Welcome to another episode of Coaching Moments With Ryan D’Aprile from D’Aprile Properties!
Ryan talks about what takes to make somebody great in any industry. Ryan focuses on the love for grit and grind and how success is a choice. He emphasizes that effort is way more important than ability in your path to success and also focuses on the importance of being coachable. Last, Ryan discusses how finding your “why” connects you to the energy to push you through to success.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Ryan D’Aprile can be reached at 312.590.6416 and ryan@daprileproperties.com.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show, and today is our monthly coaching moments with Ryan de April. This is our series we do if you’re not familiar yet with Ryan de April, or if you’re new to the show, a Ryan comes on every month to give our listeners and our viewers a coaching moment and a coaching session. So let me tell you about Ryan Ryan April is a progressive thought leader focused on providing for his agents and staff at depot properties. His strengths are his motivational skills, his coaching style and his dedication to training. He has 14 offices throughout Chicagoland and also he has offices in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan with hundreds and hundreds of top real estate agents. Table Properties is a coaching company with eight strategic coaches who work week in and week out with every agent individually focused on business planning, coaching and accountability. If you’d like to take your career to the next level, or if you’re just not getting the attention you need check out the April properties visit D April properties.com. That’s D A p r i l e properties.com Welcome once again, Ryan.
Ryan D’Aprile 1:56
Thanks, TJ and guess what we’re also now in Florida to by the way
D.J. Paris 2:00
that funny funny story we ran into each other in the airport as you were going down there to to solidify that deal. We happen to be on the same flight so
Ryan D’Aprile 2:11
yes, you did. Yeah, your girlfriend let me a mask. I was in trouble. I walked around like oh my gosh, I forgot a mask. Remember that. And
D.J. Paris 2:20
that’s right. That’s right. We did. Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m glad. So you guys are now so now I have to include Florida. And where is that? Where are you guys located in Florida? Miami, right.
Ryan D’Aprile 2:31
Yeah, we’re starting in Miami. Yeah, so we’re really excited. Got a great crew down there. A wonderful leader. And yeah, gosh, I don’t know when that was I think that was in the spring when we ran it. It was so so that’s exciting. And I’m waiting for the weather to turn so I’m going to quote unquote have to get down there a lot for work
D.J. Paris 2:50
it’s it’s my sister lives in Tampa and so we go down for the the major holidays in the winter, because why not? And great reason to get down there just to avoid although we’ve been having here we’re Ryan and I are really headquartered here in Chicago. And we’ve been having some just amazing weather lately. So I’m excited to face
Ryan D’Aprile 3:13
it is before it is awesome in Miami still rich and culture. I just love it. Down there. I love it I in every part of love tampons, Yes, over there. And I love also you know, Naples and the golf course your tables, they all and then you get up to Jacksonville, that beautiful St. Augustine area, or oldest city in the country. It’s just, it’s got a lot to offer there. And just like anywhere, you know, you find you find what you look for in life, man, there’s a lot of beauty out there. And so we’re down there and just looking around, oh my god, this is a great place to be.
D.J. Paris 3:46
Yeah, my parents are going to be staying in Clearwater for the second straight winter. Right on they have found I’ve got a place right on the beach. And that is like in their live stream. So I mean, who knows, maybe one day I’ll end up down there with my sister and my parents but but for now I’m here in the Midwest with you. And but we have listeners all over the place. We have lots of Florida listeners as well as people from all over the country trying to grow their real estate practice. And Ryan, this is what he does. He works directly with his coaches, and he coaches agents as well. And so if you’re new to the show, this is our sort of, not our sort of this is our coaching moment that we do every month. So what would you like to talk about today? Yeah, yeah. And then
Ryan D’Aprile 4:29
on top of that, I think my hello to my South Dakota listeners because I had a couple from South Dakota call me and I’m coaching them a little bit here and there and it’s a massive reach. Yeah, and I you know, I think you’d have said for him very reachable. You know, you’re you’re an agent anywhere and you just want a little advice or whatnot. You know, I’m just like you just pick up the phone. Give me a call. We’ll talk it out. What do we want to talk about today? You know, what I think would be a good point. It’s, I was in Chicago this morning and I’m driving again. I’m heading up to another one of our offices but this morning They had me do a big coaching session and I talked to probably a roomful of 30 agents, combination of brand new agents in the industry and veterans that have recently joined us. And they bring a man just and have me do a coaching session for about two hours with them. And kind of my over arching theme for today, and I figured, why not do it on today’s call as well? Is really effort over ability. Yeah. And I think if you really pause and you think about that, I tell people all the time, I can’t coach drive, I can’t coach effort. And I would take effort, over ability any day of the week. And that’s an empowering statement for anybody listening. Because I think we all have so many limiting beliefs that hold us back. And quite honestly, it’s are you committed to the grind? And are you committed to, you know, having grit like Angela Duckworth book, grit, you know, spells out for us. And again, if you guys haven’t read the book, just YouTube, her lot of similar underlying principles in that book, as in many other books about ability over or excuse me effort over ability. And I figured that we make that our theme here, why don’t we talk about you know, what it is to make somebody great in their industry, be it real estate, mortgage lending, insurance? You know, whatever, I actually, you know, I feel like DJ, we appeal to many different industries on your podcast, not just real estate, but obviously, our listeners are real estate agents. But what they more are, they’re entrepreneurs, or as people call them solopreneurs, right? You’re on your own, you’re doing it. And that’s what it is, when you jump into real estate, you your venture out, you’re opening up your own business, and you’re gonna do that, man, you better have grit, you better have effort, you better have desire. And you better have a big why behind it. And I figured, why don’t we just kind of touch on that?
D.J. Paris 7:04
Yeah, I think that’s great. I just got back from the gym, speaking of grit, and I have with somebody who, for most of my life, almost all of my life really never had a regular workout routine. Because I am not naturally somebody who wants to go to the gym, I know, maybe people would laugh and go, Well, me too. But there are people that love to go to the gym and are able to ease it more easily get themselves there. And it was always a struggle for me. And so I got a coach, in this case, a personal trainer. And all she said is when I first went to see her, she’s she said, All you ever have to do is just do the work, she goes, I will correct all of your form, I will correct all of your ability, but you you have to do the push ups and you have to do the pull ups. And all of the things that she goes you if all you do is just focus on the effort, I will I will correct the I will get you to the ability. And you know, a year a year goes by and I look in the mirror. And it’s not I’m no Adonis, but all of a sudden, I have muscles that I never had before. And I still am the guy who doesn’t want to go to the gym, I don’t want to do the work because it’s hard and painful. But I’ve made it a practice and I have accountability. And so just shoving in another quick point. So then I just recently went on this very long, very, very fortunate to go on a long vacation, I was gone for about three weeks, and I really wasn’t able to work out. I mean, I guess I could have shoehorned it in but we were so busy, I just wasn’t, I didn’t do it. And I knew I as soon as I came back, I would be I would be in pain and I came back and within three weeks of off of my routine, I have lost probably half of my strength. And that’s how quickly you know and how important effort is and if I would have just done 20 Push ups today I probably would be in better shape now and I’ll be back within a week or two. But I’m always amazed at how how much results you can get if you apply you know consistency and grit but that how quickly as just a warning to everyone how quickly it can dissipate when you get off of that schedule. So anyway, just throwing on that little anecdote, but I am back to the gym so hopefully I’ll be strong again very shortly.
Ryan D’Aprile 9:14
Well you know what I did that you know is similar to a brand muscle and you know, as real estate agents, you know your your brand has equity it has strength or it doesn’t a lot of agents you know, a lot of agents also fall behind their company brands and they get drownded out and they’re kind of missing the point you are the brand and you need to brand yourself and branding can happen in many different ways as we talked about you know being in flow with your your networking focusing on the relationship and deepening those relationships. And then your your marketing efforts such as you know your advertising your direct mail, you know your digital marketing, your email marketing, and then your local outdoor marketing in your neighborhood. Where are you are you present? Are you omnipresent? You bet To be, you know, if you want to, you know, be at the pinnacle of your career if you want to take your, your business to a whole new level and you know, I think about you being gone for three weeks and this is just an off the cuff question, I gotta ask a DJ, but did you miss work? And did you miss working out while you’re gone,
D.J. Paris 10:17
I did not miss working out because I am not naturally inclined to want to do that I did miss work. However, I one of the one of the smarter things I’ve done in my life, because I knew I’d be away for as long as I set up systems, to where I have virtual assistants who were checking my email my voicemail, and we created a system where every day I would check in with them make sure nothing fell through the cracks. And so three weeks went by, and I came back and I said far as I know, nothing fell through the cracks, right? And they said absolutely not. So I had a system. So that allowed me to take a little bit of a break, I was still checking in daily, but I did miss being present with my business. What I do is recruit agents. So I did miss that. But thankfully, it seemed to not more as my muscles took a hit from not being exercised, I was still my systems for work were still in place. And I think we kind of moved along pretty, pretty smoothly, which I was grateful for.
Ryan D’Aprile 11:17
Right, it’s and that’s what I was, you know, and what I was speaking to this roomful of agents this morning, is the love for the grit and grind. Yeah, and I tell everybody, success is a choice. And it truly is, yes, it is. You absolutely have to chosen to be successful or not. You’ve chosen to be successful, or you’ve chosen not to be and the best. The best part of this business is the independence but it comes with a huge price. And that price is self reliance. And, you know, a lot of people don’t, you know, like hold themselves accountable. And people don’t like placing blame on themselves. But in this business, there’s nowhere to hide, and it comes right back to you. Now you’ll have the financial freedom, you can, you know, you can control your own destiny. But the price tag that that comes with is self reliance, and you’ve got to be a self starter, you have to be able to hold yourself accountable or find somebody to hold yourself accountable. And coming full circle back to the choice part of this. You got to choose to be in love with the grind.
D.J. Paris 12:30
And you have to choose it you have to reach use it every single morning, in my opinion, you know, it’s something that you have to really go every day, what is my why, like you always talk about why am I doing this? And do I like doing it. And I’ll tell you when it comes to the gym. I don’t like working, you know, doing push ups until I collapse. But I liked that I did the push ups until I collapse I’m proud of myself. So the thing I like about it is just being the pride of knowing that I did something really hard that was healthy for me. Whether it’s my business, or exercise or spiritual stuff, or hanging out with friends or something that’s difficult, but hard. I just love the fact of how I feel after I do something that that I’m proud of.
Ryan D’Aprile 13:16
Yeah, and if you look at top performers in athletics, right, and, and, and, and you look at them practicing and how hard they’re pushing their bodies, there is no way that they can say I don’t like this and do it right. They have to choose. And they have to convince themselves that they love it. Maybe after retirement, they’re not doing it anymore. And they’re not pushing themselves anymore because they they naturally don’t love it. But I have trained myself to love the grind. It’s hard for me to say it’s not, it’s not easy. And when I do go on vacation with my family, I start to lose purpose and fulfillment. I mean, again, I’m having fun, my wife, my girls, you know what I mean? But yeah, four or five days in a row on a Caribbean island does get a little mundane, and it just takes me out of my element. But that’s because I chose to be so focused on my end results that I chose to love the get up and go at it. It’s hard. It’s not easy. But psychologically it has made it a lot easier made it a passion for me, because I chose to so there’s a lot of psychology in this you guys. And it’s not like a turning a switch like this is it’s a marathon it’s day in and day out. And every day, week, month, quarter and year that you commit to doing this, the more and more becomes natural for you. The more you fall in love with it and the more you realize when you’re gone. You start to miss it and then you look at those top performers. You know, there’s no way Michael Phelps. You know what naturally love doing 500 laps in a swimming pool. But I would bet all I have that he convinced himself to love it. Sorry, I’m honking at somebody who’s in front of me here.
D.J. Paris 15:14
No, but but but what I’m saying is, what you’re saying is really important because I, what I did miss when I was away, and it wasn’t exercising, and I mean, we were hiking and doing other things. But as far as strength training, I missed, again, how good it feels to exercise because I don’t have natural ability and talent in that area. And I think this is a good metaphor for and you basically just said the same thing, which is, if you can fall in love with the grind, and I don’t even like the word grind, because people think that’s a negative thing. If you could fall in love with this the discipline, right? The but
Ryan D’Aprile 15:50
it isn’t gone.
D.J. Paris 15:52
I’m sorry, you got me? Oh, no, I was just No, no, I was just gonna say that if you can fall in love with the hard work. And it it’s hard isn’t doesn’t mean unenjoyable, it just means a difficult, but everything in life that’s worthwhile is difficult. So if you can just get in your mind, and if you’re doing something hard, then you don’t have to worry as much about your talent, you have to just worry about the discipline to get better, you’re going to get better if you put in the work. Well,
Ryan D’Aprile 16:19
and that’s the whole point of this. And for all the listeners here is effort over ability. And so everybody has all these limiting beliefs. And they think and they classify themselves, and they compare themselves which, right, it’s a thief of all joy yourself to others. But you know, they think one person has this than the other person that has that, at the end of the day, you can have it all if you’re willing to put in the effort. And there are so many people who are afraid of failure, that they don’t do it. And then they tell others that they don’t really want it, they don’t care about it. And that is the worst thing to do to yourself. Nobody’s watching you. Nobody, nobody’s judging you. I mean, everybody is so wrapped up in their own insecurities and their own self doubt that they’re not focusing on you, you got to take that in. And I’m telling him I’ve coached 1000s of real estate agents. And I’ve, I’ve seen all kinds and I’ve seen there’s, there’s a there’s a there’s, there’s a kind out there that pretends not to care and, oh, I don’t want to be that top agent, I don’t want to be that that’s bullshit. That is a protection that you’re doing for yourself, you are protecting your ego, and you’re not doing yourself a favor. Because if you put in the effort, you’re not going to fail. There’s no way I’ve never seen anybody put in the effort to the principles that I’ve discussed in previous podcasts, the very simple activities that you have to put in and that you’ll get out byproduct you’ll get out of it. None of that is going to come down to ability or even really skill set it all is, are you committed? Are you committed to putting in the effort getting you where you want to be? And you know, in all these little cliches is like life begins at the end of your comfort zone. I mean, that’s it’s real, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Now. You know, I’ve talked about being in flow with your, your network. And I’ve also, I’ve preached that don’t call your network and ask for referrals, it’s going to cheapen relationships. So that’s at the, that’s at the comfort part that I’m talking about. I’m talking about, Are you uncomfortable having a routine? Are you uncomfortable, like getting up and starting your business day at night, and we so many real estate agents, you know, quote unquote, work from home, and they end up doing their laundry, their housekeeping, you know, driving their kids around and doing whatnot. That’s, that’s not, that’s not going to work? You know, and, you know, I sent the message to all of our, you know, real estate agent we have, I think we have 15 offices, and we’re opening up like four or five more, and my offices that we’re opening up, we’re going bigger versus smaller, because as I walk through all my offices, I see the usual suspects there all the time. And you know, they are DJs,
D.J. Paris 19:03
the top producers,
Ryan D’Aprile 19:05
the top, the top producers, they leave their home, they got they’re not they’re not there nine hours a day, but they’re there all the time. They they’re there for five days a week, they’re there for two hours. And when they’re there, they’re purposeful. They, you know, their, their attention, right is focused on what their intention is. And they’re doing the things we discuss day in and day out two hours a day. And because of that, they have the financial results that they have, they have the accolades that they have. They’ve got the brand recognition within their community in their network as being a top producing real estate agent. And they got there through that ugly word, grind and grit. They got there by putting in the effort. And for all of those you listening here, you know, I You have talent joining our organization every day. And I tell our leadership team, give me effort over ability, because I have seen all the ability in the world, all the natural given ability, they got the socio economic ability, but they do not have the effort.
D.J. Paris 20:21
I can’t tell you how many, I can’t tell you how many people I’ve interviewed on my podcast, who are top 1% producers from In fact, this happens more often than not, from all over the country who say, when I started, I either moved to the city and I didn’t know even one person, I had no sphere of influence. Most of the top producers I’ve interviewed in this business. And it may be It’s just luck that they reach out to us. And they’re all very similar, but I don’t think so I think this is pretty consistent. They weren’t handed a book of business. Now there are people whose parents were in the business and they inherited and that happens, but but very rarely
Ryan D’Aprile 20:59
show you far, few few and far between less than
D.J. Paris 21:03
1%, I’m sure of the top agents are Yeah,
Ryan D’Aprile 21:07
it is in the top agents made it on their own and actually look at their background, they had a desire to be there. I do think that you are at a benefit in this country. If you have if you come from a more fluid background in this business, you have a better network. But the funny thing is, is those tend to be sometimes the laziest people out there, unfortunately. And it’s the ones that that want that and they have the grit and they have the grind. And I tell my wife, I’m like, I’m nervous, you know, we’re getting our children, a beautiful lifestyle, you know, and my mom and dad gave me a great lifestyle. But I’ll tell you, we were the we were the poorest family on the block. And I grew up with friends that were insanely fluent, and I want it so I’ve got that grit and that grind for it. And, you know, my children have been raised, I will say in the lap of luxury, but I’m going to beat that message down to them is that you know, 80% of the top 20% of this country has made it in their own lifetime. You know, 80% Let me say that again, for the listeners 80% of the top 20% wealthy in our country have made it in their own lifetime. And whether you like it or not, that is the beauty of capitalism. And a lot of people right now don’t like that. But because of it, you know, you can come from the ashes and make I mean look at all of the individuals and do a little test for yourself. Name the wealthiest of the wealthy that you know, and you might get a handful of second generations say I don’t Pritzker is right or what’s not second, the highest What’s that family? The What’s that Hilton’s? Right? Yeah, it was I’m struggling to figure second generation. But now let’s see Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey Will Smith, Jay Z. Michael, Elon Musk, a Warren Buffett. All made it in their own lifetime. You know, that is what’s so amazing about this country. What’s also so amazing about this country is that we are so wealthy of a country is that I think people have a jaded reality what what what we really got going on here. And honest to God, everyone knows individuals from Jay Z to Will Smith to Elon Musk. I will I tell you right now, it’s an it’s effort over ability goes by Ryan.
D.J. Paris 23:29
I interviewed for those of you who are listening who are Chicago based agents, the top one of the top agents in Chicago. His name’s Matt Larose. He’s always in the top five producers. And we have about 45,000 Real estate agents here in our area. He doesn’t. He doesn’t work hard at all. Yeah. So he I asked him, I asked him, I asked him, Hey, Matt, why do you think you’re, you know, usually number one or number two, how did you know what’s the secret? He goes, he goes, I want it more than everyone. He goes. He goes, I work harder. He’s he doesn’t even see I don’t think competition. He just goes I just wanted more. He goes I said and he goes no, that’s it. I just wanted more.
Ryan D’Aprile 24:13
You could see it a mile away. Yeah, it there’s no way what that guy does is effortless. Now he grinds his he does. You know what I mean? It’s so to the other top producers from Martin and Chicago right from Mario Greco to Emily sacks. Want to? Oh god, what’s the other guy in Roscoe village does an incredible business. Anyways, you know to Don McKenna, right. Yeah. These people weren’t, you know, they’re not lucky. People work their asses off. Well. miles at the top. They’re not stopping.
D.J. Paris 24:58
No and Every day, and they do appear to be lucky for those that don’t have a closer insight. And the reality of it is, if you just put the effort in luck favors the ball, like luck will come your way. But you have to put in the hours, you have to put in your 10,000 hours, as Gladwell would say. But anyway, I’m sorry, go ahead.
Ryan D’Aprile 25:21
No, it’s true. And and again, you know, I, I’ve been saying this over and over again, I can’t coach drive, I can’t coach effort. But what I’m starting to do is I’m trying to bring it to the top of everybody’s consciousness. Yeah, that is a direct correlation to your results. It’s, are you willing to put in the time and the effort that it takes, and then the excuses, well, this person’s got that and that person has this, that’s not going to get you anywhere you put in the effort, your output will be just like anybody else’s. And I’m telling you, those top people that we just mentioned, from Matt, to dawn tomorrow, all right, they they’re not stopping there, their efforts there now. It’s getting easier for them. But I think if you walk in their footsteps, and for a day, if you’re new at this, or your next year, you’ve been doing it for 10 years, but not the level, it’d be exhausted, because they’re so used to putting that effort in. And I bet you anything that they would tell you that they absolutely love it because they taught themselves to love it.
D.J. Paris 26:26
And the moment they stop, like you were saying four or five days on a vacation, I was out for three weeks now thankfully, I was pretty connected. But But I still noticed it my muscles, atrophied my business to a small degree atrophied because I wasn’t in the office eight hours a day. And I have a great anecdote that I’ve heard that I’ll just quickly mentioned about how quickly once you stop doing the hard work, and you can immediately correct course, correct. Anytime that happens, and we’re all human. And there will be times when we don’t, you know, find the the courage to keep going and or we get off of our routine. But I heard Pavarotti who passed away some time ago, one of the, maybe the greatest singer in our modern history, he said, if I stopped practicing for one day, I notice what are you doing his vocal practicing his singing, he said, I noticed after one day, after two days, my coach, by the way, best singer in the world has a coach says My coach notices, after three days, the world notices. So that’s how important it is to to just every day somehow find that grit that drive to just keep going.
Ryan D’Aprile 27:35
It’s right. And then again, you know, I’m going back to the Toyota manufacturing system, which I had talked to you before about, which is what our dashboard is built on. You know, you need to have the tools to visually see your flows, and you need the tools to be able to visually see your actions. And, you know, the tools to see results is great. But having that transparency to measure your activities is incredibly important. And knowing that people that have the tools at their fingertips and they say you know, Ryan, I don’t you know, I do it, but I don’t record it, then that’s just not doing it. That’s like my my eighth grader saying that I did my homework, I just didn’t, I didn’t write the answers on this sheet. Right now. It’s, it’s, you know, these excuses are bullshit. And we all just kind of learn to call ourselves out on our own bullshit.
D.J. Paris 28:24
And this is why I think it’s really helpful to have a council of people or at least someone in your life, who you allow, whether it’s a coach or a friend or a mentor, or you know, your managing broker, if you’re a real estate agent, or a trainer or somebody who can say, Hey, I am going to tell you the uncomfortable truth sometimes and nobody’s perfect. So there’s always going to be things that you’re not doing. Because, you know, we can’t all do everything ourselves. But you need to have people in your life that you listen to and say, Hey, I’ve noticed you don’t seem to be doing X, Y, or Z, or who is tracking your performance and saying, you know, let’s let’s figure out how to get you back on track. And that’s, it’s okay to fall off the track. We all fall off all of our, you know, our tracks from time to time, whether it’s our relationships, or our business, or our eating, or exercise or spirituality or whatever. We all know, nobody’s perfect, but you need to have people in your life that can can push you back towards, you know, the right path.
Ryan D’Aprile 29:26
Yeah, yeah. And that’s, you know, that’s what we tried to do in our organization. It’s where we are a, a coaching company for all type from, you know, $50 million a year producers that get in at $5 million producing loan officer annually to you know, a new agent doing three, four $6 million in production a year. Everybody, you know, again, in our business, the double edged sword to this is, is the freedom that comes along with it. But then with the freedom comes a total lack of accountability. And that’s why the failure rate is so incredibly high in this industry. And And I think the fix is is the surrendering and the vulnerability and looking at either a hired coach or an organization that has coaches in house and saying, Hey, I’m gonna look at you as my manager, I’m gonna work for myself, I’m gonna work for myself, I’m gonna control my own financial destiny, but I’m gonna look at you as my manager, it’s my coach, you know, put whatever word you want to put in there. And I’m going to come report to you once or twice a week, and then we’ll tell you how I’m doing and where I’m at. And by having eyes on me, it’ll help me feel that whatever you want, it’s the guilt, the pressure to do an activity they need to do. Give me that person you’re gonna see a top producer in a year or two.
D.J. Paris 30:44
Yeah, being coachable, I know is a huge part of of your philosophy of success. Because you guys are coaching institution and you coach your agents, and the results are there. How does somebody know if their coach called coachable or not? Just out of curiosity, because you obviously I’m sure, met people who aren’t coachable?
Ryan D’Aprile 31:07
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is, it is a tool, right? Our tool is our proprietary dashboard that we created. And it brings transparency to the table. And it’s like, Hey, we’re gonna dedicate an hour, we’re gonna tell you what to do. Here you go, here’s some tasks, see in a week or two weeks, and then you have those that do it. And like, Alright, Coach, what’s next? What’s next? And he was like, you know, what, I had this and I was here, and I didn’t get back, I didn’t do this. And I’ll get to it, you know, and after three, four or five times, then you have the conversation. Okay, what’s the point, we’re just having coffee with each other, right. And it’s a hard conversation to have with people, it’s like, hey, you know, my hourly rate is $1,000, I’m given to you at no cost here, if you’re not going to use it, then hey, you don’t have to be coached at this company. You don’t have to be, you know, um, and when you want to be come back, it’s here. But hey, we’ve done this four or five times, and you’re not doing it. So this is kind of pointless. When you’re ready. And you’re in that mindset, we are here for you. So you know, it’s something you know, for everybody to understand. I guess within our organization, we have people that are a company that are amazing, Lone Wolf’s, and they come in every once in a while they’re not coached, some of them are top producers, and they’re wonderful additions to our culture. Then there’s individuals that are top producers and their coach all the time. And there’s individuals, they they want to get coached to show up, but they don’t can’t follow through. And we just have to have that, you know, that expression that come to Jesus say, when you’re ready, we’ll be ready.
D.J. Paris 32:39
I agree. And, you know, this is where finding your knowing your why. And maybe that’s what I said earlier about finding grit everyday, maybe the pathway to that is revisiting your why because grit is, is it’s tough, sometimes it’s tough all the time. And if you like I know, Ryan, you have for all of your businesses and the way you’ve grown your business, you it is the reason for building those businesses isn’t to just build businesses and keep expanding, you have very specific personal reasons that you know, goals for yourself that are maybe not necessarily financial, but you know, with a result of having the businesses grow to a certain size allow you to achieve your why. So I don’t any I’m not I wouldn’t ask you to share your personal why. For for all your businesses with us. But can we talk about how finding your why connects you to that to the energy to then push through the tough times?
Ryan D’Aprile 33:39
Sure, yeah. And there’s, there’s different I feel that there are different levels of why. Okay. And your baseline, why should be based on fair, here’s what I mean. Yeah, you’re motivated by one of two things. Pleasure, or the avoidance of pain. Okay, so pleasure and award an award right, or reward, excuse me, or avoidance of pain. I think your baseline y should be the avoidance of pain, I think 90% of us are motivated by the avoidance of pain. And, you know, if I were to go back 16 years, when I jumped in the real estate business, you know, I was I was I almost would say I was depressed, having a boss. I was I was depressed with the face time and the suit and tie every day and, you know, needing to go to grad school to get to my promotion. You know, to me, it just felt like a cattle on a cart. It just, it felt like grade school, in high school and all over again to me. So, I got a real estate license, and I started making a living like, you know, on the side while I had my corporate America, by the way, my boss in case he ever listened to this. My former boss was such a great guy. I mean, I love them. Alright, So it wasn’t like anybody’s being mean, to me just it was my ethos was I was, I was building, I was depressed doing it, I had a ton of success, and I was making a ton of money. But you know, getting on a plane and, and being in North Carolina when my corn was at home, and then going to grad school at night when you know, my wife and newborn were having dinner, like, fuck that it wasn’t for me. Sure. And so my baseline, why was a fear of having to go back to that. Sure, my baseline Why is, you know, my beautiful parents who gave us a beautiful life, who fought over money and like not far, but like, you know, our hard times, it was over money, right, five kids, you know, dad sold, you know, spark plugs and fan belts and made 25% profit margins on it. You know, um, you know, my dad saw his neighbors driving Mercedes, and my dad was driving in 1994 1978, beat up Lincoln, you know, and that scared me. You know, and that’s my baseline, why in the beginning, now, my other wise have evolved. Alright, they’ve evolved greatly. But I had to start with the first baseline, why of avoidance of pain. And you can bet your bottom that that is still deep down. In me. I, and I think that is why the majority of the top 20% of our country are self made. Because Oprah came from that background. Smith came from that background. You know, Warren Buffett, even I mean, prominent, you know, middle class family, but like, really look at everybody, their, their, their baseline, why probably came from avoiding a pain.
D.J. Paris 36:46
Yeah, you know, it’s funny too, because we don’t like to think about pain as a positive motivator. But I will tell you, thinking that, you know, my boss could fire me at any moment, which he absolutely could do. And it helps to get me out of bed a little bit earlier in the morning that I might want, might want to get up. And it’s not, I’m not terrified, I don’t walk around, stressed out all day that I’m going to be, you know, let go. But certainly having a healthy fear of, of, you know, a negative implication in my life, which would be paying my bills, and I just bought a place. Boy, the avoidance of that pain gets me up a little bit. Now I also have things I’m, I have that pleasure that I’m shooting for, too, which is I want to earn a certain income so that I can provide for my family, but a little bit of pain and pleasure, I think they call that a propulsion system. Something that pushes you from behind and pulls you towards a goal is a good thing. So I am curious on your thoughts about having both the pain that pushes you away from you know, some sort of catastrophe, and also the pleasure and sort of they move sort of in the same same direction at the same speed. So if you can sort of get in the middle of that. I think it’s it’s the carrot and the stick. I guess I’m curious on your thoughts.
Ryan D’Aprile 38:02
Yeah, I think if I’m ever really honest with myself, deep down, I mean, you know, I admire people I so admire people who are content in life. Because I’m not because I’m scared.
D.J. Paris 38:12
I mean, either. It just,
Ryan D’Aprile 38:15
it what it comes down to, and I push myself. And I’ll open up for more offices, and I’ll hire you know, you know, five more people in a specific department, you know, and, you know, I have I have a team of software engineers that now work in my firm that have families, I’m scared. I gotta serve, I gotta support these people. Yeah, so, you know, I’m scared can be a harsh word, but you know, I’m motivated, because I never want to have to say to them to say, Guys, we can’t make payroll. And that’s, that’s my motivation is avoidance of that pain. So I’m up and I’m at it and I’ll tell you something like, it doesn’t sound that sexy or appealing to say, oh my god, this guy’s successful because he’s afraid. But the flip side of it, man, I crave life. I travel my wife, a trout, my kids, I you know, I spend the summers in Lake Geneva. I’m able to coach their teams and be where they are. Why because of my fare. I work my ass off. And because I’m disciplined, I am busy being productive versus Busy just being busy. And round. Robin Sharma says the best suppose we were just busy being busy. You know, I’m laser focused. Why? Because I’m afraid that if I’m if I’m spending my time, not wisely, I might have to regress back to working at an auto parts store on Cicero Avenue and Chris and Chris way you know, it wasn’t like torture horrible it’s just again it’s like it’s not where I want it to be. And so it drove me
D.J. Paris 39:42
Yeah, fear is a good thing fears the you know what keeps us you know, in our lanes while we’re driving our cars and, and and the fear of bankruptcy or the fear of not paying our rent or mortgage. These are good things because we have to be you know, you have to be in touch with with that and if that’s your main motivator, and as long as it’s not negatively impacting your health, or your your family life, then yes, I mean cheese, be afraid. But realize that that fear is going to give you everything you want, if you just, you know, the if everyone hasn’t heard of this book, it’s it’s traditionally used for creative people. But I encourage everybody to read it. It is called The War of Art, not the Art of War, which is Sun Tzu, which is an interesting book, but The War of Art. And Steven Pressfield is the author and he talks all about resistance. He says, the biggest enemy in your life is resistance. And if you can just conquer resistance, you’re gonna have everything you want. He talks, the same thing, talents, not necessary, but hard work and discipline is.
Ryan D’Aprile 40:46
Yeah, yeah. And that’s it. And I think that’s what I wanted our listeners to get out today and said, you know, you can’t coach effort or desire, but you know what, you can create it within yourself, and I think you need to make it. You know, your number one focus is, am I putting in the effort? And do I have the desire? And am I waking up every morning? In this business, realizing? It’s me, nobody’s going to do it for me.
D.J. Paris 41:09
Real last question. I’m just curious, because Ryan, for those of you who aren’t maybe here in the local Chicago area, who who are in Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. Who might not be as familiar with Ryan and his companies, Ryan is obviously incredibly successful, which is why we have him on the show, because we highlight successful people. But I am curious, if you were to honestly, when you evaluate yourself, we talked about talent at the beginning, do you consider yourself a talented person? Or not just with your businesses? Or our Do you consider it mostly just a lot of hard work? Or is it a mixture of both?
Ryan D’Aprile 41:45
I I think it’s hard work primarily. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s a tough question to answer. I mean, here, I might have said this in the show to you before I, you know, I went to high school to see my school and my daughters are going to, you know, and I went to high school in 1990, as a freshman, for four years, you know, I walked into freshman class as a freshman, as a 14 year old and 1000 kids, we all had English, math, science, social studies, and whatnot. But next to each subjects were letters. So you’d be in, say, social studies, H, which stood for honors, or you’re in social studies, S which stood for superior, or your social studies arch that for regular, or you’re in social studies, G, which stood for I thought, good, because every subject I had was G next gen. And so for BI PhDs, right? Our superintendent was a doctor or Dean was a doctor, and academics. I was told by all of them, I was below regular in every single subject. I had to take an AC t score, and I have nephews and friends and nieces that scored twice what I got my second attempt on it. So I don’t know what to tell you. But I could tell you what I was labeled. Yeah, and that has never gone away. So I don’t know, I found that.
D.J. Paris 43:24
I found that to be, I found that to be true with essentially everyone I’ve interviewed where they do not. Notice how Ryan very uncomfortably sort of like, because he’s obviously become extraordinarily successful. He’s a great coach. He’s a great business leader. But he hesitates to call himself talented. And that isn’t to say that he isn’t, but that is not what primarily has, has driven you that the talent maybe has come as a result of all the hard work, you know, and obviously, you do have tremendous talent anyway. But but just being able to work yourself up is is all the talent you need. Right? You just need to get up every day and do do your push ups, whatever that looks like in your business, do your business push ups and your social business you know, your social pushups and your relationship push ups and and all of a sudden years years go by and you’re like, wow, look at that. I’m strong. You know, and I so I imagine everybody I asked never says talent they always say yeah, I have a little bit of talent I guess but it’s really just I work hard. And and how exciting for the rest of us to hear that from top leaders like yourself.
Ryan D’Aprile 44:36
I think that’s what that’s that’s the lesson. We have Michael,
D.J. Paris 44:39
Michael Jordan, what didn’t make the varsity team until he was in high school when he was like a junior or something. And gone went on to you know, be probably the greatest of all time. And there’s lots of examples of that. The Beatles put in Beatles put in 10,000 hours before they playing live before they ever did an album The greatest rock group of all time, most, you know, most of us would agree. So there’s there’s lots of stories like this where talent wasn’t wasn’t obvious. And
Ryan D’Aprile 45:11
it isn’t, you know, again, with the school situation, I think I’m a, I don’t want to say jaded, but I’m a little motivated to be outspoken on that. I think, you know, we, you know, our, our society is interesting too, because, you know, you have the division of the haves and the have nots, and then, you know, you have this conversation of, of taxes and all this stuff. And I gotta tell you something, I think the biggest different middle class wealth is these $50,000 a year college tuition and say these kids are going for, and they’re learning the same stuff that they were learning in high school, and it’s overnight, people say it’s a great life experience. I don’t know if it’s worth the papers right now. Now, maybe if you’re going to be, of course, you’re gonna be a doctor or an engineer. Sure. But I, you know, I don’t feel like academic has got it figured out at all. And, and I think it puts labels on all of us, I was just lucky enough to say, bullshit, I’ll show you. But unfortunately, there have individuals say, This is who I am. So this is where I belong. And I want people to break through that mold.
D.J. Paris 46:20
Yeah, yeah. And if you don’t have belief in yourself, now, it’s okay, you can develop it, if you just do the work, the belief in yourself will come, because you’ll start to see results. So if you are thinking, Well, I can’t be a top producer. Okay, so you you think you can’t be a top producer? What if you just acted like one? What if you just did the work that one did and then check in in a year and see how see how it’s going? And I’ll bet your opinion will change because it’s all just hard work. And again, you were saying, Don’t compare your insides to someone else’s outsides. You’re always going to fall short, always going to fall short.
Ryan D’Aprile 46:56
Yep, that’s exactly right. This is a
D.J. Paris 46:59
great place to wrap up for this week, Ryan and I could talk about this for hours and he is too busy. And I am too busy for that. But we are so grateful that despite the fact that he runs four or five company, how many companies do you run now?
Ryan D’Aprile 47:12
I think we’re on five companies right now. But five companies,
D.J. Paris 47:15
yes, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of agents and loan officers and, and admin and support. And now developers, I have toured Ryan’s compound, one of his compounds and where he has workers, and it’s just absolutely incredible what he’s built. So if you are a realtor here in the Chicagoland area, or Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, in Florida as well, if you’re looking to work with a coaching real estate firm, that isn’t necessarily going to say, here’s all the leads you need, but we’re going to they’re going to show you how to generate and create a business and coach you so that you can you can be in charge of your destiny, deeper properties is a fantastic place to check out in. And if you just go to Depot properties.com, you’ll see all the links to how to contact them. I’m a huge fan of them. Of course, that’s why they’re on our show. And if you’re looking for or if you’re just not getting the attention you need from your current firm, check them out, talk to them, learn the why coaching is is their sort of differentiator. They also have amazing software and they built their own systems, which is beyond incredible. But just the coaching alone is is what most of us need, I think so check them out Depot properties.com. And they’d love to talk to you. Thanks, CJ. Well, thanks, Ryan. It was a pleasure having you on again before everyone signs off. If you if you’re still listening, please tell a friend think of one other real estate agent that could benefit and I was just at a kickball event for realtors yesterday and I had three people come up to me who I did not know and really tell tell me how much the show is helped them. And, and certainly that’s nice to hear for my ego. But I really, really believe that that this can help agents such as telephone, it’s free. We do this to help agents. So tell somebody you know who might who could use this, this wisdom that Ryan just shared and send them over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Or just have them search for keeping it real in whatever podcast app they use. And we would appreciate it and then of course, let’s support Ryan, you know, tell any agents you know or loan officers to check out D APR they have they have a title company, they have a loan lending company, they are a real estate firm and much much else other things as well. So reach out to them D APR properties.com And Ryan, we will see you on the next episode. Looking forward
Ryan D’Aprile 49:49
to it. Thanks, DJ. Thanks, Ryan.
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