The Big Four and the Power of Community

It was 105 degrees. Too hot to run outside, so I headed to the gym, set the iFit treadmill to a 5% incline, and let trainer Hannah Eden do the talking.

Somewhere in the middle of that climb, she said something that stuck with me. She talked about the Big Four: faith, finances, fitness, and family, with family expanded to include all of our relationships. Her point was simple. We are not meant to do life alone.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how true that is in our business.

Real Estate Is a Lonely Sport

We love to call agents independent contractors. Independent is a great word for a tax form. It’s a terrible strategy for a career.

Agents who isolate stall. They miss the coaching, the conversations, and the deal-saving tip from the agent two desks over. And when a competitor calls with a better split, there’s nothing holding them in place. Agents rarely leave a brokerage where they feel connected. They leave the ones where they feel alone.

That makes community one of the most powerful recruiting and retention tools you own. And it doesn’t cost a dime.

• For the Broker-Owner: Your culture is your community. Ask yourself honestly: would an agent who doesn’t close a deal this month still feel like they belong here?
• For the Recruiter: Stop leading with splits and tools. Lead with people. “Here’s who you’ll be working alongside” is a stronger pitch than any fee schedule.
• For the Manager: Notice who’s missing. The agent skipping sales meetings and dodging calls isn’t just busy. They’re drifting. Reach out before a recruiter does.
• For the Staff: You’re often the first relationship a new agent makes. A warm hello and a quick follow-up make the office feel like home.
• For the Agent: Nobody is coming to drag you into the circle. You have to step in.

How to Build Your Community

1. Find a Community: Your office, a mastermind, an association committee, a running club. Pick a group that’s heading where you want to go.
2. Connect: Show up early. Learn names. Ask one more question than you normally would.
3. Participate: Don’t just attend. Contribute. Share a win, share a struggle, offer to help. Community rewards participants, not spectators.
4. Build Strong Relationships: Relationships aren’t built in a single meeting. They’re built through the power of positive habits: every coffee, call, and check-in adds a strand. As I’ve written before, habits start as a thin thread and become a strong cable.

Faith, finances, fitness, and relationships. Notice that none of the Big Four is built alone. Faith grows in fellowship. Finances grow through people who trust you. Fitness grows when someone is counting on you to show up. And relationships… well, that one speaks for itself.

So whether it’s 105 degrees or 65, find your people and show up for them. That’s how you win the day.

A System Will Produce What A System Will Produce, Nothing Less and Nothing More!

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It’s October. Which means the plans are coming.

• The 2027 business plan template.
• The new coaching program.
• The CRM rollout.
• The recruiting playbook with color-coded tabs.

By Thanksgiving, most offices will have more programs than agents using them.

Benjamin Franklin cut through all of it in seven words, in the 1737 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack:

“Well done is better than well said.”

Almost three hundred years later, it’s still the best business advice on the shelf.

Plans Feel Like Progress

Here’s the trap. Building the plan feels like work. Picking the CRM feels like work. Researching the perfect script feels like work.

None of it is movement.

I see it every fall. An agent spends three weekends on a business plan with fourteen goals and a vision board. January comes, nobody calls back, and the plan sits in a folder. Meanwhile, the agent at the next desk wrote one line on an index card, their march, and started the next morning.

By February, one of them has a plan. The other has a pipeline.

Brokers do it too. We launch a mentorship program, a training calendar, a lead-routing system, a culture committee. All good ideas. But your agents don’t experience programs. They experience Tuesday. Did someone call them back? Did their broker check on the deal that almost fell apart? Did anybody ask what they need?

One real one-on-one this week beats a dozen initiatives on the whiteboard.

Why Action Wins

Action produces data. Theory produces opinions.

Make twenty calls and you learn which opening line works. Run one listing presentation and you find out where your pitch breaks. Have one honest recruiting conversation and you’ll know more about what agents in your market want than any survey will tell you.

Theory has its place. You need a direction. The compass comes first. But once you know which way is north, every extra hour of planning is an hour you’re not walking. That’s the gap I wrote about in Stop Knowing, Start Doing, and it gets wider every fourth quarter.

Try This

If you’re an agent:

• Cut your plan to one page. If it doesn’t fit, it won’t get done.
• Take the first step today. Make the call. Send the note. October counts.

If you’re a broker-owner:

• Kill one program. Which initiative in your office has the most theory and the least movement? Pause it and put that energy into one action.
• Book three one-on-ones before Friday. Not a new program. Just the conversations.

Everyone:

• Count steps, not plans. At the end of each week, write down three things you did, not three things you decided.

Question

What’s the one step you’ve been planning instead of taking?

Resources

The Knowing-Doing Gap by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton. It’s the business-school version of this exact problem, and a fast read. For the original, pick up Poor Richard’s Almanack. Franklin was writing productivity advice before anyone called it that.

Well done beats a dozen programs. Today.

Ask any broker-owner who ran an office through 2008 about their affiliate partners. They’ll name the lenders, escrow officers, and title reps who disappeared when volume dried up.

Then they’ll name the ones who stayed. They’ll say those names with a completely different tone.

Nearly two decades later, the ones who stayed are still getting the business.

Slow markets sort vendors from partners

When deals are flowing, everyone looks like a partner. There are lunches, sponsored meetings, and donuts on Tuesday.

When deals slow down, the difference shows. A vendor asks, “Got anything for me?” A partner asks, “What can I do to help you get your next one?”

What staying actually looks like

Teach something. A lender who runs a 30-minute session on rate buydowns gives agents a tool they can use at a listing appointment tomorrow. An escrow officer who walks newer agents through where deals fall apart saves transactions. That’s worth more than a hundred branded pens.

Be reachable at 6 p.m. on Friday. Deals don’t fall apart during business hours. Agents remember exactly who picked up.

Help their business, not just yours. Send an agent a short market note she can forward to her clients. Introduce two agents who should know each other. Give before you ask.

Show up when nothing’s happening. Go to the sales meeting when you have nothing to pitch. Agents notice who comes to the room when there’s no business in it.

Keep the promise small and keep it every time. If you said 24 hours, deliver in 24 hours. Reliability is the brand.

For agents and brokers reading this

Look at your partner list the same way. Who stayed with you? Who showed up in your slow year? Send those people your business when times are good. Loyalty should run both ways.

Try This

• Call five agents who haven’t sent you a deal this year. Don’t ask for anything. Ask what’s getting in their way.
• Offer one teaching session this quarter. Pick the question agents ask you most often and build 30 minutes around it.
• Write down your response-time promise. Then keep it for 90 days straight.

Question

If the market went quiet for eighteen months, which agents would still take your call? And which ones would call you first?

The market decides the volume. You decide who you are when it’s low.

Win the day.

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Picture a seller in early November. The appraiser has been in her home for ninety minutes. He’s measuring rooms with a laser scanner and photographing the kids’ bedrooms, the home office, the medication on the kitchen counter.

She calls her agent. “Is this normal? Where do these photos go?”

Her agent has no idea.

That call is coming to hundreds of agents this fall. The only question is whether your agents hear about this first from a nervous seller, or from you.

What’s changing

Starting November 2, 2026, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac require the new UAD 3.6 appraisal format on the loans they buy. It captures far more data: 500+ data points, LiDAR (laser-scanned floor plans) measurements, and more interior photos.

A new appraiser certification, Cert 25, lets the lender share the full report with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, data services, and government agencies. Anyone who receives it may store, copy, analyze, and distribute that data without the appraiser’s consent. The Appraisal Foundation has not yet said how that fits with the appraiser’s duty to protect confidential information.

At the same time, the Voice of Appraisal podcast expects appraisal waivers to rise. Many waivers rely on property data collected by unlicensed collectors who sign no certification at all.

It’s going to be a rocky road. Longer inspections. Tighter timelines around the deadline. Privacy questions nobody has answered.

This is a De-Risking moment

In the Eight D’s, De-Risking means support systems that reduce an agent’s personal and financial risk. One rescued deal pays for a lifetime of split difference.

UAD 3.6 is a live test of that promise. Most brokerages will wait, react, and send a forwarded email in December. A few will walk into their next sales meeting and say: “Here’s what’s changing, and here’s our approach.”

Agents remember which one they had.

What “we have an approach” looks like

Bring your affiliates into the room. Invite your lender, an appraiser, and your escrow officer to one sales meeting before November 2. Twenty minutes each. What changes, what slows down, what agents should tell clients. Your affiliates get a room full of agents. Your agents get answers before they need them.

Give agents the seller conversation. A one-page prep sheet for listing appointments: the inspection will take longer, the appraiser will photograph more of the home, and sellers should put away personal and sensitive items. The agent who says this at the listing appointment looks like a pro. The agent who learns it from an upset seller looks like a rookie.

Watch the files that straddle the deadline. Compliance is based on when the lender submits the report, not when it was ordered. A report delivered late could need to be redone in the new format and push closing. Have your transaction team flag every file with an appraisal in flight around November 2.

Say it out loud. Tie it back to your direction: “We’re doing this because our agents shouldn’t learn about industry changes from their clients.” Every decision you connect to your direction makes it more real.

Why this is a recruiting conversation

Here’s a question for your next recruiting coffee:

“What has your brokerage told you about the appraisal changes on November 2?”

Most agents will shrug. That shrug is Dissatisfaction you didn’t have to create. You’re not criticizing their broker. You’re showing them what support looks like.

The same logic runs the other way. If a recruiter across the street asks your agent that question in November, what will they say?

What winning the day looks like for you

• If you’re a student: Learn this now. You’ll enter the business knowing something many licensed agents don’t.
• If you’re an agent: Add the seller prep conversation to every listing appointment starting today.
• If you’re an affiliate: Don’t wait for an invitation. Offer your top referral offices a 20-minute UAD 3.6 briefing. The partner who shows up with answers during a messy transition gets remembered.
• If you’re a broker-owner: Put UAD 3.6 on your next sales meeting agenda. Bring your affiliates. Be the leader who saw it coming.

Try This

• Book the affiliate panel this week. Lender, appraiser, escrow. Twenty minutes each.
• Build the one-page seller prep sheet and add it to every listing packet.
• Ask your transaction team for a list of every file with an appraisal in flight around November 2.
• Add the question to your recruiting script: “What has your brokerage told you about November 2?”

Question

When the first seller calls your agent asking where those interior photos went, who will have the answer: you, or the recruiter across the street?

Resources

Listen to the Voice of Appraisal podcast episode on UAD 3.6 and Certification 25: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwfGFSe3oGo. Then reread Jim Collins’s Great by Choice, especially the chapter on productive paranoia. The companies that win in turbulent times prepare before they have to.

The market will change. Tell your agents first.

Then win the day.

Faciamus.

In Great by Choice, Jim Collins describes a ship at sea with a hostile vessel bearing down on it and only a limited supply of gunpowder.

If you load everything into one cannonball and fire, you’ll probably miss. Then you have no gunpowder left.

The better move is to fire a bullet first. See where it lands and adjust your aim. Fire another. Once a bullet hits, load the cannonball.

This is how brokerages should be testing AI

Here’s what I see instead. A firm buys an enterprise AI platform and holds a big rollout meeting. Three months later, four agents are using it and nobody can say whether it helped. That was a cannonball fired blind.

What a bullet looks like

A bullet is small, cheap, and low-risk. For example:

• One agent sets up the 5 p.m. daily check-in prompt from Configure the AI Before You Configure the Deal and runs it for 30 days.
• One team lead uses AI to draft listing descriptions for a month, then compares the edits against the old way.
• One recruiter uses AI to prep for five coffee meetings, then asks whether those meetings went better.

Each test involves one person, one task, one measure, and 30 days.

The honest part

Most AI pilots don’t fail because the tool is bad. They fail because nobody decided at the start what success would look like. “Let’s see how it goes” isn’t a measure.

Before you fire, write down one sentence: In 30 days, this worked if ___.

The other honest part: bullets have to be safe. Keep client personal information and contract details out of any tool until you know how it handles data. A cheap test shouldn’t create an expensive compliance problem.

Then load the cannonball

When a bullet hits, commit fully. Train everyone, build it into onboarding, and put it in your recruiting presentation. Calibrated confidence beats hopeful spending every time.

Try This

• Pick one friction point. Choose the task your agents complain about most.
• Find one volunteer. Look for someone curious, not necessarily your most tech-savvy agent.
• Write your success sentence before you start.
• Review at day 30. Then decide to fire another bullet, load the cannonball, or walk away.

Question

What cannonball have you fired lately without a bullet first? And what would a bullet have cost you instead?

Resources

Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen.

Test small. Win big. Win the day.

Most brokerages have an exit interview. That’s the conversation where you finally ask a good agent what went wrong, right after they’ve already signed with someone else.

That isn’t a retention strategy. It’s an autopsy.

Ask before they leave

Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans, authors of Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em, have long championed a simple alternative: the stay interview. You sit down with your best people while they’re still here and ask why they stay, and what might make them go.

It sounds obvious, but almost nobody does it. Most broker-owners assume they already know the answers. They usually don’t.

Five questions that work

1. What keeps you here?
2. When was the last time you thought about leaving? What was going on?
3. What’s one thing we could fix that would make your week easier?
4. What do you want your business to look like in three years? Are we helping you get there?
5. If a recruiter called tomorrow, what would they offer that we don’t?

Listen for the D’s underneath the answers. “The TC was slow on my last three files” is De-Risking. “I’m not learning anything new” is Development. “I don’t know where we’re headed” is Direction.

Three rules

Don’t defend. The moment you explain why something is the way it is, the honest answers stop. Write it down and say thank you.

Meet on their turf. Go to their office, or buy them coffee near their listings. Your office feels like a performance review.

Close the loop within two weeks. Pick one thing they said and fix it, then tell them you fixed it. That single follow-up builds more loyalty than any split concession.

The quiet ones matter too

Don’t only interview your top producers. Include the steady $2M agent who never complains. Quiet doesn’t mean content. Sometimes it means they stopped expecting anyone to ask.

Try This

• Pick six agents this month: your top five producers and one quiet, steady agent.
• Hold each conversation in 30 minutes. Use the five questions and nothing else.
• Fix one thing for each person within two weeks. Tell them when it’s done.

Question

Which of your agents would give an honest answer to question two? And what would you do if they did?

Resources

Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em and Hello Stay Interviews, Goodbye Talent Loss, both by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans.

You can’t keep what you don’t understand. So ask.

Win the day.

Every semester, I watch students light up when they pass the final. They’re ready to go.

Here’s what I wish I could tell every one of them before they walk out the door.

Your license is permission, not preparation

The exam proves you know the rules. It doesn’t prove you can get a stranger to trust you with the biggest financial decision of their life. That part takes practice, and the practice starts now.

Choose a brokerage for what it builds, not what it pays

Every new agent asks about the split. Here’s the math nobody says out loud: 90% of zero deals is zero.

In year one, the questions that matter are different:

• Who will train you?
• Who will you call when a deal is falling apart?
• Will someone sit in on your first listing appointment?

In the Eight D’s, Development and De-Risking will pay you more than Dollars ever will in your first year.

Build habits before you need them

The agents who make it aren’t always the most talented. They’re the ones who did the work on days they didn’t feel like it. Start now. Pick three daily non-negotiables, like five calls, two notes, and one coffee, and do them before you have a single client.

Your sphere is bigger than you think

Most students tell me they don’t know anyone. Then they sit down and list 100 people: their dentist, their kid’s coach, their old roommate. You don’t need to sell to them. You need them to know what you do.

Plan your runway

Your first commission check may be months away. Know how long you can go without one, and plan for it. Financial pressure makes people pushy, and clients can feel it.

Stay a student

The best agents I know are still learning in year twenty. Read, take the class, and ask the question that makes you look like a rookie. Everyone was one once.

Try This

• List 100 names this week. Don’t contact anyone yet. Just write.
• Interview three brokerages. Ask each one who will train you and who you’ll call when a deal goes sideways.
• Pick your three non-negotiables. Start them before your license arrives.

Question

If you started your career tomorrow, what would your first 90 days look like? Could you write that plan out today?

For broker-owners

What are you telling the students who walk into your office? If it starts with the split, start somewhere else.

Your career doesn’t start when your license arrives. It starts with today’s habits.

Win the day.

As some of you know, I’m training for the Long Beach Half Marathon. Part of that training includes cross-training on the bike and the rower, and on the bike I’ve spent a few work out sessions with Ashley Paulson, an iFit trainer, indoor cycling instructor, and marathon runner.

Somewhere between the intervals and the climbs, Ashley tells a story about resistance and persistence. It stuck with me, and I think it will stick with you too.

The Story

A quick disclaimer: I was taking mental notes while pedaling, so I may not have the exact times or the exact number of attempts right. But you’ll get the gist of the story.

Ashley wasn’t a high school or college cross country standout. She didn’t run track. After having four kids, she set a goal most people would call unrealistic: qualify for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.

• On her first attempt, she missed the qualifying time by about a minute.
• On her second attempt, she missed by about 30 seconds.
• The next time, she missed by roughly 15.
• And on one attempt, she came up short by just 1 second!

Did she get discouraged? Of course she did, just like you and I would. Coming that close, over and over, is its own kind of pain. It’s easy to wonder whether the goal is still worth chasing.

But Ashley did something I’ve had to learn the hard way over 30+ years in business and life. She followed three steps:

• Accept. The result is the result. The clock doesn’t negotiate. Instead of arguing with reality or making excuses, she owned where she was.
• Reflect. What happened? What worked, what didn’t, and what’s within my control next time? Reflection isn’t beating yourself up. It’s gathering information.
• Redirect. Take what you learned and point your energy at the next attempt, with an adjusted plan.

Long story short, after several attempts, Ashley beat the required time and went to the Olympic Trials.

What Mental Toughness Really Is

Ashley’s story is a textbook example of mental toughness. Mental toughness is the ability to stay committed to a goal and keep performing through setbacks, discomfort, and pressure. It isn’t the absence of disappointment or doubt. It’s feeling both and choosing to keep going anyway. Accept, Reflect, and Redirect is simply mental toughness put into practice.

What This Means for You

If you’re in real estate, you know this cycle well. The listing appointment you didn’t win. The buyer who went with another agent. The recruit who chose a different brokerage. The quarter that came in short of plan.

Missing by a minute, then 30 seconds, then 15, then just 1 second is not failure. That’s progress, even when it doesn’t feel like it. The agents, managers, and broker-owners who win over time aren’t the ones who never miss. They’re the ones who Accept, Reflect, and Redirect, and then show up again the next day to execute the fundamentals.

So after your next disappointment, ask yourself: Have I accepted it? What did I learn? Where do I point my energy now?

My Own 13.1

Now, about Long Beach. I’m not looking to break any records. I’m going to participate and cross the finish line alongside one of my sons. For me, that is the win.

Not every goal has to be 26.2 miles and a ticket to the Olympic Trials. But every goal, big or small, gets reached the same way: one training day, one conversation, one step at a time.

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In 1911, two teams raced to the South Pole.

Roald Amundsen’s team held a steady pace every day. In good weather they stopped at their mileage goal, even when they could have pushed farther. In bad weather they still made their miles. Robert Falcon Scott’s team pushed hard on good days and waited out the bad ones.

Amundsen got there first. Scott’s team arrived more than a month later and never made it home.

Jim Collins tells this story in Great by Choice. He calls Amundsen’s approach the 20 Mile March: a steady pace you hit no matter the conditions.

Your business plan probably isn’t a march

Right now, a lot of agents are writing things like “$10 million in 2027.” That’s a destination, not a march. It tells you nothing about what to do on a Tuesday in February when nobody’s calling back.

A march is a number you control. For example:

• Ten real conversations a day.
• Two appointments set every week.
• One handwritten note before lunch.

For broker-owners it might be:

• Four one-on-ones with agents every week.
• Three recruiting conversations every week, whether the roster feels full or not.

The march has a floor and a ceiling

Most people only set the floor, the minimum. Collins says the ceiling matters just as much.

The agent who makes 60 calls on a great Monday and burns out by Wednesday hasn’t beaten the plan. They’ve broken it. The brokerage that hires eight agents in a hot quarter with no onboarding capacity learns the same lesson. Steady beats heroic.

Plan for bad weather now

Your march will get tested. A family emergency, a slow market, or a deal that eats your week will all push on it. Decide now what the bad-weather version looks like. Maybe it’s five conversations instead of ten, but never zero.

Try This

• Pick one march number for 2027. Write it down before Thanksgiving, not January 2.
• Set the floor and the ceiling. Write both.
• Mark the calendar every day you hit it. Never miss twice.
• Tell one person your number. A march with a witness lasts longer.

Question

If someone looked at your calendar for any random week next year, would they be able to tell what your march is?

Resources

Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen.

Destinations are nice. Marches get you there.

Win the day.

In The Compass Came First, post I ended with a question: can you write the one sentence that tells you which way is north? Then the harder one: could your agents write it for you?

Here is a way to find out. At your next sales meeting, hand out index cards with one question: Where is this company going in the next three years? Keep it anonymous. Collect them.

Read them that night. If your office is like most, you’ll get “bigger,” “more agents,” “not sure,” and a couple of good guesses. You might even get one that asks about a rumor you’ve never heard. (Bigger is a result not a direction.)

That’s not a failed test. It’s the most useful data you’ll collect all year. Most leaders have a direction. It lives in their head and in a business plan nobody has opened since January.

Direction is the first D for a reason

In the Eight D’s, Direction comes first. Agents can live with a split that isn’t the best in town. They struggle to stay somewhere they can’t describe. When a recruiter across the street asks, “Where’s your company headed?” and your agent shrugs, that recruiting call is already half won.

So what if they can’t write it?

Here’s the good news. That isn’t an agent problem. It’s a communication problem, and communication problems are fixable.

Write it yourself first. Use one sentence in plain words. Something like: “We will be the brokerage where a new agent gets to 12 deals by year two.” That’s not a mission statement. It’s a direction.

Say it until you’re sick of it. Leaders get tired of their own message long before the team actually hears it. Open every sales meeting with it and put it on the wall.

Connect decisions to it out loud. For example: “We’re adding a transaction coordinator because it gets newer agents to 12 deals faster.” Every decision you tie to the sentence makes it more real.

Let your best people push back on it. Give the draft to your top five agents and ask what’s missing. People defend what they helped build.

Ask each agent to write their own. Then show them where their direction overlaps with the company’s. That overlap is your retention strategy.

Try This

• Run the index card test at your next meeting. Keep it anonymous so you get honest answers.
• Write your own sentence before you read the cards. Otherwise the cards will write it for you.
• Rerun the test in 90 days. The gap between the two rounds is your scorecard.

Question

If a recruiter asked your best agent tomorrow where your company is going, what would they say?

Resources

Start With Why by Simon Sinek.

Direction first.

Faciamus.