Latest / NOISE vs SIGNAL by Inman / CEO of LPT Realty Global & Internacional Michael Valdes on Success in Real Estate and Why You Should “Fire Your Friends”

Transcript

CEO of LPT Realty Global & Internacional Michael Valdes on Success in Real Estate and Why You Should “Fire Your Friends” · NOISE vs SIGNAL by Inman

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  Fire your friends, fire your family, surround
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  yourself by the people who are going to most
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  help you get to where you want to be next. That's
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  the topic in Michael Valdes's new book, Fire
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  Your Friends. He's here with me today. This episode
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  is brought to you by Lofty, the agentic AI operating
• 0:16
  system for real estate. Lofty's AI doesn't wait
• 0:19
  to be prompted. It works proactively on behalf
• 0:22
  of your agents to uncover new listing opportunities,
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  engage leads, schedule meetings, and drive more.
• 0:29
  transactions lofty turns every agent into a top
• 0:32
  producer visit lofty .com to see how agentic
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  ai can put your business growth on autopilot
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  Everybody in the business of home has a pitch.
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  Almost nobody gets asked a hard question. This
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  show fixes that. Welcome to Noise vs. Signal.
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  I'm your host, Inman CEO Tom Bohn. Each week
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  we sit down with the top producing agents, industry
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  CEOs, prop tech founders, and the people shaping
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  the future of the business of home. Then we break
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  down the week's biggest headlines and decide
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  what's noise and what's signal. Let's get into
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  it. I have a very special guest today. When you
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  see something that's called fire your friends,
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  it makes you take notice. And it's something
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  I want to get into specifically. I have a very
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  special guest here today, Michael Valdes. You
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  all know him through the world of LPT, but I'm
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  here to talk about his book and all the things
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  he's been doing and how he got to write this.
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  It is an exciting story. It is some great takeaways
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  from this. So please welcome me in joining. Michael
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  Valdes. Tom, thank you for having me on the show.
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  This is awesome, man. I really appreciate the
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  last couple of days really getting to know one
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  another. Yeah. And doing this. This is fun. It's
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  good stuff. Look, I so I'm in the middle of writing
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  a book right now. All right. I'm a fan boy. I'm
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  jealous because you actually got it done. Right.
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  Let's let's start with let's start with like.
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  How did you get to the point where you wanted
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  to write a book? And here's the thing. This is
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  not AI slop. No, this is me writing this. This
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  wasn't AI. No, this is me sitting down and writing
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  this. This was like you called it before. This
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  is MV, not AI. This is MV, not AI. Right, right.
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  Exactly, right. Talk to me first about the process
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  of writing a book, what that feels like, what
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  that looks like, and how much you had to put
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  into this. Look, here's the thing. I actually
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  didn't tell anybody that I was writing it. Because
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  it wasn't, you know, I've got probably about
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  30 friends that are saying, oh, I'm writing a
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  book right now. It's great. And so I didn't want
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  to be the 31st. I wanted to just actually do
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  it, get it out there. And then the structure
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  of it, I travel over 200 days a year telling
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  our story right now and having the ability to
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  do things like this and being super disciplined
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  and doing it, whether I'm on the plane or at
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  home or in a hotel room and blocking out the
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  time. But what actually got me to do this was
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  once I had the structure. So I wrote the book
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  with an analogy of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.
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  Which you did. I did not. Okay. All right. No,
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  I did not. That would have been AI. If you saw
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  me at the top of that, that would have been AI.
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  This was not. Okay. Okay. But you must have,
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  you have some connection to it or you. Yeah.
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  Listen, I thought, I thought it was, first of
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  all, you don't ever have to like climb a mountain
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  at all to have the analogy of what this was.
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  And that was also important. So you could actually
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  relate to what the stories were, what we're trying
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  to tell. And what that it was basically me holding
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  up a mirror. to someone else. Yeah. Right. And
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  so why I wrote it was the idea that this is,
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  this is a milestone birthday for me this year.
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  I'll turn 60 and it's like 60. Yeah, man. Great.
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  Thanks, bro. What magic are you? No, I'm on the
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  little sort of like, what voodoo are you using?
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  Give me some of that. I'm on like the peptide
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  sort of like, you know, rabbit hole. That's a
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  whole lot of separate. But it was one of those
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  that when you hit a milestone, you start thinking
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  about you. life right you start thinking about
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  who has been around you you start thinking about
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  appreciation of what you've accomplished and
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  who was there and climbing that mountain and
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  then looking back and then you start asking anybody
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  you know think about the people who were closest
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  to you 10 years ago yeah are they still in your
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  life now Yeah. Probably about 80 % of the people
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  will say, well, not all of them. Yeah. Right.
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  A lot, a lot of them. And a lot of them. I actually
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  went through a very similar experience. Yeah.
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  I had to say the people who got me to a certain
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  point. That's it. Turned out being caustic. And
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  I, and you and I talked about my son, which I,
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  you know, I, I connect a lot of things back to
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  myself. Yeah. That's the world I live. Right.
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  And I would tell him all the time growing up,
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  you are who you surround yourself with. That's
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  what captured me when I started to read through
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  this. And you think, you know, everyone hears
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  that you're the five people that you're, you're,
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  you're the culmination of the five people that
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  you spend the most time with. What people say
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  less times is that those five people need to
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  change at different parts of your life. Yeah.
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  And fire your friends was a provocative title,
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  but it was supposed to be. Yeah. It was, it's
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  what stops you. It's like, well, what does that
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  mean? I don't, it's sort of like, it's an uncomfortable
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  thing. Yeah. Everything's uncomfortable. Growth
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  is uncomfortable. As you continue to grow, those
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  people that are going to help you elevate. are
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  the ones that need to change as you get to different
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  plateaus. And that's, you're not being, you're
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  not being flip. You are seriously, this is an
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  investment in yourself. 100%. Like, so you talked
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  about, you did a keynote recently and one of
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  the ladies in the audience said, well, do I need
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  to divorce my husband? Yeah. And so tell me about
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  that. So that was crazy. So I promoted the book
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  in Canada. Yeah. And so it was a conference that
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  I was speaking at and I went through the highlights
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  of the book and the concepts of the book. And
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  then one lady raises her hand and says, are you
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  telling me to divorce my husband? And so I said,
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  did I say that? Well, first of all, is he here?
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  First of all, is he here? Wow. All of a sudden
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  you're a family counselor on top of it. Yeah,
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  there we go. And so it was that, she says, he's
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  not aligned with what my vision is. And I said,
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  First of all, you have to decide, are you climbing
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  the right mountain? Yeah. And if you are, are
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  those people that are on your rope teams, the
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  ones that are going to elevate you? Yeah. And
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  whether that's your husband, whether that's your
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  family member, you have to make a really, really
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  conscious decision. Yeah. Right. 100%. Yeah.
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  This ties also into what Robert Palmer was talking
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  about yesterday, IDEO. 100%. Talk a little bit
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  about that. So how do you weave through LPT and
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  the others? Look, you start thinking about IDOS,
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  which is something that we've coined, which is
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  the individual definition of success. A person's
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  individual definition of success. And so Robert
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  talks about the idea that he had to build his
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  own dream big enough to have everyone else's
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  fit within that. And not about money. Not about
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  money necessarily. No, it's whatever drives somebody,
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  right? Look, for me, I've been really fortunate.
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  I was an investment banker for 10 years. This
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  is my 24th year in real estate. I've done very
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  well for myself. I'm not at Robert's level or
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  tax bracket. No one's at Robert's level. God
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  damn. But if I didn't want to, I don't have to
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  work anymore in my life. And so when I look at
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  what I want to do right now, the only thing that
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  resonates is impact. Not my impact. How do I
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  impact others? And that was the only thing that
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  resonated. That was the impetus of the book.
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  What does the process look like as you take inventory
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  of who is around you in your current life and
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  where do you want to go? There's actually tools
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  in everything. Every chapter focuses on a certain
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  point of that journey. And then there's trail
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  questions, as I call it, and then base camp exercises
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  on every chapter. And so we'll think about it
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  this way. If you were to climb Mount Kilimanjaro,
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  You just can't go to the top of the mountain
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  because you'll die, right? You have to go into
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  various levels. So a certain number of people
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  will take you to base camp. And so what happens
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  at base camp? You have to be there for a certain
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  number of days. You have to be there for your
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  body to acclimate. It's a different environment,
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  right? And it also is a different view. Because
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  now you're at the base of the mountain, but you
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  also have to remember that it's just the base.
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  But you're above where you started from, but
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  you're still at the base of the mountain. Now
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  you decide, okay, I have two choices. Base camp
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  is really wonderful. There's flags from all over
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  the world, tents. It's colorful. People are having
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  tea. They're hanging out. Most people are comfortable
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  in base camp. That was my whole point. They're
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  super comfortable there. And so what are your
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  two choices? You either hang out there because
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  it's fun. Or you decide to go and elevate. But
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  if you decide to keep climbing, the interesting
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  part is that those five people that took you
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  to base camp cannot take you any further simply
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  because they do not know how to take you further.
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  They're not bad people. They don't have the skill
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  set. So you need a different set of Sherpas to
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  take you up the mountain. Talk about the world
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  we live in now, which is mostly around realtors
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  and brokers and the rest. What does base camp
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  look like? like for a typical realtor today?
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  You know, that's such a great question. You know,
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  look, there's a lot of noise in our industry,
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  right? There's a lot of noise that's getting
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  caught up with a lot of lawsuits with our competitors,
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  the consolidation of the private listings and
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  the whole thing going on and the consolidation
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  of so many other brokerages that are coming together
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  as early as this week. And when you start looking
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  at it, it's a lot of noise. And somebody who
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  is here serving as just that agent serving their
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  consumer, when you start hearing about all of
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  this, you're not even at Basecamp yet. You're
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  just in the noise going up the mountain until
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  you get to Basecamp. So Basecamp is when you
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  decide what you want to do. What is your IDOS?
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  What do you want to contribute to? What's the
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  impact you want to do? Are you doing this because
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  you want to go and serve your family, your community?
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  One of the worst things that happened was during
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  COVID where all of these real estate agents actually
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  became millionaires, right? And so they were
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  looking at these Bravo TV shows and thinking
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  everyone can do it. And the problem was that
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  some people actually did do it. But guess what?
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  They're not in our industry anymore. because
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  now you needed the skill set. Now you actually
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  needed to know what you were doing. So Basecamp
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  is just that, the basics of wanting to serve
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  a consumer, knowing how to do so, and knowing
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  how you are different. How do you differentiate
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  yourself? in this noise i think this resonates
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  with a lot of realtors today because i'm hearing
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  a lot of folks as i go out there and they're
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  thinking about where do i go next what do i do
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  from here i've built a local brand but i've been
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  connected to a brokerage for a long time yep
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  and they're thinking do i transition to a new
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  team do i transition to a new model right so
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  what is the process now and who are those five
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  sherpas let's talk about what they what they
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  yeah but i'll i'll answer your first question
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  first because there's there's always that sense
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  of i feel connected to the brand i was with And
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  so as of the last couple of months, the brand
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  you were with is most likely not the brand that
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  you're at now because of consolidation and everything
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  else. There's a lot of names that are changing.
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  And does brand matter? Does broker brand matter?
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  See, that's such a great point because I think
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  some agents do think that. Some agents think,
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  I'm going to align myself with this name in this
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  industry because I need that name on my sign.
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  And you don't. You need to know that. You, Tom,
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  are the person that's going to connect with that
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  consumer. That's who you are. You're the brand.
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  The moment that the agent realizes that, then
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  that's where we actually get to a special place,
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  right? And so, yes, I do talk about the five
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  Sherpas. And I try to consolidate this and try
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  to do it in a way that it's five of your circle
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  or your rope team, as I say, and the people that
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  are actually going to elevate you up. And so
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  one of them is your skills Sherpa, right? It's
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  like you want somebody who has done the climb
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  before you. And there is actually intervals of
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  space and time. So a mentor. Well, yes, but more
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  than a mentor. You just don't want someone that's
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  going to say, you know, come on, I'll show you
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  the way, right? Because not everyone has those
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  skills either. So I actually really purposefully
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  break them up into the skill set. of what you're
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  needing and you may not need all five at once
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  you might have some of them filled already so
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  the skills person is the one who's climbed that
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  mountain before And you are actually going to
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  see who's the person who's been there. That's
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  just a few steps ahead of me. So maybe like the
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  zero to six, you can see somebody that if you
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  wanted to sell, you know, five homes a year and
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  you're on your second one, that person is great
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  because now you can sort of like say, okay, what's
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  three more, right? It's two and a half X what
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  you've done, but it's only three more when you
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  start thinking about it. Now you start going
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  into what would it feel like to sell 50 homes?
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  You know, that's a little more uncomfortable.
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  But who do I need to find for that? And then
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  what is it if I want to sell 100 plus homes a
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  year? Well, that's not even in my mindset right
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  now. So there's tiered versions of what that
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  skills Sherpa should be, right? And then we go
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  into strategy. The strategy Sherpa is an interesting
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  one because it's the blueprint. You know what
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  always fascinates me is how few agents have a
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  business plan. I think that's true for a lot
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  of businesses in general. Well, that's very true.
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  Take it out of real estate, right? I think you
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  can go across a number of, I am always amazed
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  when I go into businesses, particularly for a
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  turnaround situation where it's like, what's
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  your North store? What are you trying to accomplish?
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  And no one knows because they're working in the
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  business, not on the business. That's right.
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  Right. That's right. Yeah. And as an agent, whether
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  you're a solo agent that is just working on your
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  own business, a team leader, an independent,
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  or part of a larger brokerage, the idea that.
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  They don't know where they're going. How do you
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  know when you arrive? Absolutely. Right? And
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  so the idea of a strategy is so important. And
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  then you have a strategy Sherpa that will actually,
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  they've done it before. They will say to you,
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  hey, have you thought about it in this way? Yeah.
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  Because it's a little bit different than what
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  you're looking at. So they press you. They press
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  you. Of course they press you. So that should
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  be a person who takes you out of your comfort
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  zone. Yes. But some of these blend together,
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  right? Because then you have your truth Sherpa.
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  Okay. And your truth Sherpa. So we have skills
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  Sherpa. Skills. Vision Sherpa. But we haven't
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  gone to vision yet. Okay. Strategy Sherpa. Strategy.
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  Okay. Strategy, skill, truth Sherpa is someone
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  who's not going to let you get away with his
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  shit. Right? Ah, okay. Someone who's going to
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  be, not going to ramp on you either, but it's
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  like. Tom, that's not really where this is landing,
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  right? It's like, look, I love you, brother.
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  And this is the way that it's come across. And
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  it's sort of like, you know, maybe you could
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  think of it in a different delivery and a way
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  like that. That's somebody who cares about your
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  climb. That's somebody who cares about your climb
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  and cares about you enough to actually sort of
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  say, hey, that's not who you are. I know your
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  soul. I know your heart. That's not who you are.
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  Right. Right. And so because sometimes we just
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  get caught up. Sometimes it's like, look, I got
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  to get aggressive to get up that mountain and
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  I need to sort of do whatever I need to do. And
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  sometimes your, your persona is not your truth.
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  Absolutely. Right. And not everyone can be the
• 15:27
  same thing. Not everyone could be Ryan Serhant.
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  Right. Right. Right. He is an interesting individual
• 15:32
  type of person who does that really well. So
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  then people will look at that and go, I'm going
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  to be Ryan Serhant. That's right. Yes. You know
• 15:39
  how hard that is? Right? You don't just, hey,
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  I have a TV show. And look, you brought up Ryan.
• 15:46
  This is really interesting. I've known Ryan a
• 15:47
  while. Ryan did a podcast that I was doing years
• 15:51
  ago. And it was really interesting because he
• 15:53
  said to me, Michael, when I shoot an episode
• 15:55
  of Million Dollar Agent, whatever I shoot today
• 15:59
  will not air for another 10 months. And so...
• 16:04
  It has to go through edit, post edit, everything
• 16:07
  else. So whoever I'm on camera today needs to
• 16:10
  be the future Ryan from 10 months from now, because
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  that's who you're going to see on screen. And
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  I was like, what a wonderful visual of doing
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  that. That actually gets right to what that Sherpa,
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  that Sherpa should be saying. That's exactly
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  it. What? does this look like you in the future
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  exactly right yeah so that's so incredible and
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  that's that's the that's that's the truth sherpa
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  the vision sherpa is the one who actually has
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  that plan in place yeah the one who actually
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  can think about what the future will look like
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  and how you can actually create that for yourself.
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  And they don't necessarily have to be from the
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  real estate industry, do they? Of course not.
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  This is not a real estate book. Yeah, absolutely.
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  This is a book about life. But for the realtors
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  out there listening to this now and they're thinking,
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  oh my God, I need to find these people, right?
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  They don't necessarily have to look within their
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  brokerage or another brokerage. Look, it doesn't
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  even have to be somebody you know. Right. You
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  start thinking about this, you know, like I had
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  this conversation with somebody at the event
• 17:12
  yesterday and they were saying, hey, but, you
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  know, I followed Tony Robbins a lot, but I don't
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  know Tony Robbins. And I said, you don't need
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  to. The fact that he's influencing you already,
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  he's one of your Sherpas. Yeah. And so you don't
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  need to know the person. The person doesn't have
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  to be physically in front of you. They just have
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  to influence you enough where you actually see.
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  them filling that role for you. Love that. Yeah.
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  Love that. I love all those three or those four.
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  Yeah. Let's talk about the fifth one because
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  I think it's the most compelling. It is compelling.
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  And that's the spirit Sherpa. It's, you know,
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  you always sort of say that mind, body and soul
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  where you actually want to have that, that perfect
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  triangle. By the way, there's no perfect triangles,
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  but that spirit Sherpa that makes sure that you
• 17:58
  don't burn out. Make sure the why of why you
• 18:02
  were doing this. Was it for your children? Was
• 18:05
  it for the legacy you want to leave behind? Was
• 18:07
  it to impact hundreds of thousands of people?
• 18:10
  How big is that spirit Sherpa? And are you actually
• 18:14
  creating and continuing the climb with that core
• 18:17
  in mind? I love that. Yeah, I love that. And
• 18:20
  now like that really gets again back to IDOS.
• 18:23
  That's right. Because it's so individual. That's
• 18:26
  right. Right. Because it is okay. I think. to
• 18:29
  only want to do 10 sales a year. Oh my God, absolutely.
• 18:34
  As long as all the other thing applies. There's
• 18:36
  nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong
• 18:36
  with it. Look, we talk about, I talk about it
• 18:39
  in the book also, you and I can go and see a
• 18:41
  movie right now, right? And we're going to sit
• 18:43
  in a theater with 200 other people and we're
• 18:46
  going to see a movie for two hours and we're
• 18:49
  going to walk out of that and 200 people will
• 18:52
  have different opinions of what we just saw.
• 18:56
  Absolutely. And you start thinking to yourself,
• 18:58
  how is that even possible? We just saw the same
• 19:01
  120 minutes of cellulary that was edited together
• 19:05
  by an editor in a dark room somewhere. And we've
• 19:08
  all seen the same images. Yeah. And we come up
• 19:11
  with different, walked away with a wildly different.
• 19:13
  That's right. Because we all see life through
• 19:16
  our own lens. Absolutely. So now what about,
• 19:19
  I think one of the places this really resonates
• 19:21
  most is toxicity. Yes. And I see with a lot of
• 19:26
  people in general, they have people who are naysayers,
• 19:29
  but they don't want to cut that cord, right?
• 19:31
  Talk to me a little bit about that. That's really,
• 19:34
  really important. When you start thinking about
• 19:37
  who you have around you, and sometimes we feel
• 19:38
  guilty. Like I say, fire your friends. What if
• 19:40
  your friend is your mother? Right. And so like,
• 19:44
  how do you fire another? Yeah. And so it's the
• 19:46
  idea. Can I fire my mom? Oh, and she'll watch
• 19:49
  this. I know. Believe me. She better watch it.
• 19:52
  You bastard. No, it's the idea that it's the
• 19:59
  conceptual part of it. Just back to the lens.
• 20:01
  Your mother's saying, Tom, what are you thinking?
• 20:03
  You can't do that. That's too risky. Yeah. That's
• 20:06
  her protecting you. It's out of love. Right.
• 20:09
  But you're the one that you will not scale. unless
• 20:13
  you do this. And if you actually go and try not
• 20:17
  to do this to appease her, you're not helping
• 20:19
  yourself. But isn't failure part of it? Failure
• 20:22
  is a great lesson. It's a great lesson. Failure
• 20:25
  is a great lesson. Failure is not bad. No, failure
• 20:28
  is good. Failure is good. Go ask Thomas Edison.
• 20:31
  100%. Right? He failed 10 ,000 times and we got
• 20:34
  a light bulb. Lincoln. Lincoln. How many times
• 20:36
  did he lose? Exactly. Wild levels of depression.
• 20:40
  100%. Yeah. right so even as i think about like
• 20:43
  my son and his trajectory in life and you know
• 20:46
  for a long time it was that's not i can't do
• 20:48
  it i want to do it but i can't because my buddies
• 20:50
  won't think it's cool yeah right yeah how much
• 20:52
  of that type of thing do you hear particularly
• 20:54
  with a realtor your social media you become very
• 20:56
  vulnerable that's right you have to put yourself
• 20:58
  out there and you know there are other people
• 20:59
  that they're going look at them they they've
• 21:01
  got the people they're probably saying in the
• 21:03
  comments right now 100 that's good as long as
• 21:06
  they're commenting i don't give a Right? Just
• 21:08
  comment. That's right. But I think you have to
• 21:12
  really be comfortable understanding where it
• 21:16
  is you want to be and to surround yourself with
• 21:19
  the people who will get that, even if that's
• 21:21
  wrong. That was chapter two. Yeah. Is picking
• 21:25
  the right mountain. Yeah. Right? So think about
• 21:28
  it. And there are friends of mine that have been
• 21:31
  climbing the wrong mountain for years. Why? Because
• 21:34
  their parents were physicians. They were supposed
• 21:37
  to be a physician. And guess what? They did.
• 21:39
  But they hate it. They hate it. They hate it.
• 21:41
  Well, I see a number of attorneys who are like
• 21:42
  that. The attorneys. Absolutely terrible. And
• 21:44
  your whole life is planned for you. And you're
• 21:47
  just going through it. And so it's a really bad
• 21:50
  discovery if you just stop and figure out, I'm
• 21:54
  on the wrong mountain. And then you have to do
• 21:56
  some really, really bad math. Because as I think
• 22:00
  about the average lifespan for someone in the
• 22:05
  U .S., it's probably 80. So whatever age you
• 22:08
  are now while you're actually having this discussion,
• 22:10
  subtract that, figure out the delta. If that's
• 22:14
  20 years, 30 years, 40 years, whatever it is,
• 22:16
  do you want to spend that amount of time on the
• 22:19
  wrong mountain? Yeah, absolutely. Recruiting
• 22:23
  in real estate is critical. Yes, it is. And there's
• 22:25
  a lot of young agents out there who are struggling
• 22:28
  and wondering, did I make the right decision?
• 22:31
  That's right. What do you say to them and how
• 22:32
  does this look apply? So you actually... Well,
• 22:36
  look, some people probably shouldn't be in the
• 22:39
  industry, to be quite honest, right? So not everyone
• 22:42
  should be in this industry. Trust me. And this
• 22:44
  industry is brutal enough that it will self -select.
• 22:50
  Great point. And so this is where people say,
• 22:53
  I just can't make it. And a lot of people did
• 22:56
  fall out, right? But what remained? The people
• 23:00
  that did remain, A, you have less competition.
• 23:03
  B, you have a less amount, you've quieted the
• 23:05
  noise. You have a greater opportunity and lens
• 23:09
  to make your message clearer and be known. So
• 23:13
  if it's your mountain, you have to sort of stick
• 23:16
  to it, find your Sherpas and climb. Love that.
• 23:20
  We're going to jump into signal or noise. I'm
• 23:23
  going to throw out a couple of things you're
• 23:24
  going to say, whether it's signal. It has meaning
• 23:26
  with some noise. All right, great. Rapid fire?
• 23:28
  Yep, rapid fire. Thank you. Love this. And there's
• 23:31
  so many takeaways here. I can't wait to see team
• 23:33
  leaders pick this up and actually start to use
• 23:35
  these tutorials, these worksheets. A lot of the
• 23:39
  team leaders have actually taken this and created
• 23:41
  their sales meetings around it, which is extraordinary.
• 23:44
  Yeah, I love that too. All right. The most important
• 23:47
  part of this podcast is called Signal. We do
• 23:49
  signal or noise. I'm going to throw out a topic.
• 23:51
  You're going to tell me whether it's signal or
• 23:52
  noise. Let's do it. And I have to ask this one
• 23:54
  because, again, it just landed again today. Yes.
• 23:56
  Another thing came up again, Compass coming after
• 23:58
  Zillow, and signal or noise. Is that whole thing?
• 24:02
  Ton of noise. Ton of noise. Ton of noise. Has
• 24:04
  zero meaning. Now, look, it doesn't have zero
• 24:06
  meaning, but it doesn't affect the average realtor
• 24:10
  doing their business. Yeah. It just doesn't affect
• 24:13
  them. Absolutely. Right? Noise. Consolidation
• 24:17
  of MLSs from almost 500 now to maybe a handful.
• 24:22
  Signal or noise? Look, somewhere in the middle.
• 24:25
  I think I'm going to lean more towards noise,
• 24:27
  but it's somewhere in the middle because, sure,
• 24:30
  the agents need to be aware of it, but again,
• 24:32
  it doesn't affect them on a day -to -day. They'll
• 24:35
  just go and list it at another MLS. Most agents
• 24:37
  don't care. They don't care. Yeah, it's all about
• 24:40
  that local relationship. Absolutely. All right.
• 24:42
  Yes. All right. Signal or noise? Okay. Here we
• 24:45
  go. Interest rates. Of course it's a signal.
• 24:48
  Yeah, of course. It's the biggest lever? I would
• 24:53
  say so, sure. I think there's a lot of money
• 24:56
  on the sidelines. You have a new Fed chair, which
• 24:58
  you're all figuring out where his machinations
• 25:00
  are and his maneuvers. um so no it's a signal
• 25:03
  a signal or noise the rise of non -traditional
• 25:06
  brokerages versus the legacy ones is that a trend
• 25:09
  that has sustainability and legs or is that noise
• 25:13
  that is a big signal thanks that's a big signal
• 25:16
  like it's very selfish we were the fastest growing
• 25:18
  real estate company in history um you know i
• 25:21
  left my former employer that was that i helped
• 25:24
  build to the largest independent to come here
• 25:25
  because this is the vision that i see as to serving
• 25:29
  agents at the highest level around the world.
• 25:32
  What is the last message you want to convey to
• 25:35
  all those realtors out there who are hustling
• 25:37
  and grinding and are waiting for interest rates
• 25:39
  to change and macroeconomics to change? What
• 25:43
  is the words of wisdom? The message is to understand
• 25:46
  what your value is, understand why you came here,
• 25:49
  understand that if you serve others at the highest
• 25:52
  level, you're always going to win. Love that.
• 25:55
  Michael Valdes, fire your friends. Pick it up,
• 25:59
  read it. You can get this where? We'll have information
• 26:00
  below. But Amazon, right? Amazon, yes. Super
• 26:03
  easy, yes. You carry around a satchel, right?
• 26:06
  100 at any time. You'll sign it, whatever they
• 26:08
  want. That's it. I think we're going to have
• 26:09
  some at Inman, so that'll be fun. Well, actually,
• 26:11
  you'll be doing a signing at Inman. Yes, I will.
• 26:13
  Michael Valdes. Thank you, sir. I appreciate
• 26:15
  you, Tom. Thank you. Thanks for listening to
• 26:18
  Noise vs. Signal. Follow us on Instagram at Inmanews
• 26:22
  for more conversations and industry insights.
• 26:25
  And be sure to subscribe wherever you get your
• 26:27
  podcasts so you never miss an episode. I'll see
• 26:30
  you next time.