KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The Habit Compass Building Success Through Proactive Leadership and Incremental Growth

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Summary:Dan Rochon explores the foundational role of habits in determining life and business outcomes, emphasizing that success is built through consistent, proactive steps rather than reactive bursts. He introduces the "decision compass" as a tool for navigating challenges without letting them dominate one's life. By sharing personal stories of health and family, Rochon illustrates that effective leadership—whether of oneself, a team, or a client—requires empathy, clear expectations, and the discipline to maintain serving habits daily.

You're listening to No Broke Months for Salespeople Podcast. In this episode of the No Broke Months for Salespeople podcast, Dan Rochon explores how habits define every part of your success in business, relationships, and life. From handling stress before it strikes to leading with empathy and courage, Dan breaks down why the road to success is built one consistent step at a time. All right. So what do we do when there's a bumpy, road. Why do people leave you? People are only going to leave you because there's not enough money

or the culture is not aligning with their values. And what do you do to be able to prevent that? Is you prepare? You have couragey. You have empathy. And you bring out the best than others. And these are true of a team, but they're also true of a relationship with a client. What do you do when you have a bumpy road with a client? The one piece that I didn't say, where I didn't necessarily leave it out, but I didn't say it, which is when do you deal with stress? What do you guys think? When do you deal with a stressful situation with a bumpy road? When is the best time to deal with a stressful situation? It's about caring for people before they need to know that you care for them. So let's talk about, like, for example, your real estate clients. Your real estate clients, when do they need to know that you care for them?

as they know that you care for them now all the time, then you would be in a position such that you're able to maintain the trust. And so what I want you to really consider is the being proactive in your relationships. As a leader or as a person in leadership positions throughout most of my life, I can tell you sort of interesting. I just had like a recognition. I've been a leadership position most of my life

and I can tell you that my biggest opportunities in growth, my biggest opportunities in screwing things up, my biggest opportunities and pretty much everything in my life have come through my, my lapses in leadership. And so here's a place that I'm consistently finding myself, yet it's also,

the place that I tend to have the biggest mistakes. So if that's the case, then what do you have to do about it? We talked about, you know, who are you going to surround yourself with? And when you surround yourself with people that are going to be aligned with your values, with your beliefs, with your perspective, when you set the expectations of the relationships, when you give them the tools that they need to survive, to succeed, and you get the hell out the way, then you're able to, then leadership. becomes relatively easy.

And I'm not suggesting that, I'm not suggesting that you can't lead anybody, but I am suggesting that there are some people that you're going to be able to lead easier than others. And those people for me, that are easier to lead than others are the people that understand that we, we control our lives.

And so we had a client not too long ago, and that still sort of a client, because we're still cleaning up things. The Terry was leading. And there was always a reason for not doing the activity. It's hard to lead somebody that always has a reason. And is it impossible now? But it is hard.

I will tell you how you lead somebody with that, that always has a good excuse. They're always good excuses, by the way. And then they focus on, well, Dan, don't you care about my excuse? uses and sometimes my inside voice gets outside not very often but no um sometimes my inside voice gets outside and then the reality of is I do care about I do care about life I do care about challenges I do care about setbacks I do care about all that yet our habits create our outcomes our habits create our lives if you want to live the most you know successful life in in the world, then you have to do the work to do it.

And that's whether that be in your, your relationships with your kids, your relationship with your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend, your relationship with your business, whatever it is, you've got to put the work in. I've been having some challenges with my daughter for the first time ever. In 15 years, first time ever. And she's such a beautiful young lady.

and I recognize that I have to be able to understand her point of view, her world. I sent her a message on Snap, Snapchat the other day, and I recognize, you know, she hasn't been going to school. And I acknowledge her for the reason why she's not going to school, which is that she was in a very, really small school previously, lab school in D.C. and it was a private school and had 30 kids in the entire class. Well, last year, not this year, but last year, she went to Robinson. Robinson's a public school. It has between 7th to 12th grade, 5,000 kids.

So I recognize my daughter for the reality of what she's experiencing, which is she feels unseen. She feels unimportant. She feels as though. if she's just lost in the system. So does that mean that she's not going to school because she's lazy now? She's not going to school because she doesn't know how to cope with those feelings. So that's an instance where you have somebody that's doing something that's not through her own benefit,

but can still be led. That's not a habitual. That's not habits. Habits, you know, if those would have been her habits over 15 years, then it's a different conversation. That's a coping mechanism. So do I care for others? Absolutely.

I definitely care for them when they have something that they're dealing with. Yet, do I accept reasons instead of results if the reasons are consistent? We're probably going to have to take a look at changing something,

changing the circumstance, changing the environment, changing the mindset, which is most likely what it is. or changing the perspective to understand that we, human beings, all of us have shit. We all have stuff that happens. All of us, myself included. And then it becomes to sit there and say, well, is the stuff that's happening more important to my perspective?

Or is me creating healthy habits to achieve my goals in life more important? And we're not just talking about business, by the way. We're talking about fitness, physical health, well-being, relationships, and business, and many more. Spiritual relationships. We take a look at what are the important things in your life. And those important things are the things that I recommend that you choose to be able to have habits with. I recommend that you choose to be able to say, if I know that my life is created through my habits, and if I want a happy life, then what I'm habits would I like to choose. So I'm going to ask for you to consider that for yourself.

If I know my life is created through habits, it's that simple. The habits that I have create the life that I have and I want a happy life. What habits will I embrace? Now, when I say that to people, a lot of times what they do is they come up with a great idea and they say, I'm going to do, I'm going to exercise, I'm going to take a walk, I'm going to drink more water. I got to drink more water. I'm going to I'm going to be, I'm going to spend more time with my daughter. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And it's easy to say it.

But then something comes to distract you. Then what do you do? That's when the road gets bumpy. So you got to have a pre-decision compass to say, what will I do when a challenge arises? You've got to decide that right now. Because challenges will arise. for me my pre-decision compass says when a challenge arises i will let it interfere with my you know not interfere but i'll let it interject with my life i let it interject with whatever's going on if it's a

true problem to fix it to evaluate to analyze it but i will not let that problem dominate my life so you may know that i um i'm a diabetic i have uh i live off of insulin this is my insulin pump right here. And I have had diabetes since 30 years now. I've been dependent on insulin. I got it when I was in the United States Army when I was getting deployed over to the Middle East. They gave us a bunch of inoculations. My pancreas stopped working. And I had to start taking insulin to live and survive. Why do I bring that up? Well, that's beyond a minor inconvenience sometimes in my life, beyond. Now here's the thing. I respect that disease so much, but I don't give it power, and I never will. And I never have. I will never have. I will never give

that disease power over my life, ever. There's only one disease in my life that I allowed to have power of my life, and that's my alcoholism. And I've been sober for more than 20 years. so I allowed that disease to have, have authority over my life for way too long. And when I became sober, I said I will never again allow anything to dominate my thoughts, my feelings, my beliefs,

my habits, my life. I'll never do it again. I'll respect it. I respect my alcoholism. I will never drink. again, ever. I respect my diabetes, but I don't give either of them power. If something tragic happens in my life, I'm going to respect it, I'm going to deal with it, I'm going to honor it. My mom was in the ICU last week. I took a couple days off from work. I went and I spent it with her.

But guess what caused me to have the ability to do that, by the way, without any, I mean, without any care to my other areas of my life. So I can only care for my mom because my habits. Just that your business is doing so well that you have the financial wherewithal to be able to take the time off to be with your mom. That's correct. But it's still an outcome, it's an outcome, right? Yeah.

So my question, a better answer, not to critique your answer, right? No, no, it's right. Sorry, Terry. A better question would be, what calls? causes that to happen what causes me to have a business that's sustainable that that that is doing you know relatively well that's the habits that's the habits okay so i took off mond i took off friday i took off monday i was able to spend four days with my mom because i'm already taking off saturdays and sundays she gets out of the hospital on tuesday and i'm back to work so did i

have a break in my habits now but did I also spend my time where it was warranted where it was needed or where I was where I was choosing to spend my time yes so what I want you to do is I want you to think about today's conversation is twofold number one is I want you to think about this as a leader because we all lead somebody in our lives we lead our spouses we lead ourselves at the very least we lead ourselves at least we should we lead our um the people that we love we lead our clients We lead our staffs, if we have staff. Encourage for you to recognize is that as you're leading, you're teaching others how to have habits that are going to serve their goals,

which always go back to the conversation we had on Friday, which, by the way, you have to understand what their goals are first. You have to understand what their strengths are because you can't ask somebody to go and exercise every single day if they don't have the physical ability to do so. you can encourage for them to do more. My mom, for example, she's like, I guess I got to take Ellie out for a walk now, right? My dog.

And I'm like, no, Ma. It's like, why don't you just go to the mailbox and go check the mail every day, right? And that seems like, I mean, it's sort of a long walk, right? It's not a long, long walk, but for her, it's a long walk. And so it's about taking baby steps. So as a leader, understanding what, and why do I, why do I, why don't, I lead her on that because I know what she wants is a healthy life. I know she wants to lose a little bit of weight.

I know that she wants to be happy and healthy. And I knew that physical exercise will help in some ways to be able to get her that. So focus on this as a perspective of how you lead others, but then also focus on a perspective of how you lead yourself. So ask yourself, what type of life do I want? then what habits will get me there. And if I know what habits will get me there, will I actually embrace those habits? Will I actually do the activity?

Because if you will, then now you do it. If you won't, maybe you got to think of different habits. There could be more than one way to be able to create results. There certainly is in real estate sales. In real estate sales, is there more than one way to lead generate? Absolutely. there are there are agents who have the habits of doing client appreciation events all the time doing pop-bys i have an agent that i coach she has the habits of embracing her VIP people and she's doing

like maybe 40 million in sales a year and a in a market that is probably about 50 to 60 percent of a price she's got to do almost almost twice as many sales as she would if she was in my market to do that level of volume. Her habits are different than my habits in regards to real estate sales. Yet, I have the habits. At least the habits that serve me, the habits that I'm willing to embrace. Let's say, let's just use this, this may not be right. But let's say there's 100 steps.

Well, no, let's say there's 10 steps to be able to get you from where you are to where you want to be. my suggestion is to take one step today take one step tomorrow and one step to next day sometimes when you look at something and if it seems like it's too big of a task then you just avoid it all together and so if you're looking to say i got to go from here to there zero to 10 in one day that may that may be overwhelming it may be intimidating it may be something where you're like, I'm not so sure about that. Yet, if you just say, man, I got a whole heck of a lot of steps that I got to walk to be able to get from here to there, what's the first step? Take that today.

What's the second step? Take that tomorrow. So once you start the first step, you got to continue the first step. That's where we struggle. That's what we screw things up. So you sit there and say, I got to go and find how to meet more people and talk to more people. and I did that. Well, if you did that, you're not doing it today,

then you're starting back over from zero. Okay? So you want to do it and continue doing it. You know, my relationship with the gym is interesting because I recognize that I can go to the gym every day for a year and get relatively physically fit and stop going to the gym for two weeks and eat apple pie. And it's all gone.

It's like that freaking simple. Right. It's like you have to continue the journey. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your feedback today. Thank you for your attention. I want to wish that you have the best day of your life. Be grateful to make a choice to help somebody. And if you've not yet received or order your copy of Teach to Sell, it's coming out March of 2006 by Simon and Schuster, which goes through and teaches you about leadership, also teaches you about belief and habits. lead generation and converting the leads to meet with you and building an organization and it brings you step by step through the process. Terry read the book. Terry, I know it's been a little bit since you read it, but any feedback on it? It put a lot of different things into perspective for me. Can I come up with one specific one? No, but there's a, there's a, and it might be a bold saying that you teach people how to treat you, well, you teach people how to do business with you. You teach people and if you're always teaching, you're never selling.

And because I'm not a salesperson, I'm a teacher, I wind up selling a lot of property, if that makes sense. I love it. And if you want to get a copy, www. to sellbook.com, teach yourself book.com, and you'll get $10,000 of training when you get that in the pre-sale. All right, guys,

have the best day of your lives. I'll see you all next time. This is Dan Rochon, host of No Broke Months. Do you want consistent and predictable income with no broke months? My new book, Teach to Sell, why top performers never sell,

and what they do instead, is being published early 2026 by Simon & Schuster. You can pre-order now at www. teach to sell book.com and unlock over $10,000 of free bonus

training. Don't wait, go to www.com and grab your copy today. That's teach to sell book.com. Hey there, no broke months listener. I've got some exciting news. We just passed 375,000

downloads for the No Broke Months. month's podcast and I cannot have done it without you. I am beyond grateful for every single listener who tunes in daily, takes action, and shares this journey with me. Now, with you and I, let's take it a step further. If this podcast has helped you, imagine what it could do for another salesperson who might be struggling. Share the show with them. Let them know there's a way to create consistent and predictable income because no salesperson should ever have another broke month again. And hey, while you're at it, don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave us a favorable review. Your support helps us reach even more salespeople who need this.

Until the next episode, have the best favorite life. Be grateful, make good choices, go help someone, and share the show with a friend. God bless you.