KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Shifting from Operator to Architect: The Agent to CEO Momentum Engine

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

Summary:Host John Kitchens breaks down the "Agent to CEO" framework, a strategic model designed to help real estate professionals transition from being a "firefighting" operator to a business architect. Drawing from his extensive coaching background and endurance racing experience, Kitchens introduces the Theory of Constraints, explaining that growth requires identifying the single "grinding gear" in a business rather than doubling down on raw effort. Agents will learn how to use a "decision filter" based on freedom and core values to remove bottlenecks and build unstoppable momentum.

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. Get ready to think bigger and transform your business into a path to lasting freedom. What is happening? Welcome to Expert Mentors Live, episode 315. And man, this is where experienced operators break down what actually drives results. And I have the honor to be able to jam and hang.

out with you guys today. We are going to unpack the agent to CEO momentum engine. And listen, as always, if you guys want clarity on your next move, go book your call at seven figure call.com. And let's dive in. So I had the opportunity to speak at an event last week in Birmingham, Alabama, a further together event with Connie, Kali Alexander, Jack. They're the go-to luxury expert in Birmingham, Alabama. And my longtime client and dear friend, Mr. Gene Darden, and it was just, it was awesome. Had a great lineup, a great event, great location, just everything about of it was first class. I wouldn't expect anything different. And so this is the conversation. You know, when I was asked to come in and was actually asked to

kick the event off, which is kind of a nice little change up, usually, you know, bringing us home, but had the opportunity to kind of set the stage. And that was really intentional as we wanted to set the stage mindset-wise as kind of the theme was mindset momentum heading into coming out of first quarter here in 2026 as we start to round first heading to second, which is kind of half time for this year. And so we thought it was. was really important to make sure that we set the stage in the right frame of mind. And I want to just kind of walk you through the presentation that I had the opportunity to share there in Birmingham with you guys today.

So let's jump in. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to just kind of fast forward through the beginning of the presentation, take you into kind of the teaching part. And we'll kind of then kind of call to action that we had. But I just want to walk you through this because it's extremely important for, from where our heads need to be as we are looking to build momentum. And I tell clients this all the time.

Momentum is a challenge and it's hard to get. But once you have momentum, you never want to let it go. Because once you have it and you lose it, it's 10 times harder to get back. Okay. It's the old adage, right? It's easier to stay in shape than to get in shape. So think about that from a momentum. It's the same thing, right?

It's easier to maintain momentum than to build momentum. So once you have it, you want to hang on to it and write it as long as you possibly can. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to share these, but I'm just going to jump down a little quick context for those that I haven't had the opportunity to meet. We've got so many new people coming into the community, coming in to Honeybadger Nation, coming into the agent legacy community. and maybe this is the first time that you had the opportunity to jump in and, you know, check out the show. Thank you guys for being here. Like, subscribe, share. As Andy Fersela says, don't be a, you know what, share the show.

So if you guys get value out of this, the greatest compliment is to be able to share this with others that would get a ton of value out of it as well. A little context, man, I'm a Hall of Fame coaches kid. I got to make sure I say that. You know, my dad's in the coaching Hall of Fame in Oklahoma. for the public school system through coaching through the entire state. So it's kind of cool. I could say, you know,

my dad's a Hall of Fame coach. And what that meant, man, is I just grew up in the locker room. I grew up on the field, you know, all of my extra time in childhood if I wanted to spend time with pops, I was on the field. I was in the locker room.

Yeah, I was that kid that got athletic taped upside down on the ceiling. I've got locked into multiple lockers, all part of the experience, right? But when you're in that environment for a long period of time, and this is true for, us in any part of our lives. When we're in, you know, an environment, it forms a belief system.

And so for me, the belief system of knowing that everyone on the planet needs a great coach in the life because I believe with a great coach in your life, your life will be better. And listen, for our business to be better, we have to be better. And when we have, you know, these belief systems, this is really what starts to form our why. And for me, it's to inspire and challenge people to think bigger. And if you guys have listened to any of the episodes on the podcast, you know, my whole goal for the John Kitchens coach podcast experience is to really create a masterclass in becoming the CEO of your life and the CEO of your business. And I just know with absolute certainty, inspire challenges people to think bigger. You've got to

think bigger. I promise you, everybody listening to this conversation, you're not thinking big enough and we want to think bigger so that we can transform our lives and transform our business. Quick backstory. Supposed to go to college to play golf. Ended up on the drinking team instead of the golf team. And that was a recipe for disaster. Ended up moving out to California. Walked into kind of the ideal situation for me, which became my schooling, had one of the

most amazing bosses that you could ever ask for, Kathy Wake. and Kathy really taught me all the ends and outs and the facets of really running an organization and running a business, learning how merch moves in and out of the pro shop, learning how to, you know, hold people to the dress code by just simply raising the dues or the, you know, the fees to play golf by just a couple dollars would turn away folks showing up in tank tops versus showing up to the dress code, little things like that, right? and got sucked back into Oklahoma, a couple childhood friends, serial entrepreneurs, ideas, execution. We sold the last endeavor at the end of 2003.

We had nothing to do, so we thought it would be a good idea to start a bar, which led down as a very slippery slope for me. And that was all it took to make the connection with the gentleman there in the blue shirt next to me, Mr. Michael Reese. he is the connector and actually michael and i go back to junior high high school days of playing playing golf together and a little interesting worthless fact we were actually first roommates together out of high school while we were at cameron university for that year year and a half but he is the connector he connected me to a gentleman there in the yellow mr j kender and over the past 20 years been a part of three separate seven-figure real estate businesses over 4300 or transactions under my watch.

Personally, have coached thousands of real estate professionals. I need to update that number. We're a little over 176 one-on-one sessions, over 10,000 hours, which we passed about nine months ago. So just relatively hitting that in the 14 years now of coaching, of one-on-one coaching, not one-to-mini. That's a whole separate statistic, but in the one-on-one capacity. And the reason that this would mean anything to you is just,

I just have a unique perspective. Most operators, coaches, agents don't have, right? Multiple markets, multiple transactions, coaching agents now all over the world. And so just a unique perspective, not very many situations I haven't encountered. I'll put it that way. Opportunity to work with some of the best and the best on the planet. And that army is still continuing to grow. So here is what's on the agenda.

I want to walk you guys kind of through what we kind of look at as the bottleneck into the shift and then into kind of what is that breakthrough that we all need. And really what this becomes is this is really the linchpin for our business. So I want you to pause for just a second. And I want you to think about when you first started this journey into, real estate. Okay. And maybe close your eyes. Obviously, if you're driving, listening to this, might not be a good idea, but if you're in a situation, just close your eyes and think back, right? What was your vision of the future when you got into real estate, right? The idea was probably

pretty dang simple, right? I'm going to work hard, I'm going to grow my business, and I'm going to secure my future. What we thought it would look like was, man, if I work hard enough, the business is going to grow. If I focus on making more sales, the revenue will keep increasing. If the revenue keeps increasing, the profits surely will follow. And if the business keeps growing, eventually, my future is going to be secure. But what it really looks like is, man, I got a great plan. I got great intentions. But before noon, my firefighter hat is on. I've got 74 different problems that I have to be in the middle of to handle because my team can't handle it. I'm trying to focus on growth. Instead, I'm being pulled over here, being pulled over here.

I got people issues. I got operational issues. The more the business grows, the more decisions everyone is waiting on me to make. So here on the left, the expectation, the hustle illusion, the hustle grow freedom. Man, it's my linear growth path. And a status dude, I'm going to be number one in the market, more volume, more freedom. But the reality is this cat over here on the right, that's all hemmed up. And it is a complete whirlwind, endless loops. It never ends. I wake up and just put my firefighter hat on 90%, 95% of the daily firefighting. And then the bottom right there, right, the little profit trap. We think more growth, more profit. Ah ha. But what we fail to remember is that growth sucks cash.

And if you don't understand the financials and what drives them, you are that broken piggy bank. So the real problem, right? The real problem, it's not your marketing. It's not your sales or your leads. Okay? It's trying to grow without structure. and as all of the marketing sales leads everything's kind of funneling in ah that's where it breaks down right the leader is always the biggest bottleneck

remember the pack only runs as fast as the leader and we tend to put ourselves in a situation to where we become the biggest dang bottleneck okay Listen, hustle, hard work. Yes, I get it. Nobody cares. Work harder. However, hard work is not just the answer. Hustle is not a strategy.

Okay? And it's really about shifting from an operator to an architect. See, the reality that we have to understand is that this is a creative world. We get to design it however we want. Okay. And it's not just reported. This is how it is. This is how it has to be.

No, we get to design it to however we want it to be. Okay? One thing, like, listen, we're not, most folks, 99% of folks are not trying to build the next massive brokerage, the next EXP, the next real, the next LPT, the next Realty of America, just the cloud-based AI models that are coming on as the direction of the future. Most people aren't building those.

99% 99.99% of people are not building those. Most people in the real estate space want to make a really good living. Okay. And you've got to put this into perspective. Like, what are really good professions in your market? And what do those really good professions pay? What are they? What's the pay structure?

Right? Like some of these, you've got to, to work 50, 55, 60 hours to make six figures or make 70, 75,000 a year, how many transactions do you need to close in this space to make six figures? Depending on price point, it's not that many. Okay? And if you really look at it, okay, most of you in your markets can maybe close one to one and a half, two deals a month max, and make six figures, multiple six figures. And truth be told, if you're only closing one to two deals a month, you're working part-time. I don't care what anybody says, jump on here, let's talk about it. You're working part-time and making six figures.

Where else are you going to go and do that? Okay? To my point, six figures or even if you want to get to seven figures, there are so, there are so many paths to get there. Okay. That's why it's important to embrace the architect mindset. Okay. And once we realize, dude, I'm the bottleneck. Okay. And you know where the bottleneck is? The bottleneck is in our thinking. It starts to feel like we're constantly putting out fires issue after issue and then all of a sudden another one pops up. And we keep working harder, right? Nobody cares. Work harder. but the problems keep multiplying. This is nothing like the simple path that we imagined,

okay? Contrary to what we were taught, working harder never fixes a slowing business. People double down on effort because surely if you spend more time, more hours, more marketing, more activity, it's going to solve the problems. But effort doesn't equal growth, right? Go back to insanity, definition of insanity. Like a lot of agents that I've seen over the years, this is exactly what they do over and over expecting a different result. Why is this happening? What are you missing? Okay.

And this is where the shift comes in. A production mindset focuses on reacting to whatever problems show up next. Man, this deal needs attention. Oh, I got to handle, take care of this client. Oh, my gosh, something's broke over here. Oh, I got to deal with this issue. This person's having. And then we start to embrace, man, the more the business grows, the more I have to react to everything.

And I'm not getting anything done that actually makes progress moving towards something meaningful in my life. So what has to change? Real growth only happens when your mindset shifts from reacting to problems and critically examining how the business is. should operate because when you're thinking doesn't change, the business always defaults back to the same constraint. You, okay? Listen, what I'm talking about here is theory of constraints. Eli Golrat wrote the book on theory of constraints. Yes, I recommend it. Our mentor, it's his number one book recommendation. However, our mentor's number one book recommendation for 2026 is this book called Reset by Dan Heath. Listen, if you do not have a copy of this book, get this book. If you're coming to

kitchen table, my quarterly mastermind event that I host, don't buy it because I'm going to give you this book because this is how important it is. Inside of this book has 17 pages, the best 17 pages condensed on theory of constraints. Get this book. It's fantastic. Read it from front to back. However, use it as a resource manual for a lot of things, but number one, use it as a resource manual for theory of constraints. 17 pages best breakdown you'll understand. Most of you know and follow. if you listen to this show, you know who Alex Hormosi is and you follow Alex. Alex operates in theory of constraints. Everything he does comes down to theory of constraints. You have to understand this concept. Listen, I can help. I can help anybody that's coachable, that wants to help,

that wants to get better. I can really help you when you understand theory of constraints. Okay. We are most of the time the biggest constraint. We got to know how to remove that bottleneck. The other thing, and where this comes into, is the concept of understanding the difference between the window and the mirror. You have to ask yourself, what do you have a stronger relationship with? The window, because it's easier for you to look out at the world and point your finger at people, we all know those type of people, right, that will sit back in their chair and point

and direct, you know, they want to be the foreman of your life. They want to control you, right? Is that you? Are you calling the shots through the window? Or are you the individual that has a much stronger relationship with the mirror? So that's the question you have to ask. Which relationship is stronger? Your relationship with the window or your relationship with the mirror? I can promise you, you're not going to remove this constraint if you don't have a really good relationship with the mirror. Okay. It all starts with that reflection. So how do you break through from your bottleneck? Okay, the breakthrough. This is the breakthrough. How do you actually run the business differently? And this is where the linchpin of the entire process comes in. And this is, this is our process.

It's called the agent to CEO framework. The most important piece, there's six components in the agent to CEO process, the most important piece is the CEO operating system. Okay. It's going to give you as a leader a structured way to identify the real constraint, make better decisions, and design the systems that allow your business to grow without depending on constant intervention. Let's break this down. What is the CEO's operating system? And the CEO operating system is a proven three-part framework. It is designed to re-engineer your business for predictable growth, moving you from operator to architect. Okay. Listen, best definition of an operator, an operator just gets shit done. You might not have a rhyme or reason or know why. You just know how to get results, but you don't

understand how you do it. There's no system that's just like, I see it. I just, I can get the ball in the end zone. They just can't tackle me. I'm faster and I'm more. elusive than anybody else. Okay, until you get a little bit older and you slow down, you get you get hemmed up a little bit, then you go and get caught. So you got to have a framework. You got to have that system. And the three parts are the constraint finder, theory of constraints, just told you,

the best resource for theory of constraints, the decision filter, this is so important, and the leverage engine. So key number one, the constraint finder. Stop fixing everything and find the single gear that is grinding. Okay. You have to look at your business as a machine. And every business only has one true constraint at a time. Identify that and fix it.

Okay. Most leaders spend our time reacting to symptoms instead of addressing the real problem. When energy is spread across the world, too many issues, nothing truly improves. Okay. The goal is not to do more work. The goal is to remove the obstacle that stops the work. And Eli Golrad is the godfather of the theory of constraints. The book, the goal, okay, it's fantastic. It's a fable. It's tough to listen to, but talks about this machine, factory, but he also, you know, conveys it into the relationship with his kid, and he also conveys it into the relationship with his wife.

It's great to Fable. I highly recommend listening to it, but if you want to get down to the brass tax of it and give me what I need to be able to operate, go here, 17 pages versus an entire book. Give you an example. So I was talking to a team lead that operates a enterprise team, one of the top teams for EXP in the entire country, but also one of the top, it is the top team

in one of the states. And we were talking through this theory of constraints where the biggest bottleneck was. And it's business wise, traffic conversion, fulfillment, retention, said consistent leads, consistent sales, consistent results, and retention. And we were talking about going through this exercise, and I'm asking the question, where's the constraint? And he's like, dude, we got like eight platforms. It's a mess. We got to tighten up our systems, get better results. And I said, well, is that the bottleneck? I said, let's go red light, yellow light, green light through the three things that are required for consistent sales, or, excuse me, consistent leads.

Let's go through the three things that are required for consistent sales, and let's go through the three things that are considered for consistent results. Right things, right order. And so we started working through it. Okay? What we found is that it was somewhere over in, there was some yellow lights in the consistent leads. Now, listen, you zoom out,

they don't have a lead problem however their message to their target audience is not crystal clear so there's a yellow so we need to clean that up and then we get over in the consistent sales he's thinking his biggest problem is how do i fix my systems on the back end because we have too many tools we have too much stuff everywhere that's a real problem but that ain't the main problem that's what theory of constraints will get you. It'll get you working on the number one problem. Because if you avoid the number one problem, that's not a good strategy.

You're only going to get second, third, and fourth problem results when you solve those instead of first problem results. Okay. So hopefully that makes sense for you guys, super important to know where the real kink in the water hose is that we've got to remove first. Okay. So key number two, key number two is the decision filter.

It is so important for us to think in second order to solve problems permanently. We want to move beyond the temporary band-aids that we all put on our business. We have to evaluate the long-term ripple effects of our solutions to ensure we are solving problems permanently. We don't want to just plug a leak if it remains creating a massive flood downstream tomorrow. When decisions are made with long-term consequences in mind, reoccurring problems disappear in the organization becomes more stable and predictable. The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your decisions. I always like to run everybody through this scenario right here.

because what you have to realize is that do you have good decision-making filters in place? Do you have a process to make decisions? Okay, here's my process. Real simple. One, I want to know what all the words mean. I want to make sure we're all speaking the same language, right? You talk about success. I talk about success.

Most of the time, your definition and my definition are different. We need to get clear on what the words mean. Second is show me the math, right? Business is just math. Show me the math. I want to see what the math is because most of the time, the math and the data will tell the story. And then the third thing is, if I say yes to this, what's the ripple effect of my decision? Okay, it's like you drop a pebble in the water and just ripples out, right?

That's the same impact of our decisions. What's going to be the ripple effect? Now, what are the filters to run our decisions through? why do we always start with what's the goal? What's the vision? Where are we trying to go? Because that's a decision-making filter. And when you tell me what you're trying to do, I get to ask you, is that going to move you closer to where you want to be? Or is it going to move you further away? Listen, the only goal in business is freedom, the freedom of choice, the freedom to do whatever the heck it is that you want to do. That's what we're all striving for. And our business has to be our business. It's a

designed to move us closer to freedom. The reason I see so many folks getting stuck, including ourselves for decades, is because we were chasing the wrong goal. You have to get clear on the goal, and you have to use those filters to make sure that you're moving closer to freedom and not choosing to do something that is moving you further away. The second part is, do you have clear written core values? Do you know what core values are?

Those are the shoulds and should nots in your life. More importantly, your core values are your decision-making filters. Okay? We hire, fire, train, lead, coach, mentor, support, cheer, hold people accountable through the core values. Okay? My number one is always growth, right? I believe we grow and committed to growth personally and professionally.

daily. Daily, we're doing something to grow personally and professionally. That is a decision-making filter. I am not hiring you if you're not of growth mindset. I don't want to spend time with you if you're not trying to get better personally and professionally every single day. That's a decision-making filter. A-player's. What are A-player? This is how we behave. We think and we operate and make decisions and execute as an A-player. An A-player gets the job done 90% of the time within the given and pay range. Hey, I have a quick question. Do you know exactly where you are in your business?

And at what stage is keeping you stuck? If not, download the eight stages of the real estate business. It's the most powerful tool we've ever created and it shows you how to stop surviving and start scaling. You can grab the blueprint at the eight stages. That's the number eight stages.com and get clarity on your next move. All right, let's get back at it. I only want to be around people that can get the job done 90% of the time, given the pay range and the scope that we're working in.

100, 100,0, own the outcome, right? It's all about results, no excuses. And one of the best examples of this, and listen, I was late to Landman. I will admit that, but that is one of the best shows I've seen in a long time. And the last two episodes of Season 2 might be the best to go back and watch. If you haven't seen it, I recommend watching it. If you have seen it, it's worth going back and revisiting to just see how people behave. Okay.

That is an example of 100.0. His daughter shows up late. For cheer practice, no excuses. She made no excuses. Tell coach, you know, hey, my fault, I won't be late. I'll be early. At the end of that practice session, coach comes back with feedback. Goes, hey, you got to get your legs up.

okay, great, I'll work on that. Coach goes, how are you going to work on that? I know I need to stretch more. Owning it, accountability. And one of the most powerful scenes, and here's the lesson. His ex-wife to be new wife, whatever, loses her, you know what, when she finds out that Tommy had lost his job. And she was mad because he didn't tell her.

And when she called him, this is like, You got to go watch this because it is brilliant. He goes, listen, I don't bring problems. I bring solutions. I don't have a solution to this problem, but I soon will. And when I do, I'll bring it to you. Oh, what if we all thought about that? What if you had a team that operated in getting results and solutions, right?

Those are values, okay? Those are decision-making filters. What are your decision-making filters that's going to improve every aspect in every quality of your life. Key number three, this is the leverage engine. This is where we apply disproportionate force to shatter that bottleneck. And listen, guys, stop creating endless to-do list that we never get to. Okay. Stop treating $10 tasks with the same importance as $10,000 tasks. All right? Go into finding the constraint and solving them ruthlessly and putting every ounce of energy and effort and resource that you have to remove that bottleneck.

Too many of us treat every dang task with the same level of importance, what spreads effort thin and slows momentum. Yes, details matter. Okay. But when energy is concentrated on the constraint, progress accelerates. The team gains clarity in the business begins moving faster. Guy that wrote the book, Doing more things doesn't create better results. doing the right things does, doing the one thing. And then guess what? Then there'll be another one thing. Then there'll be another one thing. But solve that one thing to open the flood gates to then go create another constraint. All right. So here's another example. Too many agents are worried about writing a contract, right? New agents coming into the business, man, I got to

understand the contract. I got to know. It was like, why, why are you given one ounce of energy on how to execute and write a contract when you don't even have one customer to talk to. Why don't you go get some people that want to buy and sell real estate, then we'll worry about that. Write things, right order, right? Solve this problem. Then we'll deal with that problem once this one is solved. That's how you have to operate. That's how things get done.

Okay. And here's that momentum equation, right? So it's that mindset, the internal driver, which is everything, plus this new operating system, this framework, this blueprint that helps you identify the constraints and install predictable systems for execution is what equals the momentum in the resulting force. Listen, you don't need, you don't get freedom by working harder. Okay. Yeah. Listen, nobody cares. work harder. I embrace that. In fact, I got it written down right here. I'll look at it every day.

We earn it by becoming the person who leads differently, thanks clearly, and executes without excuse. You want a better business? They become the better version of you who can build it. So here's the CEO toolkit. All right. If you guys want to download this, you can, if you're watching the video, you can hit the QR code. If you're listening, you can go to agent to CEO. A, G-E-N-T-O-C-E-O-C-O-C-O-C-O-C-O-C-O-C-O-C-C-O-C-E-O-T-C-E-O-T-K to be able to get that copy of the CEO operating system. So I, man, I can obviously keep going, but I want to pause right there with today's episode. And we have to really remember, we tend to figure things out as humans, right? We're just naturally wired to solve problems. Once we have a level of awareness and we can

truly see what the problem and the constraint is, then we're just wired to go solve it. And sometimes we get rewarded for bad behavior. And it's a lot of the, I got this, I'm the only one that can solve this. I'm the only one that can do this. Listen, if you embrace that mentality like I used to, you immediately put a lid on your potential. You immediately put a lid on your what's possible for you. Man, about a decade ago now, geez, it's wild. They even say that. I went, started on this endurance journey and I've shared the story many of times here on the podcast. my mom when I was 11, two months shy of her 40th birthday. And when I was getting ready to turn 40, 49 now, so it's 39. And I just, I wanted to do something to honor her. And I just went down

this endurance journey prior to that, just the 5K fun beer runs was about it. If I had to run a mile, I was just like I was dreading it. And so I just wanted to do something hard that was going to put me on a journey that I was really going to have to work for. And so landed up. running a marathon. Ended up choosing to run the New York City Marathon, being slow as a turtle, you know, had to find an alternative to be able to get in.

And I was able to get in and, I just had an awesome experience. I took my dad. It was the only time that he had ever been to New York City. It was just really, you know, a lot of magical moments. And I remember several, a couple months after, you know, getting through the finish line and there in Manhattan in Central Park. where the New York City Marathon wraps up was in L.A.

And if you guys ever have an opportunity to hear Jesse Hitzler speak from stage, man, run to see that man. He is the best from stage. And, you know, you've ever been in an audience or been in a room? And, man, you're like, man, that dude is speaking to me. And I had one of those moments. And Jesse said something that just really stuck with me. And he said, you know, the worst thing.

as a human being is accomplishing a major milestone and not immediately resetting the goal. See, I had accomplished a major milestone of completing a marathon, yet I hadn't reset the goal. Fast forward a couple weeks later, get a text message from none other than Michael Reese with a link to 10-year anniversary of Iron Man, Florida. And I'm like, what in the heck is Iron Man? I've seen it on TV, but I have no clue what an Iron Man is, a full Iron Man. And so just went down the rabbit hole. You know, I'm just of the belief.

I don't believe you commit and figure it out. I believe you figure out what it is you want and reverse engineer and then ask yourself, is that something you can commit to? And so I just did my homework, figured out what it was, you know, what 2.4 miles in the water was, figured out what 112 miles on the bike was, figured out, oh, I know what 26.2 because I had just done that a couple months back in the new. York City Marathon. Combine that all together, you know, you're at 140.6 total miles, total distance covered and going through the reverse engineering what it's going to take. And really what

it comes down to is time, right? It really comes down to time. And the riddle I was trying to solve was how much time is required to train to be able to get across the finish line. And it was 13 to 14 hours a week training, not prep, not recovery, just that time. Looked at the calendar, had the conversations, and was able to commit to that, and went down on that journey. And how that journey started was the same way the marathon journey started. See, I downloaded a guide and I just followed the process from the download. Me?

I had success doing something really hard that I downloaded and followed a script to be able to accomplish. Guys, I got two months out from Iron Man, Florida, and I was lost. And I had one of those in the mirror moments. And the conversation was, dude, you're an idiot. Like, you are the biggest idiot I've ever seen in my life. And you're an idiot because you coach people for a living. your dad's a Hall of Fame coach,

yet for some brilliant reason, you have this false belief that you can figure out how to run a full Ironman, get from Texas to Florida, and be able to finish this race without dying. And it was that moment like, dude, I need a coach. And it was like, it was embarrassing,

but it was also freeing knowing, that anything that we want to accelerate and truly accomplish in life, we need guidance. We need mentorship. We need coaching. And from that moment on, was able to really understand everything and build the foundation that was able to carry me through three full Ironman finishes and now into the 100-mile foot race journey that we're on five, five, 100-mile race. a couple more lined up this year.

Obviously, everything is working towards a bigger goal. So we're just building the resume. We're building the resume right now because we do have bigger goals. But everything is building towards that. And listen, three finishes, five hundred mile finishes, not possible without a great coach in your corner to be able to make that happen. And I've been very fortunate to have that coach in my job. my corner for the journey so far. So guys, appreciate the opportunity to be able to jam with you

on expert mentors live episode 315. And listen, all of the episodes here, all of the episodes in our agent to CEO conversations plus many, many other conversations from the past are all loaded at the John Kitchens coach podcast wherever you're at. If you got value from this, man, do me one huge favor, right? If you see it on YouTube, like, subscribe, hit the bell, get notification. But go to the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, share it with others. If you got value from it,

it's the biggest compliment that we can have. And just appreciate you guys. Tuning in. And that's a wrap. That's a wrap today's episode of Expert Mentors Live. And thank you guys for tuning in, allowing me to jam with you,

share presentation that I had the opportunity to give from stage last week in Birmingham, Alabama. And listen, I know this isn't service level conversation. This is about the decisions that move your business and your life forward. So if you guys are ready to scale with clarity and eliminate the constraints holding you back, go to 7FigureCall.com and book your call.

Until then, we'll see you next time, guys. And as always, keep making it happen. Thanks for tuning in. If you're done guessing and ready to lead like a real see, CEO with a custom strategy, real accountability, and proven systems, check out my executive one-on-one coaching at john kitchens.coach. Fill out the application and book your one-on-one call with me. Be sure to hit follow so you never miss an episode.

Catch you on the next one.