Scaling Without Losing Yourself: Building a Sustainable Business – with Kyle Whissel

(: 00:00

Hey everybody, just wanna welcome you to be on the grind with Kyle Whistle. Kyle has been a friend for a long time. ⁓ More recently, a business partner, which I'm super excited about, but Kyle, man, thanks for being here. Thanks for doing this,

(: 00:13

Yeah, I'm excited to do something a little bit different today. Nice. This will be cool. I like the concept of what you're doing and doing just not the traditional podcast style. So this should be fun,

(: 00:26

Awesome. Well, just to set the stage and kind of an introduction for everybody listening, I want to ask you a question that just kind of self-reflect for a moment. It'll lead into the conversation here with Kyle. And the question is this, what if building a great business didn't have to come at the expense of the people and moments that matter most? Just think about that for a moment, right? We all want the thriving business. We want to be on stage. We want to have the accolades. We want to have, obviously, the revenue and the income and the profit.

But what about a thriving personal life at the same time? Right? And we have these conversations, you know, sometimes, you know, Kyle might share something that he's crushing it in certain areas on the personal side, but maybe some areas he's not, or we all have have shortcomings that we've experienced. But the cool thing about that is, is we can learn from all of that stuff and all of us can move the needle in that direction and grow in that area. So if you think about kind of the dynamic of front stage versus backstage,

You know, Kyle, just kind of an intro for you, bro. We know front stage, man. You have a huge impact and influence in our industry. Hundreds of home sales a year. I think, what'd you guys do, like 700 home sales last year? You know, you got the huge revenue share organization. You have the investment portfolio. You have everything on the front stage that any of us would look up to in this industry and say, okay, that's the target that we're shooting at. But we're going to go backstage, right? We're going to talk family and purpose and legacy and these types of things. Cause I think

(: 01:31

I'm like that,

(: 01:49

Again, if we're building the front stage without the backstage, then I don't know that's something we all want to aspire to. So I'm excited for this. Again, thankful for your transparency and vulnerability to share this type of stuff. So ⁓ with that being said, man, thanks again for being here and we're going to get started. So as I just said, Kyle, a lot of people know the front stage, right? We've seen you on stage, man. I've seen you on, I don't know how many keynote talks over the last, you know, probably eight years. I've been friends with you. ⁓

But let's talk, you know, beyond the grind, like almost that behind the curtain, if you will, with a quick snapshot, what would a meaningful day look like and feel like for you right now? What's a meaningful day look like for you?

(: 02:33

Yeah, I mean, for me, I'm really, really big on my morning routine. To me, it sets the tone for everything that's to come the rest of the day. So I'm pretty militant when it comes to this. Like I'm up at 5 a.m. every day and then I have an accountability partner. So we both wake up at five o'clock every day. We watch an episode of Darren Daily, which is Darren Hardy's daily video message that he puts out.

And then we check in with each other and we make sure that we have to share a takeaway from the video. That way I know he watched the video. He knows I watched the video. So it's not something where I could just like roll over and like I'm up and then put my phone back down, like proves that we both watch that video. ⁓ but I like to start every day with that. Cause then it was like, turns my brain on, like gets me thinking and gives me a new thought or ⁓ a new piece of motivation that gets me inspired for the day. ⁓ then I get myself together and then I get a workout in.

And I love to get that in before anybody else is awake in the house. Because I'm not the kind of guy that likes to work out at the end of the day. Like I think there's just way too much that happens throughout the day. Where a lot of times when I'm done with work, the last thing I want to do is go to a gym and do something else. Sometimes I just want to get home and fall on my face on the bed and just lay there. So the thought of having to like go to a gym at the end of the day, not knowing how the day is going to go, it's not my jam. So I like to get that workout in. And now just, I feel good. Like now my body is turned on.

⁓ and then I'll shower and then usually by the time I'm done showering, I can grab a cup of coffee and usually get like, you know, 10 to 20 minutes to kind of just reflect, ⁓ and just sit there and think about, ⁓ life, think about what I have coming up for the day. Like just have some time to myself, ⁓ and some quiet time with no TV or anything like that, which is really nice. And just have some time to reflect on everything that's happening.

And then the family starts waking up. And so then I get some time with my kids. get some time with my wife. ⁓ I typically am the one I make breakfast every morning for my kids. ⁓ I take my kids to school every day. ⁓ and that's like, by this point, it's like, my brain is on, my heart is on, and my body is on, right. From all those things. So it's like, by the time eight o'clock hits, which is when school drop-off is like, I feel like I've already won the day. Right. And so.

As long as all of that goes to plan, like I'm I've already won. Like I'm feeling on top of the world at that point. And then anything else from there is like icing on the cake. ⁓ So that sets the tone. then the days where things don't go as planned, like this week is off because one of my kids is on spring break. One of them isn't. I struggle when my routine gets broken because like I'm so militant about that routine when it's not happening the way it normally does. Like it does throw me off. ⁓

So I'm used to like, you know, them waking up at set times and getting out of the house at set times. And now that's not happening. So that does throw me off ⁓ because I love to have that routine outside of that. what makes it a good day, a successful day is that we talked about this before we ⁓ went on air, but like, I don't like a day where I don't have a full calendar. Like to me, I want to have a full calendar. I don't like to have a bunch of downtime.

Because to me, it's like, if I'm going to be gone away from my family, it's got to be productive time. So if I'm just sitting around shooting the shit, like that doesn't fill my cup. I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything. So I prefer a day, you know, and I was talking to you, they're like my day from the time I dropped my daughter off until five thirty today, there is zero breaks. Like I don't even know when I'm supposed to eat, when I'm supposed to go to the bathroom. But like, I prefer that type of a day because I'm getting so much done.

Right. I would challenge most people to like, get more done in an eight hour day than most people get done in an entire week because there's no downtime. But everything I'm doing too is very strategically placed into my calendar where I'm wasting time on dumb stuff. ⁓ a lot of people just I've found, especially with agents, they just want to like fill an eight hour day, nine hour day with 10 hour day, whatever, but they're not concerned about what they're filling it with. They just want to feel like they filled the day.

where I'm obsessed about what do I fill the day with. And I go through my calendar with my assistant all the time and we look at it in advance like, what's on here? Do we really need to do this? What can we cut? What do we need to do more? What do we need to do less of? And we obsess over that all the time. So for me having a day where I can have a full eight hours and just go and during those eight hours really make an impact on people, because that's how I win.

Right? Like whether it's with my team at whistle in San Diego, or it's with my, you know, crew across the country or across the world at this point with fast forward, like I'm winning when everybody else is winning. And so I obsess over like figuring out how do I help other people win? And when I can see people have big wins that fills my cup and that makes me really happy. So like when I'm filling that calendar, it's like, where can I impact the most people? Cause the more people I impact, the more I'm impacted. And so I obsess over that.

And then my commitment to my family is I'm home by six every day. ⁓ And so I drop the kids off to school and I'm home by six every day. So making sure that I get home by six. ⁓ And then usually I'm coming home and ideal day, my wife will have dinner ready when I get home and we get to have dinner with the family. Then I get a couple hours to roll around with the kids and wrestle and play, put them to bed, get a little bit of time with my wife just to hang out, catch up on the day and then crash and.

usually going to bed around like nine ish. Because, you know, back in the day, when people started doing this 5am thing, I was like, that's crazy. There's I can't get up at five. Like, and somebody was like, well, what time do you get up? Said seven. Okay, what's time to go to bed? 11. All right. What do you do from 9pm to 11pm? Nothing good. Watch trash TV, you know, whatever, like do dumb stuff.

nothing really positive happens from nine to 11 and they were like, well, what if you just replace that nine to 11 where you're doing nothing productive or valuable and replaced it with five a.m. to seven a.m. Right. So now instead of going to bed at 11 waking up at seven, why don't you go to bed at nine and wake up at five? And now I replace these two nonproductive hours at the end of the day with two superproductive hours at the beginning of the day. That was a huge game changer for sure.

(: 09:08

Yeah, I love too that you have that powerful morning routine. You've already spent time with your wife and the kids. It's like you said I won the day by basically by 8 a.m. You're on borrowed time the rest of the day is kind of what I heard you say. A couple things just to lean into too that you said is like if you're listening to this, you see Kyle on the front stage and you're probably like, okay, there's no way he's home for dinner, right? So that's systems and processes and people that you've developed and we're going to talk about that in a moment.

And I think you also touched on something really important for anybody listening. He basically touched on something that I'll mention a little bit later, but this idea of results economy versus time and effort where guys, if you're listening to this, you're not an entrepreneur. We're not in a time and effort economy. We don't get paid for showing up to the office for eight hours. We get paid for results. And if you can leverage impact for a full day, like Kyle just explained, that's even more extraordinary. Or if you can crush it in four hours and spend more time at home, that's okay too, if you're getting results, but

We don't get paid for hanging out at the water cooler, right?

(: 10:07

Yeah, that's true. There's some people though that they feel like that's productive. I mean, power to them. But again, those are those agents that, you know, just got to fill eight hours. Yep.

(: 10:17

For sure. So hey, let's shift gears a little bit and talk about so, you you've been doing this for many, many years, ⁓ tons of hard work to build your business, your organization, your team and all the things. I'm curious for you, Kyle, what in the early days when you're really grinding and building, what did success look like to you as you were starting your career? And how is your perspective of success, if you will? How is your perspective of what success looks like now? How would you compare the difference?

(: 10:47

Yeah, I mean, starting out, I didn't have a wife or kids. it was back then. Success was like being able to go on epic trips and go to crazy parties and travel and do all this fun stuff with friends. You know, that was success for me. I've never been super dollar motivated. It's not always been like what I've learned is I'm not like a ⁓ goal oriented person. I'm a growth oriented person. the goals.

help me measure my growth, but the goal is not what fuels me. It's the growth that fuels me. And one of the things I'm most proud of is I've never had a down year in real estate. And I've done that for 20 years now. And I was huge in short sales. I was huge in REOs. I didn't have a down year when REOs went away. I didn't have a down year when short sales went away. I didn't have a down year when COVID happened. I didn't have a down year when rates tripled.

We've never had a down year. So for me, like I'm much more fueled by the growth. And so even before, you know, when I was in my twenties, now I'm in my early forties, like it's still all about growth to me, like constantly improving, constantly getting better. ⁓ and the, the numbers, like those are like the scoreboard, right? But that's not ultimately what the goal is. That just helps you kind of keep score of how you're doing on your path to, to your goal, which for me, my goal is always to grow.

⁓

(: 12:14

And so when it says that they stop growing, you start dying, right?

(: 12:17

That's a core value personally and professionally, grow or die. I just, don't, you know, there were during the change after COVID when the rates jumped up, but people were like, well, the market was down 30 % and we were only down 20%. So that wasn't so bad. like, you'll never hear me say that. Like, I don't care what happens, man. Like I am never going to be okay saying, oh, I was only down 20%. Like.

Please, if anybody, you guys are all watching or listening, if I ever say, I'm satisfied with, was only down 20%, that's when it's time for me to step away. I will never be satisfied with that.

(: 12:58

Guilty as charged, I've said that. So thanks for calling me on my stuff here.

(: 13:03

Yeah, I I don't want to be okay with that that that's something like you you it's so you could miss but you shouldn't be like You can't say like it's okay because I was only down 20 and everybody else is down 30 like now It's okay to be down. It's not like it's not okay to be down, but you can't justify it I don't think for me that's the way I'm wired I would never justify like well because the mark was down 30. It's okay I was down 20 if I was down 20, but like this was the worst year I've ever had and that will never f-ing happen again like

That's not happening ever. That's my low point and it will never return there. Like that's way I would look at it.

(: 13:39

I love it. talking about building this organization, you know, obviously as you've grown your business, your organization, all the things that come with that, you've obviously been able to buy more freedom, right? I think, you know, we all are striving for freedom in time, freedom in relationship, freedom in finance, freedom and purpose, all these freedoms. I've heard you talk about it recently. I think you take Fridays off now with your family. Is that right?

(: 14:01

Yeah, I only work four days a week.

(: 14:03

So, I mean, that's obviously a huge target for a lot of us to shoot at if you're listening to this. But part of that process is developing people, right? So you had to develop systems and leaders in your organization to help you, you know, leverage, of course. What are some of the key decisions or mindset shifts that you had to go through? You know, as an entrepreneur, obviously we start with doing it all ourselves. But what's that process look like for you to start to let go and empower other people? What have you learned in that process?

You know, the leader is so often the bottleneck and I know I struggle with that. Just unpack that for us a little bit.

(: 14:37

Yeah, I mean, one of the sayings that stuck with me since day one is like, if you don't have an assistant, you are the assistant. Um, and that's so true. And, and so many people will say, like, I can't afford to hire an assistant or I don't have enough work to need an assistant. But then if I sit down and I go through their day and look at like, what are they doing? Like they're doing so much dumb stuff. Um, and now you have the beauty where virtual assistants are so readily available. Like of my top 10 agents, I don't know if all of them, but probably pretty close to.

you know, all top 10 in my agents have at least one virtual assistant now because you can hire a virtual assistant for like $400 a month. Like it costs almost nothing, right? You're paying like, uh, $5 an hour, right? Like it costs so little to have a virtual assistant. Even if you just start with them part time, like you can have a part-time virtual assistant, $400 a month. Like that's crazy. It is irresponsible to not have one.

And like we just went over an exercise with our team yesterday to help them understand the value of their time. And guess what? One hour prospecting in our market with our conversion rates, $400 an hour. How weird. So you could have a part-time 20 hour week virtual system for $400 for an entire month. Coincidentally, your time prospecting net is $400 an hour. So if that

Virtual assistant could simply save you one hour and allow you one extra hour prospecting. They already paid for themselves. Right. But realistically, if you had a virtual assistant for 20 hours a week for an entire month, they should be saving you. Right. If you have them 20 hours a week, they should save you at least five hours a week, probably 10. But let's say they only save you five hours a week. Okay. So they're giving you five hours back. And if you use those five hours to prospect, that's $2,000 of value created and you paid them a hundred bucks.

Like that is an insane exchange rate. And so that's just something that I've always understood is like the value of my time and how I can utilize something like having an assistant to buy some of that time back. So I can then take that time and use that on what we refer to as IPAs in producing activities. ⁓ So I think it's the fun part of ⁓ podcasting in your car. So I think it's wild that people don't really consider stuff like that.

of having an assistant of using stuff like Uber Eats and DoorDash. Like the fact that people don't use those on a regular basis is crazy. People are like, I'll just go pick the food up. I don't want to pay the extra like five or 10 bucks. Like really? Again, your time, if your prospecting is $400 an hour. So you're going to go get in your car and go drive 15 minutes to pick something up. Then you're going to sit there and wait for them to make it and then drive back 15 minutes. Like you lost hundreds of dollars on that.

So it's like for me, I've always understood the value of my time and especially if I'm spending that time on income producing activities. So everything to me starts by having an assistant. Like there's just, there's nobody on here that shouldn't have an assistant because if right, there's, don't know, 20 ish people on here live and a ton of people are gonna listen to this later. Like what if while you're here listening to this, somebody is also completing activities for you, right? Like I've always been looking for this like,

magical machine that can duplicate me, like something that can just make two Kyle's. Well, it doesn't exist, but the closest thing is having a really solid team around you. And that starts with even a virtual assistant or a boots on the ground assistant. ⁓ so like I've always understood it from day one. I don't think I've ever worked a day in real estate without an assistant. ⁓ because I've just always understood that my time, if I'm putting it in the right places is worth exponentially more than what I'm going to pay somebody to free that time up.

(: 18:26

What about so we have a very good mutual friend, Coach Mike Shum. And I remember he told me a long time ago, I was talking about hiring another team member to help the team. And I was worried about the compensation. He goes, well, I didn't know you had to pay him a year in advance. Right. So a lot of people think that you have to come up with this full salary on day one. It doesn't work that way. Right. It's an investment into our business, but specifically on developing people at the level of your organization, you have to have leaders empowered to really carry the vision forward at this point.

What's that level of coaching and leadership look like for you?

(: 18:58

Yeah. So I would say like chapter one was getting an assistant virtual or boots on the ground. Now we're much farther along in the book. ⁓ And so, you know, let's say we're at chapter 20 now, like chapter 20 was implementing a system called EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system. That to me is the one that's really freed up my time. Like that's, that has been the biggest game changer in the last five years of my business is implementing an actual system. Because what I found is like none of these

real estate schools and none of these real estate coaches teach you how to truly run a business. All they teach you is like how to generate leads, how to convert leads and things along those lines. But nobody's really teaching you to run a business. like unless you got an MBA, you probably have never been taught how to run a business before. ⁓ And so I sought out a system because most of us are running on like a system of survival. We're just running around like a chicken with our heads cut off. You know, the day is over and we're like, what just happened?

Like if that's how you're finishing your days, then you're probably running on a system of survival. And I was in that same situation. I realized like, that's not the right way to live. Like, I don't want to live like this. This is not healthy. And so I realized the need for having an actual system for my business. And I joined a group called entrepreneur organization and a bunch of people mentioned this EOS system and entrepreneur organization are all entrepreneurs that own businesses, ⁓ across all different aspects of business. So.

whether it be real estate or somebody in a parking lot right now, the person who paints the stripes on the parking lot or the person who paves the parking lot or the landscape company owner, they can all be members of EO. And they're all business owners. But the thing is we all face the same challenges in business, whether I'm striping a parking lot, I'm landscaping, a shopping center, or I'm running a real estate business, we all have the same challenges. And I started to realize all these people in this organization run EOS.

And then I started to realize what is EOS. You can read a book called Traction by Gino Wickman, Traction. And this entrepreneurial operating system or EOS really teaches you how to run a business, any type of business. And so the biggest change that that made, would say like change number one was that a lot of us, right, we know each other from Tom Ferry and Tom Ferry is, you know, the biggest coach in real estate. And one of the things that he's known for is like, you go to a Tom Ferry event.

and you're going to get a massive amount of information of all these new things, new apps, new widgets, new lead sources, new this, new that. And the problem is most of us go to that event. And then we come back to our team and we're like, all right guys, here's the like 40 pages of notes. Let's do all these things, right? We're our own worst enemy. We come back to our team, we don't think through anything. We just like, here's all the new things we're going to do. And what EOS teaches you is like, I'm a visionary and I should go to these events and I should get all these ideas.

but I should not come back and try to integrate them into the business. I need somebody that I can bring all these ideas back to and they can sift and sort through these 40 ideas and figure out the like two or three that makes sense to implement into our business this quarter. And then they will think through how to actually integrate them into the business for where they make sense, right? They'll think about the, about this? The, what about that? What if, you know, they think through all the little details.

and methodically roll these ideas out into the company and integrate them seamlessly so they actually work as opposed to me coming back. And it's like they call it seagull management. You just you go to these events, you disappear, then you fly in, you shit on everybody with your 40 ideas, and then you fly away and then you go to the next event. And then you come circle back around, you can shit on them again and fly away. Like that's what a lot of us do. And so EOS gets rid of that seagull management.

And now I can, I can still effectively do that, but I shit all those ideas on my integrator and his job is to sift and sort through them and protect me from my team. So I don't cause irreparable damage. actually make sure that all these ideas get rolled out and get rolled out at the right time in the right way. And that's been huge. Like that, that's one key piece. The second key piece is the rock part of it. So

you only roll out, you know, three to five things per quarter for the entire company. That's it. Even though we might want to roll out 40 of them, like, you when you start out, you start out with less, but right now, like three to five per quarter, like that's our goal. So we pick the three to five things that we need to roll out. And he obviously helps select what are those things. And then we focus really hard for quarter on those and block out everything else. So doing that in that strategic manner is just wildly, wildly important.

(: 23:43

It's funny now I'm guilty as charged twice. First you got me on the whole idea of my down year wasn't that down and now the Segal management. I'm definitely guilty of that, but but guys, if you're listening, what Kyle just described is he was basically alluding to the idea of going home exhausted every day on burnout. If you don't have these types of systems in place, right in the whole idea of this conversation for everybody listening is to find that harmony between work and life. And if we're going home with no emotional and mental bandwidth left for who and what matters most in our life.

They're getting the leftovers. So what Kyle just described for you is how do you run such a massive organization and still have time to be present with your wife and two little girls? It's having that type of leverage in the system. So I want to pivot to that, Kyle. You know, I know you're married, your wife Brittany, you have two beautiful little girls. So what does legacy look like for you? What legacy are you trying to leave with your family? Not financially, but relationally and on a deeper level than that.

(: 24:44

I mean, from a legacy perspective, I just want the name to be something when people hear it, whether it be inside or outside of the industry, I just want an immediate positive connotation. And I think that's paid a lot of dividends for me in the real estate business to where when my agents call another listing agent and say, oh, it's Matt with Whistle. And they're like, oh, you work with Kyle. Like, I want that every time. Positive, right?

Same thing that's paid dividends for me at EXP, where when somebody is ⁓ thinking about coming over, they immediately like Kyle, like great guy. I just want that to be a positive thing to where the family name is always thought of in a positive light for making a positive impact on people. And we're instilling, was really cool this morning. ⁓ I know you wanna talk about my daughter's business, but part of her business is that she has to donate money.

from her proceeds, 25 % of her proceeds she's donating. And so like she selected her charities today. And I think that's like so cool that one, it's a positive reaction to the name, but also that the name is somebody who's given back, not just taken. Cause we've been like blessed beyond our wildest dreams. Like I had my life goal like six years ago, like my life life goal, you know, from a income perspective. And so it's like, we're so blessed.

with what we have. I we do these meetings with our team and we're talking about our agents earning like I had an agent do over a million in GCI last year and agents who are just earning hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars like and at the same time, there's millions of people in the United States every day that suffer with like food insecurity. But like we're over here talking about, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars. Like if we're not doing something to give back, like screw us, man, like who the hell are we?

So like right now one of the big initiatives we have as a company is to donate a million meals through Feeding America to families in need. So we've already donated over 200,000 meals And so like just constantly giving back man, like we're all so damn blessed Even if you only made $50,000 this year, like there's people who didn't make $50, right? Like so whether you're you're making 50,000 or 50 million, right? You're making way more than the person who made 50

Like, so give back, man, whatever that causes for you, whatever you're passionate about, whatever, right, really connects for you. So part of legacy for me is doing that and giving back, you know, like, again, we're so blessed, like we got to do our part and give back. So to me, the legacy a lot is, just that, that connotation with the family name is just a positive of somebody who gives back to other people, who gives back to charity.

50 % of my trust, like when I pass, is all going to charity, like my entire wealth. So 50 % of that goes to family, 50 % goes back to charity, the way that I have everything set up. So like, I want to leave a legacy like that of somebody who's just given to other people, given to organizations and whatnot. I think that stuff is massively important for me.

(: 27:58

And from what I know about you, Kyle, you, I mean, when we first met probably, I don't know, eight years ago or so, you didn't have the business you have now. You started a great, great business, but you were already, those disciplines were already in place. You were giving way before the Kyle that we see now. You were already, this was a discipline in your business and your personal life already, wasn't it?

(: 28:15

Yeah, and that paid off, Like when we, I was constantly been out speaking and sharing and giving and helping other people. And then like when we made the move to EXP, like that paid off, right? Because I had been making deposits in the like relationship equity account for a long time, asking for nothing in return. But because I had been making these deposits all this time, when an opportunity came up to make withdrawals, there was deposits there to be withdrawn.

And so the same thing, right? Like this legacy that I want to leave for my kids is like all these things that I'm doing to give back to other people and organizations and charities and all that, like those are deposits. And that's something that can, you know, come back and pay dividends for, you know, generations for the family to where when people hear that name, that is there's all of these deposits that been made. They can make withdrawals or can benefit them. And I'd love to be in a position to where my kids don't have to worry about making money.

⁓ I just want them to make impact. If that's involves making money and that's what they want, great. If they want to go build wells in Africa for tribes that don't have drinkable water, that's great too. Whatever it is that's gonna make an impact for them, I don't want them to have to worry about the money side of it. I just want them to be able to make whatever impact it is that they wanna make.

(: 29:37

If you're listening to this right now, a lot of people tend to think, well, you know, it's like moving the ideal constantly. When I get to this point, I'll be able to give or I'll be able to donate or when I get to this point, I'll be able to spend, I'll be home for dinner at six o'clock every night. Right. I just got to, but guys, I would challenge you listening to this. Most of us are already living the life that we prayed for a long time ago. We're already living it, but this constant, you know, performance and, and comparison culture we're in, it prevents us from being present. So just want to encourage everybody listening with that, that thought.

Kyle, talked about, let's first talk about your relationship with Brittany. What do you guys do as a marriage? got obviously this crazy busy life, high demands, little kids in the home, other responsibilities, of course. How do you guys prioritize time together to just pour into your marriage? What's that look like?

(: 30:23

Yeah, so we typically have two date nights a week. So every Friday and Saturday night, we have a nanny who watches the kids on Friday night. And then her mom lives in our guest house, watches the kids on Saturday night. So typically one of those two nights will just be a date night, which is the two of us. So that could just be as simple as just grabbing dinner, do a walk on the beach, go to a movie, comedy show, you know, go to, we both love live music. So one of those nights is typically just the two of us. And then the other night,

that will either be like a group date night out or we'll do a guys night, girls night type thing, which I think is wildly important. I think a lot of people don't do that. ⁓ So I might have, you know, the guys over for a UFC fight and she might go out to dinner with the girls or whatever. ⁓ So I think it's two nights a week, but it's usually one is just us and then one is with other people. And that is again, either a group date night or a guys night, girls night type thing. And I think the

You know, there's people, you all have whatever preference you want. My personal preference is that I should have guy friends, she should have girlfriends, and she should go out with her girlfriends sometimes, and I should go out with my guy friends sometimes, and that's very, very healthy in a relationship, to have relationships outside of the relationship.

(: 31:39

Totally agree. And I think two guys like you might probably just heard two date nights a week. And most of you are like, how do you get to one date night a week? some people feel guilty about, I got kids in the house. Like I should be spending time with them. But just to remind everybody here, the greatest gift you give to your kids is your relationship with your spouse. Cause they're looking at that, that they feel safe and secure when they see mom and dad are healthy. So Kyle, I love that you prioritize that. ⁓ going to the, to the, business of your daughter, that's super fun to talk about. So you're an entrepreneur.

Obviously there's an entrepreneurial mindset in your home if she's so how old is she? Eight and so tell everybody just about what she started and I'm also curious just from a parenting perspective What are those conversations look like in the home to help instill that into the kids?

(: 32:14

She's eight.

Yeah. So I've always told my daughter, like, Hey, if you ever, watch shark tank and stuff like that. And she sees kids on there and thinks it's cool. So I've always told her like, Hey, if you ever want to start a business, let me know. Like we can talk. Um, and so I've always just kind of floated it out there, but never like pressured her just open the door for it. And then a few months ago, we were sitting in the hot tub. She's like, daddy, I'm ready. I want to start a business. And I was like, all right, this is great. And then we're in this amazing day and age with things like chat GPT that

can make this a lot easier and make it more entertaining. So then we use chat GPT and just started having a conversation with GPT of like, hey, I'm an eight year old and you I want to start my first business. Give me a hundred ideas. And then just let GPT start giving her all these ideas. And she's just listening. We're literally, we're in the hot stuff for like hours while this happens. And she starts getting all these ideas. And ⁓ of course she wants to be a YouTuber. We have a

YouTuber in our neighborhood who has like 30 million subscribers. So she's like I want to be like Faze Rug and I'm like, yeah That's not what I want. But then one of the things that she gravitated towards was gift baskets and I was like, okay that that's got legs, right? So, you know I encouraged her to go a little deeper on the gift basket thing because I was like you do gift baskets we can make them and just sell them to all the real estate agents on my team because they would all buy them

So she started, she was like, okay, I'm into that idea. And then we started thinking about like, okay, so if we're going to do a gift baskets, what could the name of the company be? And like her little sister was there with us. She's like, well, I want to do it with Remy. And I was like, okay. And so she goes through and comes up with like a name of the company and gets a whole bunch of ideas and picks a name that she likes. And we like make sure that that name is available. We could get the domain name. So we register the domain name for it. And then we started like, okay, what occasions could we do gift baskets for? And it's like the next one was St. Patrick's day.

So I was like, okay, what could I put in my St. Patrick's Day baskets? Here's my budget and starts like getting ideas of what to put in the basket. It's like so cool. And then I reached out to some friends that are females that are crushing with online stores. And so I asked them like, hey, where should we set this up? Like you need to do it on Stan. And so she goes into Stan and like sets up her Stan store. And then she hires her mom to be her basket designer.

So her and her mom like go to the store and buy all the stuff for their baskets. ⁓ and so she made 20 baskets and then she wanted to do a pitch video so I could share the video with the team. And so she tried to do it freestyle. She decided she would rather have like a script. So we got a teleprompter app for her. And so she like recorded a video pitching the baskets. And then we played that at the team meeting. ⁓ and then yeah, she sold, you know, her first, we're calling them like drops cause I'm a big sneaker head.

So her first basket drop of 20 baskets, she sold that out. She made 400 bucks. ⁓ and so then we decided of the money, a quarter of it, she gets to spend and like any eight year old today, they want to go to Sephora because eight year olds, that's what they're into is like skincare. so a quarter of it gets, she gets to spend a quarter of it. She has to invest in a car fund so she can choose what stock or crypto to buy. A quarter of it's donated. So she chose St. Jude's.

and the local children's hospital called Radies and then a quarter of it gets reinvested into the business. And so she's done two rounds of that now, two drops. She's done like $1,800 in sales. And then now she's getting ready to do Mother's Day in a few weeks.

(: 36:03

before we started recording, Kyle said she's in the one comma club because she hit 1800. So that's awesome, dude.

(: 36:09

Yeah, our friends Gogo and Amy, have two comma club awards, so they've done over a million in sales. So she's now in the one comma club.

(: 36:18

It's fun seeing you light up man talk about her business. It's almost like you like to be more talking about your own business, which is super fun to see.

(: 36:26

Until I had to drive her around and drop off 14 gift baskets, then I was like, I don't know if I like this.

(: 36:31

So you gotta take out gas money, she's gotta also learn expenses, right?

(: 36:34

Yeah,

well then we shifted the business model to be more of a pickup type basket thing. So encouraging the agents to pick the baskets up and go deliver them so that we didn't have to spend a whole day on the weekend delivering baskets.

(: 36:47

Awesome. So I got a couple more questions for you. One thing that everybody struggles with in our industry, and I don't think you're exempt, none of us are, is this idea of comparison, right? It's just this performance culture comparison. Sometimes that can drive us to achieve higher things and it could be, if we leverage it the right way, it could be fruitful. But in an industry where comparisons everywhere, how do you stay grounded on your path, your purpose, without getting distracted on what everybody else is doing?

(: 37:14

Yeah, I think there's a big problem in our industry right now of people that are stuck with this comparison ⁓ problem where they see somebody like me on stage, right? We'll sell 800 plus million in real estate this year. And I have a huge team of agents, a hundred plus agents. And they're like, I want to do that. And they're, they're actually running a really good business, right? Maybe making 250 grand a year, 500 grand a year, whatever. And like, I want to go run a big team. And then they get into it and they realize like,

This sucks. They're not, actually not a great team leader and they're working more hours than they were before. They're making less money than they were before. And they have way more headaches than they had before. And they're not having a good time. And that's a problem is, you know, lot of, you know, this, this industry is parading people up on stage, but like, when's the last time you saw somebody get on stage and share what their net profit is? Like when has somebody been introduced on a podcast?

(: 38:09

Yeah.

(: 38:13

And then like, oh, this is Kyle Whistle and he did X dollars in profit last year. Like never. I don't think I've ever heard that. Like not one time in history. I've never seen somebody talk about net profit on stage. It's always like units, volume, number of agents, but it's never profit. That if somebody would just change things and actually tell people to put their net profit up there, it would completely change. I think it would fix this comparison thing a lot because

Most team leaders are making less money than they were before when they were just solo producers. And so it's a big problem. I see that happen on a regular basis. And it's to the point now where I'm actually working on a model where we can go in kind of give these people a golden parachute that have gotten themselves into this situation where they have 20 agents and they hate their life. They're making a hundred grand and they used to make 500 grand and they're working 80 hours and they used to work 40 hours and they're miserable.

Like I want to come in and help people like that because we have the systems, the infrastructure and all of that in place. Let me take your 20 agents on you go back and just go sell again and go back to making 500 grand and working 40 hours a week and I'll deal with the rest. ⁓ cause I want, I want to kind of save some people that have gotten themselves into this situation. Cause this comparison problem is very, very real and it exists because we're not all disclosing all the info on stage. We're just giving these vanity metrics, not the metrics matter.

⁓ For me personally, when it comes to comparison, the thing that I like is, you know, the Roger Bannister four minute mile story. Like for me, that's what comparison is, is it just shows me what's possible. Not that I'm comparing, I just want to know what's possible. So, you know, to do a thousand deals a year, like years ago, that was like unheard of. But then you see somebody like Chris Lindahl do a thousand deals and you're like, okay, it could be done. Sure, he's in Minnesota, his average price points 200, but it can be done.

You can sell a thousand homes. So for me, it's just showing me what's possible, what's in the realm of possibilities. And I use that to motivate me, but I don't use it so much to compare myself to more, just compare what's possible.

(: 40:24

That's good, bro. That's very good. Thanks for sharing that. Along the same kind of vein ⁓ of question, and again, more very personal question for you. A lot of us in our career, entrepreneurs, realtors specifically, our identity can easily get wrapped up in our career, right? In our production, all those things. For you, where do you get your sense of identity today?

(: 40:47

Um, sense of identity, that's a deeper one. I think again, it's just the positive things that, you know, when my agents are like, oh, I called so and so, and they know you, they had great things to say about, like that fills my cut more than the dollars and cents does to be honest with you. Um, and then the stories we have within fast forward movement, like hearing somebody, you know, Tina call went from 70 million over 400 million.

or Lindsay Caulkin who went from brand new to selling 10 million. Those success stories, those really, really fill my cup. Because that shows the impact that I've had on people. And then the beauty of the model, whether it's TXP or my team, is as I help other people win, I get to win with them. so winning on your own is cool, but winning with your friends is way more cool. And so I'm just obsessed. I love that. And I'm so excited to help you win more.

⁓ cause then we get to win together and that's really freaking.

(: 41:47

That's Love it dude. That's cool. So another personal question for you. I got two more and I'll let you off the hook here. One, this is kind of double-clicking really, really personal on you, but I would make an assumption that you probably don't have to work anymore. You've put a lot of hard years in, you've built some incredible organizations in your business and investments are in place, self-managing companies in place, all the things, right, that we all would hope for. What keeps you going? What's inspiring you right now? Why do you keep working so hard?

(: 42:17

Yeah, I know. I mean, honestly, I'm not working harder. I'm working less because I'm four days a week. I'm home by six. I drop my kids off at school in the morning and I'm home by six at night every day. So it's I'm not working harder. I'm just working smarter. And then again, having things like EOS allows me to run multiple businesses. So it's like now I have this development company that I've built where we're building like over 30 million dollars worth of real estate right now while my team will grow.

you know, 30 plus percent from last year to this year. ⁓ and it's not changing the amount of hours that I work at all. So it's just, as I continue to level up, it's just being smarter about my time and what else can I delegate? ⁓ and so you, you go from delegating small things, right? Like, ⁓ hanging lock boxes and designing flyers to now it's delegating. Like I've

You know, two of my agents last week, I delegated buyers to them that bought a 4 million and a $4.4 million home. Right? Like I could have never fathomed delegating that previously, but now I'm delegating $4 million buyers to people where I'd started by delegating, like designing a flyer. ⁓ and so you just start to delegate those things off that allow me to do significantly bigger things to where now instead of.

you know, selling homes, I'm building homes instead of building a home. I'm building right now. I have like 150 in the pipeline. And so to me, it pushes me to, cause I will always want to be growing and just expanding myself. Like I'll never stop. It's just a matter of like what I'm doing. It's just got to fill my cup and it's got to challenge me and fill that need for growth. But it doesn't mean that I have to work more hours. It just means that it has to

Motivating me has to get me excited and it has to make an impact

(: 44:10

hearing you say, I'll paraphrase and what I'm hearing is you're building a life you don't need to retire from, right? When we were building a life full of meaning and purpose and impact and all those things, why would we ever walk away from that, right?

(: 44:21

Yeah. As long as you're enjoying it and it fuels you, right? Like, cause there's, there's things you can do and you can make money that drain you and that's not fulfilling. Like it's got to fuel me. It's got to get me excited. It's got to be something I wake up in the morning and I look forward to. ⁓ and so, you know, for me, it's, it's condensing the amount of hours I worked while simultaneously expanding or increasing the amount of impact that I can have. And it's just, you have to be willing to delegate and it's, it's crazy. The first time you hand over a million dollar buyer to one of your agents.

And then you hand over a 2 million and you know, now we're handing over $4 million clients. ⁓ know, $10 million clients, like, and I'm perfectly okay with that because again, now I hand that over to Jen or to Carly or JC, like, and they're winning and I'm winning with them. And the thing that's crazy as like a team leader is that's a ⁓ weird fact. But the fact that I give them a $4 million buyer, I'm still going to make plenty of money off of it. But by giving that to them, it shows how much I trust them.

and how much I value having them on the team. And guess what? Now they're going to stay with me significantly longer. So even though maybe I gave up some commission by not doing that deal myself, the short-term loss is nothing compared to the long-term gain of the loyalty that I got by giving them that $4 million buyer. But I still made plenty of money on it. And I showed that person how valuable they are to the organization, to where they're going to want to stay with that organization significantly longer.

(: 45:48

and amount of confidence you...

(: 45:49

You had a little bit of money I gave up will pay itself off exponentially in the long haul. And now again, their confidence levels higher. Like I am a $4 million agent and now they're going to go create their own $4 million deals.

(: 46:03

good man. So last question for you and this is going to kind of bring it all full circle. So I kicked off kind of talking about this concept of one life, right? This is the idea of finding harmony between work and life. I think so many of us in our industry, we try and compartmentalize our life. We have our business, we have our impact, our contribution, our marriage, our kids and all these things. I think that's where burnout happens and that's like spinning plates. It's like impossible to do. So I don't think balance is possible. I do think harmony is in our life.

Kyle, in this idea of creating one big story, one big life of impact where marriage, family, business, passion, purpose, all those things are colliding into this like one big life, big story. What does that look like for you today and what advice would you give to anybody who's listening to this now or of course later when we release it as a podcast that's trying to figure out how to live that way?

(: 46:54

Yeah, I mean, for me, this stems back to what my why is, ⁓ which is really deep and probably the best place to end, ⁓ is my why, I really found it when I lost my mom ⁓ in 2009. So lost her way too early, but ⁓ she, God willing, right, we all die in a death bed versus more tragic ways to die. So I got to see my mom in her death bed.

And not that she didn't live a great life, but when you actually see somebody in their deathbed, changes things for you. And so when I saw her in that bed, it caused me to think about like, God willing, I'm in that bed someday. And when I think about being in that bed, I think about like, what are the thoughts that I want to go through my head when I'm in that bed? And the last thing I ever want to do is be in that bed and have these thoughts about like, I wish I would have, you know, I could have done this. I should have done that.

I don't want to be in that bed having those thoughts. And so I live like every freaking day of my life making sure that when my head hits the pillow, I don't have those thoughts. Like I want to know that every freaking day that I left it all on the table and everything I could have, should have, would have done that I did. Because there's no guarantee that tomorrow's going to come. Right? We're never promised tomorrow. All we're promised is today.

And so I just obsess over that every day. And that's what I would want everybody who's listening, everybody who's watching this to do is think about that. Stop the thoughts in your head of like, well, as soon as I get this done, then I'm gonna, right? I just got to finish this and then I'm like, start today because tomorrow's not promised.

(: 48:37

Bro, I've heard you speak a lot, a lot of conversations. That's the most inspiring thing I've heard you share in the time I've known you. So thank you for that's what this is all about, right? Backstage, right? We don't see that stuff on front stage, but that's vulnerable and that's powerful, man. Thank you for sharing that story with us. And I'm sure everybody listening to this would agree with that. So bro, so grateful for your time, Kyle, and just letting us get a little bit of a behind the curtain look, you know, beyond the grind, beyond the hustle. I hope it's encouraged you if you're listening to this.

I do want to share something with you as I wrap up. I'm going to share my screen real quick. If you're watching this currently created a course. This is a free gift for anybody who's watching this. Just screenshot it if you're on your phone, but it's a beyond the grind workshop. It's a five module course I built out really just giving you handles and tools to help ⁓ really kind of workshop style of work on these different things in your philosophy, different reflection prompts and journal prompts, things to work on with your spouse, but to really try and move the needle.

to find that harmony between work and life. So screenshot that we'll be emailing it out to for anybody that that would registered. But I really hope that creates a lot of value for people and we can move the needle in that direction. Because again, if we're amazing business at the expense of who and what matters most, what's the point, right? We should have it all. I God wants to have it all and we can do it. Just take some intentionality and have more conversations like this, Kyle. We're making this an intentional, you know, goal and conversation consistently. So bro, thank you again. Appreciate you.

A lot, thank you.

(: 50:07

Alright brother, appreciate you. Congrats on the new launch.

(: 50:10

Thanks buddy. See ya.