Achieve More with the Right Coach with Elias Astuto

Welcome to another exciting episode of The Raquel Show! In this episode, I had the pleasure of welcoming back Elias Astuto, the dynamic director of sales and coaching at Team Fast with eXp. Elias is renowned for his contagious energy and his passion for empowering real estate agents through his Keep It Moving Coaching. We dive deep into his journey, from his early days in marketing to becoming a top coach in the real estate industry.

Elias shares invaluable insights on what makes a great business coach, the importance of protecting your energy, and how to build a schedule that ensures success. We also discuss the challenges faced by real estate agents today and the tools and strategies needed to overcome them. Whether you're a seasoned agent or just starting out, this episode is packed with actionable advice to help you play bigger in both business and life.

Connect with Elias Astuto

• Instagram: @eliasastuto
• Website: MoveItCoaching.com

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Thank you for joining me on this episode of The Raquel Show, and remember, keep pushing your limits to achieve your goals.

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Transcript

Elias Astuto: 0:00

the one thing that we all have to protect is our energy because that's the most important. Because when you don't protect that energy and everyone is pulling from it and you're doing this and you're doing this and there's no rhythm and there's no rhyme to what you're doing, what happens is that agents get burned out. Why do they get burnout? They get burnout because everybody is taking a little piece of them until they finally hit a wall and they say, Oh, my God, I just can't do it anymore. You know who that impacts? That impacts the family. That impacts everyone. And then it impacts your health.

Raquel Quinet: 0:56

Welcome to the Raquel show. This show is for entrepreneurs who want to play bigger in business and in life. And as many of you all know, I love bringing people on the show that love to play bigger. And my guest today has actually been a on the show. So this is the very first time that I've brought back one of my guests to the Raquel show. And this guy plays bigger in all areas of his life. And I know that entrepreneurship is very difficult. So how we play bigger, really does matter. And I want to have this conversation around playing bigger and someone that actually helps other people play bigger in our industry. And if you've ever been in a room with him, you know that his energy is contagious. I tell everyone he's been born to speak and be on stages. He is the director of sales and coaching at TeamFast at EXP and he's super passionate about empowering agents and is known for Keep It Moving Coaching. So welcome to the show, no other than my co host, co partner in all of my events, Elias Astuto.

Elias Astuto: 2:07

it's so good to see you, and I appreciate that. I got goosebumps with the introduction, I feel that when someone says that your energy was felt, you know, when I interacted with you, I think that's one of the best compliments, and so I will roll with that, and I feed off of this and I feed off this industry. So I'm super excited to be here. And to be a repeat guest, I'm just excited. And a little disclaimer, Silas is home. It is summertime. I have two sick girls. They are in their room sleeping and Silas is downstairs. So just if you hear some background noise, know that it's Silas.

Raquel Quinet: 2:38

we all know how it is, being an entrepreneur, also raising a family and, the very first guest that I've had to actually come back on this show. But today we're going to be talking about the something a little bit different. you've had an opportunity. You've been in this industry for a really long time and you had an opportunity to either sell houses. there's a lot of things that you can do in this industry. Sell houses, you could do loans and be a loan officer. But what got you on the path of Being a great coach or interested in coaching other people.

Elias Astuto: 3:11

And it goes back to early days in Lake Tahoe. I became the director of marketing for a huge resort company in Lake Tahoe. And I remember at that time I was new, I didn't know much, I was 26 years old. And I was thrust into a leadership position, and so at that time, I really didn't know what I was doing, and so I was developing my skills, going to classes back then, which I had never been to seminars. I was 26 years old, and so I started to see how people were interested Resonating with messages, how they were showing up in meetings, how an effective meeting got the people pumped up, and then the results from that. And so from 2026 to 2020 or 2009, I broke every single record from marketing management, from conversion for the entire company across the United States of America. And so when I look back at that, that was like the early start for me. Of, of leadership and getting people to get into action and move, and I didn't know everything. I still had an ego at the time. I was still young just trying to figure my own stuff out, but I saw the impact that it was making in other people and what they would say about me. that's what it started saying. wow, I'm actually making an impact on you. I appreciate the accolades. We would do a retreat or we would do a annual award ceremony. And I'll hear what people would say. I said, okay, I think I'm on to something special here. And so I've always been in leadership since 2006. And then when I got into leadership and real estate here in the Bay area, I was thrust into it. I literally went to hang my license at Coldwell Banker about nine years ago. And the manager said, I don't think you're a good fit for Coldwell Banker. Probably you should find a different brokerage. And then the fire alarm went off and we all had to evacuate this building. And we're standing outside of the corporate building of Coldwell Banker in Concord. And I said, I'm not done with this conversation. Let's have a coffee. So we had a coffee, we started talking and he gave me a shot. And I remember what he told me. He said, I'm going to give you a shot. You're going to be a district sales manager for the largest teams in Coldwell Banker, the United States of America. And he said, don't F it up. And he said, within seven months, I'm going to make you a world class coach. And he pushed me to the point where I wanted to quit, probably weekly. But the things that he would teach me and train me on, that was the person that really got me started in this realm. His name was Don Dottanagan. Love him for being such a jerk to me early on and pushing me.

Raquel Quinet: 5:43

See, I always say that we always remember those types of mentors and those types of teachers that were really hard on us versus the ones that were really nice to us. For whatever reason, whether they were being really tough or a jerk or whatever, you always remember them. So speaking of, what do you think today in today's world? What makes a, there's so many coaches out there. What makes a good coach, a good business coach in your opinion?

Elias Astuto: 6:10

In my opinion, what makes a good business coach is similar to what makes a really good agent for a consumer. A really good agent for a consumer is somebody that is very real, that they can connect with, that it's not just data, that they can feel a sense of heart and a sense of connection and have a sense of business intimacy. Now, there's all kinds of coaching programs out there, but I believe that over the last few years, the coaching space has really started to evolve. And what's happening is that there's this space now for a coach to really be able to be in sync with who they are and really focus on human development versus just KPI stats and figures, right? If I get on a call with a coach every single week, and that's all we're talking about, I feel that's uninspiring. I believe in order for us to move people, a really good coach knows how to tap into the human being first in order to get the results on the other end. Stop trying to fix an agent and start trying to impact the human. And I believe that's what makes a really good coach. And obviously that coach has to have some level of expertise and have a database of ideas and thoughts are going to move people's business forward. But if they're not able to find the greatness in that human and pull that out, then how can we impact the agent? And that's my thoughts on what makes a great coach.

Raquel Quinet: 7:22

I love it. And how do you, differentiate yourself from other coaches in the industry?

Elias Astuto: 7:29

I believe for me, once again, it just comes down to being very real, transparent, real, And being able to show who I am. Like if I allow people to see who I am and express my intrinsic qualities, my hope is that it allows them to be in a space where they can express their intrinsic qualities, that they can be safe and they can feel comfortable being who they are. And when they're in that safe space, that feels like they're in a comfortable and a healthy relationship. Because when you're in a healthy relationship, you could be yourself. You could be weird, you could be quirky, you could be different, but you also could be free and you could be independent. You could be expressive. When you're in a bad relationship, you don't feel like you can just be yourself. You feel like you're judged and you feel like someone's looking at you. And I feel that's the type of space that I create. I create a space where somebody can express their own intrinsic qualities. I believe that's what I bring out of people.

Raquel Quinet: 8:22

Yeah. And what I love about you is you coach people every single day. You coach agents, you have a specific niche and you get to see things that most people can't always see because you are in it, you're doing the reps, you're doing the volume and you see a lot of things. What do you think in today's world is the biggest struggle agents are dealing with?

Elias Astuto: 8:42

Yeah, I'm so glad that you asked this. I didn't know that you'd ask this, but I'm really glad that you asked this. I feel that agents deal with a lot of self induced stress. And what I mean by that is that I watched a video from Jeff Bezos early in his career. And the quote went like this. It said, stress doesn't come from the hard work. The stress comes primarily from not taking action over the things that we can control. What happens is that we induce this stress upon ourselves because we didn't do the things that we know that we need to do. And then we get to a point where I feel maybe a little bit ashamed. I don't feel a sense of pride anymore. And I'm super stressed out because I don't know where the money's going to come from. I don't know where my deal is going to come from. And a lot of that. And so it's the stress comes from ignoring the things that you shouldn't be ignoring. So when it comes down to two things that are always going to separate agents is the consistency and the discipline. And I believe that if you can nail those two things, even if it's imperfect, even if it's gritty, even if it's choppy, if it's clunky, as long as it's consistent, Then you'll see the work. You'll see the results.

Raquel Quinet: 9:52

Yeah, so how do you coach agents today when they are in challenging times, when they are under stress? how would you coach an agent through that? Because sometimes they can't always see it for themselves that they're actually putting it and inducing the stress because they're not doing the things that they want to do and they want to make excuses.

Elias Astuto: 10:11

We talk a lot about people's growth map and oftentimes for somebody to reach growth and to be able to, experience whatever they need to experience in real estate. And they're trying to reach that next level. They just don't know what to do. And they're always looking outward for someone to give them the path and just tell me what to do. oftentimes they already have that answer. So what we need to do is help the agents get really realigned with why they're in this business. Why did they sacrifice their time? Why did they study late nights? Why did they go through that emotional rollercoaster to even get their real estate license? for most people, it's a hope for gain. They see something in their life that's going to be better. Somebody in their life is going to be impacted. Somebody will have something more because of the result of their success. So I think that what we need to do is get them realigned with that. And then oftentimes when someone's thinking about, how am I going to grow each of us? That will hear this and we'll see this have experienced some level of growth in our own personal lives, academically, professionally, spiritually, and what happens if you stop and you just look at that and say, What was I doing at that time? And if I was to break that down into, say, four phases or segments, the first one is I made a decision, right? I made a decision to do this thing. The second part of it is I worked tirelessly and I studied and I trained. The third part of it was execution and implementation. And the fourth part of that was follow up and evaluation of those things right? So, if you've already done that and you've achieved something scholastically or athletically or spiritually or in your own personal relationships, you already have a path of how you can grow, because if you didn't then, and your mind went there and your body and your soul went there, And you could do it again in real estate. So I think oftentimes people look too broad and look for a pathway. Oftentimes they need to look backwards and they need to go back to the things that they've already been able to accomplish, even if it wasn't real estate related.

Raquel Quinet: 12:10

So good. So good. And if you were to ignite your business today and finish the year strong, as people are listening to this or watching on YouTube, your video is what would be three things that you would do as an agent to ensure that you hit your goals in 2024.

Elias Astuto: 12:31

So first and foremost, I would record every single conversation that I am having with consumers in my CRM. When I'm making prospecting calls, I want to make sure that I really have a good flow, and then I want to sit down with somebody and evaluate how I sound, because oftentimes, everything comes down to us booking appointments. oftentimes, if we're not recording ourself and listening to ourself, as cringy as that might be, you're not finding opportunities to say, you. Why do I say that? They gave me an in and I didn't take it. I didn't close for the appointment. So I think that first off was I would record all of your conversations and follow up boss. So you now have a body of work too. I would go all in on video and I'm not just saying. video about the informational video. People are connecting more with the human being than ever. And if you go back to video seven years ago, it was all about documenting the journey. And what's happened is that we've evolved into some very diverse groups. Let's say polished content. And what I think is happening and what I see is happening is that we're getting back to more of the gritty, the day to day, the who you are, the moms, the dads, the struggle, the balance. I'm an entrepreneur. Plus I'm a father. I'm a cook. Plus I'm a wife. Like all of these things, I think we need to get very human with our content, but also sprinkle it in with the content that is educational for consumers. And the third thing that I would do is I would master my open house, my door knocking scripts, and my circle prospecting, right? If it made sense on your terms, on your timeline, at the price point, would you consider selling to one of our consumers off market, right? I would just become masterful at open houses, my, my circle prospecting, door knocking, having fun with it. creating videos and then recording my body of work so then I can analyze it to see how well I'm doing. People are going to spend money. They're going to farm and I know it's a struggle for a lot of people. You might not have that, but everything that I just mentioned will cost you zero money.

Raquel Quinet: 14:36

what I love about what you just said, especially with the first point of recording everything. And to your last point is you need the skills in this business, tough market, bad market, good market. You still need the skills. And the only way you get the skills is if you can analyze yourself or you actually know What you're doing or what you're saying. And I think too often as agents, we forget that, but everything is based on skills, like you can get charisma, but if you have charisma plus skills, you'll be a rockstar in this industry, but it all comes down to skill.

Elias Astuto: 15:15

Totally. And I've been talking about the war lately. Raquel and it's not the war that's going on anywhere in the world. It's the war that goes on inside all of us and each of us, no matter where you are in business. Each of you are fighting a war, and you're either going to choose to win that war or you're going to choose not to win that war. I personally wake up every single day and I'm going to win my war. When you are winning the war, that means that you are winning against procrastination and doubt and fear. inaction and, delay or whatever it is, like you're winning that war that's going on inside of us, because it doesn't matter what brokerage or what community that you're a part of. All the systems, the tools, the support, all the things that we all have available to us, none of that matters unless you're winning that war every single day with yourself. And let that be a reminder to people like we got to start here. We got to win that war because no other person, no community, no tech tool, no evaluation of my skills are even going to matter if I'm not winning my own war every single day.

Raquel Quinet: 16:19

Yeah. And speaking of tools, you brought that up is, and I know that there's a lot of bright and shiny objects here, especially there's always something that comes out every single month, every single week. It seems check out this new product and agents have a tendency to go, maybe I need that in my business. Maybe I need this in my business. If you had to pick certain amount of tools that an agent must have to run, their business effectively, what do you think it would be?

Elias Astuto: 16:45

day. Gunslinger. All right, if I'm just, if I'm just like, you know, we're wild, wild west, definitely have to have your CRM. I don't care what CRM it is. we've used follow a boss. I think follow a boss is the best, CRM in the game. Number one. Number two, you have to have some way to look at consumer behavior when they're looking online. If you're still sending consumers properties from the MLS and you're just sending that to them, imagine if you have 20 consumers that are looking. That is archaic. It does not work. We personally use RealScout. If RealScout's in your market, use RealScout. Real Scout allows you to do two things. It allows you to think like a consumer because you can see all of their search history when they like a property, when they dislike a property, when they open an email. And then the second part of it is that allows you to act like Amazon. And what I mean by that is that Amazon is the best in the industry at bringing you back to the site to shop. Oh, you like that shirt, Raquel. You may also like this, these pants. You like these pants. You may also like these shoes. So they're constantly bringing you back. I think you need a way to look at consumer behavior and then respond to that behavior accordingly. Not, Hey, Tom, just checking in. Is there any houses that you'd want to see? No, I saw that you were looking at ABC on 12th Street. Let's go check out that house tomorrow. I'm setting up my tours. So those are two. And then last but not least, I would highly recommend that everybody has High Note. And the reason why High Note is a game changer is it allows you to do presentations that are absolutely next level. Once again, when you send that presentation out, it has different components, different sections. You can see how long a consumer spends on every single section. So then you can address and tailor, make your presentation based on how long they spent on each section. Those are three tools that are absolute game changers, no matter where you're at and no matter what level of business that you've done.

Raquel Quinet: 18:37

Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Real scout, or anything like it is such a time saver and a game changer because like you said, Amazon does a really good job at pre prescribing what you need through direct marketing.

Elias Astuto: 18:54

So to start, if I look at my personal email, Target, Kohl's, they do a really good job of bringing you back to the store every single day, whether it's online or in person.

Raquel Quinet: 19:04

Yeah, I love it. So there's always agents that are attending training, right? There's a lot of training. There's always something going on every single day. If you looked hard enough, you could see there's probably four or five, six trainings that you could probably be in a class every single day and even higher, but people that they just don't have progress. What do you think holds people back from the ones that attend the trainings or even have a coach versus You know, people that actually do and get results. Yep.

Elias Astuto: 19:40

We've all met a seminar junkie and a seminar junkie goes to the seminars and they're at everything. They're super excited to be there. But there's a disconnect. And so what we've learned and, what Raquel has helped us learn is that speed to execution, right? If you go to an event and you hear one thing that is really powerful when you write it down in your notes, you need to put it on your calendar and to say, I'm going to do this by this date, and you might not have all the answers, maybe it's an event that you want to You put it. on your calendar. If you're reading a book, I'm reading a book right now. It's called the power of moments. When I read a chapter, I look at that and say, what is one thing that I can take from this to put into a keynote? How can I put this into a coaching session? I've already made one called. The Popsicle Hotline. It's about defining moments through the consumer journey. And so speed to execution. Go to the event, but say, what is one thing right now today that I can go and implement? What's one thing? And it doesn't have to be everything. You could have a whole notebook of notes, but just what's one thing because you can over train. You can over train. This game is about action. So go, learn, fill your cup, but then you have to ask yourself, what am I going to do with this? How can I immediately take action on one thing that I learned today? And don't try to reinvent your whole process, unless it needs to be. One thing, one thing, like literally when we go to events, Kenny and I are in our Slack channel with our other senior leaders saying, Hey, let's do this. We have an idea to do this. What is it going to take? How do we get this motion in motion? I'll be sending the same message that he's sending.

Raquel Quinet: 21:21

Yeah. like I have seen it, with my own eyes of allies, just picking a date and saying, it's going to be executed by this date, or here's an idea. Let's go run with it.

Elias Astuto: 21:32

We did that yesterday. We did that yesterday. We got our mid year review. And, there was like, well, like, why are we doing this? I'm like, it's important that we're doing this. We're going to bring the company together. It's mid year. It's a lot of work. I'm going to put it on the calendar and I'm going to be relentless about it. We didn't have all the answers. We didn't have the design. We didn't have our sponsors, but we had an effective event yesterday. 70

Raquel Quinet: 21:53

Yeah, I heard it was really, really well done as well. So as you look ahead and there's always trends that are going on, what do you think it'll take for agents to be successful in this business or what should they watch out for?

Elias Astuto: 22:06

they should watch out for inauthentic people. Obviously, always watch for them. Always have your, your guards up, but also be aware of, what is stealing your energy and what is stealing your time, right? we have to be very conscious of how we're spending our energy and be able to be very conscious of what is on our calendar, what type of energy it's going to take to go into each endeavor, how to really dive into that endeavor. Then reflect for a moment and then re engage in whatever endeavor it is. So being masterful at how you spend your time means that you're masterful at how you spend your energy. And that's the one thing that we all have to protect is our energy because that's the most important. Because when you don't protect that energy and everyone is pulling from it and you're doing this and you're doing this and there's no rhythm and there's no rhyme to what you're doing, what happens is that agents get burned out. Why do they get burnout? They get burnout because everybody is taking a little piece of them until they finally hit a wall and they say, Oh, my God, I just can't do it anymore. You know who that impacts? That impacts the family. That impacts everyone. And then it impacts your health. So I think that as you're scheduling, as you're building, as you're growing, You have to get very aware with having personal boundaries, professional boundaries, just like we do in any healthy relationship. This business shouldn't run you. You run the business. And I heard something a couple of weeks ago that I thought was really important. Create the systems. The systems run the business. The humans run the systems, right? So as you're evaluating it as you're building, you have to have systems, you have to have time management and you have to have energy management. And if you do that at a high level, you guys, I run like crazy. But I'm not stressed out. I'm not burnout and I'm still working out and working on my body and my mind. Yep.

Raquel Quinet: 23:54

that replies to so many things, whether it's your calendar or the systems, right? and how you run your calendar, it gives you more energy. And you said something is like you build the system, you hire the people to run the system, right? that happens in so many things and I. Like my kids are in sports and believe it or not, the best teams that are well coached, they have systems and they just recruit to that system. You're either for them as a player, or you're not for them as a player. And I think that happens in companies as well, is that Amazon runs a certain way. They built the machine. And now they're hiring the gaps of the people to go run the machines. So there's not all these if, ands, or buts, that a lot with solo entrepreneurs or that a lot in our business because they're like, Oh, I'm just going to go do this. I'm going to do this. And all of a sudden they're exhausted and they're burnt out because they didn't protect their energy. They didn't protect their boundaries.

Elias Astuto: 24:47

And then they come home and then they're short with everybody. It's just don't talk to me. And they're grumpy. that's not healthy for anybody. they deserve more from us.

Raquel Quinet: 24:56

for sure. And there's no doubt that there's a lot of things to do in our business, especially when you're solo agent, or especially like when you have a lot of clients are constantly juggling and you're constantly reprioritizing. when there's so many things that you can do and agents, and one of the most common things I see is entrepreneurs or agents figuring out what to focus on. And if you had to build, speaking of schedules. To build a schedule that would produce transactions or sales. How would you build it? And what are some of the things and key takeaways that you would advise agents to do?

Elias Astuto: 25:29

Yeah. So I would really break it down to a couple of different categories. A, your education, how much time you are spending educating yourself on the market, the nuances, the patterns, the conditions, what's driving behavior in your specific market. So I would definitely. include some education time because as we run, as we go, there's a need for us to slow down, to understand the data of what's happening around us. So we can communicate that effectively and share the reality of what's actually happening in our market. So I would definitely put some education time in there. I would put coaching time in there. Now I'm not saying that you have to pay for a coach, whether you are in a weekly mastermind, whether you're a part of a group, whether you're a part of a, an accountability club, whatever that looks like for you. So education, coaching, Admin time, right? When I'm prospecting, I'm not clearing out my inbox. When I'm clearing out my inbox, I'm not taking calls. I need to have some level of admin time. And probably most importantly is that prospecting time. But I'm saying in an uninterrupted prospecting time, I'm not taking one or two calls and then, Oh my God, Instagram. And Oh my God, I got to check. Okay. Let me get back to this. No, like uninterrupted prospecting time. I'm in a room. Okay. I got my, my, my scripts. I got my coffee and I'm ready to go. And I'm literally, I'm in a state to make prospecting calls. Prospecting has to be a part of the weekly schedule. And then you have to put some me time in your calendar. When am I actually going to have some downtime to focus on myself, read, thrive, workout, walk, run, whatever that looks like. I need to do that. And the last thing that I would put into my schedule is when am I doing script role play, right? With everything that's going on with the new settlement, are you clear on how to explain agency agreement and compensation? When it comes out of your mouth, are you able to articulate what it sounds like and why this outline Or why this document outlines how I legally advocate for you and how I negotiate on your behalf as my consumer. And it also outlines my commission, which is 2. 5%. Are you able to say that? And as the market shifts and changes, you have to have that time in your schedule. So education, coaching, admin time, prospecting, me time, and the last one is scripts and dialogue. Now you build it together.

Raquel Quinet: 27:55

six buckets. And I love how you broke it down because I think a large part of when you're growing a business or skill in a business is you got to invest the time to actually learn and train or review to get better at your skills. So you guys run a really big team, one of the largest teams in the country and have had massive growth over the last few years. Where are you seeing agents make changes in their business today and how, and helping them become more successful?

Elias Astuto: 28:27

You mean where geographically or where in their business?

Raquel Quinet: 28:30

Where in their business are you helping them make some changes today that's helping them become successful?

Elias Astuto: 28:35

Yeah, I think, obviously empowering them. Over the course of the last two years, we've helped edit over 4, 000 videos for our team members. Now this is not just real estate related. This is all kinds of different videos. And so I believe that what we've done is help them really lean into their own voice. Now, through that, you see the emerging personal brands in our environment. Now, personal brand. Don't rush that, right? So many people say, I want a brand. Well, your logo is not your brand. Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room and how they identify with your name. I only know one Raquel in the business, right? Right. Like how, like when someone says fast, my hope is that they think of Kenny fast. And so, People try to rush their brand, don't rush their brand. So what we're doing is we're helping them build a platform to where they can speak their voice, be comfortable speaking their voice, and really working on their presentation skills. I say this until I'm blue in the face. If you broke this business down to three categories, closing, prospecting, and presenting, and you say, what is the most important? most of the time people think prospecting because I got to get the business. At the end of the day, the most important thing that we do is presenting because everything that we do in real estate is a series of amazing presentations. Phone call. That's a presentation. Doorknob. That's a presentation. Welcome to my open house. That's a presentation. Buyer's consultation, listing consultation, working with an investors. It's all a series of great presentations. So if you can nail that. Know what to say, when to say, how to say it, and have that cadence down, then all things will get better because you'll book more appointments. I highly recommend that everyone keeps this book in their back pocket, right? Attend the seminars, be in the focus groups, and just be masterful at what to say, how to say it, and why to say it. We do a really good job at helping people become masterful at their presentations, and I believe that sets the tone for everything else. You couple that with the branding and the social media and so on and so forth. That comes from making sure that their words live.

Raquel Quinet: 30:39

First of all, I only know one Elias in this industry. I don't think I've ever met any Elias at all, not even outside of the industry. So you definitely have a good brand to build on just being even unique. And one of the things that I heard you say is that you guys do help and empower the agents and you do a phenomenal job. And I think it's no re no doubt that Why TeamFast has grown the way they have because you provide coaching for your agents every day, but you have even specific scheduled coaching Monday, Wednesday, Friday, right? So what advice would you give to new real estate agents who don't have the gift of Elias as a coach in their company, or a hesitant about coaching. What advice would you give to them, when it comes to investing into some type of coach?

Elias Astuto: 31:33

Yeah, when I look at it this way, a coach is the person that is on the sidelines that sees the things that you're doing, they can see the inefficiencies because they've seen it so much. It's not that the coaches, myself included, have all the answers. What we have is a big data pool of people that we've been able to work with. And what we see is we see patterns, we see rhythms, we see constants, we see inconstants. And so what happens is that we're able to see things that you may not have ever seen. I've talked to my coach before. I've talked to Raquel. And I never looked at it that way ever until I had that conversation. So having a coach allows you to have maintenance in your business, have somebody that's there to say, you know what, that's a really good idea. But if you tweaked it this way, you probably hit the ball a little bit further. I think a coach is necessary, no matter what level of production that I'm at. I'm always going to have a coach, always going to have a coach. And I believe that if that's something that you can, find within your budget, if you have to make some adjustments, maybe make some sacrifices, maybe it's not coffee anymore at Starbucks, maybe you're making it at home, whatever that looks like for you, that person is going to be the eyes that see it on a broader scale than you may be able to see it. Also, they might see the success in you that you might not even see yourself. Because maybe you've never reached this level of success. Maybe you've never had this level of income, but the coaches have worked with tons of people and watch them scale from 10 to a hundred, from 25 to 50, from one to seven. We've seen that we've been there through that process and we know what it takes. And so I am a huge proponent, not just because I'm a coach, it's because I've had a coach that has helped me get clarity in my business.

Raquel Quinet: 33:16

I love it. You recommended some books on our call today. exactly what to say. Is there any other book that you would recommend that agents should have or should read or, that has changed your life?

Elias Astuto: 33:31

there's tons. God, there's, I can go on and on about this

Raquel Quinet: 33:34

You're a reader, but if you didn't say like your top two,

Elias Astuto: 33:38

In the recent years, let's just go recent, actually, I'll go old. First off, Psycho-Cybernetics, and it's the new Psycho-Cybernetics. Psycho-Cybernetics was originally written by Maxwell Malt, but it's been revised to obviously be more adaptable to where we are in society. Psycho-Cybernetics, the power of the. 10x is easier than 2x. Really looking at the vision for your life and your business and thinking at a very large scale and saying, am I walking in my unique ability? That was one of the most amazing books for me. Atomic Habits. If you haven't read Atomic Habits, that is a book that sets the tone, I think, for everything else. Winning by Tim Grover. And then last but not least, I'm reading, The Power of Moments by Chip Heath. I'm not even done with the book. I'm not even done with the book. And I'm all about that book. I'm already doing pres I did a presentation at 6 30 in the morning about that book.

Raquel Quinet: 34:31

I love it. What's one lesson that you wish you would have known sooner, Coach Elias?

Elias Astuto: 34:38

Speak to be Speak to add value, not to be heard. think that early on in my career, it was more about me and less about them, and I learned that's when you are operating out of your egoistic mind and the moment that you remove your ego and say, how can this add value to them, then it allows you to do something that is selfless, not selfish, so speak to add value, not to be heard.

Raquel Quinet: 35:03

Love it. So what's next as we wrap up? What's next for Elias? What are you most excited about that you're working on?

Elias Astuto: 35:12

So a couple of things. So I made a goal for myself to speak at Inman this year. And I did speak at Inman this year and then I got asked to speak again at Inman in just a couple weeks. And so this time I'm going to be on the main stage. And so I told myself that I was going to be on the main stage. I'm not by myself, but I'm with the guy and the owner of Estate Media, which is pretty cool. Cause I met him when I was there, we hit it off. So I'm excited about that. I'm excited about some traveling, some upcoming events that we're going to, and things like that. But I'm excited to see this company, despite market conditions, despite the noise and the racket of our industry right now, we're at 93 pending units and we have 88 coming soons and listings. It's the highest amount of production that we've had in over a year and a half. And we're doing that with 40 percent less agents that we had at the height of our growth. There was a time that we had 370 agents and we are now at a lean 205. So I'd be able to produce the same type of results, if not more, with a leaner staff, with people that are truly engaged in our environment and still end up being number one, not only in our state to get that number one spot in the world for over 90, 000 people at our brokerage.

Raquel Quinet: 36:31

Congratulations. You guys have worked really hard and you guys constantly pivot to just not let the noise or the market dictate your success. And I'm so proud of you guys. So as we wrap up, there's always one question that I ask every single guest on the show is what does Elias do to play bigger in business or in life?

Elias Astuto: 36:52

Yeah, I think allowing myself the space to be able to learn and to grow still. Every single Monday I'm on two hours of Masterminds. Any training that I can go to, I'm a part of. I'm now hosting the marketing meetings for the Association of Realtors in Berkeley. I love it. Play bigger by always being a student, putting myself in bigger rooms. If I'm on a mastermind with 500 people, I'm going to raise my hand. And now I might not know exactly what to say, and I might be a little scared, but I'm always the person that says, move, get out of the way, I'll step in. And that's who I will always be. And that's how I look at myself playing bigger, right? If you're on calls, if you're on Zooms and your camera's off and you're just listening to it in the background and you're not an active participant in the moment, I don't believe that you're playing bigger. There's not a time where I would do a meeting without my camera on, without my mic on, without my light on, and I'm ready to not only receive, but to also contribute. And so that's how I'm going to play bigger. I'm going to continue to play bigger, with. In business by showing up and being a student. Also being able to be, a present father and a present husband. all the accolades are great and all the success is great, but when I'm home. I'm home with my family. I'm not on my phone. If there's an emergency, someone will call me. But I've built my life and my schedule to where when I'm done with work for the day, I'm done with work and I'm here and I'm present with my family, and we can go to Yosemite for the day and we can hike around. And I'm not stressing. And so I play bigger for them because they deserve to have me and they deserve to have my undivided.

Raquel Quinet: 38:25

Elias, you always drop a ton of nuggets and you always continue to show up. And I want to see you continue to show up in our industry in the way that you do because you're going to impact so many, many, many, many agents and people around you, like you already have. So continue to play bigger, my friend, and I can't wait to have you again on our show. And we'll see when that is.

Elias Astuto: 38:47

I love it. I love it. Well, I appreciate you more than, you know, as, as a friend, as a coach. And I consider you and Brad family and the kids. And so I just thank you for allowing me to be here and thank you for everything you do for our industry.

Raquel Quinet: 39:02

Same, same, same. Ditto.