and welcome to the 2025 Vision call, Zoom, whatever you want to call it. We are glad to be here with you, man. I just want to say goodbye 2024. Good, bad, love it, leave it, whatever it was for you, goodbye, that's in your rearview mirror. Today we're here to talk about the future. We're here to talk about the year ahead and the years ahead. And with me are some of my favorite people on the planet. We have, of course, founder, commander, and chief Glenn Sanford. Glenn, welcome. Good to have you here today.
Hey Brent, great to be here. It is going to be an amazing 2025.
As you know as well as anybody, I still can picture you with your headset washing dishes listening to Zig Ziglar. But what do you make of 2025?
There you go, over the top. What takes place inside of this range, everything else out there is an illusion. Everything that's real is right in here. So make what you want for 2025 real right here, and everything else will take care of itself.
I love it, well said. And by the way, Glenn is referencing not last week at my dishwasher job, but when I was in college at 19 when I used to listen to Zig Ziglar. So want to make sure, although my wife makes me do the dishes all the time, and I volunteer some of the time. So we're on there. Also CEO, our extraordinary leader, and man, we're so lucky to have Leo Pareja running at the helm of eXp along with Glenn. Leo, welcome to the 2025 Vision Zoom. We're glad you're here.
Good morning, good afternoon. I am so fired up. I was just on the phone with one of our top agents, and they were asking me what I was thinking about it. I said I just can't wait to get up in the morning. You know, outside of macroeconomic stuff, I think we are the best positioned to crush it in 2025. We've had three lean years as an industry, and the cream rose to the top. Agents got more productive, the ones that made it survived. We learned to do more with less. Agents looked through their budget, figured out what they needed to do and not do. And at the end of the day, this is just about serving families making the biggest decision of their financial life. So I am fired up. I woke up the other day at 2:00 in the morning and wrote down a whole bunch of stuff and started blowing up Wendy and Amy and everybody else. So I'm ready to get on the field on Monday morning.
Good. I won't feel bad about texting you at 2 AM anymore. All right, Leo, amazing, love it. And of course, we have the one and only from the East Coast and one of the most special human beings on the planet, Tina Cole. Tina, welcome to the Zoom here. We're glad you're on.
Oh, I am so thankful to be here. Of all the amazing humans at our company, and we have a lot of them, I'm just honored that you guys wanted me on here. So I'm excited. I'm excited for 2025. Goodbye 2024. You are wanted, along with everybody else on the Zoom and the people that watch us on replay. Man, we could not be more excited. So let's jump into it. By the way, I hope you did the basics. My wife and I drove back from Tahoe through the Sierras yesterday morning, and we sat there and just crystallized our goals and dreams for 2025. Two pages, yes. It's not typed up, yes. It's laminated because you need to see it in your own handwriting and read it. And we are after it. I hope you guys have all done it. If you haven't, take a moment, get away with a cup of coffee for two or three hours, and decide what your future will be. Because you're either going to build your future, or someone will hire you to build theirs. So you might as well build yours. With that, let's get going. Let's go to... I'm sorry, Glenn, the man who started this way back in 2009. He was not washing dishes, but he was at his laptop going, 'How can I create a better way?' He's seen so many markets come and go. He's like me, been in real estate since the early '90s, and this is our third market correction, right, Glenn? So hey, jump in, comment. Love to hear what you think about our current market and where we're headed. The floor is yours.
Yeah, no, thanks, Brent. Great seeing Leo and team. And you know, one, I'm super glad that you mentioned working on your plan. I mean, this is the beginning of the year. If you haven't taken the time, make sure you work on your plan so that you can work your plan during the year. Because if you don't have a plan, it's sort of like the Wizard of Oz. It doesn't really matter where you go because you don't actually know where you're going. But if you know where you're going, it becomes a heck of a lot easier to get there. So this is the beginning of the year. We talk about goal setting, but start to work on your plan. You can iterate on it as you go, but at least have one to start with. And then at the end of the quarter, at the end of the next quarter after that, you can adjust and pivot and move forward. But if you operate without a plan, a lot of times that's where the frustration comes in. We're saying goodbye to 2024. Well, if you had a plan in 2024 and you were iterating and operating against that plan, you probably didn't have a bad 2024 because you were actually operating in alignment with what was going on and you were being real about what was happening versus wanting something that didn't really exist. It's almost like when I was showing homes back as an agent. I became an agent back in 2002, and I had people that would come into the market and they would have a preconceived idea of what a home would be that they would find to live in. And I had to educate them even before we went to look at homes and say, 'Hey, we're going to go look at homes, but I just want to let you know the home that you believe exists doesn't actually exist. What we have to do is get real with the market. And once we get real with the market, we can find the home that actually suits you and that you can do the things that you want to do with that home.' And I think that's the same thing with 2025. Get real about where you're at in your business in 2025, and you can actually have a perfect business in 2025. So obviously, there's lots of cycles. And what we do know is that virtually like clockwork, every seven to ten years, the market goes down and then the market comes back. And what we want to do is to be in a position where we're gathering market share when the market's going down. Maybe our business actually increases, but maybe we face more adversity than we were used to. But we want to gather market share because at the end of grabbing market share when the market pops back up, that's when you'll see all of your hard work rewarded. So one of the first things is just make sure that you work a plan. You think about what metrics you're measuring. Sometimes it's not net income. Sometimes it's number of families served. It's different metrics for different seasons. We really have a lot of agents, and Leo and I see this all the time, I know Brent you do, Tina you do. We have a lot of agents that are knocking it out of the park. So there's a ton of people that are doing really, really well. One of the things we want to try to do, and what we think we do fairly well, is we want to make it transparent of what's working. And so you see things like eXp conversations, you see a lot of the things that we're doing, the podcasts that Leo and I are doing and others are doing, the trainings that you guys are doing and all the other trainings that are going on out there. This is all highlighting the best of the best. And modeling behaviors a lot of times helps create those results. But ultimately, success favors effort, persistence, and focus. So that's really what I think 2025 is all about. Obviously, with our leadership changes in the US, which obviously Leo leading the charge, that's given me time to focus on other parts of the business, including places like International. And of course, we're doing all the same stuff there that we're doing domestically. We're adding new countries, we're bringing in new agents, we're focusing on productive active agent count. We're doing all the different things, and we're doing the business planning just like every agent anywhere in the world should be doing. And we're doing it on the parts of the business that we have the most influence over. And it's super exciting. One thing I was thinking about even before I got on this call, only one out of about 25 agents in the United States is an eXp agent. So I mention that because most agents are stuck in legacy models. They don't have the positive feedback loops that eXp has. The way that we're organized, the way that we think about compensation, the way we put agents first, the way all of our decisions are agent-centric first. They're not, as Leo and I talk about constantly, we're the most agent-centric real estate brokerage on the planet. We're not the most broker-owner friendly real estate brokerage on the planet. And I make that distinction because everything that we're doing is to help agents live better lives through the business of real estate. And everything we're doing, tools, technologies, compensation structure, all of that is designed to help you as an agent. And with that, it makes it easier to weather the downturns which do happen because of that extra support that's built right into the model. So eXp is obviously a safe haven for you to build your business, but also support you in both the good times and the bad times. So anyway, lots of things going on. I'm going to leave it at that, but super stoked. And thanks, Brent and Tina, for putting this call together.
Absolutely, man. We're so glad to have you and Leo on. I love what you said though about this market and where it is. I mean, we've seen this again and again and again. There's a pruning that happens. Like a forest fire, the forest is healthier after the fire. You prune a tree, it grows back healthier, produces more fruit. I had a bunch of friends over this morning, and we're in the sauna, we jumped in the pool which is like 40 degrees. It was awesome, killer. But we were talking about the market. One of them is a loan officer, he has 40 LOs working for him, very successful guy. Long story short, I said, 'Is it true I heard 75% of the LOs are not renewing this year? They didn't renew?' 75%. I go, 'But that's unverified, that's what I heard.' He goes, 'No, no, no, that's incorrect. It's 77%.' Which means all the one, two, three loans they were doing for Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles, sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, all that kind of stuff, they weren't really making a living, but they're siphoning off business. 77% of those people will not be doing those loans, but all those loans will flow to the 23% that are left. And so same thing in real estate. Everybody's losing agents from every brokerage, including eXp. And this is, I'm not excited about it, but it's been three tough years. So when the going gets tough, the tough get going. But we get pruned here, we're going to come back healthier, and all that business that was spread out so far is going to come to the last man, the last woman standing. It's that kind of a market. But I'm telling you, man, I'm so excited for this year. I want to go to Tina real quick before we go to Leo. Tina had come up with some really cool insights. Tina, would you share with everyone kind of what you were thinking?
Yeah, so I don't know if you want... I have slides, so I'm a nerd. I got really prepared. Do you want me to share them?
Yes, yeah, hit them, share your screen.
Yeah, I'll share them because I think it's something I'm personally going through right now. And Glenn, I just have to tell you though, I was talking to an agent yesterday from one of the traditional companies, and just as early as the 1990s, she said, 'Tina, I was on 50/50 splits for 20 years, not on a team, no leads, no services.' So there are still agents out there right now that are paying 50/50 with no services. I mean, teams are the new modern-day brokerages that now offer elevated services, but it blew my mind. As early as the 1990s. But I do have slides, so I'm going to show those now. And I don't want to hijack the call, so I'm going to go really fast because I want to make sure that we get through this. But the thing that... Can you guys see my screen? Yes, okay, good. So the thing that, when I get asked to speak, I actually get really nervous because I could talk about so many things. I'm old now, 24 years in the business. I was a solo agent, sold hundreds of homes per year, made lots of money doing that. Went into team leadership. Now I can talk about building a team and scaling. So there's a lot of things I can talk about, and usually I get really confused where should I start. But when Brent asked me, I thought immediately, 'Oh my God, I'm going to talk about my missing piece.' The missing piece that I've had in my business that I wasn't really aware of. And when you look at me from the outside looking in, selling hundreds of homes, our team was one of the top three teams last year at eXp. We have 1,400 people in our organization. We are freaking thriving. I mean, I'm excited about my life. So how could I have a missing piece? I have my husband who I love dearly, I've met him at 16, we're still together. I have an amazing son. I'm positive, I read positive books, I have a positive mindset, I go to all the events. How could I be missing something? And so if I could feel it in my soul and I couldn't put my finger on it, other people might be thinking that way too. And I'd love to see in the chat box, do you guys ever feel like this? Do you feel like you have this missing peace in you sometimes? So I want to ask you guys if you've ever felt like this, because I'm here today to share that I found what the missing piece was in my life, in my personal life, in my business life. And it's going to help you catapult your happiness and your business at the same time. And that's what we want. We want more happiness, we want more joy. But when we look at success and well-being, success versus well-being, sometimes there's a hidden toll. There's something there that we have to give up when we think that we have to move forward so quickly. And so for me, I thought balance was an illusion. In fact, one of my best performing videos on YouTube was me talking about there is no balance in success. You can't be balanced and have success. And I think I was wrong. I think it was a story that I told myself. So since I can remember, my brain is always on overdrive. I move fast, I take risks, I fail, I start again. My life is fast, but I'm also hard on myself. If I feel behind, if I'm not growing, if I'm not hitting targets, I love to control everything. Everything in my life, everything in my house, everything is in its place. And I think when your mind is uncontrollable, you try to externally control everything in your life. And it was exhausting. Who feels exhausted sometimes being in their brain? Say me, because I feel exhausted in my own brain. And then my phone is attached to my hand at all times, and not for connection because my mom might be calling. It was because, 'My God, what if I miss something? What if an agent calls? What if a client calls? I need this.' And Kevin used to say, 'God, put your phone down.' And I'd go, 'I can't.' And so a week would go by, a month would go by, a year would go by, and it would be in a flash. And I just found myself this year being exhausted. Now when you contrast to my husband Kevin, he has this calm presence, and he meditates, and he stays grounded, and he goes for walks, and he's fully present in life. And he's always tried to get me to do these things, but I always thought, 'Gosh, I'm so busy, and why do I need all that stuff? I'm really positive. I mean, I just watched a Tony Robbins video. What do I need to do this stuff for?' But it turns out I was missing the point. And he always reminded me of this verse. I'm going to read it. It's from the Dao De Jing. And Kevin grew up Christian, Catholic, but he reads everything. And so I never understood it because I always thought I was just not smart enough to understand it. But it goes like this: 'Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, unite your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is your primal identity.' And now I actually get it. So his interpretation is this call to stop grasping for control of everything and let your dust settle. So once we quiet the noise in our mind, we can reconnect with who we truly are. Now I'm not trying to have you guys all become gurus and yogis and move to the Himalayas or to move to the beach and sell smoothies by the seashore. It's just about finding inner peace that you can actually have this life balance and you can have more joy in your life. So for me, there was this wake-up call. And this wake-up call was to put my phone down and to really block off my senses and untie the knots and settle the dust. And so when I think about two of the quotes that I love about getting out into the world and out in nature, this is one of them: 'Nature is not a place to visit, it's home.' And then Einstein said, 'Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.' So I had this awakening, this wake-up call that I needed. And last year I was overwhelmed trying to make everybody happy. I was emotionally drained. I was doing all the luxury stuff for eXp. I had 1,400 people in my downline. I've got this team. I went from selling 15 homes a month myself personally to now 70. I brought on so much stress that all of a sudden I needed something different. And so for years, Kevin has been going to this spiritual retreat in Costa Rica, and I thought that was just woo-woo stuff for a bunch of weirdos in the jungle. And it never called me, to be honest. And I'm not one to do drugs. I don't really drink. I just don't have that in me because I always want to be in control. But I had this calling. And after I went to this retreat, which I just got back a month or so ago, it showed me who I've become. And really what this retreat does is it puts a mirror in your face, which all of us need to do sometime. Put a mirror in your face and show me who I've become. The other thing it does is it wants to merge you back with your soul. And so it talks about between the ages of two and five, a lot of us have this soul-crushing moment where we shift who we are and we start acting like somebody else. We lose that childhood spirit in us, and we forget who we are. And the last thing is heal my heart. So I discovered there that the piece that I was chasing wasn't out there externally. It wasn't in business, it wasn't in trophies, it wasn't in external validation. It was all right here. It was within me. And it was just the piece to learn to breathe. I mean, every day we did yoga, and we were breathing. And the euphoria that I felt, I don't know if any of you have done breath work, if you have, say yes in the chat box. But the euphoria that I felt, I felt like I was on another planet just doing breath work. And guess what, everybody? We have that with us. And so my biggest realization for all of us to wake up this year and have the best business possible, because I believe that it is possible, balance and business is we're so distracted. Social media, work, numbing habits that we all have, workaholism, alcoholism, doing whatever it is, we've forgotten just how to be. And when you think about our planet, it's 13 million years old. First walk of life was discovered four million years ago. For millions of years, humans have been connected to nature. And it's just the last hundred years that all of us have been glued to screens. We don't work outdoors anymore, we work indoors. So we're wondering why do we feel disconnected from life, from our earthly home? And I know I sound very woo-woo right now, but I truly believe that all of us have this missing piece. And it's the fact that for millions of years we've been connected with the outdoors, and we're no longer there. We're not even connected with self. So your blueprint for peace, and I'm almost done, is I want you guys to think about challenging yourself this next 30 days to do something small. For me, my three were five minutes of breath work. Literally five minutes. You can Google it. You inhale deeply for 5 seconds, you exhale for 5 seconds. You pretend this red ribbon is coming in and out of your mouth. It's just to quiet that crazy mind of yours. And then moving your body. I started doing yoga. I thought it was boring. It is the most phenomenal thing, and it's again to quiet your mind. And then when you think about your week, you guys have 168 hours every week. 50 of those hours, 60 of those hours are work. 50 to 60 for you workaholics. You sleep 50 hours a week if you sleep 7 hours a night. That's 100 hours. You still have another 68 hours left to do whatever you want. And it shouldn't be this. It shouldn't be scrolling. And so I want you guys to use that because right now, if you think about it, life expectancy for humans is 72 to 75 years old on this planet. Now I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but for those of us in our 40s and 50s like me, we have 25, 35 good years left. That's 25 Christmases, 25 summers. What will you do with them? You have to wake up and you have to really spend time with yourself. So these are... take a screenshot of it. Listen to this book by Michael Singer. It's a lecture, it's 'Living from a Place of Surrender'. It'll help all the crazy minds out there settle. Mel Robbins has a great book right now called 'Let Them'. Phenomenal. Stay connected to nature, be outdoors, spend five minutes focusing on breath, and then moving your body. That's all I have for you guys today because I really feel like it's changed my world just to be more connected to self. And yeah, that's just where I am.
