Skip to main content

Real Estate Success Starts Within: Brain Power, Stress Control, and Dream-Level Growth

By November 25, 2025Real Estate Pros Show

Subscribe via:

Show Summary

In this conversation, Matt Motchkavitz discusses the significance of emotional intelligence in personal and professional development. He emphasizes the role of emotional intelligence in leadership, resilience, and decision-making, providing strategies for enhancing these skills. The discussion also highlights the importance of self-awareness and understanding emotions in fostering a positive workplace culture.

Resources and Links from this show:

  • Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Matt Motchkavitz (00:00)
    Sure, thank you. There’s six things that I always recommend to people as starting points for their life. Number one is realize how powerful your brain is. I have a quote that I usually say in my keynote speech with Dr. Daniel Lehman. We have more brain connections in our brain than there are stars in the Milky Way. That’s how powerful each one of our brains is for people that are watching this.

    You have more power than you could ever believe.

    Kristen (01:58)
    Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Matt Motchkavitz. He’s a residential broker out of Colorado. So we’re gonna get into a lot of personal development today. I’m excited to get into it. Thanks for being here, Matt.

    Matt Motchkavitz (02:12)
    Thank you, Kristen, so much for having me here today. It’s always a gift to be able to share knowledge like this with people. As I told you at the outset, I’m not a hype speaker. I’ve been doing this a long time. But my whole background has kind of morphed over time. I was trained as a therapist. Back then, we didn’t know anything about the brain. So I was trained as a therapist. And then I went through a personal development class on my own. This is long before I ever got into real estate.

    Kristen (02:25)
    Great.

    Right?

    Matt Motchkavitz (02:40)
    And that led me into personal development, for example, a class, a three-day class that I paid my own tuition to take through. And I’ll tell you off the cuff something I didn’t disclose to you earlier, but I wrote my dissertation in 14 weeks, which was unheard of. just, 80 % of the people at that level had never finished their dissertations, never finished their PhDs. I just said, I’m going to write it. Did it in 16, 14 weeks, walked out of academics.

    And that was what led me into speaking and training. So as I shared with you at the outset, I have two distinct careers. I’m a speaker trainer. I’ve been doing that for 44 years, but I’m also a residential broker and I’ve been doing that for 33 years. So I love both of them. And people say, how can you do both? Well, I speak to real estate audiences, speak to corporations, civic groups, any kind of group. ⁓

    Thank you for having me here and you kind of got the gist of my background before so if you want to lead into it, ⁓ probe anything you want to. I’m transparent. I’ve been up in life, down in life, everywhere in between too.

    Kristen (03:47)
    That’s amazing. Well, yeah, I’m excited to get into all this personal development. You seem very educated and well-spoken on the topic. I’d love to start with, you know, I think the first step for people to be successful is to feel like they are able to be successful. So I would love for you to get into your tips of what makes people successful.

    Matt Motchkavitz (04:55)
    Sure, thank you. There’s six things that I always recommend to people as starting points for their life. Number one is realize how powerful your brain is. I have a quote that I usually say in my keynote speech with Dr. Daniel Lehman. We have more brain connections in our brain than there are stars in the Milky Way. That’s how powerful each one of our brains is for people that are watching this.

    You have more power than you could ever believe.

    So in my early days coming into personal development, it was hype and hustle with the consciousness of conscious mind. Well, there’s no substantiation for it. It’s nice to learn it and it sounds wonderful, but in the age we live in today now for younger people watching this, you have a brain that is so powerful. Watch Dr. Daniel Amon, for example, on PBS or YouTube, for example.

    He’s given over 200,000 brain scans. He works with the NFL for injury recovery. So just that’s a starting point to get started. Second example would be having clear goals. You might find this interesting. As I was trained as a therapist, I never once took a class on how to set goals, but I could be paid 50, back then 50 to 150 an hour to look at you and say, wow, sounds like you need to get yourself some goals.

    but I’d never taken a class on goal setting myself. So then I got into goal setting through that first class in personal development I took way back when. I’ve also created a whole class just on goal setting. And then as I told you in the outset, because of my age, now I have a whole class called fourth quarter of life goal setting. So no matter where you’re starting on this journey as an investor, it doesn’t matter what your age is.

    Kristen (06:16)
    Right.

    Matt Motchkavitz (06:37)
    know, study people that are 50, 60, 70 years of age, if that’s where you’re at. You can move faster than they ever did thanks to the technology that we have today. So we have power of mind, goal setting. Another thing that I like to teach to people is go with your strengths. So get out a piece of paper and write down talent, skills, and abilities you have. And in my No Limits seminar, I never say to people, write down your failures.

    I mean you can do that as a creative exercise and say well what can I benefit from this? But I only focus on strengths, talents, skills, and abilities that you have in your hands right now. Whether it’s the power of your brain, money, access, knowledge, anything. A third example is putting goals together but fusing that with real world time. What I find as I get older is most people think they’re going to live forever.

    If you can get a young start in your life, by the time you’re 30 or 40, you can be a multi-millionaire through real estate investing. Something that takes people 40 years and a career path, there’s no guarantee when they finish that that they’re going to be well off. They’ll be always limited because by that time they’re starting to think about their bodies and the breakdown in their bodies. You can start earlier.

    build a fortune for your family, for yourself. I still exercise. I’m in my 70s and still exercise two or three times a week on treadmills and weight exercises. So we talk about the power of the mind, understanding your strengths and abilities.

    having clear set goals, fusing time into it. And then the last part of it is having better relationships with other people. In other words, you don’t just take advantage of people. It’s not about you. It’s always service. That’s how I built a real estate career. When I first came into real estate, I created by going through open houses with people, a buyer’s guide for real estate. So I made a concrete… ⁓

    guide on how to buy a home. Then I created one for sellers. This is way back in the 90s when people didn’t have stuff like this. And then I did one for buying through a builder. I’ve now made these into Zooms, incidentally. So one thing I’ve learned in the contemporary stuff in real estate, residential real estate, is start doing Zoom sessions with people, advertise it on Craigslist and other places like that, and you’ll pick up clients by the scads.

    that are afraid to talk to a real estate agent, but you’re teaching them credibility up front, way up front. We don’t bite. I’m an educator. I’m not going to hard sell you. I always look at your life and your career path as a residential investor is, what are you going to be like in 10 years? What is it going to be like in 20 years if you had several houses and an investment portfolio?

    So the payoff comes how you treat and respect other people. It’s not just narcissistic about me as is the me generation. It’s our service and helpfulness to other people. So those are five or six key factors that I use very quickly, Kristen, for teaching people how to be more successful in their lives.

    Kristen (10:23)
    Absolutely, I mean, I think you bring up such good points where it’s not always about how hard you’re working or what the deal flow is. It’s a lot within you that ⁓ can make a big difference in your success. To go off of that last point with how you work with others, I would love for you to talk a little bit about team building and how you can get great results from building out a team.

    Matt Motchkavitz (10:48)
    So because I don’t have a team, I’m a solo practitioner in what I do. But my team consists of home inspector, mortgage person, title person, some people in the real estate industry, a handyman, people that repair homes so that I can refer business to other people too and help them be successful in their own lives. So that’s the way I team build for myself. ⁓

    Kristen (11:14)
    Right.

    Matt Motchkavitz (11:15)
    I don’t have an extraordinary session on how I built a team of 50 agents that I work with yet, but that was new after my career in real estate.

    Kristen (11:23)
    No, absolutely. I mean, that is the team. that’s, think what a lot, I think a lot of people in this industry are working essentially alone for themselves. So I think it’s very helpful to, yeah, build that trusted team around you.

    Matt Motchkavitz (11:31)
    Sure.

    One thing if I can do it, share it with you, I mentioned this in passing before we started, but building a mastermind group. You’ll find the initial materials in Think and Grow Rich where he talks about masterminds. So if you’re interested, I have actually materials on how to form a mastermind group and then a weekly handout that I use with people in mind. And so for example, it’s an accountability segment where you can actually…

    You get five or six people in this group sharing together and I gave one testimonial. And my second one where a guy was moving from residential to apartment sales, just buying in that group for two years. So in the safety of that group, we talked about our personal goals, what we wanted to achieve. And Jeff shared with me that he wanted to move from residential real estate into apartment sales with totally new industry for him.

    But within a year, he became the top apartment industry sales rep in Denver, and it did that for 20 years consecutively. So part of what we get back to on goals is accountability. It’s not punishment, but a mastermind group can provide you a safe atmosphere where you can disclose to other people what it is that you’re trying to achieve with your life. We also do stuff on this handout that I’ve created is

    Kristen (12:27)
    Okay.

    Matt Motchkavitz (12:55)
    We took a book, Like Thinking, Grow Rich, and we read it chapter a week and discuss that. How do we put this into action for ourselves rather than just reading a fun book? What do we learn from it? We also disclose our personal goals, for example. My goal this week is, and because the broader nature of people interconnectedness, somebody might know somebody they can introduce you to, for example. So Jeff.

    found that out through this mastermind group and you got into zillions of resources in the community. But, then the last thing that we have on it is ⁓ events that are coming up so people can be aware of proactive groups and events that are coming to the community. It could be an educational program, it could be a Zoom, something that’s enlightening and uplifting for people so that you follow that track out of the meetings weekly.

    That’s a quick way that I help people become powerful in their own lives.

    Kristen (13:54)
    Yeah, I mean that’s a great thing to bring up that you have so many resources and you are a coach and you can really work, you know, I don’t know one-on-one with people or in groups, but you definitely help people individually.

    Matt Motchkavitz (14:05)
    Sure, and again, as I’ve said to you so many times, I’m a non-hype speaker trainer coach. I want results for people. And I was training as a therapist, so I’m trying to listen to people when I’m doing coaching with them to really find out what the gist of their concerns are too.

    Kristen (14:21)
    Totally. Yeah, and I think a thing that I would love to touch on, I think a lot of people in this industry, especially when they’re starting out, are very overloaded and they feel very maybe burnt out, stressed out. What are some ways to overcome this?

    Matt Motchkavitz (14:35)
    So I teach a whole stress management program is one of the nine programs that I’ve created. So part of it’s our perception, what the world is all about. Is it fear-based or is it ⁓ more proactive-based? But then we also talk about such things as nutrition, lifestyle, sleep, ⁓ being aware of what you’re consuming and how that affects you, ⁓ meditation and quietness.

    That startles a lot of people, but if you can build that into your lifestyle in my speech that I was going to share with you tonight, part of the last part on success is setting aside time and quietness and relaxation. I never get to that when I share it in front of public audiences because we’re usually going 60 miles an hour and they think that’s the way I live. But I set aside time in my life every day and every week for quietness and meditation and reflection.

    Kristen (15:21)
    bit.

    Matt Motchkavitz (15:30)
    because ideas will come to you when you’re not pressuring the results that you’re working on.

    Kristen (15:34)
    Right.

    Absolutely, but you brought up a good point that you have a speech you wanted to share with us. We have about seven minutes left. I would love to get into that.

    Matt Motchkavitz (16:25)
    I can’t do it, it’s a 50 minute speech. But basically it talks about the conscious and the subconscious mind, then I move it into brain innovation and brain plasticity. That’s the first part, how we think. The second part is what is success? That’s a fun one to share with people when you walk out into an audience as TV camera reporter. What is success? What is success?

    Kristen (16:28)
    Thank

    Matt Motchkavitz (16:46)
    So there are two models that I show. One is the left brain or head model of goal setting. And I show the worksheets that we use on goal setting. Tell the story of John Goddard who wrote down at 10 years old or 15 years old, 127 goals in his life, not knowing what he was doing. He just wrote them down. So that’s the model of the head model of goal setting. Then I teach the heart model of goal setting, why we’re here.

    soul’s purpose, example. I teach it to tell a story that I took out of a book called Love is Letting Go of Fear by General Jampolsky. He works with kids that have catastrophic and terminal illnesses and this was one of them. This was a kid whose head was run over twice by a tractor and survived and has been on stage with Jampolsky internationally. Never give up in adversity.

    It’s too easy to get roped in by the ego mind that tells us why we can’t have stuff rather than the belief system that we can create whatever we want to in our lives. And so the last part of what I teach is specifics. Visualization, three types of visualization. Simulation, old pictures, new pictures tell the story of Helen Hadsall, the housewife that had not all the skills that we have today, but she learned them from Jose Silva.

    This is on Mindvalley’s materials in L.A. And so ⁓ she won a trip to Europe three times for her family. The ultimate prize she used by using visualization as a housewife was a house at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. Over two million entries. She won the house out of two million entries. And then the last part of it is so we have ⁓ relaxation, for example, and

    Sitting aside, I told you in my keynote speech I never get to it because we’re too rushed as we’re going through it. But to sit back and really meditate and reflect and let go of your stress, for example, that’s a gift we have.

    Kristen (18:50)
    Absolutely. I mean, you broke down so many amazing parts of how to be, you know, a successful person and to be more in touch with yourself. I love the visualization part of that. Can you kind of elaborate on that a little bit?

    Matt Motchkavitz (19:04)
    So in visualization, we’re already doing it. The idea is to take control of it. So take it away from fear like news and downer stuff and put it into a proactive role modeling situation. So for example, in controlled alpha, we can actually sit down, discard the outside world, and try to imagine in our own minds future goals. That’s what Thomas or… ⁓

    Goddard did, John Goddard did no way back then, but you can actually sit back and visualize. He was doing it anyway in the work that he did. He wanted to ⁓ explore rivers and mountains and all kinds of other stuff. So he was using visualization. But what I’m trying to teach today is just take it into a controlled environment, whether it’s an office setting or whatever you use to relax, to imagine a peaceful setting.

    and then bring that dream into your imagination. powerful stuff. Healing, for example. It’s used in healing work for people that have cancer and all kinds of other bad things in their lives. They’ve spent time being bad and fear-based. We’re now teaching them a new way to live in their lives and peacefulness and love and all kinds of other things. Giving and forgiveness.

    Forgiveness is huge in all the stuff we’re talking about.

    Kristen (20:24)
    Allows you to kind of move on and get rid of blockages. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this is, I mean, this is so inspiring. I’m sure so many people are getting inspired by this and want to dive deeper into the topics. I know that you have ⁓ some, you have workbooks, you have coaching. Tell everyone where to find you and how to learn more about everything that you’ve been talking about.

    Matt Motchkavitz (20:29)
    Sure.

    Sure. Sure. So my

    basic website is www.ei. Some people think it stands for emotional intelligence. It’s actually Excellence Incorporated. EISeminars.com. So www.eiseminars.com. I’m in Denver based, but I fly anywhere to share with people. Our phone number is 720-229-7484.

    ⁓ email address is [email protected] but as I’ve told you so many times tonight I’m not a hype speaker I’m very concrete with people I want the best for people as I get towards the end of my life believe it or not I want to make sure that I’ve got more miraculous stories for people’s lives instead of accepting average stuff in their life how you can take it into the stratosphere and

    Kristen (21:30)
    Bye.

    Matt Motchkavitz (21:44)
    create whatever dream you want whether it’s loving relationships, bitter parenting skills, know anything that’s important to you, health, know what good is money if you don’t have health, you know so anyway that’s my background real quickly thanks for having me tonight and boy

    Kristen (21:53)
    Yeah.

    Right? Of course. ⁓

    Matt Motchkavitz (22:03)
    We live in the freest country in the world. If you can’t make a dream here, where are you going to take it to? So thanks. If know speaking leads to I’ve given this speech a thousand times. I’ve done it for park rangers, ⁓ corporations, fire stations, you name it. And it’s a very uplifting presentation. Before we started this presentation tonight, I thought, what if I just did that on a Zoom session?

    Kristen (22:09)
    heart.

    Matt Motchkavitz (22:28)
    live for 50 minutes. charge for it, but you know, a minimal amount. But you’ll love it. It’s a very uplifting presentation. I’ve shared it with so many different kinds of audiences and it’s helped me in my life just connecting with some wonderful people too. Thank you for having me.

    Kristen (22:32)
    Yeah.

    Incredible. Well, thank you again. I mean, this has been really wonderful. I think that these are the types of things that can really help people get to the next level in their career, but also in their profession or in their personal life, because, know, we’re supposed to be well rounded individuals. ⁓ So I’m so happy you came on today and thank you everybody for listening. Hope you got a lot of inspiration and you know, maybe you’re looking at things a little bit differently after this. Definitely check Matt out, go to his website and learn more about

    all this.

    Matt Motchkavitz (23:16)
    I’ll close this with is, what would you create in your life if you knew there were no limits?

    Kristen (23:20)
    Mm-hmm. I love that. Amazing. Well, we will see you back next time, everybody. Bye.

    Matt Motchkavitz (23:28)
    Thank you. Happy holidays.

Tags:

Share via
Facebook
X (Twitter)
LinkedIn
Mix
Pinterest
Tumblr
Skype
Buffer
Pocket
VKontakte
Parler
Xing
Reddit
Line
Flipboard
MySpace
Delicious
Amazon
Digg
Evernote
Blogger
LiveJournal
Baidu
MeWe
NewsVine
Yummly
Yahoo
WhatsApp
Viber
SMS
Telegram
Facebook Messenger
Like
Email
Print
Copy Link
Copy link
CopyCopied