Recovering from Disappointment

We all suffer disappointment. The prize goes to the person that can recover the quickest. 

Joshua Kalinowski didn’t expect to be a real estate agent. He was on a fast track to a million-dollar contract as a professional pitcher in the Major Leagues.

He pitched the iconic no-hitter and was the strikeout king of his league.

Yet, when his dreams didn’t work out quite the way he wanted, he was left to figure out how to recover from disappointment.

Whether it is large disappointments or the day-to-day small ones that have left you in a different spot than you anticipated, what Joshua Kalinowski is going to share with us today will help you find out what your life and career are really about and how to not let disappointment derail what’s to come.

6:51- most people come into the real estate industry on the heels of a disappointment and why Josh was drawn into it

9:56- moving the finish line is critical

11:47- while endless gurus teach success, what I’m teaching instead

13:17- Barbara Corcoran’s advice as to what she’s looking for

14:50- keys to bouncing back quickly (acronym PILL)

22:41- What Josh does to continue to be a big thinker

Justin Stoddart
So the big question is this: How do those of us in the real estate industry, with crazy amounts of ambition, how do we Think Bigger than the building of our own empires? How do we simultaneously seek success and significance, income AND impact? My name is Justin Stoddart, and this is the Think Bigger Real Estate Show.

Justin Stoddart
Welcome back to the Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I’m your host, Justin Stoddart, where we help you not just pursue success, but significance. Today’s guest is all about significance. He’s someone who I admire deeply. I can’t wait to introduce you to him. Before we go there. I want to remind you that inside of the Think Bigger Real Estate Group on Facebook, we go deeper on these topics. Listening gets you to one level of understanding, but when you start engaging with it, that’s when it really becomes knowledge and even onto wisdom.

Justin Stoddart
Super excited to have again, today’s guest His name is Josh Kalinowski He is a former professional baseball pitcher, turned real estate agent, now investor. His story is fantastic. Before I go deeper on your story, Josh, thanks for coming on the show today, man.

Josh Kalinowski
I just Oh man, this is a pleasure. Super excited to be talking with you and your audience.

Justin Stoddart
Talk about a big thinker and you your early days of baseball. Now let me let me bring in some context here for everybody that’s, that’s listening that saying, Okay, I’m not a baseball player, does this relate to me right? Today, what we’re going to be talking about is how to overcome disappointment. Okay, so whether your first career didn’t quite work out now you find yourself in the real estate industry, and or even in the real estate industry right now you’re finding yourself, like a little frustrated not getting the wins that you expect yourself to be having, this episode is for you. So Josh, let’s go back, you from a very young age knew that you had some talent. throwing the ball, right?

Josh Kalinowski
Yeah, yeah, I grew up with knowing my purpose. And that was to be a professional athlete in some form or another, right. So either a quarterback in the NFL, or left handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. In fact, I really kind of wanted to be both man, Bo Jackson was my hero. And coming from a very small town, I was a pretty big fish. And so success came very easy for me at the very early stages of my life. And so that was everything. To me sports, was it and I felt like that’s exactly what I was created to do. And I felt like God already had that plan. And I was etched in stone to be a very successful Hall of Fame, professional athlete.

Justin Stoddart
Did you have the shirt made? Josh knows kinda like Bo Knows?

Josh Kalinowski
Yeah, right. Basically, it was pretty much that already did there’s no, I had my, I had my number picked. I knew where my stadium was going to be. And I knew exactly it was gonna be called Cal’s corner, and that was gonna be my pressbox area. Like, dude, it was already there. You know, those vision boards had a vision board before they even knew what a vision board was. Yeah, this is, you got it? Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Justin Stoddart
So it’s super interesting, because you hear you talk to any of the success gurus, right. And they say, if you want to accomplish something, get laser clear on what you want to accomplish. And it’s just a matter of time. And that’s what you had been taught. It sounds like and you were like, crystal clear on this is exactly where I’m going. This is one way to have. And, and like you said, I knew my life’s purpose, it was to be a professional athlete. Right. And with that, you’re gonna do a lot of good along the way. But that was the climax. That was where you were headed.

Josh Kalinowski
That’s exactly right. And yeah, my father had he always, you know, my dad was a great he was an athlete as well, too. He was an all American Basketball Player. And so he understood the competitiveness, I was literally like, I was a miniature Dave Kalinowski. And he always set goals for us, he always helped us set goals for ourselves. And so at every level, no matter where I was at whether I was in, you know, t ball, or in high school, or in college, I had a list of goals that I want to wanted to accomplish. And they all revolved around sports, right, if I was going to get A’s in school is because it allowed me to play baseball, not because I really wanted to be a great student, was because that’s what allowed me to play the game that I absolutely loved.

Justin Stoddart
Yeah. Well, just to put some context to this to how good you were, and you probably wouldn’t say this, but you pitch the no hitter. Right now. It’s extremely rare, right? For anybody that that knows baseball, knowing that pitching a full game and having zero, like on base is a phenomenal accomplishment, right, which just fed the fuel right, we just fed up to be like that. I’m absolutely on this path. Right.

Josh Kalinowski
Exactly.

Justin Stoddart
That and then being strikeout King right in your league, being drafted in the minor leagues by the Rockies, right. Just all these things are just lining up just the way they’re supposed to. Then some things kind of started to not go your way. Right. Talk to us a little bit about the disappointment because again, whether people have experienced disappointment in the past and they’re still hanging on to it, or they’re experiencing it right now in this crazy market and or just in their personal life. Yeah, a little bit about yours so we can kind of relate to a guy like you.

Josh Kalinowski
You bet. Well, let me make it very relatable if you were in the market, selling real estate prior to 2006 and you were having success, and you were doing everything right, right. And then the market gets crazy. And you’re like, Oh my gosh, like, I’m like, I am the best agent out there. I cannot believe how much money I’m making. I can’t believe how many clients I’m serving. I can’t believe how easy this is right? Well, that’s what baseball was for me. In a sense. I was throwing a no hitter. I, I had a 20 game strikeout I was MVP of the league. I was an all star candidate. For three years of those years, I led the minor leagues and strikeouts, a little Colorado Rockies in strikeouts, you know, so everything was saying, you are going to be a Hall of Fame pitcher, it’s just a matter of time for you to get there. Right. So 2006, you’re in real estate, this is going to be awesome. I’m going to retire by the time I’m in 2010. Or I’m going to take over the world in 2010. And then 2008 hits and you’re going What just happened? Like I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t prepared for this. This was so so go on forever, right? Well, that’s what happened to me. in my baseball career at the age of 26. Too many surgeries and baseball really shut its doors on me and and I had to retire as I like to say, but it was more of a I had to really walk away from the game that I absolutely love because it was moving on without me. And I could not keep up with it.

Justin Stoddart
Yeah. Well, yeah, we’ve all felt that I love the context you brought in because you’re right. I was a homebuilder up intil 2009. For a while, I felt like I could do nothing wrong. Maybe real estate agents here over the past little while have felt that way, right? had a pretty hot market for the past number of years, almost in the past year and a half or so it’s been like, wait a minute, this isn’t quite as fun. All of a sudden, I’ve got eager buyers, I just can’t find the sellers, right. I’ve got sellers, and how do I possibly go through all these offers? Like it’s just a lot, right? It’s just a lot more than what people are used to going through a lot of potential disappointment. Okay, so walk us through kind of your story, like what came next, you started to have some, like your body started did not quite work like you wanted it to? Right?

Josh Kalinowski
Yeah, you know, at the age of 26, I’d already had three surgeries. Three on my shoulder, my shoulder, one of my elbow. So I was really broken. And I really was unable to perform like I used to I my mind was there, but my body was basically broken. And you know, I remember, you know, at the age of 26, as a professional athlete, you also gotta remember to is that I’m like four years away from retirement, like, you know, 26 years old at the age of 30. That’s when most guys are thinking of retiring. So in my mind, I was an old man, I was getting to that point in my life that it’s like, I got to really start thinking about the rest of my life. And so as I continue that journey, and really trying to figure out who I was, what my greater purpose was, and that’s when I walked away from the game. And you know, that, you know, I’ve got a book called strike three that I and I talked about the 13 years it took for me to really overcome that failure. Right. And, you know, as you talked about it, you know, it’s it’s such a common theme with real estate agents, one of the things I love about our industry is that I feel it’s so relatable because most of us did not come into it as our first option, just like we’ve talked about, and you you have said many times, you know, we come in and because it’s like, what other options do I have left, right? And then, of course, sometimes we come into this with this guise of like, well, gosh, if I, if I only sell one house a month, like that’s 12 a year, that’s going to be an $8,000 Commission, like, then I’m gonna, I’m like, $100,000, that’s pretty easy. That’s I can do this part time. And we all know that the industry will absolutely Eat up. It’s a super tough industry, and it really will consume you, if you do not make sure that you’re using it as a entrepreneur, as you’re acting as an entrepreneur in this industry. So. So that’s a little bit of just once again, I think the reason why I transitioned into real estate is because I found a lot of similarities of the competitiveness, and the fact that there is absolutely no ceiling in either one of those realms. And I was able to find a greater passion in this industry.

Justin Stoddart
Great for really, again, kind of bringing some context to the kind of the correlation, right is that you went from having these big dreams, big aspirations, and maybe others that will listen to this for like, yeah, yeah, I was supposed to be XYZ, no, by myself in the real estate industry, right? Yeah. But for some could could be a disappointment. And once you get in, you’re like, wait a minute, why wasn’t this planet right? This was actually pretty good. Right? If you do it, right, absolutely. can be pretty good. Walk us through again, because the the promise to the audience today is how do we overcome disappointment? So as you started to realize, like, I’m not going to be Cal Ripken, Jr. as much as I thought I was going to be or Nolan Ryan, right. Like, I’m not going to have that kind of major league baseball career, you went into a little bit of a spiral I know you talked about in your book, which again, for those that are looking for a great read, strike three, just call an auskey. It’s a great read. You can get it again, if you don’t listen to the whole episode, at strikethreebook.com, so get yourself a copy of that. But you talk about in the book about how there’s this this point where you kind of went dark for a little while, like you had a really tough time realizing like wait a minute, what happened? What happened talk to us about that turning point. In fact, I just read it through the day where you had this turning point where where it became very clear that disappointment doesn’t mean failure, right?

Josh Kalinowski
Absolutely, like, well, let’s see. I’ll give you the short version. Thirteen years of my therapy that I had to go through in order to do this, you know, one of it, I think that is a big theme in my life was that I had to learn to move my finish line. You know, I felt like my life was over. Like the purpose was I kind of said that earlier that in this in this podcast that I knew from a very early stage of my life, that my purpose was baseball. Right, I was baseball, I thought that like I knew that distinctively. But then I had to realize that it was not my purpose that I was not baseball, baseball happened to be the platform that allowed me to go and have success and find out who I was. But it was really only a chapter in my life. And so for years, I really looked in the rearview mirror, and saw my successes back there and never felt like I could have success in the future. And so until I got to that point, where First of all, I started to tell myself the truth, right? A lot of us tell ourselves these stories, and there are a lot of them are lies. Let’s just let’s face it, right? I started so myself to find the truth in the story. Why was I created? Why was I given this opportunity to chase this amazing dream? Why was it taken away? Right. And in the book, I talk about that experience that I had that really that come to Jesus moment, where was literally point blank to me, and I heard that voice where it said, Dude, like, I did not create you for baseball, I created you for so much greater. And it’s like, Okay, all right. Now I’ve got purpose. And now I’ve got something even greater, I got a bigger chapter in my life that I can pursue. And I’ve got to move that finish line. And so that was that process. And there’s a lot of things that continue to develop in me. And there’s a lot of things that I can talk about even more so. But if you’re going to just have one theme, moving your finish line will help you achieve greater things in your life.

Justin Stoddart
But it’s so powerful. so powerful. And remember the analogy you use in the book, which is this was a chapter, this wasn’t the book, right? And you can even add on to say like, this is your first book, right? Like, yeah, there’s so much more. And I think we oftentimes get so myopic, looking at the here and now and we forget the fact that Eternity is a really long time, right? Even our lives go really long time. Yeah, it’s hard to put that into context. And it’s like, you know what, it’s okay. These disappointments are exactly that they’re simply a disappointment. And they don’t have to sink me they can if I’m not careful, but they don’t have to, you know, I, I work with people and kind of a big theme of of my life, Josh is helping, you know, there’s endless gurus that are teaching success. There’s countless paths, like in their great paths to get there. I feel like there’s too little too little emphasis on, on building significance. Yeah. Which I believe success fits within that, but of actually taking care of the other areas of life because you can have a very successful business a very successful career. Meanwhile, everything from marriage to even finances, to your health is crumbling in the background, mental health, right, all that stuff. And so what I like the lessons that you’re teaching here fit so well under kind of the value that I want to bring to the marketplace, which is helping people to think bigger than real estate, to think bigger than your business think bigger than your career and realize it’s a component of it. And even within that career, there’s chapters and there’s multiple books, there’s lots of story to be left.

Justin Stoddart
Remember Barbara Corcoran who’s kind of the queen of New York real estate right Shark Tank for those that are returning place that name she said I would take something somebody like to me the most successful people are the people that can get up the fastest they’re like we’re all gonna get knocked down. How fast can you get up? You know, that’s the difference in someone who I want working with me as opposed to somebody that’s Uber talented, but when they suffered up with disappointment they can’t pull themselves up for for you know, for far too long. You know, what a great lesson that you just taught us there which is bumped the finish line out like things aren’t as bad when you zoom out and be like, Oh, this is a speck in the scheme of things right spec This is an everything like we have once expected so very similar to you I had ambitions to be like about your hex right to be you know, I want to play college let you know college football at the highest levels ended up playing small college football and you know, it’s kinda like a Rudy character as opposed to like a character, right. And so I can I can feel your pain there a little bit. I wasn’t nearly as talented as you were. But remember that disappointed of like, Oh, crap, that’s not quite how I planned it to be. Yeah. So anyway, I love the lessons you’re teaching. What else would you say to somebody that’s like, Man, this is resonating with me. I want to think bigger than just my real estate career. I want to get over these disappointments, whether they be kind of the direction my career’s gone. And or like the direction that my business is going right now in this tough market. Is there anything else anything else that you want to kind of point out here that you pulled from that time that would help people to to overcome more quickly, right, be that person that bounces back quickly?

Josh Kalinowski
Absolutely, buddy. Well, I think I want to highlight a couple things. One is, you know, you’re talking about these other areas in your life and in the book I really talked about why do we really believe in five foundational pieces, right? We, we’ve got to create a very strong foundation in our life, and five foundations or faith, family, fitness, finance and future. And specifically in that order, you know, in faith is really the faith and belief in a higher being, I know that you’re a man of God, I’m a man of God, but also that faith within ourselves, you know, we, when we experience brokenness, we lose faith in ourselves, we lose faith in the abilities and the talents and the uniqueness that we have. And we, we often build up these walls in our lives that we think that there to protect us. But in actuality, what it does is it actually holds us back, it holds us back from what I call being three dimensional, right? It holds us back from being the dad that we want to be in the husband that we want to be or the mommy wants to be. And the entrepreneur wants to be like all of these features. And so as I was going through my evolution of a man, I was man i was i was really, I was watching and looking at other men be successful. And just like you said, I was really getting tired of watching men be very successful and one attribute and their life and a complete train wreck. And the other ones that I’m like, gosh, there’s got to be more like, why can’t I be exceptional in all of the areas of my life? Why can’t I be a great man of faith, a great family man, a great entrepreneur, and businessman. And so I really started to chase that down. And what I found is that when I started building integrity moments in my life, I started having the confidence that I could go out there and be the man that I wanted to become, right.

Josh Kalinowski
And so one of the things that I do on a daily basis, this is just a great hack that if you’re looking for like, Okay, well, what does that mean? How do I build integrity moments, it’s called The Pill. So every day I take the daily pill, now it is not a pill that’s gone. This isn’t like a physical pill by any means. But this is a pill that you can take every single day. And so the P stands for painful, alright, so every single day, I’m going to do something painful, I’m going to do something that embraces the heart, or if you’ve heard it before, like do something that embrace the suck, right? I’m gonna do something every single day in one of those areas. That’s hard for me to do. Now, the easiest way to do that is typically when somebody does it in the physical part of their role, right? The fitness part like so it’s really easy to do the painful thing, go do the Murph, go run a 5k, go do the 45 minute workout, I know you’re on 75 hard, you could do the painful thing every single day twice with those 45 minute workouts, right? Go take a cold shower, right? Like those types of things.

Josh Kalinowski
And then the I stands for intentional. So every single day I identify something intentional, that I need to do in one of those areas doesn’t have to be all of them, but just one of them. And then so as I mark that out, and I do that, of course, obviously, I’m starting to complete this pill.

Josh Kalinowski
The next thing is lazy. You know, we are all lazy at something in our life, right? I don’t know about you. But like, every time I walked by the trash, I’m like, I’ll get it on the next trip, right? Like, I don’t want to do this. Now wait for it to get a little bit fuller, right, or, I hate doing the dishes like that is like my nemesis, that’s not going to happen, right? So every single day, I identify something that I’m lazy at. And so when I start to do the things that I avoid the things that I really don’t want to do, it’s amazing how much integrity I started building within myself confidence and discipline. And all of these things are these attributes that help you have a strong foundation and belief in yourself.

Josh Kalinowski
And then the last thing, which is really the most important to be honest with you is because this is one area that we neglect so much in ourselves is that you have to identify something that you love to do every single day. Something that you love to do for you is even more important, because we as leaders, as you know, we give of ourselves and this industry, it is so easy to get burned out because you are emptying your cup on everybody, right? Your clients, your friends, your family, everybody that needs you, right, you have the responsibility to help other people in every aspect of their life. Well, the problem is that we often don’t fill our own cups, and we don’t give ourselves the attention. We do not give ourselves the permission to do the things that we love that lightest on fire, right. And so when you can identify just one thing, one simple thing, right? Go on a 10 minute walk, do an interview that you love to do a podcast, right, listen to a podcast, something that fills your cup. It’s amazing how much more power you have to pour out to other people’s lives. And so that in itself, right, there has been one of the key factors that has really helped me overcome the failures in my life and understand there’s a greater purpose and I have a roadmap that I can be doing every single night, every single day to continue to keep building myself.

Justin Stoddart
Was that an acronym? Can you say it again? So people like the way that they can remember that because it was brilliant content, like what a way to really prepare yourself to be of greater service.

Josh Kalinowski
Yeah, so it’s called the pill. So you got to take the pill every single day. So it’s painful. And attentional lazy and loving.

Justin Stoddart
I love it. And that’s in the book. Am I gonna get to that here at some point?

Josh Kalinowski
Yeah, no, that’s not in the book. That’s actually a part of our Kingsmen Group which I know that you’ve got a little bit of that as well to get you a little swag. Yeah, yeah, we were but yeah, that’s part of we, we have a group of, of men that we love to pour into, and they pour into us. And it really just helps us attack life. So that’s one of the things that we do is help them with that the idea of what a pill is so.

Justin Stoddart
So cool. Can’t wait to learn more about that. Yeah, I do. I am sporting some, some pretty cool gear these days. Thanks. Thanks to you. I love it. Awesome stuff. Josh. Can’t can’t thank you enough for number one being the kind of leader, right, that looks at life and says, Okay, what can I learn from this and then share it with other people, right? It takes an added amount of courage to say, look, this was a real failure, I’m going to share it with the world, because the lessons are so important. Because it’s so important for me to help lift other people, I’m going to be super transparent and say, Look, this is where I spiral. This is where I failed. This is where I sucked it up. And, and it’s just it’s a great tribute. Because really, we can’t relate to people who haven’t gone through difficult times. Yeah, when someone’s vulnerable enough, brave enough to say, look, I really blew it. Here’s what I learned from it. Man, we you know, you get an army, you know, coming around you saying, you know, you’re a leader, like, let’s, let’s go. So, again, for any that, that want to learn more about Josh’s story and feel like, there’s still some some unmet opportunities in your life that just because you failed in the past, whether it’s been in business, whether it’s been in marriage, whether it’s been at health, whether it’s been at, like your mindset, whatever it is where you’re like, “Man, that’s really holding me back.” Know that Josh has created a powerful story for you to dig into and realize that like not all dreams are fulfilled, even if you do everything that the Guru’s tell you to do. Right? Have a clear vision and move forward, work towards it every day. Sometimes things still don’t work out. But your perspective Josh and helping us to see that that is a powerful chapter to help us go fulfill what we were actually designed to do is where all of us need to go now. So again, if you’re looking to get your hands on that story, you can get it at either Joshkalinowski.com. So get your hands on, I’m totally enjoying the read. Super fun to get to know a guy who I really admire level he’s doing. So final question. You’re a big thinker, right? That’s what you are doing have done. I want to hear from you. What if What do you do to continue to be a big thinker and expand your own personal possibilities to continue to grow day in and day out? What does that look like for you?

Josh Kalinowski
Yeah, great question. Man. I love that we’re ending on this. You know, I tell you what, there’s no doubt that my development that my maturity and where I’m at today is, has not been because of the fact that I’ve put myself in front of people that have been my mentors, the amount of podcasts that I’ve listened to the books that I’ve read, and here’s the thing is that you know, all of that free content is amazing, free content is awesome. And you can soak that up, but I will tell you some of the most impactful most life changing opportunities that I’ve had is when I’ve paid to play, when I’ve actually searched out and actually paid for somebody’s mentorship, or I have paid for an event. Like when I started investing in myself financially, we can invest in ourselves with all of the things that we can do and content, we can get YouTube, once again, podcast books, that’s awesome. That is so good. But when you start evaluating how much you are worth, and your success is worth, and you start putting a ton of money price on it, I tell you what, man that has grown in me so much over the years, and I I pay, I’ll give you a maybe you should, this isn’t the best thing to do. I pay more in my personal investments than the salary that I take a year. It’s powerful is it well in Listen, when you want to make impact when you want to have when you when you want to take everything you possibly can out of life. It’s worth it. It’s awesome. The people I get to meet, I mean, getting the opportunity to meet you Justin like those wouldn’t have happened if I wouldn’t have put myself in those positions in those situations. And so I just want to encourage people when if you’re listening to this free content is amazing. But you will truly have significant content, you’ll have truly significant relationships, when you’re willing to invest in yourself financially and help yourself get to that next level.

Justin Stoddart
I could not agree more you right our paths would not had had not had one of us not chosen to invest in a shared mentor, we wouldn’t have made that connection. Right. But wouldn’t it and there’s so many belly Yeah, not only is it so much knowledge, but so much such a great network of people. When you’re around people that get it that those that pay, pay attention, those that invest are invested right. Put yourself in a unique class of people that want it really, really bad when you see people who are willing to part with the almighty dollar in order to get the help get the knowledge get the you know, get the network that they need to move their, their life and their impact to the next level. So great stuff Josh, thank you so much man for being again the person who you are and for sharing so much with us here today. Again, if you’re looking to follow this guy, go find them joshkalinowski.com you’ll learn all about what he has to offer so and to everybody listening today. My final request is this, they are three simple words, you know what they are, Go Think Bigger! , Josh. Thanks, Rob. I want to thank you for tuning in to this episode of The think bigger real estate show. If you found value here, I asked three things. Number one, give us a review. Number two, go to Facebook groups search, think bigger real estate and apply to join. Here you will find a community of big thinking professionals that will help you grow your income, your independence and your impact. And my third request is go think bigger