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In real estate, being a broker is the ultimate dream we’re taught to aspire to, but for most people, it’s a nightmare. If you put the ego and bragging rights aside, you’ll find that most brokers aren’t happy.

They work 80+ hours a week, get very little time with their families, and at the end of the day, have very little to show for it financially. People often say a restaurant is one of the worst businesses to own, but a real estate brokerage isn’t all that different if you really dig into the numbers.

What if we could aspire to a business model that gave us freedom, leverage and more money? What if you could do away with the things that make owning a brokerage so difficult? Mitch Riback did just that and created a model that allows owners to keep more income, have less overhead and responsibility over agents and way more freedom.
You could go from working 80+ hours a week to 30 hours, and sell more homes with less headaches. Ultimately, what most “successful” brokers don’t tell you is how much they hate what they run. By taking a different approach, you can sign up for a business, and not a trap. Today, I’m joined by the Realtor, coach, speaker and author of The Big Lie: Are You On the Real Estate Hamster Wheel? Mitch talks about what drove him to build a different business and how it’s allowed him to pour into what truly matters.

Quotes

The big lie in real estate is that you should aspire to be a broker. Being a broker is worse than owning a restaurant. -Mitch Ribak

You build a team for leverage and freedom, but you get babysitting and prison. -Mitch Ribak

People think working 80+ hours a week is a badge of honor, it’s a badge of stupidity. -Mitch Ribak

Hard work works, but there’s also a smarter way of doing things. -Kevin Kauffman

Key Points

The biggest lie in real estate and why people fall for it
The big lie in real estate is that you should aspire to be a broker, but being a broker is worse than owning a restaurant. If you put ego aside, you’ll find out that a lot of brokers aren’t actually happy. They aren’t making any money, they work up to 80 hours a week and they barely see their families. For a lot of people who spend years focusing on work, they look up and realize they have no memories. As a parent, pouring into your family and making memories is your main job. That’s not to say wanting to be financially successful is wrong, but rather that our success shouldn’t come at the expense of what truly matters.

Badge of stupidity, not honor
Real estate agents start brokerages to have financial freedom to create a better life for their families, but they end with neither. First of all, when you die as a broker, you have no assets and your family gets nothing. Then when you do decide to sell the brokerage, you don’t even get what it’s worth in the first year. You only get the full value after 3 years, and if the company that bought it screws up, you get less.

The freedom model
Due to all the issues that come with owning a brokerage, Mitch Ribak came up with a new model. With this model, you can work 30 hours a week, sell twice as many homes and not give away money. In the traditional brokerage model, you’re actually losing money on every transaction. In Mitch’s model, the agent is paid hourly with a 10% bonus, and they are getting compensated to go through training. As the leader, you’re keeping a higher percentage of your top line income, and you can still be leveraged.

A real estate team with no agents
Mitch’s current team setup: him, an ISA, an assistant and a transaction coordinator. He doesn’t have agents on his team so he’s not responsible for them. Instead he hires agents on an hourly pay basis. It’s a simpler way to do business and it gives you higher profits and a lot more freedom.

Are you really working?
Real estate agents go to great lengths to invent things that distract themselves from doing work that’s actually productive. If we really think about it, the 3 biggest wastes of time are showing houses, going to closings and going to inspections. If you really want to get more out of your time, track what you do every single day. Figure out if you’re actually doing real work or if you’re spending your working hours browsing social media and other distractions.

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Guest Info

Mitch Ribak is a Realtor, Broker, Coach, Speaker and author of The Big Lie: Are you on the Real Estate Hamster Wheel? Most Successful Realtors, Team Leaders and Brokers never truly build a business, they build a crappy job. Mitch teaches agents and brokers how to create a business that not only increases their profits, but also creates a life of freedom. To get the book, get https://a.co/d/1T0qWAt or send an email to [email protected].

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If you got into real estate 5-6 years ago, you might be forgiven for thinking this business is easy. We didn’t have the low inventory, high interest rates and the commission changes we’re dealing with now.

For any agent who started back then, the 2024 market might as well be a whole new industry you have to learn. It was a great time to get into the business, but in order to stay in the business now, you have to learn how to generate deals in this current environment. Many people are failing to do that, and that’s why we’ll continue to see agents throwing in the towel and leaving the industry entirely.

Mastering the basics of running a solid real estate business is the only way to outlast all the shifts and changes. If you came into the business and immediately started taking shortcuts, you just won’t be able to hack it in the skills-based market we’re in right now.

If you’re an agent who invested in coaching, and found a way to go out and get business, you’ll never have to complain about any market conditions - even the ones that are taking other people out of the industry.

I recently sat down with an agent who built his business the right way, and developed skills that create success under any circumstance. Sammy DeStefano shares how he went from car sales to real estate, and what’s allowed him to do so well.

Quotes

When the market changes, it feels like you have to relearn a whole new industry. -Sammy DeStefano

We’re actually really fortunate in timing that the changes from this lawsuit happened now and not 5 years ago or 2 years from now. -Kevin Kauffman

With no automation, we keep the people that are serious about working with us. Sammy DeStefano

Key Points

The “easy market” is a thing of that past
If you got licensed 5 years ago, you started real estate at just about the easiest time, and that’s both a gift and a curse. The good news is that you were able to get your business going, but the bad news is that you could have been tricked into believing that business will always be like that. The reality is, there’s cycles and stuff is always changing and tough markets actually have a benefit. You get to really figure out how to do business and what you’re made of, and that makes it easier going forward.

Real estate agents have short memories
Whenever we get into a new market, we forget how we felt about the one we were in before. Back then, the seller had a lot of the advantage and some agents hated it because competition for listings was high and buyers were hard to work with. Ultimately, there’s no such thing as a perfect market. We have the market we’re in and we have to make the most of it.

Be happy the settlement happened now
With the commission changes, we’re actually lucky as an industry that it happened now. Sellers don’t have nearly as much leverage as they did 4 or 5 years ago. Back then it would have been hard to have conversations about this. Timing-wise, a lot of people don’t love this market and are complaining about it, but we should be happy we’re going through these changes now.

The good thing about the commission changes
Listing agents have always needed to work on their skills because the state required them to fill out a contract. For buyer’s agents, the pitch seemed to be “why not use me, I’m free”. We’re now in a market where everyone is required to fill out what they haven’t been filling out, and the good thing is that it will raise the standards of the entire industry.

The advantage of cold calling
There’s 3 ways to get business when you get into real estate. You can buy it on places like Zillow and Redfin, you can wait for it - by holding open houses or waiting for someone in your sphere. Alternatively, you can go out and get it through cold calling or circle prospecting. The advantage of cold calling is that it teaches you tonality, how to speak, what words to use and how to listen to people. That’s a good skill that you don’t just carry to the moment you win the client. Once we’re under contract, you’ll still have to negotiate with the other agent and close a deal.

The no-automation rule
Sammy calls thousands of people a week, but even with those call volumes, he has a no-automation rule in his business. No Docusign, no scheduling emails or anything else. Slowing down, focusing on the basics and not taking tech shortcuts might seem old-school, but how else will you learn the principles and why you’re actually doing something? After you’ve done some deals and figured out what you’re good at, then maybe you can start using automation, but if you do it too soon, you’ll never learn what moves the needle.

Why learning the fundamentals matters in this profession
The personality type of most real estate agents is high D, so that means we’re an industry of people who like to do things their own way. Also, real estate is a second or third career for a lot of people, and most of those people don’t like being told to do so they are going to riff and find their own way. That’s why learning the basics is so important.

For a long time, Sammy felt more comfortable cold calling strangers than calling his sphere. That’s because as a new agent he didn’t feel like he had any value, so it felt like he was just asking family and friends to find someone who wants to pay him. Let’s face it, we’re under-competent in our first deal, we just find someone who agrees to work with us. After working an expired and selling it, and earning the social proof, it was easier for Sammy to feel like he’s bringing value, and he could confidently ask his sphere “do you know anyone who wants to use my level of service?”

You need a coach
You’re an idiot if you’re not writing a check to a coach every month. That’s not to say you wouldn’t have figured things out without a coach. But something has to be said for having someone wise who has been there and done that and also has a feel for what other people are doing around the country. It provides a massive amount of value and insight, which makes business easier. It’s really easy to get into our own bubble or just talk to people in your own brokerage and limit your possibilities. Getting exposed to what other people are doing is what helps us grow the most both personally and in business.

Guest Info

Sammy DeStefano is a Realtor in Arizona. After spending 6 years in car sales working for BMW in Phoenix, Arizona, Sammy got accustomed to not only sales but more importantly rain making and prospecting. Initially he got into real estate because he had reached his ceiling at my BMW dealership as a business development center caller, sales guy, and ultimately a finance director. After leaving the dealership and getting his license, Sammy joined Mike Ferry Premier coaching within 90 days and was off to the races. In his first year, Sammy sold 30 homes (all expired and canceled listings that he cold called). In his second year, he sold 35 homes from January to June with a goal of 60 homes sold for the year. The rest is history...

Sammy is proactive and finds his own business, calling and door knocking, and there are more than enough clients to help out there. For more information or to connect with Sammy, call or text 919.454.6482.

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In today’s episode, I’m joined by returning guest and longtime friend, Ronnie Doss. As a coach and speaker who’s having conversations with high performers or talking to them from the stage, Ronnie has a ton of great insights to make our businesses and lives better. He knows a lot about helping people navigate change and transition in any area of their lives. Ronnie has recently put his wisdom into a book called Colossal Considerations, where he provides thought-provoking insights and thoughts that can help us reflect, ask better questions and improve how we show up in the world.

Ronnie is a speaker, coach, author and America’s #1 Teamwork and Performance Specialist. Ronnie trained for 5 years in the realm of human behavior and personal development. His understanding of why people think, feel and behave gives him phenomenal insights into what may be holding an individual back. Ronnie believes the key to building successful organizations begins with building empowered individuals. Over the past decade, Ronnie has led leadership training in countries around the world including Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands.

Whether we like what’s happening in the industry or not, we have to learn how to embrace change. Turbulent and uncertain times aren’t as difficult if we can adapt quickly. It allows us to get into movement and momentum a lot quicker and that sets us up for success.

When it comes to embracing change, there’s one formula that can guide us. Intention + mechanism = results. If we’re not happy with the results we currently have, we can reverse engineer the process to figure out what intention led to it or what mechanism (or lack thereof) led to the outcome. We can talk about doing great things all day long, but time and results have a way of proving who had the right intentions and who was doing all the right things.

In order to get this formula to work in our favor, we have to get really comfortable with critiquing ourselves - not out of blame but out of responsibility. If we’re living in a place of constructive self-critique, reflection and asking ourselves the right questions, turbulent times can create massive opportunity.

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One of the key skills of a great salesperson is negotiation, but for the last decade, real estate agents could get away with no having it. Deals were so easy to put together, we didn’t have to fine tune our persuasion and communication abilities. Many agents have never had to do deep negotiation. Even veteran agents who came up in tougher markets need to brush up on that skill too.

With the way commissions structures are changing, understanding negotiations at a high level has never been more important. We have to understand human psychology, collaborate more closely with other agents, handle tough situations, understand the art of communication and resolving conflict.

That’s why the team at Forward Coaching developed a course on negotiation and why they are working on getting this course in front of agents ASAP. The market might look a little different, but take it from an agent who has sold through some really rugged markets: there’ll always be a seller and a buyer looking to make a deal. In order to get to those sales, we might have to change what we do to match what’s currently happening.

If we want to continue to feed our families, give the best service and get the best results right now, becoming master negotiators is non-negotiable. Co-founder and CEO of Forward Coaching, Debbie De Grote joins us to talk about the new course and what it takes to succeed in this tricky market.

Quotes

People think being a master negotiator means playing hard ball. The best negotiators actually have a collaborative technique. -Debbie De Grote

Don’t panic, this will become normal to us one day. -Debbie De Grote

I started in a really terrible market so I really don’t fear markets that change. I’m quick to react to them. -Debbie De Grote

Key Points

What it means to be a master negotiator
The biggest misconception people have about good negotiators is that they are aggressive, manipulative and mean in order to stand up for the clients. Trying to play hard ball actually leads to people not wanting to work with you. The best negotiators actually focus on being collaborative and working with the other side of the transaction to come up with a mutual win.

Focus on the results you get
When you look at the real estate agents’ websites and bios, they talk a lot about service and loving their clients. If you go to the website of a major law firm, they address 3 important things - experience, expertise and results. If you were going to trial, you wouldn't be looking for a lawyer who is friendly, happy or folksy. You would be looking for a high level skilled negotiator who can perform under pressure and collaborate for the best outcome. That’s what consumers need in this market.

The secret to great rapport
The DISC assessment reminds us that there are different personality types and they do things differently. As salespeople, if we approach all people in the exact same way, we risk breaking rapport, and persuasion is highly unlikely without rapport. When you travel to a foreign country where you don’t know the language, you bridge the rapport gap by learning a few words. Adapting our communication approach does the same thing in sales.

Learn to be an active listener
A big negotiation mistake agents make is just not listening well enough. When we’re talking to people, we have to be able to distinguish between a stated position and a real position. The only way to figure this out is to ask more questions and to listen actively to uncover their true motivation.

“It’s always something and you never know”
Real estate markets and rules are always changing. If it wasn’t this recent settlement, it would have been something else. Instead of developing one static set of skills for the specific market we’re in, we have to develop skills that work in just about any market conditions. There are always going to be scenarios that require us to sharpen our negotiation and communication skills as the markets change and flow. The agents who survive and thrive through change don’t put their hands in their sand and hope for it to go away. They embrace what is and skill up to be ready for it. They shine and become experts of that market.

How to thrive as a new agent
If you’re a new agent without a background in negotiation, the best thing you can do right now is find a mentor and join a team that can set you up for success. Many people who choose to scrap it out on their own end up making mistakes and losing deals. If you join a team, the commission split might change, but having that coach, mentor and partner is invaluable. Also in this market, you need to have a track record, being part of a team with a strong brand and reputation in the market is something you can leverage.

Guest Info

Debbie is the co-founder and CEO of Forward Coaching. She began her career in Real Estate at the age of 18 and within a few short years was one of the top agents in the nation, closing over 156 units annually. At the peak of her career Debbie was awarded the Hall of Fame award by Century 21. In fact, Debbie was the first agent in the Century 21 system to achieve this award. In addition to her sales career she also managed a large office, assisted in recruiting efforts, and wrote strategic plans and launched new office locations for two large brokers in the Orange County area. Debbie’s extensive background attracted many opportunities to speak, train and consult with others, which is how she discovered her passion for coaching. Over the last 20 years, Debbie has been considered one of the top Coaches in the Real Estate industry, coaching some of the most elite salespeople and brokers in North America, as well as mortgage, title, escrow, and insurance professionals. She has conducted over 80,000 private coaching calls, hundreds of webinars and live events, and is a sought after speaker at many national conventions.
Go to forwardcoaching.com/negotiations to sign up for the course.

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Selling real estate in 2024 isn’t at all what it was between 2010 and 2022, and a lot of agents are feeling the squeeze. Most of us built and ran our businesses in low interest rate environments, so this market is completely unfamiliar to us. Running a real estate team is a lot more stressful than it used to be. Deals are harder to put together, we have stricter and newer rules to get compensated, and the costs of running a business and paying our people is so much higher.

All of this has left a lot of real estate leaders frustrated and even resentful. The fact is: what made us successful in the last few years won’t work in this current market. Due to all the pressures the market is facing, just being good at putting deals together isn’t good enough anymore. We also have to be really good at bringing people to those deals. What that means is an exceptional sales skill set will have to make a real comeback. Right now, everyone is trying to get their sea legs after all the changes, but when things normalize, you’ll either get out of the business or have a bigger opportunity.

What factors are making real estate so tough? How can leaders navigate these challenges? In this episode, multiple guest Frank Klesitz returns. The CEO of Vyral Marketing and Klesitz Direct shares what he’s hearing from agents across the country, and why it’s harder to sell homes right now.

Quotes

Marketing doesn’t create motivation, it just finds it. -Frank Klesitz

Right now you have to be a dealmaker and also go out and find the people who want to be in the deals. -Kevin Kauffman

We’re going to see the resurgence of really good sales training. -Frank Klesitz

Key Points

Real estate has changed significantly
From a business model perspective, the whole real estate industry has been set up in a low interest rate environment from 2010 to 2022. For the first time, many of us are running a business in a higher interest rate environment. Affordability is an issue and it’s harder to put deals together. The cost of living is higher so leaders are struggling to afford to pay their people, which is leading to high turnover. All of this is leading to resentment, anger and frustration on the part of real estate team leaders.

The opportunity on the other side of the settlement
At the moment, no one really knows exactly how the NAR settlement is going to affect the whole industry. Right now, we’re in the phase where everyone is still trying to find their sea legs and figure out what’s going on. When things normalize, a weaker agent who isn’t perfecting their craft is going to be forced out of the industry. But that also means for the best agents, there’ll be a bigger opportunity on the buyer side.

How to generate leads in 2024
To be in real estate, you have to generate seller leads. In this current market, you have to be able to do without inconsistent referrals or leading a team in an environment that requires a lot more training and investment on the team leader’s part. You also don’t want to wade into the legal issues that come with mass texting and mass phoning. You can’t rely on Adwords because that’s also inconsistent. So you have 2 options: working your database to generate leads and referrals, and direct mail (which only works in some markets).

Direct mail messages that will get the phone to ring
If you’re sending out direct mail to generate seller leads, one of two messages will get the phone to ring. The first one is “I may have a buyer for your home. If you want to know what they’ll pay, give me a call.” The second message is offering a free ticket to a seller workshop to help homeowners know the options in the market.

A cheaper way to get to a seller
Sending out thousands of pieces of direct mail can get expensive fast, so an alternative would be straight up door-knocking and handing out flyers in a neighborhood. This is really hard to do at scale, and it’s labor intensive, but what you could do is go to a college and look for students to help you prospect. You can present it as an apprenticeship program, which works really well.

The return of the great sales skill set
With everything going on in the market, we have to be good dealmakers and also be really good at finding the people who want to be in the deals. For a really long time, we didn’t have to look for the people, the deal alone was enough to bring them. Because of this shift, we’re going to see the resurgence of really good sales training. That’s what real estate teams need to do to succeed.

Get comfortable with hiring internationally
Because of how much the cost of living has risen in America, it’s getting harder and harder to afford to pay your people. If you’re in the professional services world, you have to get comfortable with hiring abroad if you want to make the numbers in your business work.

Guest Info

Frank is the CEO and founder of Vyral Marketing and Klesitz Direct. He is an intellectually curious artist with experience in business, entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, and real estate. Frank started Vyral Marketing in 2009 after successfully implementing their marketing plan for a real estate agent in Omaha, NE. Frank also runs Klesitz Direct, a new business mailing personal, authentic cold letters to homeowners to generate phone calls from those thinking about selling their home. Go to https://getvyral.com/ and https://klesitzdirect.com/ for more information.

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In today’s episode, I’m joined by investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Abernathey. Andrew has a really impressive story and background. From starting his investing journey at 13 and raising $300k at 18 to building a multi-million dollar holding company before age 25 and bouncing back after losing a lot of money, Andrew’s journey is packed with valuable lessons. Today, Andrew really gives a ton of insight into the thought process of investing and shares some of the pitfalls we can fall into and how to avoid them.

Andrew Abernathey is the founder and CEO of Abernathey Holdings (AH), a leading real estate holding company driven by a passion for business and inspired by the value investing approach of Warren Buffett and the simplicity approach of Gary Tharaldson. His investing journey began at the age of 13, exploring a diverse range of public securities. Established in August 2012, AH initially pursued a diverse investment strategy. However, in 2019, they strategically shifted their focus to developing and owning class-A self-storage facilities across the sunbelt region, while also owning the operating companies to ensure vertical integration. This streamlined approach has not only enhanced their returns but also propelled AH to achieve remarkable market-beating results, elevating their assets under management (AUM) to an impressive $250 million.

As driven entrepreneurs and hungry investors, we’re always searching for that big idea or once-in-a-lifetime deal. Then we find ourselves in a bunch of random businesses and investments in a bid to increase the odds of success.

More often than not, that only leads to a loss of focus and ultimately, a loss of wealth. What if getting to that billion dollar idea is as simple as picking something and concentrating on that? There’s a ton of different things we could be doing, the real challenge is learning to focus and be patient.

For Andrew Abernathey, concentrating on one idea allowed his business to ramp up to $250 million in a very short space of time. At one point, he was involved in a slew of random areas. It took losing a ton of money for him to realize that he didn’t know who he was or what exactly he was good at, and that’s why he was trying everything. That was the major turning point that made him think about his billion dollar idea and let go of everything else. The effect of his concentration can be seen in his results, and it’s something all entrepreneurs should think about.

The urge to do everything will never go away for entrepreneurs. If you follow that urge, it might just rob you of the big idea you’re looking for. Instead of searching for the perfect idea and trying to do everything, think about what you can be great at and just focus on that. It’s hard and goes against every instinct we have as investors - just like the instinct to never sit on cash. Ultimately, putting your hands in too many pies and doing a deal for the sake of doing a deal is how big mistakes are made.

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There’s a reason people keep gambling even though we know the house always wins. There’s a reason we compulsively open apps on our phone without realizing it. Human beings are prone to falling into the trap of behaviors that feel good in the short term but hurt us in the long-term.

It’s the scarcity loop, and some of the ways our world has changed make it easier for us to get caught up in it. From food to slot machines and social media, there are whole industries pouring billions into keeping us stuck in the loop.

In order to escape the trap, we have to embrace short-term discomfort in different ways so we can live better and healthier lives. The good news is, the scarcity loop can be leveraged to work another way - to get us to install and maintain positive habits. Sneaking the broccoli into the Mac and Cheese, if you will. We’re naturally attracted to the scarcity loop. If we can find a way to leverage it for good, that’s the ultimate hack for doing the right things.

Why can't we escape the things that are bad for us? What can we learn from other parts of the world about doing what’s good for us? In today’s Book Club, we’re joined by speaker, professor, and New York Times bestselling author of Scarcity Brain, Michael Easter. He talks about the book, the research that inspired it and interesting insights about habits - good and bad.

Quotes

Vegas wouldn’t exist if the house didn’t always win. It’s not a town based on winners. -Michael Easter

Humans are naturally attracted to the scarcity loop. If you can find a way to leverage it for good, that’s the ultimate hack for falling into a positive habit. -Michael Easter

The faster and easier you repeat a behavior that’s rewarding to you, the more likely you are to keep repeating it. -Michael Easter

It’s easy to do research on the internet but that means someone else already figured that thing out too. Experience is one of the greatest teachers that can lead you to experiences that aren’t already out there. -Michael Easter

Key Points

The problem with bad habits
Most behaviors that people get hooked on, be it slot machines or social media are things that are fun in the short-term but can hurt us in the long-term. The truth is: most of us don’t abuse social media or have a gambling problem, but the problem is when you bundle all these bad habits together.

Why social media is more addictive for young people
When it comes to social media use, we need to put more protections around younger people. Between puberty and age 18, people’s brains change and we start to value certain things more than others. This is where the brain starts to form how we find comfort and escape. When you insert a behavior that provides short term comfort, quantifies your social ranking and is on you all the time, young people are more likely to get hooked on social media. It’s important to get kids to focus more on sports, in-person interaction and academics rather than worrying about social media.

Use the scarcity loop to your advantage
There are 3 parts to the scarcity loop - the opportunity, the unpredictable reward (with a crazy range of outcomes) and repeatability. Once we know what’s going on, we can leverage this loop for our benefit. Humans are naturally attracted to the scarcity loop. If you can find a way to leverage it for good, that’s the ultimate hack for falling into a positive habit. One way we can turn the scarcity loop on its head is to slow down the repeatable behaviors. With phones and apps you use too much, you can use an app like Clearspace to delay the gratification we get from them. Research has even found that having grayscale on your phone reduces your screen time by 40 minutes because colors direct behavior.

Why junk food is addictive
The scarcity loop also shows up in food. In fact, the junk food industry uses it a lot. The 3 Vs that make junk food addictive are value (cost), variety (many flavors) and velocity (ease of consumption). The opposite is the way tribes like the Tsimane people eat. They eat single ingredient food that isn’t all that exciting but is way healthier. 70% of what we eat is ultra-processed and that tends to concentrate calories. Foods like potatoes will fill us up but will have less calories.

How to tell better stories
Every story has to stand for something larger. Stories are just a way to walk the reader or listener or customer into the bigger idea. Once you have the big idea, you need the story that gets you there. Every story ultimately has to be about change. If nothing changes, it’s just an anecdote, a retelling of something that happened in chronological order. The great stories of literature have the main character thinking one thing or behaving in one way, and as they go through this narrative, they learn things that ultimately change them. They go through some sort of ordeal or trial and come out on the other side a different person.

Why Moneyball ruined the soul of baseball
The problem with quantifying things is we often end up focusing entirely on the number and losing the meaning of why we’re doing the thing. Anytime we start to quantify things and strive specifically for this one measure, we often miss the overall point.
Think of baseball - it’s meant to be an entertainment product, measuring everything takes the joy and fun out of it. This also applies to grades - they weren’t designed to actually show how well a student is understanding, but rather to make things easier for educators. What gets you a grade doesn’t often feel like you’ve mastered material. This problem of quantifying things can also ruin something like wine. If you focus on scoring a wine, you miss the whole point.

The rucking revolution
Humans are an athletically mediocre species, but there’s two things we are great at. We’re good at running long distances in the heat and we’re the only mammals that can carry things for long distances. You can combine the two to introduce some discomfort and work on being fitter.

Don’t underestimate the insights of experience
It’s easy to do research on the internet but if you’re researching everything that means someone else already figured that thing out too. Experience is one of the greatest teachers that can lead you to experiences that aren’t already out there.
The truth about happiness
There’s no perfect path to happiness, though it often gets communicated to us that there’s a formula. The commonalities happy people have is they figure out what brings them deeper satisfaction, they focus beyond the worldly trappings like possessions, titles and money in the bank. They also have a bigger reason and higher purpose that will help other people. The promise but also the peril of living is you have to find that path for you.

Call the f***ing Vatican
If you want to know something, you have to go right to the source. Today it’s really easy to mess around online and find answers by Googling things. If you want to know things and fundamentally understand, you have to go right to the source.

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Guest Info

Michael Easter is a speaker, professor, and New York Times bestselling author of Scarcity Brain and The Comfort Crisis. He has made a career of traveling the world to uncover practical ideas that help people live healthier, happier, and more remarkable lives. Michael’s research has taken him everywhere – from war zones to the Arctic to the Bolivian jungle. He’s interviewed thousands of experts, from Nobel laureates to world-class athletes, and pored over countless studies to find the best science-backed tactics you can use to optimize your life. His goal has always been to take these insights from the edge and make them accessible and actionable for readers. Go to https://eastermichael.com/ and sign up for The 2% Newsletter.

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