KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Find Your True Path and Passion in Real Estate

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Summary:In this episode, guest Ray Martin shares a powerful message about the importance of finding your own true path in real estate, rather than simply following what others are doing. The conversation is a deep dive into the mindset required to build a fulfilling and successful career that aligns with your personal values and passions. Ray emphasizes the need for self-reflection, courage, and a relentless focus on serving clients in a way that feels authentic to you. This is a must-listen for any agent who wants to move beyond a transactional business and build a career with purpose and passion.

But when you really know what it is that you want, what is it that you truly desire and require? Okay, the God Almighty is not going to withhold that from you. It's not going to happen. So the only thing that would be left is that you're withholding it from yourself. If you don't have everything that it is that you desire and require in this life, that's sort of an internal reflection. Okay, don't go blame. Well, the Lord ain't come. through, no, no, no, no, no.

You know, it's choices. Write down the word choices. Okay. The choices that we make has created the lifestyle that we now live. Welcome to the Success with Listings podcast, where we help you get success in the real estate game, the easy way. Now you can get off the roller coaster of Feast and Famine and out of the rat race of competing with every other agent in town.

Hi, I'm Nollie Williams. I took over a thousand listings during my first 10 years from the real estate game. and in this podcast, I show you how to have success with listeners. Let's go. Yeah, we're right in the middle of a series that is so important. And a lot of times I just want to teach all about lead generation. But this series is so important for entrepreneurs, for you. And it's called Finding Your Joy.

Interestingly, a lot of people really aren't interested in this topic. You know, it's like, no, I want to find listings. I'm like, yeah, but if you start to find your joy, the listings will just show up. Okay? They'll just show up. So last week was really, really good. I had a great week. I closed on my first property Friday, my first property coming back to the United States.

That was, well, we actually had another listing besides that, but I hadn't fully moved here yet. And then I've got, I picked up three more. deals this week. So this is where I get to kind of hang out with you, teach you what I'm doing to get business, what I did to take over a thousand listings, my first 10 years, and what I'm doing now, you know, getting two or three deals a week. And so, but it really stems from a lot of the learning that I learned, which really centers us back into, you know, who are we? What are we here for why am I here um how am I going to show up you know and so that's that's what we're that's what we're talking about now and the series is called finding your joy where there's it's a four-part

series and today I want to talk about how to get absolutely everything you want it's a big topic how to get absolutely everything that you want in life I remember back in 2008 was it eight yeah 2008 it was in December and I was sitting there Gary Keller had had asked me to meet with him I was I had just become the number one real estate agent in Austin and that's really what I wanted I wanted to be number one and I finally got it took me four years after I got my license I was the number one real estate agent in the city out of 9800 agents and when the Austin business journal came out with the report they list the top names. You know, my production was number one as a solo agent.

And so that warranted a call from Gary Keller himself, or his office, I should say. He didn't call me himself. His assistant called. She set up a meeting one-on-one with Gary. And one of the first things Gary did was he gave me a book by Mike Hernaki. And the title of the book is called Permanent Prosperity. Okay. the secret to permanent prosperity.

That's the name of the book. The secret to permanent prosperity. And the guy's name is, the author's name is Mike Hernaki. And so it's a very short read. It's not a hard read at all. It's highly recommended. And at the end of the day,

it really comes back to this. What is it that you want? What do you want? I'm talking about how do you get everything in this life that you want? Now, remember, David said, he said, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. So really, for the believer, wanting is not really even a state for us or shouldn't be. And so I like to take that word want.

I use the word in my training because it's something that's familiar. So I guess out of love, I still use it. But in reality, in my languaging, I use the word desire. What, what is it that I truly desire and then you could also throw the word require what is it that you require and desire okay because what you desire desires you that that's the truth what you what you want wants you what you desire desires you um and so it really the the way that you get the way that you're going to get every single thing that you ever want in this life is step one you've got to know what it is that you want. And I know a lot of people think they do, but they really don't. You know, I hear things like, and this is something I hear all the time, Bradford, I'm going to tell

you. So I hear people, like I talk to them, I say, hey, what's your big why? What do you really want? And they say things like, you know, my grandkids. That's nice. I'm not here to poo-poo on anybody's, you know, thing, right? That's your thing. You believe that? But in the reality, what really happens is they don't really believe that. Because if they, if it was, the thing is, it's, it's not as important to them as they think it is. Because if it were, it would be like that last, that next breath you just took. You got to have, you'd be dying to have it. Okay.

And some people just don't have that much desire. I remember when I was in a point in my life when I had slipped into apathy. Okay. Anybody ever been there? in apathy, okay? You might be there and not even know it. It's easy to get into apathy. Apathy is where you get disillusioned by life and then you're just like, who cares? Well, I'm not even going to try. Like, why do I even try so hard? It doesn't work. You know, you start getting that EOR syndrome, right? It's not going to work out anyway. And I know no one here

thinks that way. However, in the subconscious mind, that's what we're talking about, because that's where the real crux of it all happens, okay, is in the subconscious mind. So when you say something like, oh, my big why is my grandkids, but yet you're still not reaching your goals, you know what that tells me? You need a bigger why. You grandkids ain't big enough, all right? I'm sorry to say it, but I talk to people all the day. This is what I do. I'm a coach, a trainer. I've trained tens and thousands of agents. Paul and I, we have 40,000 real estate agents on our list that we interact with and we email and do things with and stuff like that. Over the years that I've accumulated from the first agent that joined my list, my mailing list to the 40,000.

And I pretty much know the drill. A lot of times your Y is just not big enough. So that's something to work on. But when you really know what it is that you want, what is it that you truly? desire and require. Okay. The God Almighty is not going to withhold that from you. It's not going to happen. So the only thing that would be left is that you're withholding it from yourself. If you don't have everything that it is that you desire and require in this life, that's that's sort of an internal reflection. Okay. Don't don't go blame. Well, the Lord ain't come

through. No, no, no, no, no, no. You know, it's choices. Write down the word choices. Okay. The choices that we make has created the lifestyle that we now live. And I know it's a hard topic. I'm talking to myself as well. I remember I made a critical mistake one time. This was a bad mistake.

And people ask me all the time, you know, there's a book by Bronny Ware called The Five Regrets of the Dying. I've talked about it before. The five top regrets of the dying. People on their deathbed, what they're not. There are five top regrets. Okay. The number two regret, I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

The number one regret, I wish I'd had the courage to live a life that was true to myself, not the life that others expected of me. Okay. Some people are so far down the rabbit hole, we talked about this a little bit last week. They're so far down the rabbit hole that they don't even know what they want anymore. You know, just lost track of it. You know, you married, and I'm going to say it like this, and this is not a slam. I'm just saying, you might know somebody like this.

You know, they gave up on a childhood dream because their parents didn't believe in it. Then they ended up going to get a degree that they really didn't want because to please mom and dad. That degree led them to some other city, okay, where they met somebody that they probably shouldn't have married in the first place. Okay? Then they ended up in this job that they hated. Now they're in real estate. and they're not really liking it, right? Because they haven't really done the internal reflection to figure it out,

figure out, okay, what is it that I truly desire? What do I want out of this life? You come here for a reason. You chose to come here. This is not, you're not here against your will. Like some, you know, unknown God just willed you to be coming to existence. No, you're here by choice. God said, God told Jeremiah, he says, I knew you.

before I created you in your mother's womb. And I believe that's true for every individual that God knows. And he used a very intimate word when he said he knew you. Okay, K-N-E-W. It's a very intimate word. It's the same word that was used in Genesis when it says that Adam knew Eve, and they begot a son.

Okay, it's pretty intimate, all right? So he says that he knew you before you got here. All right. And so the question is, what is it, what are you here for? What, what's your life about? What do you desire and what do you require? Well, it really begins with knowing what it is that you want. And in this book, everybody has a copy. Okay, everybody in this class has a copy of this, success with listings. And this will be your homework. I've got a really cool homework sheet, worksheet that at the end of the series I'm going to give you that's going to tie all this together. But, um, um, In chapter three, I talk about this. And there's a whole section where I talk about this idea. We're going to talk about goals next week. But this week we're just talking about what is it that you want. I talk about what is it that you want?

I remember one time I was sitting down with a friend of mine. And this guy, I've known him for many, many years. I've known him since he was like 13 years old. I was 18. And I just become a believer, became sort of like his big brother. brother, and we were sitting down together, and he was telling me all this stuff he hated about his job. He didn't like this. He didn't like that. I mean, he went on, it seemed like he went on for 10 minutes. Maybe, maybe it was longer, maybe it was less, but it seemed like he went on for 10 solid minutes,

telling me all the things he didn't like about his position, his job, his, the, where he was in life. And so I looked at him, I said, well, what do you, what do you want? And he would, silent. It was like he looked at me dumbfounded. He didn't, he could tell me everything he didn't want. He knew that, but he could not tell me, he could not articulate what it is that he wanted. Well, a person like that, the scripture says that a person like that is not going to get anything from the Lord. Okay. When you ask, this is what scripture says. When you ask, as believing that you have already received it. Otherwise, you're just like a double-minded man,

unstable in all his ways. Let not that person believe that they will receive anything from the Lord for their double-minded, unstable. And that's what scripture says. So when you don't know what you want, you get nothing. Okay, we call it the law of least choice in sales. You know, the reason why we only give people a couple of choices, and I do this in my, when I, when I list a property, they say, well, what's your commission? I say, commission is negotiable.

You know, it's negotiable. We can negotiate that when we get together. What do you charge? You know, guess what? You're not going to pay me nothing if you don't hire me. It's going to be zero, right? Zero commission, zero percent. If you, if we get together, look, listen to me, Jim.

if we sit down and you absolutely don't like me at all, you don't want me to sell your house, you're not going to pay me nothing, okay? Because you're not going to hire me, all right? So let's do the right thing. Let's go ahead and sit down. Let's schedule a meeting. Let's sit down.

Let's see if you like me and you think that I can get the job done for you. Let's interview each other, okay? And then once we got through that, my commission's negotiable. Now, when I get down, sit down with them, I explain to them. You know, I charge either, you know,

I do a six, percent a 5 percent or 4 percent okay that's how I negotiate right so so but yeah you you have to know what you want so let's talk about this for a minute when you don't know what you want you get nothing okay that's that's the math that's how the universe works so um just think about this for a minute the waiter comes over but my wife and I were we went to din sum anybody ever had din sum y'all like din some you might know what I'm talking about din some yeah den sum you know they come over to the table. I mean, they have a card on the table, the place that we go to,

and then they have, you check off what you want. Okay, you want the, you know, the shrimp and noodle, I mean, shrimp and, and pork, you know, I don't even know what they're all called, but, you know, the shrimp and pork balls, you know, they're all kind of names, right? And you just name it, like, okay, I want one of these, one of these, one of these. It's so good. And so now just imagine the waiter comes over to your table. table, okay, Cindy, and they say, well, what do you have? You looked at the menu. What do you

have? Yeah, I don't, I don't, uh, you know what, I tell you what I'll have. This is what I'm going to have right here. I want the, the cheeseburger, okay, we're at a different restaurant now. I want the cheeseburger and with fries. And I want that cooked, you know, medium well, and I want, and you go through everything you want, okay, the waiter starts to walk away. You say, hey, hey, hey, hold on a second. Hold on a second. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You know what? That's probably not good for me. I'm going to have the salad.

Y'all have a salad, right? Yeah, let me have the salad with the chicken and then I'm going to have this on the side. He says, no problem. Ma'am, I can change that out for you. There's no problem at all. So it changes it out. Then he goes back, puts in your order.

They start cooking it. You say, hey, could you call the, you get somebody else. Hey, could you call my waiter over here? The waiter comes over. It's like, yes, ma'am, can I help you? Yeah, I don't want that. I don't want the salad with chicken.

I think I want spaghetti and meatballs. okay after so much of that what's what's the waiter going to say what's the waiter going to say anybody got an idea what the waiter would say you don't want me to say it on here nolly if they're nice they're going to say something like Cindy Cindy what would you think they'd say to you go to a different restaurant if they're nice here's what they're going to say Cindy or they're not going to name your name but they're going to say ma'am when you're ready when you really know what you want I'm over there okay call me back when you really know what you want. Okay. For many of you, that's what the universe is telling you. Okay, Bradford,

when you look, man, when you know what you want, you know, this week we're doing this. Next week, we're doing that. Now we're doing expires. Now we're doing this. We got this new campaign run. Now we're going to try that. No, let's do this instead. Look here. When you know what you want, I'm right over there. But once you know what you want, you let me know. Just think about jumping in the back of a cab and you tell, hey, I want to go to one-on-one Main Street, okay, No problem. You know, they take, you know what? I decided not to go there.

I'm going to go here instead. Okay, no problem. I take you there. Hey, it's no problem. You know what? I don't even want to go there. Let me think about where I want to go. No, let's go over here instead.

Like, dude, get out my cab, you know. And that is what a lot of people, a lot of people, unfortunately, are in time out because they don't know how the universe works. They don't know how God has set everything up. Okay. And Jesus tried to explain these things, very simple concepts. You know, he said, in order to grow fruit, you got to put a seed in the ground. When the seed goes in the ground, it's got to die.

When it dies, it germinates. It germinates. It creates a sprout. The sprout becomes this, and that becomes that. But then you got to water it. You've got to put it in the right soil. You've got to put it in the right area. You've got to have sunlight.

It's got to have all these certain things. Okay. And the same thing when you have a dream, when you have a desire, when you have a desire, When you have a goal, when you have what you want, it's got, it's just like that seed. Okay. And a lot of times it never germinates. It never sprouts. It never becomes anything because you keep moving it around.

I know this morning, Josie was messing with her Jasmine plant. Okay. And you know what a friend of hers told her? He said, okay, now she's a green thumb. Those of you that have seen the stuff she grows, you know, she is a green thumb. Her mom was the same way. And they said, and this guy gave us a really good advice. He said, and he's a gardener also.

He says, what you got to do with a plant is you put the plant where you think you want it and just let it, you know, nurture it and everything like that. But just put it there for like two or three days and it'll tell you if it likes being there. If it don't like being there, it's going to tell you I don't like this spot. Okay, then you move it. Okay. But you don't plant it anywhere until you have it. Same thing with her garden.

You know, she'll put plants. She buys the plant. She keeps them in the pot. She has me dig the hole. Yeah, I'm professional at that. And we put the plant in the pot, in the hole where we think it's going to live. And in about two, three, four days, it tells us if it likes being there or not. And if it doesn't, we put it somewhere else where it likes it.

Okay. And it's the same thing with when it is, when it comes to what it is that you desire, what you require. when you keep moving around, then you get nothing because that's the recipe for it. So it all starts with knowing what it is that you want. What do I want? Now, to know that, I've got a lot of exercises for you. You know, homework, all right? And one of the exercises is in this book here, okay, three hours a day. It all starts with knowing what it is that you want. we're going to go kind of a little bit deeper into this. Next week we're going to talk about your goals.

We're not talking about goals today. We're just talking about what is it that you want. I remember when, and I've always been very clear about it, by the time I was 25, now I made all my sort of goals and everything. I'm teaching you how to do that next week. I had made all those by the time I was 18. And by the time I was 25, there was not a single goal that I had not. achieved and sometimes it becomes um I want to use the word boring it's not the right word but like I'll

give you an example so when when I got into real estate and my I wanted to become the number one real estate agent in Austin well for whatever reason that was my goal okay and I think it was more so because I had felt defeated I had just come from a company that I that I built up and did very well with made lots of money and then and then it it uh it failed the company failed. And so I was trying to basically, I was licking my wounds and I was trying to get my stroke my ego, okay, is what it was. And so, but that was my goal. The universe knew I put it out there and I was there in four years. Well, when I got there, it was like, mm, not really a big deal. Like, okay, like, like nobody really cares. You know what I'm saying? But it, you know, of course,

it's not really about that. For me, it was at the time because I had a lot of insecurity. But find out what is it that you truly, truly want? How are you wired? That's why we talked about last week your superpower, okay? Some people are walking so far outside of their zone of genius. They're just missing it completely, missing it 100%. This week I picked up three new deals, okay? And I'd like to tell you it was because of all the spectacular advertising,

all the marketing that I'm doing, all the stuff. That's not the reason why. It's because I've already programmed it in and it's happening. Like it's all it's that's what it is. I've already put it out there. That and now I've still got to do things. Okay. I can't just hold my hands.

But one day I'm going to teach you guys and just write it down for now. The we think that a plus B equals C, but that's not how the universe is programmed. It's it's we live in a nonlinear universe, okay? What that means is that um, a plus if I do a and B, I might, it might equals G.

You know, because you're doing the things that you know you should be doing, you might get a deal from all way from left feet, come from left field, okay, or from right field. All right. It may have nothing to do with the fact that you just placed that ad or you just

did that marketing campaign or you just sent out that postcard. Now you got a listing from Aunt Jane and another one from a friend that you never heard from and somebody calls you up like a gal just called me up. I haven't heard from in four or five years. Okay. Because it's the, the universe is putting it out there. Okay. Man, this dude is serious. He's about that. He's acting a fool. We better send him some deals. We got to serve him up because he knows what he wants. He came in. He got his order ready. Have you ever been to New York? Anybody ever been to New York? You know, I remember one time my brother-in-law went to New York. You know what he did? Now, there's places in New York. You go

up to the counter, you got to know what you want. Okay, because somebody will shove right in, Philly is kind of like that too. In Philadelphia, they're kind of like that. Somebody will shove right past you and put their order in. And they'll take their order. You ever been to a bar? You know, I know none of y'all drink like that, but you ever been to a bar and they're taking everybody's order, but, you know, they're not taking your order. Like you, hello, I've been here for like three or four minutes. I've been here for 10 minutes, okay? But that's how the university, You got to come in and shout your order. Hey, I'm going to take a filly cheese.

You want it with or without? Without. Okay, you got to put your order in. Everybody else is getting served and you just standing there. Like, when's my turn? No, you got to put in your order. The universe knows my order. And it already, it's over delivering, okay?

It's over delivering for me. And the same thing for you. I already know it's happening for many of you because you're following what I'm teaching, okay? And you're following what I'm telling you to learn. It's not just my teaching, but I say drink from many fountains, right? So there's a lot of teachers out there, and you're learning and you're and you're, and you're, and you're implementing. But what you're also learning is that the prize may come totally from somewhere else. And that's okay.

All right. It's okay that you mailed out 500 postcards and not, not a single one of those people called you back, but then you got three deals over here. That's how it works. Okay? You still got to put in the work. So how do we know what it is that we want? Well, I'm going to show you that. So read chapter three of this book.

It's going to help you. And many of you, I'll tell you, there's people that think they know what they want and they're endless life and then they get what they thought they wanted and they're disappointed. You know, I talk to people all the time. They say, I say, what do you really want? They say, I want to make a million dollars. Now, I already know that's not what they want, but they think it is. I made a million dollars when I was 29 years old.

I made my first million. Okay, I made two million dollars that year. I learned that it's not it. That's not it. You got to keep going. There's more to it. And that's why I help you in chapter three. In this book, okay, three hours a day, you're going to want to go and look at

chapter two. No, no, no, I'm sorry. It's step two in the process. Step one is to hone your superpower. But you're going to go into step two, and that's going to really help you through the exercises that are in the book. Okay, it's going to really help you to discover what is it that you truly require and desire. And then I've got another book called The Secret to Knowing God's Will for your life. I almost forgot the type of time. love it the secret to knowing god's will for your life that's also available in the in in in in in in school uh in the portal you can download it um and that has some you know steps in there to help you that's where it all begins know what your superpower it is superpower is uh and then know what

it is that you require and desire in this life and um that's how you that's how you get every single thing. It's very, very, very, very, very simple. You got to know and then you start moving toward what it is that you know. Well, thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Success With Listings podcast. If you are serious about taking your real estate career to the highest heights, making more money and helping more clients while working less hours and spending more time with your family, be sure to get your copy of my free book, triple my listing. Absolutely free at Success Withlistings.com. Now you want to be sure that you subscribe to the podcast and check out Successwithlisting.com to get your copy of my free book.

Hey, I'll see you on the next one.