KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Start Living Your Best Life Now Jon Pugh

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Hello, hello, hello. How is everybody today? It's an amazing, beautiful, sunshiney day here in Northern California. And I am excited to be hosting another fabulous guest on Real Estate, Real World, where we get to talk to all the cool people. Now, this guy, I've been following for a while, and I'm super inspired by what he has done. In fact, last year, he won the Humanitarian of the Year Award for EXP Realty, which I think is incredibly, incredibly amazing. So, super proud of him. With over 15 years in real estate, John Pugh is a seasoned professional dedicated to providing top-tier service. Armed with a Bachelor of Science in History, he stands out for personally managing every aspect of the sales process, offering valuable

insights for informed decision-making. Specializing and identifying unique property features, John's track record includes record-setting transactions, including the most expensive sale in Orange County. Wow, that's cool. As a certified stressed property expert, he extends his expertise to clients facing personal hardships with a transaction history exceeding $300 million. $300 million. You heard that right. John's resilience and overcoming diverse real estate challenges sets him apart in the industry. Welcome, welcome, my friend John. You know, I don't know how I didn't know you were in Southern California. For some reason, I thought you were back in the South somewhere. I don't know. I don't know. I guess the

and the flip-flops didn't give it away. So Cal, my whole life, born and raised. And that, it's funny to hear that old bio, because that's just not what I resonate with these days. But all of that is true. But it's just good to hear. Yeah, once upon a time sold the most expensive house in Orange County history. Last year, it was honored to receive the Humanitarian of the Year award. And I've done a lot of cool things in between those two, including being named one of the EXP instructors of the year before. So I love to give back to the real estate community and help agents. I specialize in building mission driven businesses and have a great luxury background and love to give back and help. So thanks for having me on today. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. From everything that I've seen you, you're pretty amazing and all that you've done. But I realize that sometimes a bio doesn't even give one hundredth of a percent of who the person is, right? Well, I don't like to talk about myself, right? I'm one of those people, right? I just like, that always makes me uncomfortable. And I just like to figure out how I can give back and how I can help others. I had a lot of. really incredible people help me along the way in my journey. And I've definitely made my fair share of mistakes. And so I just take it as a social responsibility to pay it forward for all the blessings that have come into my life. How long have you been in real estate now? So I've been licensed

about 20 years, but I've been in real estate my whole life. I started passing out flyers on my rollerblades when I was like seven years old. And that was my first job. And then I figured out, yeah, for my parents. And then I figured out I could get my friends to pass out the flyers for me. keep half the money and that was my first lemonade stand. So I've been an entrepreneur since I was a little kid and I really only ever worked in real estate. I never had a real job. The MLS was in those big books when I was in high school and it came out on computers and I started doing CMAs and data analysis and stuff. And I've just been a real estate kid my whole life and worked full time while going to college and getting my degree, which my dad really wanted me to finish. So yeah,

it's just it's in my blood. It's funny. You tell your entrepreneur story when I was a kid. I grew up in Chico. And in Chico, we had all the walnut trees everywhere. And we also had diamond or blue diamond walnuts or something. Factory was there. And so they would pay us $5 to take 50 pound guinea sack bags and fill them with walnuts and take them. And we would get five bucks for doing that. Well, I pretty quickly figured out that I needed to hire someone to fill the bags. So I hired my brothers to fill the bags. I paid them 250 and I kept 250. It worked out great. as our early as well. It's so funny how creative people can get, right, when they're trying to figure things out.

So you grew up in real estate. Your parents were both real estate agents? Yeah, sort of. My dad did like international business and got sick when I was about seven, eight years old and had to have a heart transplant. And so he was blessed with a heart transplant when I was 10. And the doctors gave him five years to live. And he ended up having 10.

And real estate was kind of his retirement career. my mom was going to do something else and then realized that this would be a good partnership. So she was a public facing client facing partner and my dad ran the back end and more of the business side of things. And they never treated it like a business, right? It just, they treated it like most real estate agents probably treated it back in the day and back before teams and all that stuff, just like husband and wife type thing. So I never really had like a big book of business that I walked into. But I did see the fact that it was really transformational in my relationship with them. because they never missed a sporting event.

They were never not there for something that was important to me. And so while they worked a lot, they did have that flexibility to be able to prioritize the things that mattered to them. And for them, that was me. And that really made a huge impact on my childhood and my life. And so I originally wanted to be an attorney. And then fortunately, I had an attorney come to Career Day. And I realized that what attorneys actually do has nothing to do with what it looks like

attorneys do on TV. And I was like, well, I'm not. interested in that anymore. How can I do less math and make more money and real estate seemed like the right call? You know, I actually love to hear that part because I've been in real estate for 30 years and I got into real estate when my oldest son was four years old, five years old. And then I had two children right away after I started in real estate. So my kids all grew up in real estate. And I remember asking them one day. I'm like, okay, so, you know, what was it like? Because you have all this mom guilt. You have a lot of parent guilt a lot of times. If you're not always doing what you need to do with your

family or if business for some certain phases of your life, business takes priority, right? And I remember asking them, so what was it like growing up with a crazy real estate mom? They're like, well, first of all, we didn't know any different. Like, that's the only mom they ever had. But they said the same thing you did. They said, you were always there for all of the events and things that mattered. And that's, I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful that I was given that flexibility to have a career that I have that allows me that flexibility. I know a lot of real estate agents that had that option and they didn't choose it. So good for you for prioritizing what mattered because you can always work a little harder.

You can always go take one more listing. You can always do something else business. How many people do we know that are successful, right, that sell a lot of properties? And yet they still don't feel like it's enough. they still chase that next deal or that high, that internal like high. And if you look at them, I know them all. And this is where like comparison is the thief of joy. You look at all these very successful people.

But if you actually get to know them and if you actually talk to them about their lives, which I'm very privileged to coach a lot of the top agents in the world. And when I get to know them better, I realize that many of them are just not happy and not fulfilled and maybe not focusing on the things that they wish they were. So good for you for prioritizing your family and good for us for finding some balance in this industry because it can be very imbalanced depending on what route you take. Yeah, 100%.

And I feel blessed that pretty early on in my career, I got involved with Joe Stump with Byroforl Only back in the day. He was from down there in San Diego area. And yeah, fantastic program. And I don't think that program, he's had many iterations. I don't think his bio referral only program is still around, but maybe it is. I remember one of the first things I learned was how to create a schedule for yourself, number one, and how to explain that schedule to your clients.

So they will respect it and honor it. And so early on, my schedule said, and it still does. If you listen to my phone, it says I work Monday through Friday, I'm 830 to 530. I work evenings and Saturdays by appointment. I take Sundays off to be with my family. And my phone still says, that to this day. And so I feel really blessed that I learned that early on. And I also find it ironic and

funny that the people who are the least respectful of my schedule are other real estate agents, not the consumers. My clients will be like, oh, hey, I know you don't work Sunday. So give me a call tomorrow or I just want to leave a message. I'll check in with you then. Real estate agents are like, what do you mean you don't work Sunday? What do you mean you don't work evenings? What do you mean? Well, they don't. Seven? They can't respond. your schedule because they don't respect their own schedule. And if they were doing the things that they needed to be doing in the times that they had allocated, then they would be able to take Sundays off. But as you know, many real estate agents are incapable of doing the things that matter most when it's

time to do them. And therefore, they allow business to control their entire life. And they just go around chasing the next moment or the next thing or the next phone call because they don't treat it like a business, much like my parents didn't. So you mentioned earlier that you have, focus a lot of your energy on mission-driven businesses. Explain that to our listeners. What does that mean? What does that look like? Yeah. So I had a great friend who was on a bunch of nonprofit boards and was doing all this amazing stuff in the world. And I was like, man, I just want to be like her someday. Like I want to graduate to that point. Like someday I would love to be like giving back and doing all this stuff. And what I came to realize is like that moment is now for everybody. There is no someday,

right? It's like agent attraction. It's not something you arrive at one day. It's just something you get started in. And she taught me that your real estate business can become a for-profit charity. And so much like the company, Tom's gives a pair of shoes away with every time you buy a pair of shoes and they want to do more good in the world, when I survey crowds as large as 5,000 or 10,000 people and ask if they want to do more good in the world, every hand goes up. And so in our communities, that's the same thing, right? And so what we can do as business owners or entrepreneurs or community builders, right? I look at real estate agents as community builders. And it puts us in a unique position to allow people to participate in doing good in the community. So most real estate agents,

not most, most successful real estate agents have a goal. And when I ask a successful real estate agent what their goal is, they'll usually tell me, I want to sell 30 homes or 70 homes or I want to make, I don't love this one, but I want to make half a million dollars, or I want to make a million dollars, or I want to, whatever they, however they categorize it. And the problem with that is if we want to work by referral only, we need to call our sphere of influence. We need to call the people we know and we need to enlist their help. And it's a lot easier to work by referral because you work with people who know you like, you trust you. They tend to share your core values. They tend to be the right type of client, right, versus the person who just goes on the internet and push the button on Zillow and

they're like a cave dweller who like hates people and you end up with this like horrible group of people because you've built your business with these people in alignment with who you are. And so if you want to work by a referral, like, you want to call your people. The problem is, if I call you and I'm like, hey, Marguerite, it's John, I have a really big goal this year. I want to help 20 families make a move. Like, you're not really bought into that. But if I just take one extra step, if I just build a mission driven business, then you can participate with me. And so the call looks more like this. It's like, hey, Marguerite, how's it going? How's your family? Tell me more about what you're up to this year. Tell me about your goals. Hey, can I share a goal with you of mine? Yeah, the goal this year is to help 20

families make a move and I desire to do that by referral. And the reason for that is I want to work with amazing people like you and I know that you know amazing people. So could I count on you for one introduction this year to someone who's incredible? And when I hit this goal and I help these 20 families make a move, I'm going to be able to buy new sporting equipment for the boys and girls club. And when I went there as a kid, we had this ratty old equipment. It just, it sucked. But it made a huge difference in my life going there. And so I think that the kids who go there today deserve to have brand new amazing equipment. so they feel good about themselves and they can become leaders in the community. Would you possibly be able to introduce me to one person this year so we could make those

dreams of those kids at the Boys and Girls Club come true? And when you connect it like that, now they have an opportunity to do good in the world. So you've given them a vehicle to have this chemical released in their brain, which is serotonin. And what we're used to right now is dopamine. And dopamine is from drugs and social media and all this shit that's bad for you. and we're addicted to it. And yet what we really want is fulfillment. And the fulfillment comes in the form of doing good in the world.

And the chemical it releases is serotonin. And the way to get that is by helping people fulfill this. And so you become, for lack of a better term, their happiness drug dealer. And by connecting the dots and giving them a way to get involved and then making it happen and then showing them the impact, like we've built wells in Africa and brought clean water over 10,000 kids who've never touched clean water before in their life. And we've helped people with muscular dystrophy. And I could list, you know, brought fed 235,000 families last year who are on low income,

like unable to feed their kids. That was 2.3 million meals, $235,000 donated in like one event. Like that type of stuff, when you show people the impact that you're making, it makes them feel great to be involved. And then when they're out at that fancy steakhouse, and they're about to cut into that filet mignon that's like $100, and they heard two tables over, somebody mentioned real estate,

they're happy to drop the knife and fork and run over there and be like, by the way, you got to call John, he's changing the world, da-da-da, boys and girls club, whatever. It's a completely different referral experience than them being like,

oh, well, you should work with Marguerite. She's a great negotiator. Yeah, I hope she is. That's her job. That doesn't make me special. So that's how it works.

So I love every, part of that. That definitely resonates with my soul. When did that happen for you? Like at what point did something change that said, I want to do more than just selling houses. I want to make an impact. It was a couple different pieces. So I was definitely the young guy. I remember one of my mentors said, people won't care how much you know until you know how much you care. And I responded with, oh, that's how they used to be. Back in the day, that's what people thought. Nowadays, people don't care. They just want results. Like blah, blah, blah. I was like, I was that guy. And I remember having a goal of this fancy car and like a certain amount of money.

And I was in the wrong arena for sure. And I had this guy on my team and he was never going to sell more than one house a year. And he was just like very boring and vanilla and his wife made more money than him. And I was like kind of giving him crap all the time. And we didn't share core values, right? I was way over here and he was way over here like doing good stuff. He was like leaving work early to go coach soccer. And he's just a good guy.

And so we broke up and a couple months later I got a phone call. and I found out that he had a brain aneurysm and died on the field playing rec league soccer, which is what he loved. And I was like, I better go to the funeral because that guy was pretty boring and I doubt anybody's going to show up. And when I got there, it was in an industrial neighborhood on a weekend. And I had to park like six blocks away. And I was like, this is really weird. And then when I got there, there was a line all the way around the building.

And when I went inside, I could never been in a room this big for a memorial service. And it wasn't just full of people. It was full of children and teens and banners and balloons and posters. And you've never seen a place like this. And in that moment, I realized that Keith didn't have his priorities wrong. I did. And Keith wasn't leaving the unimportant work at the office or important work at the office to do the unimportant work in the community.

It was the other way around. He was leaving the unimportant work at the office to do what really mattered in the community. And I didn't get it all figured out in that moment, but that moment set in place a series of dominoes that changed. my life forever. And I changed the way I thought about goals and giving. And it really made me focus on building a legacy like Keith had. And to this day, like, that's how I live my life. So right after this, I have a first football game for my son's spring season. I coach three sports. I coach seven different sports throughout the year. I spend a predominant amount of my time giving back and

doing charity work and all this stuff. And all because somebody taught me a really valuable lesson through the way they lived their life and he's no longer here. You know, one of my favorite quotes is that you come into this world with a lesson to learn or a lesson to give, right? And sometimes the lesson learned is based on what you had to give, right? Yeah, for sure. When you think about whatever your life purposes sometimes in trying to figure out, are you here to give a lesson or are here to learn a lesson? I think that changes. throughout your life, right? Like parts of your life, you're here to learn a valuable lesson.

And sometimes someone like Keith is here to give a lesson, right? That how his life impacted. And I want to believe that we all want to go out that way in a way that we've left a legacy, right? That we've left something. And it just becomes so important as you're connecting with people who, have been through things like that. And I just think it's important to be able to give back and to do more for others in a lot of ways. But it has to be genuine. It can't be like we've seen those people

are like, yeah, I'll give you $25 gift card if you refer somebody to me. Right. And that it's not really coming from their hurt. It's coming from the ulterior motivation, obviously to sell more homes or whatever that might look like. Well, yeah. And I think maybe this isn't for everyone. I think everyone can get involved in something. I think that most people do genuinely want to do more good and they're torn between this, I don't know how or I don't know where to start or whatnot. And so what I tell people, it's like anything, like you just have to get started. So where I started and where I am today are completely different places. But once I got started, I met more people that were connected into this world and in this giving space. And then I found different, I learned things like about the waste that goes on in large

corporations and large charities and how working with more local or direct giving can have a higher impact. And Maui is a really important place for me. And it's somewhere my family visits a lot. And it's just really special. And so last year, I was really devastated by the fires there. And I felt really helpless. And I felt like I couldn't do anything. And it wasn't there. Yeah, I could donate to whatever, but it just didn't feel like enough. And so I organized this fundraising benefit that EXP got behind and ended up being this amazing thing. I think we granted like 25 grants to families who had lost everything in Lahaina after me and my friends got together and did this online fundraiser. Then I went there and I was able to not only do the work virtually

and send the money, but I was able to go there in person. And when I got there, I was able to meet people at the grocery store and buy their groceries. And I was able to give them hugs and tell them that we're thinking about them and we care about them. I was able to give back to the local agents and mastermind with them and share like tips and tricks and ways they could go get involved in their community and do more good and let that spiral out. I also was able to just Venmo each and every one of the agents that I met and I just gave them money. And I said, you will know where to put this money better than I will. So when you run into a circumstance where this is going to make a difference in someone's life, I want you armed with the ability to pay that forward and do it.

And like that type of stuff, again, I wasn't that person five years ago or seven years ago. I didn't know what that looked like. But once you get involved, It starts to turn. You really learn on the go just like you do with anything. And then it becomes really powerful. And now I have this like beautiful life or everything is just energy. And when you live your life like this and you give and you're vulnerable and you share, like the messages and the love and the support that comes back is tenfold. And it's extremely powerful. And it's a really splendid, fantastic way to live. And I can say that having been someone who was a total disaster for at least a good 10 years of my life that nobody wanted to hang out with or be around or would have respect

for it, to be completely honest. I love that. I was actually born in the town of Paradise, California. And I don't know if you remember a few years back when 95% of the town of Paradise burned down. One of the most tragic things ever. Yeah, it was awful. And my family had all moved from there years ago, so I didn't really have any family there. But I'll never forget when I drove up there. was a while after the fires had started. And we grew up on this little street called Maple Park Drive. And it was just a little circle. There was like maybe 20 homes on Maple Park Drive. And I remember pulling onto Maple Park Drive and it was hard to even find in the beginning because all the landmarks you associate with what is where were all gone and pulled onto the road

and Paradise was a town full of trees and all kinds of pine trees. The entire circle was decimated. It was nothing, all the houses, everything was gone. And I just remember thinking, holy crap. And just all the people that were impacted. Like, I don't think you understand the impact until like you, when you physically go there. And you physically see what that has done to an entire community and to people. And I don't, all that we did, I didn't feel like we even did anywhere near enough. Like, you can't do anywhere near what they need.

but one little thing does make an impact and does make a difference. And I think that's what you have to focus on. Yeah, there's like a real resilience in humanity. And I think that those types of things, like they bring out the worst, but they also bring out the best. So you have to focus on that because otherwise it's just completely overwhelming. But the resiliency of people is really inspiring and just being there to give like your energy or like your good.

And just to try that makes all the difference in the world. And yeah, bad things happen every day. I do truly believe that it is a kind universe and that like that people really do care and that in any great face of great hardship or challenge, there's more good people that care and want to make it better than there are bad people that want to try and drag it down. And I love that one of the core values, of course, of EXP is to be able to give back and to help be a part of the community. What attracted you to EXP and what are some of the things that you have seen that have helped

you feel good about being here and being able to make a bigger impact? That's a great question. So the honest answer, and I didn't talk about this right away, but the honest answer is this friend of mine who was doing these things in the giving space was really kicking my butt in terms of like impact. And I just couldn't keep up. And I knew I needed a faster vehicle if I wanted to do that. And one thing that I learned is if you want to have a great football team, if you want to have a great Girl Scout troop, if you want to have a great anything in life, a great fundraiser or great anything, it has to do with like recruiting and the people in the room. The quality of the people in the room will always dictate your results,

whether that's a real estate team or anything else. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers weren't like, oh, we should get a quarterback. Who should we get to win the Super Bowl? No, they were like, we need to get Tom Brady because Tom Brady was the difference. And that is a very simplistic way to understand what life is really about. And so I knew that if I wanted to do more good in the world, I needed a faster car. And EXP, I looked at every option in the world. And EXP was the fastest car and still is the fastest car in order to reach the greatest audience

and have the most impact. And so today I'm four years and just over four years into EXP. I have over 900 agents in my Red Shoe organization, personally sponsored 35. I don't know anywhere you can connect and change the lives of 35 people and that have that ripple to 900. But not only is it 900 today,

it will be 5,000 within a few years. Not only is it 5,000, but it's also the fact that I'm able to give this speech on stage in front of all these people. And I can connect with 90,000 agents and I can fundraise hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I can donate. Like last year we donated about a million dollars to charities and causes because I'm a part of this company. And we're able to give these grants and I'm able to be recognized as humanitarian and like all this stuff. Like that was not happening for me anywhere else.

EXP has backed me from day one. No other company would have. And they took a chance on me when I was like, I'm just over four years without alcohol. And at the time, like, nobody wanted to touch me and what I was about. And my heart was there, but I hadn't figured it out yet. And I joined EXP like a month after I decided to stop drinking. And EXP never wavered in their support of me in bringing me into small rooms and putting me front of the right people and then getting me on stage after stage and really culminating in last

October with EXPCon and that award and my keynote speech there and everything else. They put their money where their mouth is. When they say agent success obsessed, that's the real deal. And for me, it was to give back. And so for whatever it is for that agent, whether it's production, whether it's giving back, whether it's teaching, education, mentorship, whatever you want to do, E-XP will back you because that's their mission. Their mission is to support their agents and to give their agents what they need to go and fulfill their vision. I don't even know what to say because there's so much to say in what you've accomplished in such a short time, really in four years is pretty amazing.

What is next for you? What are your goals? What is it you're working on this next chapter? I appreciate that. So I didn't want to set out to climb the next mountain just to climb the next mountain. Last year, at the end of last year, I looked back and I had accomplished pretty much every goal that I had ever set for myself. And that was like a 10-year thing. These are very long-term goals. And so I was like, I could go do that X, Y, Z because somebody else did it, right? And that's what a lot of people will do. I chose instead to be like, I don't know, but I'm going to be searching and I'm going to be taking some time to figure it out. And so over the last six months, I've really decided that this next chapter is about myself. And so I'm really on this, like, personal. development mission to become like my best self. I've been working on my health and my fitness. I have a

goal of walking 13,000 steps a day. I hit that. I'm above goal on that. I do pushups every day. I'm in the best shape of my life. I'm like 40 days away from my 40th birthday. I coach these sports. I'm with these kids. I go to therapy like three times a week. I'm like really working like not because things are bad, but because things are really good and I want them to be better. And I'm like really in this like very driven pursuit of my best self. And I know that by doing that, everything else will take care of itself. And whether that's finishing what I started by building the group at EXP with the most heart, which was my original like mission, I intend to build a group of at least 5,000 agents here. I want to continue to give back in leadership. I'm starting to do some life coaching, which is something

that's really exciting for me, which is like more holistic than just business and just real estate. So there's a lot of fun stuff. I couldn't tell you exactly what it's going to look. like, but I know that this like core inner work and this like this hard like personal development work is catalytic for the next level of what I want to do in the world. You know, it's funny because from the day I started my very first Facebook page, however long ago that was, my quote has always said, work on you and everything else will come together, right? And that I would have to say has been my life mission. I've spent, I don't even know how many years in therapy. And I feel like everybody should go, but, you know, that's a

feeling you're in therapy. And it's interesting to me how important that work is on yourself, because if you want to make any kind of an impact in the world, it's got to come from within, right? It's got to come from your heart. And I just think that it's so valuable to do that work. And I hope that more and more people learn that and pick up on that aspect of it. You know, like one of my sons now has been going to therapy for a couple of years. And I feel like the best thing ever is to be able to help him in the next generation by getting the therapy that they need. Because we're in this like crazy world right now, which is so crazy connected but yet not connected, right? Like we're as connected as we've ever been.

We're also extremely disconnected. Like it's crazy. It's like why is there so much more mental health issues and so much more anxiety and so much more comparison and all that? And I just think that we have an obligation to help them somehow sort that out, whatever that looks like. I could not agree more. I think I asked my friend this the other day, you could dedicate yourself to one cause for the rest of your life.

What would it be? And mine, my response was mental health and like the social media, the implications. like teaching kids how to develop good self-esteem and good coping and like all this stuff. I think it's so critical and so important. You could look at like the fentanyl crisis or suicide or drugs. There's all these things, but they're all symptomatic of what is the real problem here. And the real problem is like people and their own mental health, we're our own worst enemies right now because we've forgotten how to live communally and how to connect with one another on a human level.

And it's something I'm super passionate about. and if you're listening to this and you're not in therapy, get into some therapy. If you think you can't afford it, I will tell you you can't not afford it. There's nothing that you could spend your money on or invest your money in that's more important than your own mental health. And on top of that, you may have trouble finding a therapist. You may go to somebody and you may not like them. Your insurance may not say they want to cover it or whatever. It doesn't matter.

Don't let those things stop you. I always tell people, maintenance is cheaper than repair. You would never drive your car until it catches on fire. why would you wait until your personal self is burning to the ground? Take the opportunity now to go get an oil change. Even if things aren't that bad, take care of yourself, go for the maintenance. Don't wait until it becomes repair. Because when it becomes repair, it is so much more expensive and so much harder and so much costlier in so many other ways. If people get nothing else out of today's show, I hope they take me to heart when I say that. I wish I could shout that to the world because I just know for

myself even. Therapy has completely changed the trajectory of my life in so many ways. I've been in therapy 20 years. I've gone off and on. I've gone to a few different therapists and my most recent one has been probably the last eight years and she's like amazing. I go, can we just be best friends? She goes, no, not until we're not therapist patient anymore. And then I don't know if you, Have you seen the new books that just came out worthy? I have not. Okay. It's primarily women-oriented because it's the gal Jamie who sold It Cosmetics to L'Oreal for $1.2 billion.

But I love, love, love her story. And it's so worth it on audio because she talks about how she did not feel worthy and all the things that she went through to all the failures, because we've all had a lot of failures, right? and all the things that she did. And I just, I wish that the whole world would listen to this book because there are so many people that struggle with exactly what you're saying with the mental health issues and the self-worth and the things. And I have, so my niece is living with me right now. And I raised five boys. So I'm not used to having a girl in the house that wasn't dating one of my sons.

So it's been like this whole adjustment in talking to her. And I just so many times just want to say, just hang in. there, girl. Like, you're so young. You have so much of life ahead of you and life is not nearly what you think it is. And I just love all the stuff that you said because I wish that so much more of that was taught in our schools. And I feel like it's not. There's so much stuff going on in middle school and high school that is just destroying our generation. I mean, I could go down that rabbit hole for days. But the reality is, is the best thing we can do as parents is to be able to raise kids. that can be kind and respectful and kids that give back and do more in their own community,

which would you not agree? 100%. It's so important. And I appreciate you sharing the book. I want to check it out. My like niche love passion is female entrepreneurs. It's crazy like the amount of disproportionate influence in venture capital and things like that. I am a hardcore feminist at heart. And people think like, oh, we're close. Like we're not close. Like we're not close. And we're not close and there's a lot more work to be done. And I want to continue to highlight and promote and put women at the forefront because there's so much good work and there's so many amazing women out there. And they deserve the spotlight and the recognition and everything that they're not getting

and the funding. I mean, just literally the funding. So I love that she sold that company for a billion dollars. I love that she's another self-made female billionaire because there's only about 30 of them in the freaking world, which is absolutely insane. And little girls should have more more role models like that to look up to. That's super powerful and really important. And again, hopefully, I know you tuned into a real estate podcast and I know it's not what this is today, but this is a lot more important than how to sell one more house or why you should get into real estate or why you should work at EXP or any of that stuff. Like it's about life and it's about human. And that is really the message that I want to share too. When I say real estate,

real world, like it means what are we doing in real life and in this real world? And by the way, Tina Call has a book club that she did all about that book. So I'll have to get you the information because there's only one or two guys in there. So we need you in there, John. Awesome. Well, as we wrap up today, is there anything else you want to say before we wrap it up today? I would just say that honestly, if you're watching this, take a little bit of time to think about what you really want to be remembered for, what you want your legacy to be, like what your core values are.

Like so many people start running down this road because they need to pay the bills or they need to make some money or they saw somebody else doing something and they thought that was a good idea. And there's no judgment there. It's just like now today, if you're listening to this, take a day, take three hours and just sit with yourself and try and understand more importantly like who you are as a person and what really matters to you and how you can bring that forward on a bigger scale and keep that at the forefront of your business. And if you have good core values and you believe in an amazing mission and you stand for something bigger than yourself, then your business will be bigger than it could ever be with you just focusing on the next sale or the next deal or the next paycheck. Well, I have to say, this has been one of my all-time favorite podcasts so far. And clearly there's been a million reasons why you won the humanitarian award.

And so I'm really grateful for you taking the time today. And I look forward to spending some more time with you in the future. Thank you, Marguerite. I appreciate it.