Ep. 178- Rick Warner's Real Estate Journey Through Neuroscience, Recovery, and Mentorship

All right everybody, welcome back to another incredibly deep diving, awesome, inspiring, purpose-driven podcast. Today, as you know, we're hanging out with Rick, and as you heard in the interview, not only is he a real estate expert, but he also has been taking deep dives down into the world of neurology and personal development. So I'm very much looking forward to hanging out with you today, Rick.

Thank you, Jason. I'm super happy to be here. And as I was saying to you before the show, your resume is so packed. I'm just— I'm fascinated. I want to learn more about you. So I'm excited about just the conversation we're going to have today, right?

Absolutely. And it's funny the way that you started that. And we're, you know, we have permission to flip stuff back on each other during this conversation. You know, this never was supposed to happen. This was never supposed to to be a platform for me. Being a therapist was never supposed to be a platform for me. Um, I had a 1.8 GPA in high school.

I did too.

What?

You're the same GPA? We should start a club.

We should.

I've never heard anybody else say that with so much pride. I say, oh wow, hey, look at you. No.

Yeah, so I'll give you two other names that are in the club with us.

Okay.

Ed Mylett.

Oh, okay.

Who I'm sure you're familiar with.

I'm very—

yeah, amazing, amazing speaker and inside person. And Jesse Itzler.

Who's— now remind me, who's that?

Isler, playfully would be known as the husband of Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx. But he has his own, uh, coaching community called Build Your Life Resume. He's right, um, he owned Marquee Jets. He wrote the book Living with a SEAL, which is where David Goggins first got introduced to the world.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Now I know.

Now part owner of the Hawks, you know.

So he's one— he's one point— he said, okay, well, dude, we've got some pretty good company there.

We have some great company. In fact, I'll recommend to you and to the listeners, it's one of my favorite Ed Mylett episodes, was where he was interviewing Jesse about— and then they both also had this realization about their GPAs. So we're in good— we're in good—

oh man, I feel so much better.

Really incredible.

It's funny because, you know, the, the schooling system, which is great— my mom was a retire— is a retired school teacher, my stepdad, my sister's a teacher. Like I have high value. I was on the school board. I have nothing but respect for the school system. They're doing the best they can with what they can work with. I did not fit in their system. That's really at the end of the day, that's what I've kind of come to that conclusion. And, and, you know, but to be honest, I mean, you know, to kind of dive into it, that definitely created a lot of shame for me, too. Right. And not fitting in and not knowing where I belong and what's wrong with me. A lot of those A lot of those kind of conversations I can definitely track back, and I still— I'm still working on how do I kind of undo some of that thought process.

Do you remember those moments? Like, I mean, you know, you and I are not as kid-like as we used to be in some ways, at least age chronologically, but personality we might be.

Yeah.

But do you remember those first moments where you started seeing yourself as different or other, where it kind of is like, huh, that doesn't—

yeah, it doesn't.

Yeah. Yeah.

I remember early on just being like, I have no idea what's going on here. This is such a struggle for me to grasp just really basic stuff. Reading. I didn't want to have to do anything with book reports, anything required concentration or— and then, yeah. And then, you know, my mom having been a schoolteacher, it was so paramount for her that I do well in school. She knew the value of education, all that stuff. And as a— she was a young person trying to just be a parent. She's got no idea what she's doing. And so her best way of managing that was not that effective is the nicest way to say it. I'm— and I say it that way because I know she was totally doing the best she could. But we're— and it ended up with me feeling like I'm not enough, basically. And that was when you're, you know, I think when you're that age and you're hearing that story, it starts to be very believable. There's nobody else, especially when— I mean, I'm 54, so I was born in 1969. So this is the '70s and the, in the early '80s where there wasn't counseling, there wasn't therapy, or it's not that it wasn't there, but it wasn't It wasn't the therapy and counseling of today. Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, it was. In fact, I think ultimately it did lead to— not that I'm that— I didn't become a drug addict and alcoholic as a result of my mom or not feeling enough or not. But it certainly was when I finally did get in front of alcohol and drugs. I'm like, oh, this is such a relief. You know, to just feel better. Like, I just wanted to feel okay, you know?

Yeah. Well, I know that ties into— and we might ping pong off a few different things, not in order. But you and I were talking a little bit about both of our love of neurology, especially as it relates to, to self-help. And one of the modalities that I'm certified in that I'm— I absolutely love is neuro-emotional technique. And it actually came out originally, started in your neck of the woods on the West Coast, but in Carlsbad, San Diego area. And Dr. Walker, who's chiropractor who— guys, if you've already heard this from me on previous episodes, forgive me, but this is for my benefit.

This is my benefit.

But if you haven't heard this—

personal podcast.

Exactly. It's just me and you, man. So Ray started off as a chiropractor who was trying to figure out why do people have to keep coming in over and over again for adjustments? Shouldn't the body know once I fix it, right, with a small, you know, vertebrae adjustment, it should hold? And he was finding that it wasn't. And he realized, you know, after going to a workshop and, and hearing, you know, connection of emotions. And someone was adjusting a client while they were rethinking about the car accident. And he did that. And he's like, oh, the adjustment held. So he started connecting it to other— what about other traumas? What about other life experiences? And that's where he started using muscle testing and Chinese medicine meridian points and putting it all together. So years later, they, you know, this was 30-something years ago. And now therapists do this and other licensed medical practitioners. But one of the big components of that is neurology, and we have something called bogus pleasure recognition, which is one of the ways of applying this. And I find this fascinating, because anything that becomes a compulsion that we think we need in order to temp down a trigger or a trauma is why we have these cravings and why you just said, oh, I feel better once the substance It doesn't even have to hit your nervous system as far.

Exactly. I would feel better when I knew it was coming even, right? I didn't have to have it in me yet. As long as I knew it was coming, I already started feeling better. That's right.

So that in regards to the three parts of our neurology, at least in our brain, excuse me, in the triune brain theory, you have our neocortex, rational thinking. I know I'm going to get it. I know it's there. I know it exists. I had a positive experience with it before. That's rational brain. Your mammalian brain, is timeless memories. So if it was stored as a positive versus a negative, which then goes into our reptilian brain approach-avoid survival. Yeah, that's the amygdala and all that, right? The limbic system responses and all those things. Now you don't even need to have that anywhere near you. Just that thought as a positive approach of thought already starts sending biochemical responses into your nervous system as if it's already there in real life.

I, and I would just, so I'm curious because what happens with drugs and alcohol is that it's, it's kind of a diminishing return. In other words, you don't get the same hit you got the first time you did it, and each time it's getting less and less and less effective. But is it, is it that, is that being overridden by this mem— the, what was the, the neocortex?

Yeah.

Yeah. Where you're, where it's already, because your brain is locked into that initial great feeling. That it keeps convincing you that even though you can intellectually see that it's not giving you what it once did, and eventually—

neurological hijacking, right? That's what we call neurological hijacking.

Yeah.

The cool thing is, is, right, one of my favorite stories about this to really, you know, drive this home is my dad years ago came back from a cruise with his wife and big-ass thing of popcorn from the cruise ship that, you know, he had a— was compelled to get. And, you know, like, where's that from? He's like, I don't know, on the cruise I started craving popcorn. Like, It's random. So I actually had him do the protocol with me in front of me because like when I hear someone say the word crave, right, I know that there's that trigger and obviously there's more intense words, but craving is a pretty strong one. And I had him like just, you know, look at the pot, you know, look at the tin. And I muscle tested it. That's the biological fight or flight, you know, response, that neurofeedback response that we're looking for. Nothing happened. Okay. I want you to open it up now and hold it close to you and smell it. And the muscle test goes weak, right? Remember, approach avoid, okay with, okay with, right? Congruent, non-congruent. What's bypassing the rational brain? Now, that shouldn't happen. There should be no response to everything. We should be walking through the world as neutral as possible. When we don't, that's when we have this biofeedback kick. So it turns out, like, you know, the emotion that we figured out and the story we figured out was like, he got into a disagreement with his wife, and she started yelling at him. And then the story, you know, the emotion was anger and sensitive to her anger. And, and, and, you know, we go through the whole process. The cool thing about this modality, which thankfully on the West Coast there's so many wonderful practitioners. So if you're on the West Coast like Rick, you can tap into one of my colleagues. You can go back and you can find the original event where the emotion and theme that came out of this little muscle test protocol and back to an original event where it got stored in your nervous system as a story. So the emotion was sent, it was anger.

Yeah.

The worst part for him about that was like, I don't even know what I did wrong to have that person be angry at me.

Mm-hmm.

Went back to original event of— we muscle tested it back to 10 years old. And the story was he was walking and his mouth just dropped wide open.

Yeah.

Oh my God. I was walking back from school, Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1950, whatever.

Before The Office.

Before The Office, right? Before the American Office ever existed. So And he was walking and all of a sudden this guy that he was walking with just out of the blue turned around and just popped him right in the face. Wow. And that was the memory that came. I don't know why he was angry at me. So we go through the clearing part of it and reset the nervous system around that. Go back in present day, muscle test, go back to when your wife was upset at you on the cruise.

Yeah, right.

Okay, now let's smell the peanuts, the popcorn. Yeah. Yeah. And muscle test, hold strong. Okay, I want you to take it, put it in your mouth. It was actually peanuts, actually. Thank you.

Okay.

My bad. So COVID brain, as I, as I— yeah, right. So, and he's like, oh, it tastes stale. And like, hmm. So the physiological response, the biochemical response started transforming from something that he was craving to something that's no longer pleasing and appealing. But the trigger around that made him desire something to make his blood sugar biochemistry be remoderated. And for whatever reason, that became the thing. Now take that back to what you and I started talking about— drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, whatever you want.

Sex. Yeah. Shopping.

Correct. Correct. Really good pour-over coffee. Whatever you want to put in there.

Well, that's okay.

Especially from your— especially from your coast. So, yeah. So So, right, those are the things that our nervous system— now, even apply this even more so to what we can get into. Money, success, allergic to making money, right?

Allergic to having a mindset behind that. We say mindset, right? But that's such a broad thing. But what you just described is fascinating, and I would love to share a story that just happened to me recently. And I know we're getting a little ahead. I don't know if this is the right time, but who cares, right? We're just having a conversation. But, but so the background for me, just the short version is, 5 years ago, I really started to, to see after having some success in what appeared to be pretty reasonable success, I think for most people on the outside, there was this kind of plateau. And I really started diving into all this personal development stuff. And so there's been a lot there. I'm happy to talk about any of it. But recently, recently, what's really clear to me is there's— if, if I, if I hear something in my earball that is just words, there's just words are coming in. But what I hear is, what's wrong with you? Right? So anything critical at all, anything that alludes to you didn't do this right, you're not enough, you know, anything like that, what I hear is, what's wrong with you? And I immediately have, you know, then my amygdala kicks in. I don't— I'm— I get defensive. I shut down. I'm quiet. I don't feel like I'm safe. I become— I almost become a different person, right? I'm physically the same person, but emotionally I'm just like I'm 10, 12, 8, maybe 5 years old. I don't know, somewhere in there where my— all of my thinking becomes shockingly immature. Right? And I don't feel like I have access to that prefrontal cortex, like wise, mature information that I normally, right, that I could just put things in context maybe, or I could consider where it's coming from, or, you know, whatever. Like, I don't have access to any of that stuff, and it's really debilitating. And it's, and it's, uh, and it, and it has an impact, right? It has an impact on my kids. It has an impact on my girlfriend and my family and my, you know, the people I work with, whatever. And, and so recently I did this thing. So I've done a bunch of work with Landmark, actually. I don't know if you're familiar. I'm sure really, really am enjoying that. And one of the things that we did was we went back to kind of what you were just describing. It was like, what was the time where you— can you remember as far back as you can? And when I was 5 years old, I was wearing some shoes that were too big for me. We were— we didn't— I didn't come from money. My Parents were, you know, my, my dad was a minister. My mom was a schoolteacher. We didn't, we didn't have a lot of money. So we had these hand-me-down shoes that I would— they were so— the boots, they were so cool, but they were 2 sizes too big. And so I was told, you're not ready to wear those boots yet. And I— but I snuck them on and they're— and I was chasing the girl next door, Babette Bolick. I remember her name. If she's listening, I'd love to have her reach out to me anyway. So Babette, I had a crush on. She was 7, you know, older woman. And, and so I'm chasing Babette around the church. And because the boots are too big, I, of course, trip. But I don't just trip. I trip and I fall face first into a brick planter and I bust open my head. You can see there's still a scar there. And, and then so Babette walks me back to the house. It's just two doors away. And I open the door and my mom's there. And of course, I'm a 5-year-old. I've got blood just streaming all over my face, all over my clothes. I cannot imagine how terrified my mom was when she opened the door.

Right.

But all I knew was I was bleeding. I didn't know if I was about to die. I didn't know what was going on. I'm 5 years old. And the sense I remember her saying, don't get blood on the carpet. Right. And then the classic feeling that came with that was, what's wrong with you? Now, I'm sure my mom did not say, what's wrong with you? Right. I'm sure my mom was doing whatever she was doing. But that was a world that I felt like I lived in. And, you know, here she is. She's got two twin babies at home. Like, I can look at it as an adult now and go, my mom did totally normal things, right?

Right.

But for me as a 5-year-old, how it hit me and where I landed was that place. And so we, we went back to that time in this— back to this group. So we went back to this time and I had somebody say to me exactly the way I was hearing What's wrong with you? Over and over and over again. And at first it was— at first I had to train them to say it exactly the way I was hearing it, and then, um, and then be there with it as an adult, right? And at first it was, um, you know, and, and I would say something like, hear what you're saying, I'm okay with what you're saying, and I'm totally available to hear anything else that you would like to say about that. And the first couple times I said it, it— I was saying kind of monotone and like it was words I didn't even mean. And then all of a sudden I started saying it. I was crying, right? Just out of the— I'm like, it was like I was there. It was crazy. And I did that a few more times. And then it's almost like I became an adult right there in front of her. But it's like 4 people in this little group, 5 people maybe. And then I was able to say it as an adult. I'm— I totally hear what you're saying. I'm okay with what you're saying. And I'm totally available to hear more, whatever it is that you want to say about that.. And it had a dramatic impact on, on this, this way that things were, were landing for me. Is that— have you ever heard of something like that? Is that kind of— yeah, like you're retraining the neuropaths or something like that?

Absolutely. Well, remember, when you're in that memory, your biochemistry is activated just like it was at that point. And I know, you know, in organization— organization— the organization is Landmark, but in those type of workshops where they're bringing in other people to simulate family members, right, you now have that in— I've got the family constellation is something that came out of the marriage and family therapy field, and now it's become its own thing. And people are now doing coaching trainings on this, which could or could not be dangerous because, you know, you're dealing with lots of trauma potentially. So those type of things. But, you know, the beautiful thing about what you're talking about, that came— Landmark started as the outcome of EST back in the '60s and '70s. So, right, exactly. So all of that stuff was like, getting in there. And a lot of that stuff was also probably happening around the time of psychedelics first hitting me and people going— able to go deeper and able to process and able to be in a community and to share and be vulnerable and intimate.

Yeah.

But what you're doing for sure from the neurological level, when something represents something, our rational brain— and you're moving that aside because of course your rational brain can say, you're not my mom, I know you're not my mom, and I know I'm not 5 years old.

Yeah, yeah.

But once you're able to figure out a way to move that aside and you get into the mammalian and reptilian part of your brain, the timeless memory and that approach-avoid, fight-flight-flee, you know, yeah, paradigm, freeze. Yeah, exactly. All of that stuff can then start to be healed. This is my— this is what's so interesting about me as a licensed therapist who's evolved in a way a little bit past or a lot past the stuff that I was given in graduate school and why I never went back for a doctorate in my field. Because because one, it's not gonna pay me any more money. Two, it's stuff that's older, and they may have some new published stuff, but it's not necessarily— there's no course on neuroscience, there's no course on psychedelics, there's no—

that's fascinating. All of this— fascinating that that stuff doesn't exist.

It does in certain programs, and a lot of the time many of them are out on the West Coast. They're in Boulder, Colorado, they're in, um, California. They might be, you know, in a few different places. Some of those schools are accredited, Some of the schools are not accredited. Some of the schools you can actually get a state license, you know, in multiple states with. Some you can't, and you might have a degree where you can't do much with.

So is it still like kind of woo-woo? They could like woo-woo science to the mainstream? Is that part of it?

Maybe, because, you know, this is kind of like taking it back into like all of the wonderful things that are happening in the real estate world where you have all the coaching that's now taking place, something that you're doing now as a professional to help other, other realtors. Where, you know, at a certain point it had to be, woo, what do you mean I need a coach? What do you mean I need guidance on learning how to sail?

You know, or mindset, right?

Or mindset, right? Which is, you know, I playfully— and I feel so bad every time, and anybody who's been heard me reference this, it's kind of like the Lululemon of like, you know, you put on a pair of yoga pants from Lululemon, now you're a yogi. I mean, like, you know, you listen to one mindset podcast, right? But what does that mean? Mindset is like, okay, mindset I think is that outcome of all of the new— the ways that you're changing your neurology, you're changing your physiology. The mindset is the outcome of that, right? Can you reverse engineer it by like just, you know, listening to, you know, downloading every single Ed Mylett podcast? Sure. That's obviously going to help. That's obviously going to have a big part of it. By surrounding yourself with positive people, by going to Landmark, by going to, you know, any personal development groups, by working with a therapist, working with a really good coach, working with someone like you in your world. Is there still stuff underneath the hood that needs to be dealt with? Absolutely. But That's why none of these things are a one-size-fits-all. And anybody who claims to be, I would run from.

Yeah, right, right. Totally. There's also, to me, there's a real value to action versus just passively learning. Like, I can listen to all the podcasts I want, but until I get in, still got to actually doing, like, doing what you did with your dad and him being willing to go in and explore to the That's action. What I did at— that's action. I feel like there's so— there's— it's so common to listen to the great books and listen to the great pod— which are all great. But if there's no action that goes with it, yeah, nothing's really changing, right? You're aware that things can change. And that's where I get hung up on, you know, coaching. Like, I want to coach to make a difference. It means nothing to me if you listen, you go, that sounds really great. I don't care if it sounds great. I want you to do something different.

Yeah.

How can I inspire you? Inspire you to actually take action and be accountable? How can I inspire you to take action and do something different on a regular basis? Not for a week or two weeks. Yeah, that kind of thing, right?

And I think this applies to both your field in the real estate space, separate from the coaching part of your life, where, you know, think about like so many brokerages out there, they, they amass amount of agents to keep their license there. And, you know, if the person does one sale a year, great, they get a percentage off that. If they do right? And obviously they want them to do better than usual, but I can just think about like, you know, some of these brokerage houses that just let anybody hang their license there because like, whatever, I'll make some money off of it, doesn't cost me much.

Yeah, costs nothing to have them. Yeah, correct.

Versus those that are so particular with, here's the trainings I want you to do, here's the episodes I want you to watch, here's the meetings that we're going to do every week, here's the— like, you're gonna, you know, like you said, you have a, uh, you have a call, a coaching call after our conversation, and making those things mandatory. And what's going to be the, you know, it's, it's kind of like we get the business or we get the people in their life, in our life, that we kind of deserve. And that's based on the effort and output and experiences and that we get worked on for ourselves. So, and I see the differences between, you know, just give an example, Orion Serhant, who in the worst point of the pandemic, his first year being in business in his own brokerage, did $1 billion worth of sales, versus some guy or woman here in South Florida who's, who, you know, I, who's on the park bench, you know, the bus bench since I was in elementary elementary school with the same picture on the park. Right. Expansions. I've been elementary—

famously the same picture, right?

The same picture since 1989, right? Who, you know, may be making their, their quotas and maybe— but why aren't they internationally known? Why are they only still on those 3 same bus benches in the same locale and they haven't grown and opened up multiple offices?

This is the thing, it's like, it's— and going back to the mindset, it is it's the difference between knowing the right things to do and then doing the right things.

Yeah.

Right. And so you can be coached and learn. I can tell you, here's— look, I can make it— look, I have a daily navigator where I— I'm not going to hold up my— it's old school, but I have a thing that I do every single day. I talk to 10 people every day. I, I meet with 3 people every day. I write to, you know, like, it's a thing.

It's a system.

It's a system. On Mondays, I talk to current clients. On Tuesdays, I I talk to my VIPs on Wednesdays. I talk to leads on Thursdays. I talk to later in the week on Fridays. I develop new bit. Like it's a whole system. The point is it's, it's action that's being taken that's going to turn into something. Yeah, I could go to Landmark and just sit there and listen and it would have no impact. It would be like, wow, this is really cool, but it really won't change my life. Or I could do the things that they're telling me to do. I could hire you as a coach or a therapist or whatever. Us talking about it is going to have some impact. But you saying, hey, here's what I want you to consider. Here's the thing I want you to or here's the thing that we're going to do, or here's an exercise we're going to do, whatever it is, that's going to have the real impact. Yeah, right. Am I— do I have that right? Yeah.

And it's also us, you know, holding people— us being held accountable. I'm in a weekly accountability group with a business program called Business Finishing School. And one of the beautiful things about that program was they— you have the option to be in an accountability group. And, um, the one that I'm in now, we meet every week on Zoom, and we have our— and we even extended it to doing every quarter, doing a 4-hour Zoom call. And then even after we started doing that with every quarter, doing a 4-hour Zoom, uh, accountability group in addition to the weekly, we now just completed our third annual retreat in person on a cruise, which was kind of cool.

So how many people are in the group?

So now there's 4 of us.

Okay. Yeah.

And 2 are in Texas, one's in Minnesota. So yeah, so it's great.

So it doesn't have to be huge. And so I just, I just want to— because I know that some of your audience is, you know, 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds in some kind of sales, insurance, whatever. And listen, having an accountability group is to me the number one thing that you should have because I'm the kind of guy. Yeah, that is. I've got all kinds of great ideas, right? Especially in the morning, man. I am inspired. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. It's going to be great. And then what happens is my day starts happening. And I get distracted or something good happens and I go, oh, that was great. Now I don't have to do that thing I was going to do, or something bad happens and I go, that was bad. Now I don't want to do the thing I was going to, you know, or I forget what I was supposed. So what I do is I literally every single day, that list I was telling you about, I check. I actually make a list every day. I check it off, I sign it like a contract, and I send it out to my accountability group every morning before 9:00. And if I don't send it by 9:00, I send them a thing that says, Hey, I'm not sending it yet, or I'm not going to do one today. I don't have to be held accountable every single day. But, but generally for me, Monday through Friday, I want to be held accountable. So I do all the things, I check all the boxes, and at the end I write 3 things I'm grateful for. I write a little mini journal, like 1 or 2 lines. You know, I had a tough day today. This thing came up, or I had a win today. I closed this deal that I didn't expect was going to happen or whatever it is. And then I send it back out to that same accountability group by 6:00. I say, remember that thing I said I was going to do this morning? Well, I did it. And, and anybody can do that. You don't need me to do that. I, I created— I started doing that. I kind of out of necessity I did that, right? I know the right things to do, but doing them is kind of hard. And when I know that I've told somebody else to do it, I'm— that I'm going to do it, I'm more likely to get it done. In fact, I run somewhere around 98% efficiency. It's rare that I don't complete all my tasks because as I get through, I start going, oh shoot, I said I was going to do the thing. Well, I told all those people I was going to do it, so I'm going to make sure I get this thing done. Yeah. Versus if I was the only one, I'd be like, well, you know, I mean, I don't really have to do it. I justify and I make excuses or whatever and stuff doesn't get done. And I probably run like around 70%, you know?

Yeah. So, well, I think that's one of the, you know, going into the whole mindset podcast, social influencer type of thing. Um, Andy Frisella, uh, who is also one of those big, like, at my lat type of guys. His podcast, it used to be called the MFCEO Podcast, then it went into a lot of politics and a lot of other whatever stuff. So he lost— unfortunately he lost me as a listener. But he has the 75 Hard, uh, workout program. It's his. So he's the guy who came up with that, and it was brilliant because every day Right? You either do it or you don't do it. This is not like a half-assed start over, you know, like, oh, well, you kind of did a thing. Yeah, workouts in a day. You have to drink your water. You have to have your meal plan. You have to have— but every day you need to take a progress pic and it has to be— you have to click everything. Obviously, there's an honor system. I'm sure there's many people are going through it and kind of like, but you're cheating yourself, right? You're cheating yourself if you don't do this 100%. Yeah, but it's that every day you need a progress pic. Of yourself. It doesn't matter where you're starting.

Yeah.

And it's full— and it doesn't matter if it's -20 degrees out. One of them has to— I mean, obviously you have to take, you know, if you open up your garage door and you work out and it's, you know, in your garage and it's cold and whatever, fine.

Yeah.

But, um, but I think that's where the accountability comes in. And you hear stories of people having transformations that were then nothing, then not, not much going for them. I mean, you know, internally they didn't realize what they could have going for them.

That's right. Exactly. That's right. And it's just for me, I remember, I remember feeling actually they were written on my report cards going back to the beginning of where we started at the 1.8 GPA. I don't know. Did you ever have this on your report card? And mine would say, Ricky has potential but doesn't seem to use it. Did you get those? Of course. Right. It was like, yeah, you know, like, you know, he's funny. He's a nice kid. He seems like he's plenty smart, but he's—

but where is it? But where is it?

What's he doing?

Yeah.

And so, but that was in my, my head was like I just don't live up to my potential.

Yeah.

And it, and it feels so great to have where I still, in a lot of ways, I know I've got a lot more potential, but I don't feel like I'm mired in not living up to my potential. Like, yeah, I have a lot of satisfaction in kind of where my world is today, who I am as a person, where I'm at income-wise, making money, blah, blah, blah. There's a lot of satisfaction there, closer to living up to my potential, but largely based on the action that I took, not just the words that I heard come into my ears. Yeah.

And I think this is where mentorship is such a powerful engagement, right? So imagine like us in elementary school. You know, I'm 5'2", which means I was not much taller then at that age, right?

Wait, this is another thing. Guess what? What? Guess what I was in high school, how tall I was?

5'5"?

4'7".

Stop.

I was 4'7". I weighed 70 pounds in high school.

Wow.

I wrestled in the 98-pound West Wrestling class, which is the smallest one. And I would weigh in with my big— with my book bag in my hand back when we had book bags. Yeah. So I get it. I get being— I'm not— I'm 5'10" now, so I actually did get taller.

But something happened. Wow.

Yeah. But I— for my first 2 years of high school, I was tiny. So I get it.

So there's still hope for me. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. 45.

I'm still waiting for that growth spurt. So, but I, but I see like the people that were the most impactful for me were the people that took that extra little step in that extra little initiative of mentorship. And I even see that like, you know, when I talk to people in, you know, that's why like even in sobriety, those who have chosen to go through the 12-step and it's worked for them, what's one of the big things of really working this is not just working the steps, but having someone to be your sponsor.

Well, and even more importantly, and this is how we have our coaching group set up as well, is then sponsoring somebody.

Correct.

So when you talk about mentorship, that is a two-way street that both are highly, highly valuable. In fact, I would argue being a mentor, being a sponsor in a 12-step program, but in the real world with civilians, you would call it mentorship. That's right. That, that the value of being a sponsor or a mentor is very high and it's regularly missed because people think, well, they think like, oh, I don't really have anything to offer or I don't really have time for that. Or who wants to be— who wants to be mentored by me? Well, I'll tell you what, there are people that you have something. Everybody listening right now to this call, everybody has somebody that wants what you have., and it might be your job to go find them and go, hey, I noticed you're— maybe it's somebody in your office. It could be a kid. It could be Big Brother, like, or the— what is that called?

Big Brother, Big Brothers, Big Sisters.

Yeah. Or there's usually there's mentorship programs in most communities. That is so incredibly valuable to be that person for somebody. And, and usually what I'm hearing myself come out of what's coming out of my mouth to like give somebody advice or my experience or whatever. I'm also like, man, I really need to listen to that myself too. Yeah, right. And there's a part of me that's like, oh, if I'm going to tell somebody I'm going to do this, that I want to make sure I'm living up to that standard, that I'm doing the same things that I'm asking somebody to do. There's just, man, you know, it's— I'm really glad that you touched on mentorship because it is— it's so important to have somebody that you look up to. Like, if I was going to— I'm going to be starting a podcast. I might come to you, Jason, go like, hey, I'm starting this podcast. I, you know, I'm not looking for a coach, but I need somebody can just give me 10, 15 minutes a week so that, you know, like start here, do that, whatever. And, you know, avoid these pitfalls, whatever. Like, that's so valuable for me. But it will also, if I were to do that, it would be valuable for you. You would be, you'd be like interested, like, hey, how's it going? How did it go? Right.

It helps me streamline my own process on that side of the things. I'm like, all right, well, here's what worked. Here's what doesn't work.

Maybe I should finally stop doing that.

Yes.

Yes, right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, and then, and also this goes back to what we talked about off air, but, you know, this idea of collaboration, right? There's, I mean, when you're in a sales job, again, I think a lot of your audience are in that kind of role where you feel like you're kind of on your own, right? You're on an island. It's, it's you, you eat what you hunt and all of those stories and, you know, creating communities within your environment This is where the accountability group comes in. This is where— I mean, we talk about our accountability group is made up of 3 people. It's, it's a mentor and it could be multiple mentors, right? It could be your manager. It could be an actual mentor, somebody in your office who's kicking butt. It could be somebody at your church or any— it's like a million people that it could be. But then peers, people, they're on the same front lines that you are on, that are— they're facing the same challenges every day. But you can share ideas and support each other and all that. And then definitely the people that are mentees that you're actually ahead of where they are. They want to be where you are and bring it. That's what the accountability is made up of. But there's your collaboration, there's your community, and all of that can create that consistency that's required to actually be something else and do something else and have the things that you've always wanted to have.

And if anybody doesn't know how to get an accountability group together, just send me a message on Instagram and I'd be happy to give you a worksheet that was put together, um, on perfect how to one and how to organize one, right? So it doesn't have to be, you know, we can demystify it really quickly versus listening to Rick and I talk about this and like, okay, that's great, but how do I do that? Then what?

Yes. What are the first steps?

Well, what's that first steps and what would that look like in timeframe? All that stuff is part of this worksheet. One of the things I would also challenge everybody to think about, and Rick, I'm sure you can jump more in on this, is who do you pick to be in this accountability group or to partner with? This goes back to, right, if you know, working with, you know, agents and like deciding who to hire as part of, you know, if you're, if you're an agent broker versus right. I'm assuming that's the same title across the country, that you're the person who held— hold people's license under you, right? Where, you know, how do you choose who to bring on to your team and how do you not choose to bring on to your team? Right. It's the same thing with relationships and friendships and anything like that. And even more like an accountability group where you look at everything through a lens of core values because, you know, people talk a big game, but you want people who align with that and are mission critical. And, you know, you may have different goals,. But your values overlap, and it may be even different core values, but those core values are synonyms to each other. They're not antonyms to each other.

Right. And there's a Venn diagram maybe where there's some overlap or whatever.

Correct.

Yeah. I think that the other thing to consider in that is you basically, you know, you've heard this— I don't know who said it first. I hear it regularly. But this idea that you are a sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with. Right. And so, like, I'm really— and that's— I want to make sure that I'm hanging out. It's just like if you want to play tennis, you want to play tennis with people that are better than you, not worse. And you can help the people that are— that need, you know, like, you want to be that person for somebody else, but you don't want to spend your whole time being the best guy in the tennis court, I guess is what I'm saying. Right. You want to spend your time also being the guy that needs to be better, that is working towards it. Right. And so, yeah, that's a— that's definitely a big part of it as well.

Well, think about that. I love your tennis metaphor because, you know, who did you— you had Nadal and Federer, who, you know, especially around the time Federer retired and you had Nadal come out. I mean, one of my favorite sports pictures ever was the two of them sitting on the bench crying hysterically, holding hands. Yeah, because the two—

oh God, what an amazing joke. Djokovic too. I mean, at one point, yeah, in there.

Yeah, yeah. But I think there was something that, you know, Djokovic came a little bit later in that era.

He was the last one, right, in that era.

But like, better first better than Nadal, but like Nadal, like, but they really kept each other sharp. Now Djokovic obviously added to that. Yeah, but, but the kinship through this competition of iron sharpens iron.

Totally. Yeah, exactly.

Right, loving that. Um, but that image of, you know, we didn't see that as much in the '80s and '90s in, in our worlds. And I think this is where we as men especially have evolved with vulnerability and connection and intimacy in that regards, and especially in the entrepreneurship business. And I think this is kind of the outcome of why my podcast became a thing was, you know, I'm sitting in a therapy room 30, 40 hours a week and I'm trying to take these wonderful ideas that I was starting to learn that I know other people were also interested in and but also getting in front of the people who are one, living it, two, people who are teaching it, but three, maybe even some of the people who even created some of those ideas. I'm like, well, and then reverse engineer the process, right? But I'm seeing now right, in the business world. I'm seeing it now even in psychology. One of the conversations I had, um, locally was, why aren't we talking about these things where we as licensed mental health practitioners, like licensed medical professionals, right, why aren't we talking about where coaches have actually done a better job at marketing than us? And you— well, we don't talk about the past. Therefore, we're not therapists, as I think like, no, no, no, no, that's just called solution-focused therapy. But they did such a good job of remarketing and rebranding themselves that they're making therapy seem and look obsolete, which it obviously isn't, because we're still doing old marketing. We're still doing— right, we also have laws that like, how can you market? What can you say? Can we use— right, you can't just say client, you know, Rick Warner said this was the best therapy session ever, because I can't break confidentiality, right? Coaches don't necessarily have that. Yeah, yeah, you can't have news sites, I guess, right?

Right.

Maybe you—

that way anyway. Yeah, right.

We can have— there's ways of, you know, but it's— but I think that like your— the space you're in, real estate space, and I would love to talk about this, right? Because you have The One Thing, which came out of— which came out of real estate. That was a big coaching program, right? And, you know, in one of the world ones. Um, and you have all these other new people in the real estate space. Of all of— I think like chiropractic, because you have all the people who now are doing functional medicine and integrative medicine, and a lot of like, you know, have become thought leaders. Dr. Joe Dispenza is one of those people, right, who is a chiropractor who became one of the new Tony Robbins. And then you have all these people in the real estate world.

Yeah.

That have just become, right, mindset thought leaders. Here's how to change your life. It's not just about, you know, let me show you the square footage and here's a great school system and all that stuff.

Yeah.

What has been your personal journey with that for yourself? Going from— right, because, you know, we talked about you went from point A to point B, which was struggling in school, addiction, to having a stable life and have an incredible career and kicking some, you know, kicking it really well on the West Coast. What made you see that I need to go from B to C?

Yeah, yeah.

And where has that process involved this, the thought leadership side, and where you're now taking this and applying it to, one, working with other people, but two, where that journey's been for yourself.

Yeah, well, and so to me, there's hopefully there's constantly in an evolution. But I will tell you that first of all, I think most people just end up in real estate. So I ended up in real estate in 2004. So I'm just coming up on 20 years in the business. And in 2005, I sold a fair amount of houses. And in West Coast, you don't have to sell a ton to make a pretty good living. Thing. 2006, I did well again, and I thought, oh my gosh, I've arrived. I'm like 34, 35 years old, and, uh, I've got 3 little kids, I got a stay-at-home wife, blah blah. We buy a million-dollar house, 2006. Um, I'm rocking and rolling. And then 2008 happens, September of 2008. And if you're— for those, those listening that they don't know about what happened, it was— it was bad. It was like just short of carnage. Yeah, yeah, it was carnage. The stock market got completely crushed and the real estate market followed right after. And in, in a span of 5 months, everything went down 35% and it stayed down for 35%. That was its own problem. But the volume of sales was, was no good anymore. Everything we dealt with was distressed, you know, short sales and foreclosures. Everything took a long time. It was a mess. It was a total mess. And I was wholly ill-prepared for this. And in reality, what I— so, so September of 2009, my 40th birthday, actually, I couldn't even pay my mortgage on my million-dollar house with my stay-at-home wife and my 3 little kids, right? 2 of which were in diapers, I think, at the time. And, and I had this real moment of like, I'm like, oh my God, I am totally screwed. And I, and I think I'm telling the story because there's people like that right now listening to this in their industry where the, the things have changed in the last couple of years where it's like, if there's any mortgage people listening, there are people facing that right now where they're like, my business is gone. Like, I'm not making any money. I don't know what to do. Right. And so what I had to do is really take a good, honest look at myself and go, go, oh, I wasn't great at this business. The market was great. The business itself was great. And it carried me along like a river. And now I need to actually learn how to be great in this business. And so I paid $800. I mean, I was in big— I was— I had like, uh, $100,000 in tax debt. I had $50,000 in credit card debt. Um, my line of credit had been taken away. Like, I had— I was in big deep doo-doo, you know? And, um, and, and really the— I thought, do I need to get a real job? And then it was like, well, there is no real job that can get me out of this. So I really needed to be better at what I'm doing. The problem is I had no money. I, I was like, okay, somebody needs to teach me something. But I didn't know who that was or what that was. I found this class. It was $800. It was 8 Mondays. I had to drive an hour and a half every Monday to get there, an hour and a half back. It was 8 hours a day. They asked us to do a bunch of stuff that I was like, oh man, this is so hard. I don't want— this is really uncomfortable. I don't want to do all this stuff. But I was so desperate that I really was willing to do it. And that was the beginning of me changing to actually knowing what I'm doing. And, you know, not long after that, I paid off all my debt. And not long after that, I was the number 1 guy in our 170-person office. And, and I was making really good money in a market that not everybody was making really good money. And so the reason I tell you all of that is that if you're stuck, it may be that it's time for you to step up and find out who it is that's doing things that, you know, that, that it's working, and then do those things. Like, it's no more complicated than that. It does require getting, um, uncomfortable, But the reason I say all that was it was such a life changer for me. And just like my experience in the 12-step program was like, wait, so now if I really want to keep this, I need to give it away. And so I started training people and helping other people and mentoring people so that they could have that same possible feeling of, hey, anybody can do this. Like, I'm not extraordinary. I'm a 1.8 GPA guy, right? And so that's where my passion from helping others came from, was like knowing that deep, desperate, like, holy shit, I'm in big trouble here. I am. There was nobody I could borrow money from. There was nowhere to turn. I, you know, I was about to lose this million-dollar house and, and we didn't, you know, we— I had one 30-day late after that. I was able to hang in there. And, you know, later we sold it when we wanted to for a large profit and blah, blah, blah. So it was definitely a happy ending story. But at the time it was like, this is terrible. And it's like, no, that was actually the best thing that ever happened to me. Because I really got to get in there. And it was very reminiscent of, of when I, you know, when I got sober when I was 20 years old, it was like, oh my God, I am totally screwed here. And it was from that pain that I met all these people that helped me to learn and grow and, you know, create a spiritual way of living and all that stuff. But I couldn't have done that without having that desperate bottom where I was like, oh, I'm in big trouble, you know? So, and funny enough, almost exactly 20 years apart when those, from those two events where I had these two real bottoms in my life that were, you know, they were game changers. So if you're listening and you're at that point in your life where it's like, oh, I'm in big trouble, this might be the greatest thing that's ever happened. This is an opportunity. You're not in big trouble. Take that fear and that anger and all the things and point it towards something great you know, spend, you know, hire Jason, call somebody, whatever, and, and see what's on the other side of this because it could be really, really great.

Yeah. Now, looking, if you're 20 years out from that last experience.

Yeah, right.

How have you prepared differently? Because.

Right.

You're in that 20-year window right now.

Yeah, right. I mean, I'm getting into that. Yeah. So probably I'm in the 15 years from that point. Yeah.

Yeah. So what would you find strategically is most different? Is it the fact that you're now invested in this mindset? Is it that you're doing these accountability groups and coaching and getting coached? And is that the biggest things? And do you find like there's still more stuff? Okay, this would—

yeah, I mean, you know, so it's funny to do— I find there's more stuff. The place where I want to live is I've come a long way and that I have a long way to go. I want to be, I want to be right there in that mindset of like, I want to acknowledge and appreciate and be willing to give away the fact that I'm not who I was 5 years ago, 10 years ago, and 20 years years ago, and I have something to offer, right? And I'm totally crystal clear that I've arrived nowhere, that I still, you know, I have still so much work to do. And what's been going on for me for the last 5 years is really more on the personal development side rather than on the business side. The business side, like, that's going right, it's working. I have a system and things are in place and I get to help other people. But the personal development side has been a totally brand new thing for me, and I really not without realizing it, I kind of just got stale. I'd been sober maybe, uh, 28, 29 years, uh, you know, kind of cruising along and fine, nothing majorly wrong. Um, it wasn't like I hit an emotional bottom or whatever, but somebody gave me a book, uh, The Four Agreements, which is from the '90s.

Everybody should have that in there. I mean, it was so great.

Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to hear you say that. I mean, it was for me, it just opened my eyes to like, oh my gosh, there's a whole nother world in there where I don't have to take things personally and I can stop making assumptions and I could just do the best I can every day and I can be impeccable with my word.

Yeah.

And, and, and, and what that might lead to. And so it was from that that it was like, I, we started a personal development group, a little book club. And I mean, it's just been, you know, I started going to Landmark. And, you know, I have a men's group that's led by a therapist like you that, you know, that we meet every other week. And like, just all this stuff, you know, I get to explore like survival roles and how I'm reacting to things and, and, you know, start paying attention to neuroscience and, you know, my prefrontal cortex and, you know, my amygdala and how these things are interacting with each other on neuroscience, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, and so I say, what's funny about all this? So now I've spent like like, whatever, 5 years doing that. And sometimes I'm like, I've learned nothing. I've, you know what I mean? Like, I'm still just scratching the surface. I'm still like, well, only because I, you know, I'll experience something. And this is what I want to ask you about. So, for sure. So I've done all that. I've done the work. I think blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay. Like, for example, with my girlfriend and I, I know that I have a, that if she, she says even anything remotely sounding like, I've done something wrong, that I hear as very critical. And what she's usually asking for is for me to be tender and kind to her in that moment, right? And I, and I intellectually, like, if it's you and me, I'll sit here like, okay, got it. Uh, there'll be a time for me to talk about whether, however I'm feeling, but in this moment, I need to be your man. I need to take care of you. You know, we use the analogy of, she said, she would I feel like I come to you with a skinned knee and you start telling me why I shouldn't have been playing with those kids and it's my fault that I skinned my knee rather than just going, oh, your knee is hurt. What? How can I help you? Right. Be tender and kind. And I'm like, okay, got it. So then I intellectually understand it. And then here she comes with her scraped knee again. And I'm like, basically like, well, that's not my fault. That's your fault. You know, like, I just go right.

Well, you found your don't bleed on the carpet in a way that you're—

Yeah, exactly. That's right.

You're now moving that forward.

Yes. The next generation. That since I did that work I was just telling you about, the degree of which I do that is, you know, 80% less. However, it's still there. And I'm like, oh, I just—

well, what if it is always— what if it is always going to be there at some level? Because I think that's the default network, right? We have all this stuff stored there. I think part of it is one being neutral. So we can, we can still always decide to act that way, but it has to be that choice versus only being compelled to act that way. And I think the more work you're doing, you're opening up possibilities, right? Because I don't know if at any given point every single thing will be neutral because, and like you're saying, you're dealing with numbness, you're nearly— you're dealing with, right, the far end of neutrality is being numb where, you know, it's supposed to bother you and you're just you know, not right. But then you have this thing of like, okay, well, I want to completely experience this thing from a different lens. That takes that continued work. So the more work you're doing, the more layers of the onion you're peeling away, the less it's going to have that trigger.

And the new neural paths too. Is that— Yeah.

All the changing the neural pathways. And, you know, that's the whole thing cool about like, you know, everybody getting into psychedelics and mushrooms from the research is that it actually changes your neural pathways and gets back to anything before traumas and training. Triggers, stuff like that. So, you know, there may be some layer that will always be there. One of my favorite quotes, uh, from Esther Hicks from the Law of Attraction world is, "You'll never get it all done, and you'll never get it all right." Yeah. So if that's part of at least, you know, releasing yourself from the resistance around having to figure— having to be perfect every single time, especially to loved ones and partners, Yeah. Versus recompensating and recalibrating. Be like, hey, do you know what? Let me try that again. Or, hey, you're right. Here's what I'm going to say. Here's what I should have said then, but I'm going to say it to you now. And just recalibrating yourself. I think it's that x-axis, y-axis. Can you do it more often and can you recalibrate more quickly?

Quicker and with less frequency and frequency and duration, right?

So I think if that's part there and maybe right? It's always going to be there. But I think that's why the work always needs to be done. The work is never done, right?

Because it's a practice, right? I mean, that's— I mean, I definitely live in that state of not arriving, right? But we also have this metaphor of like, it's like kind of climbing a mountain and gravity's still there. It's a summitless mountain, right? But on that mountain, sometimes the climbs are hard. Sometimes you don't even know you know, where to put your hands. And sometimes you're, you know, you're just walking up a path, you know where you're going, but it's just kind of hard work and there's trees. But every now and then you find this place where there's like a vista, right? And it's, it's a totally new view than you've ever seen before. And it's like, yeah, you can take a minute and enjoy that, that kind of that new place.

Sure.

And then, you know, it's time that it's like, okay, that was awesome. Now let's 'Let's stay on the path here, right?

Let's stay on the path so that we can get to that next vista.' And I think that's a good metaphor for as you go through all the Yellowstone series of the original precursors of when they started moving from the South and the East and came across, you know, and moved out West.

I won't talk to you about that because I don't watch TV.

Or any of the frontier days, right?

Gotcha, okay.

Settler, right, coming across the country. And yeah, you know, the Oregon Trail of a video game from the '80s, right? And some people are like, oh, this is a really nice vista view, and this is beautiful, look at these mountains, and it's gorgeous, and it's very fertile here. And like, I think we're gonna stay here. And then they have to go through their first winter, and they're like, okay, that was pretty bad. And they go for the second winter, and they're like, oh, fuck me, like, we can't grow stuff here, or whatever it might be, right? Or we thought it was fertile, but now we're going through this, you know, thing. And yeah, so some people people chose to stick that out and, yeah, out, and some people continued moving on, right? And some people died and some people didn't. I mean, well, they all died eventually, but, right? But, but I think that's kind of where you have to figure out, like, where is that comfortable place that you want to stick it out and go through a few seasons of this, and where do you want to, like, okay, I really appreciate this, I really enjoy this.

Yeah, cool. You know, you know, it's into your— and saying enjoy too, it's like, it— that is the other part of it, is appreciate it. Yeah, enjoying the a hike, right? Enjoying what that means. Like, I'm a runner. I became a runner also in the last 5 years, and that was never ever going to happen. I have no idea how that— I definitely was not. I used to make fun of runners regularly. What is wrong with you? There's— you could take a bike, you could ride, you could get a ride. I will give you a ride. Why are you swimming? You could swim. Like, what are you doing? Why are you—

well, that's how you become a triathlete.

What's wrong with you? Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, and then I became a runner, but I, I became a runner runner, not initially to run a marathon. I became a runner to kind of, well, first it was to experience that, you know, hey, maybe I could be a little bit, maybe I could go a little bit faster, maybe I could go a little bit farther. But then in the experience of running, it actually changed how I felt so dramatically, not just when I was running, but like, like kind of who I was. Was that I really became— I really enjoy running, even though I don't enjoy it when I'm doing it all the time.

Sure. Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. Yeah.

But I'm not— I don't have to grind. I'm like, oh, you know, I'm not like— nobody's making me run. Now, as a result of all that, I've run several half marathons. I've run 3 full marathons. I ran New York, Chicago, San Francisco, all these things as an over 50-year-old man. Run. In fact, I ran San Francisco last year and broke the 4-hour mark, and next I'm trying to qualify for Boston. But all these things happened not because I set the goal of being a marathon runner, but because I embrace the idea of being a runner. Does that make sense?

Right. First of all, I want to stop for a second and acknowledge how ridiculously awesome that is. Because, right, and I know it's something like, yeah, I'm used to it now. I'm already doing these things. But if you think 20— go back to the 20-year-ago you. You. Yeah, go back to the non-sober you. Yeah, what would that guy say if you— right, if you're like, yeah, you're gonna run half marathons, you're gonna do these 3 main, you're gonna, you know, full marathons, and you're gonna drop a 4-hour, you know, window. And what would that version of you have said?

Well, it's funny because that version of me was so cocky and so sure of myself that I might have been like, yeah, of course I'm gonna do that. But what I would say is, you know, the— I think it's better to go, say, to the 20— because I was 20 when I got— so maybe the 25, 30-year-old version of me, or actually even the 45-year-old version of me, right? I mean, I started running, uh, just a couple months before my 50th birthday, actually. So you could go back just a few years and say, what do you think? You know, but, but, but, but seriously, going back to the 20-year-old version, I would say the life that I have been able to have as a result of the people that have come into my life and the choices that I've made to who to engage with and who to spend time with and who to trust and who to take risks with and do the things that didn't seem to make sense. But okay, I'm going to take the action and the insight will follow the action. There's no way I could have possibly imagined, you know, I— we haven't talked about this, but I was living in a toolshed when I was 20 years old. That's the bet. My, like, my best efforts at life had me living in a tool shed. And, uh, and my, my entire time was, how am I going to get high today? And that included stealing money, and that included lying to people, and that included, you know, um, I had a, I had a 1-year-old baby that I had no interest in being a dad to. And like, like, that's who I really was. That was my day-to-day existence. And so you take that guy and you say, hey, here's you at 54. I don't think anybody else would've seen it, right? No, there's nobody else that would've been like, yeah, that's what I said.

Are you on drugs? Right?

That's, yeah. Are you, you're, you're, you're on drugs? Yeah, I am. Yeah. You know, I lived in that tool shed 10 months sober before I got up to live in somebody's room. And, and that first year of being clean was literally the greatest year of my life. Greatest year of my life because all of a sudden sudden, there was such a dramatic change going on in how I saw the world and what was possible for me. It was like, it was crazy. I mean, it was a roller coaster. I was always broke. I, you know, there was nothing good on the outside going on.

No stability. Right. And that's right.

But on the inside, all of a sudden I was being filled up with, dude, you're going to be okay. This is going to be great. And you just keep doing this and your life's going to be great. And that's been my experience.

You know, yeah, so much more to do that. So I guess maybe wrapping it up, and, you know, I want you to talk a little bit about, you know, your coaching program and what you're doing and how you're helping some other people, and then how people can find you. And, uh, um, I always want to always ask, like, if you're a runner, like anybody who has this, like, unique little niches, it's kind of like, all right, what's the tools and gears and sneakers? And like, you know, right? And then, you know, just throw those out for, for people because I, I got into my Coros watch. I got rid of, you know, I switched over and, uh, moved into the Coros structure instead of Garmin for— so, and only running Hokas.

I'm probably not the right guy to talk to about any of that stuff. I'm not. I don't really— I, I remember I use Nike shoes. I know a lot of people don't like those.

Um, I can't, I can't run in them with the air.

Yeah, I— well, it's funny because I had, I had Hokas to start with, and my knees— I called my PT person and I go, hey, I need to see you, my knees, or whatever. She goes, are you— what kind of shoes you wearing? She's— I said, Hoka. She goes, get rid of the Hocus. That's the only problem. And that's what happened for me. I put Nikes on, I've never looked back. My knees got better. So, but I don't want to say, because I know people love— I have no idea why she said—

is there one thing, is there one thing you swear by that helps get you through training and get you through? Is there a nutrition thing? Is there a, is there a, a song? Is there something that just—

so that I would say that if you really want to be a runner, always have a race that you've got coming coming up, right? Like, I just yesterday signed up for the San Diego half marathon. I'm coming off of a— when is that knee injury? What?

When's the San Diego?

Uh, March 24th.

Oh, so it's really soon. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I'm coming off a knee injury. That last marathon took it out of me, go running up and down the Golden Gate Bridge and back and forth and whatever. So I'm, I'm— because my, my goal is to do, um, to qualify for Boston, I have to do 3:35 35, to at my age, you will, you will do 335.

Yeah, you don't have to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but, but, but my big thing would be always have something you're training for, not because the goal itself, but just know like that to me, that's what bridges the gap. Like I always have a race that I'm getting ready for, whether it's a 5K or 10K or I mean, I generally don't get ready for 5Ks and 10Ks because now I run a 10K.

It's part of your— yeah, it's part of your game.

I run 10Ks just all the time, you know. Yeah. Um, but, uh, so that, that's what I would say about that. Um, my coaching, you know, I mean, if somebody's in real estate, I'm, I'm not on the podcast to necessarily pitch any coaching, but I do have, um, if you like that accountability thing I was talking about on my website, you can go there and you can print out for free a download of our, what we call our Daily Navigator, where you create the things that you, the daily tasks that you want you want. And then you create your accountability group. I have a little free— it's actually being uploaded this week, so it's not there this week, but by the time this airs, it'll probably be up, which is a free little recorded thing that you can watch on how to create your accountability group and what things should be on your thing. And so that's flowcademy.com, F-L-O-C-A-D-E-M-Y, like the Academy of Living in Flow. Flow Academy is what that is.

And not Flo from 227, different Flo.

No, no. And then, and then you can follow me on Instagram, @therickwarner. I'm on Instagram and I post weird shit there, but nothing. I mean, I post, I don't know, I post, there's nothing. I don't know. I don't even know why people would go there, to be honest. But they can follow me there if they want to. Awesome. Awesome.

Rick, I know there is so much more we can definitely get into and even go further down the rabbit hole of neurology and especially as it plays out in the world of sales and marketing and branding and stuff like that. And I definitely would like to invite you back into all that because I know that we're at the tough place and I think you hit it on, on the head where, you know, when you're talking about the momentum of, oh, my business was doing well because the market was then and I had to recalibrate everything.

Right.

You know, in '08, I think we're seeing the same thing now post-pandemic.

Yeah.

And right, we saw that with certain businesses like Peloton, or all these businesses that were, you know, Zoom, right? Zoom stock, right? Whatever it is. And I'm still, I'm still 94% telehealth, and ended up getting licensed in multiple states over the pandemic, which is great. And the only people I see in person is for that neuro-emotional technique modality out of my condo rec room as a high-paid need, you know, not cheap therapists. I'm like, I'm not going back into an office. So, but I see a lot of people, a lot of therapists were, were complaining like, hey, is anybody else not getting people calling them? Like, I've been seeing that over the last number of months. And whether, you know, even though they might be using Psychology Today or some of these other, you know, websites and stuff like that, that their marketing isn't— I'm like, well, what's making you stand out and be the person?

Yeah.

And so it's very—

that's the like, and you talk about, I mean, it's like as a business coach, I mean, because there someday I will be a business coach because there's just, there's so many things that cross over that I don't have to be.

It's cross-pollination for sure.

Exactly. And, and so, but so many, this is, this is the, this is the crux of the thing, right? Everybody gets in the business to do the business they're in, to be a therapist, to be a haircutting person, whatever it is. And there's, but there's still two parts to it. There's the doing the business part, art, being a therapist. You can be a great therapist, but if you don't have any— if you don't have any clients, who cares, right? So then there's the same attorneys, doctors not so much, but you know, these got— everybody needs to have that some version of lead generation. They need to create business, and they want to think that if they're just so great that that will happen. Well, maybe, but that there's a way to accelerate your greatness and turn it into something where people people, you know, the business is coming your way.

Right. Because we don't need to know you exist.

We're not an advocate of spending money on advertising. I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but I mean, there's a way to be relational and create this kind of ongoing source of business coming your way. And I think that a lot of that stuff cross-pollinates, you know?

So, and people talk trap, like, like BNI, what an amazing organization, right? And stuff like that. And it's in there. I mean, but even if you're not in a BNI networking group, read Dr. Ivan Misner's books on— I mean, the guy is a guru. Yeah, I remember going once to a BNI, like, breakfast meeting my buddy invited me to, and I've met Ivan Misner. He's friends with Rick, who's my business coach. Um, so I've had multiple conversations with Ivan. I remember talking to people at BNI, I'm like, have you guys read any of his books? And they're like, who?

Bob Burg is another one. They're friends, I think.

Okay.

Um, endless referrals. And I want your listeners to also just hear, like, you just brushed this, and I'm sure you talk about it all the time, but you guys, did you hear that Jason just said my business coach? Like, I have a business coach. I'm coached all the time. Like, I've— I make a lot of money. I'm— I coach people, but none of that means I don't need to be coached anymore because I can't coach myself, to be honest. Right? I'm not going to—

I just—

it just doesn't work like that. So I just want to highlight for your listeners too.

Awesome. All right. Well, everybody, if you've gotten any value out of this or you know someone who would, please just do us a favor and share this episode out to someone who, you know, especially if they are in the real estate world, but also go if they're in the personal development mindset. You know, the cliché, those words, those buzzwords. I was trying to figure out what better words to use for, for this. But as always, you know, Rick, thank you so much for sharing your time and passion and wisdom with us. And I definitely would love to continue the conversation.

My pleasure, Jason. I really, really appreciate you having me on, and I'm— this was a great conversation for me. I really enjoyed it.

Thanks, brother.