SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Action Solves Everything, the show for those who want to stop overthinking and start producing. I'm your host, Alex Montagano, broker, leader, and founder of Lockstep Realty. Around here, we believe movement creates momentum, clarity comes from doing, and the agents who take action are the ones who win. Every episode is built to help you grow your skills, your confidence, and your career. Now, let's get to work. Welcome to another episode of Action Solves Everything. I've got a killer guest with us today, Matt King from FC Tucker. Matt is a total rocket ship right now. He's coming off just shy of 45 million bucks in 2025. I just talked to him a little bit. He's almost written over 50 million dollars of business in 2026. He's made some monster changes to the focus levels of his business, and it is exploding right now. Matt, what is going on?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

What's up, man? Always, always good to see you. Always good to talk with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Dude, you've written $49 million this year as an individual agent. Like what is that like? You're I mean, we're not even to the end of the halfway part of the year. So, like, what how do we get here?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Well, um, we've definitely rode the momentum of the last nine years for sure. I mean, let's not forget about that. Um, you know, just wake up and have this happen. Um, this is year 10 for me, and um I've got off to a good quick start in my career when I first started. We can talk a little bit about that, I'm sure. Um and, you know, last five years were kind of scratching that 40 million mark. I think one year was 42, another 44 two of the last three years, I think. Um and this year, really, the the main difference is I came into the beginning of the year with some good momentum as far as like what some listing opportunities were. And, you know, you don't a single agent doesn't get up to that level without having some expensive homes and some luxury homes to sell. And I have been really fortunate to have a good peer network and sphere of influence network that have nice homes and they want to live in nice homes that I've people I've known throughout the years and then people I've met through real estate. And so that certainly helps. But really at the beginning of the year, um I I committed to to myself to um reach my potential this year, we'll say. And I think we mentioned a little bit earlier, um, you know, years one and two in the business, all I did was work. And I think you you go back to your top producers that really want to achieve, you know, they they dedicate themselves. It's almost to an unhealthy level to really get after it and get off to a good start because that is so important. And then kind of years three through nine, um, you know, served my clients well and did did well for, you know, as far as a production level and income and all that stuff, was satisfied and happy. Um, but definitely enjoyed my downtime as well. Meaning, like if I had white space in the week, day to day, I wouldn't hesitate to go take a walk, go ride my bike, or, you know, just even or even just relax. And not at the expense, of course, of clients. It was just if I didn't have anything going on. But this year I thought, you know, let's see if we can crank things up a bit and just kind of see what happens. Um, it's just me and my uh partner, Stacey Murphy, um, who has got a good relationship. She's a uh a salaried person that that really just helps me when I'm not around so I can do things out of town. And she's gotten off to a good start. She's in her third full year and will probably achieve 10 million this year or so. But it's it's it's largely uh the two of us. We've got a couple other newer folks that have started um that uh I'm sure will have an impact. But personally, um I really focused on dedicating on filling in the white space of my week. And just because I didn't have something on an afternoon didn't mean that I'm done working for the day. And I think that's the biggest, the biggest piece of kind of how the business has been.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Um, man, I love that. I think about I had a uh an interesting conversation. I think it was my third year in the business, and I was talking to Judy Cohen, who is a former uh Remax Legends franchise owner, and she was like, Alex, you work all the time, you're gonna burn out. You need to understand that, like, there's an old saying, you sleep when the baby sleeps. And I had a real hard time understanding that, but I was early in my career and I was in a building phase, and I think it's important for folks listening to this to recognize like there is seasonality around your work that there is no such thing as balance, and I think balance needs to be zoomed out and looked at over a lifetime of the business and the seasonalities that come with it. And so I love the fact that like when you got into the business, like you worked your ass off, and then there was a season for you to like continue to build, but I think I mean I want you to talk a little more and hit on this, like why the personal challenge now in year 10 to go, hey, let's see if we can ramp this up. Like, why? Like, what's the why that pushes that? That's that's a really good question.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

I don't really know as if I've got a phenomenal answer for you that's gonna be enlightening where you're gonna be like, man, that's freaking genius, Kanger. Um, it's really more of at the beginning of the year, the way that the flow went, I had some really strong listings that came up. And as we know in our business, listings beget more listings and you know, the name of your podcast, activity, and and that breeds other activity. And I felt that. And I did work to generate that, of course, over the winter and over the fall, so to set up my year for this year, but I always try to do that. I'm very focused January 2nd. January 2nd is a really big day for me because I do take a lot of the, you know, Thanksgiving to holiday break period off. I think we all do. I think we all exhale during that period of time. And it's my favorite time of year for a number of reasons. But once January 2nd came, I was kind of analyzing what was coming. And I knew I thought, you know, hey, we've got a chance to have a really good year. And really, Alex, it was just seeing what I had coming up and saying to myself, like, this is a great opportunity to grind and really work this and work these listings and work the neighborhoods where I have listings. Um I had one bridalborn listing sale that turned into three. And, you know, those are two million plus homes in there. And listing two and three were a direct result of listing number one. Uh, same thing in the Carmel neighborhood of Spring Mill Streams. I think we have sold four homes in there this spring, all million and over. And as we know, Carmel's going really crazy right now. It's an extremely hot market. It's really fascinating to see what's happening in Carmel at the moment compared to the rest of, you know, central Indiana or North, even north side of Indianapolis to Carmel is there's a there's a contrast there. Um, and that was the same thing. One listing turned into numbers two, three, and four. And we know that because we've been in the business for a long time. But what we don't always do is put in that extra effort to maximize it. And we've all got our checklists and our processes of what we do when we get a listing to get other listings and stay focused and ride the momentum. But this year it was just kind of teed up. And I'm like, I'm really enjoying busting my ass right now. And, you know, there's that saying, you know, get it while the getting's good. And I subscribe to that. And we just really put the pedal to the metal and, you know, worked open houses and outreach and mailings and marketing efforts and business development, all the things that we know that we're supposed to do, that all the classes teach you, and you know, the common sense teaches you. And we grinded and it's and it's kind of turned into this really, you know, I don't want to say anomaly year, but it's, you know, head and shoulders above, you know, I'm five million over or whatever the figure is my previous best year. And the best year, you know, those previous years were pretty good too. So not any single thought other than recognizing that I'm in a really sweet spot right now and grind and try to make the most of it.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Dude, that's awesome. One of the questions I was thinking about asking, um, you answered there, but like you had even said like you're enjoying the grind. And I think um it takes a special cat to appreciate that. Um look, hard work, it's like it's hard what we do, and it's um it's emotionally it's an emotional investment in a relationship every single time you enter a contract with a buyer or seller or somebody building a home or whatever it is. And so to do the volume of business that you're doing and say, hey, like I've made a conscious effort here to commit to this because the opportunity that's in front of myself, but I'm also enjoying it. It talks to the fact like you got awesome clients. Um, you know, you've heard me tell you you got the best listings in town. And I think like it's like every single time I see one of your listings, they're presented insanely well. Um they're competitive. And and look, like you've you're somebody that I can count on in our industry. Like I called you a couple weeks ago about a personal listing of mine, and I know you're gonna hit me between the eyes with the truth because you're because that's how you do everything. So it's just a testament to what you're building. Um and uh I love the fact that you're appreciating and enjoying the success that you're having, because if you're not, what is the point of it? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, what's the point of work? No, it goes back to um, and again, I've I've in the last couple weeks, I've listened to a few of the podcasts that you've been on and have really enjoyed them. And I know you touch on a question of, you know, what does you know, action and all those things mean to you? Um, I look at it, I mean, I kind of rephrase it, and I've always thought in my during my career and my previous corporate career before this, and even my personal life, I use the word progress. And for me, it is undeniable that when I am at my happiest individually, professionally, um, you know, personal relationships, life, that type of thing, it's because I'm doing and I'm improving or I'm advancing, I'm moving something forward. And for me, the simple term is progress. And then the times where I'm down, which isn't often, I'm uh got a pretty good mental fortitude about staying positive, and that's just a life choice for me. But the times that you are a little solemn down, it's, you know, you can tie back to it and it's like, well, what have you been doing the last few days? Have you been, and it's not like we I live my life to get the best out of myself every day type thing, and we can talk about that. Like my morning routine is all across the board. My sleep routine is all across the board. I have no cold plunge story, I have no process, I have no 6 30 at the gym. It's it's it's totally rando every day. Um, but it's when you're idle and you're not really doing, it's then, okay, what's your you know, what's your purpose and are you succeeding? But are you are you progressing? And it's undeniable that the busier you are, more productive you are, the happier that you are. And I I definitely subscribe to that.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Love that. Um, you had mentioned something in there about a previous corporate career, and I would love to take this back a little bit. Um because I mean, look, there's a lot of folks um that have jumped into real estate right out of school or their lifers in the business for 30 or 40 years and have built the businesses that you know you and I subscribe to build. But you know, you've done this 10 years. So, like, what did you do before that? And what like why real estate 10 years ago?

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah, that's a good story. Um good question. And that's really a big part of my story um the last 10 years and how I got into real estate and a new mentality, new lease on life, all that. And uh it kind of goes like this. I mean, um, you know, I was born and raised in Merlin Kessler, grew up in um the MK and went to school there and um, you know, school 84, then park tutor, then cathedral, then IU. And so I got a little taste of everything. I got a little public school, got private, you got a lot of friend groups, a lot of networks there when you just look at your school, your school, um, and then was business at IU and went immediately into a corporate career uh for 13 years with uh the Hormell Foods Corporation. It's a food company that uh had five relocations over 13 years and a bunch of different various assignments. And each of those assignments in all of those markets, I was in sales and marketing. And they're like little um little franchise, little territories that you have that roll up into the big company where you're responsible for a book of business. And so I think that that right there, where you have five different, six different job assignments in 13 years going into different markets teaches you the idea of jumping into something new, figuring it out, figuring out, you know, your SWOT analysis, strengths, weakness, opportunities, threats, figuring out where you fit and where you can excel to grow the business, because it was definitely an entrepreneurial type position. And then from there, um, I wanted to get back to Indianapolis because that was a relocation deal where all signs and all trains went to their corporate office in Minnesota. And I have always considered myself a Hoosier. My family is here. I love Indianapolis and wanted to get back. And so I did that in 2008 and uh joined Boston Scientific in the medical device space in sales marketing and the leadership position. And same thing. Um it's a hunter's mentality type position where you've got to go grow the business. And so it's a parallel to where, and that was 20 years total. It's a parallel to what we do in real estate, which is find clients, identify people that you want to work with, houses, hunters mentality. And so, you know, a couple people have asked me, like, you know, how'd you do that? And this is is it was early on in my career where I had to, you know, a really quick start is how'd you do that? And I mean, the simple answer is, you know, I've I've been doing the same thing in a different industry for 20 years. And and presenting is something that I did every day, whether it was internally or externally to clients and customers outside. So I didn't roll out of bed not knowing how to sell in real estate. I had that knowledge and understanding of people and all that type of good stuff. But uh the story on why uh real estate is as simple as this. I had no plans to become a realtor. Um it starts, the story starts where I'm in the last, you know, week or two of my corporate career, what I didn't know was my last week or two of my corporate career at the time. And I get up out of bed one morning and I put deodorant on and I've got a lump on my left underarm, my left axillary gland. And I go to my GP doc and he says, you know, I don't like this, and let's get a biopsied and get a CT scan and a PET scan and see what's happening. And I was diagnosed with stage four melanoma, right completely out of the blue. No, nothing presenting before that at all, and was given six months to live because it was a progressed state of the disease. And I had tumors all over my lungs, liver, spleen, bladder, adrenal glands, a bone metastasis in my shoulder. I couldn't lift my arm up. Um and so it was immediately DEF CON 5, right? Of like the biggest shock in your entire life. I mean, I have a three boys at that time. They're 14, 12, 11, and just a complete mind-blowing shock. So we go uh to down to MD Anderson in Houston, which is one of the world's premier cancer centers. We meet with um the one of the leading uh thought leaders in melanoma and immunotherapy, which is very key because um I was given a 94% chance of death within six to ten months at that advanced career or progressive of the disease. So they threw the kitchen sink at me in terms of platinum-based chemotherapy drugs. I responded about halfway. And then it was just luck, man. I I was I got cancer at the perfect time. Like there's no perfect time to have something like that, but I got cancer at the perfect time because the FDA approved an immunotherapy drug that is now the gold standard for today in cancer treatment for a number of different types of cancers, but definitely melanoma. It was indicated for melanoma first, and now it's moved on to other cancers. But essentially then went cancer free within about a 12-month period. And so the way that dovetails into real estate was, you know, is I've I'm this huge success story within my friend group and family and people that know me in Indy here. And because I beat this disease and, you know, obviously the drug did the work, but you know, it takes a positive mindset to get through all those things and come out on the other side. And so I just conquered this uh huge deal. To then I'm thinking, well, what's my next step? What's my next phase? And so for me, naturally, it was like, well, I'm gonna go back to corporate America, I'm gonna go back to Boston Scientific and I'm gonna get my old job back and uh or figure something out. I was a, you know, as high achieving as I am in real estate. I was the same at my corporate career. I I I don't show up to suck. I want to be good at what I do. And so I had some upward mobility and great leadership positions. And so I went back and interviewed with uh my previous company in a different division. They had already given my job, you know, to somebody else. I need to make contingency plans. And I did not get a job. And then I went over and I interviewed with other companies in corporate America, and nobody would freaking hire me. And I would get to the final interview of a number of positions and jobs, and I wasn't getting the job. And even positions that were well below what my capabilities were, just jobs that would be a layup, and I wasn't getting them. And and I get it. I totally get it. I was a hiring manager. I understood it's, you know, you're you're at the final phase of an interview, and some VP's got to talk to his EVP or division president and say, Well, I like this Matt King guy, but here's his deal. Because I would talk about my cancer situation in the interview, because it was such a good success story. There's a lot of learnings that can come from it, you know, resiliency and managing that whole situation to turn into a positive in addition to what I had just learned before. But Alex, it was the lowest point I've ever been in my life. And you think, like, you're like, you have so much to be thankful for and be grateful for. You have a new lease on life, like you conquered this. But and that's true. And I even felt guilty about this that the basically eight to ten months of interviewing and failing and not getting jobs and a position, I blew through most of my savings over that two-year period to support my family, to live. And um, you know, um, it was it was crushing. And so uh my little joke is um, you know, what do you do at that time? And and my answer was, well, I'll I'm gonna do what everybody does when they have no place to turn. I'm gonna become a realtor. And because that's where it's so true. It's so good. Yeah. It's like low low. I mean, dude, I looked at opening up a Jimmy Johns franchise. I looked at w I mean, I at one point in time for like a week was just resigned to like, I'm gonna be a barista at Starbucks. They have good benefits. Like I ain't nothing against that, right? It was like I'm gonna live a simple life. Yep. Really, I'm gonna live a simple life and I'm just gonna go to work. I'm gonna come home and I won't maybe have the same income aspirations, but this is what it's gonna be. And so, but anyway, um, no, what I did was I then realized I'm gonna have to find something to start my own business. I can no longer be reliant on somebody else, another company, to dictate my financial future, my happiness to an extent, but how I'm gonna provide for my family and I'm gonna make that happen on my own, but I don't know what it is. And so I took a number of personality profile tests, um, and they're catered, of course, towards, you know, relationships, personal relationships. You know, there's a bunch of different types of testing out there, but there's one specific that I took related to career-wise and realtor. Uh, and uh realtor was number one. And then I took another one, realtor was like number three. And I was like, literally, I was like, let's give this a try. Let's just see what happens. I'll go through, I'll get my license, I'll go in and see what this looks like. Um and that is how I started. It really was as simple as that. I had nowhere else to go. And when I started, you know, I thought maybe I'll get into commercial real estate. I'll do, you know, maybe some flips or apartments. I have a number of friends that are in commercial real estate and have access to capital or at least know how to find it and ask people for their money or use other people's money, right? To to OPP, uh, to OPM, that is, to get where I want to be. But I just started out as a realtor with Tucker and uh I think I had the date written down on my board one time. It was January 16th, 2017. I did my first open house, and that's when I decided I am going to give this a run. Um, funny story: the first person that walked in the door ended up being my first client, my first sale. I followed up with her an unhealthy number of times, something I would never do today. Like I literally followed up with her like nine times. And it's one of those testaments where they say follow up, follow up, follow up, follow up, you know. And now we're like, you know, we'll call people two times, maybe, and then we're like, all right, man, well, they know where to find me. Um, but that's how I got started. And I had a major, Alex, I had a major chip on my shoulder when I started. I was thinking about all of those people that didn't want me, that turned me down. I was thinking about my kids. I didn't know if my cancer was going to come back or not because the rate of remission or sorry, rate of recurrence is pretty high, especially in melanoma. And I've been fortunate that that hasn't happened. I've got a durable response. But I really wanted to show my kids who were young and impressionable at the time. And I knew they were looking at me and looking up to see what I was doing, um, and wanted to show them what resiliency looked like. And um kind of finally to put a bow on it, I really subscribed to that mantra and mentality of I have the ability to write my story from I cannot change the past, but I have the ability to write my story from today going forward, and I'm gonna write how I want it to go. And so I made some changes. I made some, you know, personal changes, um, a relationship change, and um dedicated myself to residential real estate. And in the first year, got off to a great start, uh, second year, really awesome year as well. Worked all the time, uh, almost to an unhealthy amount, and then kind of settled in from there. But that's how I got started in this business.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Man, I have like 10 different routes I could take with that. It's like a route tree with an NFL wide receiver. I could pick my path here. But look, I think there's um there's a lot there. And I think what's special about our industry is that the industry does not care where you came from. And if you're willing to put the work in, I mean look, I remember like my journey of of the unhealthy amount of work was probably you know, I got in when I was twenty-five, and until I met my wife now wife, it would have been it was like six or s it was like six years in the business, and the only reason I started changing my level of obsession around what work was was because I I mean I had three life goals when I got into real estate, and it was to build a recession proof business, build a business that allowed me to be a present husband, and then build a business that allowed me to be a present dad if I was ever fortunate enough to have kids. And when I had knew that Maureen was the one, and she said, Hey Alex, I I don't care how much you work, but if you're gonna sit with me for dinner, just sit with me for dinner and work after and work before. But if you're gonna be here for dinner, be here for dinner. And it was like a small challenge to the notion of like, you said these are your goals, like live to the goal that you created, or change that goal. And so it was like that for me is what changed my path on that stuff. But I think so many folks who enter the business today want to enter it, they have these large aspirations and goals, but they want to work with this notion of balance. And look at that juncture of your life, like you were so swung out of balance because of everything that had happened to you. The only way to get it back into equilibrium in the future was to flip the pendulum completely the other way. And I love, I mean, I love that story from for so many different reasons. Um, a couple weeks ago, I had Jacob Deacon on here, who's just a young gun with uh a team in town, and he talked about the idea of like when you conquer a mountain, you find another mountain to climb. And for you, it's like the corporate America mountain conquered, and then all of a sudden, boom, you're at the bottom of a valley to then climb again, to climb again, and and here you are. And I think what's so cool about it is like for nine years in this business, you built a kick-ass business, but on January 2nd this year, you woke up and chose to climb another hard mountain. And I think it's special. Not everybody's wired up this way. Um, and it's part of what I enjoy most about our conversation right now. Um, but one of the things I want to pivot to is like I think so often in our industry, we talk about like skills and we want to talk about AI and social media. And I lead a monthly mastermind and we talk about all sorts of different topics. But I think the most important topic that's often overlooked is something you hit on, and it's the concept of understanding people. And if you are an excellent conversationalist and and you can connect with somebody in a conversation that makes them feel heard and supported, like all the other stuff, whether you're doing an open house or cold calling somebody or you're meeting a stranger for the first time to prospect an expired listing or anything like that, it all goes back to the idea of like, can you understand a human? And you know, you can script chain train all you want and you can practice that stuff, and and you certainly should if you need to. But the concept of like truly understanding a person, their motivations, their needs, and what makes them them is what look, it's how you and I become good friends in this business so fast is like you're phenomenal at it. Um, you know, I remember some of the first times I ever connected with you. It's like this guy makes me feel comfortable, he's easy to talk to. He runs a kick-ass business, but he's approachable and he's easy to connect with. And I think it's a special characteristic for you because it's not something across the board in our industry.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Yeah, appreciate it. And you could not be more correct. It's something that really we don't, I don't think we people talk about it enough. It is a it is this the secret sauce. It's the special ingredient for me is the interpersonal skills. And all to your point, everything that goes along with that and understanding people and then conversationally and then presenting and when you're in front of clients and how you're dealing with them. I mean, one of our favorite or one of my favorite stats um it's not a stat I keep track of. It's just something that we have just noticed. Um I have Stacey, my partner, go with me on all of my listing appointments. And she is phenomenal. She is very strong at all of these things as well. Uh and she came from a corporate career. She was with Lily for, I want to say, about a decade or so and did a few various uh jobs and positions, and she presents well. Um I don't think that I don't think we've lost a listing appointment in three years when we've been on them together. And it and even like on my own, I just don't, I'm sure some agents out there are like, I dude, whatever. I took something that I know you interviewed for. I don't think I've lost one in in the in the last three or four years. And I normally and I think it's representative too. I think most people don't lose maybe listing appointments because I think maybe the consumer only calls one person the majority of the time, and maybe it's two, and after they hear what they like from the first person, they make their decision, whatever it may be, right? Uh, because I don't think they really enjoy interviewing us to an extent. Some do, of course, because we've been through those. But it's the the interpersonal skills are you can't put uh assign a value to that and how important they are. You've got to go through your efforts, your checklists, your processes, and all those things. But when you include some strong personal skills with it, it it makes a really great combination.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

It's uh it it adds confirmation to your conversation to what you had shared earlier about like one listing becoming two listings, becoming three listings. It's like it's one thing to get that first listing, but then as you the reason it gets turned into two, three, and four listings is because one of how you handled the first listing, it's all the ancillary things that you do to generate more business. But look, like at some point in our career, we've all walked in our room and flopped a great opportunity in front of us. It's just it's part of the journey. And look, I I know where you sell, I know the product you sell and the homes you sell, you're competing for listings. So to walk away with that success rate is just like it's it's confirmation about the understanding piece and the commitment to excellence. And look, like this business can feel like groundhog day. Like there's listings and there's buyers, and there's changes in the market, and it's uh inspections and appraisals and the new law and the new, and it's like, man, okay, can I just do my thing and be left alone? But like to continue to build and compound on excellence, look, it's something that should be highlighted in this conversation. You should pat your yourself on the back for it and enjoy that and celebrate that. But look, man, like I don't think the buck stops here for you. And like, as I listen to so much of this conversation and understand, like, hey, this is why Matt's wired up this way. But like, what is like where are we headed? What does future Matt look like around this business and and what are you working towards? Like, what do you want to accomplish? And what are some goals that sit back on a vision board or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Uh wish I could tell you some really cool stuff that you know I could then achieve too, just like I mentioned before. It still is a little flying by the seat of my pants to an extent. Um the the goal that I have is just to continue doing what I'm doing, is just to continue to be me. I don't have this whole thing of like I want to be at 100 million. I I actually kind of don't because I'm privy to to people in my office that do that. And I see how that can wear on them and I see the hours that they work, and uh now they have a good team behind them and it's all about your team. Uh, but like that's not necessarily something that I'm looking to do. Now, it may happen organically, and that may change a year or two from now. I but it's not something that I am working towards. I think what is on, and I I did have a board here that I'm looking up here. It's white now. I have the same things on there for about the last nine years, and and funny that you you mentioned it, January 2nd of this year, I erased it all and just left a couple key phrases and components on there. And it's really just to be the best that I can be, but then also maintained a make sure that I've got a level of happiness and personal life and uh time for uh visiting my now adult kids or going to, like we talked about earlier, Sam has one more year at Purdue uh for his basketball team, and we have loved traveling, and it's the perfect setup, right? You know, November, December, January, February to be able to enjoy and do all those things. So, you know, it's hard to talk about balance when we're here on June, middle of June, when we're closing all the stuff that we sold in April and May. And we're, I think overall we all had a pretty good spring market or so. But, you know, that's transitioning now into our summer market. It's just to keep everything in in stride, to have balance, to achieve, be the best that I can be, but I'm also not looking to conquer the world at the expense of any sort of personal happiness. So it's all intentional. And then you look at it from the backdrop of I have this free life that I was given, and I'm overall a different person, similar in many ways, but a little bit different mindset in the last 10 years that I've been given this extra chance coming out of a near-death situation.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Um I wrote something down, I've heard this a lot. Um bigger and more do not always mean better. Um, like better is better, like more quality is better. And you know, I I'm guilty of this. Like, we've grown exponentially at lockstep every single year um since we we kicked off. And it's like you believe growth means more. Um, and I probably I looked up, I don't know, three or four months ago, and it felt like our whole staff was pissed. It felt like everyone was frustrated, stressed to the max, over leveraged. You like see people walking around with their head downs, walking fast. It's like, um, we're not having any fun in here. And like, I'm not having fun because nobody's having fun, and the only thing that comes across my desk is problems, and we're not talking about success and wins, and we're not enjoying what we're doing. And I pulled my staff in our in a conference room and we had a meeting, and I was like, hey, I got a question. Like, who's enjoying this? And it kind of like looked at me and is like, uh, don't want to piss the boss off. And I was like, um we're at this number of agents. You want to grow this way or the the other way? Um, there's plans for each. And they were like, Man, I thought you'd never ask. Let's get leaner, let's get tighter, let's build better relationships in our room, let's have a bigger impact on our agents. Um, let's increase per agent productivity to help them accomplish the goals that they set and make a better investment in the agents that we have. Let's scale out all the nonsense that we thought we wanted that we don't need, and let's get people out of here that don't mirror the goals that we have in the in the the core values and the mission and things like that. And let's get lean and and mean and get really, really focused. And we've done that over the last three months, and it's incredible what's happened in our room. Everyone's happy, everyone's fun, everyone's got a pep in their step. People are in the seats that they belong in. And look, like life is hard right now. It's expensive to live. There's two sides of a rope that get pulled in opposite directions all the time, everyone's got an opinion about nothing, everybody wants to find conflict and everything. And it's like you should find happiness and you should love what you do every day. And you know, for somebody like you who who, you know, second lease on life, like you see that through a pretty clear freaking lens. And there's a lot of folks that they just don't, they just piss in the wind every day, and you know, the old Tony Robbins, like frustrated and pissed off all the time. And it's like, there is no value in that. Like, there's no that is not the life to live, and it's not where it doesn't help you achieve that life that you're pursuing or that best version of self. And I mean, I have so much respect for what you're doing and how you've gotten here. Um, man, I I have heard that story, but hearing again sent chills down my spine, and uh it it is just validation of the strong relationship you and I have and and the incredible things that I think about you and our industry. So, congratulations to all that, Matt. I'm very grateful you as well.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

You as well, thank you. Yeah, what you built there is is incredible as well, and through social media we all get to see it. I it's been cool.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Yeah, yeah, it's uh it's a bit crazy, but I want to you had talked earlier um and we asked the question, what does taking action mean to you at the end of this? And you talked about progress, but I want to give you the floor to hit on it again and try to drill into it a little more. But you know, uh the question being, what does taking action mean to you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

Um taking action means to me, uh it's the concept of progress and being idle. And when you don't, it's it's really for me, it's what happens when you don't take action, is really what it is. Being by default, I am proactive. I take action, I get things done, personal relationships, work, all those things. But it's really, I am afraid of the opposite of not taking action and being idle because I'm not at my happiest when I'm idle. Um, you know, we w I mentioned that there are stretches of time in the winter where we're just not as busy, and that's a relief. And you can really enjoy that time and be mindful on how to spend that time and enjoy that. But at the same time, you know, we're doers. We we love that phone ringing. We love the idea that, you know, I've got a listing appointment on Friday and then another one on Tuesday, and I've got stuff going on in my pipeline, and I'm energized by what's in my pipeline and those types of things. And so by being idle and stagnant, I'm not at my best. I don't feel good, I don't feel confident. Um, and then, you know, you start going down this vortex of doubt starting to creep in, self-confidence, and what's going on? Am I just being a, you know, a blob on the couch? And, you know, I'm not a couch potato and don't, you know, don't watch hours of TV on end and have always been a doer. So it's like, what is action taking action mean to you? It's that is when I am at my best and my happiest when that happens. And so that's really the core concept of what that means to me is action equals happiness to me.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

Man, I love that. Love that. And Matt, I I could go on and on and rave about this conversation, but I will uh when we release this, I'll let the listeners enjoy it. This was phenomenal. Matt, you are um a special cat to me. I'm very appreciative of you. Congratulations on your success this year. I can't wait to see where you finish the year at. Um congratulations, my friend, and thanks again for your time today. Thanks, man. You too.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Yeah. Hey, we need to get together and uh get Drew and sit on a back porch and solve the world's problems.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

Uh, I will get with him after this and let him know we chatted and do that. But uh thanks again, Matt, and we'll talk to you soon, okay? Okay, all right. See you in all then. Thanks for listening to Action Solves Everything. If today's episode pushed you, challenged you, or helped you even take one step forward, send it to someone else who needs that same nudge. We all get better when we grow together. And if you're looking for a partnership that actually believes in coaching, collaboration, accountability, and actually becoming the best version of yourself, shoot me a message online at all social handles at Alex Montagano. That's A L E X M O N T A G A N O. Remember, success rewards the ones who move. Take action, and I'll see you on the next episode.