 and doesn't matter if people are mean to you, you'll see on the video, people hung up on me, what did I do? Called them right back, laughing. Why? Because I don't care. I'm having fun and I have zero expectation. You guys have to start building your business and taking actions with zero expectations. Quit expecting things to happen. Quit trying to manipulate the situation into what you want it to be. Just let it happen. It's gonna happen. All right, show of hands. How many people here love, and I mean really love, being a real estate agent? Okay, you have to, don't you? You have to love this business if you're gonna be in this business. And you have to have fun, okay? Having fun is what it's all about. So many, it hurts my heart as I'm talking to agents all over the place, and they're frustrated, they're disappointed, they have high anxiety, they're worried, it hurts my heart because they're not having fun, and they're taking it home to their family, and they're with their family, and they're thinking about work, and they're thinking about all the things that might go wrong, haven't even went wrong yet. Just the fact that they might go wrong is affecting their life and their happiness. And I want you guys to understand that you have to have fun with this business. You have to have fun. It doesn't matter if deals are falling through. Have fun with that. Realize that you're getting future time back that now you don't have to spend on that deal anymore, and you can go get five more deals with that time. And taking actions with zero expectations. Quit expecting things to happen. Quit trying to manipulate the situation into what you want it to be. Just let it happen. It's gonna happen. Have you guys ever wondered why 90% of agents fail? Right, 100% of us have the same resources. We all have the same resources, the same hours in the day, access to the same trainings. We all have the same setup, the same platforms. But why are only 10% of agents who join get their license? Why are only 10% of those agents actually make it a career? And it blows my mind agents get in the business and say I'm gonna do this for 30 years and they quit six months in. I don't care if it takes you two years to get to your first deal. You said you were gonna do this for 30 years. You still got 28 more years to crush it. There was a guy on the live calls last night that I did, I do them every Tuesday. And he commented and said, I forget exactly what it was, but a bull down to, I've been at this for six months. Do you think I should quit? I was like, are you kidding me? You got in this business with the intentions of making it a career and you're gonna give up. It doesn't make any sense. It makes zero sense. People are lying, you are lying to yourself. That's why 90% of agents fail, bottom line. You lie to yourself. Tony Robbins refers to it as self-sabotage. You are literally creating excuses in your head and then you start to believe them. And I don't care what level you are. This is as the number one agent in Nashville. You got the same opportunities as the number one agent in whatever market that you're in. You got an opportunity to be much greater than those top agents. It's just a matter of you telling yourself you can do it and putting forth the correct business plan and committing. Dennis shared with you my stats for the year. That was so nice of him. So I'm sitting here, look at my business. What he didn't tell you was, I'm a single agent. I have one assistant. I don't have buyers, agents, listings, agents and all this, all right? So think about it for a second, closing 100 deals a year, which is what I've done for this will be the eighth year straight. We'll have time to travel and speak. Still have time to post on every platform and answer all of your DMs. Still have time to build other businesses. Still have time to spend with my family. Which by the way is to me, the most important part of this whole puzzle. I'm sure you guys have seen my daughter on Instagram, Facebook and all that stuff. She's 21 months old and literally that is all I want to do is hang out with her. I could, business is like so far down on my priority list right this second. I'm learning more and more and more every day that she gets older. You don't gotta work hard if you work smart. I say, why not work hard and smart? Now what is hard and smart? Working hard means that you just never give up. Plain and simple. You just never give up no matter what. And I'm sure you guys realize that about me. I'm never gonna stop. You're never gonna stop seeing notifications on your phone. Ricky Krooth, Ricky Krooth, Ricky Krooth. Every day, because I'm not gonna stop. What is working smart means? It means this, committing to a business model that is the most productive, efficient and scalable. Committing to a business model that is the most productive, efficient and scalable. Committing, once you understand the business model and we've committed there, now what? Now we work hard, which means we never stop. We don't care if it takes two years, five years, 10 years. It doesn't matter to us, because we know once we get there, number one, it's gonna be sweet. And from that point, we're gonna keep going because that's what working hard's all about. And everybody loves a hard worker. When you build your brand, so many people say, I'm working on my brand. What are you doing today? I'm working on my brand, okay? Tell me about that. What are you doing? I'm working on my logo colors. I'm building a logo, I'm getting the font just right. I'm working on some marketing. That's not brand, that's marketing. Your brand is who you are. And it's not just business, it's happiness. Some people say, you don't charge me for coaching. What do you want from me? What can I do to support you? I say, nothing, just succeed and be happy. I knock off at five o'clock every day. I try not to work on the weekends as much as I can. I enjoy my life and that's what it's all about. You guys gotta start, you've got to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel which is what I want you to visualize today, okay? But you also have to understand that the light at the end of the tunnel is not just money. If it was money, I wouldn't be here right now. I'm not doing this for money. Nobody paid to come here. I'm not getting paid to be here. Every single one of you have everything it takes to be a million dollar a year real estate agent. You've got everything it takes. You care about people, you want the best, you're a hard worker, you're professional, you're honest, you're dependable, you're consistent, you're everything that you need to be. The problem is you haven't put the work in and realized, here's the business model and here's how I can work the most productive, efficient and also scale that, right? And let as many people in the world know who you are. Have a good night. Can I get actually one small moment of silence for her? She actually died one year ago today. Thank you. I sold two properties that day. I got paid on two condo, that condo and another condo. So it wasn't like I just sold my grandma's condo. I did have another one too. Closed on on the same day. All right, I'm still in my early 20s, okay? I'm chucking along, I'm selling two a month, two a month, two a month and then all of a sudden, bam, the market explodes. Similar to what just happened in the market over the past year, let's say, very similar. Lot of differences. That's a completely different speech, to be honest with you. But it exploded and I made a lot of money. As someone in their early 20s that came from nothing, it was a lot of money. Seven figures worth of money. And the golden rule for me growing up is buy real estate. So what did I do? I bought real estate. But I didn't know there was a right way to buy real estate and a wrong way to buy real estate. And I over leveraged on top of not understanding real estate because I got thrown into this imaginary market, right? I couldn't imagine starting real estate over the past year and being thrown into the market that we're going through, which by the way, is it kind of cooling off a little bit? That's the consensus I feel nationally is that it is losing a little steam, still great. The market is always great. The market is always great. In 2008, I sell zero properties. I'm sleeping in my car. I'm sleeping on friends' couches. I'm eating out of people's refrigerators. Okay, I'm bankrupt. I had to go bankrupt because of several reasons. So I'm sitting here at rock bottom financially. Meanwhile, I'm the happiest guy in the world. I'm going out every night, partying. I'm realizing that there's 40 and 50 and 60 year old guys that are going through the same exact things that I was going through. There were guys that were 40, 50, 60 years old that were doing the same stuff I was doing right next to me that lost everything and had to start over at that point in their life. And it happened to me at 25. And I thought, thank God, I don't have a family. I don't have bills. I don't have responsibilities. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to learn what I'm about to learn. I read 100 books during that time. This was the time where I really expanded in terms of personal growth, personal development. I don't read hardly as much as I did then. I was so thirsty for knowledge of why I failed. Why did I lose everything? I'm the hardest worker I know. I know a guy in Gulf Shores, an agent. He sold 30 properties in 2006, which was one of our worst years. And he's the exact guy that helped me when I first started the business, learn how to find property owners and learn everything. And in the beginning, when I was very beginning of my career, he said, postcards, phone calls, and emails. That's what he did. He was very successful. He was the number one in his company. He's still successful to this day. He showed me that. I took it and ran with it. I made all that money, lost it, realized he's still selling stuff. Years later, I go back to him and say, hey, man, tell me what's up. Give me the secret, bro. He says, come on over to the house. I'll tell you all about it. We sat down, I went over there, he cooked me dinner. He brought me in his office, sit down his computer, and he gave me the secret, which was postcards, phone calls, and emails. He didn't do nothing different.