Harnessing Entrepreneurial Resilience: Secrets for Explosive Growth with Joshua Smith

Getting crystal clarity, because crystal clarity solves a lot of the mindset problems. The problem that most people have though is they don't have extreme clarity on what they want, why they want it, why it's important to them. But when you have extreme clarity on those things, number one, then you can go out there and reverse engineer the architectural plans to get you from where you're at to where you want to go. But then number two, I found that people don't really have a burnout problem, they have a clarity problem. When you know what you truly want and why you want it, why it's important to you, it becomes pretty damn easy to go out there and execute on it. Now it doesn't mean that you're not going to have hard days and that there's days where it's not difficult. Of course, those things are going to happen. I look at it like if we're bricklayers and we're just laying bricks all day long, every task that we do in our business is just laying bricks. Welcome to Super Entrepreneurs Podcast. I'm your host, Shahid Durrani. Today we have with us Joshua Smith. Joshua started his entrepreneurship journey back in 2005. And today he owns six different businesses that are tied to the real estate industry. Welcome to our show, Joshua. Yeah, I know. Thank you so much for having me. I'm stoked and honored to be here, my friend. Oh, it's my pleasure, my friend. It's great to have you on the show and learn more about the great things that you're doing. Can you explain to us the six businesses and how it's tied to real estate? Yeah, yeah. I'm 23 years old. I got into real estate back in 2005. I recently dropped out of college and I knew entrepreneurship was the path for me. My father owned and operated gyms for 30 years. And growing up, I knew that was the path for me. But at a young age, I didn't want to waste money at college because I very quickly realized that wasn't going to teach me anything. But I was just looking for, okay, what was that vehicle I could get into for a low barrier entry that I could afford to get into? And real estate was it. You can go out there and take a two-week crash course. You can sell other people's products for a thousand bucks. You can be all in and go out there and start making money. And I didn't know if it was going to be a stepping stone or what that original path was, but I jumped into it and I just fell in love with it, man. I became obsessed with it. And not necessarily selling real estate itself. Not that I didn't enjoy that. Way people think of realtors, right? Work with buyers and sellers. That was a fun process. But what I loved about it was just the amazing opportunity that vehicle created. I've yet to, and I've been involved in over a dozen different business ventures and a lot of different industries now. And I've had some successful exits and whatnot, but I've still yet to see anything that creates so many opportunities, again, with that low barrier to entry where anybody can get involved and it just builds off of it, which is such a life-changing industry. So once I discovered that, I decided to go all in with it. And a lot of this happened on accident, to be honest with you. Originally, I was just focused on growing my own real estate business. And how I define a business for myself is creating something that allows me to make the money I want to make, but then I can step away from and have it operate and grow without my day-to-day involvement. You didn't want to just be a solopreneur and have a job that according to IRS, I'm a business owner. But it took me about 10 years to do that. Build up my real estate company where I could fully exit or put a CEO in place, do everything where I could fully exit. At that point, I'm still in my early 30s. And I'm like, okay, I went from working 80 hours a week to working, not really working at all. And I'm like, what the hell am I going to do with myself? I'm bored. I knew I didn't want to retire. I just, I'd love to build. I'd love to work. So then from there, I just started assessing. I'm like, what am I going to do? And I was like, okay, I love this. I love real estate. And at that point I got really good because I had to become a good coach, right? So like meaning for me to build a successful real estate business, I had to get really good at coaching my agents that came and worked for me on how to go out there and create their own successful real estate businesses. So I was like, okay, I love real estate as a vehicle. I just love everything about the industry. I found that I'm really good at this coaching thing. And as I was building my real estate business, I had a lot of success. So it led to a lot of awards, a lot of accolades as a 30 top realtor in the United States by the Wall Street Journal. And so I was asked to speak on a lot of stages and I had a lot of people always reaching out to me for mentorship. And yeah, if they were local, they could join my real estate company, but got people from all over reaching out. So then I was like, okay, demand's there. I have the expertise. I enjoy it. So I'm like, okay, that's the perfect combination to launch a new business. So then I created a coaching company, coaching consulting company in the real estate industry, where now I've consulted over 5,000 real estate professionals and help mentor and coach them all throughout North America. Then though, as I started getting involved in that, then I realized that there was a big need for software that was missing. Affordable software for helping, because you look at a lot of these businesses, okay, they had their POS system and their systems to go out there and run and operate their business on. And you saw a missing gap there for the real estate business for these real estate professionals to operate their business A to Z from, I mean, from marketing, branding to all the backend tracking and 80 follow-ups, just robust CRM, transaction management, lead gen, all of that. So then again, I saw a hole in the market, demand, all of those things. So then I started a software company and then it just kept building off of there. Then eventually it was like, okay, now we've got a franchising company and it's just led to just the next business without intention per se. My intention is, man, I want to build as much as I possibly can within this space that I love, but it's just been, I wait to see what that whole, that demand is and just see what that looks like. And it's just compounded to where we are. So piggyback on each other, wherever you saw a need where you can help people that you're already serving with something different that can make their life better and more productive and more effective, you jumped on it. Yeah. The biggest mistake I made in my business career is, so I put together the, I'm like, okay, I really enjoy backend operations. Like I'm a systems freak and I love marketing and all the backend stuff, logistics. I love all the backend stuff and I like the front end stuff too, but I realized, okay, you've got a lot of these great entrepreneurs out there that are really good at the front stuff. They just really suck at the back stuff, right? So I created this team. We put together a team of everything from bookkeepers to editors, to programmers, to system builders to, so we would handle the backend. And I was like, okay, I can go out there and create, let's just say a hundred strategic partnerships where I have partners that I bring on. Now they're the expert, they're the name, they're the face. We handle the backend and just create these strategic partnerships. And I got to the point where I had 13 total of these, but my mistake was twofold, right? I didn't realize the amount of energy and effort that went into truly learning and mastering the different avatar of each different business. And then also the managing of the different personality of each business partner. And it was, it ended up becoming this nightmare and I ended up exiting from seven of those. And it was just, it was lost a couple of years of my life. Now, even though some of the exits were fruitful, still the lost opportunities, the whatever. So what I learned though, from that lesson was, okay, as long as it lives in the same ecosystem, at least for me, I'm like, look, dude, I'm not Elon Musk. I'm not trying to build all these crazy dips. So for me, when it lives in that same ecosystem where they all build and compliment each other and it serves that same avatar, then it just makes it that much easier. And that's been the path for me. That's really accelerated growth for me. That's awesome. So when you coach your clients, what percentage would you say is mindset? It's a big part of it, man. And that's where we always start because if they're not open to growth, if they're not open to learning, if they don't have that right mindset, that's where it all begins, dude. If you go into my coach program, we spend about the first, because my coaching is a combination of online versus live versus masterminds, all of that. But yeah, we spend, that's where we all start, first start with that. Because look, at the end of the day, not just mindset, but getting crystal clarity, because crystal clarity solves a lot of the mindset problems. The problem that most people have, though, is they don't have extreme clarity on what they want, why they want it, why it's important to them. But when you have extreme clarity on those things, number one, then you can go out there and reverse engineer the architectural plans to get you from where you're at to where you want to go. But then number two, I found that people don't really have a burnout problem. They have a clarity problem. When you know what you truly want and why you want it, why it's important to you, it becomes pretty damn easy to go out there and execute on it. Now, it doesn't mean that you're not going to have hard days and that there's days where it's not difficult to force those things that are going to happen. But when you know exactly, I look at it like if we're bricklayers, okay, and we're just laying bricks all day long. Every task that we do in our business is just laying bricks. When you don't know what you're building, okay, that becomes very mundane and tedious and boring and all those things can exist, burnout and whatnot. But when you know exactly what you are building and you've got the architectural plans that you're building for, so every single brick by brick, you're seeing progress. And even though, yeah, it's still hard work, but you're seeing that progress day in and day out, okay, that keeps you going and creates that, keeps that excitement going. Yeah, I mean, it's to the extent point where I've even brought in now a mindset peak performance coach who's been my mindset coach for six years now into our ecosystem with our coaching clients, just because it's like when people aren't doing what they know they should be doing and they know how to do it, usually it's something between the ears. It's the knowing doing gap that gets most people, right? And I find it is directly linked, as you mentioned, finding your purpose. What are you waking up for in the morning? What is your why? Why are you doing all this? And once you find that, it just amplifies everything else you do. Even making those improvements, even becoming self-aware, you start doing that because you have found your purpose. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes we may not have clarity on what it is that we truly want. Like we may not have our purpose. Most people don't. I'm like, well, yeah, when my success journey started, I didn't either. I just, I knew what I didn't want. So if you can't figure out what is it, figure out what you didn't, don't want. I was sick and tired of being broke. At that time, you know, my early twenties, I was almost 300 pounds, more of the obese. I was sick and tired of that. So, okay, I don't want that. Now I didn't know exactly what I wanted my health, exact dream body to be or what my health goals were to be. But I'm like, Hey, I know I'm sick and tired of being close to 300 pounds and having no energy. So like, let me go out there and lose a hundred pounds. And so I was sick and tired of being broke. I didn't know how much money would actually make me fulfilled or whatever. But look, if you can't figure out what is it you want, just figure out then what is it you don't want. And just start there, just start taking those choices and decisions against what you don't want from that. I think because sometimes I find it to be about 50, 50, man, where some people are able to get that clarity and what they want. But then this other percentage almost discourages them and gets them down when they think that, Oh, I've got to have this purpose and they can't find it. Then it almost blocks and almost hurts them more than it helps them trying to go out there and because it becomes self-destructive. And I'm like, look, dude, like you can have areas of your life where you have it, you can have areas of your life in periods of seasons of your life where you don't have it. And that's just going to change all the time. My purpose or my why, if you will, I don't really have a purpose. I have a ton of different whys for each aspect of my life that matters to me, but they've evolved. They've changed. Before I had kids, it was different. Now I have kids and it just, it's always evolving. It's always changing. Basically force negates. When we try to get or we try to force and, Oh, that neediness, that neediness has a huge reverse effect on what you want to accomplish. It gets in the way. Yeah, that was a wonderful point. When it comes to purpose, that clarity and purpose, I feel it comes from when we start not forcing and becoming more calm in our mind. Because really, I feel that every human being does have a purpose here. Like it is quite incredible that we are here breathing, living and alive. There's something very special about that. And I feel that once we bring, introduce that calmness in our life, it makes it more clear what we're going after. And once you do find that it does make a huge difference. Yeah. And again, because I'm one that like, I've really struggled with it. Okay. Like you, you get, I'll just, I know I'm using Elon Musk as a, as a big example today, but okay. To solve interstellar space travel so we can survive as a future species. Okay. That's a pretty damn awesome purpose, right? For me, it's okay, dude. I just, to me, my purpose for me for life is just growth and expansion. That's it. I just want to grow and expand and to meet the best version of myself. And that's it. I don't have some crazy, maybe inspiring to others. I'm just like, look, no. And I've discovered for myself, I feel most fulfilled when I'm growing, when I'm expanding, when I'm always working at becoming the best version of myself, trying to reach my potential. Even though we may never reach our full potentials, but Hey man, it's like this infinite game with no finish line. Yeah. So when people ask me, what's your long-term business goals? I'm like, just to grow. I don't have any plan on stopping. Like I love what I do. That is success. Yeah. I'm just like, Hey man. I just, in some years, some years in business, that growth might be financially top line revenue and bottom line revenue. Some years I've had it where it's just, Hey man, like revenue is pretty good, but I'm at a point in my life right now where man, I'm having to grind 80 hours a week to make this revenue. I want to keep the revenue the same, but figure out how to do this 40 hours a week. So I can have a little bit more of a balanced life. Each year can be slightly. So growth can mean different things at different times. But from the times where I found that I'm most depressed is when I'm not growing and expanding. When I allow myself to stay stagnant, when I'm whatever level of success that we've created, we can find ourselves operating in mediocrity and outside that level of success. I found for me, at least that is where I've been most depressed, most down, most unfulfilled. Each person's going to have their own journey with it. Yeah. You know what? We're goal seeking organisms. We need to be going after something. And when we have that mentality or that mindset that I just need to grow, I just need to grow. And each day you're just becoming better than you were yesterday. And you just have that mindset and you go after each day with that devotion for growth. You're just bound to grow. You're going to see success in different areas of your life. Yeah. Because then you get whatever, what, whatever you value. Okay. As an example, okay. If I'm truly serious, because words are hollow actions show what we truly value. So if I truly value growth, okay, then I'm going to have an intentional growth plan. Okay. Every single day, I take 20 minutes every day going through a reflection process. Okay. What did I do over my last 24 hours was every activity that got involved in congruent with getting me one step closer to getting to where I want to go and to getting to my goals reality. Was I growing or was I not growing? And then I'm eliminating on things that got in the way and things that weren't in alignment with my goals that distracted me or pulled from my focus. And then from there, okay, then I'm playing. So I reflect, so I get from each and every day. And then I'm reflecting on, on, so I reflect on the day and then I'll spend it. So that's the first half of it. And the next half is then I go out there and plan the next perfect day. But then you start asking yourself, okay, what do I need to do? Like, what is the current biggest obstacles that I'm facing right now in my life, in my business, that if I overcome this and I get this thing dialed, then we'll take me to that next growth level. So then, okay, I can get laser focused, not just because if I just say I want growth, but I'm doing nothing to grow, then that just made them full of ----. And from there it becomes a mastery plan. It becomes all of those things where to me, it just creates so much simplicity in life and business. Yeah, I know. And that's awesome. Can you share what you feel your innermost superpower is that got you to this point in your life? I would like to say some of it is, I used to say it was hard work and work ethic, but I think that's probably helped me in a lot of ways, but also has hurt me as much as it's helped me in a lot of ways because I do love to work so much. Versus like where that can hurt me is get involved in things that maybe I shouldn't be getting involved in because I have over a hundred people that work for me now today directly. And I might get involved in, really, I should be allowing them to develop their leadership skills. And, but I just love building. I love growing. And so sometimes I got to always catch myself there. But I would do, I would say resilience, man. That's good. If you were to ask other people, they'd probably tell you that, Oh, Josh's ability to go out there and take complicated things, simplify them and build out systems and processes and simplistic ways that people can go out there and follow it and execute. Taking complicated things and simplifying them and wrapping around process and systems. And that's a good trait. And I found that to be, but I would say do that, just that, that resilience, man, I've been just like most entrepreneurs experiences. Man, I've been in so many tough spots and just that, that no matter what, just that never give up, show up each and every day. I don't know what time it is for you, but right now my time at 6am recording this and in the office already for an hour, I'm up at 3am every single day, dude, seven days a week, just add it. Like I just, I have that ability to go out there and just push the boredom and be resilient no matter how difficult things are. And I get asked all the time, dude, are you just wired that way or whatever? And it's just, I'm sure it can be learned. But for me, I've just always been this way, man. That's great, man. These are things that entrepreneurs want to hear. There's so much focus on what's happening, the market, the economy, their current results. They bring their focus and their attention so much on that, that they lose that heart that they have for the purpose or the why or whatever they're working for towards. And that day comes and when they wake up in the morning, the first thing they do, they check their phone, they check the emails, they put some in that emotional state of a lower vibration. And then they say, what the hell is this? Another day. So they go and they start pushing towards that day. But what happens is when we are too focused on our results and what's happening on the outside, we lose that. Like for you, it sounds like you have a very clear and connected focus to what you're doing. It doesn't really matter what's going on. Like you're at it every day at the same level of energy, right? Yeah. A hundred percent. And I found the energy management is much more important and valuable than time management. I'm very intentional in my energy from the way that I work out to work with concierge physicians. I get my blood work done. Like I'm a freak when it comes to that stuff, but it serves me. Yeah. It allows me to go out there because I don't want to build these businesses, but then I'd be an absentee father. I don't want to say infinite amounts of energy, but I've got a bunch of 18, 19, 20 year olds that work for me. I run circles around them even though I'm 41. But with that, going back to your point, look, something that people need to realize, and hopefully people will listen to this from me in that, okay, I'm involved in real estate, right? And got involved in 2005 and then 2008 hits worst housing market crash in recorded history. And one thing I learned through that, and I've been through so many different markets, ups and downs. And during the great financial crisis where so many of my competitors were devastated, I just went out there and flourished and thrived, man. And my business has grown and thrived every single year since the year I jumped in. And here's what I discovered through this is success is internal. It is never external. The economy is irrelevant, right? Like you're going to have economies, you're going to have downs, ups, downs. Here's what I tell my real estate clients is that there's no such thing as a good market, no such thing as a bad market. The market's always good for somebody. It's our job as real estate professionals to identify whom the market is good for, pivot, adapt accordingly. Let's change or die. Things are always... But again, we can't... Victims blame outside circumstances. Winners never blame. Winners are like, hey, here's the cards that I'm dealt. How do I go out there and play these cards? Okay, we just got hit with COVID. How do we expand with COVID? We got to a point where you couldn't go show people homes. You couldn't go out there and do these different things. Okay, we just adapted. We went out there and figured that out. We had, again, massive growth years during that time. And yeah, the economy is doing crazy things right now. And where the economy is going, I truly believe that this thing is going to get nasty. This thing is going to get ugly. I think that it looks a lot more like 1930 than it does 2008, meaning I think that... Because if you look at right now, if it wasn't for all this QE and monetization of debt, we'd be in a 16-year-long depression right now. I don't know how long we can go before the music stops here. But I operate from a hope for the best, plan for the worst. So yeah, I'm prepping and planning for worst case scenario. And if it doesn't happen, I'm good to go. Then if it does happen, I'm good to go. But also, I understand, a full understanding that success is internal. It's not external. I will never blame the economy for either making me or breaking me. It's all internal, right? I sit there and worry about that ----. Now, I'm not saying I don't... Like I'm being reckless with this or careless with this. Of course, I'm making preparations, right? The read Andy Grove's book, The Paranoid Survive. It's, yeah, we got to be strategic. We need to be intelligent in our businesses. We need to... So I will go out there and I will plan for these different things and just figure out, okay, if it goes this way, what's our strategy? If it goes this way, what's our strategy? But I'm not... I don't wrap myself up in concern of it because I know I dictate my own success. Awesome, Joshua. Joshua, this is amazing. I want to say thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing your message and what you're doing. You can sense that energy. You have it and you're sharing it with others and how to amplify it, which is really important. I wish you all the success and growth. Do keep in touch. Appreciate you. Yeah, you as well, my friend. This has been fun. Thank you. Audience, thank you so much for joining us once again. You heard what Josh is saying. The outside-in paradigm or way of being, when everything that happens on the outside controls our emotional state, how do you think this body that we have is going to operate? When you're looking at things from the inside and you're always at elevated energy levels, you are amped for that day no matter what. So when you operate from that clarity, you come up with ideas, you pivot, you become more creative, you become more effective and productive. So it was great information Josh shared. Definitely check out his information, his website. Get in touch with him. If you're in real estate and you're looking to scale in a big way, you can see that Josh can help you. So definitely get in touch. Appreciate you guys helping us grow. And we'll see you on our next episode. Bye.