The Necessary Mindset to Succeed At a High Level Without Compromising Your Standards w/Justin Ford

Welcome back to Real Estate Team Builders. I've got Justin Ford today with us and I've gotten to know Justin's not only what he does in business, which is super impressive, but this guy has a heart really just sharing his story as a way to draw people in, to have a big impact here. And we share similar, a similar faith and the reason we're put here on earth. And I want you to get into a little bit of that Justin today. Justin regularly sells over a hundred homes a year. He has leverage in the form of like super tight systems. I know you don't generally work with buyers, so it's a listings focused business. And I want Justin start out with kind of just your real estate story. You know, I know you're in Detroit, Michigan, you're working 40 hours or less a week in real estate. I know you've got some other ventures that you're focusing on as well. Also another brother of mine from Exp, you know Exp, the company that doesn't have producers in it.

Right.

We're just recruiters. And so Justin start off with like kind of the real estate intro. But then I want to use like your story as fuel for others, you know, to be able to kind of like, man, if Justin can do it, I can do it, you know. So kind of tell us your background in real estate and then we'll get into your bigger story.

Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me Lars. I really appreciate it. So I've been in the industry now, this will be my 17th year. Came in in 2005 on the mortgage side and rode that way for a few years. And you know, that was pretty short lived because the market kind of crashed and corrected back in 2008. From there I went into getting into doing short sales and loan modifications, helping people who are then losing their homes to foreclosure, you know, learning how to restructure, helping people restructure their mortgages. And then once the market kind of turned in 2012, 2013 when the short sales and loan modifications was drying up, I decided to go into the real estate industry and get licensed here in Michigan. Joined a local team, super excited about that and got into, got into this team. Learned how to really kind of go after business versus sitting back and waiting for it. Sold 100 plus homes my first year in the business, primarily through prospecting for sale by owners and expireds. I'd say my business ratio that year was 80% listings, 20% buyers. Did that for about three years. Then started my own independent brokerage. I was independent for about four years, realized I did not want to carry all the responsibility and the weight that came with being a broker. And then just last January 2021, joined exp.

Awesome. Awesome. So let's back it up a little bit. And I want to share. You know, I know you've written a book and you've launched a podcast, and you've just got this incredible story, and I think when people hear it, they're going to sort of. I think it might help them fuel their fire. So I want you to tell your story, and then I want to get into a little bit the nuts and bolts around mindset and your daily routine and all that. But start with your story.

Yeah. So, you know, I grew up in a broken home. My parents divorced when I was 2. My dad was an alcoholic. And, you know, it caused, you know, just a tough upbringing. You know, when you. When you're in a, you know, come from a broken home or you're raised in a broken home, it's difficult. A lot of times you don't understand the effects on you when you're a kid. But those things start to show up, you know, when you become a teenager and you get a little bit older. And, you know, I was always a good kid. I was an honorable student in high school. But I also really kind of got sucked into peer pressure and making a lot of poor decisions. You know, I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be cool. And, you know, where I came from, there was a lot of peer pressure with drugs and alcohol and experimented at a very young age, probably 14, 15 years old, is when I started experimenting. And what I didn't know was, is that was really going to quickly, you know, accelerate and lead me down a path that I really didn't want to go. But it happened in a very short period of time. I started hanging out with some older crowd and started experimenting with even more, you know, stronger drugs. And between the ages of 17 and 19, I acquired eight misdemeanors and a felony, all drug and alcohol related. Dropped out of high school as an honor roll student, got a girl pregnant. Had my first child when I was 18 and overdosed, almost died. Got into a drunk driving accident, lost my driver's license for 10 years. And, you know, at that time, you know, I was. I was like, stuck. Right? You know, we talk about it from a spiritual perspective, about strongholds. Like, I was like, I was stuck. And I really wanted to break free from that, but I just didn't know how. And, you know, I really, I mean, I Knew my life was spinning out of control, but I knew that it really got low. There was this time where, you know, I was out, you know, doing drugs and partying all night, hadn't slept for 24 hours, and ended up getting kicked out of this vehicle, you know, out in the middle of this, you know, this parking lot of this business, like at 7:30 in the morning. And I don't really remember it, but apparently I was causing a bunch of ruckus and they called the police, got arrested for public intoxication. And I was so like high and drunk and I felt like I was literally dying. I was on cocaine and all these drugs that made me like really, really dehydrated that they, they wouldn't give me any water, you know, in the jail to, to drink. And so I actually started drinking water out of the toilet in the jail just to stay hydrated. And that's, that's how low, you know, my life really, really got. And then, you know, you would have thought that that would have been the end of it. But this drunk driving accident happened when I was 19 and I basically passed out at the wheel. I blew a 0.21, which is three times the legal limit, and crashed my mom's car into the wall on the freeway. Thankfully there was nobody else that was involved. And thankfully, you know, I was able to walk away from that. But that really caused me to. You know, I was in this, I was in this jail cell in downtown Detroit and I was already on probation in four cities. I had already been on a restricted driver's license from a previous drunk driving. Like it was not looking good for me at all. But I prayed a prayer in that jail cell, ours. And I just said, God, if you'll give me a second chance and you'll let me get out of here, I'll give my life to you. Believe it or not, they let me out. Didn't have to pay a bond or a bail, which was kind of crazy to think about. And I literally, that day went and checked myself into a faith based treatment center. And 19 years old. And that's where I found Jesus. And it transformed my whole life.

Man, that's awesome. So, so you were not saved when you checked yourself into that, that treatment.

Center, you know, at 16 years old. You know, we used to play basketball at this, at this local church and they required us to go to like, like teen church, right, Like a youth group before we'd play basketball. And I remember at 16, really feeling the conviction from the Lord, and I prayed the Prayer, but it wasn't really like I wasn't living for the Lord, you know what I mean? But I did pray that prayer and I really wanted to, I just didn't, didn't go to church, wasn't being mentored or disciple, didn't know anything about that. And so quickly right after that, we're kind of back into the lifestyle that I was living. But it was, it was in that homeless shelter that, you know, I really feel like my relationship with the Lord was established.

Awesome. So let's, let's shift gears. So, so that is like as bleak an entrance into being a top agent, you know, as you possibly, you know, could have. And there was nothing, you know, sort of handed to you or, or anything. So I want to have a conversation around the mindset necessary to succeed in real estate at a high level. And then, and then we can kind of go into like your, your routine. But let's talk about mindset. You know, getting into the business from the mortgage side and then shifting over. You know, we both agree on, on this, like, you know, 80% of success is mindset. So, so how did you work through some of the challenges that you have with your mindset?

Yeah, I mean, honestly, for me, you know, my faith has been my foundation and you know, being, you know, becoming a Christian at 19 years old and really beginning to read the Bible and being mentored, you know, learning what it, what it meant to. The Bible says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Right. Really understanding that you can change your mindset by renewing it. And, and, and I began to really, you know, learn the scripture, you know, learn success, read books, you know, really focus on changing the way that I thought. Because I knew at a, at a young age, right after I had been saved that I was going to be successful. I knew that God was calling me into business and all of those things, and I knew that I needed to change in order for those things to happen. And you know, after, you know, becoming a Christian, getting married, getting into the mortgage business and making money for the first time, you know, we, we hit six figures pretty, pretty quickly, you know, and my wife and I both come from a low, you know, to middle class home. Right. Like, our parents never made more than $100,000. You know, again, my parents were divorced, hers weren't. But we didn't come, you know, from a successful home, from a financial standpoint. And so when we made, you know, our first bit of money, like we thought we had arrived again. Mindset. We had no structure on Saving money, paying our taxes on time, investing, you know, planning for the future. And so we went from six figures to no figures overnight when the mortgage business crashed, you know, we went through foreclosure, we lost both of our cars to repossession, we went through bankruptcy. And here in Michigan, it's a six month redemption. So once you go to the foreclosure sale, you still have six months. But we didn't have anything prepared. We didn't have any money, we didn't even have a plan. And so on this, after the six months was over, I mean, the sheriff literally dropped the dumpster in our driveway and began moving stuff out. And my wife was under such, you know, stress because we were losing our home. She broke out in hives and had to go to the hospital and couldn't even help us move to the new house. And so like, at the time, I didn't understand that God was using those things to help me build a stronger mindset and build character. But, but I believe everything that we go through prepares us and builds us if we're willing to learn from it. Right. Because some people go through things and never learn from it. But you know, I love the bible verse, Romans 8, 28. We know that God causes all things to work together for the good, because even though I was going through those hard times, God was working those things together for my good and teaching me lessons and helping me, even from a mindset standpoint, to grow and build character and wisdom and those things like that. So it's been a journey. It hasn't been easy.

Yeah. So talk a little bit just from, you know, as you're building your real estate business, you know, realizing the importance of, you know, systems and routines and those sorts of things. Talk about, you know, I know you have a very sort of, you know, I think today we spoke earlier today or this week, you'll take like six listings, you know, and, but so what is, what does the routine look like in terms of, you know, getting a skill set to be able to do that, but also just the actual daily routine that you follow?

Yeah. So I'm thankful that I was introduced into real estate by a team here locally that sells a thousand homes a year. Number one real estate team in Michigan, and they follow, followed a process that basically the foundation of it is, is going after business. Right. Making calls, prospecting, following the system. And what, what that team leader told me when I first interviewed with him, because I, my understanding or my thought process of what real estate was, was not sitting on the Phones and being a telemarketer. I mean, that's what I thought he was hiring me to do, was be a telemarketer. And I'm like, I did that like five years ago. I don't want to be a telemarketer anymore. What he taught me and told me was, if you follow this process, our process works. Everybody follows it. If you follow this process and you learn this process and this skill, picking up the phones, making calls, talking to people, overcoming objections, you'll be super successful. And I remember the first day almost quitting, like, after making a few calls, I'm like, honestly, I said this, this sucks. This is not what I signed up for. But I'm like, but if I quit right now, what. What do I really have going for me? I mean, on food stamps, we're struggling. So I went all in and followed this process. And the guy that hired me was. He was right. You know, I went all in. You know, I wasn't like, well, let me just put one foot in and one foot out. Like, I think everything starts with the decision. And so I sold 100 homes my first year in the business. And when you're scaling and when you're growing and you're looking at obviously wanting to have balance in your life. We have four kids. You want to have some time to rest. Most people in this industry work 24,7 is the same team leader, had created a business on leverage. And so right off the bat, I learned, okay, I'm not going to do paperwork. I'm going to have an assistant or admin do all my paperwork. I'm not going to show homes. I'll do a buyer consultation, establish the relationship with the client, but then have a showing assistant show the homes for me. And, and once I learned that, and then, and then was able to really just focus on what I was good at and that was setting appointments, going on appointments, taking listings. And then every other aspect of the process was outsourced to somebody else. I saw not only my business take off, even, Even more, but I saw myself working less and actually having, you know, more peace, more time, less anxiety, less, you know, stress because of that, that structure, but. But also putting those systems and processes and leverage in place.

So let's talk about, let's talk about that. I. I know guys that are running, you know, businesses where they'll sell five or six hundred homes and they don't understand leverage and they're still involved in aspects of their business that they don't need to mess around with. Talk about the mindset you have to have as it relates to leverage. So an agent thinks that their job is like, okay, my job is to ride around and run errands and open doors and put lockboxes out and install signs and enter listings into mls. And your mindset is not that you realize that there's only a couple things that make you money. So for someone that is still bogged down in the mindset of thinking, or even if they don't realize that they're doing way more than they should be doing, how did you get out of those aspects of the business? How did you learn that?

Two things. Number one is you have to be very focused and clear on what is your why. What is important to you is, is it important for you to be home with your wife and kids, you know, for dinner? Is it important for you to be at church on Sundays? Like, I've never worked on Sundays, take Sundays off. I've taken Sundays off since I started in the business. You know, if you called my voicemail right now, it says, if you're calling me on Sunday, today's my day off, I'll call you tomorrow. You know, we make time for what's important to us. And what I learned very early on was the majority of real estate agents work 24, 7 and never really take time for rest or create that balance. And again, I think the reason why is the lack of clarity on what's important to them. It was always important to me to be at my kids games. It was always important to be at church on Sunday. It was always important to try to be home at least a couple days a week in the evening to have dinner. That was important to me. But then number two is what I've also found because I'm a coach in real estate. So I coach a lot of agents and I hear this is most people don't want to outsource their work because they don't think that anybody can do it better than them or they're afraid to give up control of their business. So they want to be the ones writing the contracts, they want to be the ones doing this, they want to be the ones doing that. And I kind of struggled with that early on, like, because I wanted things to be done a certain way. But once I was willing to finally release those things and let them go again, I could focus on what was important to me and what, what my strengths were rather than getting caught up in the day to day.

So one, one thing you just touched on and I think it's, it's monumentally important is. Is the conversation of. Of standards. You know, a couple examples that you gave is that, you know, you're gonna. You're gonna take Sundays off and you're not gonna apologize for it. You're gonna be at your kids games. So why is it that you think most agents struggle with boundaries and standards? And what advice would you give them if they're struggling with it?

Again, I think everything has to start with what is your why? I have this training and this teaching I do, and I even on my podcast, I had two different episodes where I talk about the six keys to success. I teach it wherever I go. Someone brings me in for real estate. You know, I lay this foundation with the six keys to success. And, you know, one of the keys is discovering your why. You know, I think that a lot of real estate agents don't even really know what their big why is. Because your why can't be money, right? Your why can't be just making money. It's what does that money afford you to do? What type of lifestyle are you ultimately looking for? My why was my family going through that? That. That loss of foreclosure and repossession, all that, like, that was. That was hard, right? To see my wife break out in hives to, you know, see them take our family vehicle on the repo truck while my kids are playing in the yard, like, what are they doing with our car? Right? Those things were difficult. So for me, you know, my why became my family. And so it wasn't just to make money for my family. It was to spend quality time with them. And so I would say for the agents that are struggling right now is what is your why, right? If your why is family, or your why is to serve in your community, or your why is to give back, make time for what's important to you, there's always going to be more than enough business to go around, and it doesn't take working 24 7. I actually work less today, Lars, than I did in my first year. Right? I mean, way less. Way, way, way less. And you just have to be willing to, you know, trust the process. And. And I had to do that. I've gone through a handful of different assistants because some are a good fit, some are not. But you eventually get to a point where you find the right system, the right leverage, the right people. And when you. When you have that in place, you can really, really discover, you know, and not even say discover, but spend time on what. What's important to you. And for me, Quality time is important to me. Or not just ripping and running 24 7.

That's awesome. For someone that is sort of, I guess, struggling, maybe mindset, maybe they're rationalizing that the market's too difficult right now and it could be some more of your keys to success. But what advice would you give someone, you know, that maybe they're just comfortable and there's another level to growth. I know you're challenging yourself right now in terms of your growth. And you know, I see you posting on a regular basis the private jet that you'll, that you'll fly in someday. God's calling you to bigger and bolder, you know, stages and platforms and all of that. But what advice would you give for somebody that's, that's sort of struggling right now? And maybe they're like you were on day one, they're thinking of sort of throwing the towel in.

Yeah. You know, if success was easy, everybody would be successful, right? If being a top producer, you know, was easy, everybody would be producing at a high level. But it's not, it's super difficult. And, you know, when it comes to mindset, you know, you either think you can or you think you can't, right? You either see the glass half full or you see it half empty or you have a scarcity mindset or an abundant mindset. And sometimes it just comes down to mindset. You know, when I was, when I was sitting there on day one and I wanted to quit, you know, I had to, I literally, I remember I had to take a step back and pause for a moment and say, you know what? I've been kind of quitting all my life. You know, I've had, I've had some success, but then it's only, you know, short, short lived, right? I've always, I've always kind of pulled back or given up when times were tough. But you know, my mentor at the time told me, you know, tough is a part of the process. Hard is a part of the process. And he said, justin, it's also hard to live, you know, below your potential. It's also hard to be struggling and be in debt and be on food stamps and barely making it. He just said, he says you have to choose your hard. So if you are struggling right now and you are like, you know what? This is hard, this is difficult. Get excited about that, right? And make a commitment to bust through the heart. You know, people that are, you know, struggling in their health or overweight, they know that they need to lose weight, they have health challenges. We all know that if we just eat better and we go to the gym, like, we can solve the problem. Why do so many people, you know, stay in diabetes? Or why do so many people, you know, stay overweight? It goes back to mindset, right? And so we. We have to make a decision to work through the struggles, work through the mental blocks and challenges and make a decision. This is what did it for me, Lars. I made a decision that I was going to win no matter what. It didn't matter to me what came my way. It didn't matter what struggles, hardships, things I'm going to have to go through. I'm going to win no matter what. I don't have a plan B. And the only way I can lose is if I quit. And because I decided I'm never going to quit, I'm going to win. And I'm already winning. I'm winning just because I'm never going to quit. Right. And so I think each person has to have that, call it a coming to Jesus moment. Right. Like, you have to look yourself in the mirror. You have to ask yourself, right? Are you in or are you not? Right. And I just. I went all in. And, you know, it's been a tough, tough. It's been tough, right? It's not easy, but it was worth it.

Yeah. That's awesome. So what's the. What's the best way to connect with. I know you've. You just launched the book.

You're.

You're launching the podcast, and you're putting out episodes there. What's the. What's the best way to get the book? And then also, what's the focus of the podcast?

Yep. So the podcast is really. I call it Faith, Finance, Real Estate, and Family. Right. It's just. It's. It's all about. So I'll say this one thing I've learned in real estate and being a coach, everybody's like, man, how many numbers did you do? How many homes did you sell? What was your gci? All this, that and the other. Nobody's really asking, how's your marriage? How are your kids? Right. How you doing mentally? And so this podcast really dives to deeper. We talk about real estate, but we go kind of beyond that. And I bring on different guests, and we talk about different things. Like, I've had my wife on several times. We talk about our marriage, we talk about the struggles, talk about the. We call it Real Ron Uncut. So we go through a ton of different stuff. It's called the Justin Ford Unleashed Podcast. You can get it on all the major platforms, Spotify, Google, Sounder, Apple. And then the book is getting ready to come out. So I've got the physical copy and we're just working through some details to pick, like a book release, but we'll be announcing that on the podcast. So if you want more information on my upcoming book, you know, subscribe to the podcast and we'll definitely be talking about that real soon. Or you can, you can connect with me on Facebook or Instagram. I'm the official Justin Ford, because when I went to go put my just Justin Ford, and there's about 100 of us, there can only be one official Justin Ford, and that's me, so. So you can find me on Facebook or Instagram.

Yeah, it's funny, I've never had that problem. Like the official Lars Heddenberg, right? There is a random Lars Hedinburg in Sweden that I'm friends with on Facebook, but not in the business or real estate world. Brother, I appreciate your heart and you getting after it and just sharing, sharing your wisdom, your pain, your suffering, the good, bad and ugly. I encourage everyone to check out Justin's podcast from a guy that's willing to share. You know, I think Justin said it, said it just a second ago. You know, it's kind of easy as an industry to kind of put your best stuff out there on social media and like, look how easy this is really hard to let people in, into the darker sides of, you know, of what you've been through. And a lot of people are suffering, you know, a great deal. And the fact that, you know, you've, you've leaned even more into your faith. I've been going through some personal stuff here with, you know, raising an 11 and 14 year old and, you know, wanting to succeed and win more so at home than in business. And it's, it's only forced me to lean more into God as, you know, as, as the only way to make sense of, of any of this. And so I just appreciate your heart around that as well. So anything I could do for you, you know, I'm here for you. Check out Justin's podcast and we'll talk to you guys soon. Be good.