be open. And, you know, my coach gave me, you know, the get real scenario. So I just say, hey, can we have a real conversation and just really going into it that way? And I think when you learn how to be able to have difficult conversation, it has, has a ripple down effect on improving a lot of different skills. It improves your sales skills. It improves

your negotiation skills. It improves your leadership skills. It improves, you know, so many things that for us as leaders, and listen, everybody on here, every one of you is a leader. Even if you're on Tina's team, you're a brand new agent, you're still a leader. You're leading yourself. You have people looking to you for direction. They're looking to you for influence, for inspiration. You know, if you're a parent, you're a leader, right? You're leading other people and, you know, learning how to have those difficult conversations and there's a right way to be able to walk into it to where it's not weaponized.

It's a really constructive way to be able to continue to develop. So looking at, you know, kind of on the business mechanic side of things, where can you get in trouble by giving too much of, you know, what is too much that? we can give that really hurts us on the business side of things. You know, I've seen a lot of, you know, people try to build on 7525s and it's just, there's not enough math at the end of the day to make it to make it work. Where does that, what is, what is right?

Do you mean like systems in your business or just like, you know, like personal development thing? Like, you know, just do you mean? So for example, Tina, so like I've seen people try to build the compensation models around, you know, letting the agents keep in a massive amount and, and they're trying to operate on very, very little. And it's like to your point, and that goes back to brokers, why they're broke is because they're giving all the money.

There's no money at the end of the day. And so, you know, what is, where do agents feel like, man, this is well worth my investment of, of,

you know, you taking X percent of my commission. I feel good about my investment with you. Yeah, I think every team is different. right? So we're very, I am very much a yes leader. Like, we need this. Okay, let's figure out a way to get it. But in the last five or six years, where I've helped the agents, you know, look at it from a leadership perspective is if we keep saying yes to things, what are we saying no to? What are we removing? Maybe we're

raising our fees. If you guys need this service, then we need to, you know, bump up our transaction fee by $100. You guys good with that? Can you go, you know, do that? Yes, we can. So I think it's a matter of, of them understanding the P&L. I have an open P&L with the agents, so they know that they keep 50%, let's just say of, let's say a call group or 70% of their sphere, whatever the team splits are. And, you know,

call group is going to retain, you know, about $2,000 per transaction on average. They know that if they're making $5,000, $8,000 per transaction, which they do make that different levels of career, you know, time invested, let's say,

if they know I'm making two and they're making seven, it feels fair because the reality is it's an open book. Like I have to be profitable first. So people first, be kind, people first. Then it's, you know, our business system services and then it's, you know, the net income. Like, that's my responsibility is cash flow because a lot of these team leaders, they're going to go out of business within five to 10 years. It's just not fun to run in the red. And so, and I'll never do that because I would, I wouldn't want my agents to have profitable businesses. They have to expect me to have a profitable business. So I think when they see that where the money is going, they feel like it's fair. And that's just how I've operated, that it's an open book. What do you tell agents and team leads,

if they are running red right now, what do they need to change immediately? I know there's some, there's some seasonality. There's some things. There's, you know, built up pipelines. A lot of agents have like massive pipelines getting ready, you know, people getting ready to come to market, but they're still, they're in the red. They're not, they're not profitable. Where do you tell them, you know, hey, this first, then this? I think they have to understand that, you know, and I tried to coach some of our agents through this. They're like, hey, you know, we need to make more here or there. How could we be spending X amount here? Well, if you look at the last five or six years, our costs of good soul, like everything's higher. A video, a video. A video.

videographer right now for a nice, you know, a home shoot is $1,000. I used to pay $250, six years, five years ago. My stager used to come over for $100. Now she's $250 to stage a house went from, you know, $2,000 to $4,000. Everything, the sign, putting a sign in the yard, it's $100 now. Everything's gone up. If you're a team leader and you haven't raised or lowered, you know, like taking money away, if you're still at an 80-20 split and you're trying to give all these services,

you're going to be in the red. So you have to just reevaluate, talk to other big team leaders, which if you're with EXP, there's, you know, so the best of the best are here. Look at the most profitable ones. You know, make sure that you're talking to a leader that actually maintains a 20% or more profitability. We're always between 20 and 25%, which is really good for a big team selling, you know, 7,800 homes.

That's fantastic. Yeah. So when you can look at those expenses, start cutting things out, getting more efficient. You know, sometimes people have too much staff. Most of the time, though, I see that they're giving their agents too much because their mentality is I would never work for that. I catch leaders all the time going, well, I wouldn't work for that. You wouldn't, but they will because you haven't sold the value of operations. Sit down with an agent and show them everything that is done and then decide what they want to partake in.

Bring them in as a partner. Wait, wait, wait, you want 70, 80, 90% of this deal? why don't you come just be my partner let's run this puppy together bring me your money in your credit card every month yeah then we'll talk about who gets what and so they got to be under they got to be entrepreneurs and understand that this is what their owner is going through and when you open up those books i think some of them failed to want to open them up because the vulnerability well i'm going to show them that i'm not making money why yeah show them you're not making money and and and you know get a little bit of buy in and understanding that we can row this boat for

together to get us on on the path and you know to your point there Tina it the aha that that that I had around what you just said about well I would never work for that was our marketing bled into multiple markets and separate MLSs and so we were kind of shunned going over there it was a really tight knit like you ain't one of us get out of here right so we had to find one of their own to be accepted. And we, we empowered her, put her in a, in a fantastic position. And, you know, she was out there hustling. And we, a couple years down the road, we were like, why is she still with us? Like, like, really, why is she still here? She can be doing this all on her own. And, you know, you have the conversations and you look. And I'm like, hmm,

so we start what you love to do. We start giving personality tests, discs, just everything that and run them through. And we come across one that is one of my favorites. And it is from Les McCowan's book, Predictable Success. And he has the synergist. And but he talks about predictable success and how do you get there and how do you keep it, you know, it's fun. And then you go through white water and then you get to predictable success. And then there's the downside of it too, right, to where you fall off and, you know, you're out of business. But most mom and pops stay, stay fun because it's reactive. There's no, there's no SOPs, there's no structure, there's no systems, there's no process. And that's what you got to get to a balance of that in marketing to be a predictable success. But his assessment,

and I just, if you guys are listening and go take it, I mean, just Google predictable success quiz. And there's four character types. There's four character types that he talks about. One is the visionary, right? Which the visionary would say, I would never, I would never work for that. well, you're building the company. Of course, you're the visionary. You would, yeah, you would, that's you. You're doing your own thing. The other is the operator.

The next is operator. And the operator is the person that will leave a wake of, they, they get shit done, but they leave a wake of destruction. Like, and there's no rhyme or reason. They're like, I don't know. I just get done. I just get things done. They have high tenacity on the working genius.

Right. They're just tenacious. Yeah. And then the synergist. is the care bear. They love everybody. They're your client experience person. They're the ones that are,

you know exactly who they are on the working genius. And then you have the processor. And typically the visionary and the processor butt heads. And what we found with her, she was an off the chart D. So it was like, oh, she should be doing her own thing. And she's a redhead.

And if you look up Redhead in Google Redhead, there's a picture. picture of her that comes up you know terror you know like you stubborn you know to the point every everything of a redhead but when we looked when she went through the whole predictable success quiz she scored the lowest on visionary she was an off-the-chart operator so when we were talking with we were like she had no desire to do her own thing she wanted she believed in what we were doing she believed she wanted to be a part of what we were trying to accomplish. Core value fit.

She checked all the core values. She outworked. She worked harder than us. And just the light bulb went off is that, you know, there's certain different people out there that want to be a part of something. It doesn't mean they want to go do their own thing. And as you're talking about the future of where companies and businesses are going, I think that's what you're you're looking for you're looking for people that want to be a part of what of what you're doing and that's what you've done i mean you attract people that want to be a part of your energy and the vision

and what you're wanting to accomplish so you mentioned something a little bit earlier tina you said i don't have to do this my question is why why do you do this you know for me um it is so fun because of the way i grew up i grew up with not much and i also grew up with the idea of not being a great student, not having a lot of confidence. But it wasn't that I wasn't smart in school. It was just that I wasn't interested in what they were teaching me. Once I realized when I left school and I realized I am a bookworm, I love self-development. Like, I love self-development.

I wish I was a psychologist. I love studying neuroscience, behaviors. Like, that's my jam. And so I'm obsessed about it. So I'm not only a good student. I love to teach. And so because of that, I feel like because I have that in me, like learner is one of my top five themes in Strengths finder. If I'm with people that don't read books, like my team, I will tell them, John, oh, my God, read this book.

It's so good. Read this book. And then I'll say, anybody started that book, crickets. Like, come on, there's 45 of you. Not one started to read this book. I have told you six times. Like they see the success pattern in life and none of them will pick up a book. And you go, okay.

So then if they're not going to pick up the book, my job then is to take what I've learned from this book and regurgitate it to them over and over and over again till they can memorize it in their brain and they finally wake up to go, wow, yep, that is what that is what I need to do. So I think it's just that. It's like, that's my job now is just to regurgitate the things that I've learned. I'm not creating these things. I'm not a genius. And so I might take a concept and go, oh, I could restructure it this way. so it's got a better understanding for somebody. But that's it.

I love to learn. And now I get to throw it into their brains. I get to give them a great platform to make lots of money. And really just, you know, just show them the life that they can have. Because I love my life. Like, knock on wood, I love my husband, my life. You know, we're not perfect. But I'm shocked that it's turned out this well from when I was a kid.

So I just believe, like, if I can do it, anyone can do this. And it all takes a strong mindset, right? I mean, that's it. It's not skill. It's this. It's will. Yeah. It is.

It's mindset first. And I think, you know, the sooner that you can, it's not the skills I need to develop. It's the, it's the sharpening of my mind and the things. And there's so many, you know, paths and ways to go there to get there. And, you know, that's, I mean, that's why I like doing the ultramarathon stuff is because, you know, push yourself through. yourself through through a hundred miles and things in life just aren't that hard, right? Things that we think are so hard. And it just, it just opens up, you know, the gate of the mind to so many more possibilities.

And I think it's also a confidence thing, too, that you can push, push through anything challenging because you have it in you to be able to do that. I want to get into what we were talking about before we hit go and really around, you know, I, badass certified Mel Robbins. And, you know, how impactful. What did I think I saw where she said, you know, finally, she took over Rogan as the number one, you know, podcast. And I thought that was just incredible going into kind of kind of her story and just fortunate enough to stumble upon her early on. And just, you know, how amazing that she is.

and you had some great insight, especially around her new concept and her new book, I would love for you to kind of, let's get on to kind of the Mel Robbins bandwagon here for a second. Well, Mel and I go way back. So, no, she was one of the first people that helped me get over my fear of public speaking because I was completely just,

never in my mind would I ever feel like I was going to be on a stage talking to someone. But when I turned 40, I was like, okay, you are getting over this. And that's what we like to do, right? We like to self-developing. Do hard things. You've got to do hard things.

You've got to showcase to your team that you can do this. And so I got an opportunity to do a TED talk, you know, locally. And I was like, how the hell am I going to do this? Like, I thought I would just start slow by speaking on panels because I would always say no when people ask me to speak on panels. And so now I have to do this 15-minute speech with no monitor, nothing in front of this audience. And I remember stumbling upon Mel and she had a course. And so I bought the course immediately. I took it. It was like a week or whatever. And my God, this woman just spoke to me. And then I read her book, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And she was like my champion through that all. When I walked off that stage, it wasn't a perfect performance. I look back and I want to puke. But, you know, I felt like I had gotten my cape. So Mel, to me today, a lot of the books that she writes. The things that I love about her is that she takes you down a path where she's telling you her own stories, her own authenticity.

her own vulnerability. She's not saying, you guys need to do this. She's saying, I went through this. I get it. I know I'm just like you. And here's how I solved it. And so you just feel like, okay, she's authentic because she's telling you her shit. There's nothing that I hate more than meeting a person and they act so perfect.

They never tell you their vulnerabilities because they think like you're going to use it against them. And it's like, no, my God, my list of things that I suck at are way bigger than the five things I'm good at. Like literally, I know what five things. those are and I'm going to lean into the rest. I don't care. I suck at it. Just, you know, so, yeah, her new book's amazing. And I think, I think people see it and go, let them. Isn't that like another form of like, F off, I don't care? But it's not. It's so well done. And actually,

men are loving it too. Because I think a lot of times they're like, oh, she's female. You know, what is this going to be about? This is a self-worth thing. I don't want to deal with it. Men are loving it too. And yeah, the concept around it is great. unpack the concept a little bit. And I know, I mean, we used it just in conversation. You dropped it just as you were kind of, you know, we were just talking, catching up before we came live. Yeah.

Like really, really unpack it all the way of what it is. So basically it's, it's, you know, we try to control everybody. We try to control our spouse, our kids, our clients, our teammates. Like it's mentally exhausting for you to walk around and say, I need to control that situation. So it might be, you know, you know, she uses this example in the book, her son is going to prom. And she buys like a rose or whatever for his date. And he's like, mom, she doesn't want one.

She's like, all the girls have them. Well, mom, she really doesn't want one. So what does Mel do? She packs it in her bag to take to the kids, you know, the girlfriend's house or whatever, just in case. So she's already controlling and steps ahead of what he asked for. They get there. She introduces herself and says, I got you, you know, a wrist cursage or whatever, they call them. And she's like, great.

Well, the girl had already had her own. She wanted to pick her own. So then he's really upset as mom. And then it starts to rain. Well, all the kids had an appointment to go to this restaurant that was kind of like a drive-through outside type of thing. Mel's freaking out. Their tuxes are going to get all wet. The girl's hair is going to.

So she's trying to control the whole situation. In that moment, her daughter says, mom, let them. Let them get wet. Let them have their day. Let her wear one, like brisk, whatever flower. So Mel starts to think, oh, my God, I'm just a control. freak. And I am, I'm the one suffering while they're just like, you're a freak, mom. So the whole let them theory is just kind of releasing that control. You know, she makes another point that all of

her friends were going out, they went on this trip and they didn't invite her. And so she sat on the couch looking at this trip, wondering, what have I done? And why didn't they invite me? And so she's in this thing, you know, wallowing in this, in this concept of like they did not, they're not good friends. when she says in her mind, well, what's my responsibility? Well, I haven't called them. I haven't been present. I haven't been a good friend. So let them, let them, but let me also detach from this.

So it's just mainly about control. All of us want to control every situation and every one, and we can't. And so it's just a way to release and walk yourself through the next steps. I love it. And it's just a really good, you know, listening. to you kind of our, you know, share that a reframe of, you know, control the controllables. Is that within my control, you know, other mental models? What else could it mean? Right. Like you saw that. You saw there. What else could it mean? The 100-0 concept of what

could I have done? What could I have done differently? Looking in the mirror first instead of looking out the window, right? So that's a better relationship with the mirror than the window. So I love it. Right. And she's great at it being able to, you know, to nail these concepts that kind of bundle a bunch of different models, mental models and everything together into just to let them. So I love that. And also something you said there too, I cringe and I wanted to, I was like, hey, wait, I want to share this when we're live.

The use of I and the proper way to use it and the improper way to use it, especially as a leader. And the only way, the only time to use I from a leadership perspective is, is when you're being vulnerable. You're being, you know, you're owning it, right? And I remember this lesson. I got it from Brian Moses. And it just is always stuck with me. And it's the, it's the eye.

And he said, next time, pay attention to how many times, if you send an email, you send a message, how many times you use the word I? And how are you using it? And he said, that'll really tell a lot from you as a leader in your leadership style based upon how you use eye. And it's always stung with me. And I noticed it in copy or when people are sending messages over.

And the truth is, is that the only time you use eyes, when you're taking the blame, never in a winning situation, never in a situation to where, you know, we're thriving. It ain't about you because at the end of the day, we all have teams. It's always, it's always contribution in whatever you do. Tiger Woods even has a team, right? So like, you know, obviously he's out there executing, but he ain't getting there without without Joey on the bag and all the people that get his body ready to be able to even compete, right? Like there's so many wheeze in anything that we succeed at.

But a great leader, like you said, is going to be the, hey, that's on me. I, you know, I didn't make the right decision. You know, I, I didn't go through that. So that was just one of the, one of the leadership lessons, thankful. I wish I would have learned it a lot earlier, but, you know, definitely being able to pick up that lesson, you know, along the way. Oh, 100%. If something goes wrong, the minute it goes wrong, go, okay, what did I do first? What could I have done better? It's always, it really, and that's healthy. It's like, It is your fault some way, somehow because maybe you didn't do the thing right away or other people were involved.

But what could what could what could we help solve next time for that not to happen? You know, so it's just solving. But yeah, I definitely, even in videos, like I found myself preaching, you know, years ago. And I'd be like, you guys need it. You guys need it. You guys. And now it's like, no, I, the reason I'm sharing this is I actually went through this. I, you know, had these struggles.

and if you're having the same struggles, here's how I help myself and maybe it'll help you. And I think that's what Mel does so beautifully. It's like she talks about her issues and it pulls you right into the stories and the vulnerability. And we have to be vulnerable because they're actually probably the most imperfect ones, but they just had enough guts to stand in front of a room

and share their imperfectness. So, yeah. I think we're just because, you know, just so conditioned with, everything that, you know, we're inundated with, right? With, you know, that, the 80% of, information that, you know, consuming what's real? Like, trust is so low. And I think, you know, it's my favorite definition of trust is just authenticity times time, vulnerability times time. And, you know, talking to agents, man, I'm just not, you know, gaining enough

momentum in the market, you know, are we staying consistent? Have we, you know, put in enough time are we being genuine? Are we being authentic? Are we being real? Because, you know, that, you know, BS detector is at an all-time high, right? And guard is way up. And so I think it's so important to just be genuine, just be authentic. And in the reality is, you know, it'll all come out at some point, right? There's no hiding anything anymore. And so it's just, just be genuine, be be authentic as much healthier way to live anyways. Well, especially now when I think people are being sold something everywhere they go, right? They're on Facebook.

They're on Instagram. They're at the store. But years past, you weren't getting sold so much. Now you're getting sold from everywhere you land. And I think that's where the trust is dissolved. Like, you know, coming from contribution for the first four or five years I was here at EXP, I didn't sell one product. I didn't have one product.

I didn't have anything to sell and everything was free. I finally had one little product, you know, 90s. seven dollar little thing because it's like people can't ask me the same question over and over again. And even though I sold that, I remember somebody saying, oh, now she's selling something. That was what I heard. And it's like, that's where you go, let them. Like I have given so much in the past five years, now I'm selling something and there's always a negative, you know, comment out there. But it just another thing I'll touch on before we wrap up is that exact thing of don't worry about what people say about you, the comments that you

get on social media. I even heard the other day there's something called toxic positivity. I don't know if you've heard that. But now there's, of course, these negative people that are like, don't be so toxicly positive. And I'm like, if we've gotten to that point, I know like, okay, like now I'm just like, I've had it. So I think it's like we've lost our way so much that I just really don't care anymore. Like wholeheartedly, I don't care what people think. I care that I'm my authentic self and and I know what I'm doing is is hopefully helpful and that's all I can you know depend on yeah it's you know did did I do my best did I you know did I keep the promises that I that I make to myself am I being you know authentic am I being genuine and I think you know at the

end of the day you know you're able to to lay your head on the pillow and knowing that you know you did you did your best, you did the right thing. I tell you, you know, one of the ones that the books that I reread at the end of last year was I went back and reread the four agreements. And, man, it's just so good. You know, definitely the, you know, the first one of, you know, just make your word impeccable. And, you know, being careful of what you're promising and, you know, not promising. And I think that goes back to what you said at the beginning is, you know, just saying no more.

you know, that's, that's definitely, I mean, obviously the flip side, you know, you're trying to, you're trying to hustle, right? You got to, you know, have to say yes until you have to say no. And I think you get yourself into a point to where, all right, it's time to say no. Less is more. And I really think that is the case going into, going into, you know, the new year here is, you know, finding, finding that one path and being more, you know, more intentional of what we're trying to accomplish. I agree. I agree. Let's make this. our year of peace and prosperity, John. I love it. Tina, you're amazing.

Thank you again for another amazing episode of expert mentors live and, you know, just looking back. I mean, I kicked off the year again with GoGo, you know, and we were talking and it was our sixth year of that episode. And I'm like, it seems like not six years ago that we, and we've been running this expert mentor series, you know, we're episode 282. And, you know, the seven-year run has been, been remarkable and not slowing down. That's, that's for sure. I'm going to keep it really. Picking back up. So I love it. I love it. Awesome. Tina, thank you so much. And I appreciate you guys.

Awesome. We'll see you. Bye y'all. Bye. That's a wrap for today. I hope you got something valuable from this episode. If you did, hit follow and visit johncitchens.comte for more ways we can work together. See you. on the next episode.