A tribute to Dr. Fred Grose

We pay tribute to Dr Fred Gross and unpack the coaching principles that shaped how we think about purpose, performance, and real estate success.

 We share the practical rules we still use to build a bigger business without losing the life we are working for.

• Dr Fred’s impact on Australian and New Zealand real estate coaching and training
• Designing a magnificent life and treating business as the vehicle
• Building daily “tens” that keep energy and purpose alive
• Doubling results by getting better rather than just doing more hours
• Finding mooring lines that hold us back and changing the story we tell ourselves
• Focusing on the inner market we control rather than the external market we cannot
• Using better dialogue with vendors and buyers because words change lives
• Prioritising dollar-productive activities and tracking time to cut wasted effort
• Mastermind groups, vulnerability, and being the person you are proud to be
• Accountability partners plus rewards and non-rewards to lock in commitment

Dr Fred taught people how to make more money. His greatest lesson was what to do with the life that money gave you.

Our deepest condolences go to his beautiful wife Victoria, his family, and to everyone who loved him.

Rest in peace, Dr Fred Grosse.

Thank you for helping so many of us design a magnificent life!

Transcript

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Why Dr Fred Matters

Tom Panos 0:02

Tom Panos, John McGrath, Troy Malcolm, Million Dollar Agent, the Podcast, a special podcast today dedicated to, I would probably say, one of the most influential people in the training education space of uh real estate agents in Australia and New Zealand. John, I know how much Dr. Fred meant to you. Um, we put on our social media jointly a few days ago um a post that you wrote up, very heartfelt. I'm gonna hand over to you, John, to tell us what Dr. Fred meant to you, meant to you in his life. And today we're gonna have a podcast. It was Troy's been exposed to Dr. Fred since the age of 18. And we're gonna spend our time talking about Dr. Fred and also talking about some of his timeless principles. So, John, over to you.

John McGrath 0:51

Yeah,

The Conversation That Changed Coaching

John McGrath 0:52

thanks, Tom. Look, he he was the seed of ARC started with a conversation I had with him, and I loved going over to America. I mean, I didn't love going to America. I loved the coaching I was getting from him and a small cohort of top people in America. And I was over there one day and I said, I wish Australia could be exposed to this amazing teaching. And he said, Well, let's ask them. And and he literally stood up to the group. These are the top 10 agents in America, by the way. And he said, Who'd like to go to Australia to do some coaching and mentoring? And 10 hands went up. And he said, Well, there you go, John, over to you. You just give us some dates. And that I tell that one, because it is important and he's changed the face of Australian real estate, Tom. But also that was his way. He would just, everything was possible with him. He didn't overthink it. He just said, Yeah, if you want to get these guys here, let's just ask them. And I would have gone through, oh, they're too busy, I couldn't afford it, they won't want to do it, it's a long trip. And he just stood up and he said, Who wants to go to Australia? So I think from from that perspective, that kind of encapsulates who he was. I think, Tommy, there's a bit of noise in the background there. And Tommy might have to go on mute. Um, you might have to go on mute for a second, Tommy. A bit of uh Byron Bay Cafe. A bit of Byron Bay Cafe noise there. Yeah, so look, just that that to me really encapsulates how he operated. And then we invited him over there and we we met with him every quarter for many, many years. And I look at it so many of our top people from Matt Steinway to Pete Chauncey to Tracy Dixon and Matt Matt King. And I mean, you could go on, dozens of our top multimillion dollar agents all built their momentum off the back of Dr. Fred's coaching. So we spoke about it and we said, well, why don't we just unpack, Troy, some of the some of the key learnings? And and I think most people have heard these, and I always try and dedicate or credit, sorry, that whenever I talk about Dr. Fred's concept, I seek to credit whenever I can because I don't want to be seen as pilfering uh ideas. But uh people would have heard these in various formats. But I just thought, Troy, maybe we could go through and just talk about, and I'll and I'll just give you some of the things that I thought um I remember most, um, not just fondly, but uh the highest impact on me. Firstly,

Design A Magnificent Life

John McGrath 3:13

he talked about Troy designing a magnificent life, and that might sound simple, but you know, he would say that most people don't sit down to design a magnificent life. They somehow find themselves wherever they're at, in whatever situation they're at, and they accept it and they just go with the flow, and like a jellyfish in the water, you know, whichever way the ocean's going. And he said, what he really encouraged everyone to do was think bigger, design a magnificent life, and then choose to be the person you needed to be to actually manifest and bring that life. So he talked about that, and one of his favorite sayings, Troy, and he used to say it every time he met with us: life is primary, business funds life. F-U-N-D-S funds. What does that mean? It means don't put business ahead of life, but realize that if you want to live a magnificent life, to some degree there's an investment and a cost to be able to do that and be able to, you know, travel and live comfortably and and have your kids, you know, sort of live the life that you want them to live. So he said, you know, business really is a vehicle. And he used to talk about Tom, you know, entrepreneurs being the royalty of the 21st century, or the 20th century when we first started with him. Uh and he was a great believer in small and medium business, the importance of it. And that's why that was one of his whys that he wanted to um drive the real estate industry so it could make a difference elsewhere. And I remember when I I caught up with him through at a hotel in the city, it was the um Intercontinental, and we were going out to dinner and it was a Saturday night, and he he'd been coaching all day. And I got there about 5.36, and I walked in, he was just finishing his last call, and then he finished and hung up. And he said, I said, How long how many calls you do today? He said, I've been on since 5.30 a.m. Now, this guy at this point, Dr. Fred, was probably he's certainly 80 something, might have been 81, 82. And he was he just finished 12 hours straight of coaching, and he's and he was very wealthy, very successful. And I said to him, Troy, Dr. Fred, if you know I don't want to be rude, but you know, you're at a certain stage of your life, um, and you're wealthy. I just wonder why, you know, on on every single day you're doing this. He said he he said to me, looked at me and he said, Uh, John, this is what I was born to do. That he said, my soul was put on this earth to do this, coach and mentor. And it kind of was such an obvious and but most people would say, Oh, an 82, you're wealthy just by you know you know, put your feet up and go fishing or whatever. But he said, you know, this is my whole life purpose, and he said, I love it. Why would I stop doing something I love? And it gave me a whole new perspective because a lot of people race through life to get to enough money to retire because they're trying to escape from a life that they're not, they have they haven't designed to be magnificent. And yet Dr. Fred had designed a magnificent life and he surrounded himself with people he really liked and loved, and he did something every day that gave him passion and purpose. So that was that was

Tens And Daily Joy Habits

John McGrath 6:22

really important. And one of the things, Troy, and you'll remember this well, he used to talk about tens, twenty-fives, fifties, and hundreds, and some people might have heard occasionally a speaker talking about this. So the idea of that was he wanted everybody to calibrate the things that were important to them that gave them joy and and this that lit up their soul. So he said a 10 is something you love doing, but you can do it every day. It's not expensive. It could be having a cappuccino um in in the morning at your favorite cafe in the sun, reading the newspaper, whatever it is, that's a 10. And then maybe a 10 is taking your dog for a walk at the end of the day in the park and hanging out and just spending time with your kids or your pets or whatever. Then he said 25, however, is when you ratchet up a bit. So he said, you might have the coffee, but then the coffee might extend into a breakfast with your three best friends from, you know, from school, and it kind of makes it even a richer experience. And then he said a 50 could be you take that same group and you go away and you go, you know, on a holiday with them, etc. And he said a hundred is kind of like not something you're going to do regularly, but you might do it once a year. And that could be you take your kids first class to an incredible resort in Switzerland that you'd always dreamt of and seen in magazines, and you meet your three three friends, best friends over there, type of thing. So, yeah, and he said, you know, what you have to do every day is make sure you give yourself some tens because it's easy to wake up and then go to sleep at the end of the day and not having done anything that lights up your soul. And he said, you know, these little things, you know, not only are they important for your soul, but he said they're important for your work and your business. You know, if you're feeling excited and passionate and living on purpose. So, you know, that that was the first concept was designing a magnificent life.

Grow More By Working Less

John McGrath 8:09

And uh he used to often say, 2x your business, but but work 500 hours less. And he said, there's no, there's no prize for doubling your business but working an extra 20 hours a week and getting divorced and having a heart attack, etc. He said, you know, you need to be able to do it and find a way to do it by being better at what you do, not by doing more of what you do. He said work ethics important, but he said it's it's you know, calibrating yourself to the next level. Number two point for me, Troy, was he had a concept that everything you need is already inside of you. He talked about the keys to the kingdom are hanging on your belt. And you know, he said, Real, really, a lot of people they go looking like they need something else or they need to wait five or ten years. Or and he said, in reality, is you just need to remove the stuff that's getting in the way of your soul being on purpose and just manifesting a magnificent life. So he said, Don't don't necessarily go looking for lots more stuff, look inside. And that's where the concept for mooring lines came up, which I talk about pretty much every time I speak and every time I do a coaching session.

Spot Your Hidden Mooring Lines

Tom Panos 9:21

Yeah.

John McGrath 9:21

And the concept of mooring lines, it's obviously a nautical term for for people. Some have heard of it, where you get those big ocean tankers that get moored at, you know, Port Phillip Bay and Sydney Harbour and so forth. And the reason they don't float off the shore and into the harbor or into the river or into the ocean is because um they are underneath, underneath the surface of the water, they've got these very strong but invisible at the time mooring lines that hold them in. So he said, without realizing it, to some degree we all have mooring lines, which means we have things that are keeping us where we're at and don't allow us to move to a better quality of life. And he said, they're thoughts and ideas you have about yourself or the world. So if you think the world's unfair and nice guys finish last and all of this sort of stuff, or you know, the world, the you know, no no good real estate agents or women, or you know, crazy thoughts. If you think any of that, that'll become a reality for you as well. So in his coaching, he would very quickly zone in on, and you know, I've done many a one-on-one coaching session with him for my benefit as well, and he would he would zone in on and he'd have a conversation, and very quickly he'd surfaced these mooring lines just through conversation, just saying, So, Troy, for you to double your business, for you to run a $50 million business in two years' time, what could what could get in the way? And by the way, why why haven't you doubled it already? And then basically, whatever you would say then, inevitably were mooring lines. Oh, well, you know, I don't have the team yet. Well, you've who's chosen the team? Well, I did. Well, then can't you choose a different team? Or can't you add to the team, or can't you invest, and so forth? So he had this sort of concept that you had to surface the thoughts, the words, the ideas you have that are holding you back and restraining you from the success that you really deserve. And the last

The Inner Market Beats The Market

John McGrath 11:22

one, and then I'll just throw over to you, Troy, the last one was the inner market, which is very relevant now. We talk about it a lot, Troy, every day, the inner market. So the inner market is, it doesn't really matter what the external market is doing. What's the external market? Competition, interest rates, the weather, the reserve bank seasons, public holidays, they're all out of market stuff, which you actually can't control any of them. Whereas the inner market that really does matter is the market that's between your two ears. And the inner market is your thoughts, your ideas, your language, your skills, your proactivity, your energy, the things that you actually control 100%. And in Dr. Fred's coaching, 99% of success comes down to inner market. 1% is the other stuff that you have no control over anyway, but it doesn't really matter. It's only 1%. So, you know, in coming back to the real estate space, Tommy, that we're in today, and most of our audience, if not all, will be in the real estate industry. If Dr. Fred was standing in front of you today, he would say, What the Dow Jones did last night is none of your business. Um, what if you're what your competitors charge in fees or subsidize is none of your business. But and you don't control it. You can't go across the road and say, hey, you shouldn't be charging 1%. What you can do is control the quality of your pitch, the quality of your preparation, the quality of your dialogue, the quality of your connecting skills, the quality of your point of difference that you design to be something that you take to every client meeting. And he said, so focus on the inner market. And even now, with listings, the only reason your listings aren't selling has nothing to do with the market. It has to do with the fact that your properties are overpriced, potentially, um, compared to what the market is prepared to pay. Why do I know that? Because if your properties were aligned to current market expectations at value, they would have sold yesterday. So again, he would be saying, don't blame the market, don't wait for it to get better, um, don't sit there on a pity party and cry about it. Just work out what conversation you need to have with every single vendor. And then also with buyers, if there's any buyer hesitation, he would often say words change lives. That means that what you conversation you have with a buyer on the phone or at an open for inspection, when they genuinely want to buy a property but they're nervous, what you say to them in the next three minutes can have a marked difference on what they do. If you show them a graph of where the market has traditionally, when it's come down or when it goes up, and you say, Troy, I think from my perspective, you've got about a six-month window and you don't have to buy today, but I guarantee you you want to be buying in the next few months. But if this is a home that you love, why wouldn't you buy today? And you're getting a 15% discount, and sooner than later, that 15% is going to be replenished back, and you'll get a 15% immediate uplift on whatever you pay today. And if you're hesitant, the only reason you might be hesitant is you may think it might come back a little bit more, and you'll never you'll never pick the bottom of the market, by the way, Troy. No one can. Um, but let me just say to you that we're now nine months into into this market or eight months into this market. It's come down 15% historically. That's as low as it ever goes. So again, you know, just as a methodology that what you say to your clients is going to have a marked impact on you, aligning their expectations and and for them to see value in moving on now. I mean, because again, some vendors are disappointed their property was worth 2 million last year and it's worth 1.875 now. But the reality is whether you sell it or not, it's worth 1.875. So if by keeping it doesn't make it worth more, it just sort of might, you know, might make you feel momentarily better, but the gap's the same. So I think, yeah, designing a magnificent life, uh, having a 10 every day, knowing that everything you need is already inside of you, recognizing the mooring lines in your conversation and your thinking, and it's shifting them, shifting your belief and your your dialogue. So if you if you joined this webinar thinking the market's flat, change that. The market's as flat as you want it to be or as healthy as you want it to be. And then the last one is the inner market. Um, just recognize that the things that you control are the only things that matter, and don't use excuses about the outer market, which doesn't matter, to retard you or delay you from doing that. The last one

Dollar Productive Activities And Time Logs

John McGrath 15:56

was dollar productive activities. Yeah. And so the last concept of that, Troy, and these are the top five or six that I learned from him. Yeah, he would say this is an industry where prospecting, listing, and selling are the only dollar productive activities. What does that mean? Cutting keys does not make you money. Photocopying contracts does not make you money, dropping off a brochure does not make you money. What makes you money is face to face with a qualified buyer or a qualified seller sticking a deal together or nurturing a past client relationship. That makes you money. So he said, and he used to encourage, and I did it once or twice, Troy, early on when I met him. And Tom, this is something, oh, you're pretty time effective, but a lot a lot of real estate agents could do. He he gave me this sheet Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., had 15-minute increments. He called it a time log. And he said, every 15 minutes, just look at your watch, have your beeper on, 15 minutes. What have you done in the last 15 minutes? What are the calls? What are the activities? What's the actions? And he said, when we meet up, I'll have a look at that. And then he would first couple of times, I was embarrassed to even give him the damn time log because, you know, there's wasted time here, there's a cup of coffee there, there's a lunch there, there's and and he said, Well, you know, if if you want to double your business, he said, it's already here. You just need to realize that you need to be more time conscious and time effective. So just by doing this activity of having a time log and recognizing when I'm doing things that are dollar productive and when I'm not, or when I wasn't, um, that makes a massive impact. So um, yeah, and that went into idea week, setting up an ideal week, morning ritual. And probably the one best thing he said to me around time management, Troy, was John, if I can give you no other coaching than this, every day, five face-to-face qualified meetings with people that can buy or sell real estate. And he coached Bob Bolan, who at that time was the top in the world, and he said, Bob, your only strategy you really need is be in front of people that can say yes. Yes, I want to buy it. Yes, I want to list with you. And he said, if you're in front of a minimum of five a day, 25 a week, 30 if you're week sat if you work Saturdays, if you're in front of 30 people a week that are qualified to say yes to a proposition and you ask them to, would you like to buy this home or would you like to sell through me? He said, even if you're not that brilliant, the law of averages says you're gonna get or build a great business. So that was some of the things. Troy, what have

Masterminds Vulnerability And Being Your Hero

John McGrath 18:24

I missed? Anything from your

Troy Malcolm 18:26

No, John, there was so much um covered off uh over Dr. Fred over so many years, and you know, being part of his mastermind groups, I think was one of his unbelievable skills as well to bring like-minded people into the room that were sharing similar experiences. And I think at the the peak of Dr. Fred's coaching that I was involved with, I think he had four groups with McGrath, uh, different areas of expertise and different growth stages. And by putting people in the same room, it was really that attraction to them connect and share their experiences. It was really transparent. I mean, that was one of probably the biggest observations that I saw. This was a gentleman that was dealing with business leaders and, you know, really, really successful agents, and they were so vulnerable. And Dr. Fred, I've think created as an observation, that really safe space where people could be vulnerable and without fear of saying the wrong thing. And he encouraged that in his coaching. So that was one of the key concepts that I got was putting people together that are similar in those mastermind groups, but also allowing that freedom to be so vulnerable in that space. Um, one of the other ones, John, that I would like to talk about is he always spoke about being your own hero, be the person that you look in the mirror and you're proud of, be the person that others look up to. And I think that that's a concept that has stuck with me since I think I was 18 when I first experienced Dr. Fred. I was one of the video recorders in the first mastermind group that I think we ran at that stage in 2001 or two. And it was quite amazing to just be there as a fly on the wall. But he really emphasized that. And that was something that stuck with me even today. And, you know, I smile when you talk about the time log because we still use that in my business today for all young associates and agents coming through the ranks is to say, well, let's track the time, let's outsource or delegate all the non-productive activities to make sure that you're focusing on prospect list, negotiate, sell. Everything else doesn't really matter.

John McGrath 20:18

Yeah, sorry, I had too true. Tell me anything that you remember.

Tom Panos 20:22

No, no. I mean, you've covered uh most of his time as principles that had an impact in my life. I actually spent two years with him uh as a business partner to him running um uh group. So I we we know we had about 70 people in the group, then I then I uh I got unwell and I had to let it go. And uh Dr. Fred took over.

Your Unique Psychological Fingerprint

Tom Panos 20:43

The gentleman, I've got to say to you, one day, I'll never forget it, he said, Tom, he had a genius principle. Everyone, and he used a, I think it was an Einstein crowd who said, Tom, everyone's the genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking it's stupid. And if you slowly think that through, essentially what he was talking about is we're all different. And he was talking about the concept of a unique psychological fingerprint that whilst we've got a thumbprint that's totally different to anyone on the planet, we also have an internal, unique psychological fingerprint. We're good at certain things, certain things make us feel free, we flow, they feel effortless. And he spent a lot of his education and tuition to get people to say, you're already a genius, just focus on your strengths. And um, John and Troy, I have to say, even now in the work that I do in training, I have to accept I've plagiarized a lot of these concepts and I've wrapped them around with the Trompanos fingerprints. But simple concepts like, you know, blocking off two hours to do calls and then doing three to five appointments a day, that was All Dr. Fred. I'm still convinced. I think Dr. Fred was the first person in our industry to talk about the concept of bunching your work into repeatable ideal weeks and making routine your unique weapon in a world where you know there's a lot of friction. So um he's he's gonna be look by the way, everyone, I want you to know there is a book that you can get his concepts from. He did write a book. Um, um, and if you Google Dr. Fred, and I think the book is called The Black Belt of the Mind, right? And a lot of those principles are in the book. The gentleman, we all agree to McGrath, to also as a company, but also to all the individuals around Australia and New Zealand, the amount of messages I've had appearing um on my DMs and also on social media on that post shows us the impact that he had. He was widespread.

John McGrath 22:58

Um and uh dearly beloved, it wasn't just happening, he wasn't just an efficient coach, which of course he was, but he really cared. And he I remember he said to me one time, he said, you know, if you're if you've ever got a real problem, you know, a crisis in your life, he said, you know, on the walls there's that in case of emergency break glass, there's a red button. He said, I'm your red button. Just if there's anything you really need, you know, just give me a call. You're feeling down, you're feeling out, you've got challenges that are overwhelming. And I never forgot that. I never hit the button in that way, but I just never forgot

Accountability Rewards And Non Rewards

John McGrath 23:34

that. Two quid things, because I know we're sort of short on time, but the other thing he talked about a lot was accountability. He said you must be accountable to someone, not to yourself, not to your spouse, preferably, to someone else. And it doesn't have to be a professional business coach, but he said, you know, the the likelihood of you achieving an outcome, if you set the goal, commit to it, and have an accountability or peer partner that can hold you accountable, he said it doubles automatically. And the other the other one he's talked about, Troy, a lot was rewards and non-rewards. He said, your soul wants to know when it achieves a goal, because a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of people in our industry, they're so focused on the next level, the next level, the next level, and on sadly probably one of them. Um, you often don't smell the roses. And he said, your soul wants to be rewarded as it achieves and has growth. So he talked about rewards and he also talked about non-rewards. And I remember once in a session, Troy, in Edgecliff, um, I don't know if you were there or not, but yeah, talked to one of our agents and he said, uh, so you are you interested in this goal or are you seriously committed? They said, No, no, I'm really committed. I don't know whether it was goals or weight loss or whether it was sales or whatever. He said, Great. And these were the days when checks were around. So he said, tell me someone that you really can't stand, maybe it's one of your competitors, and they mentioned a name and he said, Write out a check for $10,000, that competitor, and give it to me. And they said, Oh, okay. And they actually had their checkbook on them in the in their briefcase or in their in their satchel and wrote out the check and gave it to them. He said, I'm gonna mail this to your competitor if you don't get the goal. So he said, You are gonna donate. And $10,000 back in those days, probably like 50 grand a day, to be fair. And of course, they achieved the goal and their life changed forever. But that was just an example of a combination of accountability, rewards, and non-rewards. Oh, the other thing he said is, I also want you to tell me what would you do when you achieve this goal? Um, and I don't remember what he said, but it was something like I take my wife away to Bali for a week or something like that. He said, Great. And now what would you do? What are you prepared to do if you don't achieve the goal? So he was very big on rewards and non-rewards, which I think is a good thing for this industry.

Troy Malcolm 25:43

Yeah.

Farewell To Dr Fred And Next Steps

John McGrath 25:44

Guys, we've run out of time, but uh God bless Dr. Fred. We were and and our thoughts with Victoria Sinclair. Victoria is uh Fred's uh long, long um wife. And he they've been together for I reckon, well, certainly since I knew them, which is 30 plus years. She's an amazing person. She was in, as you know, Tom, every training session. She was always sitting in the corner. She could have been off, you know, doing other stuff, but she loved being there, being a part of it. And and in the last 10 years, she actually started being a major contributor in the discussion, and she brought in a wonderful female insight and female energy into the room, and it was just quite amazing. And uh their relationship, as I said in the post, you know, every I guess all of us are always on the lookout for benchmarks in what we do. And when it comes to relationships, they were the benchmark relationship. I would see him at age, 75, 80, um, 80 plus. I would see him staring adoringly at her when we were at dinner, and she was talking like he was almost saying, That's my wife. How how lucky am I? Sort of thing. And I just think, wow, you know, so many relationships you see are suboptimal, and people don't have that feeling about each other, and and and sometimes it's you know, time does it, but time didn't do it for them. He he he loved what he did, and more than that, he loved his amazing wife, Victoria, and uh so our our our our condolences and our love to Vic, and we can't wait to see see her again. So, guys, go if you haven't bought the book, I'll tell you what, it's probably in demand. Um, go and uh try and buy it. And there was also some great CDs. I would encourage you. I don't know, I know CD players have changed, maybe it's should it's moved to downstreaming, but I remember there were some good CDs, and I'm sure you can find CD players if there hasn't been, but it might be there. So just just have a look at Dr. Fred Gross. You're right, Tom, black belt of the mine. Have a look for CDs, look for books, look for audiobooks, anything you can because if you haven't been exposed in detail and depth to Dr. Fred's coaching, you are missing out a lot in your life.

Tom Panos 27:54

All right, guys. All right, gentlemen, thank you so much. Thank you. You'll be here, and we'll see you next week.