KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The One Thing Strategy: Achieving Peak Performance Through Discipline and Systems

Episode Date: April 19, 2026

Summary:Real estate legend Gene Frederick shares his "One Thing" philosophy, detailing how focusing 100% of his energy on single "cogs" in his business led to massive growth . Drawing parallels to Elon Musk’s manufacturing approach, Gene explains why lead generation must be the primary focus for any entrepreneur . He offers tactical advice on leveraging strengths by hiring assistants for administrative tasks, setting clear leadership visions, and maintaining strict morning routines to protect energy and productivity .

Hi everyone and welcome to Women Who Rise. I'm your host, Heather Manzi. Today my guest is Gene Frederick, a nationally recognized real estate leader, speaker, and entrepreneur, known for building one of the largest organizations within EXP Realty. Gene is the CEO of Real Bricks, a fractional real estate investing platform, and has spent decades teaching agents and entrepreneurs how to grow through discipline, systems and relationship-driven leadership. A frequent stage presence at EXPCon and industry masterminds everywhere. Gene is known for his philosophy of invitation over recruitment and his belief that sustainable success comes from clarity, consistency, and daily execution. His work has helped thousands of professionals not only scale their businesses, but build lives designed around growth,

impact and enjoyment. I am thrilled to welcome Gene Frederick to the show. Gene, thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure, Heather. I can't wait. Excited. So excited as well. So let's just jump right in. When you think back to the earliest days of your working life, what experience first taught you the value of discipline over motivation, and how did that lesson shape the way that you approach business today? I think the number one thing, and it's funny, Heather, when I look at it, I saw a podcast like yours the other day, was some guy named Elon Musk. And it's funny, what shaped me early on, my first year and a half, two years in the business, is I had to figure out what the one thing I should be doing so that my business thrives. And I think the problem

with entrepreneurs or any salesperson or any entrepreneur is you're just pulled different ways. Elon Musk, you've heard the story. He said that they were failing in 2018. And he was working from 6 in the morning until 12 at night, all these meetings. And then he says, wait, wait, I found three cogs in my, in basically the manufacturing process. They were only making 2,000 cars a week and they had to make 5,000 cars a week to actually, guess what, make money. People were shorting the stock. So what he did is he did the one thing. He said, I found the first cog.

I spent 100% of my day fixing that cog the first month. The second month spent 100% of my time on that one thing that the cog in the, you know, in the manufacturing. And then the third month, 100% of my time on the one. Well, he said what I learned was instead of doing everything, running around going crazy. We all just work, you know, we call it the treadmill or the hamster wheel. We think we have to do everything.

So the whole thing in that story is he says, I started thinking, I just need to focus on what's the one thing I should be doing. Now, in my sales career, I've been in real estate and it's almost in any sales job, an entrepreneur job. It was lead generation. Yes. If I don't, if I get more leads than everybody else, I went to, game. And once I figured that out, I'm going to spend literally 90% of my time doing that.

Yes. Yeah. If that makes sense. I love that. I love it. And it really brings it home to me. I mean, you know, I've got the podcast. I've got a real estate team. I have a multifaceted, uh, set of business holdings and life. And I can, I can, I can, I mean, I can be overwhelmed from the first time I opened my eyes each day. And recently I thought myself, you know, I need to, to choose one of my businesses and just pour all in for like the month of January, you know, and then go. So, I mean, when you said that, it was like just smack me in the head because I really, I really think that's so good. And we all know, you know, the Keller book, the one thing and all that. And it's for my team, it's always, you guys, you got to do your lead gen. And they do it

first thing in the morning because if they don't, your day's going to run away like a, train, you're not going to know or be able to have control over the number one important thing that controls your income. Was your path always driven by a clear long-term vision, you know, for what you wanted in your life? Or was there a specific moment where you realized that intentional structure and consistency, not chance, would define your trajectory in life? Well, you know, I come from a background, to give you a little bit of background, in my 20s, I worked for corporate America. And I was,

I was basically a bean counter, I call it. I was, I was doing PNLs and balance sheets. And I would do presentations for the, the CEO of Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas. Oh my gosh. So basically, one side of my brain is almost like an accounting slash engineer mind.

And then why did I get into sales? I mean, I don't run into a lot of salespeople to go, ooh, I was an accountant. So, but I think when you, Yeah, when you said what you did, it hit me, I'm pretty much systems oriented.

I call it systems oriented. You know, you've got to have systems in life to create good habits, good routines, whatever word you guys want to use. And so when I got into sales, I think more than anything else, I went, how am I going to systemize my sales career so that I don't work 16-hour days, right? Which everybody does, right? And in the beginning, we all do. Don't tell me we didn't.

Yes. So it was easy in sales. I sold real estate for a living one in my first five years. I hired a full-time assistant a year and a half in the business. And the minute I hired a full-time assistant, I mean, somebody that did all the back-end stuff that I didn't like to do. So, you know, what should I be doing every day? I shouldn't be doing that. I'm really not good at this.

And she did everything I was really bad at. and my business doubled. Literally doubled. You know, so I'm pretty much a systems guy. I'm pretty much a systems guy. I just to recap, all you salespeople on the call or whatever, I did not work Sundays.

I did not work nights. I'm not a night person. So what I always tell people, too, I'm a morning person. Heather, if you called me at 5.30 this morning, I doggone it. I can't sleep past six.

I usually wake up at five. I'm a morning person. That's when I'm good. So I always tell salespeople, work on your energy. So my energy... That's such a good point. And I don't think anyone has really mentioned that before. Because, yeah, when you find that you are at your best,

you should be applying yourself. Instead, we talk quite a bit about how to get to your best, how to have good habits, how to, you know, even simple stuff, how to set up your morning well so that you can be successful and feel good and eat right and do all the things. But you're making a really good point here, which is to say, hey, you know, if your best time of day is in the morning,

you need to load that up with, you know, maybe your lead gen or your appointment, showing appointments or whatever it is that you're doing in your business. And, you know, where you have to be fully on for those clients, maybe that's going to be that time of day when you do that. I love that. Yeah, it's correct.

As you, in fact, I'm going to tell you, this really quick. Most real estate agents did the presentations at night. I found when I got into the business when people were off work. I actually did them in the morning at 7 a.m. in the morning before they're getting ready for school. And the kids are running around and they're making cereal and they're getting Apple Jacks going. And I'm telling you, that's when I was good. So I told people, I quit at 6 o'clock because I was raising 5 kids. And I said, I told people I want to play dad. So I'm going to play dad at 6 o'clock and I'm going to work. But anyway, that kind of emphasized the facts I really didn't live that kind of life. That's fantastic. And, you know,

nowadays you hear about this idea of like work-life balance and you're kind of, you know, you were doing it way back in the day when I really don't think people were thinking about that at all. And in fact, you also kind of burst another bubble, which is to say, look, when you are new in any kind of business, plan to pull those 16-hour days. Because whether that's, you know, starting it early in the morning or whatever, but you need to understand that there probably is not going to be a balance at that beginning when you're in that build phase, because you need to put in that time to start, if you're starting something from scratch. As you were scaling your influence and your organization, what was the most

humbling challenge or challenges that you faced? And what did that teach you about maybe leadership, persistence, growth and scale? Here's what I learned after a while. I kind of went back, if you know, I wrote a book, be the legend.com. I just Be the Legend book. You can get it on Amazon. And I went back to see when was I the most productive? When I was really, really the most productive?

And I think it's when I was very, very focused at, like I told you, I think before, focused on what's the one thing I should be doing? right and not being confused trying to do too much stuff you mentioned to me you're doing all these different things um i was just concerned about being the best salesperson i possibly could be and i wasn't taking on different stuff you know i'd run into different people and they'd get hey i'm doing this sales and then i'm doing this uh mLM over here and i'm doing this over here and i go whoa i don't know how they do two or three jobs at the same time i just wanted to be the best I possibly could be.

And once I focused on that and centered on that, I've really been doing that for 41 years. So. Fantastic. Yes, and it's interesting because you did become something else, right? Because you have been able to create a following inside of the XP as well. And I would think that that is, of course, it's also a form of sales or a sense of community building. but it also was something, you know, most people would see it as wearing a little bit different hat. What are your thoughts on that versus, you know, when you were simply a salesperson?

What are your thoughts on maybe how either your skills or your, you know, thoughts pivoted a little bit in order to go into that downline building? Well, let me tell you how I became a leader. You know, it's so funny how do you become a leader? I said, well, we're all leaders, right, in our lives or whatever. But until, not until my early 40s that I could tell people, I studied it. I am just telling you, John Maxwell, I think I put his kids through college. I read every John Maxwell leadership book. There is.

I put tapes in my car on the way where I said, if I'm going to be a leader, because I took over a market center, right? Let me tell you the guidelines I had or standards I had when I was a leader. I think this might help you guys. and you could help anybody. I took over, at one point, I took over for Keller Williams, I took over the worst market center in the nation. What I mean by that? Out of 700 market centers, we were dead last in growth.

We were losing agents, okay? Two years in a row. And I took over that market center as the new leader. Now, guess what I did at my first staff meeting with the same people that were there before, didn't let anybody go. I said, I only have five standards. They go, what are? I said, write them down. Number one, there's going to be no gossip. Now, I got news for you, as you know, in the real estate industry, we have about 60% are women, 60, 65% are women. I said, there's no gossip. Okay, because if we gossip, everybody's going to gossip. There's no swearing. And you know,

it's funny, as I found as a leader, if I swear, everybody else swears. Oh, yes. Then the third thing I said is I said, we're going to be a team. And if I ever hear you, somebody come to you and say, I can't do that because it's not my job. You won't have one because we're going to be a team. We're going to teamify. Fourth thing I said, and by the way, we were dead lasting growth. So you know what we're going to be? Again, here's the key to leadership.

I set the vision. I said, we're going to be number one. Wow. Now, I don't know how long it's going to take. I don't know how long it's going to take. but we will be number one in growth, in net growth in the company out of 700 market centers. And I said, don't know how long it's going to take. And once we are number one, we'll be number one forever.

Wow. Does that make sense? So in other words, as you as a leader, you have to set the vision. You have to say where we're going, guys, right? And then the fifth thing is, and you've heard it from me because you've been around me a lot. We're going to have more fun than anybody. Write it down. we are going to have fun.

We're going to celebrate as we go along. We're going to do trips together. We're going to, and so I think those five things have, and by the way, the staff, you're going to laugh. The same staff that was there before I got, wrote them down in your own handwriting, I want them up on the bulletin board. You look at them every day. Let's fast forward. Guess what happened?

First year, just trying to turn the ship around. Second year, adding a little bit. The third year, with five months left in the December, I mean, what December left, with 11 months through, we were fifth in the nation and growth. Not number one, but fifth. We had gone from being dead last to fifth. That is amazing. Now, guess what? I told everybody, now, by then, here's what happens.

By then, and I'll tell you systems, I had staff meetings Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 8.30 at Starbucks. I think I invented Starbucks in Dallas, Texas. I mean, I had the guy build me a big table. I mean, we went to the same Starbucks every day. And we had an 830 to 9 o'clock meeting every, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And guess what's the first thing we talked about? Every single staff meeting. I hired somebody to do, I did hire one new staff person. You know what she did? She was in charge of growth. And every Monday we'd go, how many people do we have? How are we growing? And she'd go, well, here's what we're doing. And the people that were negative in the beginning, hey, guys, do you ever, you know in companies, some people don't want to grow. Let's face it, right? I mean, there were staff members I had that the bigger we got, that means more work for them.

Yeah. Right? So they would kind of, I don't think we should grow. Shouldn't we just, shouldn't we grow a little slower? And of course, here I am pushing the envelope. I'm going, I'm going. Well, we had this one staff member. And by two years of this, the people that were the most negative in the beginning went, well, they'd look at her and go, how many people we got?

I went, whoa, whoa, did this turn around? Did the attitude turn around? So now we're on board, right? So let me finish with this story because it's phenomenal. I got with the staff December 1st of that year. This is 2012. And I said, guess what? And they go what?

I said, we're fifth. And I think if we busted in December, we could become number one. We could sneak up on these people. And they go, really? And I said, how do we do that? And I said, well, I'll work every day but Christmas, every day but New Year's. How about you guys? I said, I'll do appointments on Saturday, Sunday.

Like you said, now I'm in. Let's just go do this. Guess what? The year before we had recruited six people in December, I said, we're going to recruit 40. And December's not an easy month to recruit agents because it's Christmas, it's Hanukkah, it's the holidays. And I said, so I said, most team leaders take off, the staff takes off. I said, you know, we're going to sneak up on people. So we didn't recruit 40, but guess what happened? We recruited 34 agents in the month of December. Oh, my gosh. And we set a record and we snuck up on everybody, went to number one.

And we recruited 227 agents for that year, 34 in December, and set a record for Keller Williams. Now, here's why I'm going to, this is the fun part about it. This is what makes, you know, to me, what makes leadership fun. Yes. We're, we now have to have a meeting me and my assistant team leader with our, our boss, the owner of the market center. And, and, uh, we're driving down. It was about 20 minutes to her office. And I said, now she's going to ask us, how many agents are we going to recruit the next year, 2013?

Guess what? I said, well, we did 227. Now, here's what I'm thinking, guys, let's don't go crazy. How about 250? 27 was a record. Let's tell her 250. And guess what my assistant team leader, who had only been a team leader for a month said, didn't we do 34 last month? I said, yeah.

So you know what 34 times 12 is? He goes, what's 34 times 12, Gene? I said, that's 408. He goes, wow, why, we just tell her 400? Now, we went in, and here's what I'm going to tell you guys, we went in and said, we're going to recruit 400 agents. We're going to go from 227 to 400, because every month's going to be December.

Wow. Guess what we did? In 2013, every month was December. Not just one month do we bust it. We were focused. Well, we failed. We only recruited 366 agents. Set a record.

Now, that staff, we celebrated by taking everybody to Vegas with their spouses and partners. We had so much fun, again, that those five things, they said, we've never had this much fun. Same staff. Same people. Four years earlier. didn't do that well, right. Leadership is everything, guys. You guys set the standards.

You set the vision. You set where you're going to go and have fun doing it. I love it. It's just fantastic because it's just, first of all, I love the story. Secondly, those numbers are amazing. And third, really, is like you say,

It just emphasizes the fact that when someone, a leader with a vision, who can motivate people, is in charge, it just changes everything. And those same people, I love the fact that you kept the staff and that you were able to draw the comparison between what they'd had before and what they were able to produce that is different. It's not, you know, I have a VA company as well. And, you know, we talk about a VA that may or may not work out for someone. And, you know, sometimes we say, be a better boss. I mean, did you train them adequately? Did you give them the information? Did you, did they know how to succeed? Did they know what markers define success? And I think this, like you said, that clear vision. And then, yes, you know, if people enjoy where they work, I think that's huge because people really do want a quality of life. And we often think, that it's money, you know, I had this in my university studies. We often may think it's money is the ultimate reward for people, but actually a lot of people have a different reward system. They just want maybe someone to tell them they did a great job or they want to go to Vegas and have a really good experience. So it depends, you know, or they just want a really great

work experience. They want to know that they're valued and they want to work hard and they want to be told when they do a good job. So it's not only, you know, a very good job. So it's not only, you know, bigger raise or something that will make a person really enjoy their job and want to do well. It could be any one of those things. And like you said, leadership is the thing that that makes it all possible. I wanted to ask you as, you know, you've often emphasized this concept of invitation over recruitment who modeled that kind of leadership for you early on. And what behaviors or philosophies from them still guide you today about that idea? Well, the biggest thing to be, and I've been the number one recruiter, you know, six

years at Keller Williams when I was with them, and same here at EXP, a few years, is in recruitment, I can tell you this, or if you're trying to recruit another, a good staff member or somebody else to join you. It's all about them. Here's what I want you to write down. It's the biggest thing. It's all about them. I call it Team A and I go tell me about yourself. Now, every time I meet someone and you've had me on calls before, Heather, and we've talked to other agency, you go, and I just start, and I said, well, tell me about yourself. I, you know, I could read LinkedIn. I could read all about them, but I want to hear it from them. I want to hear how many kids they have, how many dogs, dogs, cats. And what's funny is once you focus on them, it's not about you. It's not about trying

to recruit them. So basically, I just get what their need is where they want to go. What excites you about the business? In real estate, I'll ask every time, what excites you about the business? And they'll go into, this is where I want to go. They'll tell me their vision. Sometimes I ask this, if you could work anywhere in the world, where would it be? Yeah. It's kind of fun. See, I get I get really personal with them because you'll find out instead of just they're not going to join a company. Here's what I'm going to tell you about recruiting. People don't leave companies and join companies. They leave people and join people. That's life. So in other words, I found out they're going to join you if you guys are into recruiting whatever. You've got to make that. It's not about the presentation. It's about your connection with them. And if you find out what they need, where they're going, I mean, I always bring my notebook. You know, it's funny when I'm talking to you today, I write notes down.

And I says, okay, if I take notes and they go, yeah, and they go, wow, you know what I do? I turn my cell phone off. Sometimes I leave my cell phone in the car. Yeah. And they go, wow, he's really attentive. It's not ringing. I'm not trying to answer it. So I think that's the key to anything, especially.

in the recruiting side of this business, you guys go on sales calls, whatever you're doing, you make it all about them. It's not about you. So true. I think that's excellent. Looking back,

what daily habits or non-negotiable practices most contributed to your own rise? I know you had talked a little bit about discipline and that kind of thing. And then which ones do you believe made the biggest difference

when motivation faded? from time to time. Here's what I'm going to Yeah, here's kind of You know, we all have, I call it old tapes. We have old tapes from when we grew up. You know, I grew up in a big family with four brothers and a sister.

And whatever old tapes I have, I'm sure my brothers and sisters have old tapes too. One of the old tapes I had was big as bad. What I mean by that is, if I became really, really successful, you know how many people fight success? Because if you, if you, you know, If I have too much stuff, I'm not mechanical.

I'm sorry, my wife is more mechanical than I am. She's, I swear to God. You know, I'm not mechanical. I thought, ooh, if I get that new, if I get a boat, it might break down. Isn't it weird? How weird can it be? If I own that, it'll break down and, oh. So my mental block was I don't want to own a lot of stuff, right?

I'm going to be a minimalist. when in reality, you mean I could live in Puerto Rico, you mean I could buy a boat which I own now that I never thought I would own, right? I had to get over my old tapes of it's okay to be successful, number one. It's really, really important, guys. It's okay. And when I was telling you about my visions,

and I had visions of EXP 10 and a half years ago, I didn't share them with everybody. I mean, I've got them written down. You're going to see them. I didn't share them with all my, you know, you don't have to share your big visions. Now, that's the big key to me. You have to have big vision, big goals to take big action. So if you, if you, let's say you want to, it doesn't matter what sales you're in, you want to make five sales a month, you're going to do the actions to do five sales a month.

But if all of a sudden one day you wake up and go, I'm going to do 20 sales. You're going to do different actions. They weren't small. Yeah. Oh, I hope I recruit one age in a month. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. And I just said, just like that 400 goal, I was talking to you about every month is December. What I learned is you got to stretch yourself, guys.

You've got to stretch yourself. You've got to get out of that comfort zone as we always talk about. And habits are the key. Habits are the key. If you want to lose weight, let's face it, cut sugar. Yeah. If you just cut it sugar out, everybody would lose weight on. earth. You don't need those pills, you know, and I laugh about it, but until you find the one thing

you've got to do to be successful, whatever success is for you, right? And I'm going off on tangents, I know, but, you know. No, no, but I mean, I think it's incredible. And by the way, yes, sugar is like the one we're all talking about because that's the one thing, you know, it's funny because I had that very conversation, you know, with a friend of mine recently, and it's just, it sounds easy. I mean, everyone's run around with, you know, Starbucks milkshakes all day every day. No wonder, you know, they think, well, gee, I work out, but it doesn't seem to make a big difference. And then I love what you said about old tapes because that programming is so real. And it can be very real for us. And we can't even, we don't always know it's

there. It's like. the water to the fish. We don't always know that we're swimming in that and that our mind is kind of running these tapes on us. I like that wording and that analogy because I think people can understand that and that, you know, letting yourself know. And like you said, there is a responsibility that comes with success and it may look very, very different, in fact, and much more doable than what your brain thinks. But if you at least know that it thinks that and you can kind of counteract that and write it down or maybe give yourself some alternative thoughts, even just the phrase like you said, it's okay. It's going to be okay to be successful. And then I absolutely love that you said,

you know, if you want to take big actions, you're going to have to have big goals. But if you go like, you know, I want this thing, but I'm just going to incrementally do this really slow methodology, then your brain is never going to understand this big goal that you're going after because it just sees that every day you're going to kind of play small. And I think that makes perfect sense. I really like the audacity of it all. The fact that every month could be December, I think it calls us all to a higher challenge

because you guys had to do a lot to be able to do that. And then it became normal for you the next year. And I think that's really extraordinary because you could do it. And then you just had to systematize doing it. it regularly. I wanted to ask you, you've built systems that allow others to grow without constraint and without constant oversight. How has that philosophy influenced the way that you protect your own time, your energy, and your personal well-being? Well, I think, I wasn't afraid, I think it's just my personality. I wasn't afraid to tell people about my life,

when I was raising my kids and doing stuff and tell them, I, I, I, I didn't, I let my customers know they couldn't control me. What I mean by that is these are the times I'm going to work. I actually told them that.

I didn't work on Sundays. I didn't work on, uh, at night. And every once in a while, like right when I'm building my business, somebody would call me on a Sunday and say, I want to look at a home.

You know what I do? Bring my youngest kid with me. I'd be in my Levi's and a t-shirt. because guess why? I wasn't going to dress up because I was going to let them know, you know, this is my day off. Yeah.

Yeah, I just think, you know what's fun? As I used to tell my kids when I was selling real estate, I'm going to go play realtor today. And when I come home, I'm going to play dad because that's my most important job. You need to let your people know in your life

that it's okay. Don't say I'm going to work. Then they grow up not wanting to work. I said, I'm just going to go play today. I'm going to go play realtor. You're going to go play podcast person. You're going to play, you know, tell them whatever.

You know, in other words, this is exciting to me and I'm excited to go do it. Yeah. Rather than I've got a job, you know, and then you start going, whoa, I hate this thing. It does put this whole cast of negativity. I like the way you framed that,

that really, you know, playing realtor is, you know, it's just another hat I'm going to wear for today. and, you know, when I'm going to come home, I'm going to do this other thing. And I also love the compartmentalization. I've often told my agents to powerfully be in one place at a time, you know, powerfully be a parent in that moment and then go, you know, and turn off the phone or whatever. And then go powerfully be with your clients or whatever that is or at work. And don't, you know, don't let too many things disrupt that so that you can actually compartmentalize. and that is going to allow you to feel much better.

But I really like the fact that you also talked about, I think it is a societal problem, right? That we think that there is this work thing, that there's a trade-off, that if we work, then we get to play. But work just sounds like you say, like, you know, you're kind of dragging yourself in there. I like the idea that even, you know,

modeling to your kids that you framed it as something, I'm going to play this job. And also, anyway, being a real, I met someone once. He said, you know, I don't work. I do real estate. I, you know, I get to hang out with people I like all day long and I get to enjoy hanging out in houses. I don't work. And I mean, he was probably one of the more successful, long-time realtors I've ever met. And I just thought that that was, you know, it's very much you're making me think about that again and reminding me of the importance of how we frame our reality to ourselves and to our kids.

Through leading and working alongside high-performing women, because obviously we're the women who rise podcast, and I want to, you know, the mission is to help women. Through leading and working alongside high-performing women, what perspectives or leadership qualities have challenged or reshaped or contributed to your own approach to growth and collaboration or maybe even how you collaborate across that. Well, you know, it's funny. I'm so glad I'm on a women's broadcast because when I got in the business in the 80s, literally 90% of the realtors were women. And so my heroes in this business growing up in the 80s and 90s are all women. And I learned so much from them. I mean,

They're just phenomenal. I would say this. And I think my son said it to me the other day after doing this for whatever. He came up to one and said, Dad, you're authentic. And I said, I mean, it was probably the best compliment I've ever had in my life. Wow. Is be yourself.

Be authentic. So that realtor that you had that said, hey, I'm going to go play realtor today. That was him. That was him, right? In other words, that was him, that was the inside of him. So I think for you guys too is if you're yourself in anything, that's what I learned. Man, the realtors that I learned everything from, they were the most consistent. I could tell they were themselves.

They weren't pretending to be somebody else. And I mean, I can tell you all my realtor, they're all women that were my heroes and still are. And I look at them and everybody says they're driven. Yeah, they're all driven. But at the same point, they're being themselves. It's their inner sides that's making them who they are. They're not faking it. I hated the fake till you make it.

You don't fake anything. Just be yourself. Yeah. I love that. And this is really something that I think is so helpful for the younger set who they're going to come into this industry. And look, I mean, they've been looking at. at HGTV and selling sunset and whatever, it just glamorizes the whole thing. I mean, I tell them it's not the industry, but they've got to make their way in this world in the industry and find their

own way to communicate with clients and their own, their own, you know, type of behavior around sales that's going to allow them to be really successful and to find a way, in fact, to show that on social media, which is like the new calling card, you know, and how to be authentic in that, too. I think you're so right because also when we do talk about social media and things like that, people can tell when something doesn't seem authentic. And I think when people respond really well to a post or something on social media, it seems to me that is when someone's sharing some genuine part of themselves. And maybe it's messy or maybe it's funny or maybe whatever, but if they're sharing something, a genuine memory or a genuine thought,

that seems to work really well with people. I think people want more of that genuine authenticity and maybe a little less of the, you know, glamorizing or whatever that is. Right. Yep. I love it. Perfectly said. It's awesome. You say it better than I do, that's for sure. Oh, I doubt it. So for women listening who feel capable of more, but unsure where to focus, what mindset shift do you believe creates the greatest momentum early in a person's journey in, you know, starting a business or becoming an entrepreneur or becoming a leader? You know, my biggest thing is for people starting out, hey, take the little goals, take the little successes and add to them. don't try to look at the number one producer in whatever industry you're in and go, oh, I've got to achieve that within a few years.

Take it a little bit of step at a time. I was not the top producer my first year in the business at all, at all. You know, I wasn't at instant success. But I went to a seminar and they said, here, here's the key again. I teach it all the time. Write your goals down. Like them down. Right?

Make them big. Right? and then hold yourself accountable to them and just gradually let yourself succeed and don't take it so hard on yourself that you have to be the top person right away. And I've ran into a lot of realtors that, I mean, the first couple of years,

I went, oh, they're not doing very well. By the third, fourth year, they're killing it. They're killing it. And they're going, so I think in every industry, it's like that. And you have to learn, you know, I'm big into training. I'm telling you what, I'd be on this podcast all the time. I'd be listening to all this stuff because the bottom line is when you're on your run or you're walking the

morning or on your treadmill, put this little booger in and listen to it. I love it and thank you for the plug. But it's really true. I mean, here I just, I have, you know, 45 minutes to unpack and hopefully get the best wisdom possible from, on each of my guests and, you know, and I think that's what's so fascinating is because you're always going to learn something new, even if it's perhaps the same, you know, bit of information, but it's really coming in a very different way through a different person, you know, what you said about training. The, you know, every high performance person comes on this show is a huge fan of training or coaching or, you know, reading books or like you said, being a student or being

a researcher about what it is they're trying to get. They, you know, they become obsessed and enthusiastic about learning. And some of them become super enthusiastic about teaching. And I think that's what is my favorite thing today and used to be my favorite thing to be a student. And I know that you are an incredible teacher. I've heard you on stage many times. And it's that I think that passion for sharing the how-toes with others comes from having gotten them because you were a great student at some point. So I absolutely love that. And just that I think the ease with which you said, just allow yourself to gradually succeed. Because yes, I've got, you know, I've had a team for a number of years. And, you know, sometimes you have fast launch people. And sometimes you have

you know, people who are launched a little slower, but regardless, you can't really predict when a person is going to suddenly, like, explode with success. I don't think they can. I don't think we can. So I really like the fact that you're kind of giving people permission to just go through that process of learning, go through that process of, you know, becoming better. And just because you're not like the superstar on day one, doesn't mean you won't be. one day. So just a couple questions left, and I want to be really conscious of your time. You often speak about clarity and consistency. What are your three non-negotiables, maybe even today, for growth? And how do they apply maybe to business and, you know, your personal life and

evolution. Well, I think, you know, again, having to routines is really important. Waking up at the same time, exercising in the morning. If you don't exercise in the morning, 90% of us don't do it. I'm just telling you, I've been doing that for 30 years. Whatever exercise that is, I used to walk the beach every morning. Now I play golf almost every, you know, it's so funny. People, you play golf. I play golf really fast. I play it in two hours. I'm done, but it's my exercise. So I think the routine, I think staying healthy, you've got to, my go-toes is again, give up sugar. You know, basically, I call it my no-b-s diet.

You're going to love it. No bread, no sugar. Now, I did that for a year, no bread, no sugar. The people go, oh, you don't eat any carbs. I go, no. I said, no bread, no sugar. I eat pasta. I eat friends.

You know, so in other words, I didn't want to give up, but I got very, very consistent. So I think staying healthy, I don't can't remember. Heather, I can't remember the last time I was sick. Does that make sense? In other words, I can't remember, you know, because I run into people. We just had one stay with us and she was coughing the whole time and she was sick and I'm going, aye, yeah, yay. But I think if you stay in those routines, you're going to stay healthier.

You're going to stay healthier. And I really think sleep is really, really important. I mean, you guys have heard that two million times. but, you know. Yeah, preaching to the choir over here because I, you know, it's something, you know, if you have limited energy, limited amount of time, then you really have to protect your time. And, you know, I think about this kind of thing all the time. I've got boys, you know, my two sons in the house and college and everything.

And I want to be able to do things. And I find there's, you know, so many moms and people out there in business that they're trying to figure out how to juggle. So your health actually becomes really important in your ability to keep going and not not like hit a wall with the flu or something becomes a really huge thing. And I think absolutely, I'm with you on the sleep. And, you know, once I really got mine in order and, you know, habits and all the things, then I basically virtually do not get sick. And my agents will still maybe you'll have cold cycle through our office. But oddly, they're not hitting the lady who's twice the age of everyone in the office, you know, because I'm there getting my eight hours of sleep

and I'm, you know, just taking the vitamins every day and doing everything. It's really massive. I think you're so right like that. And it's something that people may not think they can control. But in fact, that's one of the things we learn as we evolve is that you actually do have more control over your health, way more than maybe we're led to believe. And so that gives us that empowerment. And hopefully your comment also will empower others to kind of take a look at their habits and what allows them to perform at a high level. So just looking ahead, how do you define success now for yourself? and what kind of impact do you hope that people feel, you know, not just measure when they think about your legacy or interact with you? Well, I still have, you know, I have a burning desire and you've met me.

I just want to help real estate agents. See, I've been singular. I've been 41 years in the real estate industry. So my big goal is to help agents have other income besides selling homes so that basically they can retire someday. day and they can and they can have a career because I talk to agents and I've always said this Heather, when are you going to retire and they go five years. Yeah. And then five years goes by and I go, when are you to retire? And they go five years. And it's like so so with our revenue share system at EXP Realty, I can say look at you know, in the next four years, Heather, we will pay out

$1 billion in rev share. One billion dollars back to our agents. So that's extra income. And if I can show them how to get that besides selling homes, you know, having an extra $5,000 a month or $10,000 a month can impact their lives forever. And that's my legacy. Helping real estate agents, you know, so I know it's the only thing I've been doing for 40 years. So like you said, if you singularly, if I don't get pulled away at different stuff, I do really well. Fantastic. It is amazing. Well, I can just say that, you know, having had the pleasure of watching you on stage multiple times, it's just, you know, you are really someone with the ability to inspire and, you know, give hope to so many people and you have helped people succeed at such a high level and you've demonstrated to everyone

that you can do all of that and still be, like you said, your authentic self, be someone that Other people, you know, they always know when you, you know, when you, when you deal with you, you're going to know exactly what you get. And that's someone who is genuinely passionate, genuinely caring, and, you know, genuinely wants to make a better world for those of us that are, that are, you know, that are looking for that. And like you said, want a path to retirement, want a path to a better life. It's amazing. And I just want to thank you so much. for your time with us today. Is there anything that you're up to

that you would like our audience to know about coaching or anything like that or any platforms? No, the only thing is that my book, you know, be the legend book.com. You can go be the legend book.com. It's on Amazon, which I just got that. Because I think it's just a good, yeah.

You know, it's so funny, a couple entrepreneurs here. I got my copy right here. Thank you. It's funny. I've got my bookmark. I haven't read the whole thing yet. Yeah.

That's okay. You'll like it. A couple of the entrepreneurs here in my neighborhood have said, oh, they were just 60 pages in. They go, ooh, that's really good. So it's a book. It's not about a real. Yeah. So that's, that was a project that I spent two years doing.

So other than that, keep learning. I keep learning. I listen to tons. I'm listening to this podcast. I can listen to tons of podcasts. By the way, I'm audio. right? I learned by audio. Okay.

Some people are visual. I'm audio. So once you understand that, it only took me a long time. I love TED Talks. I love, I mean, I'm one of those gurus where I listen to all that stuff. Yeah. That's how I love it. Yeah.

You know, it's like food is nutrition and what we hear and see is wisdom. It's so if you're picky about those things and you watch what you're taking. in, it's incredible what you can do. It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yes, and thank you. We appreciate you so much, Sheen. It has been a fantastic conversation. Everyone stay tuned for the recap notes and our workbook and guide that you'll have as accompanied to this episode. Stay tuned for more. Well, folks, that's it for today's podcast. much for joining us on Women Who Rise, the Success Podcast for Ambitious Women. Today, Gene taught us, number one, understand that problems are often best handled one at a time with 100% focus.

He talked about, you know, the dis-ease that comes with having multiple companies, multiple problems and trying to, you know, tackle those problems in tandem. Instead, he really suggested taking just one solo focus on one issue and just putting all of your focus into that until you've gotten that goal, that problem, that solution, whatever it is, whether that's a week or a month, you name it, maybe a year, whatever that is, to get you through. And then number two, he talked about one and a half years into his own real estate career. He had produced what he produced. He did what he did. And then he sat down and went through strategically what he should not do, which he was not good at. And he hired an assistant to do those things. And that one decision caused a doubling of his income that next year. So that just that strategy of staying in the zone of just, genius for himself and understanding that he should leverage out the things that he himself was not that great at doing. He talked about not loving technology and things like that. Hiring an assistant,

looking at his daily tasks, making that choice and carving those things out, doubled his business, doubled his income for the next year. Again, keep in mind, we do have Excellence VAs. There are links and information on the website about that. how you can leverage getting assistance for yourself so that you can do a similar tactic of what Jean did. Number three, he talked about in sales and in recruiting. Remember that it's all about them. He made the point that people choose people, not companies. So this is just a really critical thing to understand, which is that people do not leave a company to join another. They love. leave relationships and things that may not be working for them and go join relationships

and a perceived idea of the world in which they're going to work at that next place. And really being able to sit down and start and evolve the conversation around that person, their lives, what works, what doesn't, what their goals are, all of it, as opposed to your presentation or some, you know, you-centric way of communicating to them, that is, he said, the key to his success as one of the most dynamic and successful recruiters as well as salespeople in his 41 years.

So number four, and finally, be your authentic self and learn to set big goals. and write them down and look at them every day. He talked about if you want to have big action, if you want to take big actions, you really have to understand that setting those big goals is how you get there. If you are setting small incremental goals, your mind is not necessarily going to look at that and generate big action for you.

So being able to set down big goals, be audacious, put yourself into full activation mode, and write them down, write them down big. He said, put them where you can see them. And I just thought that that was something so simple and yet so wise from someone that is so accomplished. Remember, you can access his book, Be the Legend, and that is available on Amazon.com. Please go check that out. Be the legend.

And then also, you know, visit our website. site to see our episode guide and worksheet that will help you use these tips to take action in your own life. Like and subscribe and join us everywhere. Podcasts are streamed. We can't wait to bring you more incredible content every week so that you can rise in your own lives and careers. And again, thank you so much. Heather Manzi, signing off.