Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dave Liniger on the Perfect 10: Craft Your Path to Success EP 474

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

In this episode of Passion Struck, host John R. Miles interviews Dave Liniger, co-founder of RE/MAX, who shares profound insights on leadership, adaptability, and resilience. Liniger explores the evolution of the real estate industry, emphasizing technology's impact and the enduring value of real estate agents. Liniger also recounts overcoming a life-threatening infection and how it reshaped his outlook on life and leadership. The episode delves into principles from Liniger's book, "The Perfect 10," inspired by historical figures like Ernest Shackleton, focusing on embracing change and adaptability. Liniger's message inspires future generations, underscoring the importance of resilience, adaptability, and compassionate leadership.Order a copy of my book, "Passion Struck: Twelve Powerful Principles to Unlock Your Purpose and Ignite Your Most Intentional Life," today!  Recognized as a 2024 must-read by the Next Big Idea Club, the book has won the Business Minds Best Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Award, the International Book Awards for Best Non-Fiction, the 2024 Reader’s Choice Contest by Connections eMagazine, and the Non-Fiction Book Awards Gold Medal. Don't miss out on the opportunity to transform your life with these powerful principles!Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/dave-liniger-on-the-perfect-10/In this episode, you will learn:The importance of adaptability in leadership and how it relates to Darwin's theory of survival of the fittestThe story of Dave Linegar, co-founder of REMAX, and his journey in the real estate industryLessons on leadership, team building, and the importance of personal development from Dave Linegar's experiencesInsights on resilience, innovation, and determination from Dave Linegar's life-threatening staph infectionThe concept of the "Perfect 10" and how it relates to achieving excellence in life and businessLessons on embracing change and the impact of technology on industries like real estateThe role of real estate agents in transactions and the continued importance of their expertiseThe decline of the "buy owner" market and the complexity of real estate transactionsThe legacy of "Perfect 10" as a source of inspiration for future generationsAll things Dave Liniger: https://www.remaxholdings.com/bio/dave-linigerSponsorsBrought to you by Clariton, fast and powerful relief is just a quick trip away. Ask for Claritin-D at your local pharmacy counter. You don’t even need a prescription! Go to “CLARITIN DOT COM” right now for a discount so you can Live Claritin Clear.--► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to:https://passionstruck.com/deals/Catch More of Passion StruckWatch my solo episode on Create Work-Life Balance: 9 Simple Ways.Can’t miss my episode withJacob Morgan on the Vital Power of Leading With VulnerabilityListen to my interview withGerry Hussey on How You Lead Yourself to Infinite Potential.Catch my interview with Ivo Brughmans on How to Navigate the Paradoxes of Leadership.Listen to my solo episode on 7 Reasons Why Acts of Kindness Are More than Meets the Eye.Like this show? Please leave us a review here-- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally!

Coming up next on Passion Strike. Darwin has been attributed to Salem saying the strongest of the species survives. That's not what he said at all. He said the most adaptable of the species survives. The dinosaurs were the strongest. They disappeared 70 to 100 million years ago. Mosquitoes still with us. The mosquitoes proven to be more adaptable than dinosaurs ever were.

still with us. The mosquitos proven to be more adaptable than dinosaurs ever were. And so adaptability is an incredible part of being a leader and leading other people. You have to learn to adapt. You can't be afraid. 25 years ago, technology started coming in the industry. And I kept saying, most rotate agents don't need technology, they need a customer. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the

best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become Passion Struck. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to episode 474, Passion Struck, consistently ranked as the number

one alternative health podcast. A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who return to the show every week, eager to listen, learn and discover new ways to live better, to be better, and most importantly, to make a meaningful impact in the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member. And we so appreciate it when you do that. We have episodes, starter packs, which are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we organize in a convenient playlist that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to

everything we do here on the show, either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started. I am excited to announce that my new book, passion struck one best nonfiction book at the international book awards, such a humbling award. to get started. I am excited to announce that my new book, Passionstruck, won Best Nonfiction Book at the International Book Awards. Such a humbling award. It also is a winner at the Eric Hoffer Book Awards, the Best Business Minds Book Awards, and won the gold at the Nonfiction Book Awards. In addition, the Next Big Idea Club recognized it as a must read in February, and you can purchase it on Amazon or go to passionstruck.com. And in case you missed it earlier this week, I interviewed James Ray and Monica Berg. James is the visionary

leader who transformed Ashley Stewart against all odds. And in this episode, we discuss James story, which is one of resilience, innovation, and the transformative power of kindness. In my inspiring conversation with Monica Berg, we dove into personal growth, overcoming fear, and finding true fulfillment. Discover how to unlock your potential and live a more intentional life. Don't miss this enlightening episode with Monica Berg. And if you liked that previous episode or today's, we would so appreciate you giving it a five-star rating and review. They go such a long way in strengthening the Passion Star community where we can help more people to create an intentional life. And we and our guests love to hear your feedback.

Today, I have the honor of speaking with an extraordinary leader, innovator, and visionary in the real estate industry, Dave Lineger. Dave co-founded REMAX in 1973, revolutionizing the real estate world with his unique business model that combines maximum commission concepts with unparalleled support services. His journey, however, started long before that. From serving in the Air Force during the Vietnam War to navigating the challenging landscape of entrepreneurship, Dave's life is a testament to resilience, innovation, and the power of determination. We'll explore

how his military service shaped his career, the key challenges he faced while revolutionizing the real estate industry, and the inspiration behind creating the Maximum Commission concept. We'll also delve into his adventurous spirit, his remarkable recovery from a life-threatening infection and how these experiences have influenced his approach to life and leadership. Dave's insights into building resilient teams, fostering innovation and the importance

of continuous personal development are not to be missed. His newest book, The Perfect Ten, encapsulates over five decades of wisdom and offers invaluable lessons for inspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned business leaders alike. Get ready to be inspired by Dave Lineger's incredible story of overcoming obstacles, pioneering change, and leading with vision and heart. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey

to creating an intentional life. Now let that journey begin. I am absolutely thrilled and honored today to have Dave Lineger on Passion Struck. Welcome, Dave. Hey, thank you, John. It's nice to be here. Dave, I always like to start this out by giving some background on the individual who I'm interviewing

for the audience. And you and I both happen to be veterans. You served in the Air Force and in Vietnam and I was wondering how your time in the military laid a foundation for you for the rest of your career. Well, I was born on a farm in Marion, Indiana. Not necessarily a good student.

I was certainly smart enough, but I went to college because my parents said, you're going to go to college. And I didn't have the maturity or the self-discipline to study. I didn't have a goal of what I wanted to be. Some people are blessed by thinking, I know I want to be a doctor, I want to be a nurse or whatever it might be. And I just did not. And so after struggling for a couple of semesters, I joined the United States Air Force. I served five and a half, six years in multiple locations, and the Air Force was outstanding for me. It gave me a chance to grow up, mature, and it also allowed me to figure out discipline. Obviously, if the military tells you to be someplace

on time, you have to be theirs. I had my good work ethic from going up on a farm. And so the extra five or six years gave me the ability to be more mature and ready and capable of going into business. Your story sounds a little bit similar to my father's. He started out at the university of Detroit. Things weren't going the way he wanted.

He ended up enlisting in the Marine Corps and he went to Cambodia before Vietnam, but came out of it and it completely changed his life trajectory. He ended up going to the university in Michigan and then on from there. his life trajectory, you ended up going to the University of Michigan, and then on from there. I wanted to talk about your journey at Remax because you ended up co-founding this, if I have the day correct, in 1973. What were the challenges that the industry faced at that point in time, and how was Remax revolutionizing that through its business model? Traditionally, in that time period, real estate agents worked for the owner of the office

on usually about a 50-50 split. The agent got 50% of the commission for their income, and also would pay their personal expenses, which has automobile, insurance, entertainment, the rail trados. And obviously, there are no salaries in the real estate industry, and so they have to pay their own 401k, social security, et cetera. The company used their hat to provide an office space, secretarial, clerical, advertising, marketing, and to earn a profit. The turnover rate in the real estate industry was horrendous.

All the part-timers and beginners that came into business really had struggled to make a living. They were trying to learn a business, trying to figure out property values, trying to find customers, and going for months before they got their first closing. And it was a mess. I ended up thinking about, why don't I have a FOA?

Like a group of doctors, lawyers, architects, dentists that were highly experienced, that would band together, work out the same office space, pay the fair share of their expenses, plus their own personal marketing and advertising, and keep the vast majority of the commission for themselves. And the end result was that as we grew, it worked. The age has really worked basically on a 85-15 split. So this started to revolutionize the industry, but the powers to be aided it because if it succeeded, it meant they were going to have to pay their top producers more than a 50%

split to keep them. So the industry banded together, tried to do everything they could to drive us out of business. And really, they didn't have to try too hard. I was making enough mistakes by myself that I almost did that to myself. But once we had proven the concept, the sky was the limit. And you guys have dominated for years. However, more recently, there have been some new models, I say recently, because Keller Williams has been around now for a while. Gary Williams was actually one of my neighbors when I lived in Austin.

But you now have Keller Williams, you have a newer one, EXP. How, given those models, do you think real estate is changing or do you think it's changing at all and do you think it's had any impact on the industry? Well, in the last 50 years, the industry's changed dramatically. In 1973, we had a single page form for a listing agreement. And now the listing agreements are dozens of pages.

The purchase agreements, FHA, VA, or cash or whatever, they were one to two pages. Now they're 40 and 50 pages. The litigation explosion that occurred in the 70s and on, all of a sudden, the realtors were held to a much higher standard. Business became more complex. You had buyer agents versus seller agents, dual agents, and it changed dramatically. In the 70s, realistically, that's when franchising came about in the industry. And also in the 70s, Sears came in and bought the Coldwell Banker, and then Verdigital came in, Merrill Lynch came in. And so in 1978, there were 178 so-called national companies, and the franchise salesmen were

all running around saying, hey, the nationals are going to control 80% of the market in five years, and if you don't join ours, you're going to be left behind. So to take it a step further, that was never going to happen, but today, over 60% of the business is done by approximately 10 national companies. So it has had a tremendous impact on the industry itself. There is lots of room for different types of competitors. There are certainly the vast majority of the new agents are not qualified to come to remix and pay us in advance every month. They're pro-rata share and wait to fight away to make commissions.

Our niche is relatively small. We're really recruit from the top 20% of the agents out there and that makes ours highly qualified. The top 20% of our competitors are highly qualified too. So there is room enough all kinds of different concepts. Rematch continues to thrive. We now have, let's see, 9,000 offices, 145 to 150,000 sales associates in 110 countries.

Yeah, it really is a vast network that you ended up building. But I understand, as with any venture that anyone gets into, when you start doing this, you make mistakes along the way and you learn from them. What were some of the biggest leadership lessons that you had to learn as you were building the company? I think the first thing was that I was very

inexperienced as a leader and as a manager. And so as I struggled the first couple of years, at least I had common sense to sit and talk to my managers in my offices who were 20 years older than me and had a lot more experience. I said, what did you like best at the company you used to work for? What did you dislike the most? What do you like best about rematch, what did you dislike the most? What do you like best about rematch? What do you dislike the most?

What do you like about me and my management? What do you dislike the most? When you ask for criticism, they're going to give it to you honestly and learn from that. I learned that I didn't want to fail. And so since I didn't want to fail, then I had to take the advice.

So I think the most important thing to figure out as a entrepreneur is you don't have all the answers. A lot of times your staff can contribute heavily. In the Remax history, we haven't come up with a single great idea out of every tower group, but with the vast number of agents we've got, we have an unending source of good information and good ideas. Some of them are poor, and some of them are radical or crazy, but some of them are darn right amazing.

I think the first thing is you've got two ears and one mouth, use them appropriately, listen to your employees or your independent contractors. They're on the front line. They know what's going on. The second thing I would say is the biggest leadership failure was I didn't fire people when they should have been fired. Unfortunately, you get in a company that grew like ours did, the bookkeeper you had with one office is not going to be the chief

financial officer you're going to have with, say, 110 countries. The attorney that could come up with a contract for real estate sales on a property is not going to be your chief legal counsel. There's a staff of 20 and 20 outside attorney firms worldwide. I know I used to brag the first 38 years of the company, not a single one of my vice presidents resigned or left me, period. And I thought that was a good thing. If they can't keep up and you try to talk to them about that, you give them their reviews, you make your suggestions, just not everybody

can continue to grow with the company the way they should. And if you don't fire the one you should, you're hurting everybody in the company. Number one, you hurt the employees that are working for them because they know the person isn't worthwhile. You hurt the individual because you've pigeonholed them and there's no more future for them.

And finally, you hurt yourself and your shareholders because you're holding your growth back. So I think the biggest disappointment I had was not having the personal courage to look at people who I considered friends that we had traveled, worked together, been together for decades, and they couldn't keep up the pace. And so I just didn't have the personal courage to face up to the problem of this wasn't working for anybody and we should be able to separate some way and fashion, shake hands and stay friends,

let them find a better position where they're going to go further and for us to replace them with somebody who can do it better. Yes, I experienced this myself in a large organization. I was a senior executive at Lowe's, but one of the first outside officers that they had brought in. And I saw the same thing. We had some very talented people in the organization, but the organization had grown beyond what their capabilities were because they had never seen anything beyond the organization itself. And so having to make some of those decisions while it was hard to either

demote them, move them out of the organization or into different roles, it was holding back the progression that we were going to make at Lowe's if I had kept them there. I think that's an important lesson to talk about. You bet. Well, Dave, you have lived life experiences that many people couldn't even imagine, and you have this adventurous spirit that's led you to engage in everything from scuba diving spirit that's led you to engage in everything from scuba diving to when I was at Lowe's, I lived next to a lot of NASCAR drivers, you were in auto racing yourself, and even a helium balloon flight across the world. How have these experiences shaped your own perspective on life and leadership? Well, if I had kept selling houses,

I would have burned out probably in five or 10 years. The fact that I started the organization and I had the capacity to grow as the organization grew, it made the business life extraordinarily interesting. I used to reach out to other businesses. I'm involved in probably 20, 22 different businesses right now. I find that learning a new business, the curiosity that I've got, I can apply almost the same business skills that I learned from a raising, say, Arabian

horses or driving a NASCAR car or owning a NASCAR race team. It's all about leadership. It's all about team building. The team building is probably the third most important lesson that I've learned is you can't do everything yourself when you are inexperienced and you don't have a lot of capital when you start your business. You're the chief of cook and bottle washer because you have unlimited time and very limited money to hire other talent. Once you become successful and profitable, you can reinvest those profits and hire people that are better at you in each of the other areas of skill that you need.

And when you look at Remax, I commissioned in the 50th convention a year ago, I said, Dave and Gail Lindecker are mere footnotes in the growth of this company. This company was built on the backs of hundreds of thousands of agents and brokers and franchisees over a period of 50 years. And if anything that we've done has been right,

it's the skill of team building, putting the team together, putting the people on the bus, getting them in the right seats, and moving forward. Yes, and that's actually one of the six principles that you talk about in your new book, the Perfect Ten Principles principles or the perfect 10,

and this is one of the 10 principles. I understand that putting people in the right seats on the bus is essential. It's something that I've had to do in my own career. What qualities do you look for in the people that you put on the bus so that you ensure that you have a team that's going to foster collaboration but also not have group think because you need to have individuals on these teams who are diverse as well? Well I think when you look at hiring three or

four things come to mind immediately. Number one, what is their level or degree of honesty and integrity? There's no such thing as being a little bit honest or a little bit dishonest. You either are or you're not. That goes a long way towards building a team. The second thing is a great work ethic, and that is building a business is hard, backbreaking work. In the case of Remax, I travel for the business probably 200 to 250 days a year for almost 40 years before I start backing down a little bit from that.

So having a great work ethic is very important. I think you look for people who are collaborative. Finally, I think what you have to look at is what's their passion? Why are they doing this? Are they doing it for a paycheck, for profit sharing, for an annual bonus, or have they fallen in love with the business? And that's what happened with us. We really like our franchisees and our leaders, especially like the agents.

They're part of our world that you can't replace. our franchisees and our leaders, especially like the agents, their bar-by-bar world that you can't replace. And I haven't worked a day since I started remax. Every day was an honor and every day been a pleasure. And so if you're doing what you love, you'll do it better than anybody else can do it. I love that you brought all that up. I was interviewing earlier today, Jerry Hussey, who you probably are not familiar with, but he is the top sports psychologist in Ireland and has worked with a number of their Olympic athletes.

He works with the national rugby team, their national sailing teams, et cetera. And as we were talking, I asked him about Olympic athletes and how does he go about training and helping them. And he said that he always asks a Olympic athlete why winning a gold medal means so much to them. And he says, you would be surprised how many when you ask him the question why is the medal the thing that you want more than anything and even answer the question to why they want it and he said what he has found is that those Olympic athletes who have been the most

successful are the ones who aren't driven by the medals, but they're driven by the journey of conquering their fears and going after their passion. Do you think the same thing goes to people who work in the office? Because I have found my own self that people who are constantly chasing success are so motivated by ego that it gets in the way from them performing the job that you would want them to do because they get in their own way and that of their peers. I did a podcast with General Crystal and I asked him a similar question. I said, the people that you're trying to promote have got very strong egos. How

do you feel about that? And they're driven to succeed and they're driven to make their next promotion and possibly become a general of self. And he said, well, if a person's in this only for themselves, the people need them will see it, present it and won't give them a hundred percent. He said, but if they're a leader and they talked about as a team, we're going to win together meaning that I'm not just chasing my promotion, but as we win, you too will get recognition, promotion, higher pay raises and that sort of thing. And so if you're a strong ego and the ego is about the team and not just about your own personal accomplishments,

you will be followed by the majority of the people. I love that you bring Stan up because I also featured General McChrystal in my book, which just came out last month. And I interviewed him and a long-term friend of mine, Keith Crotch, who was the chairman and CEO of DocuSign. And this chapter is all about a concept that I call Gardner leadership, but it really comes down to being eyes on and hands off. And what General McChrystal really talked about was this concept of being ambitious.

being ambitious. You need to have the ambition to succeed, but at the same time, you need to be humble in the way that you're leading your troops. And so I think he's an excellent example, as you just brought up of someone who has perfected both, but looks for people who have that humility in them, but they are also driven to reach new heights. So I appreciate you bringing him up. Cool. So when I think of the perfect 10,

my mind goes to things like gymnastics or diving competitions. We're trying to achieve a perfect 10 is something that world-class athletes might achieve once or twice in their entire career if they're lucky. Why were you drawn to this as the title for your book? It's a little lengthy, but it's fascinating. And then, I'm sorry, 2017, we started a survey of our employees, and it's called the Net Promoters Four. Are you familiar with NPS?

Yeah, I'm very familiar with it. It was core metric that we used at Dell when I was there. Okay, basically for the audience, you asked one simple question and it's easy for somebody to answer your survey. That question is on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the highest likelihood, how likely is it that you would recommend a friend or a relative to work alongside of us in this organization?

And if they are 9 or 10, they are promoters. If they give it a ranking of 6, 7, and 8, they don't count. And if they give you a ranking of 1 to five, they're detractors. You take the total score of all the promoters, detract from that, the minuses from the detractors, and that gives you your net promoter score. At the time, a survey had just been done of airlines, United Airlines got an overall score of two, and Southwest Airlines got an overall score of 62. Now, you

have basically the same people, same aircraft types, same manufacturer, same routes, same discount fares. And one group is highly-braced and the other group is down at the bottom of the list. And so it really comes out to the people who make the difference. It's the leadership and it's the direction the people take you. To put it in perspective, we did our net promoter score, and the overall score in the United States was 72, which is right alongside of Amazon and Apple, Google, and so on. And so that's very refreshing for us.

But in doing this, we followed every single agent's response. The second question you can ask if the answer to the first one is why? And in the case of our people that got the highest rankings in their offices, and some places, 200 agents in an office, and they got a perfect 10. And you'd look at the comments of why, and they'd say, my broker is the

finest one I've ever worked for. She really cares about me and my family. I ever have a problem. Her door is wide open. She'll help me solve it. And you look at the people that we had that were down to the minus 100 and the opposite reaction was, and it said, well, my broker doesn't care about me. I had a praiseable problem.

And he said, you have to work it out care about me. I had a praiseable problem. He said, you have to work it out for yourself. I'm busy selling houses myself. I don't have time for that. And so it was this leadership. People join companies and they lead managers. Well, we had 4,000 offices in the United States and 200 of those offices got a perfect 10 on their scores. At the next convention, we spent an hour or two going over it, showing the difference in leadership and management styles. I announced to the room,

these are the 200 people that were the perfect 10. It drew me into this concept of you can have it all. Some people become incredibly wealthy, but they lose their family. The kids hate them. They're lonely and maybe they push too hard. They're into addiction of some kind. They're just mean, nasty people. And when you look at it in the same company, perhaps in the same city, you got one outstanding leader with 200 agents, it's got this perfect score, theoretically a perfect life, and you've got another person who's got this minus 100. So this perfect 10 is trying to tell people you can have it all, but just like another big athlete,

maybe once or twice you will have the absolutely perfect gymnastics or diving motion or whatever it is, but it's what you try to achieve. And so what I've tried to do with this book is cover all the different areas of being an entrepreneur, a leader, a manager. I talk about business a lot with scalability, but I also spend a lot of time talking about personal promotion of personal development of making a difference in the world. And the real question you have to ask everybody is why are you doing this?

And the stronger the why, the more likely it is you're going to do with excellence. And the stronger the why, the more likely it is you're going to do with excellence. Dave, speaking of personal development and personal struggles that you have to overcome, you ended up having a life-threatening staph infection in 2012. And as I have done research, you made a split second decision to choose life over coming to despair. And it's something that I've seen happen to a number of veteran friends of mine who might have lost a limb or had some other tragic event happen to them in combat where they had a choice. They could either in some cases drink themselves to death or they could choose a

different path than the one that they were on and choose to believe that anything was possible in their life. Can you describe the moment or decision for you when this happened and how it impacted your outlook on life and business ever since? I would say that two parts of that. I was in a coma for three months. They found out that MRSA had attached itself to my lungs,

my organs and my spine. And so when I came out of the coma, I flatlined a couple of times and I was quadriplegic. I had gone into a fetal position. My tendons had heightened up on me. I looked like I was just my hands and legs all tucked in. And they did some nerve tests on me and when they finished I asked them, well, what's the verdict here? How soon am I going to start walking out of this place? And with tears in their eyes they said, well, the nerve damage is too significant. The spinal cord

damage from us doing your back surgeries and trying to get the disease off of your spine. And it's unfortunately, we don't believe you will ever walk or use your hands again. And that night, this little pity party, I'm sitting in there by myself and thinking about it. And I just quit. I don't need this. I've done everything I would have wanted to do. I just die. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, you're a lousy hypocrite.

I've gone around the country, around the world, giving all these speeches forever about you can accomplish anything you want. They can grow rich. Set a goal. Step by step plan. Organize your plan. get a mentor group, a group of people that will support you and you can accomplish anything, just never quit. I made up my mind that night, I am not going to quit. I was at a rehab center of spinal cord injuries and of striatic brain injuries. And so a hundred patients at any one time. And you looked around at the therapy rooms, you saw how damaged everybody was. And it was, I started thinking, well, look at those guys.

There are a wheelchair and they're playing basketball or they're playing hockey or whatever it might be. And they were banging on each other, they knocked the other guy out of his wheelchair. And of course, they just dropped to the floor and able-witted person about straighten them back up, tighten their seat belts, after they would again. I just figured out, well, if I can get the use of my hands back,

I'll be the best star in paraplegic there's ever been. And I can still be a man. That kind of set me down the path of I was never going to quit. One of the things I have unfortunately had to observe over the last three to four years is my sister who is still alive is battling pancreatic cancer. And it's definitely showed me how quickly your health can be taken away from you when you least expect it. How has this personal experience reshaped your perspective

on your wealth and life priorities? I've always appreciated life by enjoying adventure sports. I've done some of the most exciting things in the world that there is. So I guess I can say I've had a life well lived, very heavily involved in philanthropy for over 30 years. We made more money than we could ever spend and found the right causes to help do stuff like that.

So when it just comes down to it, nothing really changed for me. Time Magazine, 10 years apart, ran a magazine full of happiness. And it was the first time I read it, they had a happy face on the cover. And 10 years later, they had 40 happy faces on the cover. on the cover, and 10 years later, they had 40 happy faces on the cover. And one paragraph stood out to me at the time. I was able-bodied. It said that studies of people who have a spinal cord injury and perhaps are going to be in a wheelchair the rest of their life, they found out that the typical person achieves

the same level of happiness that they have at the time of the accident within five to six years. The human mind is very resilient. Once you accept what's happened to you, then you play with the hand that's been dealt to you and the resilience, the grit that you're faced with, that's how you win. The one thing I have discovered is I've always thought I was a kind person, grew up a boy scout, of course, helping other people, opening doors, carrying packages,

how to be of service type of thing. I thought that was pretty normal. But once I was handicapped, learning to get around an electric wheelchair at the time before I could walk again, and I had to get stuck in places, trying to go through a door that didn't open automatically and getting caught up with only one hand. Everybody would jump up to help. I can remember you had somebody grab a parking spot in front of you and throw a bird to

you, and you think, well, you miserable jerk. somebody grab a parking spot in front of you and throw a bird to you. And you'd think, well, you miserable jerk. But then again, you started thinking, I wonder if that's the person that pulled my wife out of the airplane crash and saved her life and maybe he's just having a bad day and that gangbangers were walking in the store and I couldn't get a door open. I was using two canes and were these guys with tattoos and he's had on backwards say, excuse me, sir, let me get that door for you. I think there's far more goodness in most people than we realize. And I think I really started discovering that when I myself came to an era of

time when I was in personal need of everything. I couldn't shave, I couldn't eat, I couldn't move my hands, I couldn't wipe my bottom, and I had these unbelievably compassionate nurses and therapists that had to take care of me like I was a one-month-old baby. You just find that there are people, almost everybody is kind in a way of one way or the other, but you also see how incredibly compassionate the medical and nursing staff and the therapists are.

So I happen to be engaged to a nurse practitioner who spent 10 years in the ICU, and I just see how empathetic she is and difference she has made in so many different people's lives. And your story made me think about over lunch, I was reading about the life of Paul Alexander. I'm not sure if you're familiar with them,

but he died today, 78 years old, but for over 70 of those years, he was known as polio Paul because he lived in an iron lung for 70 of them. And it was just amazing that throughout all of that time, he was able to go to college and spent 30 years as a trial lawyer, authored books, gave keynote speeches and everything else. So it is just a great example of what the power of your mind can do when you don't let yourself see limitations. I thank you for sharing that and your different perspectives on it. John, I'd make one other point about that.

In being in a center with spinal injury and traumatic brain injury, the majority of them are young men, usually between the ages of about 15 and 23 or 24. Our boy babies don't mature like a woman's does. And so a lot of us aren't mature enough to even have a driver's license, probably until you're 30 or 40. But that's another story. But the thing that's interesting about being there is I told my nurses that therapists, I said, look, I wanted a lot of things in my life.

I failed at things, but I've gotten back up. So you're not a failure if you don't quit. And so I begged them to ask them politely. I said, work me harder than any patient you've ever had in your life. And I won't let you down. I will never quit. And I will be a success story for you and your medical care. And they did work me hard. And it took me almost nine months before I was able to take a single step and braces and double crutches, but I had a lifetime of successes and failures and I knew I could do it. And then if you look at most of these young male patients,

they didn't want to do the therapy. They would say it hurts too much. They want to watch television. They want to play a game boy or they want to talk to their friends. And here the parents and therapists, nurses are begging them, you can't get better if you don't put in the pain. You've got to work your way through it. And there was a young kid that came in nationally ranked the national champion in motocross. He was 18 years old and had been driving a motorcycle or moped or whatever he had from the age of four. He was doing the dramatic backflips and jumps and spins,

and he ended up with a lower back injury and left him paralyzed. He was the same as me. He had had those short 18 years of lifetime failures and successes, and that gave him the courage to move forward. They say that courage comes from confidence, and confidence comes from experience. And so those of us who have been fortunate enough to live through whatever the tragedy is, whether it's a loss of a parent, child, or a loved one, maybe it's financial difficulties, maybe it's medical difficulties, whatever it is,

you keep going and that gives you the confidence and the resiliency to never quit. Thank you so much for sharing that. That is such profound advice. I want to go into Perfect 10 a little bit more. In it you draw wisdom from a wide array of sources including colleagues, your personal experiences which we've been discussing, and also historical figures. And one of the core principles is based on the lasting influence that Ernest Shackleton

had on you. Can you explain how his leadership qualities inspired your approach? I actually studied Sir Ernest for a couple of years. The management leadership group had actually come up with a study plan and I bought the rights to it and customized it for the remax organization. And I taught over 6,000 students an eight-hour course in groups of anywhere from 50 to 100 over a period of three or four years. It had an influence on all of us. Shackleton was the famous Arctic explorer. He's most famous for trying to go to the South Pole and he was in a wooden ship

with almost 30 other guys. He was the captain of the leader of the expedition. They got caught in the ice and then the ice actually froze around the ship. Bear in mind, this is early 2000, I'm sorry 1900, there were no telegraphs or radios or anything like that. And as they were there, they said, well, at least we're warm, we got food in the boat. And after a few weeks, the ice started getting firmer, started to crush the boat. So Ernest got everybody off the boat, made them take all the lifeboats, which were heavy, wooden, huge boats.

Of course, they crammed as much food and everything they could get. These individuals then watched this ship finally imploded. If you're saying enough, they were marooned for 22 months. And the story of shackles and his leadership is that at the end of this period of time, every single man that made it, he didn't use a single man, and every single one wrote in their diaries. He was the finest leader they had ever had. The thing that made him such a great leader was at that era, the way of leadership was the general tells somebody jump and they ask how high

on the way up and do it my way or the highway. Typical male leadership principles that has been changing and evolving, but he was born and he had seven sisters. So he was the only boy with all that sisters and he started emulating a lot of things they did. And today we know that women leaders often do a better job than men. And that's because they're more inclusive. There are exceptions to that, of course, but they're more likely to be empathetic to somebody else's needs or

wants. They're more likely to ask people for advice or for their opinions than a man. When you look at real estate agents, women started coming in the business really in the 1970s. And the men were against it, of course, but this is a man's business, not some part-time housewife. And that was foolish. Women that were full-time made as much money as other full-time men. They were actually better at sales because they didn't sell.

They looked at the house through the eyes of the woman, which was schools, playgrounds, churches. They looked at the house inside and she didn't care what the shingles looked like or what the foundation was, but wouldn't know how many steps there were and is the laundry on the same floor as the bedrooms because that's running up and down the stairs is always a pain. And so we found that women have a very special place in leadership. If you look at Remax's history, in the first five years, 80% of my sales force were women and multicultural,

which was very unusual for that time period. Now, the rest is history. 65% of our sales sports in the United States are female, which is online with the industry average. I guess 75% of my public board are women. Two of my five CEOs in the 51 year history of the company were women and of our franchisees, our leadership and so on,

over half of our offices are now owned by a wife or a husband and wife together. And so sometimes the best man for a job is a woman. And Shackleton approved the very similar attributes of many women leaders today. That's a pretty fascinating look at how the world works. It is a fascinating look. One of the fascinating things that I think that's happening

right now is the evolution of technology. You have seen a number of companies, whether it's Zillow, Redfin, which is closer to what Remax does, and others try to disrupt using technology. And I know that there are a lot of listeners right now who are worried about how automation, AI, other things are going to impact their jobs.

Embracing change is something that you cover in the book. Can you give some life examples of this for someone who's listening to this, your advice to them on how they should approach changes that come at them in their life? Well, my primary industry is rough state business and the massive changes that occurred in the last 50 years are pretty incredible. I used to brag because we had the best agents in the world,

we can prove it statistically. I said, they're the reason we succeed. But it really started dawning a few years ago that they succeed not because they're the smartest or the strongest. Darwin has been attributed to Saving saying, the strongest of the species survives. That's not what he said at all. He said the most adaptable of the species survives. The dinosaurs were the strongest. They disappeared 70 to 100 million years ago. Mosquito is still with us. And so the mosquito has proven to be more adaptable

than dinosaurs ever were. And so adaptability is an incredible part of being a leader and leading other people. You have to learn to adapt. You can't be afraid. 25 years ago, technology started coming in the industry. And I kept saying most rotate agents don't need technology. They need a customer. At the time, you didn't get customers from technology. Now, of course, with all the portals that you can generate leads with, but you have to look at it.

Right now, we're selling about four million resales a year. That makes eight million transaction size. And these portals are contributing 100 million leads a month. And so if you're getting a billion leads a year in a country with 350 million population, I don't know how much of that is adult age. Most of those technology leads are very long to incubate

and make them come to a closing and making a commission. So all the technology companies are saying, if you don't buy the latest and greatest shining thing, you're going to be out of business. Ameripac, we're going to put you out of business because we did the entry services, we did that to book publishers, we did that to the blockbuster, whatever it might be. Well, they come and find out about five years ago, they changed their story. And they realized that the realtor

is the center of the transaction. The people buying or selling a property are doing one of the most complex things they can do. It's one of the two or three most stressful times in a person's life. And everybody's looking for a trusted advisor. And so you can't replace the trusted advisor. You can buy a DVD or a CD or a book off of amazon.com. But it's very difficult for the majority of the people to say, okay, sight unseen, there's

a house in Vail and I live in Chicago and that looks like a good one, I'll just buy it off the internet and make an offer. It doesn't happen. People want to touch it, see it, they want to walk around the neighborhood, they want to get a feel for it. And so the agent is still the most important aspect of the real estate transaction. We can use technology to make our life easier,

to organize ourself, to keep track for our business, but it is not going to disintermediate realtors. You probably didn't know this about me, but I, for a period of time, was the CEO of BiOwner, and then we bought the other BiOwner. And I got really versed in real estate in a short period of time because I didn't come from it. But we do it yourself.

Business, I think, has been on a slow and steady exit out of this as the role of the realtors become more and more profound. But we were trying to look at different ways that we could minimize the realtors role while still allowing the owner of the house to play a significant role and it's a very difficult thing to do because I don't think most owners understand all the complexities that happen when you get into different transactions. What's your thought about the buy owner type of market

and whether you think that's gonna come back or whether you think that's something that's heading out? I don't think it'll come back. The real estate transaction is far more complex today than it was even 10 years ago. And most people are quite willing to pay the commission if they get the correct amount of service. Dave, I just have one last question for you. How do you hope that Perfect 10 will be a source of inspiration for future generations?

Well, to me, it's a legacy. Do you hope that Perfect 10 will be a source of inspiration for future generations? Well, to me, it's a legacy. I had so many people help me as this young, naive business person, or even help me in the service when I was just a slick sleeve and got in the rank here. That it's up to the older generation to take care of younger generation in some fashion. And so many hundreds of people, thousands of ours, various courses and personal friendships, advisors and mentors has helped me be the success I am today. I hope that the wisdom I share in the book,

which is about 25% of my experiences and remax some of my other businesses. But basically we researched this whole entire book with full-time researchers for two years. And so we bring out the best business practices of the visionary leaders of Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, whatever it might be. And this is a hand back to give the next person a hand up.

Dave, thank you so much for being here today, sir. It was such an honor to have you on the show. Thank you, John. Good luck to everything you do. What an incredible interview that was with Dave Lineger. And I wanted to thank him so much for appearing on today's show. Links to all things Dave will be in the show notes

at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. Links to all things Dave will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. Videos are on YouTube at both our main channel at John R. Miles, where we post our long form interviews and passionstruck clips, where we take two to eight minute segments from the interviews and post them there. Go check it out and join over a quarter million other subscribers. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com. Please consider supporting those who support the show. You can connect with me at LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok at John R. Miles, where I post daily. And if you want to exert your courage muscles, then sign up for our newsletter,

Live Intentionally, where each week I post a new courage challenge. I also have another challenge for you. I'm excited to introduce the PassionStruck quiz, which is a unique opportunity for you to find out where you sit on the PassionStruck continuum. Are you an orchestrator, masterfully balancing different aspects of your life with passion and purpose, or are you a vanquisher, conquering challenges and turning obstacles into opportunities? Take the quiz on passionstruck.com and it'll take you just 10 minutes. You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Struck podcast interview that I did with holistic health expert and bestselling author, Amy Lee McCree. Explore her latest insights on developing innate intuition, harnessing universal energy

and enhancing personal wellbeing. Discover practical tips from her brand new book, Aura Alchemy, and learn how to transform your life from the inside out. Don't miss this enlightening conversation with Amy Lee McCree. The aura is simply the field around the body, just like the atom, the molecule. In my work, the organ, the meridian and traditional Chinese medicine they have fields fields are part of Life, they're scientifically proven. Why wouldn't we have a field? Why wouldn't your pet? Animals plants living things have a field they are already made of electromagnetic charge. So I take it to a science place

Remember we rise by lifting others, so share this show with those that you love and care about. And if you found today's episode with Dave Lineger inspirational, then definitely share this with family and friends. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. Until next time, go out there and become passion-struck.