Tag: #100DaysOfSuccess

I’ve noticed a pattern in our industry. We are surrounded by high achievers who want everything to be “top tier.” Whether it is a new recruiting deck, a luxury listing presentation, or the perfect office layout, we tend to chase that final 5 percent of polish.

But here is the truth we rarely talk about: Perfection is expensive.

That last tiny bit of quality almost always costs a disproportionate amount of time and money. If you are a broker owner or a top producing agent, you know that your time is your most valuable asset. Spending ten hours to make a flyer “perfect” instead of “great” usually means you missed out on three listing appointments or a chance to coach a rising star.

The 95 Percent Sweet Spot

My favorite type of purchase—or project—is the one where you spend 80 percent of the cost but get 95 percent of the value.

Think about the tech stack in your office or the marketing materials you provide your team. There is often a massive jump in price or effort to get from “really good” to “flawless.” In reality, that extra 5 percent of perfection is rarely what closes the deal or recruits the agent.

The best combination of cost and quality is almost always one step down from perfect.

The Cost of Over-Engineering

When we over-engineer our systems, we create two problems:

1. The Time Sink: You spend weeks tweaking a CRM or a script that should have been launched in days. While you were polishing, your competition was already in the field using a version that was “good enough” to win.
2. The Decision Fatigue: Chasing perfection for every minor detail exhausts your mental battery. By the time a truly high-stakes decision lands on your desk, you are already drained from worrying about the font size on a business card.

Finding the Value

This isn’t an excuse for sloppy work. Quality matters, and in real estate, your brand is your reputation. But there is a huge difference between excellence and perfectionism.

Excellence is about delivering high value and moving the needle. Perfectionism is often just a sophisticated way of procrastinating or overspending.

Next time you are looking at a new vendor, a new hire, or a new marketing campaign, look for that one step down from perfect. That is where the profit lives. That is where the scale happens.

Give yourself permission to be 95 percent great so you can use that saved time and money to actually grow your business.

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In our industry, we are taught to be “yes” people. We say yes to the late night showing, the last minute recruiting lunch, or that extra project that landed on our desk Friday afternoon. We usually view these as signs of hard work. But there is a reality we often ignore: trades are always happening, whether you see them or not.

Every time you say yes to one thing, you are inherently saying no to something else. It is a simple equation that we frequently miscalculate.

The Invisible Exchange

Think about the daily trades you make without even realizing it:

• The Early Meeting: When you say yes to that 7:00 AM strategy session, you are saying no to a quiet morning or time with your family.
• The Extra Project: Saying yes to a new internal audit or a side committee is a direct no to a free weekend.
• The Energy Drain: Saying yes to a high-maintenance client who exhausts you is a no to the time and headspace that actually fulfills you.

For broker owners and top agents, the cost of a “bad yes” isn’t just the hour you spent in a meeting. The real cost is whatever could have grown in that space instead. Maybe it was the visionary recruiting plan you never got to write, or maybe it was just the rest you needed to stay sharp for a big negotiation.

Improving the Ratio

The point isn’t to start saying no to everything. You can’t grow a brokerage or a career by hiding from opportunities. The goal is simply to recognize the difference between a good yes and a bad yes.

A bad yes usually feels like an obligation. It is the task that keeps you busy but doesn’t actually move the needle. In recruiting, a bad yes might be bringing on an agent who produces well but destroys your office culture. You said yes to the volume, but you just said no to the peace and retention of your existing staff.

How to Audit Your Yes

Start looking at your calendar as a series of investments rather than just a list of things to do. Before you agree to the next “opportunity,” ask yourself what you are giving up to make it happen. If the trade doesn’t feel fair, it probably isn’t.

Protect your space. Improve your ratio. When you stop filling every gap with a “bad yes,” you finally leave room for the things that actually matter to grow.

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The “Unreasonable” Talent Play: What Real Estate Leaders Can Learn from Google’s DeepMind Deal

Every brokerage owner knows the feeling of a competitor eyeing their market. They have a bigger budget, deeper pockets, and an aggressive recruiting team. How do you actually beat them?

A recent Wall Street Journal article titled “The Inside Story of the Greatest Deal Google Ever Made” tells the story of the 2014 acquisition of DeepMind. Google paid over 500 million dollars for a tiny startup with 50 employees and zero revenue. At the time, critics called it insane. Today, it is considered the bargain that saved Google’s future.

For real estate CEOs, recruiters, and top producers, this story offers three blunt lessons on winning the talent war.

1. It is Never Just About the Money

In 2014, the real battle was between Google and Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg was incredibly close to buying DeepMind himself.

Google’s Larry Page didn’t win by offering more cash. He won because he understood what the founders actually valued: autonomy. They wanted a guarantee that their work would stay independent and ethical. Page promised them a private ethics board. Zuckerberg didn’t.

The Real Estate Lesson: When a top producing team is deciding between you and a rival, it is rarely just about the commission split. It is about the “intangible equity.” Are you offering a platform where they can scale their own brand, or are you forcing them into a rigid corporate box? Google won because Page was a better listener.

2. Pay for the “Bargain” That Feels Too Expensive

Paying 500 million dollars for 50 people was called “unreasonable” back then. Today, DeepMind is the engine behind Google’s most valuable AI systems. That original investment is now worth billions.

The Real Estate Lesson: As the market shifts, the best deals often look overpriced on paper. Acquiring a ten person super team from a rival might require a payout that makes your accountant nervous. But the DeepMind story teaches us that true “force multipliers” are rarely priced at fair market value. A 10x player pays for itself exponentially. The greatest risk isn’t overpaying for elite talent. It is missing out on the talent that defines the next decade.

3. Don’t Fear the Culture Clash

The article highlights a constant tension between DeepMind’s academic culture and Google’s profit-driven world. DeepMind wanted to change the world. Google wanted to protect its ad business. For years, this friction was actually healthy. It allowed DeepMind to innovate while Google provided the infrastructure to make that innovation work in the real world.

The Real Estate Lesson: We see this clash all the time. You have the legacy listing agent who does things “the old way” and the new tech-enabled team that demands automation. A successful broker doesn’t force everyone into one mold. Your job is to manage the tension. Let the different groups thrive separately while building a bridge so they can learn from each other.

The Bottom Line

Google’s DeepMind deal was about one thing: securing the most critical asset for the future before anyone else understood its true value.

In our market, the principle is the same. The brokerages that will dominate the 2030s aren’t necessarily the ones with the most desks today. They are the ones with the vision to attract the talent and technology that others still think is “unreasonable.”

Follow my AI series – AI Lazy | Blue is the new White | Your Job Is To Be Human | Who We Hire IS Changing |

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I spent the morning at a breakfast with Carson Palmer, Ryan Tollner, and Katie Rodin. We talk a lot in real estate about “winning,” but these three have a different definition of it. Whether you are leading a brokerage, running a desk at a title company, or out there as an agent, their take on ethics hits home for our industry.

Character attracts character

Ryan Tollner is a top sports agent who admitted he entered a “slimy” business specifically to do it better at a higher level. He was very open about the fact that being ethical has cost him clients. In our world, we’ve all seen people say or do whatever it takes to get a listing or a signature. Ryan’s strategy is simple: position yourself as different. When you operate from a place of abundance, you realize there is enough business for everyone. You don’t have to chase the “scarcity” mindset that leads to cutting corners.

The “Double Life” trap

Katie Rodin made a point that every leader in our industry needs to hear: you cannot be one person in the office and another person out of the office. If you aren’t aligned, the cracks will eventually show. Carson Palmer backed this up, saying it is impossible to be consistent if you are cutting corners behind the scenes when no one is looking.

When the pressure is on and you’re tempted to take a shortcut, Carson’s advice is simple: pause and pray. He reminded us that your name is your only real currency. His athletes know they represent the name on the front of the jersey and the one on the back.

When things go sideways, don’t hide

We’ve all had a deal blow up or a mistake happen at the closing table. Katie’s advice for those moments is gold:

1. Make it right immediately.
2. Reverse engineer the mistake to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
3. Lead by example. Don’t hide behind your title when you mess up.

Creating a safe space for your staff and agents to own their mistakes is how you actually eliminate them in the long run.

Coaching the person, not the production

Carson mentioned that when an athlete’s performance drops, he looks at what’s going on in their life. Whether it’s a kid or an NFL pro, the human needs are the same. If an agent or a staff member is struggling, ask about the underlying issue. Usually, if you coach the person, the performance turns around on its own.

The support system

One thing that really stuck with me was Katie mentioning her spouse is a critical part of her success. In real estate, our families feel the heat of our schedules as much as we do. Acknowledging that support system is part of being an authentic leader.

In an industry where our reputation is everything, these reminders are a great gut check. A reminder that playing the long game is how we win the day.

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“All great undertakings do not consist of doing again what others have done before, but in recapturing the spirit that went into what they did.” ~ Paul Valéry, The Collected Works

Every market produces its legends.

The agent who dominated a farm area for twenty years. The MLO who built a referral network so deep they never ran a cold lead. The recruiter who had a sixth sense for talent and almost never got it wrong.

And every generation tries to copy them.

They study the scripts. They reconstruct the systems. They read the books, attend the events, and try to reverse engineer the moves that made those people great.

It rarely works. Not because the information is wrong. Because the information is not the point.

What made those producers exceptional was not the specific action they took. It was the thinking behind it. The belief that relationships compounded over time. The conviction that the market rewards consistency when everyone else is chasing momentum. The discipline to do the unsexy work when the results were not yet visible.

That is what Valéry is pointing at. Not the tactic. The spirit.

If you want to build something that lasts in this business, do not ask what the greats did. Ask why they did it. Ask what they believed about people, about service, about the long game, that made those actions the obvious choice.

Then ask yourself what those same beliefs look like in your market, with your clients, in this moment.

The script they used in 2004 will not close the client in front of you today. But the mindset that built that script absolutely will.

Do not imitate the act. Carry the spirit forward.

Over the last few posts we did exactly that. Simplify. Survive. Stay grounded. Embrace the hard. Build something that lasts.

Let’s go build.

“This is how we grow: by being defeated by greater and greater things.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Images.

There is a moment in every real estate or mortgage career when the challenge in front of you is bigger than anything you have handled before.

Maybe it is your first luxury listing in a neighborhood where the clients expect a level of service you have not delivered yet. Maybe it is a complex commercial deal with moving parts you are still learning. Maybe it is building a team for the first time and realizing that leading people is an entirely different skill than producing.

Most people in that moment feel like they are failing. They are not. They are growing.

The problem is we have been conditioned to treat difficulty as a signal to stop. To pull back. To find the lane that feels more comfortable. But discomfort is not a warning. It is a marker. It tells you exactly where your edge is.

The agent who only takes the listings they are certain to win never finds out what they are actually capable of. The MLO who only works the loan types they know cold never builds the range that separates good from exceptional.

Rilke was not writing about real estate in 1902. But he understood something about ambition that applies to every producer in this business. The things that stretch you, shake you, and occasionally beat you are not obstacles to your growth. They are the mechanism of it.

You do not grow by mastering what is already easy. You grow by taking on what is just beyond you and staying in the fight long enough to figure it out.

The next time a deal, a client, or a challenge makes you feel overmatched, pay attention to that feeling. It means you are in the right room.

The Noise Is Loud. Stay In The Game Anyway.

You will see it this week. Maybe you already have.

The agent who cut corners and still closed the deal. The MLO who overpromised and somehow kept their clients. The recruiter who hired fast, skipped the culture fit, and got away with it.

And somewhere in the back of your mind a quiet, dangerous thought shows up. Maybe that is just how it works.

It is not.

Here is what is actually happening. The negative examples are loud. They spread fast. They get shared, screenshotted, and turned into cautionary tales that somehow also feel like permission. Bad behavior stirs emotion. And emotion travels.

Good behavior does not work that way. The agent who spent three years building a referral network through genuine relationships does not make the highlight reel. The MLO who called every client back within the hour, every time, for a decade does not go viral. The transaction coordinator who caught the error that saved the deal does not get a LinkedIn post.

But those people exist. In every market. In every office. In every brokerage you have ever walked through.

The question is not whether the bad examples are real. They are. The question is whether you are going to let them set the standard.

Your clients are watching how you operate. Your team is watching. The newer agents in your office are watching more than you think.

You are someone’s role model whether you signed up for it or not.

Good news is always quieter than bad news. That does not make it less true. Keep doing the work the right way. The market has a long memory, and so do the people who matter most in your business.

A few of my readers have asked me to re-cap what happened in the U.S. Senate today – here is my take: 

On March 12, 2026, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act in an 89–10 vote. This landmark bipartisan legislation led by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) represents the most significant federal housing overhaul in decades.

The bill combines the Senate’s “ROAD to Housing Act” with the House’s “Housing for the 21st Century Act” to address the national shortage of nearly 4.7 million homes.

Executive Summary

The primary goal of the Act is to boost housing supply and lower costs by cutting federal “red tape,” modernizing aging housing programs, and incentivizing local governments to reform restrictive zoning and permitting rules. While largely praised for its supply-side reforms, the bill includes a controversial provision targeting corporate landlords that has sparked intense debate among industry stakeholders.

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Key Highlights & Provisions

1. Restrictions on Institutional Investors (Section 901)

The most discussed addition is a provision titled “Homes are for People, Not Corporations.”

• The Ban: Prohibits “large institutional investors” (entities owning 350 or more single-family homes) from purchasing additional single-family properties.
• Build-to-Rent (BTR) Mandate: Requires institutional investors to sell build-to-rent homes to individual buyers within seven years of construction.
• Controversy: Critics, including the National Association of Home Builders and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, argue this will stifle investment and could slash single-family production by 40,000 units per year.

2. Cutting Regulatory Red Tape

• Environmental Streamlining: Categorically excludes certain low-impact projects (like infill and rehabilitation) from rigorous NEPA reviews to speed up construction.
• Pattern Book Grants: Provides funding for cities to adopt “pre-approved” building designs, allowing developers to bypass lengthy permit approvals for standardized housing types.
• Rural Housing Reform: Streamlines the joint review process between HUD and the USDA for projects receiving funding from both agencies.

3. Modernizing Federal Grants (HOME & CDBG)

• CDBG Flexibility: For the first time, allows Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to be used for new housing construction (previously limited to rehabilitation).
• Incentive Adjustments: Starting three years after enactment, CDBG funding may be adjusted by 10% based on a community’s actual housing production.
• HOME Program: Expands income eligibility to better support “workforce housing” and authorizes funds for infrastructure (like water/sewer) adjacent to housing projects.

4. Supporting Diverse Housing Options

• Manufactured Housing: Updates federal rules and provides grants (via the PRICE program) to preserve and maintain manufactured home communities.
• RESIDE Act: Authorized to help local governments convert vacant or abandoned commercial structures into “attainable housing.”
• Public Welfare Cap: Increases the cap on bank “public welfare investments” from 15% to 20%, encouraging more private bank capital to flow into affordable housing.

5. Unexpected Provisions

• CBDC Moratorium: Includes a temporary ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) through 2030, a priority for some conservative lawmakers.

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What’s Next?

The bill now returns to the House of Representatives. While the House passed a previous version 390–9, leaders like Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-AR) have signaled that the Senate’s new investor restrictions and the removal of certain community banking provisions may require further negotiations or a conference committee to reconcile the two versions.

“Successful repetitions build competence. Failed repetitions build resilience.”

Read that again.

We talk a lot about confidence in this business. We talk about the mindset it takes to knock on a door after a rejection, to pick up the phone after a dead lead, to walk into a listing appointment after losing the last three.

What we do not talk about enough is where that confidence actually comes from.

It does not come from winning. Not entirely.

Winning builds your skill. It teaches you what works, sharpens your process, and gives you the evidence that you are capable. Every closed deal, every funded loan, every signed contract is a data point that says you know what you are doing.

But winning does not teach you what to do when it falls apart.

That is what failure does.

Every deal that blew up at the title table. Every client who went with another agent after three months of your time. Every rate lock that expired at the worst possible moment. Those are not just painful memories. They are proof that you survived. That you came back. That the ground did not swallow you whole.

When the next hard thing comes, and it will, your brain does not just ask “can I do this?” It also asks “have I been here before?”

If the answer is yes, the fear shrinks.

This is why veterans in this business carry themselves differently. Not because everything went right for them. Because enough went wrong and they are still here.

Do not waste your failures. They are building something in you that success never could.