Million Dollar Agent
Million Dollar Agent
Awaken Your Inner-Stoic | Ryan Holiday
Tom Panos, John McGrath, and Troy Malcolm dive deep into insights from Ryan Holiday, a modern-day philosopher renowned for his works on stoic philosophy.
We discuss the importance of humility, continuous learning, and the concept of "two sacred hours" for productivity.
Key takeaways include:
- setting firm goals
- embracing the process over ego, and
- preparing for unexpected challenges with "panic rules."
This episode blends philosophy with actionable steps for agents to invoke their inner-Stoic.
Tom Panos, john McGrath, troy, malcolm, million Dollar Agent, and today you are in for a treat, a deep dive with Ryan Holiday. And I'm saying it, I'm putting it on the record, I've actually told everyone I've spoken to this week or last week the best two hours of education I've had in living memory came in that room there. By the way, guys, congratulations, you've got a beautiful office. Had not been into your new office, but we had a great time.
Tom Panos:Troy and John, I was blown away because I mean, what do they say? When the student's ready, the teacher will appear. I think he was just like he's just come at the right time, and what I thought that we'd do today is just to go through three or four, maybe five things that we all picked up that really resonated in the time that we had with Ryan, john and congratulations, john, I was thinking about it, I was explaining it to one of your McGrath people. And and congratulations, john, I was thinking about it, I was explaining it to one of your McGrath people. And you know to be able, you know your ability to be able to get people like that in, to come into your organisation is fantastic. And he actually said to me I'm blessed, I'm blessed. So he was very, very happy he was there as well.
John McGrath:No thanks, thanks, tommy. It's funny. Two observations, that, or just little side notes before we start. So I think today we're going to unpack what each of the three of us sort of took away. First thing was, of all the people I know, I agree with you, he is the world-class modern-day philosopher genius. I love him and I think he's just incredible. But he's also one of the most humble people I've met, and the three of us being on this podcast regularly, all the time, consistently that in our industry it's such a pity that people get a little bit of success and they start acting like they're God's gift to the planet. Little bit of success and they start acting like they're God's gift to the planet. He was just another reminder that real, true success embodies humility, which I think is actually one of the Stoic philosophies as well. That's number one.
John McGrath:Number two is I was speaking the day before actually on the Friday before the Monday, so a couple of days before to Michael Maguire. I guess most rugby league followers would know him to be the ex-coach of South Sydney and more recently the coach of the New South Wales team that won the State of Origin, and I was just chatting to him about stuff. And I said to him look, you probably wouldn't be interested, but I've got this guy coming on Monday. And I said you know, this is what he talks about, if you'd like to come and be a you know participant. And he said I will be there, like I'll be the first person there, which, by the way, he was.
John McGrath:And it's interesting that, again, the true successful people never stop learning. So here's a guy who's at the height of his success. You know, just had the historical win in the tough, probably the toughest rugby league battle in the world, you know, new South Wales versus Queensland, and he was the first person to the event. He didn't need to be asked twice. He said I don't know him, I'll take your word, it sounds fascinating, I'll be there, just let me know what time and when. So again, humility and never stop learning. They were just two things from two great people, and I know you sat next to and chatted for quite a while with Michael McGuire, tom, and I'm sure you'd agree with me that he's just a humble, just a lovely guy too.
Tom Panos:I don't know, I was a bit starstruck I mean, it's not like he's a movie star, but the fact that I've been a West Tiger supporter and I actually did like him and I'd watch the Tales of Tiger Town, which was very much centred on him, and seeing his personality. But, john, if you remember, towards the end I actually said to Mag I said, was this relevant for you? And he just looked up and he said that's my life, this is my life, that's right, I was there.
John McGrath:I remember you were there Successfully. Sometimes they're in the classroom listening to people like Ryan and sometimes they're observing people like Ryan or Michael McGuire and just people in everyday life. But I know today we're going to focus on what were the key things that we took out of it and I'll tell you what the hard bit for me is going to be trying to whittle it down to a small few. But I'm going to open the batting. I used to like opening the batting Trosie as a youngster, before playing cricket. I used to like getting out there. So a couple of things that I got out of it. He so a couple of things that I got out of it. He talked about James Clear, who also spoke at ARIC a few years ago Atomic Habits and he said you know one of the things from meeting and interviewing James Clear was he said the greatest thing for him was he had two sacred hours in the morning to write and he said nothing would interrupt them no social media, no appointments, no meetings. And so again, I was just immediately thinking about that, tommy, that again, if agents had two sacred hours every morning where nothing ever interrupted it and they prospected, they rang past clients. They rang current vendors. They rang hot buyers. They rang people that were relevant. Where have recent sales taken place? Whatever is your prospecting plan, expired listings and so forth, two sacred hours a day would be the only thing you would need to do to actually end up being a world-class agent. That would be about all. If you just did that every day and you had a modicum of talent, that would be enough to get you there. So that was. I really loved that idea.
John McGrath:And the second one that I got, which I loved, which was very similar. He talked about because he's written I think it's 13 best-selling books and I think they've each averaged about a million in terms of about a million sales each. And he talked about the fact that every day he just wrote a few crappy pages was his kind of wording and it's interesting but important the wording that he had behind it a few crappy pages. He said look, if I'd have set out every time I wrote a book to write a bestseller, to write a million copies that were going to be sold, it had to be perfect, it had to be better than the last one, all those sort of superlatives. He said. I never would have written anything. But when I just said to myself, all I got to do is sit down at a desk every day and write a few crappy pages, knowing that somewhere down the track they'd be edited, somewhere down the track he'd probably move bits around and add to them. But just the concept of a few crappy pages and a similar concept of two sacred hours every morning to me, they were really interesting and so relevant to us.
John McGrath:Third one for me was North Star. So he spoke about you really have to stand for something, and we often talk again on this podcast about transparency and integrity and humility, whatever your values are. He said, in business, very few businesses stand for something and very few businesses are able to articulate what they stand for. So again I thought about it. Troy, imagine walking into a listing appointment and choosing the right time, but somewhere saying you know, troy, I just want to share with you what are the really important values for me, as not only a human but a salesperson as well, because I stand for integrity, I stand for transparency, I stand for no surprises. You're never going to hear anything from me that's not 100% accurate. This is who I am as a person and this is who I am as a business person, whatever it is. So I love the concept of bringing your core values, things that are really vital to you, bringing them into the listing lounge room, bringing into the workplace. I thought that was really, really interesting.
John McGrath:And the fourth and final one I'm going to offer is he talked about I think Troy was Les Need was the name of the coach. I think they might even call them managers in the US, but he coached or managed the I'm going to say LA Rams, la Rams, yeah, yeah. And Ryan was invited in, interestingly enough, because we had Michael McGuire there, as we said. But he was invited in to talk to the LA Rams and he said he learned, you know, hopefully he imparted some of his knowledge and they learned from him. But he said he also learned from them and one of the things he learned was their panic rules. And apparently Coach Snead said look, you know, no one needs too many great rules when they're 20 points ahead and when they're playing at their best. But you know, everyone gets to a point when they're buggered, they've lost their rhythm, they're 20 points down at halftime or whatever it is, or maybe one of your best players leaves and goes to your competition and he said you know, the key thing really was they had a set of rules and there were different for each scenario, but if something went wrong, if something wasn't as they expected, if there was an issue, they went to their panic rules. And these were things that they devised to basically keep them going in maximum momentum or turn the momentum around when they were in a time of challenge.
John McGrath:So I immediately, troy, thought of okay, you have three auctions on the weekend. All three pass in Panic rules. What do I do next? Does every agent have a set of 12, 14, 20 things they do to turn it around, get it listed? Okay, I've got to put a price back on it. I've got to get a price reduction. I need to get some social media going. I need to open it next Saturday. I need to. You know, whatever are the 10 or 12 or 13 things you need to do, a lot of agents literally panic when they pass one in or when one doesn't look like. You could even have a panic rules for a property going to auction this weekend that has no buyers. What are your panic rules? Because that's not what you planned. So I thought you know those kind of four things, a few crappy pages, two sacred hours. Have your North Star and bring it into business and have some panic rules for when things don't go right. They were the four things that stood out for me Over to you, troy.
Tom Panos:Yeah, troy, I'll get you to speak, but I'll just add extend on what you just said on that last one, so I don't have to bring it up again when I go around to give you mine. Troy, do you remember when he said think about in advance what can go wrong, because it's the unexpected that lands heaviest. Yeah, right, and I think that's that's in sync with what you've just said there, john, because you won't be panicking if you have already preempted and there's an expectation that these things will happen and you've actually got a panadol for those things. It just gives you peace of mind knowing that, no matter what happens, we've actually got the panic button set up for us. We know what to do next. So and I've got to tell you in real estate, troisy, you know what it's like, I think vendors that have an agent that has not prepared them for what's going to actually happen, for instance, on auction day, they're the ones that have the things that land heaviest on them, or the buyer.
Tom Panos:It's even worse for the buyer. They've told the buyer for four weeks you're going to buy this home for a million. This is what we're talking about under quoting. Now You're going to buy this property for a million dollars. And then they get to the auction and they find out the vendor's got a reserve of 1.3. These are examples of stuff that we don't have to have problems with if we do things properly and prepare Troy. What else did you pick up that John didn't cover?
Troy Malcolm:Yeah, well, just following on as well with the panic rules, because I think that was a bit of a revelation during the presentation and he covered off so much content. But there's one line that he actually said as well, talking about the panic rules and what the LA Rams went through, and I've underlined it three times, so it must've had an impact on me during the presentation, but it was what is your job? Underlined, underlined, underlined in the situation when things go wrong. So you don't have to solve the whole problem, you have to focus on what you need to do to get things back on track. And when you think about the LA Rams, one of their key philosophies were when things go wrong, you stick with your man, you do the job that you're paid to do. So I thought that was a really important part of it, tom.
Troy Malcolm:The other one that I really liked from him was about goal setting. He spoke a lot about goal setting. He spoke a lot about how that can grow and build confidence, and ego is the enemy. But around goal setting, I thought one of the main things was focus on the doing and not talking about it.
Tom Panos:Yeah, I remember he talked about what he spoke about about. Some people put down day seven of my you know getting fit day eight, right, he actually says oh, I actually don't talk about it till the end when it's accomplished. And I think he's done that with a book, with books.
Troy Malcolm:He's done that a lot with his books and you know he's delivered 12 bestsellers and he's probably got another five or six up his sleeve that he's going to deliver over the next five or six years. But he was saying that he just focuses on the doing instead of talking about it, because sometimes when you talk about it you get those people that want to have an influence or want to have their opinion and maybe take you off track, and so his focus is around that goal setting. He's actually the implementation to create the bestseller and deliver the bestseller and then talk about the bestseller. And I thought that was quite good.
John McGrath:And then the final one that I want to- Troy, troy, can I sorry, buddy, I just want to add to that, because another bit that I picked up around the you know, I don't reveal projects until I've completed, I think he said, is I don't reveal projects until I've almost completed them. He said you know, often you say, oh, you know, I started this diet yesterday, or you know, I'm going to train for a Hawaii marathon in two years' time, whatever. And then he said a lot of people, you know, they love the agile. Oh, you're great, wow, fantastic.
John McGrath:And he said it's like, you know, sort of getting a loan in advance. It's like it's getting credit before the activity that you're talking about has been done. And he said I'd rather do the activity. And then he said I love the credit after I've done it, but I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, sort of soak in the adulation or congratulations and credit when all I've all, at this stage I've done is contemplated doing something in the future. So I thought that was really good. Sorry, troy, back to you.
Troy Malcolm:No, and the final one that I wanted to talk about was when he was talking about ego, and he said that ego limits your confidence to acknowledge your mistakes. And I think a lot about real estate. Sometimes we get so caught up in the price that we've pitched to our clients that we sometimes aren't showing that vulnerability to say, hey, listen, I think we went a little bit off track. I think we haven't realized there was another sale that was made that's justifying why the buyers aren't at the level we think they're at. And so again, I underlined that one because I thought when he said that it had a big impact on the room and I looked around and it wasn't a huge room but there was probably 30 or 40 people there and a lot of people were making that message as well. So I think showing a little bit of the vulnerability takes away from the ego and ego can sometimes cloud our judgment around what we think can be achieved but also what we're saying to our clients.
Tom Panos:Yeah, well said, troy, on that confidence and ego. I started to dwell on it because I've actually come to the and I say this because I'm the subject and the scientist when I'm doing one-on-ones with Zooms. I'm not going to mention any names, but I'm actually now convinced that you know, when we say confidence and ego, what's the difference? I actually think there's so much the opposite. I actually think someone that's got an ego is actually not confident. I think deep down they're the opposite of confident and there's this facade and this makeup and this external thing to make up for the lack of confidence and that someone that is actually very confident on the inside probably is very far away from ego because there's no need for it.
Tom Panos:And I say that because I noticed with I've got a couple of clients that they've been ongoing. You talk on them on Zooms and on the social side they're very egotistical. I see it. I look at what they post, but then when I'm talking to them one-on-one, I can sense in the things that they say they've got self doubts. And it's interesting that I think social media is not the real life of a person. Social media lives and real lives are two different things. That's what I actually think.
Troy Malcolm:Well, tom, it's funny. We always think that with agents that we expect and probably have a little bit of ego, it's impossible for them to sometimes learn what they think they already know. So, like you said earlier about Michael Maguire, I think it speaks volume for that individual. You would say that he knows a lot about the sport that he's involved with with rugby league, but he's also a master at his craft in regards to leadership and coaching and getting the best from people. Yet he's a guy that actually turned up and wanted to sit and listen to someone else that can give a different point of view and have a profound impact on what his coaching style is probably going to be going forward. And so I think a lot of agents probably fall into that trap as well. You know they are successful, they go to all the events and they learn great skills, and then they develop that ego and they stop attending different things because they think they know it all, but it's actually impossible for them to know it all.
Tom Panos:Isn't it incredible how things can change so quickly. It only felt it was the other day that Maguire had been sacked by the worst club in recent years and I thought to myself that's the end of it. He's resurfaced. He's done amazing things with the New Zealand national team. He's now the flavour of the month with what he's done in the state of origin and like. Obviously, all of a sudden, his attractiveness in his field is skyrocketed because of the results he's been getting.
Tom Panos:And I think it says a lot to anyone that's listening to this. If they have had a challenging period where they've been working or whatever has happened and it hasn't been their season, that man, it changes. It changes very quickly. You don't have to make a bad year doesn't have to become a bad year or a bad year doesn't have to become a bad year or a bad year doesn't have to become a bad decade or a bad three months doesn't have to become a bad year. Things change Exactly right.
Tom Panos:All righty Troy John. He went through to me three main themes because he went through three of his main books the Silence, which is all about the history of people that go inward and silent to help them clear think, and he talked about that. He talked about CEOs that don't get digital dementia because they're always on a screen. They don't have time to think clearly. He also touched a lot on I think John, you asked him questions on the 48 laws of power. That was really his mentor or his first employer. Oh, I just had a mental blank. What's his name? Troy? 48 power, john, are you there? I think we've dropped off.
Tom Panos:No no.
John McGrath:I was there. It was on mute.
Tom Panos:Robert.
John McGrath:Green, robert Green, robert Green.
Tom Panos:The 48 Rules of Power, which I've started reading again. They're gold in itself. They're gold in itself. But, gentlemen, Ryan Holiday, you've got plenty of content that you can go to. You can also actually go and watch his Aric talk if you've bought the videos from last year.
Tom Panos:He did 2023, not 2024. But, troy and John, I am really looking. I'm convinced that we're about to have a great volume in spring and real estate agents. We live off volume and I've noticed the last few days it's not as been as chilly. We know that we're three weeks away from that. I reckon spring is the best time when you're a real estate agent the weather's good, there's activity, there's stuff going on. It's a great three, four months. So, team, let's go out and get it. Good to see you again, troy. Good to see you, john.
John McGrath:Thanks, tommy, see you, guys See you.