Gravitating People to You with Ken Joslin

Welcome to True Grit and Grace, a podcast designed to empower you to claim your resilience and thrive through life's challenges. I am Amberly Lago, a mindset coach, fitness expert, and bestselling author. Each week, I'll dive deep with the world's brightest thought leaders and elite performers to share tangible tools and practical advice to inspire you to keep your eyes on the prize and forge ahead. So get ready to conquer your fears, heal any trauma, lead with your heart, and elevate your life with grit and grace.

Hey, y'all, it's Amberly. I'm so grateful that you tuned in to the show today because I have one of my dear friends on, somebody that I love. He's an incredible entrepreneur. He's an incredible father. Had a chance to meet his sweet daughter, Emma Kate, who's amazing too. But I have Ken Joslin with us here. He is CEO of the Ken Joslin Team and the Grow Stack Drive brand. He's a 10X Master Coach, Grant Cardone licensee, a real estate professional. He is a driven leader who has closed over $250 million in real estate transactions. He's planted multiple churches, mentored hundreds. He's passionate about helping business leaders build confidence, gain clarity, and create community. So we're going to talk a lot about that today. But more than that, he is a good— just a good guy that I love and feel so grateful to have in my life. So Ken, Thank you so much for, for being here. I'm so grateful to— I always love seeing your face, so thank you for being here.

Thank you. Honored, number one. Number two, I don't know how I follow that up. That's probably the best introduction I've ever had.

Oh well, it's true. You know, you go— ever since we met, and I was trying to think, did we meet on Clubhouse? Is that how we met?

It was. Yeah, it was on Clubhouse, I think, with Greg Reed and some of the— some of our kind of clan, that our tribe that we kind of hang out with, community.

Yeah, I think that's how we met. And then, I don't know, it was just, just such an instant connection. I love all that you, all that you share, but, and the good person that you are. And, and I have to just say, y'all, when I was sicker than a dog with COVID you sent me, you and Emma Kate sent me a video message, and that just lifted my spirits so much. And that's the kind of person you are. You want to see people grow and you help them grow. And I had the honor of speaking your group. I got to go into your mastermind and the people that you attract. I mean, look, I've spoken at a lot of different people's masterminds and sometimes you go into that group and people have their screens turned off. They're not really there, man. Your group is—

They're engaged.

Fire. They're engaged. They're eager to learn. And it just shows the kind of people that you attract into your life. So, but before we get into a little bit more business stuff because I got a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to the show and a lot of people that want to know how to be a better leader and build, build their confidence and get rid of limiting beliefs. I've got those, believe me. I want to learn from you too. Oh my goodness, man. I, I just posted something about that on, on Instagram today because I noticed that soundtrack in my head of limiting beliefs. But you've been in this space for a long time, but lately you are freaking blowing up. I mean, you so graciously invited me to come to speak at your mastermind that's coming up here really soon, um, January 27th, 28th. And you've got some big-time leaders coming. First of all, I, I want you to tell people exactly how you got to be from this pastor and successful, you know, you're in the real estate industry and doing great things, but now you're like This momentum that you've created and the people that you're hanging with blows me away. Take me back to how you started this transition from going to where you were successful, but to now you're like booming.

Yeah. So the last 25 years, um, I spent half of that in full-time vocational ministry, pastoring churches, planting churches. Uh, and then in between segments of 4 to 5 to 6 years, I spent time, uh, 2001 to about 2008, '09, um, one of the top mortgage brokers in the state of Georgia, 14 LOs, 2 locations, number 1 wholesale broker with SunTrust and Countrywide on the wholesale side, 4 years in a row. I think it was 4 years in a row. It was a lot back then.

That's amazing.

Yeah, doing mortgages was fun. I enjoyed it. I still knew God had something different. It's funny, I tell this story all the time. I think it may be in my book, but we did— we opened my office in Columbus, Georgia. I hired the number 1 originator for SunTrust. She was closing about 20 deals a month on her own. She was a machine. And we did the whole— it was a Tuesday night. We did the whole ribbon cutting with the Chamber of Commerce, about 125 agents come visit our mortgage office. And I remember when everybody went home that day, I was sitting at my desk and I cried because I knew it wasn't what God had for me. And I knew it wasn't what I was supposed to be doing. And I know you've got entrepreneurs that are like, why would you? But I just knew. I was like, I knew, okay, God, you've got something else for me. I know this. And literally this was July of '07. By January of '08, 6, 7 months later, literally the housing market fell apart.

Yeah.

And I knew— so literally 2 years later, I planted a church, started it with a, you know, a couple friends, and we grew it to several hundred people. And then we were there for about 6 years doing that and then moved from Georgia to Birmingham, Alabama because of a health issue with my daughter, my 22-year-old, who was in school here in Birmingham. So we did that. So half of that full-time ministry, planting churches, pastoring churches, the other half in real estate. Now I'm a real estate agent with eXp. I've got teams in Atlanta and the Birmingham, Alabama area. So, and we're doing, yeah, we're doing this whole thing called GSD, Grow Stack Drive.

We started— I thought that meant get shit done.

It does. It really does. But it sounds, it doesn't look good on a step and repeat banner behind you. Uh, Grow Stack Drive.

Or being a pastor. Look, I grew up in Texas in the Bible Belt where, you know, you don't cuss, you don't— but I'm like, sometimes you just really gotta remind yourself, you gotta get shit done. Hey, look what I also forgot. Yeah, look what I have here.

My book. Come on, girl, I see that. Yeah, I see that book. Yeah.

Yes, I— as soon as your book came out, I got it because As the Leader Grows: Helping Leaders Build Confidence, Gain Clarity, and Create Community— man, that is so important. How did you start to get the clarity for what you wanted to do?

Yeah, well, that's a great question. Clarity is Is those 3 components, confidence, clarity, and community, are really the 3 things that drive us as entrepreneurs. They drive us as human beings. It's the way God wired and created us. Clarity really is vision. And from clarity comes, or from understanding limiting beliefs and mindset is really how we begin to develop clarity. And clarity is being able to see the picture clear. Like, what's the picture my heart's painting? Like, what's the vision for my life? What's the vision for my family? What's the vision for my company or my organization or My team, even if I'm not an entrepreneur or CEO, maybe I'm working for another company and I've got a team. Like, what's the vision for my team? And so clarity really is all about— the way we teach clarity in one of my courses is we use our 5 GSD core— they're core values for my company: passion, focus, intentionality, teachability, flexibility. Passion is how we attack our goals. It's how we dominate our goals. Focus is how we dominate our calendar. How do I squeeze every ounce of potential out of every single day? Intentionality. We're intentional in how we communicate with the people on our team and with our clients. Teachability. We're not only open to feedback, but we actively pursue feedback. And then the last one is flexibility. We live in a fluid world. We are open to and embrace change. We're constantly looking for what's the next thing to change. So those core values, or GSD code filters as we call them in my course, we use those and we teach people how to create a plan for your life and for your business, basically personally, professionally. And financially.

Yeah, I think that clarity is so important. I mean, it's like if you don't have that, it's like getting in the car but not knowing where you're going. How are you going to get there?

You have no idea. What's my destination? Where am I going? So many people get up every single morning and have no idea what they're doing with their day because they're not in touch with really the way God designed us as creators and entrepreneurs. It's like, what is in my heart? And a lot of that's from past experience, whether it be Things people have done to you, things you've done to yourself, all of those kind of things which really build that, that, that bed or structure of limiting beliefs in our mind, like fear, scarcity, insecurity, shame, success, and comparison. Those are the 6 I talk about a lot. And so when you struggle with those limiting beliefs, the definition of limiting belief, Amberly, is this: it's something that prohibits you from seeing the potential of your future.

Yeah. Well, what do you do when you've got those limiting beliefs that pop up, when you've got that soundtrack in your head? Because what I noticed for me is, you know, I, I have a morning ritual, I have a nightly ritual, I do things during the day to stay grounded, and I try to work on my emotional resilience. But man, sometimes you can have something pop up that just knocks it right out of you where you're like, All of a sudden, that soundtrack of, I'm not worthy enough, why did— what— who do I think I am? How can I go get on that stage? Those people are way better than me. Like, that soundtrack starts to go and go and go when you have any kind of limiting belief. Do you have limiting beliefs pop up?

All the time.

Okay, thank you.

Every level— in every level you get to, every level you go to. I was on the phone yesterday with one of my guys in my community. He's going to do $91 million across his businesses this year.

Dang.

$91 million. It's unbelievable. And you would never have any idea this guy. He told me, he calls me Kenny, and he goes, Kenny, that's a big deal getting John Maxwell to come to your conference. He goes, that's next level. You know, anytime you go to the next level, anytime you level up, those limiting beliefs that you struggle with in the past that you— we teach people to identify, remove, and replace. Like, what's the limiting belief? Like, name it. Is it insecurity? Is it fear? Is it comparison? Is it shame from something you've done in the past? Listen, guilt says I did something wrong. Shame says I am wrong. Like there's something wrong with me. But he said, Kenny, he said, it's a way to level up. You got John Maxwell. That's next level. Every level we climb to in our business, our personal or professional life, any of those things that we do, we're going to hit new limiting beliefs at the next level. So it's a constant process of growth.

Oh, it sure is. Do you do affirmations?

Oh, boom, I've got them written down right here. I don't know how many of you guys are watching this on the— I don't know how many of you guys are watching this on Zoom or the video. I have—

Yeah, people see this on, on YouTube and listening to it. But so for those that are listening on the podcast, I want to hear what some of your— because I just posted some affirmations today and I'm curious. You did? I'm curious to see what you shared for your affirmations?

Yeah.

Or what you wrote down?

I have, I have 4 affirmations and my affirmations have morphed over the last year. And so as you're, it's kind of the ebb and flow of life. You know, as a pastor, obviously we talk about seasons in life. There are great seasons. There are seasons that aren't very good, but as you go through the seasons of life, again, new levels, you're going to have those same limiting beliefs are going to try to creep back in from different areas or different facets. You're at a different place in your life. It's what growth is all about. So I have 4. Number 1 is I will live a life Where my heart, head, and relationships are in alignment. I will live a life where my heart, head, and relationships are in alignment. Why is that important? This is probably the one thing I talk about a lot. My heart is where I dream. It's where I paint the picture. It's where— it's the vision. It's the catalyst of everything I do. My passion, my excitement for life, all those things come out of my heart. My head, unfortunately, is where my belief system is located. My belief system dictates how I speak. How I speak dictates how I act. How I act dictates my legacy and what's going on in my future. So if my belief system is not in line with my heart, I'm not going to— those limiting beliefs we've been talking about— I'm not going to be able to see the things in my heart come to pass. They're just not going to because I'm thinking, saying, and doing things contrary to what's in my heart. And so When we get those 2 things in alignment— so that used to— when I first started doing this affirmation a year ago, it was simply, I will live a life where my heart and my head are in alignment. That was it. It stopped once I started seeing my heart and my head come in alignment and things started— you asked me, how have you grown? How have you— people ask me this all the time. How are you doing? This is my— this will be my 5th or 6th event in the last year. This is going to be— this event we're bringing to Atlanta is the number one entrepreneur conference in the Southeast, in Atlanta. And we brought in speakers that are out of this world. But how did I do that? By getting my heart and my head in alignment. What happens is then now I start seeing the vision come to pass. Now the picture that I'm painting for my life starts coming to pass and you're like, whoa. And it's like faith. The more you see that come to pass, the bigger you dream. The bigger you dream, the more you work on limiting beliefs, the more your thoughts, talk, and actions get in alignment, the more those things start coming to pass. And then what happens is the next stage, and this probably happened to me in the last 6 months was I started seeing relationships come in alignment.

Yeah.

Because now you're doing things you've never done before. Relationships like with you. And we didn't have it. I didn't know you. We got on a Clubhouse room, then we jumped on a call. I had you on my podcast. We connected. And there was an instant connection for you and I. So heart, head, and relationships. And when you start getting the heart and the head in alignment, those relationships, the people that you need to be in your life in order to help you fulfill the mission or the purpose or the vision or the whatever you want to call it, those relationships will start coming into play once you get your heart and your head in alignment.

Oh yeah. And you know what? I do believe in getting that in alignment. And a lot of times I have to remind myself, oh, Amberly, get out of my head, stay in my heart, stay in my heart. Whether that's actually anything I do, you know, yes, it needs to be in alignment, but man, my head, my thoughts can take over. Do you believe that if you, um, say some affirmations that you don't necessarily believe, that if you say them enough that you'll start to believe it?

Of course you will. There's, there's, there's science that proves the neuroplasticity. We literally rewire our brain. So that's one of mine. One of my— another one is, I, I am enough because I am his child. Every one of us struggle with insecurity or some kind of self-doubt. So I am enough because I am his child. I'm a Christ follower, obviously, as a former pastor. The third one is I have a millionaire mindset. The fourth one is I am whole. I choose to use past pain to help others find healing.

Wait, what was the last one?

I am whole. I choose to use my past pain to help others find healing.

Yes, I love that.

Yeah, when I go through something, I know, okay, there's a reason that I'm going through this. Maybe my own responsibility, maybe someone else's responsibility. But I know scripture says God works all things together for those who are good and called according to his purpose. I know there's a reason I may— I'm going through this, and there's going to be someone down the road that I can help with the information and the experience that I had. So those are my 4 affirmations.

I love that. That's probably one of the reasons we connected so much is because I really love the way you think. And I think that sometimes when we're in a tough situation, we're going through something that seems so hard that we don't often see that it can be a blessing or a lesson in that time. But I have trained my mind so much to even— my daughter and I got hit by a car a year ago this month, head-on, riding our Razors almost through the crosswalk, got taken out. Thankfully, we were both thrown and not rolled over. And in the back of the ambulance, I immediately thought— I wasn't thinking, oh, why me? This sucks. What I was thinking, okay, what can I do? What, what can I learn from this? What did I not learn from the other 2 times I've been hit by a car that I need to learn now? And then I was like, maybe I should look both ways. No, but it was a crosswalk. It was fine. But, um, I immediately trained my, my brain to think, okay, how can I learn? What can I learn from this? What can I do next? And I think that's part of being resilient is being able to be flexible and teachable and bend and not Break instead of thinking, oh, I'm just broken, I'm broke, thinking, nope, I can bend a little bit, but I'm resilient and I can get through this. I wanted to ask you though, like, I know you're buddies with— well, you're a Grant Cardone licensee, and there's a lot of people that either love him or just don't like him. I personally love him. I think he's great.

Yeah.

I am a big fan. I love what he does. I love his personality. I like You know, hearing him on Clubhouse too. I haven't been on Clubhouse in a while, but how did you get connected with Grant?

Yeah, so long story short, um, October of 2019, I saw an Instagram ad pop up with this guy named Grant Cardone. And I don't get around too many people have more energy than I do. I don't get around too many people that have more passion than I do. When I saw that Instagram, I'm like, who in the world is this guy? I never heard of him before, didn't know anything about 10X, anything. Literally from that point, a week and a half later, I'm on a webinar that he did on mentorship. 2 days later, I'm in the mentorship. 5 days later, I'm in Miami at 10X Bootcamp. I invested about, I don't know, $6,000 or $7,000 like that. And once I got in the ecosystem, it was a game changer for me. I told Grant— I mean, I've spoken at 10X for Grant several times. I've been in the office. I've done a lot of things. I've had several one-on-one conversations with Grant. He's been huge. For me. He's been a huge supporter. Jared, the team, Sherri, everybody have been, they've been huge for me. Brandon Dawson. I told him, I said, the first time I spoke in there was December 9th. It was just 2 months later because my business blew up. I literally, real estate agent, I was working 15 hours a week. I was bored. I was making about $10,000, $12,000 a month. I mean, that's making $150,000 a year working 10 hours, 15 hours a week. I was umpiring college baseball, refereeing college basketball. There was no drive, no passion. And my business literally blew up. I closed— I made $129,000 the last 6 weeks of 2019, which was more than I'd made in the previous 10 months by about $10,000. And I literally, I went down there and this is what I told Grant. I said, Grant, I said, when I went to 10X Bootcamp, it was like the businessman on the inside of me got born again. Like something just clicked. And I would say this, that I posted this this week on my Instagram page. So You know, we're a couple, a month or so away, so we're in the beginning of December if you want to go back and look at it. It's a video about Grant Cardone, and I— it's, you know, the team that does it, that does all Bradley stuff, dude, does mine as well.

Oh, I listened to your interview with Bradley. Yes, and I saw Brad's, and I saw your post. Holy moly, he— Bradley, I love him, by the way. Oh man, was he drilling you about the Bible.

And oh, he was. Oh, we had fun, man. I love, I love Brad. I talked to him yesterday. Um, I love Brad. I love, I love his— and he— and Brad's another guy, he really cares for people. Like, oh, I know he comes—

he has got an incredible heart.

Yeah. As a matter of fact, here's what I'll do right here for you. This is really my DNA. How about we put a plug for my guy's book right here?

You got it! Wait a minute, I ordered that book. I didn't get mine yet, so you just— you got yours, so I should get mine in the mail.

Came in Saturday. Yeah, it came in Saturday. I shot I called Brad yesterday. I'm like, look what I got. Here's one of the things, and I would say on that video I had— she's a big social media influencer, big Instagram influencer. We're supposed to do a podcast. She's going to be on my podcast. She called me back and this is what she said. She goes, hey Ken, I'm sorry, but I cannot be on your podcast because I just noticed that you're a Grant Cardone licensee and I don't like Grant. This was my response: well, there's things Grant does I don't like. I mean, there's things that he does that I I, I would never do. There's things that he does that I don't like, but there are, there are things. And I told her, I said this, we've got to learn to eat the fish and spit out the bones. Like, if you don't learn from people that you don't care for or that you don't like, your, your world of being able, as Brad says, get new information, it's going to be very limited.

You're— it's going to get real small. And you know what, there's something that our friend, uh, Greg Reed always says, you're going to have a lot of people with a lot of advice Think of it as grabbing a fistful of sand and what you like, let it stay in the palm of your hand and the rest, just let it fall out. And I agree with you. So my question is, did she end up being on the podcast?

She didn't. Nope. And I was, and I was fine with that, but I wanted to make sure—

That's not your people though, actually. No, exactly.

It's not my—

Like, if you can't be open-minded about things, I don't know. I just, I just feel like, you know, it's interesting. The people that, that are open-minded and they have a growth mindset and abundance mindset, you tend to eventually attract those people in your life and hang out with those people.

You know, you can learn— and Brad and I had a long conversation about this— you can learn. This was actually the clip from the video was from the podcast.

I saw that, by the way. I mean, I'm a stalker. I stalk you, by the way.

You're good. You can learn from anybody. I mean, you can, you literally could go back through history and learn from Hitler. You could, there's things you can pull from some of the most wretched people that's ever lived. There's things you can pull and put in your tool belt, even if it's, hey, this is, I'll never do this. Like I tell people all the time, my parents got divorced when I was 8. Mom, we moved from Detroit, we moved to Georgia. I moved back and forth 6 times. I went to 12 schools in 12 years. I didn't have a great relationship growing up with my father, but I'm a great dad.

You are such a good dad. I see you.

I appreciate that. I looked at some of the things that I didn't have and I said, you know what, this is— I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to repeat this mistake. So you can learn. There's things that Grant does that I don't like that I go, okay, we're going to do this different because it's my DNA. I'm just— we're wired different. But to shut an avenue off for new information so you can learn and grow Is, is— I think it's— I just don't think it's wise.

No, I agree. And you know, there's something that you've said, you know, we've talked about Grant and Brad and, and 2 people I really admire. And, and Brad is such a good guy, man. He's got a good heart and he is funny as all get out. I mean, he cracks me up. But that interview that y'all did was hilarious. I was like, okay, he's just gonna talk about God and what do you call Jesus in the Bible all day long. When do you get to get to the business stuff, Brad? Right. I was I love how he loves to learn. He really like wants to learn.

He is a sponge. He literally— and he talks about new information all the time. He literally is a sponge. And he is, um, he's an amazing human being.

Yeah, he is. So Brad, I hope you're listening to this.

Give you a shout out, homie.

But you know what, the, the thing that I see you do, um, and I think it's so important in business or in relationships or just to, to be the best version of yourself Is you put yourself with people who are paving the way to success. You're like, who is this guy? I want to learn from him. You invested in yourself so you could surround yourself with those kind of people, and that has just inspired you. Now you've taken action. Now you have your own community of people. That's something that I'm passionate about too, is, um, helping other leaders get from point A to point B faster. with their clarity, with their confidence, um, by building community. And something that I love that you do is you have really built a great community of people that you're helping. And I see that in the, in the group of people I— because you've brought me into your group, I have made friends with some of the people from—

I think our people love you more than they love me sometimes.

No, no, they don't. But I do love I love the people that you've brought together. And so how do you build your community? Because there's, there's something I remember, um, I had this conversation with someone else who had CRPS. They had been diagnosed with this nerve disease that I have, and I was telling them how grateful I was that I had a community of people after my accident, that I had people coming to see me in the hospital. And, and, you know, you really find out who your true friends are when you're going through a hard time. And she was like, well, you're lucky you had a community. And I'm like, well, your hard work puts you where your blessings can find you. And this was a community that I added value to for years. Most of them were my clients that were showing up to— I mean, I needed them more than they needed me at this point. But how do you build community? So for someone who might be feeling alone, who— and as an entrepreneur, every level up, sometimes it can get a little lonely. You're like, holy crap, I'm at this next level. I don't know what I'm doing. I need to be around a community of people that understand me, that are at my level. How do you build that community? And how did you build the community that you have right now with your, you know, your Grow, Stack, Drive community?

I would say this. My good friend Gary Brecka— Gary spoke in Vegas. He'll be in Atlanta as well. Gary just sold half of his Streamline Medical Group to Grant and to Brandon. They're going to be doing 10x Health Systems. Gary works with all the A-listers around the world on their health. He's a biologist and he's got doctors that work for him. He's got clinics in like Miami and maybe like in Naples. I think it's his other one. Gary's a phenomenal human being. When he spoke at my event in Vegas, we did it at Brad's place. He said this on Saturday and it blew me away, and I was sitting there About to go up. We were doing a Q&A, about to do a Q&A with me and Brad and Gary and my buddy Josh York. And Gary said, authenticity is the highest level frequency that we communicate with as human beings. It is the most heard. It's the loudest frequency is authenticity. And he said, and it's the most sought after. It's the most sought after. And I was sitting there, it's like I felt like God spoke to me. And he goes, You're doing what you're doing to connect these people on the stage with these people in the seats. I'm a connector. That is my superpower. It's what I do. I know I've known it for 30 years. You're here to connect these people on the stage that have the answers and the encouragement and the inspiration to connect them with the entrepreneurs that are sitting in the seats. And so how do we build a community? You do it through authenticity. I'm just telling you, when you're just raw and real, and I say this a lot, when you want something for people and not something from people, people gravitate towards you. I ask people this question. When you walk into a room, do people gravitate towards you or away from you? There are 2 types of people. There are thermometers and there are thermostats. Thermometers, when you get in a room full of people, they gauge the temperature of the room. People who are thermostats have the ability to change the temperature of any room that they walk in. They have the ability when they go in and they have a conversation— you are one of these people. Gregory, Brad, Sharon Lecter, these are some of the people that we have relationship with. They're these type of people that when you go into a room and have a conversation with these people— Dave Meltzer, perfect example. That's what I told Dave on the phone a couple weeks ago. I said, Dave, every time I get in in a room with you, I don't care how many people are in the room. Number one, you make me feel like I'm the only one there. Number two, when I leave an encounter— I flew out to LA a month ago and we went to a game together in Dave's box. I said, when I left that Sunday, I felt like there was no goal or no vision that I could not conquer because I hung out with you.

Wow.

Like, when you do those things, it's easy to build community and build relationships. People want to be around you. It's this right here. When I get a text from Amberly Lago, or when your phone rings And you look at it, every single one of us can think of a handful of people that when our phone rings, we go, eh, and we decline it and we put it face down on our desk, right? But then there are those people that when they call, you're like, dude, Amberly, I can't— what is this? Carlos Reyes is another buddy of mine. When Carlos calls, I'm stoked. Anthony Trutz calls me, I'm stoked. Like, there are people when they call me, I'm fired up to answer their phone call. You want to build community and build relationships with the people that you, that you need in your life to help you fulfill what God's put in your heart. Be the kind of person that when you call somebody, they want to pick up your phone.

Oh yeah. And you know, I have to say, Ken, every time I see your name pop up on my phone, I'm always like, oh, it's a good feeling. And you know that those people in your life— I have to say, you know, I think that sometimes we have people in our life that maybe we've had them for friends for a long time, so we feel like, oh, we gotta hang, hang on to that relationship because they've been a friend for a long time. But you know, the truth is If you're growing and evolving, sometimes you outgrow relationships and it's okay to let them go. You know, it's sometimes hard, but I realize that more than ever as we are moving to Texas next week. So this podcast will come out and we'll be in Texas. Hopefully I'll be set up in my new office, but right here in my office is kind of the only thing left that's not in boxes at our house. I'm trying to make it look like—

Fun Christmas holidays.

Yeah, it's kind of crazy, but it's made me realize about community because in this short span of a few more days until we move, there are people that I'm like, oh, I have to see that person before I leave. It's not that I'm not coming back. I'll be back here in March, but it really makes you take a look at your community. And so anybody listening right now, Really think about what Ken just said. If somebody calls you and you're like, oh, you turn your phone face down, maybe that's not somebody that you need to be hanging out with all the time. Maybe you need to set some healthy boundaries on that. I love what you say about authenticity. I have people ask me all the time, Ken, I've had— You spoken at an event where there was a billionaire. I gave away a free gratitude journal at the event. He gave away a house. And I was like, wait, well, way to one-up me, dude. That's amazing.

Right.

We got to talking and he actually asked me to teach his team how to build his social media. I'm like, oh, that's not— that was like a couple of years ago. I'm like, I don't really do that. I was like, I don't really know what I'm doing. And he goes, but you have figured it out. That's why we want you to come teach our team. And down to it, if I really think about it, it is exactly what you said. It's because I am authentic. And I think that people can sense when somebody is keeping it real or not. And so it's things like even with your business, even with social media— on social media, I've taken a look at slides that are beautifully created by my graphic designer about the podcast. People skip through those. But if I get on my story and I'm like, hey, I've got Ken Joslin on the show, he is freaking amazing, you're gonna love this man, and I start telling them about it, they're like, oh well, yeah, I want to know Ken. Ken's so amazing, I want to know. So it's like just keeping it real. And I think people can feel when somebody— I don't know about you, but I can feel when somebody is—

That's what I said. I go back to, I go back to what Gary said in Vegas at my event. at the beginning of October. Authenticity is the highest frequency that we emit as human beings, like, it's— and it's the most sought after. So when you get around people, it's— I was in, I was in, um, New York City. I had a client in New Hampshire last week. We did a 2-day whiteboard session that I consult for, and then I actually brought him with me to New York City. I sat down with my good friend Craig Siegel, who's got a huge podcast. I love Craig.

His energy.

Yeah, he's crazy, dude. So I sat down with him and I sat down with Dr. Mudgil. Doc's one of the top dermapathologists. He's like one of the 5 top dermapathologists in the United States, number 1 in New York City. And we've podcasted with each other, but we've never hung out. Craig actually came to my event in Vegas, so this is the first time I got to hang out with Doc. And so I flew into New York for 5 hours just to spend time with these guys. Just that we went to Houston's, we sat down, we sat there for 4 hours, had a beer, had some bourbon. We just had a blast communicating. And when you can do that with people that are at that level, I wrote in my 10X Planner for a year and a half, this one quote, get in rooms with people who think bigger than you do. When I created my own planner, I literally put it at the bottom of the page. It's literally at the bottom of the page of my planner, of our GSD Planner that we created, because it's so huge. You've got to position yourself around people who are doing more than you're doing. When you do that, literally, One idea that Grant Cardone gave me on a $3 million purchase, the first time that— literally the first time I had a conversation with him, it was— you have to— it's a long story. Anyway, we were able to close on a $3 million building, made $72,720 3 days after I had the conversation with Grant. I never would've been able to do that. And I've done $200— I'm close to probably $300 million in real estate now.

Wow.

at that time was probably 200 to 225. I've been doing it for a long time. I just didn't even have the ability to think at the level when it comes to commercial real estate the way that he does. And just by getting in the room and doing a Q&A and grabbing a microphone and go, Grant, here's my deal, here's what I got going on, what would you do? Ken, I would do this.

Okay, that's what I'm gonna do.

So, game changer.

Yeah, it's so important. And you know what, I have from the time I was 13 years old and paid to be— I mean, I had to come up with the money to pay to be in a teacher training program because I wanted to be a dance teacher. And so I wanted to learn from this, you know, the owner of the dance studio. It was the best money ever spent because it does— didn't just teach me how to be a dance teacher, taught me life lessons, taught me business lessons that I still carry with me to this day. When I became a fitness trainer, I hired a mentor. I went to school. I think it's so important to have a mentor, have a coach. Look, I'm a coach and I have a coach. I have a mastermind and I'm in a mastermind. I think when you want to level up, like you said, you've got to get in the rooms with people who think really big, think outside of the box, and have somebody in your life that you can talk to about stuff because I mean, I've, I've, I've got a coach I, I just started with this past year, Mitch Matthews, who I love. He's been on the podcast too. Incredible man. But also, if I have a big business decision, I call Greg Reed and I'm like, Greg, what would you do? You gotta have people in your life that think big, that have already done the things that you wanna do. I think that's so important, which brings us to my next question is I wanted to talk a little bit about this event that you're having that I really wanted to be there so bad. I don't know if I've ever had FOMO, uh, this bad. And I know you're not supposed to have FOMO, you know, I know you're not supposed to, but I have to be— keep it real with you and say that I really want to be there in January. You're going to be in Atlanta. You're going to be around some of my favorite people. Holy cow, tell me who all is going to be there because the last time I looked the landing page, I was like, he's added more people. I really want to be there. Tell us what it's about.

Yeah, so Create is designed to not only be the number one entrepreneur conference in the Southeast, but it's something really— it's a vision that kind of combines the old Catalyst conference that John and them used to do in Atlanta, a little bit of GrowthCon that Grant does, and really our, our GSD community. It really is about building confidence, gaining clarity, and creating community the entire weekend. We just landed, um, John Maxwell. John's been a friend and a mentor for 20-some-odd years now. One of my best friends worked with John for a long time. So we landed John Maxwell. We've got Nicole Arbor coming in. Nicole is phenomenal, huge social media presence, comedian. Jesse Itzler.

Nicole's gonna— oh my gosh, and Jesse, oh, I'm dying.

All right, it's gonna be amazing. Yeah, Jesse was my favorite speaker at Growth Con last year. Absolutely.

He is my favorite. I don't— I mean, he is one of my all-time favorite speakers, and I think again it's because he is so authentic. He keeps it real. I love him. And I don't know if you follow him on TikTok, but I could just stalk his TikTok too. But you've got some incredible people coming. Is Anthony Trucks going?

Anthony Trucks is coming. Dave Meltzer is coming. I've got some guys coming that a lot of people— they're not household names. Brent Gove is one of those. Brent's a really good friend of mine. He's probably the 3rd level agent in eXp. He was one of the first guys that helped start. He has 25,000 agents under him. He's making about $1 million a month right now in residual income from eXp. He just did his own conference in Dallas in August with Tony Robbins. He had Tony come in and do the last 4 hours of that. I mean, he's big. I'm a guy that is not a household name, but I'm telling you, when he comes in, it— he will bring the house down. Ivan Hands. Ivan is another buddy of mine. Um, Ivan is, uh, Inc. 150 3 years in a row, about to be 4 years in a row, which means your business has to maintain that growth spurt 4 years in a row.

Wow.

He's got, he's got 5 businesses on 3 continents. Huge philanthropist. He's got a whole— which is really what he focuses on now. He has CEOs over every one of his companies. He manages those guys and the boards. And really his heart is clean water around the world and affordable housing around the world. He's coming in to speak. He's going to speak to a group of entrepreneurs in Atlanta about, okay, now you're making money. What do I do with it? What's the purpose behind my profit? That's going to be his whole talk in Atlanta. It's just, it really does have a different feel. The DNA is going to be a little different than Catalyst or a GrowthCon or another event. It really is going to have our feel. And there's going to be some unbelievable, unbelievable communicators there. We've even got some young communicators. It's one of the things I wanted to do. I want to make some space for some young cats who are coaching, who are building businesses. I've got a guy, Russ Yeager, is a friend of mine. He's a big 10X guy. They did about $1.5 million in his personal fitness in Atlanta this year. I mean, it went from like several, you know, multiple 6 figures to over 7 figures in about a year and a half. He's going to come in and share, this is how I did this. This is for the average Joe that's trying to get their business from, you know, $200 grand to $500 grand over that 7-figure mark. You're going to be able to learn from somebody that literally just did it. You may have never heard his name, but he's going to be able to walk you through the process. that he did with his team on how to take your business from, you know, multiple 6 figures into the 7-figure range.

Okay, well, tell me one thing. Is this going to be the first of many of these?

Yes. Okay, we're changing kind of our format a little bit. So we'll be doing Create, number one entrepreneur conference in the Southeast, every January, um, in Atlanta. We're doing it at the FaZe Comet Center in Alpharetta. Phenomenal environment, 65-foot LED panel wall, all the light. I've got a live band coming in for the 2 and a half days.

I know you do. Now, does this mean I'm gonna have to wait a whole other year to come?

It depends on if we can squeeze you in. It doesn't mean you have to fly in and fly out, girl. Thursday night, Thursday night, we're doing, uh, we're doing a fundraising dinner for my good friend David Pollack, who's on ESPN's College GameDay, the most watched show on ESPN. Uh, Davey's a really good friend, been friends for 10 or 12 years. Uh, Hugh Jackson, the former NFL coach for the Raiders and the Browns. We're doing a fundraising dinner for both of their foundations. We've got Celebrities, athletes coming in. I've got one of the top barbecue guys in the world.

Well, that's the reason I was gonna come is because of the barbecue.

John Maxwell's doing a 30-minute keynote for Thursday night.

Wow, it sounds amazing.

It's gonna be incredible.

Yeah, it sounds amazing. I was like, oh, my best friend's wedding or go? I'm like—

No, you better go to the wedding. That's not, that's not an option.

I know. Okay, so before we go, if you can give us one tip for people who— all this sounds great, like, yeah, I want to go to this, I want to start doing bigger things, but I just don't have the confidence to put myself out there, to get in those rooms, to start relationships or conversations. What would you say to someone who really needs to, like, build their confidence I would say this.

There are 3 spheres of influence or relationships that you need to have. Number one's community. We talked about it earlier. Community is that large group that you travel with. Seth Godin wrote a book called Tribes. You've got to find your community. That's number one. Number 2 is your circle. Your circle of the 10 or 12 people you spend the most time with. Who are they? Look at their lives. You've heard it said, if I hang out with 5 millionaires, I'll be the 5th. If I hang out with 5 broke people, I'll be the 6th. What does your circle look like? The 10, 12 people that you spend the most time with. That last sphere is your corner. Who are the 1 or 2 people that know everything about you? Who's the Greg Reed? You just said Greg's name again. I— one of the main reasons I am where I am is I sat in Greg's living room April of 2020 during COVID and had a 2-hour conversation with Greg. I'll never forget, I broke out my 10X planner and he said this, he goes, We're just 2 friends. You don't need to take notes. We're just 2 friends having a conversation. He goes, I'll have my assistant type you up an email of everything we talked today.

Oh my God. Well, Shannon— was it Shannon?

Yeah, it was Shannon. She's great. Yeah, Shannon's fantastic. But you've got to have community, circle, corner, and you have to— and you have to believe enough in yourself to invest. If it's your community, if it's my community, if it's 10X, if it's Anthony's Shift Community, Whatever you have to find, and then you have to plant yourself inside community. Because here's why. When you're in a healthy community, accountability should feel like encouragement. When you're in a healthy—

Mic drop.

Community, y'all, I'm telling you, accountability should feel like encouragement. Somebody should be able to pick the phone up and go, Amberly, hey, are you in the gym today? Hey, Ken, are you getting this done today? Ken, you, you made a commitment to get this many calls in a day. You get 125 calls in a day. Like, you should be in a community of people who are constantly holding you accountable to the goals and the dreams that you set.

And oh yeah, and that's a huge part, huge part. And it is a different community as well, depending on whether it's your— I mean, I have a community I call my God Squad, right? And every single day we share a text with a gratitude list, and every day that's our check-in with each other. You know, are you making— are you, are you doing your gratitude list? Are you connecting with God every day? And we call ourselves the God Squad. I have a community of people in business and we have a text thread and we're checking on each other. And it is that accountability is key. And you know what, I think sometimes to build that courage too, you just got to take action and do things, do things scared. I mean, there's plenty of things that I've done scared. And after you do it, it starts to build up your confidence a little bit, but it's like just taking that action.

Too many people wait to get in action and to get in motion. I heard Sharon Lecter say this. I spoke at an event with her and Tim Storey, Coach Burt, last year, year and a half ago. And I heard Sharon say, it was the most profound thing I had that I heard all of 2020 or 2021. She said this, she said, you don't need magic, you need motion. You don't need magic, you need motion. The magic happens when you get in motion.

Oh, I love that. Well, I love Sharon.

So good, so good. And she's, she's— I mean, she's only written more financial books than any other woman in the history of the planet. So, I mean, she's—

Oh my gosh, yeah, she, she's legendary. And again, I have Greg Reed to thank for connecting me with her when I spoke at Secret Knock. So I'm going to hold up your book again for all of you that are watching on YouTube.

I'll be at Secret Knock this year, by the way.

Oh, you will?

Good.

I'll see you there. We'll be sharing the stage together.

I can't wait. We're gonna have a blast.

Yeah. Oh, awesome. So as the leader grows, Ken, right here, tell us where people can find information about your event, your book. Y'all follow him on Instagram @kenjoslin because we didn't even get to the part where you weighed over 300 pounds and you've lost all this weight and turned into Like this, this fit guy. So go check him out.

For all of you guys watching this on, on, uh, there's, there's a before and after.

I saw, I saw.

I love that. And I'm not done. I'm not done.

You're, you're amazing. But I love how you share your journey and you were like, oh, I didn't know I was over 300 pounds. I got to do something about this. So check him out if you want some motivation and business tips. And just want to feel good, @KenJoslin on Instagram. But tell us where they can find you if they want to go to your event that's coming up.

GrowStackDrive.com. There's right over my shoulder if you can't see that. Grow, G-R-O-W, Stack, S-T-A-C-K, Drive, D-R-I-V-E.com/Atlanta. GrowStackDrive.com/Atlanta. Follow me on Instagram again, @KenJoslin. I think it's— I'm not sure what it is on TikTok. TikTok. It's— I had a TikTok video go viral the other day, by the way. That was crazy.

Wait, first time that's happened. Really? I gotta make sure I'm following you on TikTok. I'm not there enough, but I'm— you've motivated me to get there.

70, 60 or 70,000 views. Oh, it's over that now. I had 326 people follow me this morning, so— oh, we're at 75,000 views now. It just went—

Yeah, it's crazy. Do you know the first TikTok video that I posted? I got on TikTok because my daughter told me I was too old to be on TikTok. And I get on TikTok and it has 600,000 views.

Wow.

I am not kidding.

That's crazy.

Yeah, it's crazy. But it was just going, you know what, I don't care. I'm just gonna show up here and you never know. But I appreciate you. You guys, there's so many nuggets of pure wisdom and gold that you shared here. Y'all take a screenshot and either if you're listening on iTunes, I mean, Spotify, whatever you're listening to, or you're watching the video, take a screenshot. Make sure you share something that you learned or that really stood out to you and tag us @KenJocelyn and tag me @AmberlyLagoMotivation so we can see it. And then I'll share that in my story. That's one way that I've built community is I love connecting with people through social media. So when you tag me and I see it, I will share it on my story. Thank you for tuning in. Ken, you're amazing. I'm excited about your event. I'm excited about seeing you in person again soon at Secret Knock. And so thank you for being here. Thank you.

Thanks so much for joining us this week on True Grit and Grace Podcast. If you like it, please rate it or share it with your friends. That would help too. If you're not yet on the newsletter list, come over to AmberlyLago.com and jump on it. While you're there, you can grab a free downloadable gratitude journal, and you might just want to check out my book or even check out my monthly motivational membership. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next week.