A Hero's Journey of Hard Truths, High Performance, and Self-Accountability with Joshua Smith
Key Takeaways
- True fulfillment and burnout prevention come from clarity of purpose, not constant motivation.
- Joshua Smith built massive success by mastering systems, adaptability, and market awareness.
- The next economic downturn could be worse than 2008, and only those prepared will survive and thrive.
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The REI Agent with Joshua Smith
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A Wake-Up Call from the Top: Why This Conversation Matters
On this eye-opening episode of The REI Agent Podcast, co-host Mattias welcomes real estate powerhouse Joshua Smith—a man who has weathered the storms, scaled the mountains, and built systems that turned chaos into control.
From launching his real estate career in 2005 with zero experience to closing over 7,000 transactions, Joshua shares not just a story, but a system for survival and success.
This isn’t your typical feel-good episode.
It’s the truth.
Raw.
Real.
And utterly necessary for anyone serious about making it through what could be the next great downturn.
“There’s no such thing as a good market or a bad market. The market is always good for somebody.”
From Gym Floors to Global Markets: The Grit Behind the Glory
Joshua’s journey began in a gym—literally.
Selling memberships and chasing commission, he quickly realized that no matter how hard he worked, his compensation was capped by others.
So he pivoted.
In 2005, he took the leap into real estate and never looked back.
“I didn’t want to pigeonhole myself into something with limited opportunity. I wanted to control my fate.”
Within three years, he scaled to 320 transactions annually.
But this wasn’t just hustle—it was precision. Joshua built systems out of necessity.
When REOs and short sales flooded the market during the financial crisis, he didn’t panic. He adapted.
“If you didn’t figure out the volume game, it was almost impossible to survive.”
Warning Bells Are Ringing: The Next Crash May Be Worse
Smith isn’t sugarcoating the reality of today’s economic landscape.
He’s sounding the alarm. In his own words, the storm that’s coming could eclipse both the 2008 crisis and the Great Depression.
“If they let the market do what the markets are going to do, this thing is going to get fucking ugly, dude.”
And he’s not guessing.
He’s tracking the data.
Watching inventory levels, cost of capital, and institutional pullbacks.
He’s reading the economic tea leaves with the precision of a wartime general—and he’s urging agents and investors alike to prepare, not panic.
Pick Your Pain: Entitlement or Endurance?
Beyond economics, Joshua drops a bombshell truth about fulfillment—and it doesn’t come from comfort.
“Both success and struggle come with massive amounts of pain. Pick your pain.”
He walks listeners through his personal transformation—from morbid obesity and suicidal depression to shredded discipline and a thriving career.
His turning point?
Taking back control of his health and his money.
He emphasizes clarity as the single most powerful weapon any agent or investor can wield.
“Clarity destroys burnout. If you know where you're going, you can survive anything.”
Burnout Is a Symptom of Misalignment, Not Overwork
So many chase motivation. Joshua chases meaning.
He outlines a ruthless framework for personal mastery: identify your #1 obstacle, find the most effective resource to solve it (not always a book), and then consume it relentlessly until you can teach it.
“If I can’t teach it, I haven’t mastered it.”
It’s not about how many books you read. It’s about how deeply you understand—and how quickly you implement.
The Golden Nugget: What You Need Now
Asked to share one thing every listener should walk away with, Joshua doesn’t hesitate.
“Get extreme clarity on the life you want. Not just now, but when you're 84 and looking back. Reverse engineer your life from that moment.”
He reminds us: life will pass anyway.
The question is, will it happen to you, or will you command it?
Where to Follow the GSD Master
For agents and investors who want to dive deeper, Joshua’s podcast GSD Mode is packed with even more truth bombs.
Follow him on all platforms at @JoshuaSmithGSD or visit gsdmode.com for full access to his content.
Clarity Over Comfort: Your New Path Forward
This isn’t just another success story.
It’s a field manual. Joshua’s journey proves that it’s not talent, connections, or timing that creates greatness.
It’s clarity, commitment, and the willingness to endure chosen pain in pursuit of purpose.
“Time will pass anyway. So you might as well build the life you truly want.”
The real question is: Will you?
Because if you’re not learning, adapting, and evolving, you’re not just standing still.
You’re falling behind.
Stay tuned for more inspiring stories on The REI Agent podcast, your go-to source for insights, inspiration, and strategies from top agents and investors who are living their best lives through real estate.
For more content and episodes, visit reiagent.com.
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Contact Joshua Smith
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Mentioned References
- Go Pro by Eric Worre
- Works by Friedrich Nietzsche
- Federal Reserve St. Louis: Consumer Debt vs. Savings Chart
United States Real Estate Investor
Transcript
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate.
I'm Mattias, an agent and investor.
And I'm Erica, a licensed therapist.
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.
Ready to level up?
Let's do it.
Welcome back to the REI Agent.
Today, we have a a really great guest, Joshua Smith.
He is the host of the Get Shit Done podcast, GSD mode.
Sorry.
GSD mode, Get Shit Done mode podcast.
He's a guy that I listened to before, and, he's motivating.
He definitely has a really good clarity, good insights.
He, is in the Phoenix market and is seeing, you know, pockets of that market already being in a real estate crash.
And he, you know, has thoughts and opinions about what may happen with the market even though or or he says, you know, preparing for the worst while, you know, hoping for
the
best.
And, he he has some insights as to what what he thinks could happen throughout the country or certainly in in different markets, that especially the ones that saw, you know, really high, spikes in in purchases and institutional investors, etcetera.
So, interesting.
Definitely something if you are, curious about that kind of thing, it's a good good one to listen to.
What struck me about him was he seems to have a really good ability of seeing things from a very high level, looking at things, from the big picture.
Like, kinda where do you wanna go?
Where what's the market doing right now?
Where's the advantage in the market?
And then boiling that down into processes that will actually get you there.
So it is just a really good reminder how in all facets of your life, if you are just focused on the day to day actions, you're not life is just gonna kinda happen to you.
You do have to take that time to kinda think about the market as a whole, your life as a whole, where do you wanna be, where's the market going, and what opportunities there are in all those areas, and then systematically go after those.
So, yeah, it he's he's it was a really good conversation.
And it was a little bit of a longer one, so I'm gonna keep this intro a little bit shorter.
So without further ado, let's just jump right into it.
Here's Joshua Smith.
Welcome back to the REI Agent.
I have the honor and privilege of talking to Joshua Smith today.
Joshua, thanks for being on the show.
Yeah.
Thank you for having me, man.
Truly honored to be here with you and excited for this.
It's a it's a lot of fun to talk to you.
I've I've listened to you.
I've listened to many podcasts of of yours in the past.
So, yeah, it's it's a fun full circle thing.
I think there was a local agent actually that he didn't he wasn't really in my market, but he sold a couple houses in my market that you had on as a guest, which I thought it was kinda fun as well.
I think it's zave Zayvon?
Zayvon?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm out of Virginia, so if that puts any, context into to where we're we're talking from.
But, Joshua, tell us a little bit about kind of your journey in real estate.
What got you started and then maybe how you got into podcasting as well?
Yeah, dude.
So, jumped in twenty years ago.
Actually, twenty years ago this month, man.
So February.
And, you know, college dropout, just looking for a way to make money, dude, that didn't require a college degree, get into massive debt.
And and, you know, I'm looking for an industry where yeah.
I mean, the reason why I kinda left college and and dropped out of college was, yeah, I didn't wanna pigeonhole myself into something that I didn't have in this amounts of opportunity.
You know, I wanted to have something where I'm always controlling my own fate, control something that's important to me.
People don't some people value it, some don't.
For me, it's something that's really important.
So 02/2005 Phoenix, Arizona.
I just moved from Michigan to Phoenix.
Okay.
And I was actually working in the health club business at the time, but same thing there, dude.
I love selling memberships, all of that.
I love that business, but it's like every time we start making good money, they change our comp structure.
You know, so I'm looking for a different vehicle.
02/2005 dude, real estate market's just banging, man.
You know, the perception to everybody was all these realtors are just crushing it, killing it.
Right.
You know, so I'm like, okay, I'll go jump into real estate, you know, two week crash course, you know, whatever.
And, you know, and and, you know, two things there, man, is number one, I had the passion, the work ethic, like, that desire to go out there and succeed.
Number two, like, I knew I, you know, I was 23 years old, never been an entrepreneur before.
I knew I needed the right mentor.
So went out there, found an amazing mentor, and they just hit the ground running, dude.
So, you know, 40 deals my first year, a hundred and three to second, then that scale up to a few hundred after that, just over 320 deals a third year.
So that led me into, you know, really scaling and building my real estate team.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And twenty years later, man, you know, been in the, you know, several different facets from teams to franchising to, you know, other aspects of it.
But it's been a been an amazing, amazing, you know, I say amazing, you know, goods, bads, ugly, everything in between, you know, but, wouldn't trade it for the world, man.
Thinking about 320 deals gives me a massive headache.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's been I mean, you know, not just myself, but myself and my team, not counting the brokerage side.
You know, I've done over 7,000 transactions now.
So, you know, it's been been a lot of volume.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
So, I mean, you've you must be a master at systems and and getting kind of your processes down so that you can, effectively I mean, how early were you delegating with with doing that many numbers, so fast?
Yeah.
So so okay.
'48, my first year.
Now you gotta remember this is also 02/2005.
So capacities might be a little bit different today, but 02/2005, dude, there's no smartphones.
Like, we didn't have scanners.
Like, everything was still faxed.
You know?
There was no DocuSign.
There was no
Right.
You know?
So things maybe took a little bit longer.
Maybe, maybe not.
I don't know.
But for me, it was 48.
You know?
And I wanna double go into the next year, but I was like, dude, I don't I'm already working, like, 4AM to midnight.
Like, I'm like, there's not enough hours in a day to do this.
So, you know, at that point in time, I hired my first assistant, you know, forty hour week assistant that was able to take all these central non money making activities off my plate so I could allocate all my time on the mic and money.
Then that led me to a hundred and three deals.
Then from there, now I'm at a point in time where k.
When new buyer or sellers wanted to, you know, set up a time to meet with me.
Okay.
I'm three two to three weeks booked out.
People might wait two to three days.
They're not waiting two to three weeks.
So I was, okay, I'm pissing away money.
You know, again, I hit another glass ceiling capacity.
So I started bringing on agents.
You know?
So it only took a year to, you know, leverage from an admin's aspect.
Two years to start leveraging on the agent aspect.
And what was that what what agent did you bring in?
Did you have some specific roles with, like, a buyer specialist, showings showing
Yeah.
That was you know, because back then, dude, again, this was like, teams weren't really a thing,
you
know, like they are today.
Like, we didn't really know.
It's kinda, you know, jumping off the cliff and building the parachute on the way down.
Now luckily, you know, my dad owned and operated gyms for thirty years.
So I grew up in that industry, and I built sales teams in gyms.
And I've, you know, all the way from, you know, doing presales to starting a new facility and building the staff up.
So I had experience with building teams.
So I was just like, hey.
Let's just replicate sales to sales, business is business.
Let me just replicate what I did over here.
You know?
So I'm like, okay.
In the gym business, you always hire the admin first so we could focus more on sales.
Then you start, you know, slowly adding salespeople, build the sales teams, you know, then you get out of sales, become the sales manager, you know, right?
And then just build the way up.
So I did it the same way.
And so it really started off with me with just overflow.
I had so much overflow, you know, in most of my business with buy side at that time still.
You know, so, so now I've, I've never been one that was like, oh, do my agents have to just buy side versus sell side?
It just happened to be that pretty much everything I had for them was on the buy side.
You know?
Right?
So but just on the you know, it was just fifty fifty split, you know?
But, dude, I was providing, like, 90% of their business where it's just like, hey, dude.
Here's here's somebody who needs a house.
Go find them a house.
Yeah.
So that's the next question I have for you.
I mean, where are you drumming up that much business that fast?
Dude, I, I'm a workhorse, you know, so I start off doing, like, you know, I mean, a minimum five upwards of, you know, seven plus open houses a week.
Mhmm.
You know?
And and so start with that, then quickly got to a point where I was like, alright, man.
I need open houses.
I need storefronts, but I'm spending ten hours a week prospecting for other agents to beg them to do their open houses.
So I realized that was a vulnerability, so I started going go after expireds.
Mhmm.
Then very quickly, I realized, man, I hate cold calling.
Like, I know it's effective.
I'm good at it.
I get it.
It works, but I just hate it.
So Right.
Then I had to start coming up with inbound expired and other other inbound style seller campaigns.
Yeah.
But target, not just doing, like, geo farming, but just, like, very targeted direct campaigns.
You know?
So really in the first couple years because I just moved from Michigan to Arizona, so I didn't have a script.
I don't
really know anybody.
You know?
So, just started building so heavily from, you know, open houses plus with our targeted mailer campaigns of stacking listings.
And then back then too, you don't get this so much today, but it's like you get a listing, man.
Like, you get sign calls like crazy.
Open house updates like you know?
Right?
It was it was a different time, you know, and different in good ways and different bad ways too.
But that was it, man.
I up up until you know?
So it's really just expireds, cancels withdrawals, and open houses until the great financial crisis.
You know, jumping in February from live, and then that hits.
Right?
And luckily, dude, just doing my expires, canceled, withdrawn, because I treat them all as, like, the same niche.
Right?
Yeah.
That didn't let into accidentally led into me doing a bunch of short sales.
You know?
Like, I remember having my first expired or my first short sale.
Right?
So I go on and ask, you know, having a conversation with seller.
Everything's good to go.
Get their home listed.
You know, like, a week before before closing, the title company calls me and they're like, well, you know, when's the seller planning on bringing in their funds?
I'm like, what are you talking about?
They should be, like, netting, like, $18 here.
Like, what do you what do you mean funds?
Like, oh, they have this line of credit on the property.
I'm like, dude, that was never disclosed.
You know?
Right?
I had no idea.
But so then I could reach out to them.
Like, oh, yeah.
We did take out a line of credit, but we didn't know that that was attached to the house.
You know?
Because they're like, you use that to, like, buy cars and RVs and shit.
You know?
Right?
So and now again, remember, like, I'm, like, 24, 20 5 at this point.
Okay.
Like, now maybe I would've caught it, would've known better, would've, you know, paid attention to the premium.
But, yeah, I didn't know what I was doing at this point.
You know?
But it's I stumbled across my first short sale.
So then I was like, okay.
What's our option?
Well, we can go out there and try to negotiate a short sale, get a short payoff for that.
And then but then it came to okay.
Every reason things were expiring was because they didn't have enough equity because the market it's kinda like what we're starting to see again here, you know, in in my market and a lot of other markets as well as, you know, feeling like 02/2007 all over again.
Possibly even worse.
Right?
So then, so then that led into short sales.
You know?
So then I'm like, hey, man.
And I just start you know, I've always been a big believer in and my philosophy is always, okay.
There's no such thing as a good market or bad market.
The market's always good for somebody.
It's our job as professionals to identify whom the market is good for, pivot shift, and adapt accordingly to whom the market's good for.
And I don't care whether you're representing on the buy side or if you're looking to go out there and and invest yourself.
It's all the same game.
You know?
Right?
You know, so so then from there, I'm just, you know, paying attention to, okay, like, we're doing a lot of short sales, seeing those really pick up.
Well, now I see this thing called REO starting to pick up.
Well, what the hell is REO?
You know?
Right?
So it's certain you're figuring that out and we pivot in that.
And next thing you know, we're representing, like, 35 different banks, asset management firms, outsourcers.
So when you talk about systems and processes, like, do my first few years, I got, like, you know, 2,005 till about 02/2008.
I was just a workhorse, dude.
I didn't have systems to processes.
It was just let's just go out there and freaking grind.
And and but then when you start getting all these banks, you know, and even let's just say, okay.
Like, Fannie Mae Direct.
Right?
Well, then Fannie Mae Direct, maybe I'm working with six different asset managers.
So we got Fannie Mae Direct's kinda playbook of how they want things done, but then each asset manager has their own operation style.
So, you know, so the next thing you know, we're working with these, you know, 30 plus outsourcers, asset management firms, you know, carrying 400, you know, upwards of 400 assets anytime.
Like, I had to get damn good and learn processes and systems very quickly to be able to manage that.
Yeah.
So, you know, now now it's kinda what I'm known for is systems processes scalability, and and I've learned to love it, but it wasn't, like, an innate thing.
It happened out of necessity because it was the only way because, like, dude, if you didn't I remember one year, it was Christmas Eve when we were kinda new into this, and Fannie Mae dropped 17 new assignments to me on Christmas eve.
So I had to go to my whole team.
I'm like, hey, guys.
Like, my goal is to get you all home by Christmas, but, like, we're probably gonna work till, like, one, two in the morning.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Right?
Because I get like, if they don't they don't with with task assignments, it's like the task assignment's the task assignment.
There is no, oh, it's Christmas day.
We'll give you an extra day.
And if you don't hit their KPIs, like, you're fired.
You're done.
You know?
So you had you had a really very, you know, quickly learn systems, processes, scale, you know, because then also on those, now we're talking, you know, the this $300,000 property is now worth 85,000.
Yeah.
Right?
And the banks are expecting you to take lesser commission because they're giving you volume.
So if you didn't figure out the volume game and how to manage this at volume, like, very difficult to make it in that that arena.
Yeah.
I mean, so were how long were things taking to sell at that point when you were selling the REOs and the short sales?
I mean, they were average, what, couple months?
Yeah.
I do.
I mean, got to a point where we had about fifteen months of inventory.
You know?
So so, you know, a year plus.
Now Yeah.
The nice thing about the disposition side for for and and we do a lot now with you know, we represent a lot of big, hedge funds and private equity firms and, you know, have now for the last you know, it's been a big part of my business for over a decade now.
But so the nice thing about, you know, this is, like, they need to unload these, dude.
Yeah.
So versus a typical seller that won't price right won't price right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My I mean, again, average, you know, got to a point where where inventory due was fifteen months, whereas state means that the average home was taken a year plus to go out there and sell.
You know?
But with, okay, preforeclosures, time is of the essence, so we'd have to get them you know?
So most of those we'd have on a contract within a week or two.
You know, the banks, they would kinda have their you know, wanna start a little bit high, but they they they needed to you know?
Because it all the whole cost was astronomical for them.
They needed to unload these.
Just like when I'm working with Blackstone and their, you know, their dispositions team, that's like, hey.
Be like, we gotta unload these so they can't hold on to them for a year.
Like, they're under unperforming assets.
Like, we gotta unload them fast.
Right?
So it was a little bit different than maybe a traditional realtor at those times for me.
Sure.
You know, just out of curiosity, I mean, one thing you you mentioned that you think that, you know, things could be even worse than than, coming up.
If if you are a person that's also interested in investing in real estate and you, are a realtor that has access to these banks or sets up systems or looking to get into that, Is there any kind of conflict of interest or any kind of, no nos with wanting to buy one of those, assets that comes up, as an REO?
No.
It's just like, look.
I'm living in a Fannie Mae house that I bought from Fannie Mae.
It just okay.
There was restrictions where if I was a listing agent, I couldn't acquire it.
So it was like, okay.
This listing comes up.
You know?
I could just give it to another agent or have them reassigned to another agent.
You know?
So, you know, because I like to, you know, buy one thing through the bottom and then you know?
Yeah.
So then, yeah.
So so, you know, and every bank's gonna or every institution's gonna be like, if I'm working for a private equity firm, they don't really give a shit as long as their numbers are number.
Now some of these, like, government sponsored entities, the GSEs, they might have some more red tape.
Well, and sometimes they wanna have it be, like, you know, they wanna have two weeks of time for a a primary residency resident to buy, that kind of thing.
Right?
Yep.
So so I got into I started I got my license in 2014 to give you perspective.
So I I was kinda probably at the I I mean, honestly, I feel like it was, like, the perfect time to to to learn in in a more balanced market that was kinda starting to pick up and then have experience by the time things really were rolling.
I'm curious what indications you see, in your market that make you believe it is, possibly gonna be worse or a similar kind of crisis?
Yeah.
Look.
So I was just speaking on stage about this yesterday.
I was few hundred agents here in Phoenix.
So it was at an event for him.
And and a couple of things to understand.
Number one, real estate's very hyperlocal.
So even, like, in a GFC, like, I have friends in Alabama that, you know, run large real estate companies that are like, hey.
Our market went down 2%, where my market, you know, I had a hundred and $50,000 acre parcel lane that now we're selling for 5,000.
You had homes that were 600,000 now that we're selling for $1.85.
Right?
So our market got demolished.
When I say our market, Phoenix, Arizona.
That was
due to that was during the GFC.
Okay.
Yeah.
You know?
Right?
So yeah.
Like, okay.
You know, like, you know, house that was, like, prime example, like, maybe it was $5.50, 5 70 5, peak 2025 or 02/2005.
The bottom, you know, January, '1 '70 '5.
You know?
And then it took us it dude, it took from 02/2005 peak.
02/2012 was the bottom.
Back to 02/2019, though, to just get back to 02/2005 pricing.
Okay.
So if you look at the historic average, usually for for down cycles, it's it's about a ten year recovery period, right, from, again, peak to valley to correction.
That one was a little bit longer, but that was again, not all markets.
Like, every market can be different, dude.
Right?
So there is no, like, nationwide, this is exactly what's gonna happen.
You know?
But then from there, like, I was telling everybody yesterday, like, look.
The best way I found that to to plan for business and just protect yourself is hopefully the best plan for the worst.
I'm like, dude, I don't have a crystal ball.
I have no idea what the hell is gonna happen.
You know?
But I am prepping and planning for this to be worse than the great financial crisis and they'll be worse than the great depression.
You know?
Because if we look at look.
Again, I don't know what's gonna happen with who who knows?
There's so much manipulation.
I mean, if you look we should be in an eighteen year long depression right now.
Like if you remove away all the deficit spending and just the manipulation of the markets and really just a freaking federal reserve and the printing press and then bail the, you know, like if you remove, like we would be, if you look at year over year from GDP growth outside of manipulation, we'd be in like an eighteen year long depression right now.
Like, I don't think that anything was corrected during the great financial crisis.
I think they just unplugging holes.
And now when you look at the the global debt market, you know, when you look at, you know, corporate debt, government debt, consumer debt, like, dude, I don't know if there's any way out of this.
Yeah.
Right?
Like, who knows what's gonna happen?
Global default, debt jubilee.
Who the hell knows?
Yeah.
Right?
But what I do know here for The US is if you go to Federal Reserve, St.
Louis, which is the Department of Federal Reserve that's responsible for tracking what's going on with the consumer.
And then just go so go Google and you must watch what it says.
Federal Reserve Saint Louis consumer debt versus savings chart.
No point in time in recorded history have we seen, you know, debt to savings, like the gap be this wide or accelerate at this pace.
Like, the average person is way worse off than they were before the great financial crisis and way worse off than they were before the great depression.
So so, again, I don't know.
There's too many there's so much, like Yeah.
Dude, who knows, man?
The Federal Reserve might step in and buy $90,000,000,000 a month of mortgage backed securities again and manipulate the market and artificially prop it up.
But if they let the market do what the markets are gonna do, yeah, this thing is gonna get fucking ugly, dude.
You know?
Right?
Now that's gonna you know, like, okay.
Like, Arizona, Florida, Texas Yeah.
You know, parts of Nevada, you know, Atlanta.
There's definitely areas that are gonna get ripped apart much harder than, you know and I mean, typically, the markets that went up the fastest go down the fastest.
And then there's also a direct correlation to paying you know, based on, you know, investor acquisitions versus, you know, because investors will just start unloading.
Like, we're already seeing in our market, dude.
Like, I mean, I went for 02/2012 to 2022 with investor clients, you know, acquiring 20 plus properties every single month like clockwork.
You know, these are big institutions that we're representing.
Right?
Too thin.
Okay.
Cost of capital goes up.
They're stopping now to now.
We're just unloading and just you know?
And I was looking, like, watch what smart money's doing.
You know?
Watch watch what, you know, Blackstone is doing.
Watch what Ron Buffet's doing.
Watch what like, what are they doing right now with their money?
Yeah.
Right?
It's a pretty good tell of you know?
Because they're they're gonna be protected.
They're gonna get the hell out before it's Joe Schmo.
It's us regular, you know, peasants that get caught.
Right?
So
So so be cash heavy.
You know, and I again, I'm I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna tell anybody.
You know?
I I'm just walking through what I see, what I pay attention to, you know, with that.
And then, like, okay.
You know, I'm not personally gonna not gonna say anywhere I wouldn't, but definitely not my market.
Am I gonna be a buyer in this market?
You know?
But what I do joke is I still have a lot of, you know, clients that wanna do it Even though I'll tell them, like, hey, dude.
Like, why don't you just go put that in t bill for some time, guarantee you a 5% interest, you know, right, 5% return for some time until you know?
Because in my again, every market's doing different things.
But we got prices coming down at a very fast rate.
We got cap rate compressions happening for the first time in multiple decades.
You got 10 evictions skyrocketing.
Then we got whole costs going up.
You know, taxes, insurance, HOAs, cost of maintenance.
I'm like, dude, it makes zero sense.
There's too many vulnerabilities to me.
It makes zero sense, you know, to at least go out there and buy and hold unless you get an absolute steal.
But then from there, okay, even when we're talking with you, I'm gonna flip or, you know, like, get in the flipping game.
I'm like, look, dude.
Like, again, hope for the best plan for the worst.
Okay?
Worst case scenario, if you cannot get this thing moved, can you live with it?
Yeah.
Right?
Can we get somebody in there at least cash flow a little bit or break it?
Like, can you live with worst case scenario?
And if you can't, then don't freaking do it right now, dude.
Because I've just I've seen it too many times where people get stuck.
They got you know, I was just having a dinner the other night with a with a friend of mine that, you know, is a is a not a massive investor, but a pretty pretty avid investor.
Right?
And, you know, he recently just got stuck in this recent downturn with '22 projects going on at once.
Yeah.
Lost I mean I mean, we're talking, like, 8 figures, an 8 figure loss of everything.
Wow.
You know?
So
Yeah.
I've heard definitely heard a lot of, horror stories or veterans or people that went through the last downturn, holding the property that
And I'm not talking last downturn.
I'm talking got Yeah.
We're talking 2022.
And going 2023 got hit.
Yeah.
I hear you.
I I we're not our market's not there, for sure.
We've we've still seen, increase in prices, and we still have you know, it's it's it's not as much of a seller market, but it is still, somewhat.
You know, I expect most of my listings to go under contract in three days.
Usually, a little bit over asking price.
It had one go crazy over asking price.
Yeah.
20% over Northern Virginia?
Not quite.
We're we're like a tertiary market, underneath.
So two hours south of DC.
Okay.
Yeah.
Which which that the proximity to DC helps, some of our prices and stuff.
But we have a a university town that kinda keeps the economy rolling.
But, but, yeah, I'm I'm just saying it, like, it it could definitely catch up here too as well.
It's just definitely different, from what you're describing.
Well, many even e like, we see even pockets within the pockets.
Right?
So it's like, okay.
What could be happening here in Maricopa County, Phoenix Metro, obviously, can be different than, you know and not even Virginia.
Like, Virginia Beach can be totally different than what you're seeing.
Right?
But then from there, it's like, hey, man.
We have a couple pockets within Phoenix, not a lot, but about 5% of of the markets out there that are still crazy, that are hot as hell, man.
But it's like, okay.
95% is melting down.
Like, you know, we've got many zip code when I say melting down, like, we got many zip codes that are already already technically in a real estate market crash.
Because the crash is just 20% beyond the, you know, the peak.
Right?
So if we look at 2022, when we peak to now, we're already beyond, you know, 20% correction, which would technically be a crash.
What's weird about this time too, dude, is, like, all the pockets I'm seeing, not just our market, but even throughout the countries that are staying super strong is is the luxury market, where luxury is always kinda if you look at the last year, a hundred years of real estate, like, luxury has kinda led the slowdown.
But I think that and then getting it, I'm just talking out of my ass.
Like, I don't know.
But, you know, my guesstimate on this is because we are going through and continuing to go through right now or, you know, have been for last, what, three, four years now and continuing to go through this, the biggest transference of wealth in history.
I mean, so we're seeing the middle class just be eliminated.
Yeah.
Right?
And there's no need for it.
There's no, you know, they're they're the industrial revolution is done.
We'll see if it comes you know, but there's like, it so it's either it's the haves and have nots.
You know?
Where it's like people are getting poor, people getting richer.
Yeah.
Right?
So
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, oh, like, if you go in my market at Queen Creek, you know, Paradise Valley, you know, which is the most fit expensive ZIP codes in the The United States, Like, those pockets are freaking staying you know, multiple offers staying super strong where it's more like the middle class markets that are just getting destroyed.
Are they are they often cash?
I would assume they're they're at least, heavily cash.
Like, so the the interest rates aren't, applying as much to them.
Do you think that's part of it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
I mean, that's part of it.
Plus they're just we have a number.
When you're seeing you're seeing the well transferred, it's just people are making more money or they're making less.
You know?
And it's people I talk to too, friends, you know, whatever.
It's like, dude, they're either financially doing the best they've ever done in life or they're getting ripped apart in a way that they never have.
Now that's, like, one percent versus ninety nine percent.
Ninety nine percent of human beings out there get some most unenrolled time to be alive and is a US citizen recorded history.
Never had a point in time where it's been more expensive to just operate and live life than what we're seeing now at any point in time and and since 1776.
Right?
And then even when you look at real estate, like, even in the early eighties when interest rates were 20%, you know, close to 20%, it still was more affordable to acquire real estate than it is now.
Yeah.
That's one thing that people often will will bring up.
Like, oh, the interest rates have been higher than this before, but, like, yeah.
But the the affordability of the house, like, the purchase price was at a price where the the, like, the payments were more affordable.
Yeah.
I know.
That's a that's kind of a a silly point or a misleading point maybe.
Well, I guess I guess with all that said, I mean, you're talking about, you know, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.
How do you prepare for, this possible downturn?
What what steps, what actions, where should you focus, your your your future, you know, growth, in to to be prepared for this kind of possible downturn?
You know, I mean, get get get lean.
You know, you wanna be able to move fast.
You know?
Right?
So, like, great one, Buffett says, when the tide goes out, you see skinny dipping.
Like, make sure you don't get caught skinny dipping.
You know?
So you wanna you wanna be fluent, man.
You wanna be able to scale, move fast.
Right?
You wanna be the speedboat, not the Titanic, you know, which I know is harder, you know, for depending on the level that we're at in this business, but, you know, do your best with it.
Then from there, man, just keep the eye on the ball, man.
Make sure you're tracking everything.
Keep your eye on the ball so that way you can shift and pivot.
So example with this, you know, people were coming to me in in 02/2008, and they're like, oh, man.
I'm having to get out of business.
Nobody saw this coming.
And and I was like, how did you not see this coming?
Like, I I'm not gonna lie that I didn't know the severity of it.
Right.
But I'm
like, you know, but, like and I didn't realize this at the time, but I had a great mentor that taught me how to read and track markets.
So it's like every single month, I'm tracking you know, where inventory greater growth of inventory.
I'm like, dude, we had thirty one months of straight inventory.
It was a slow progression month over month incline, but, like, you'd had to totally have your head buried and seen and not know that we weren't transitioning into a mat you know, to a heavy, heavy buyer's market.
Now maybe you wouldn't expect Lehman's brother and Bear Stearns to collapse and for it to go to the free fall that it did.
You know?
But I was like, hey, man.
Before that already happened, I was already in with 30 banks.
And and, you know, short said, like, you know, because we're paying attention.
So make sure that you're paying attention to market.
Why again, because it doesn't matter.
There's no such thing as a good market or a bad market.
The market is always good for somebody.
I always look at real estate is is we got, like, a science experiment.
So if you look at the control, the control is a piece of real estate.
That is my job is to move that piece of real estate.
Again, whether I'm helping a client or if I'm acquiring it, my job is to know the real estate, to move that, like, to know the product and be able to move the product.
The variable that will change throughout, you know, all of our lifetimes, our careers is who's buying it, who's selling it, why they're buying it, why they're selling it, where they're coming from, where they're going.
So as long as I'm always paying attention to that and I'm able to pivot shift, you know, and adapt accordingly based on my focus, my prospecting, my marketing.
So, like, here's an example, dude.
Like, with my market, you know, we went from being the fifth most affordable metro in The United States to be in the top five least affordable.
So home that's maybe 800 today, you know, seven years ago was 300.
So locals, like, in like, household incomes haven't went up barely at all.
You know?
So, like, locals, I can't afford it.
They're like, screw this.
So I'm like, okay.
Well, who's our market good for?
For?
So I know the top 10 states.
I know the metros within those states.
And then within those, then I know the pockets where, hey.
Our market is a win for us.
So, like like, let's just say I'm running ads, which I do a ton of, like Facebook ads to San Francisco Bay Area.
So they're living in a 1,300 square foot, three bed, two bath, hundred year old house that no longer feel safe living in their own neighborhood because of all the crime and homelessness and and whatever.
This is their words, not mine.
So they're selling that for 1,500,000.0.
They're coming out here buying for $8,900 what feels to be a mansion, 5,000 square feet, brand new gated community.
You know, like, to them, they're like, holy crap.
We cannot believe that this is even a possibility.
So so this is what we gotta always be pivoting.
Okay?
Like, who's your market to win?
It's always a win for somebody.
It's always good for somebody.
You know?
So making sure that you're just being fluid.
You know?
Those that that get ran over, those that just stay in the same place, man.
Like, you gotta gotta move.
You gotta pivot.
Yeah.
That that is definitely true about this industry is that things are rarely the same, and you have to just kind of keep, yeah, keep your head on a swivel and keep, an eye on where things are going and and try to keep up.
That's, you know, that's really that's fascinating.
I've I've actually considered doing similar kind of ads, to Northern Virginia, because I think a lot of people have been dreaming of living in the valley, in in a a bigger metro area, a simpler country kinda life.
You know?
And, there's been a lot of job cuts, and it might be the time that, people might wanna be, transitioning to a more simple life.
But, yeah, that's that's awesome.
And it starts with awareness.
Right?
If they don't have awareness that you exist, that you're not an option, they're not gonna go there.
Yeah.
Right?
So Right.
You know, we gotta make sure we have that right target approach.
You know?
And just, again, always looking at, like I said, February it's okay.
If we look at the journey, right, 02/2005 to 02/2008, '2 thousand '7, '2 thousand '8 was heavy traditional buyers expires, and that pivoted very quickly into, you know, short sales REO.
Well, then 2011, short sales REO starts slowing down.
Now don't get me wrong.
I'm always still doing some traditional business too.
It's just, you know, short sales and REO might've been 75, 80 percent of it still.
Like there's no point in time where you're banning all of it.
Well, then all of a sudden, we start seeing short selling REO, like, starting to dry up a little bit.
K.
Well, again, who who's buying?
Who's selling?
Where where's the market going?
So now I started seeing all these hedge funds, imitation homes, coming in and buying.
You You know?
And next thing I know, I've seen this this coming to call them.
I never heard of them.
Imitation Homes buying 500 units a month in my market.
Yeah.
Right?
I'm like, okay.
Like, how do I get them with them?
Yeah.
Right?
Now you gotta figure that out.
You know?
Right?
They gotta go in and and so, okay.
How do I get with Imitation Homes?
You know?
We're doing sixty, seventy units a month with them.
You know?
So then okay.
Like, traditional hasn't picked up yet.
Short sale and REO are coming down.
More institutional investors were going up and up and up.
You know?
Well, that lasted for so long, then that started coming down.
Audio and short sales was good still going down, but then Trishon started picking up.
You know?
And and then, dude, like, for like I said, 02/2012 to 2022, you know, we're doing 20 plus acquisitions a month through Blackstone.
Well, 2022 when the Federal Reserve goes from quantitative easing to quantitative tightening, because a lot of people think that these big institutions pay cash for it, and they don't.
They have a direct line with the Fed or or, you know, direct line with whomever, Goldman Sachs, but then that is based on the overnight, you know, fed, you know, overnight rate.
So when they go from, like, point 5% to 5%, and they're buying these at 5% cap rates, like and it's a floating rate pretty much, dude.
They're they're done.
So we went from overnight, you know, 20 you know, 200 plus transactions on annual basis, you know, to, like, hey.
We're just done.
We're stopped.
Now, luckily, I've been through this enough times and I put all my eggs in one basket.
So we're able to be fine.
We're still, you know, go out there and move our, you know, 700 homes a year, you know, and adapt.
But it's like you always gotta be adapting.
So then we start adapting.
Okay.
Well, big money's stopping acquiring.
How are local investors doing?
You know?
Because for me, you know, for the longest time, I didn't wanna focus on, like, the onesies and twosies with the investors.
Right?
Yeah.
But then we started assessing, okay.
What's going on here?
So then now for the last two, three years, man, we just been stacking up listings on the acquisition side or the the disposition side because investors are just getting crushed out here.
You know?
So this is where you just always gotta pay attention to, again, like, what's going on with the market?
Where's the opportunity at?
Because my job, again, is my job is to know the product and move the product.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
Right?
Then from there, all the other crap's always gonna be changing.
And when you're when you're looking at these types of investment, buyer sellers, was that any multifamily as well, or is that primarily, like, single family, condo, townhouse kind of thing?
Yeah.
For for me, for us, for our market, I have a lot of, you know, clients of mine.
Agent partners, I should say of mine, that are in areas where multifamily is very popular.
Yeah.
Here in my market, dude, it's it's not that it's not, but it's no.
I mean, we're pretty much all single family.
Yeah.
Same same here.
But, yeah, I know that a lot of people got held like, got caught, like, holding, bridge loans and not not projecting the rates to go the way they did, from when they, you know, underwrote the deal for the beginning.
So that's been a bloodbath too, for a lot of places.
Not that everybody's, you know there's definitely people that are still doing well.
I think also, you know, when you're looking at, investing and and putting your money into different things, keeping mind of what could happen could also, you know, help determine what kind of asset class you might be looking at.
You know, for example, if if you wanted to if numbers still looked pretty good without aggressive projections on a mobile home park, for example, that might be more recession proof, than buying something, you know, like a I don't know, more luxurious, townhouse or, you know, I don't know.
The it's it's all definitely, that's gonna be there might be more pressure to or more demand coming to those kind of places, the cheaper the rent, etcetera, than, you know, some of that might be a higher rent in the investment side.
But, yeah, I'm curious if, well, let me ask you quick.
You're you're obviously a very driven person and and do crazy things.
You've you've been doing this podcast.
You've been selling all these houses.
How do you keep your mind right?
How do you take care of yourself?
I know you still exercise.
What what all do you do?
Yeah, dude.
You know, so I'm I'll do my best to answer this.
Because when people say to keep your mind right, I don't know if there is, you know, if there's a yeah.
I was thinking I've been thinking about this a lot, you know, like, just over the years of, like, alright, man.
Or is it that we're all individually super messed up?
Or is it that, hey, man, there's really nothing messed up with us.
We're just trying to fit into this messed up fucking world.
Yeah.
Right?
So then we have all this, you know, like, I don't know.
And I'm not gonna pretend that I, you know, I've got my issues.
Don't get me wrong.
You know?
But, yeah, health and fitness is a big aspect of my life.
You know, I allowed myself to become extremely depressed.
You know?
We're just daily consumption of my thoughts.
We're just running committing suicide, and that all led to me getting morbidly obese.
Next thing you know, I'm three hundred pound, pounds, close to three hundred pounds.
And and when I was trying to overcome, you know, the depression, I was like, okay.
Well, what's the opposite of depression?
K.
We got fulfillment.
Then I'm sitting there thinking, okay.
Like, what would make me fulfilled?
Like, what would make me happen?
Like, I don't really know.
But then I was like, okay.
There's two areas of my life that I'm pretty sure that if I could get these dialed in, that put me on the right path.
Number one, that was, you know, I was a call to drop out and never made more $10 an hour, sick and tired of being broke.
Number two, so I was like, okay.
If I could figure out how to start making some more money.
You know, number two, if I can get my health dialed in and not be absolutely ashamed of myself every time I gotta look in the fucking mirror.
You know?
Right?
Actually have energy.
And so I just went to work on those two things.
Yeah.
That led me into sales and led me, you know, into real estate, then I, you know, led me on to my, you know, hundred plus pound weight loss journey.
And Yeah.
You know?
So, and he gotta, you know, you gotta lose it.
He gotta keep it off.
And, and, you know, part of the health and fitness stuff is probably because, you know, I grew up as the the the chubby fat kid, man.
I had two older brothers that were very athletic, very in good shape, and don't like, they picked a living shit on me and bullied the crap.
I mean, plus, you know, kids are mean, dude.
So I was, like, you know, bullied it.
You know, he's, you know, I don't wanna say bullied outside my brothers, but I was, you know, my buddies always made jokes.
Right?
Sure.
You know, so now I'm, like, at a point in life where, like, dude, if I can't see visible abs, like, I feel like shit about myself.
And I don't know if it's, you know, there's probably some issues there, but I'm like, hey.
Why fix them?
Right?
It forces me to eat super clean, forces me to work out like a beast, like, forces me into having healthy habits.
You know, if I were to sit down and talk with a therapist, they'd probably be like, you're broken in so many ways.
But I'm like, k.
Fix me in the ways that don't serve me, but then let me stay broken in the ways that serve me as well.
I look at this.
So yeah.
So, you know, I'm very diligent with health and fitness.
You know?
Yeah, then when COVID hit, man, I, you know, I was always a gym rep before that, but when COVID hit, no gym.
So I set up a home gym, which now I'm I love.
So I'm able to get up early, work out, you know, eat the same five meals pretty much every day.
You know, I'm very strict with my diet.
And not just from an aesthetic standpoint, but I've also found of k, what foods give me good energy, what foods make me lethargic or put me to sleep so I know, you know, like, like, just I wanna optimize for output of and not just for business, but for you know, I wanna have energy when I'm not doing business too.
Right?
Yeah.
You know, so that's gonna work out diet, and then I don't know.
I can't remember what the original question is.
So
Well, I mean yeah.
I mean, that's you're answering it.
I mean, I think, like, I when people ask me the same kind of question, like, kinda how do I how do I keep myself going, how do I keep my mind right, how do I, blah blah blah.
I often turn to, like, while I go to the gym.
And there's definitely times that, I I don't wanna talk to a certain client.
I don't want it to I don't wanna respond to a message until I've gone because I'm like, this is just not gonna I need I I need to go there process or not process, but I need to get my mental, my stress out.
You know?
I need to get, a more clear headed.
And and once I'm done with the gym, I'm gonna be able to respond more diplomatically the way I hoped I would've, that kind of thing.
So it's it's you know, that's a huge part for me as well.
At what point in this so so you you kinda started your business and fitness kinda journey at the same time.
Did you also when did you, you said you're married now.
Right?
You have a family.
When when did that start for you?
So met my so high school sweethearts.
So we met 16, got, you know, married in 02/2005, serving kids pretty much, you know, few out a few years after that.
So I had her first child in 02/2008.
So we've been together for, you know, pretty much our whole lives too.
Right?
So whole
I mean, you you just started everything.
February
Yeah.
Yeah.
But we met, you know, '6 '16.
So I don't know fuck what that was.
Nineteen ninety nineteen ninety eight.
You know, that's when we met.
You know, so we graduate in February.
So I'm at 40 we're about 43 now.
So
Well, I mean, kudos for you because, getting through all that stress doing building that much of a business, you know, able to still maintain the, you know, the exercise and diet routines, it's not easy with kids.
None of it is, dude.
None of it's you know, it's it's all hard.
But, you know, it's I look at this of, okay, success, it takes massive amounts of pain to create success.
But also struggle creates massive amounts of pain.
Like, no matter what, like, people are just so delusional anymore of of and it's just so addicted to comfort and that this you know, there's this entitlement issue going on and and and has I mean, even if you start like, if you go like, I love reading, like, Frederick Nietzsche and, you know, if you read his, you know, works back in the eighteen hundreds, you know, him talking about this.
And, you know, but there's just people are just so damn entitled, think that life should be easy, life should be comfortable, life should be good.
I'm like, dude, like, look.
I've I've kinda you know, I've lived the different worlds, man.
Like, been broke as it gets and then I've had some, you know, okay money.
Not, you know, Elon Musk money but okay money.
You know, right?
I've been, you know, morbidly obese, massively out of shape to pretty damn good shape.
You know, I've competed in bodybuilding stuff on stage.
Like, I've been in pretty damn good shape.
You know?
Now both had mat different pains in different ways, but both came with intense pain.
So then it's like, dude, just pick your fucking pain, but don't be delusional thinking that e either path is gonna be easy because there is no such thing as easy.
But you gotta just what is the pain that I wanna go out there and experience?
And and, you know, it's like when people ask, like, what do you what do you do to keep your mind good?
I'm like, dude, nothing.
You know?
Right?
Like, I don't think there is such a thing as a good mind.
You know?
People are like, you know, I'm I'm like, dude, I got dude, I have days where I wake up where I'm I'm motivated.
I'm ready to go.
I have more days where I'm fucking pissed off.
I wanna stay sleeping.
I'm demotivated.
I'm depressed.
I don't wanna do any of this.
You know?
I'm like, you know, it's like when people come to me like, oh, ask me.
Like, what's their goal?
I just wanna be happy.
I'm like, okay.
I get where you're coming from from that, but that is a bad that's a terrible goal.
There's there's eight different emotions as a emotionally regulated healthy human being.
You're gonna experience happiness about eighth of the time.
You know, and happiness only exists because you also experience sadness.
Yeah.
Right?
So you're probably gonna be experiencing happiness in the eighth of the time.
So what are you gonna do the other seven eighths at the time?
You know?
Right?
You know, so I would just look at it like that.
I'd be like, my mind goes to dark places all to whatever, but I still gotta perform whether I want to or not.
It's like, hey.
Here here's where I'm at.
Here's where I wanna go.
Here's the shit I gotta get done.
K.
Regardless of what I'm not you know, whatever.
Just let's get up and get shit done that we need to get done and execute what we gotta execute.
And what I found is that's what creates true fulfillment is Yeah.
Progress.
It's not happiness that creates fulfillment.
It's progress, man.
That's what I was gonna say.
It's kind of this, interesting, people people imagine success, like, when you've made it, that you're, like, you're sitting on a beach drinking cocktails, doing nothing.
But when reality, like, that's not gonna keep you fulfilled.
That might be fun for a day or so, but, like, you know, after that, like, you know, getting out there and, you know, when you get done with a hard workout, you feel great.
You feel like you've achieved something.
You've kept the promise to yourself, after you you, have, you know, successfully built a business or successfully closed a deal or whatever it is.
Like, they they there was struggle there and that, you know, will make you feel fulfilled.
And, to your point, I think oftentimes people actually need to self impose hardship on themselves to be able to feel, good, and that's done through exercise.
That's done through maybe cold plunges.
I mean, all that kind of stuff can, self impose pain, discomfort, whatever that you have to push through.
And when you do, then you feel good.
And it's it's a thing that people often don't get because they wanna go from their air conditioned house to their air conditioned car, and drive to the air conditioned office and, you know, kinda never, yeah, never actually imposed hardship.
When when, you know, when we were evolutionarily, we were, you know, probably having to go for periods of time without food.
You know?
So there's all these things about fasting that's, you know, supposed to be good for you.
And we had to do exert, energy to, be able to, you know, survive, to to hunt, whatever.
And I think that, you know, we are in a society of abundance where we have everything given to us.
And if we don't do those things to ourselves, we just don't have that balanced life that or more balanced life that we, we want.
Yeah.
It is interesting, man.
It's like, okay.
For most of human civilization, like, the biggest threat was starvation.
Yeah.
Now we're in a period of time for the first time ever in human civilization where, k, the biggest the biggest threat is too much damn food.
Like, nobody's starving anymore.
It's it's, you know, unhealthy levels of too much adipose tissue.
That's what's killing people.
Where it used to be starvation, now it's dude, like, there's such an abundance.
It's but look, like you said, like, we're wired to to the wiring's deep to live this way.
Well, now we're living a different way, and we're all having to adjust to it.
Yeah.
And the whole food industry is designed around, you know, taking advantage of our natural, tendencies to wanna get that fatty food, to wanna get that stuff that we needed when we were in a starvation mode, but we're we're really not anymore.
So Yeah.
It's, yeah, it's it's just good to be aware of those things and and to realize what true fulfillment where true fulfillment comes from like you talked about.
So I gotta ask if, any of these, things that we just talked about gave you an idea for a golden nugget you could share with the audience.
It could be a a new investor.
It could be, I'm sorry, a new agent.
It could be for, you know, anybody at all or maybe people that are looking at, a possible downturn.
Yeah.
I would just say, man, just, you know, the most I think at least what I've discovered, like, I don't honestly know shit about shit.
So say, you know, I don't know if I'm the right guy to listen to or not.
But, you know, what I can tell you, what I've learned through my own, you know, personal experiences, there's nothing more powerful than taking the time to get extreme clarity.
You Get extreme not just on the immediate.
So many people get, hey, man.
I'm struggling right now.
I wanna do this.
I get a they get clarity on the immediate, the twelve month goal.
I'm talking about the long game.
Like, yeah.
I mean, know what you need in the immediate, your six month goal, your twelve month goal, but then know, hey.
What is that?
Like, when I'm 84 years old, sit on my deathbed replaying the tapes, how do I want that conversation to go?
You know?
Right?
Like like, reverse engineer this, get that extreme clarity because the more clarity that you have, there's two things.
Number one, it can allow you to reverse engineer the right blueprints to get from where you're at to where you wanna go.
It's the only way.
You know?
Right?
Because the mistake that I made so many times now in my, you know, twenty year entrepreneur journey is, you know, he started getting five years into this thing.
You have to realize that, well, should I accidentally put myself into a metaphorical prison, not the metaphorical empire.
Or, like, the other analogy here people like like, yeah.
You're gonna go climb this mountain.
Yeah.
You get to the top.
Then you realize, fuck.
I climbed the wrong damn mountain.
Yeah.
Right?
So when you have clarity, it allows you to know, okay, what is the exact mountain that you wanna go out there and and whatever it may be, health and fitness.
Like, you know, you're talking about intermittent fasting.
Okay.
Well, is intermittent fasting the right protocol for you?
You have the right system for you?
I don't know.
Depends on what your goals are, what you want.
You know?
We start breaking those down.
Right?
There's no right way for everybody's.
But when you know, here's where I'm at, here's where I wanna go.
Now, again, allows you reverse architecture of the game plans.
Yeah.
So it allows you to do that.
But then number two, it also there I found when you have extreme clarity, there's no such thing as burnout.
You know?
Because now yeah.
You put in the hard work day by day, but you're seeing day by day progress.
You know, brick by brick progress, and burnout only takes place and exists when you are executing, you know, at a at a high level and you're not seeing any any progress or return.
That's when burnout kicks in.
You know?
So that's the the biggest nugget that I have, man, is get extreme clarity on what is it you want, and then, dude, like, go after it, man.
Like, I get people all the time.
They're like, oh, that's gonna take, you know, five years or ten years.
You know?
Like, I just got involved in this new venture.
It's probably gonna take me ten years to get to where I truly wanna be at with this venture.
You know, I'll tell people that I'm like, well, man, it's ten year.
I'm like, dude, the ten year is gonna pass anyway.
Right.
What the fuck am I gonna be doing in my life?
Like, it's gonna pass anyway.
So you might as well, like, you know, don't worry about the time.
You know, be intentional with the time that you have, but it's like time's gonna pass anyway.
So you might as well go after it and build the life that you truly want.
Oh, %.
I think I say this a lot too that, you know, just life if you don't if you're not living intentionally, life is just gonna happen to you.
You're gonna you're you're gonna be going along.
It's like a being a ship in a, you know, in a harbor without a rudder, and it's just you're getting blown around with everything.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I love that.
That's so so important.
And I you know, what you said about, it giving you, like, avoiding burnout by having extreme clarity, that's a % true.
I don't think I've ever really thought about that way.
Like, that I definitely will go through spurts, up and down in my sales, and I think a lot of it has to do with, my my burnout, my level of motivation.
But here recently, you know, I I definitely put out, like, a five year plan, all that kind of stuff, and broke it down, into smaller goals and, just, yeah, fired up like I haven't been in a long time.
So it's it's a it's a really good really good point.
That brings me to my next question and that is if you have a, book that you think is fundamental everybody should read or maybe one that you're just currently really enjoying.
No.
I don't.
And I know everybody's about books, and and and I am too.
But, I've wasted more time reading books than I've gotten out of the books.
And it's not because of anything with the book.
So the piece of advice that I have there is is you gotta you gotta get clarity again on, like, what is the book?
Because there is no like, we're all we all have something that you know?
So, you know, I've come up with over the years of, you know, what I call my mastery framework.
Right?
So whether it be going after books or podcasts or what because, dude, this stuff becomes just mental masturbation.
Like, it it becomes no different better time you spent than bingeing Netflix.
You know?
Right?
So, you know, then from there, it's okay.
I always identify.
K.
What is the one current biggest obstacle that I am experiencing, that I'm facing?
Business life, whatever.
That if I overcome this, if I get this dialed in, it will take my life or my business to the next level.
Let me identify that one thing.
You know?
Right?
Then from there now that I know the thing that I need to focus on, now I know what to allocate my you know, I'm gonna allocate all my self development time and energy to solving that problem.
Then from there now, I start asking myself, what's the best way to solve it?
K.
Sometimes it's found in a book.
Sometimes maybe it's a conversation.
Just reach out to, you know, buddy of mine like yourself.
Hey, man.
I need this.
What you like, if I know a buddy that's an expert in that space, sometimes it's a coach, sometimes it's a consultant, sometimes it's, you know, so there's gonna be different ways.
You know?
But then from there, now but now that I know what it is I need to solve, you know, right, then I'm going to, identify, okay, what's the best medium to learn this?
And then I'm gonna stick with it until I understand it.
Right?
And by understanding, I mean, k, you do not like, you can't truly implement and create success with anything until you understand to a level where you can essentially teach it to your peers.
Yeah.
Right?
So, Yeah.
You know, most people just again and I went into this too.
Like, the whole, like, oh, you gotta read 50 books a year.
Like, you know, and the next thing I'm looking at my freaking going through my library.
I'm looking at these books.
I'm like, I know I've read it, but I couldn't tell anybody what the hell it was about.
Yeah.
Right?
So
I don't know how many times I've been driving down the road with an audible, like, you know, at two x speed, and then I'm like, I I I have no idea what just it's been twenty minutes, and
I have
no idea what just happened.
So, like, right now, I'm reading Eric Worries GoPro because this new business I'm involved in, it has an MLM component.
You know?
Right?
Mhmm.
So I read the book maybe six years ago, good sales book, but then I was like, hey, man.
Now that I'm, you know, involved, I've never been involved in MLM and you know?
So now that I am or a business that has an MLM component, I'm like, okay.
Let me he's the best in the game.
You know, he coached Ed Mylett.
You know, he's like he's like, he's the dude.
Right?
So I'm like, you know, now I've in the last five months, I've reread that book.
I like to do audiobooks 12 times.
Wow.
You know?
Right?
So as a busy okay.
Like, now I saw I read this research, say, from NASA one time that they said the average human brain only retains 10% of what they learned the first time around.
Mhmm.
So can certainly just rip it through books.
So, like, I need to find me book, and then I need to read that book at least 10 times.
Now I'm dumber than most.
Like, I I'm not I'm, you know, not an intelligent human being.
So the average might take 10 times.
It might may take me 15 times.
You know?
Right?
But I'm gonna read it until I freaking milk everything out of it till I till I know the concepts that I need to know to go out and implement, execute, and then make the change I'm looking to make.
That's really good advice.
Yeah.
No.
I I think that's awesome.
If people are interested in, knowing more about you, following you on social media, website, etcetera, I see, you have it.
For people, not watching this, what what are those, platforms?
Yeah.
And just
so everybody knows, I mean, I have some health and fitness stuff.
We do, like, around a week with with my health and fitness mentor and, you know, interview other, like, Ultimate Health physicians.
And so, you know, tiny bit of that.
Most of my stuff is real estate specific.
But even from there, because I know a lot of you are on the investment side, most of my stuff is for, like, real estate professionals, the real estate agent, team leader, broker, and looking to grow in scale.
So you might wanna follow my stuff you may not want to.
All my shit is free.
You know, it's all like, if you go to YouTube, you know, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, it's just all Joshua Smith GSD.
GSD stands for Get Shit Done.
So the podcast is GSD mode Get Shit Done Mode.
So you can go to gsdmode.com or just any social media platform, YouTube, wherever, just type in @JoshuaSmithGSD, and you'll find me.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Thanks so much for your time.
This has been an awesome conversation.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah.
It's been fun, my friend.
I really appreciate you having me on, dude.
It's it's it's always fun flipping the role, man, where I get at because I'm always in your seat interviewing others.
So it's always fun being on the other end, man.
I always it's always an honor, so I appreciate it.
I actually just, was on one episode, for the first time because I've been not turning in the process of writing a book, so I'm waiting to to get on other people's episodes or other people's podcast until that comes out.
But, but, yeah, it is a very different process feeling the other.
But, yeah, thanks so much.
Yep.
You got it.
Thanks for listening to the REI agent.
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All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy.
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