I’m in the Philippines thinking about something I see in some real estate offices, and not in others. There’s a framework for global economics: wealthy nations built wealth partly by extracting resources from developing nations. Take resources, send back minimum, keep profits. One-directional. Built into the system. Some real estate offices operate the same way. […]
Your Best Agents Are Watching How You Show Up
I’m in the Philippines right now with my wife visiting family. Watching Filipino culture up close (the way families stay connected across continents, how strangers become family in five minutes, the way people solve problems with what they have), I noticed something. It’s just intention made visible in daily life. That’s culture. Not the poster […]
Resets Are Built on Rules, Not Feelings
What I learned from Joe DeSena (Mr. Spartan) and others: The market shifts. Rates move. A deal you were counting on dies at the closing table. A top producer you spent six months recruiting ghosts you on signing day. And then comes the feeling. The slump. The “I’ll get back on the phones Monday.” The […]
Your culture is your competitive advantage
Four sentences that separate the brokerages people fight to join from the ones they quietly leave Mike Deegan won his 400th game coaching baseball at Denison University. Someone asked him what drives that kind of sustained success. His answer had nothing to do with talent or technology or market conditions: “Show up every day. Work […]
Lessons In Real Estate from Yoda
Twenty-six years in real estate teaches you a lot. Some lessons came from mentors, some from mistakes, and some, I’m not ashamed to admit, from a little green Jedi. Here’s what Yoda got right. You’re Never Too Wise or Too Old to Learn Something New No matter how skilled you become, there’s always more to learn. […]
The Day I Almost Quit on Kilimanjaro, and What It Taught Me About Building a Brokerage Worth Joining
There’s a spot on Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest free-standing mountain, where a vehicle can reach you for the first time on the descent. Before that point, if something goes wrong, your options are a helicopter or a stretcher carried by porters. There is no other way out. So you move, and you deal with whatever you’re […]
Adam Smith Didn’t Say What You Think He Said
I was reading part of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations recently, and someone looked over and said what is that? I said, The Wealth of Nations. From 1776. Ever heard of it? They said no. So I walked them through it. Not the whole book just the core principles. Division of labor. Self-interest and […]
The Score Doesn’t Transfer. Your Habits Do.
When you lose a game, the score doesn’t follow you into the next one. Zero to zero, clean slate. But your habits? Those travel with you everywhere. The way you prepare. The way you follow up. The standard you hold when nobody’s watching. Those don’t reset at the final whistle. And here’s where it gets […]
I Wrote This Down in December 2019. It Still Works Today.
The end of 2019. I’m prepping for my 9th Spartan Race: 13 miles, 30 obstacles, several hours on the course and I’m not as prepared like I normally was. But I showed up anyway, because the only thing I refused to let beat me was the “drunk monkey” between my own two ears. That December […]
The Privilege of Getting It Wrong
My family history is Swedish. Which means going to IKEA for me isn’t just a furniture run it’s something closer to Old Home Week. The meatballs. The lingonberries. The assembly instructions that somehow, eventually, make sense. There’s a comfort in it I can’t explain to anyone who didn’t grow up with that heritage. So when […]