 Four, three, two, one, we are live. Hello, Adam. Hey, how are you, Ricky? Good. Thanks for doing this, man. Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. So I want to start out, man, by just saying, thank you for all you do. And I think you're doing a hell of a job. I appreciate it. And I love the relationship with everybody in the industry. This has just, it's been a fun ride. And I'm really enjoying making a lot of friends and having a lot of fun. Yeah. What did you do before this? Well, I've been with Remax for 15 years. And I worked my way through the company in those 15 years, everything from business consultants to regional vice president in California and Hawaii, Florida, in the mountain states, brand marketing, technology, was a chief operating officer. And then kind of came into the co-CEO and CEO position. But before I was at Remax, I used to run a SWAT team. So I was in law enforcement. Wow, where was that? I was in the south end of Denver here in Douglas County, Colorado. Yeah. Is it cold up there? Right now, it's a little cold. We had more snow this October and lower temperatures than we've had in a long time. But Colorado, you just wait 12 hours and the weather will change. So it should be nice tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. We're about to freeze to death down here in the 40s. That's, we were shorts in the 40s around here, man. So you came into the CEO position about two years ago? Yeah, 18, 19 months ago, something like that. So it'll be two years in February. Right. So you were already in the Remax system for so long. You were in the culture, you were in the dynamics, the direction, all that good stuff. So it wasn't really, it wasn't really a huge change for you necessarily. No, not a big learning curve. I mean, taking over CEO of a public company has a lot more dynamics than just kind of operating the company where you're dealing with analysts and quarterly, you know, the different investor calls and earnings calls, things like that. So probably, I don't know, about 30 to 40% of my day is, or of my gear is spent on public company items and the rest is spent on interaction with our amazing network and motto, mortgage or mortgage company and Booz or technology company stuff like that. Yeah. So I've talked to a lot of people about you coming on. Everybody had a lot of questions. One question I really liked was from a broker that kind of wanted to know, moving forward, what's the number one value that Remax brings like to their agents? And as she's trying to recruit more agents. So we look at our agents and understand that our agents are very high producers and we need to build an environment and maintain that environment and continue to expand the environment that helps them be as productive as they wanna be. And you really help that through essentially the four things that a great brand or great franchise brand brings, which the first one is obviously a brand. You gotta have a great brand that people trust and know. And then you have the three T's. So training, everybody needs training in our space and you shouldn't have to go look forward or really pay forward or anything like that. It should be quick and easy for you to get. You have marketing tools. So your company should market really well for you. And then you have technology that should help you be more efficient and generate more business and manage that business better with your time so you can spend better and more time doing the deals and having a closer bond with your customer base in order to increase that repeat and referral business. How do we view the other companies? Do we view them as competition or how are we better? Are we just not worried about them at all? We're just gonna do our thing and we know the value that we bring and we're not really worried about anything else. It's, I love this question because we have an amazing industry that we work in. It's extremely competitive, but it's extremely cooperative. So we compete like crazy for the listings and for the customers and then we cooperate to get the deals done. So that's the beauty of this is there's so much there's so much relationship and you negotiate, negotiate, negotiate on all these different aspects of this and then you have to sit down and cooperatively care about each other closing the deal. So ultimately, when you look at it the person we compete with is ourself more than anything else. We compete with our emotion. We compete with the emotion of the transaction, the emotion of the consumer and how do we stabilize this process so that we're comfortable with each other? We build trust, we build confidence in closing the deal. So I would say that there are always gonna be other players in the marketplace but ultimately your biggest competitor is yourself in this space and that's your ability to navigate these relationships and the transactions with the relationships. Absolutely. What do you think a new agent coming in? A new agent coming into the industry there's all these options of all these different companies. How does a new agent navigate what company is the best fit for them and how to capitalize on all the different options that are out there? There's everything from the it costs nothing to work here to I mean, there's just such a variety there are no offices, offices. I mean, how does a new agent really navigate this new marketplace in terms of picking a brokerage? I look at our industry two ways. The first thing that a new agent should think about is I mean, what is your goal? Do you wanna save money or do you wanna make money? So you can go and find an office that you can save all the money in the world but if you're worried about saving money you're not concerned about making money. So ultimately it boils down to what is your goal here? I wanna go out and be with the best and you see these super high producers you talk about your system zero to diamond. I'd be a new agent coming in going I wanna be diamond. How do I become diamond? You gotta go hang out with the people who are diamond. So save money or make money I'm in the make money side. The second piece is environment of productivity and that environment of productivity will help you set the bar and get over the bar and raise the bar and get over the bar. So that's why I think Remax is such an amazing organization is we're here to make money and we're here to raise the bar and we raise the bar by creating business efficiencies being with the best people coming up with the best ideas growing our relationships so that we can help provide that consultation to the consumer from a level of expertise instead of a level of dabbling in the business or being more concerned about saving money in your business than helping the consumer to the highest level. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I know every market's different you know, like New York, New York, like Manhattan Remax isn't a big name there, right? We're a growing name there. So we've made some great strides over the past couple of years since we reacquired the New York region and have done some new openings there of franchises and are seeing some age in a brokerage growth there. So we're not the most prevalent brand there by any means, but we're growing there and that's what I'm super excited about. But you're right, every marketplace is different. I just came from Europe. You want to talk about different? I sat down with people from 35 different countries. Every one of them is a different marketplace, but you know what they all have in common? They want to help people achieve their goals of home ownership and they're hard driving entrepreneurs that are affiliated with a company proven around the world to do that. So that's the exciting part. I know when I went to Brazil to speak at their R4 down there, I was blown away by the fact that they don't really have MLS. There's not really a system of, I mean, they really don't even have deeds and records and tax information. I mean, it's so different from how we operate here. It really blew my mind. So, and I couldn't imagine going to and talking to 35 different countries and learning the differences between all the different countries. You know what the cool part is, you as a human being, a kind human being who likes to help people achieve these goals will find a way to negotiate your way through the business environment in order to achieve that. And that's the cool part of being involved with an entrepreneurial company around the world is you see the different ways how they do it in Brazil or like Argentina has, you know, they have government challenges and things like that going on with that right now. But we have a great presence in Argentina and we're growing there. So you've got this, this fire in the belly that's driving the heart and this adaptive mindset to find your way through that. And that's the best part about just, you know, pick a market and go in there and go after it. And if you, you set those systems, daily habits in place and build relationships and you'll get there. Oh man, I could go to Brazil right now and can't speak a lick of Portuguese. I could go down there right now and start absolutely crushing it down there. I could be number one at no time. That place is incredible, man. You ever been there? I have not been to Brazil. I look forward to going at some point and I've got a standing invite to head down but I have not been there yet. I need to exercise that invite one of these days. You really do, you really do. It's way, way better than I was. I mean, I just, it was, it blew my mind. But what I was getting at was the fact that my area, as opposed to New York, Remax is the best company. They're the highest producing company. We have three Remax franchises here locally and they are the three, you know, highest producing companies. I'm with the highest producing of those companies. And as, you know, I've been in the business 17 years and my entire goal the whole time was to get to Remax. You know, like that, they were the best. I wanted to be around the best agents, you know, and really what I realized, you know, coming up, losing everything, working for mom, Paul companies, you know, I was crushing it at the little companies, you know, as much as you can crush it at a little company. And I realized that it doesn't matter where you work. It just matters how you work. And but what I really realized when I came to Remax, I knew it the whole time is when you combine that work ethic that, you know, you can make it anywhere with a big brand. You know, of course you can, you can, you know, work your way and just really crush it anywhere if you want to. But if you understand that extra little firepower that big brand gives you, you know, that just kind of adds fuel to the fire that you already have, you can really, that's when I really took my business to another level. Not only was I just had the brand to stand behind but I was around all the top producers, you know, and I had the number one agent in my state in 2013. He was in my office and I said, I can beat that guy. And the next year I beat him. I was number one the next year. But just being around that made me want to produce more. And it was, it's not a, it's not even competition. It's just a drive, you know, when you're around top producers, it just makes you produce. I love it. And, you know, you see this thing that sets top producers like yourself apart from others who kind of come and go from the business. And that is, I mean, you've got this consistency of execution going on. You see those ingredients to make that amazing productivity in your business. And then you execute, execute, execute consistently over and over again. And it's just, it's interesting because it causes this attraction of other people that are like that. And that's really what, you know, Remax is based on. Dave always has said, you know, it's the power of association. Let's put a bunch of really high producers together and they're going to figure out a way to bring each other up. And that's the, that's the neatest part about being around here. You're going on iBuyers and, and, you know, can you hear me? I just got you back. Okay, cool. Take on, give me your take on the whole, let's just wrap it up into one kind of question move on to something else. But, you know, iBuyers and the pens and, you know, the technology, real estate companies that are disrupting the industry while they're losing millions of dollars and, you know, the direction of all this. It's, when you look at the marketplace as, as a whole, how many transactions are occurring and how many of those are actually being done by the disruptors, by the iBuyers, things like that. There's always been a portion of the marketplace that's been occupied by for sale by owners, by cash buyers, by people entering the market with a different business model that they're testing out. And that really takes up far less than 10% of the marketplace as a whole in the US and, you know, even less when you look at North America in general. So we have a lot of people that are focused on, oh my gosh, the iBuyers this or the iBuyers that and what they're missing is that other 90% opportunity out there, okay? I mean, it's, don't call these companies disruptors, call them distractors. Right. You know, is there a place in the market for people that want to buy leads or referrals from an iBuyer? Sure, absolutely. If that's part of your business model, go for it. Are we keeping an eye on it? Yes, but I have a responsibility to create the very best real estate company out there for my customers, people like yourself, who want to take and leverage the opportunity to business the training tools and technology in a world-class brand in order to go and serve the customer one-on-one human to human and provide, you know, that fiduciary duty, that consumer protection, the expertise and responsibility that we have to make sure that this industry, you know, maintains course to do good things for the consumer and, you know, affords the regulation and the aspects that do look out for their greatest investment in their life. So, you know, all those things in general, yep, they're out there in the marketplace. If, but I have to say, you get what you focus on. And, you know, we all know that to be true in business. If you're focusing on building great relationships with your repeat referral customer base and taking the leads that you have generated, however those may be, maybe they are from the iBuyers or whatever, and building fantastic relationships and serving them the best possible, greatest customer experience, you're gonna win in your marketplace all day long, regardless of the other noise that's happening. So, we keep a close eye on business intelligence. We're very in tune with that. We weigh the threats, the opportunities out there. And I just had a meeting with my business intelligence department, in fact, and looked at all these different business models. And we look at, okay, where are our opportunities and we're exercising our business weapons in the environment, which is our top producing agents, our awesome brokerages, motto mortgage, bouge, technology, things like that, and our marketing, our training, our tools to go out and execute. So, they're there, you know what you focus on? Focus on growing your business. And you look at it and go, oh, look, if I took my eye off of those distractions and I focused over here, I'm gonna increase my business. Like what your little sign says behind you, which I love, get 1% better every day, you continue to increase your business. So that's kind of my take on the competitive environment. Yeah, from what I understand, Zillow's goal, which is a huge goal from where they are to buy up X amount of properties with their iBuyer program is still, even at their huge goal, that they're probably not gonna be able to attain because it's so big, it's still gonna be like less than 1% or less than 1.5% of whatever the market share is in that particular market. It's just so minuscule, you know? And to be honest with you, I don't know how a lot of these companies are gonna survive, how much longer they're gonna be able to survive losing so much money. That's something that maybe you know, have some insight information on or can't comment, but I don't understand how some of these companies are surviving at the rate that they're losing money. But do you ever see rematch? So go ahead. There are two investment philosophies out there. There's one that says invest to grow and it's okay not to make money, as long as you're trying to grow, you're trying to absorb market share. And then there's one that is invest in your company to create margins and reinvestment in your company. We look at it as I have fiduciary responsibility to my shareholders and I also have fiduciary responsibility to my stakeholders to build the best company I can possibly build. So we take this invest to build a great company aspect. Others invest to try and gain market share aspect. And we know that that has a diffuse burns for so long before that whole philosophy explodes upon itself. Some companies emerge from that and create profitability, others don't. But we're in an environment socially where a lot of money is being invested in order to experiment in those things. And you know what? There's a lot of very intelligent business decision going into that and I absolutely respect that. But you're right. When you look at the portion of the marketplace that we're focusing on versus the portion of the marketplace that's occurring, we've always had low single digits that have been a cash buyer. Even at its maximum, we will still continue to see low single digits as cash buyer business models. And frankly, right now you look at the number of people using a real estate agent for listings and for sales is at an all time high. It's 90 to 93%. We haven't seen it that way in a long time. And frankly, we're in a seller's market still where you would think that for sale by owners would be popping out of the woodwork, but they're not. So it's a complicated infrequent individualized transaction which really strengthens the position of the real estate agent and the real estate industry model of expert, expert affiliation in order to complete the transaction. So there's a space for all these different business models there always has been, but we're happy with where we're at and we'll partner with who we need to partner with to help provide business to our agents. And you don't see me doing battle with any particular company out there. I feel like we're all on it together. We'll help each other, but I want my great agents to continue to be even better. Sure, sure. Why do you think that in this great market run that we've been in at this point that there are less for sale by owners than normal at this point in the market cycle? I think a lot of it has to do with the complications and the risk of the transaction. You can go on Google and you can look up disastrous real estate transactions and a fair amount of them that pop up are based around a for sale by owner or they're based around didn't get an inspection or they're based around, okay, we just kind of fudged things to make the deal happen which are not the tenants of a skilled agent who ensures that the eyes are dotted and the T's are crossed so that the regulatory environment is met. The risk environment is mitigated for the consumer. There are reasons why we have MLS rules. There are reasons why we have state licensing rules and it's to protect the consumer. And when you see people trying to piecemeal things together on their own, would you go do surgery on yourself? I mean, that's, you look at it and go, I need a new knee, all right. My cousin's gonna handle it for me or I'll go take care of it tomorrow night, something like that. I mean, come on. It's like, hey, I gotta rest it. Am I gonna end up going and taking care of it myself? No, you're not. You're gonna hire an expert to do it for you. So, I don't know why people do it themselves. It puzzles me. Again, we go back to the save more, make more concept, protect yourself, throw it all into the wind and hope something good happens. I like security for my family's financial investment. So, I couldn't answer it for you. There's always been somebody who wants to change their own oil. There's always been somebody that wants to paint their own house, do their own plumbing, wire their own house, whatever it might be. And then there are people who go, I wanna make sure it's done right by professional. And I think the majority of society says, I wanna make sure it's done right by professional. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you brought up a good point. Maybe it's the, how technology and information is so abundant now when they look up disasters or real estate stuff or seeing all these horror stories and it's scaring them into using an agent. Could be. Yeah, I don't want us to, I mean, just, I don't want us to be a fear-based relationship with the consumer. Sure, absolutely. And I know that's not what you meant to say. I wanna make sure that the consumer goes, I want a comfort-based relationship with ensuring that things are done the right way. And that's how we win this game, is by wrapping our arms around the consumer and making sure that they're comfortable with how we provide the best level service for them. And I know that's how you do business. It shouldn't be based on what's the worst thing that could happen to you, it should be based upon. Let me tell you what the best thing is that can happen for you by using a professional. Right, right. So new agent, new agent, first day in the business, come to work for any company, whatever, what should they focus on right out the gate? Focus on the opportunities. So many people go in and go, I need to get a deal. I need to get two deals. I look at it and go, do you know 100 people really well? Because I know that 100 raving fans can produce for you. Let's do the math here real quick. So 100 people, people move eight times a year. So out of 100 people, that's 12 transaction opportunities. And then people also know four others that are gonna buy or sell a house a year. So that's 400. So 400 plus 12, that's 412 possible deals out of 100 raving fans, close customers, great relationships. What you ought to be doing as a brand new agent, going out and building those 100 relationships and making sure that they know that you're there to help them and anybody that they know do a real estate transaction because the worst thing a new agent can do is be a secret agent. And this business is not a stand, you're not a cashier. You're not standing there waiting for a transaction to show up so you can check it out. You gotta go get them. And the best way to get them is to go build those relationships because when people know that you care as a human to human, they're more likely to talk to you about the real estate opportunities in their lives and their friends' lives. And that's where you're gonna start finding your business. And then get on social media, broadcast yourself. Facebook, start a Facebook group in your community, talk about the community, shoot videos, talk to all the business owners and start building yourself as a community expert. So you're working on your business relationships, those 100 true fans, you're working on your community relationships. And next thing you know, people will start talking about you and wanting to do business with you. Doesn't happen overnight, leave a little runway, have a little money in the bank to get going. But if you execute on those two things religiously for 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, you're gonna have a rocking business before you know it. I think so. And I think what you're trying to say here without saying it is, is to build a brand. Yes, build a brand, attach yourself to a trusted existing brand. Remax is a good opportunity for that. Use the tools that you have to leverage your time. That's why we provide technology. It's not about going, oh, I got great technology. It's about, I have great technology that gives me more time and helps me manage my relationships and transactions. It's what technology is about. And you know, get up every day and don't sit on the couch, go out and make it happen. Right, so would you say you're talking about your sphere, the hundred people that you already knew before you got into real estate? We're gonna go to those people. We're going to go deeper with those relationships. How would you approach these people? Because a lot of agents out there are scared to approach their sphere because they don't want their sphere to feel like they're trying to high-pressure men to buy and they're selling something or sounds like a car salesman or how do you approach your sphere? Maybe it's sphere that isn't really close friends or family. Maybe this is just somebody, an acquaintance or something. How would you say that new agents should approach their sphere in a low-pressure way to develop that relationship, to get those referrals? Because I agree with the agents that are scared. If they approach them the wrong way, it could scare them off. Yeah, that's a great point, Ricky. And I look at how you build your relationships in the business. You don't approach and sell. You're not going out and going, hey, Ricky, it's Adam. I just wanted to tell you, I'm a real estate agent now. Can I sell your house for you? I mean, that's not how it works. How it works is delivering value. So what do we got going on today? We have, we got Halloween going on today. Go deliver a bag of candy to all these hundred people that you know and go, I wasn't sure if you made it to the store soon enough. So as part of my outreach to the community, being a real estate agent around here, I bought bags of candy for all of my favorite people. So I wanted to drop one off here in case you run out tonight. Do that. I mean, that's a simple one. Go give somebody something and don't ask for the sale. Just say, look, as part of my real estate company outreach and they're gonna go, what? Real estate company? Yeah, I'm a real estate agent around here. Oh, okay, cool. If you have any questions, I'd love to answer them for you. If you know anybody who has any questions, love to answer those. You know, interest rates just changed the other day. All those did, those didn't affect your, you know, your mortgage rate, but everybody thinks they did, but they didn't. So, you know, let me help you if you need anything. I'm here for you. Have a nice day. Don't be pushy, give value. The next week, give value. The next week, give value. Shoot a video that has some value. It's just over at this new restaurant. They've got it. They just redid their menu. You might want to know about this. It's really good. Shoot a video, send it out to all your friends on Facebook Messenger or something like that. You know, bottom third, Adam Contos, your neighborhood realtor, you know, something like that. But it's just, it's give value. You gotta give value at least, you know, 15, 20 times to people before they're like, I need to give something back to you. What can I give back to you? Oh, hey, I just heard my cousin's thinking about moving. Go talk to them. You know, something like that. So it's about give, give, give, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk's thing, you know, jab, jab, jab, right hook. The jabbing's giving, the right hook is the, you know, the receiving of business. So it's what you're in it for, is to give. And if you give unconditionally, people will start giving unconditionally on the other side. And that's how your business starts to grow. Would you add anything to it? You got sphere, you're going after your sphere, you're going to hit social media. And basically you say, go to restaurants and do everything else and be a media company. Is there anything, is there another layer of that, of anything else? Or would that be, you know, as a new agent, you looking at it from the outside, you know, thinking about what the best avenue for a new agent is, would you just hit your sphere for the first year and do social media? Or would you add any other layers of prospecting or business? You know, you could always go and find out who's, who wants to have an open house in the listings in your office and go sit in one of those open houses and just go meet people on a real estate level. Talk real estate with them, talk business with them, get used to that, know how to use the lingo, the jargon. And here's a really good one. When you sit on an open house, ask people when they come in, say, when it comes to buying a house, what do you think your biggest challenge is on? Ask them that and write down the exact words or record what they say, record a video of what they're saying, but write down those words and look for keywords that they're using. Take all the words that they've used and dump them in, go to wordclouds.com. Throw them all in there and it'll tell you what the number one word is that they're using, it'll rank all the words, my word. And then you know what words you can go back to the marketplace with because you might hear something that you're not familiar with, such as mortgage, scary, confusing, whatever it is. Use the words that they use when you talk to them. And then third or fourth open house, you're sitting on, people walk in, go, hey, how's it going? I'm Adam, let me know if you have any questions. Hey, I got a question for you because I'm hearing the common challenges of people looking for houses or this, this and this. Is that something you're experiencing? Because I have a little PDF document here that I came up with that'll help you overcome those challenges, give value based on those challenges. Be their guide, make them the hero in the journey and they'll fall in love with you. So, sitting in open houses to talk to those customers and finding out their challenges, that's a great way of adding to that, that additional angle of gaining some customers, but you're not going to gain customers unless you are delivering to customers, getting in front of customers, be it virtually or in person and talking the business with people so you know what to say. I think just stay busy, stay busy talking to people. Whoever talks to the most people with the best intentions and builds the biggest brand behind that, wins. Bingo, you got it. Bingo. So what's the top three most important daily activities for an agent? I personally think you need to, you need to focus on three things, okay? First of all, you have to focus on yourself. Everybody's like, what? I need to build my business. No, you need to focus on yourself. You need to start with a win. You need to start your day with positive forward momentum. I get up and I exercise first thing in the morning, I have nutrition, I love my dogs, I love my family. You got to have a sound body, sound mind in order to be effective in business. So you got to focus on yourself. You got to focus on your relationships. So, you know, telling your family members you love them. I tell my family members I love them so many times a day. I wave to people in traffic for letting me in so many times a day. I smile at so many people a day. By the way, none of those things cost you any money and they make you feel good. They make your heart feel good. So work on yourself, work on your relationships. Those relationships transfer over to those that are those 100 of your dream clients that are gonna help you build your business. And then the third thing you need to focus on is you have to work on your business every day. You have to create output in your business every day. You can't sit there and wait for the phone to ring because you will go out of business really quick. So output in your business is those items of value, those videos, social media posts, outreach to your customers. There has to be intentional time in your day, at least probably two to four hours minimum of hyper-focused time building your business every day because it's the people that win are those that can overcome that boredom of feeling like nothing's happening and consistently keep going. You will feel like nothing's happening. You will get frustrated. Smile, do something for yourself, your health, your mind, your body, your relationships and go after that business again and again and again. And it will start paying off. That's incredible. I like those three things. So it's gonna be yourself, your relationships and work on your business every day. Yep. I like that. I like that. So what about recharging and so that you don't burn out because I have a lot of agents, especially in the beginning of your career and I was like this, even after I knock off at five or six o'clock or seven or whatever, I'm still thinking about real estate till I literally, I'm in bed laying there and my body's resting but I'm still thinking about it, worried about it, stressed about it, trying to figure out how I'm gonna succeed and that mental, staying in that mental state from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep will wear down on you over a couple of weeks or months or even a couple of days depending on who you are. And you'll get this burnout, this mental burnout. You just feel down. You don't feel like making the calls. You don't feel like anything's going right. You know, I haven't felt that way in a long time because I learned several years ago that at the end of the day, I've got to shut my mind off and do something other than think about real estate for a second just so I can recharge for the next day. Do you have, do you do anything like that or think about recharging in order to pace yourself to produce that maximum capacity for the longevity? Yeah, that's a great question, Ricky. And a lot of that goes down to your psychological health. Here's the reality. Your brain wants to be learning all the time. If you're not learning, you're in fear of dying and you're gonna figure out ways to start dying if you're not figuring out ways of growing and learning, okay? So, you know, when you look at our alternatives there, we can grow, we can die, or we can find some way of occupying our minds so that we're not doing either of those two things. We call that entertainment, okay? So, you know, a lot of people will go, I'm gonna watch a movie, I'm gonna turn on the news, I'm gonna turn on, you know, music, whatever it might be, I'm gonna read a book. I operate at one end of that spectrum. So when I'm not working, I'm learning. I love to learn because I feel like it makes the brain a fresh place. It gives you new ideas. It actually helps your business because it gives you things to approach people and talk about. Everybody wants an icebreaker. How do I go talk to somebody in the business? Walk up to them and go, hey, Ricky, I read this article the other day and I thought about you and I thought, I gotta tell you about this. So, you know, and people go, why did you think about me? I don't know, but it made me think about you. And, you know, like, I've been studying a lot of psychology of human nature, you know, Plato's book on, you know, poetics, I'm sorry, Aristotle's book, poetics, things like that and how the story flow goes, whatever it might be. Like, I know some really good business people who tell a story in their business and you're one of those Ricky, you know, and it might be Joe, a friend of yours. But the reality is you gotta be learning or you're dying. So, look at it this way, growth or death. And, you know, we're constantly growing, we're constantly dying. Your body and your mind only know one of those two things and you kind of coast in between by entertainment, although entertainment really is just an occupation of time. I'm not discounting the fact that people like to remove themselves from reality by watching a movie or playing a video game or reading a book or whatever. But try the growth part. Try growing. Most people don't read a book after they finish formal education for the rest of their life, which is weird to me because I try and read one, you know, like a month at least, sometimes three or four a month. But try growing something else to help you. You gotta activate the right chemicals in your brain and a great way to activate those chemicals is with gratitude. So when you talk about getting a little concerned about laying there at night, that the voices are talking to you, you only have so much money left, you only have so much time left, whatever. Let me ask you this, you've survived every bad situation you've been through so far in life, haven't you? Yep, you're still around to see tomorrow occur. What are you grateful for? You gotta be grateful for some things because you're a survivor for crying out loud. You got family, you got friends, you got a dog maybe, I don't know, but write down your gratitudes. If you write down your gratitudes before you go to bed, you know what's in your brain when you go to sleep? Restful gratitude. So try to learn something. I have my gratitudes. I share my love with my family. I'm psychologically in a good place. I'm not polluting myself by going, I think I'm gonna go hit the bottle tonight before I go to bed and try to drink myself to sleep because I'm bummed about my business. Sorry, that can find me there. I'd rather go do push-ups. So, you know, it is, fact of life is we all hit frustration. You gotta know it is intentional to push yourself back in a good place where the ants start crawling around in your head. Ants, A and T, automatic negative thoughts start crawling in your head and gotta kill the ants. The only way to do that is with positive thoughts, education, gratitude. I like it. So after work to get your mind off work, you learn and you're reading books and you're doing that sort of thing. And then you also fill your mind up with the things that you're grateful for, the reasons, I mean, the positive things. There's always a positive. I don't care how bad it is. Someone has all, there's someone who has it way worse than you. I don't care how bad you think it is. I mean, there's people with no limbs and who can't talk and are blind and, you know, have these diseases and stuff that it could be a million times worse than you making 45, I mean, there's agents making 45,000 a year that I'm sure public teachers would love to make. You know, there's, I mean, there's so much to be grateful for. So I like that. I like that a lot. Let's see, how much time we got here? About five minutes. Yep. I was gonna ask you about the books because they do say CEOs read more than anybody, normally about one book a month. So that's interesting that you brought that up. So that's something that you do. Do you find that CEOs read more than average people? I think so. You know, what's interesting though is, you know, the CEOs I talk to, we don't talk about books a lot, but I'm hungry for education, I'm hungry for learning. The super achievers that I do talk to do spend a great deal of time very intentional with their time. Part of that is I will, you know, the whole I will do this during this time, piece, you block it out, you make your choices and you execute on those things. And everybody that's a super achiever that I do talk to does spend time reading a book every day. And it's either an Audible or it's on Kindle or it's a real paper book. I've got a combination of those. And the beauty is when you start hanging out with people like this, which is why I love remax because you got, I mean, I went to an event of some of our very top people not long ago and I walked away from there with like three books. They go, have you read this? No, okay, it'll be at your desk when you get home. And we like send these to each other. So it's kind of fun. But yeah, if you haven't gone and read a book lately, go get one and read it. I'm not a fiction reader, I'm not into the story, I'm into the deconstruction of success, which is a lot of psychology, a lot of business fundamentals, things like that. I just had lunch with a professor from the business school here at University of Denver today. And we talked about books, talked about learning, we talked about what a CEO's do to raise the bar. It was part of it. So it sounded a lot like the conversation I'm having with you right now. So yeah. Well, I mean, you're stretching your mind out and you're pushing things, it's the old saying like you can't get where you wanna go by staying where you are kind of the deal. Like it's introducing new ideas into your mind, which triggers ideas to help your business grow and to build the business and the industry and the company take it to a better place. Well, last question before I talk about your podcasts and stuff, what is the future of remax? I love it. So we're focused on two things right now in remax, okay? We're focused on business growth and we're focused on technology advancement. So my team is heavily focused on both of those things, helping agents grow their businesses through the tools training technology that we have to offer and the promotion of the brand. So intentionally focused on business growth, helping franchises, our brokerages grow agent count with producing agents and increasing the level of production of those agents. And the other piece is launching the world's greatest real estate technology. So we've started that, not long ago with Booge in the fall and we continue to launch, launch, launch and iterate, iterate, iterate. So we're all in on both of those things. So it's about making the business better. Better people doing better things more often and better technology helping them maximize their time and resources. Awesome, awesome. Guys, really appreciate you watching this and I wanted to shout out Adam's podcast, Start With The Wind, which I was on probably several months ago. I've been listening to this podcast. It's really, really good. It's not, it's 30 minute, it's mostly 30 minute shows, right? Yeah, we try to stay between like to low 20s. Sometimes we get up to 30 minutes. Right, right. So it's a good commute listen and there's been some incredible guests on there. You've had professional athletes, you've had huge business people and everything. Tell me a little bit about the podcast. I love it. We just hit our one year mark. So episode 52 just came out. It's a great recap of the year. And so go check it out. Start with the wind.com and start with a wind in the iTunes store or on Google Play. And you can also catch me on all the rest of the social media or remax Adam Contos on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. And we got a lot of, you know, just business principles. Wait is to be better. And that's what it's about. We're all in this business together. Let's all be the best we can be in it. Something I want to ask you to before we go about the podcast, you know, you're probably one of the only CEOs that has a podcast. Am I wrong? I think a few others might have them is what the rumor one of the few, that's why I say one of the few that actually have a podcast. What's the, what's the, you know, why the podcast and what, you know, why are you doing a podcast and what's the idea behind it? So I truly believe in digital transparency. I think business leaders, I'm a business leader, you're a business leader, Ricky. Business leaders are watching this. You need to have digital transparency across the board, podcasts, video, other opportunities to get in front of people so that they understand you, know your values, what drives you in your business because people just don't want to know what your business is. They want to know who and why your business is what it is. And I think that's the best way for me to share my thoughts and feelings on it as well as if I can get somebody to do an act of kindness during the day to share their love, share a smile, a wave in traffic, whatever it might be or just go do an extra push up and be better. That's fulfilling to me as a human being and as a business leader. Well, let me just say that I love the fact that you do a podcast and that it's focused around real estate and I love what you're doing on Instagram too. Thank you. I think the content that coupled with the podcast is really tremendous play for you and I just, I love what you're doing there. So you guys go check him out on Instagram, remix Adam Contos and start with the Wynn podcast everywhere where podcasts are are. And man, I appreciate your time today. Hey, it's my pleasure, Ricky. And I just wanna say from myself and my team here at Remax headquarters, thanks for all you do. We appreciate you, your professionalism and your daily activities to raise the bar in this space and make everybody better that you come in contact with. Thank you so much for that. And I'll see you in Vegas. Sounds good, Ricky, take care. Amen.