Matthew Ferry on releasing attachment so 10 calls a day can beat 50

Matthew Ferry00:00

Willpower is a myth. So you wanna get energized by rejection. Elite prospectors, they actually learn how to create meaning in such a way that they get energized by rejection. We want you to work less and make more. We want you to feel freedom, flow, joy, and play while you’re prospecting, generating business, going through the rejection.

00:23You wanna see rejection as progress, and you want to come to a context, a place where you know that the numbers always win. If you know that numbers always win…

Loida Velasquez00:39

What is going on, everyone? Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Vulcan7 podcast, where we bring you some of the best in the industry to share with you their tips and strategies on how you can win and succeed in your business right now. So with that being said, if you haven’t caught up on our previous episodes, make sure to do so.

00:58You can listen to them on any of your favorite streaming platforms or watch the episodes live on YouTube. So with that being said, today we’re gonna be talking about the mindset of prospecting, and I have an amazing guest. So make sure that you have a pen and paper ready, because you’re gonna wanna take notes, probably take some pictures of things that are gonna be shown on your screen.

01:18So with that being said, I’m gonna go ahead and bring on today’s guest, Matthew Ferry. Welcome.

Matthew Ferry01:24

Hello, everybody. Glad we are here. Thanks for having me.

Loida Velasquez01:29

Absolutely. So for anyone that’s watching that maybe is not too familiar with you, can you just kind of go ahead and give us a little bit about your background, so that they can get to know you?

Matthew Ferry01:38

Sure thing. In 1993, I’m dating myself, I started to train people on the phone, the very first time that it happened in the real estate industry. I did something called the over-the-phone training, and it was the first time that anyone ever got coached on the phone week in and week out in the real estate industry, and that sort of transformed our family business.

02:01You might know my father, Mike Ferry, my brother, Tom Ferry. We went on to create the real estate coaching industry as you know it today. So that is sort of my roots, and I’ve been really working on the process of getting the mind to get quiet, so that you can do the work that you wanna do to essentially kick ass, have a blast, and do the stuff that normally would challenge you.

02:29And so those are the things that I hope to bring to you today.

Loida Velasquez02:34

Awesome. Yeah, I love that we’re talking about this, because myself as an agent, and even talking to agents all the time, I hear it and you do as well: they want to succeed, they want to get listings, they wanna get deals, but then there’s something that’s stopping them from actually going and doing it, or getting through that roadblock.

02:53So I’m just gonna go ahead and let you take it away, wherever it is that you wanna get started, on what agents actually need to hear.

Matthew Ferry03:00

Yeah, so what we might say is this: you can succeed and achieve at a very, very high level even if you’re more sensitive, you get blocked, you have a little bit of anxiety or freak out.

03:16The real estate industry itself is very difficult. It’s a simple business, like what you’re supposed to do to create… We gotta generate leads, follow up on leads, convert those leads into appointments, convert those appointments into contracts, and close ’em, right? So it’s a very simple process, but you’re the main driver, and so you’re unfortunately coming up against your own human nature.

03:40So your mind is not trying to help you succeed, as much as you wanna convince it. Can you just show my screen, and I’ll talk about this. So one of the things that we all work on together is we work on rising up out of our physiological needs. This is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

03:59Our safety needs, our belonging needs, our esteem needs, and our self-actualization. But when you are prospecting, you’re constantly getting pulled back down into your safety needs, meaning you’re talking to someone, they’re not behaving the way that you want, and your mind, bam, instantly says, “This person is a threat.”

04:19They’re not a threat. You’re just on the phone, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They’re saying blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But your mechanism for interpreting is actually throwing you into a threat state. Or you’re feeling rejected, right? So you’re not feeling like you belong.

04:35They’re telling you, “Why the hell are you calling me? Stop calling me. I didn’t ask you to call me,” right? All of that, especially if you’re calling expireds or FSBOs, right? Then you have your esteem needs, and one of the things that happens is we go into this place where we’re just like, “You know, I’m better than this, and I can’t believe that I’m a telemarketer, and what’s wrong with me, and I’m such an idiot, and I’ve lowered myself,” all of these things.

04:59And what happens is you’re constantly getting pulled into something called the hidden motives to survive. This is the root of our negative mindset. So what’s happening is we’re trying to use the sort of modern techniques for getting ourselves out of it, like positive thinking, right? I watch this podcast.

05:23Why? I wanna get my head on straight. I wanna think well. I wanna do well. I wanna learn techniques. I wanna have good thinking, affirmations, gratitude, healing the inner child, shadow work, mindfulness, vision boards, dream boards. We all have done this stuff, and yet no matter what we do, we keep getting pulled down into these negative mindsets.

05:46And so ultimately what I found is we actually have to implement four things, and if we can implement these four things, we can get into a flow state on a regular basis. We gotta become aware that the mind is actually doing its own thing. Your mind doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t care if you’re successful.

06:06It doesn’t care if you accomplish. It cares that you fit in, that people like you, and that you are well thought of, and it’s essentially a survival mechanism, and it has very rote ways that it communicates. If you can recognize them, awareness makes you flexible. That reveals new options, and options give you power.

06:29Plus, underneath there is a set of hidden motives to survive. We’re gonna talk a little bit about that. You gotta get connected to enlightened perspectives. These are perspectives that make you feel like, “Huh, I’m gonna be okay.” There are a set of thoughts that, if you have these thoughts, you can call an expired, they can be angry at you, you can implement the thought, and then instantaneously your physiology goes to, “Huh, I’m gonna be okay.”

07:00That’s an enlightened perspective. And then enlightened perspectives on the fly is something called recontextualization. So that’s the game. We wanna get ourselves out of these unconscious reflexes and ultimately into flow. So I wanna talk about this. I’m just giving you a couple of visuals to start, but think about it like this.

07:20Traditional mindset, affirmations and gratitude and walking on hot coals and modifying the nervous system, all of that stuff, phenomenal. I’ve done it all. I still do a bunch of it. But it leaves you open to getting dropped down into the root of the negative mindset. What we work with agents on is transcending these traditional mindset techniques, moving into these four steps, so you progressively feel like all is well.

07:50You go into flow, and then you hit these domains of thriving, and that’s really the game. If we can get you out of the fear of rejection, fear of being excluded, fear of not fitting in, these sort of tribal reflexes, if we can get you out of that and into the state where you feel abundant and kind and empowered and rational and confident and transparent, all of a sudden amazing things come out of your mouth. All right.

Loida Velasquez08:20

So…

Matthew Ferry08:20

That’s what I got

08:21visually at the moment.

Loida Velasquez08:23

No, no, that’s amazing, and I’m glad that we have this on here. I wanna ask you, when it comes to, let’s say, an agent, and you probably hear this all the time: how do you stay motivated? That’s a big one.

Matthew Ferry08:37

Love that. Love that question. Yeah, let’s take the slide off, and I will just say it in this way.

08:43So motivation. What we do in the Academy of Influence is we work to get people out of motivation, to stop relying on motivation, because it’s unreliable. And our viewer knows that, right? It’s unreliable. How do I stay motivated? The answer is, you don’t, and you never will. And the reason being is motivation is a survival tactic that you’re using in a thriving way.

09:14So prospecting and generating business is you going like, “Forward movement. Here we go. I’m gonna make some money. I’m gonna live the life that I want.” It’s a thriving activity, but you’re applying an old model, which is a survival tactic. Motivation: provided with a motive to do something. So why do you have to provide yourself with a motive to do something?

09:42You don’t wanna do it. You have to provide yourself with a motive ’cause you don’t wanna do it. That’s a contextual framework problem. That’s not a motivational problem. The game is to get to inspiration, and the way you get through it to inspiration is through recontextualization and connecting with enlightened perspectives.

10:02I’ll say it in this way. Really what you’re talking about is stamina. I want the stamina. I wanna be able to do it day in and day out and not feel like I’m grinding myself, and I think why agents come and participate in our trainings is we are explicit: live the good life without the grind.

10:29We want you to work less and make more. We want you to feel freedom, flow, joy, and play while you’re prospecting, generating business, going through the rejection, right? Expireds are still gonna hang up on you. For sale by owners are still gonna tell you they don’t need a realtor and they hate realtors, right?

10:49Those things are still gonna happen, but if you can create the proper context or the proper meaning, now all of a sudden your ability to roll through that in a state of joy is like none other. So it’s really about meaning. Elite prospectors, they actually learn how to create meaning in such a way that they get energized by rejection.

11:14So that’s not motivation, that’s context. No willpower is gonna create that. Willpower is a myth. So you wanna get energized by rejection, you wanna see rejection as progress, and you want to come to a context, a place where you know that the numbers always win. If you know that numbers always win, you’re just like, “All right.

11:36Well, that sucked, and I’m gonna keep going, and that was hard, and I’m just gonna keep going, and I don’t feel that good today, but I’m just gonna keep going, ’cause I know in the end numbers always win.” So rejection from the client isn’t personal, it’s actually sorting. But let’s be honest, Loida, to separate it from being personal,

12:01that’s a skill.

Loida Velasquez12:04

I think the past couple minutes, along with everything that you’ve just mentioned, agents will need to rewatch it a couple times, because even that line, “Get energized by rejection,” I think print it out, have it in front of you, and keep going. I know for me, in the beginning when I started as an agent, I was afraid of picking up the phone and dealing with the nos and the people saying, “Leave me alone

12:27and go hide under a rock, and you guys are all vultures.” But then I said, “You know what? I’m gonna get so good with handling objections, I need to get to that person that needs my help,” and that’s how I was energized,

12:39to the point that agents think, “Well, Loida, how are you so good?” It was not… I just got better every single phone call and pushed through the rejection.

Matthew Ferry12:47

Yep, that’s exactly right, and I’m gonna propose that with the proper context, you get pulled through the objection. So pushed through the objection, that works. Pulled through the objection, much more fun, just so you know. What we find is the agents who implement the Rapid Enlightenment process into their business have more fun, more joy, they’re more attractive, they pull more business to them.

13:18Let’s give our viewer a technique that they can use. So one technique that you can use is called releasing attachment, and attachment is an exaggerated fear of losing an imaginary benefit. So we imagine that there’s this benefit, and usually, I will say, usually the benefit is not the money and it’s not the commission.

13:43We say that it is, but if we really get honest with ourselves, the benefit that we are kind of freaking out about losing is our good standing. People liking us, people appreciating us. That stops agents dead in their tracks. They say it’s the commission or the money; it’s not. What’s really happening is we are pack animals.

14:11Pack animals operate in coordination with each other. If I don’t recognize my pack animal nature, then I’m gonna be getting pulled in all these different directions, and I don’t even know why. I’m just like, “Blah,” I’m just getting pulled. So you have to start by understanding: what is the thing you’re afraid of losing when you’re making these calls?

14:36And it might be the commission, but it’s probably not. It’s probably, I don’t wanna be rejected, I don’t wanna feel bad, I don’t… Right? I have this goal to have good standing. You wanna figure that out. Then step two is you wanna figure out what actually happens, like, what will you actually lose without the exaggeration?

14:57So step one, attachment is an exaggerated fear of losing an imaginary benefit. What is the benefit you’re afraid of losing? How is that an exaggeration? What will you actually lose? Then you wanna figure out, okay, can I make peace with that loss? And it turns out, when you figure out what you’re actually gonna lose, the answer is yes.

15:21Almost every time, yes, you can make peace with that loss, which makes you do this. Show my slides again, I’ll show you what I mean.

Matthew Ferry15:30

So it’s right here. All of a sudden you go like, “Oh, okay. All is well. I’m gonna be okay.” Immediately you go into this flow state, and the next thing you know, these domains of thriving get activated.

15:44I didn’t have to do anything. All of a sudden it’s just like authentic, transparent, confident, empowered, inspired, like dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. All of those things happen. And then the last thing you do is you say, “Well, what am I committed to?” And when you say, “What am I committed to?” and you’re up here in this state, it is bananas what happens.

16:06It’s bananas. So many people, Loida, when they look at our testimonials that are coming through, our testimonials seem exaggerated. It’s like, how is it possible that that person went from making 50 calls a day down to making 10 calls a day, and their 50 calls produced like one appointment every other day, but their 10 calls a day produces two or three appointments?

16:36How is that even possible? And the answer is, you get your mind right, then you say the right things, and then you understand how you attract or pull in other pack animals, so that they feel good and wanna collaborate and cooperate with you. All right. Bam. That’s it. That’s what I got.

Loida Velasquez17:02

Yes. So if there’s an agent that’s watching this and they’re thinking, “You know what?

17:06You’re saying that there’s actually joy in prospecting, and it can be fun. How can I join, Matthew, your program? Tell me all about it.” Can you walk us through typically what that looks like for an agent?

Matthew Ferry17:19

Yeah, I love that. So first of all, we don’t know if we’re gonna work for every agent.

17:25So what we do is we provide agents with a 14-day Quick Start in our process, completely free. And so if you go to Try AOI, T-R-Y-A-O-I.com, tryaoi.com, you can sign up for 14 days and you get all the training. We’ll get in there and help you understand your leads, understand what’s going on in your mind, what’s happening in your words.

17:52Why is your prospecting pushing people away more than pulling people in? How come it takes you so many calls to get an appointment? That’s not the market, that’s you. Something’s going on with you that is actually impacting it. So we work with people for 14 days, and then if they wanna stay with us, then they can stay for a monthly fee that, you know, we have no…

18:17You know, they pay if they want, and then if you don’t wanna be in, you can be done, right? So we don’t hold people to contracts. We wanna be in super holistic and powerful relationships with agents.

Loida Velasquez18:30

So tryaoi.com

18:33is the best way to get started.

Matthew Ferry18:34

Yes. That is the best way to get started.

18:37Let’s get in there. We do, I don’t know, four, five training calls per week, and we just have a buffet, right? Come and try what works for you. We have a little system that we walk people through. Our goal is to get you into a peaceful, flowing, joyous state as fast as possible, get you building rapport in ways that you cannot even imagine, where people feel compelled to work with you, and then ultimately get you closing by augmenting your language and your objection handlers.

Loida Velasquez19:11

Awesome.

Loida Velasquez19:11

And you have an event coming up also in February, so tell us about that.

Matthew Ferry19:15

I do. We try to do as many live events as possible. We usually do four to six every single year. We’re doing one called NLP Sales Secrets. It’s two days, and I can’t remember what I told you it’s on.

19:29I’m gonna go look right now on my calendar. It is on February 26th and 27th, NLP Sales Secrets. So if you just go to our website, you should be able to find that. Go to matthewferry.com and go to the events page.

Loida Velasquez19:46

Awesome. And in person, is this in what state? Just so viewers can know.

Matthew Ferry19:51

Yes. This is at…

19:52We do everything in Orange County, California, where we live. So you’d fly into Santa Ana Airport and then walk across the street, and there it is.

Loida Velasquez20:01

Awesome. Yeah. There you go. And we’re gonna make sure to put all of those links in the description box below, because I know if I’m an agent and I’m hearing you say that prospecting can be joyful and a pleasant experience, many agents right now are like, “You know what?

20:16I dread picking up the phone and talking to people. Sign me up for Matthew Ferry’s coaching, ’cause I need this right now.” So agents, if you’re watching this, rewatch this entire interview, take notes, and make sure to go to tryaoi.com. And if you’re local to Orange County in Southern California, make sure to check out that event, February 26th and 27th.

20:38Again, all of the links and the information is gonna be in the description box below. Now, as we wrap this up, Matthew, what are three things that you would say agents need to be doing right now, start of 2026, to make sure that they have a successful year?

Matthew Ferry20:53

I think the three most important things are to completely release your attachment to the outcome, so that you’re in a clean state.

21:03That’s number one. Number two, I would do a process by which I go and I forgive and release all the stuff that happened in 2025, because 2025 was a really hard year for a lot of people. So I would just go back and I would see, is there anything that I’m still holding onto? I would let that go. And then the last thing that I would do is I would create my new goals and dreams and intentions based on being unattached and having released the past.

21:37If I can then create my intentions from that standpoint, now I’m gonna be pulled forward rather than constantly dragged back by my mind’s natural mechanism that says, “I went over, I pet a dog, all dogs bite.” Like, “I can’t do this because in 2025 this negative thing happened.” You can’t drag the past into the future and then expect it to be good.

22:00We have to complete all that stuff.

Loida Velasquez22:03

Amazing. Well, thank you once again for hopping on here. The last couple minutes have been great. I know a lot of agents have taken hopefully a lot of gems from this. We’re gonna make sure to put everything in the description box below. And with that being said, we’ll see you on the next one.

22:19Bye.