Episode 141: Building a Billion-Dollar Real Estate Team with George Laughton

George discusses the importance of identifying market opportunities and adapting quickly. He emphasizes building a strong core business while remaining adaptable to capture bigger opportunities. "Every market presents its opportunities," he says.

LinkedIn 

The Laughton Team

Episode Transcript:

Brian Charlesworth  00:34

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Grit Podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth, and I am the founder of Sisu. And the host of the show and grateful to be with you guys today. Have a great guest here with us. George Laughton is joining us from Phoenix, Arizona. I would say if you're in real estate, you probably know who George is a lot and group does over a billion dollars in transactions. There aren't a lot of teams doing that. I think you did over 2500 sides, roughly 2500 sides last year, if I'm not mistaken. 

George Laughton  01:05

Yeah, roughly it fluctuates. But yeah, right around there. Yeah. 

Brian Charlesworth  01:09

So for those of you in real estate, think about having a team that does 2500 sides, and how do you even manage that. So I want to dive into that a little bit today with George. So George, thanks for joining me on the show. Really appreciate you being here. Now, 

George Laughton  01:23

Brian, thanks for inviting me, man. It's great to be here. So we appreciate what you're doing too. And, you know, Sisu, and implementing a lot of the things within our business has been been great. So we appreciate what you're doing out there. 

Brian Charlesworth  01:33

Yeah. Well, thank you. So George, we were talking before and I said, Well, congratulations on being the number one team in the world. We don't know if you are but yeah, if you're not, you know, you're in the top 1% or point oh, 1%. So yeah, anyway, I just like to maybe back up and say like, how did you? I don't think you came around until like 2007. So in that timeframe, how did you go from 2007 2008 being the worst time to ever be in real estate. Some people feel like that maybe now as well. But you made it through 2008 and made the ride. And in my opinion, those who made it through 2008 got to experience a phenomenal growth and kind of on the cusp of that again, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on that. 

George Laughton  02:17

Yeah, I think every market presents its opportunities. And 2007 2008 was an interesting opportunity. And so I think what we've done well over the years is always figuring out where the opportunity exists and kind of ride that wave and try to get early in on the wave. And that's exactly what happened in 2007. I mean, I was a, I was doing investment, real estate, I had my license about a year. But I've been doing investment real estate for a couple of years. And I was really trying to build my own rental portfolio and realize that I could only buy so many rentals with my limited income and start helping other people do that and buy investment properties. And then it turns into traditional real estate. And that was a matter of like one year. And then I saw a couple foreclosure signs pop up on my street. And I was like, Oh, well, there's a segment of the industry here. And how big do I think this is going to be? And started doing some research on it. And decided, well, maybe it is a segment of the industry I want to get into. And so I went pretty hard into foreclosures, REO properties, short sales, late Well, early 2007. And we were able to capture some institutional sellers, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HSBC, Wells Fargo. And it was just a crazy time, right. And so that was built up a team of about, you know, 25 people from you know, 2007 2008. And the peak was really kind of 2009 for us for that REO market. And then it slowly trickled down. And as I'm trying to figure out, like, I've always have those, those waves of the market, you know, whether it's short sales, foreclosures, whether it's REITs, buying properties, whether it's Zillow offers, whatever that is, yeah, we see that as like I say, we see that as like channel accounts or opportunities. But then I have my core business, right. And so the core business is what drives everything else. And so that's the traditional real estate side of it. But I, you don't get the other opportunities unless you run a really, really good core business, right. And so that's what we focused on is trying to build that good core. In for us, my model is even at a little bit lower margin. So I can be in a position to capture bigger, better opportunities, right. 

Brian Charlesworth  04:24

So Yeah, makes sense. So how many agents do you guys have now and then how many locations to do that kind of volume? 

George Laughton  04:31

So we have 250 agents here in the Phoenix market, Phoenix is like, sprawled out very wide. And so we have four offices here in the Phoenix market and one in Tucson, which two hours south of Phoenix, and so 250 agents between those locations, and then you have hot leaders and each one of those, so anywhere from 25 to 40 agents under that that pod leader, that team leader, essentially, that's taking what what I did when we were a team of 2530 and just made duplicatable, right? That was kind of the goal is like, okay, I can only manage so many agents. And uh, how do you duplicate this and we figured out good incentive structures for our team leaders and location geographically, we know real estate's done, you know, by the neighborhood, and we want to have agents that lived in existed and, you know, went to coffee shops and kids went to school in the areas that we were sending them leads. And so that was we just took that playbook and tried to duplicate it across other sub markets within Phoenix. 

Brian Charlesworth  05:31

When you're that size, you guys, I think about you were just talking about, you know, when you had 25 agents, now, your 250. So your 10x that, how to get to 250 agents like I know, I know, your focus needs to change as a leader. And you've hired all these people. I know, you have all these leaders on your team that you've brought in, how did you go about finding these leaders? And where did you get them from? Because I think that's, that's one of the most important things we can do is surround ourselves with the right people. And I think that's probably the biggest challenge that most people in real estate have is really recruiting top talent versus, you know, just thinking they need to bring everyone up from in their team. I don't know, how did you go about that? 

George Laughton  06:12

Yeah, I think really getting clear with what my strengths were, and then what the needs of the company were that I wasn't super good at. And so trying to identify those people. And I'll say, there's been a lot of key hires along the way. And there's been a lot of people that didn't work out. And so, inevitably, what I look for is one like coachability, the biggest aspects of if we don't align on decision making, I have to believe and know that we can get alignment. And so for me, that's like, one of the number one factors is like, Okay, if you're not humble and coachable, and we can't come to some sort of collaborative understanding, then, yeah, it really is hard. And so I would say that, you know, there was no like, as far as like, key first hire, obviously have the assistants, you have TCS, there was all of that. And my original assistant TC, you know, is long gone. And and I'll do another bigger, better things, I'm sure. But I'd say the key role for me was the operator, right? It's kind of that visionary operator combo, which unlocked growth. And so long, what I always tell my team and my leaders is that we haven't won yet, like growth, is the vision always will be the vision. And so I'm always constantly willing to reinvest in this business, because we want more and we have more to give. That's that's the key thing. But I would say the key thing, key hire was that great operator that could go out and help me execute the vision. 

Brian Charlesworth  07:49

Yeah, makes sense. I read a book a couple years ago. Now, I think it's the four disciplines of an extraordinary leader. And it talks about the three things you want to look for when you hire somebody is number one, what you said, George, they're humble. Second, that they're hungry. And third, is that they're smart. And in that order, right? Now, you have to be humble, hungry and smart. If you can find those three characteristics, and somebody, usually they're gonna be a good hire. 

George Laughton  08:18

Yeah, I would agree, we talk about that a lot like humble, hungry, smart skill, or the will like, hey, if they don't, you know, they'll have the skill, I'm fine with it. But if you got the will and the drive to and you're coachable, then then we can help get you there. And we've seen that we're super patient with people, if they have those things, right. humble, hungry, and smart. You know, some people that we've hired, like, okay, they're feel that same, but like, they're a little bit of a project, right? But you're okay, you're willing to invest the time and energy into them. Because when they're loyal, they're committed. And you know, that at their core, they're good human. And so I'm willing to invest the time in them. And then you have, like, I always put, like, partners, projects and problems. So, so I've got the people that are my partners, like, you know, I know, we're gonna get through thick and thin together, and they're going to be a part of this organization. Because we're so aligned. There's the projects that people were working to develop to get there to the partnership aspect, and this is agents and operations team, uh, like, and then there's problems. And, you know, that's where you have to decide, like, do we have to part ways and generally that's, you know, generally what has to happen? 

Brian Charlesworth  09:22

Yeah, make sense? Tell me, where do you focus most of your time now? 

George Laughton  09:26

Man, there's a lot of meetings, I have to tell you, my time is spent in understanding like how the businesses are operating, where we can have the biggest impact and what needs to move. And so we run off an ELS kind of operational system, which has quarterly rocks, and we're tracking KPIs, and my focus is, you know, probably like your higher up like KPIs like kind of almost lag indicators at a sense, but when a lag indicator starts to move in the wrong Wrong direction, we have the insights into the KPIs and drill down to see what the problem is. And so we run our one on ones are in so called, like a level 10 meeting, we run like as combo of a level 10. And what I would call a WBUR, right, like a weekly Business Review, which is like, think as an Amazon thing. I don't know where it started. But I'm looking at KPIs, and they're kind of lag indicators at that point. But we're drilling down and I'm asking my leader, okay, like, have you thought of this? What's going on here? Okay, well, let me see this number, because maybe this is the problem. And then I then I get anecdotal like feedback from them, too. I'm like, Well, what's going on the agent side of things, and then trying to get in the trenches with the agents as well, like spending time in the offices, you know, I spent a lot of time this morning, just in a text thread with my top 20 producers on the team, talking about a sign writer, like, Hey, I saw this sign writer yesterday, that was essentially offering buyer agent compensation, like in a cool, clever way, just letting them know that, you know, it was being offered on that house, I was like, hey, we need to come up with something cool for the team as well. Let me make sure this is all compliant, first and foremost. But you know, it's a morning of that going back and forth. And just engaging those one that the people that are the doers in the business, and letting them have voice and opinion and what we're trying to accomplish too. And so that's what I'm trying to focus, like spending time with the people that are actually executing and doing, staying focused on driving the business forward for our quarterly rocks in turn into our annual rocks and making sure that we have a good year, and thinking about what this business looks like 2345 years from now, and making sure that we're positioned well for that as well, too. So a lot of time in the future. But I try to stay in the trenches, because I don't want to lose sight of that, you know, there's these, I think every big company is trying to get grassroots and every small companies trying to scale, and I'm trying to find that beautiful balance of the two. Well said, Yeah, I can do both. It is it is a little hard. But I enjoy that part. And I enjoy serving the agents and serving our clients. So that's what fills me up, is seeing this young 25 year old agent, go out there and crush their goals and dreams and change their lives. Right. Like that really is kind of the fulfilling part of it. And the homeowner to the you know, single mom that's rented for the last decade never thought she could buy a house finally has keys to her own home. Like, that's the stuff that hits you in the fields man, like, it feels great. So I try not to get too far away from that. Because if you're looking at KPIs all day and and managing the business, you'll forget what all that's about. 

Brian Charlesworth  12:35

Right? Right. The thing I love about EOS is it lets everyone focus on what they're accountable to write, you have KPIs for every piece of your organization. And that's how we run our business as well. Like no matter what role you're in, everybody knows exactly what they're responsible for. And they report out on those every week, right? So the one thing I got there that you said, I focus on my top 20. Like, you know, I think a lot of people maybe spend time with people at the bottom thinking they need to get them to the top. But if you focus on your top people, it's going to make those bottom people want to rise to the top so they can spend that time with you is what been what I've found is Have you seen the same thing? Yeah, 

George Laughton  13:17

I think so. And in spending time with the middle, right, like emerging talent, those ones that are actually doing the activities is super important too. But you know, those ones that are that are doing it day in and day out. And honestly, like, they don't ask for a ton, a lot of times on my side, like, you know, they're good people, they've been with me for a number of years. And then there's some that, you know, just gotten in and last year, but I know them and I know the hard work that they're putting in. And so I never want to lose sight of that. Like how hard it's not easy. Being an agent, a buyer's agent out there a listing agent, they work incredibly hard and try never to lose sight of that. And so just just get engaged. But then there are some we break up our team in four levels of agents level one being lowest level four being the highest. And so that top 20 There's some level threes and level fours in there. But getting level two agents to move to level three is where your future revenues at. And you know not to think of people just as a revenue number. But you've got to identify those and identify the doers in there and then start making sure that you're feeding into them and that you're building them up 

Brian Charlesworth  14:24

is that public knowledge within your organization. So you have four levels of agents. So I'm guessing this is something that has helped you keep your agents around long term. What what do they get at that each of those levels if you don't mind sharing, I think there's some Yeah, for everyone to understand. 

George Laughton  14:51

So, one it gives them something a roadmap for how you grow with the team and it kind of takes away the you know a lot The splits conversations too, is like, Hey, I had a really good year George, like, can I want to change my splits, I'm like, Okay, well, you know, your level two. And at level three, this happens. And so the things that change with each level one, you have to have a certain production level, we base it on sales volume, but with a minimum number of transactions, what we'd love for you to do five to million dollar listings, but also, I want to make sure that you're doing the volume transaction count, as well, too. But ultimately, it's based on annual sales volume, and once they hit a sales volume, then they can move up to the next level, it does happen exactly the time in the year, when they do hit that sales volume and go ahead and move up. What happens at that point, splits change a little bit. And that's really just on soI side. So their sphere of influence splits will change company generated doesn't change a ton, we, we do have some that change once you hit like. So after level four. I don't want to overcomplicate this after level four, you can start building a team within the team. And at that point, we actually do change their company generated splits. But what changes is company splits and then opportunities towards different lead sources. So we know that there's a hierarchy of leads out there like a PPC lead is much different than a Zillow seller lead, right or you sign call compared to, you know, Facebook lead, much different leads. And so we tried to take the hierarchy of leads and give those to the doers give the better converting ones and higher converting ones because they've earned that opportunity. And then the other thing that we tried to offset is some operational support, some more support with open houses, like an open house sign service, where we'll put the signs out for them be do other marketing aspects, they can rent an ISA for the day things along those lines. But what's interesting, though, is I thought they'd really lean into the operational side of it. But most, you know, most of the things that we were trying to create didn't get a ton of adoption, you know, and so we're trying to rethink that. But really, the splits and change in leads have been a significant difference and not just lead sources. But lead price points. Yeah, so we put a bottom on the floor of the price point leads, okay, and then there is no maximum, right, they can get a $5 million lead. But if you're a level one agent, we're not sending you a, you know, $2 million deal. And they're getting some of the $250,000 ones too, right? So

Brian Charlesworth  17:23

make sense. So when you get to your level, George, like, You've grown so much in the in the last decade, who do you look for to learn? Do you have a coach? And does that coach change regularly? Or has that coach been with you for a long term or who doesn't? It's helping you get to that next level all the time. Other

George Laughton  17:43

counterparts across the country like I mastermind with a lot through the Tom Ferry organization. So I coached directly with Tom, which has been in for a number of years I have I also mastermind with every buddy that's like me across the country from the Gary Asche ins, you know, to Levi Rogers, Greg Sanders, like all of those DJ del Salas, right? Like, we're constantly communicating and talking best practices. And that's been super helpful outside of that, you know, I spend a lot of time learning. So any kind of like right now, one of the things I'm trying to focus on is aligning incentive packages a little bit better. And so you can pick up a book and learn more about incentive packages. AI is an amazing thing. And so I get a lot of mentorship from authors, you know, John Maxwell, Simon Sinek, to Gino Wickman. You know, as we talked about Eos, all of those things have been my mentors over the years, there's always, there's always a book to pick up. And when I think I know what the problem is, and I'm trying to move something in our business. Yeah, 

Brian Charlesworth  18:47

it's great. One of the things I've seen is a business can't outgrow its leader, right. So the leader has to continue growing, for the business to continue growing. So anyway, I see you've done an amazing job with that. Just a couple more questions. Phoenix has always been a market. I stepped into this industry about nine years ago. I grew up with a dad in real estate, he had a brokerage and was an entrepreneur and and then my wife about nine years ago asked me to help her grow a real estate team, which was five agents at the time. Now it's about 100 agents, but still not anywhere near your size. But I really got to dive in and upfront and personal see the challenges of growing real estate business. But one of the things I've done is as we've grown Sisu over the years, she has been like my beta for everything I roll out. And and I've noticed that you're kind of that was Zillow. Like every time Zillow wants to roll something out it seems to hit your desk. How did this all come about? And the other thing is the Phoenix market seems to be like everything happens there first, like the reo market, everything that happens big and the The industry happens there first. So maybe you could just enlighten me on that a little bit. 

George Laughton  20:05

I think Phoenix makes it a great one, the. So we're Test Kitchen market, a lot of Prop tech, FinTech come here first and why they like Phoenix, the number of reasons there's, there's good transaction volume, we own a normal market, we're doing 100,090 to 100,000 transactions a year, very homogenous housing stock, you know, most of its built after 1985. And there's a good talent pool. When you get all the real estate agents, you got population growth, people moving in and out. So makes it a really good market to kind of test stuff in where it came about to kind of be the go to guy for Zillow is beta testing everything. We're operationally minded, I bend towards operations, I'm probably, if I told you my staff size, you know, people will go oh, my gosh, that's more people than you need. And what is agree? Well, so we're 28 people right now. 2728. And you talk to, you know, Gary Asche, Ins and DJs. And stuff like that they're running with, you know, half their staff. Yeah, 60% that staff. But it goes back to my philosophy of one, I run the core business on a little bit lower margin, because I want to be prepared for where the markets going and spending money and time and innovation and thinking like, what does this industry look like in 510 years? Yeah, you talk, AI and Utah, you know, so many other things going. So I pulled my best operator out of our core business, to go build something else, right, and like, hey, we need some more lead generation, I see this as an opportunity. And this is an opportunity. And so I continue to reinvest in those things. But Zillow is like this for a number of years because we that's what we do, I have the team and I have the staff to make sure that we can focus on the next pilot program. I've ran 30 Plus pilot programs with not just Zillow, but open door to other small, you know, prop tech companies. And we're just like, guys, like they know they can go to and we'll get it done for him. And I enjoy doing it. Like I really like that's the stuff that excites me is trying to figure out what's next. And I don't know if that'll ever change. 

Brian Charlesworth  22:10

Well, good. I'm happy to hear that, because I've got something I want to run through you to prove it. But we'll take that offline. So, you know, this whole time and I think what set you apart than anybody else is you're always looking ahead, you're always saying, hey, what's the next thing that's going to like, take me to that next level with his whole lawsuit going on and things changing in August? I'd like to get your thoughts on, like, what is going to differentiate you from the rest? Or what do others need to do to differentiate themselves from your typical agent moving? Yeah, because the market is changing, right? I mean, there are changes that have to happen. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that. 

George Laughton  22:50

Yeah, there's a couple things here and what I've instructed my team. One is, there definitely going to be some changes. But I'm trying to exercise some tactical patience right now to, you know, there's still some uncertainty, exactly how everything's going to look, we're getting closer and closer to at least what the first v1 of this is going to be. And so getting the team prepared for that with good scripting, different versions of buyer broker from the showing agreement to non exclusive to exclusive buyer broker agreements. And when to say that and how to utilize all of this, we've been working with our team for the last year on making sure that they're well prepared for this. But I also go like, what's probable, and what's possible, and there's a lot of possibilities. I think the probability and the impact to the industry is not as significant as most are weighing it to be, I think there is some impact. But it's one of those, there's been a lot of changes in the industry. And that's kind of been in it for, you know, 18 years, I've seen a lot of changes over the years, and nothing really worries me anymore, I sleep well, and I sleep probably better in a storm. So I don't mind it because I know we can position ourselves well. And this isn't a big, hard pivot. At the end of the day, you know, let's say flat fee model starts really working, you know, they capture a ton of market share, and we have to rethink how our business is structured, and how agents are compensated. And all of these things. Like I don't see that happening. It's possible. But how hard of a pivot is that? We're, that's, we can do it. And I'm, I don't have a lot of other options, Brian, like, I'm in this and we're gonna figure it out. So that's, that's why I know that really worries me too much. I also try to focus on I think, is a Bezos quote, I can't remember but I try to focus on what's not going to change. And we know that the consumer really wants a guide through the process. They really like buyers as much as you see people chat online and they say that, you know, buyer's agents don't do anything. I think we've over the years have insulated our clients how incredibly difficult it is to buy a house. We've shielded them from the minutia. The intricacies of buying a house, which is a good thing, that's what we wanted to do, we want to keep it remove the pain points, remove the drama, and make sure that they just get to the endpoint, we have to get better at communicating that communicating what we do to serve our clients, unfortunately, right rather than just shielding them from it, because I was the guy that said, No insulate your clients from all the minutiae of the day to day. And now I'm saying, Well, how can you better articulate all the services and the things that you provide? And so that's what we're working on now is like how to how do we turn on the lights for our clients, without it feeling like they're getting this attorney Bill, you know, in a sense, 

Brian Charlesworth  25:42

but that's very interesting, George, because one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about after this, but I'm going to talk to you a little bit about it now is I think, I think a big part of what buyer's agents need to do is communicate more directly as far as the value they're bringing. And so we're, I'm working with a lot of our teams right now to to help them do that in the client portal. And not just in our client portal, it notifies people of what the transaction coordinators doing during the, you know, the life of the transaction, it notifies them, we just had the home inspection. Now, we might be negotiating terms, then we're gonna have the appraisal, those types of things. But what I think is so important right now as for a buyer's agent, or a listing agent, to just do a better job of communicating what they're actually doing, even before they show up to that first appointment. And the value they're bringing, and how they differentiate. I've shared this a few times with others, but I sold real estate for about 18 months. And in that 18 months before I started, see, so when I started, I sold 48 homes my first year, most of which were listings you'd 

George Laughton  26:47

be looking for just so you know, what's that? I said you'd be level four, you say 40, 

Brian Charlesworth  26:51

I'd be level four on your team. All right, good to know, on the text thread. But what what happened was my first six months, my conversion from appointments, mat to signed was 25%. And I was you know, I was doing expireds. So I was competing against some of the top agents in the Utah market. But a major thing happened and I had a coach that actually told me, Okay, now that you're used to going out and getting your butt kicked, let's work on doing a better job, right? Because I had the mindset I had the activities now it was okay, go out and ask better questions. But the big thing that really changed it for me was delivering a pre listing packet the day before my listing appointment. Yeah. And that helped me go for to a 75% conversion rate. So anyway, that 

George Laughton  27:36

difference, then that's what we moved our two signed agreement from appointment to sign agreement moved when we did like a pre listing pack, but like a listing presentation, video essentially goes over a lot of the same stuff. And today, I'm actually shooting our new like buyer consultation video. So going through how we're rework the script, like many times, it's probably gonna have to change again, once all this dust kind of settles, but I want to arm the team with something, right? 

Brian Charlesworth  28:03

Yeah. So these videos, these resumes, these referrals, all these, you know, comps, the showing how quickly you can get somebody under contract on it for a buyer, all these data points are things that I think need to go out in our client portal before you even meet with the client. So the client has reviewed those before you even arrive. 100%. So anyway, that's something I'd like to work with you on. And you guys are the you guys are the test case for the world, in in changing real estate. So. So anyway, it sounds like we're on the same same vein of thoughts on where things need to go here. And so, George, what what advice do you have for for just people in the market, I think there's a lot of fear right now was that was where it was gonna go. And I talked to a team owner two months ago, and they were actually thinking about canceling Sisu. And I asked him how common he you know, they'd use the SU for a couple years. And, and at a very high level. And his response to me was, I don't know if I'm going to be in business in two months. 

George Laughton  29:11

There's this, you know, productive paranoia that some business owners have. And I've been known to go down that vein as well, too. And I'd say every agent is an entrepreneur. And you can get stuck in that pessimistic view at some point. But how long do you stay there? You can't stay there very long man. And that's what I'm seeing is this fear is over running people. That's when I know like I have to have awareness when I'm doing that, in shift optimism, like more than anything, the people that succeed in business are a relatively optimistic and yet they believe is going to happen in the market. And so while there might be a blip, you know, on this, I'm not retiring tomorrow. So we'll get through whatever this has to throw at us and I really think it's a small blip I and I think that we come out of this even stronger, maybe the agent population, which needs to thin out a little bit, some people, you know, go and some of the agents that are part time, get out of the business, but there's going to be some impact. But man, you cannot let fear dictate your decisions, by any means, like I don't need to reinvest in the business and go full full force ahead. And my hope is that maybe, I mean, I want everybody to have that philosophy. But I also want to capture market share from those that are afraid. So yeah, I still want to capture as much as I possibly can. 

Brian Charlesworth  30:33

Well, my belief is we're sitting on it similar situation to 2008. I mean, we've seen agent count dropped from 1.6 million to 1.1 5 million. My guess is it might get below a million this year. And that creates opportunity for people like you that are here for the long run, right? 

George Laughton  30:50

Yeah, it's the infinite game, right? Yeah. 

Brian Charlesworth  30:54

Yeah. So last thing, George, you said, if you're going down that road, you catch yourself if you're going down that pessimistic road, you catch yourself. And you know, it's you said, it's usually fear that drives that. So how do you make the switch and go from fear to gratitude? Because we know gratitude and fear can't exist, right? It can't coexist. And I know you're a person of gratitude. So how do you make that shift? what advice you have for people to make that shift? If they are in that state? How do you get out of that? 

George Laughton  31:24

Yeah, there's, I mean, I caught myself in it just this last week, you know, going down that route. And what I'll do, the funny thing is is so awareness that you're going down, and then being able to change your thoughts and shift to gratitude and so that really, how do you gain awareness is meditation like, by far, it is the best practice. And I just read challenged myself to 60 days straight of meditation, like wake up in the morning. First thing I do, and it's so funny, once you start feeling better, you get away from the practice, like, okay, all right, everything's fixed, but they call it a practice for a reason, and you got to come back to it. So meditation, prayer, like is really important to me. And so I can get caught up in like, Okay, I woke up at five and I want to get to these emails, I want to get this done. I want to do this, and I want to do this. But if I start my day out that way, and I feel I have more awareness throughout the day as I'm going down those those paths of negativity, and not abundance and gratitude. 

Brian Charlesworth  32:23

Yeah, that's such great advice, George, everybody. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Grit podcast. We had George Lawton here today, one of the top teams in the United States, and has been for the last decade. George, super grateful to have you on the show today. And thanks for sharing with our listeners. 

George Laughton  32:40

Yeah, appreciate you, Brian. Thank you.