The Joy of Helping Others: Real Estate Coaching Secrets

Stephen S. (00:02.766)
Welcome back to the show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs. It’s your host Stephen Schmidt. I’m on the road today. I’m out in Dallas for one of our quarterly masterminds and having a great time and had some time to carve out here to come and do the show today with my my friend Joe Joe Kavanagh and we are going to get into it today. We’re going to be talking about how to listen to relate, not just to respond. And we’re going to be talking about how to work smarter.

Not Harder Joe has got a 40 plus year career in the real estate space and is now coaching real estate investors and other professionals to basically achieve what they want to achieve. And so we’re super excited to hop into this conversation. But before we do that, just remember at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers and real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted to allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of.

That being said, Joe, welcome to the show today.

Joe Kavanagh (01:03.218)
Thank you, Steve, and it’s a privilege to be on here, and I appreciate it very much.

Stephen S. (01:07.902)
Absolutely. Now, before we hop into it, I’ve got two questions for you. Number one, did I say your last name right? Because I always was I close? OK, how do you actually pronounce it?

Joe Kavanagh (01:14.632)
You were closer than most people. Yeah. And it’s an Irish name. It’s an Irish name. And the Irish way of saying is, Kevin up. But in America, they tend to say, Kevin off. But either way is good.

Stephen S. (01:25.752)
Kavanaugh.

Stephen S. (01:30.432)
Okay, well I was close. Okay. Yeah, I realized after after we hit record I was like, uh-oh, I forgot to ask how to say the last name So I’m gonna I’m gonna guess it and hope I can’t close enough. So Kevin that’s her. There we go So Joe, can you just before we really hop into some meat and potatoes for our topic today? Can you just share a little bit about yourself and how you got here for our listeners?

Joe Kavanagh (01:39.655)
All good.

Joe Kavanagh (01:56.786)
yeah, have to give the thumbnail story here for sure. But I’ve been in sales pretty much all my life. People told me at a young age, I just had a knack for talking them into stuff. So I tried different things and then it just as fate would have it, get into real estate. And I was doing pretty well in the beginning. And then we had a big recession that hit back then. And that was in the eighties.

And so I got away from it, moved to another state. I grew up in Massachusetts outside of Boston. And then we moved to Maine, and of all things, I bought a campground.

We used to love the camp. I thought it’d be heaven to own that. Well, that didn’t turn out to be the best idea, but it worked for a while. And then we had an opportunity to sell it and make some money. So we did. And so I thought, what else can I buy? Well, I bought a Christmas tree farm. went the opposite spectrum. And that was heaven on earth. But it was pretty rural and we were having children and they were having social interaction issues. So long story, had to sell it or decided to sell

Stephen S. (02:54.241)
No kidding.

Joe Kavanagh (03:06.17)
it. And while I had the Christmas tree farm, I got back into real estate sales because the brokers up there were bugging me to do it. And then I get into appraisals.

So when our parents passed away, my wife and I decided to move south, get away from the cold, end up here in Charleston, South Carolina. And I thought, well, either the appraisal business or the real estate business is going to take off. So I’ll work on both. As it turns out, the appraisal side really took off like wildfire. within about three to four years, I grew that to the second largest firm in Charleston.

So there’s that. yeah, enjoyed that ride very much. So, and while I was doing that, I kept my broker’s license. And when a deal came up, I would invest in it. And then, you know, a lot of people wanted to stay worked on and selling properties for the estate. So I would take things that came into my hand that fell into my lap. And then about nine years ago, I just decided I want to get back into sales because I want to travel.

more. So I thought that mobility would help because with appraisals you physically got to be here. And that worked out more than or better than I could have ever expected. I was a six-figure income earner the first year I got back into real estate. And that continued. So a very successful career there. And over my years, especially in the appraisal business, I came across deals that, you know, bank REOs and whatnot. So I started investing in properties. And you and I touched on this a little bit. I grew that to a

Portfolio of 19 properties that I was owning and managing myself and I was going great on paper I was a multi-millionaire and all that and then 2007 2008 hit us and Even those in the business on both sides. It still caught me and bit me and That was a major setback, but learned a lot of lessons from that and I was much harder on myself than I probably should have been and that kept me down

Stephen S. (04:48.024)
Mm.

Joe Kavanagh (05:13.322)
for a few years. I just like once bitten twice shy and it wasn’t until about 2013 or 14 that I finally started to get back into it and been moving along really nicely ever since. I’m at an age now where I could be fully retired, I don’t need to work, I’ve got plenty of passive income. I love to help people and that bug got me back into sales.

And so that’s what I’ve been doing. Everybody keeps telling me they’re asking me for advice, for coaching, training, mentoring and all that. So I finally decided to start a coaching business. And as it turns out, I have a very successful coaching business that I own. most of the things I’ve touched, I’ve been a success at.

Stephen S. (05:53.752)
Yeah.

Stephen S. (05:59.205)
When you were going through that down season in 2007, 2008, you mentioned that you learned a lot of lessons. What were some of the biggest ones that you learned during that season?

Joe Kavanagh (06:14.696)
Yeah, one of the things I learned is find ways or outlets to control your stress. That was a big one for me and it took me a while to to find the right path for that. But the reason I say that it was making me physically ill and I’m a very healthy guy. I’ve an athlete all my life. I’ll be 71 on Thursday in three days and

Stephen S. (06:22.637)
Hmm.

Stephen S. (06:38.541)
Wow.

Joe Kavanagh (06:40.518)
Yeah, I can still run circles around people 20 years younger than me for the most part. And the stress was just I couldn’t sleep. I just thought my world had ended. Suicidal tendencies started to creep in. All that went to a doctor to get sleep and pills so I could sleep. He diagnosed me as depressed.

Stephen S. (06:45.432)
Sure.

Joe Kavanagh (07:02.822)
they put me on drugs for that, that made things worse. I’ll tell you what, I feel bad for people that are on drugs because it does really affect your brain.

But yeah, that was probably the biggest thing. That and I kept thinking I was a failure. So all those negative thoughts crept in. And yet when I went back out there, keep in mind I still had some of my appraisal business. It was slow, but we still had it. And I was doing research on properties and I knew people that were millionaires, much bigger than me.

And they were getting foreclosed on these two, three, four million dollar properties. So I thought, well, maybe it isn’t just me, it’s the world. yeah, I finally learned some hard lessons that way, but that took, I’m not gonna lie, that took two or three years to get over that.

Stephen S. (07:52.077)
Right. Now, what was that like when you were getting back into it? What were you processing or feeling during that stage as well going through it, then being on the tail end, deciding to get back into it?

Joe Kavanagh (08:05.466)
Yeah, I was very hesitant. That once bitten twice shy had a big grip on me. And I just kept thinking, if I take another chance and we have another crash or recession or whatever, I’m toast. So I’ve got to be ultra conservative. Now it’s not my personality to be conservative. Probably like most entrepreneurs, we’re risk takers. That’s the whole definition of it. Willing to take a risk for the big return. And

I tried, I finally found one, a house I could flip that was on the low end. I picked it up for like $35,000. We put 25 into it and we sold it for 150. things like that. And then that worked out. So I found another one that worked out. That built my confidence back up. But it was that, that negative self-talk that it’s tough to get over. I had, I hired two coaches.

because I was, one, I was told that would help me, which I didn’t think so. I’m a stubborn Irishman. I just thought I knew better than everybody else I could do it on my own.

If I have a bit of advice on this call, that’s it. Don’t go it alone. Find a coach that you’re compatible with and work with them. Because that outside viewpoints and how they can bring the right positivity out of you, that’s key. That is really key.

Stephen S. (09:34.638)
How did you go about finding your coaches?

Joe Kavanagh (09:39.654)
Well, one, I married one. That’s a of a joke on that.

Stephen S. (09:42.958)
They tend to be the best coaches too, don’t they?

Joe Kavanagh (09:46.792)
Yeah, well what happened was my first wife and I had split up and I was out there and I met this woman who was just I fell in love with pretty much right away. We end up getting married and turned out she turned me around and she was the one that said you should be doing this. I would recommend you do that, you know, do some meditation.

different things like that that I’d never even thought about. was like, she said, if you want to be the best you can be, you need to be who you are at your true essence. I didn’t even understand what that meant when she told me.

I was trying to be the person I thought everybody wanted me to be and didn’t even know it. I thought that was me. So there’s a lot of that that went on and self-discovery. And eventually that led to a much better quality network of friends.

Stephen S. (10:31.981)
Hmm.

Joe Kavanagh (10:43.29)
And in that network, there were some coaches. And one of them I hit it off with very well because we both grew up in the Boston area, so we spoke the same lingo, so to speak. And so I decided to hire her and work with her. So that’s pretty much how that came about. When you do the right things, the right people come into your life.

Stephen S. (11:04.002)
Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Because when you change your energy, you change what you attract, right? Yeah.

Joe Kavanagh (11:10.564)
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And a book that helped me a lot that initially along the way was The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. And I would say that’s a Bible for anybody. And I read that book once or twice a year, just as a refresher.

Stephen S. (11:18.956)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Stephen S. (11:27.342)
It’s a real short read, but it’s very good book. I read it just this last year for the first time. Now, so let me ask you this, because you’ve obviously been able to live a rich experience in the last 30, 40 years of your career, having failures, setbacks, wins as well. What did you do this time around that helped you to be more bulletproof or safer?

and better structured to where something like what happened in 08, 07 wouldn’t happen again to you.

Joe Kavanagh (12:05.468)
Yeah, absolutely. First thing you want to do is you want to invest in yourself and learn and be open to different techniques and different programs that maybe you weren’t familiar with before. I did that. I came across or stumbled across a couple of real good ones. And so I started implementing those tools into my business. And as we talked about a little bit in the green room before the show was I was already a realtor distinction, six figure income earner, top

10 % of my industry and I was closing my appointments at a ratio of 37 % which if I remember right the last time I checked the industry average is down around 20%. So I was at 37%, implemented these new tools into my business and in less than a year that shot up to 86%.

So I knew I’d finally found the right implementations and stuck with them and it’s been great ever since. Actually I’m making the same amount of money I was when I was working 60 hours a week. I’m doing it about 20 hours a week now. So that’s one of my models is work smarter not harder.

Stephen S. (13:12.374)
incredible.

You bet. Tell us a little bit more about that in terms of how that affects or how you run your day to day.

Joe Kavanagh (13:23.954)
How do I run my day to day? Okay. My motto, first of all, is I’m going to do what I want to do when I want to do it.

reason for that is that got me over my physical stress level because that was up here. I was stressful up here. Now I hardly have any stress. And I just dictate what I’m going to do. The other thing that I’m very particular about lately, and this is from my coach because I am not this planner type of guy, have a calendar with everything on it.

and stick to it even if you don’t want to do it. You know that eat the frog story or you know how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time. Yeah that’s the hardest part for me that that’s sticking to a schedule because it’s not my personality to do that. So you do need to have discipline and go ahead.

Stephen S. (14:20.792)
So what is that?

No, you go ahead finish. I thought you were done because of the pause.

Joe Kavanagh (14:26.792)
I start my day off with a meditation first of all and I get up, well I make a lemon water, I go out on my back sun room, wait for the sun to rise. I got a lot of bird feeders and things like that out there. We have deer out back so sit and watch nature and I just meditate for usually about a half an hour. And then I typically go for a walk two to three miles and before I start any of my day, that’s my first two hours of personal time.

And then after that, it’s usually about seven o’clock or so, 730, and I get my day started into business. So you do want, you have to have personal time too. You can’t be just work, work, work all the time, cause you’re burnout. I did.

Stephen S. (15:08.43)
Why has it been so important for you to do that in the morning versus like the middle of the afternoon or evening time?

Joe Kavanagh (15:16.38)
Yeah, I don’t know about anybody else, but a lot of times in my sleep or if I wake up thinking about something or worried about something, all these negative thoughts start to creep in. you’ll never get this done. You really think you can do all this? You shouldn’t be doing this. This isn’t going to work out, that sort of thing. And what I do when I get up and meditate is I can release, I can acknowledge those negative thoughts, but release them. Don’t absorb them.

and

I’ve done a lot of energy work and when you release something you’ve left the gap so you can replace it with something. And that’s when I have a lot of these mantras or just little sayings that I can use to put the positivity back in my life. One of them is a lot of people are never happy in their life because their happiness depends on a certain event happening. I’ll be happy when I get this raise. I’ll be happy when I get this job. I’ll be happy when I find the right mate.

etc. And then they go through their whole life not happy because maybe those events don’t happen. All you got to do is get up in the morning and choose to be happy because it is a choice.

And I get a ton of compliments from people throughout the day because I go around looking happy and I am happy. Real estate company I’m associated with, the owner, he said he loves it when I walk in the office that everybody just kind of lights up, Joe’s here, great, you know, and I pick up their spirit a little bit. When I’m at the store, I’ll just look somebody in eye and just say hi. And sometimes that’s all people need. They want to be recognized.

Stephen S. (16:50.51)
Hmm.

Stephen S. (16:57.23)
Now you mentioned you went from stress up to your eyeballs to not having any stress anymore. Is that just because you started meditating and having a morning routine? Or when did you start living for yourself and being your true self and not living only for the expectations of other people? Like what was that like for you?

Joe Kavanagh (17:24.178)
That happened probably about, let’s see, six, seven years ago now. And one of the tools I talked about that I found out that you were kind enough to do that little exercise for me. It helps to tell you who that person is that you’re be talking to, your prospect, what they value, what their personality is like. So when you go there, you’re not stressed. And I was bending over backwards, kind of combating with my clients because they were like,

Stephen S. (17:29.538)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen S. (17:46.403)
Mm.

Joe Kavanagh (17:54.778)
and take their time and they need to bullet point this, and everything had to be a schedule. My personality is the opposite of that. I’m a fly by the seat of my pants guy. If a new opportunity comes up, I’m there. Squirrel, you know, the squirrel’s all day long with me. And I was struggling with those people and it was stressing me out. I used to get so mad, I’d get off the phone and say, God damn, know, these people, just won’t listen to me.

Stephen S. (18:10.253)
Yeah.

Joe Kavanagh (18:20.296)
And that’s when my wife would interject and she’d say, that’s because they’re more into the organization. You just have to tell them step by step. And when I started doing that, of course, all of a sudden everything was falling into place. It was like a bed of roses and life became easier. And the meditation keeps you.

Stephen S. (18:20.6)
Sure.

Stephen S. (18:35.331)
Mm.

Is that why you’re stressed?

Joe Kavanagh (18:40.552)
The other part of that is I and I had a deal one time where I got people within $5,000 of each other on a $500,000 house but they wouldn’t budge getting closer and I was fighting with it. My wife said look if you would just step back and let the universe do what it’s gonna do anyway because it’ll be the best for everybody involved and you stop trying to manipulate it

Things are gonna work out. Just relax. Don’t worry about it. So on this particular episode, I finally decided, okay, you think you’re so good at this, I’ll listen to you and I’ll do it. You know, the next day I got a call and the buyer was willing to come up for it if the seller would come down one.

without me even saying anything. I’m like, that’s crazy. Yet I’ve discovered since that it truly is, the universe is gonna do what it does anyway.

Stephen S. (19:26.786)
the next day.

Joe Kavanagh (19:38.156)
And if a deal doesn’t work out, that was for the best for those people, believe it or not. It’s just like when things happen to us, why did this happen to me? And then 15 years later, you might look back on that event and say, I see now why that happens. That’s another thing. Life happens for you, not to you. I had the attitude that when bad things happen, especially, why did that happen to me? And I’d be mad. And that raises your stress.

And now it’s like, okay, that wasn’t a defeat, that was an opportunity. What did I learn from that or what can I learn from that and apply it going forward? Just that mind shift, that’s really all it boils down to. It’s a mind shift.

Stephen S. (20:26.434)
know what what are you super excited and passionate about now that you’re coaching more focusing on growing that what what what really makes you happy to get out of bed in morning

Joe Kavanagh (20:41.096)
Oh, when my clients have that breakthrough moment and they have an aha moment and all of sudden it dawns on them. It’s like, they’re thanking me and I’m like, don’t thank me. I’m the coach here. You figured it out. I just helped guide you to that. And yeah, when that happens and then they go out and they do something, they’re successful and they call me back or text me or whatever. It’s like, can’t believe it. I just did this. And I say, well, believe it because you can do it. And those are the moments.

that I really cherish right now. That’s what I love. I love helping people.

Stephen S. (21:14.158)
What do you primarily focus on with your coaching?

Joe Kavanagh (21:19.728)
I focus on my client. Each one’s different. They have different needs. They have different lackings. Usually it’s negative mindsets. And my job is to pull that out of them and let them see it and see how it’s affecting their life, both personally and business because

let’s face it, you your business gets intertwined with your personal life and your personal life’s intertwined with your business life. it just, they all end up, their life becomes so much simpler and it’s not really, they keep thanking me for it. I don’t know that it’s me that’s doing it. I’m just observing and giving them some feedback. And if they’re committed to making themselves better, it happens every time.

Stephen S. (22:12.238)
Now, do you do this for a specific group of people or who do you really enjoy working with the most?

Joe Kavanagh (22:20.68)
I work with anybody. are two areas. Well, of course, real estate is my area of expertise over 40 years in the business. I’ve seen it all, done it all probably.

So that naturally realtors. I’m in that arena. So I talk to those people more. anybody from a solopreneur to corporations. I was fortunate enough to speak at an event on stage in Vegas last year. And in that particular one, I was talking about how to be who you are, your true essence. And especially for men, it was focused on men. And the problem with men today, they’re so stoic.

everything closed up emotionally versus women. And again, generalizing, I’m saying everybody.

And when I gave that talk, it was a big risk. I thought this is either going to go over great or I’m going to get thrown out of there. And I got such a positive response. I had guys coming up to me thanking me for saying those things because it made them feel better about it. And I had women coming up to me. said, thank you, Joe. You got to get this message out, especially to the guys. My husband needs to hear this, know, that sort of thing. And

Stephen S. (23:34.968)
Right.

Joe Kavanagh (23:36.756)
That is such a great feeling that you’re connecting with people and helping them out, helping making them a little bit better. I mean, that’s, you you come into this world, what’s your purpose is hopefully to leave it a little bit better than you found it.

Stephen S. (23:49.752)
Have you figured out what your purpose is?

Joe Kavanagh (23:52.444)
Yes, now it is. I just did at a workshop in Munich, Germany last December. It finally came into Lisa focus. No.

Stephen S. (23:58.784)
No kidding. Wow.

Joe Kavanagh (24:01.992)
And went over there because of through my coach and that network. I found out about this and I thought this is really high level. I’m going to try this out. I thought I’d be, I didn’t know if I belonged there, but it truly did. As it turns out, that gave me more confidence. I got it laser focused and going forward, it’s to help primarily men understand that they can be more emotional and open up. It’s okay if you’re upset, you can cry, let it out, that sort of thing.

And the advantage to that business-wise is more people are going to relate to you and like you. And it’s easier to do business. Why do you think most successful real estate people are women? Because they can relate to people emotionally. Because think about it. Real estate is an emotional decision, not a business decision, when somebody’s buying a house.

Stephen S. (24:48.718)
Hmm.

Interesting. Yeah.

Right.

Wow.

Joe Kavanagh (25:00.648)
And that’s one of the key things that I hear and see most agents miss.

Stephen S. (25:05.922)
Hmm. That’s incredible. That’s something to think about for sure too. Now, if you had to go back to the beginning of it all, know, 40 year career, and you had to start over, but you were able to take all of the knowledge that you currently have from every win, every lesson you’ve learned. If you started all over again, what would you do different and what would you do the same?

Joe Kavanagh (25:36.235)
There’s a lot of things I do different. As I said earlier, my stubbornness got in the way. I thought I knew the answers. I could figure it out. I didn’t need anybody else to tell me. So I didn’t listen to people. And that ended up costing me millions when you add it all up.

Stephen S. (25:46.584)
Sure.

Joe Kavanagh (25:55.43)
So one, I would hire a coach. I would listen to other people who had been there, done that. That’s one of things when people come to work with me, they say they like about me because I’m not 30, 35, 40.

I’m much older and I’ve been there and done that. have the experience, so they trust me on that. But yeah, that’s probably the biggest thing I would do different is I would get help from people that have been there and done that. What would I do the same? I’m a risk taker. I wouldn’t change that one bit. Every time I did something that people thought were crazy, it worked out for the best. Starting with

We grew up in I had a good, secure job driving an 18-wheeler. And we loved to go camping. My wife and I one night said, well, why don’t we go buy a campground? So we moved to another state. We had just bought our first house. We’re in our mid-20s. We just bought our first house the year and a half before that. We had just had a child. He was eight months old.

and we uprooted, sold our house and moved to another state where we didn’t know anybody. Talk about taking a risk.

Stephen S. (27:15.394)
That is a huge risk.

Joe Kavanagh (27:15.654)
My philosophy back then was I didn’t want to retire and be sitting on the front porch in our rocking chairs and just keep saying, I wish we had tried this or I wish we had done that. What would have happened if we had done this? I just went out and did them. I figured you committed this war with nothing. So what if you leave with nothing? And our situation moving to Maine, buying a campground, we thought, well, if it doesn’t work out, we’ll sell it. We’ll come back. We’ll just go right back to what we were doing.

Stephen S. (27:25.994)
Mm. Yeah.

Stephen S. (27:44.163)
Yeah, you know, to your point there, I heard a a clip probably a few weeks back that talked about living a good life. And it was this parable of a man who was going to the Lord and saying, hey, I want you to give me patience. And so he put him through things that would make him patient. That was very difficult. Right. And they said, OK, well, I want to be strong. And so he put him through things that

We’re gonna we’re gonna make him strong and through tough things and he said well I want wealth and so he had to deal with poverty so that way he would value the wealth and then he goes back and he’s you know, I’ve gotten all these things but I just really want to get I just all I want is I want to I want to have a good life and Lord looks at him and says well just like gold in the fire Like I can’t tell what the finished product is if it’s gonna be good or not. And so similarly in life

you can only find out if you had a good life when you reach the end. And that hit me to your point of not leaving anything on the table. It’s like, you really don’t know if you’re gonna have a good life until you get to the end and you’re sitting in that rocker on the front porch having your sweet tea, you know, or whatever. And you’re reflecting back and going, man, did I leave it out on the table or did I have all these things that I wish I would have done, you know?

Joe Kavanagh (29:09.938)
Exactly. Yeah.

Stephen S. (29:12.034)
Well, Joe, I’m super, super grateful we were able to have this conversation today. But if people want to learn more about you or what you’re working on, where should they go for that?

Joe Kavanagh (29:21.734)
Yeah, the best way to get me really is to reach out by email and the best email is candjcoaching at gmail. So it’s my wife Cindy and Joe, c-a-n-d-j coaching at gmail. You can find me on social media. I’m on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. I don’t do TikTok, although I have an account, but I don’t use it. And yeah, that’s pretty much the best way to get me.

Stephen S. (29:48.984)
someone come get your grandpa, Joe’s gonna figure TikTok out and then we’re all in trouble.

Joe Kavanagh (29:54.908)
I’m not gonna push the boundaries on that, I don’t think. I have enough to deal with the three businesses, so. And I’m retired.

Stephen S. (29:57.79)
I love it. I love it a ton.

Yeah, I hear you. Well, every You’re right exactly. Well everyone. I hope you enjoyed today’s show. Thanks again Joe for being here. We’ll see you on the next episode

Joe Kavanagh (30:12.658)
Thank you, Stephen. It’s been fun.

Stephen S. (30:15.382)
but see y’all till next time.