273 | The Agent Who Chose 30 Homes Over 70 (The Result Was Life-Changing!)

What if doing less in real estate actually gave you more — more peace, more presence at home, and a stronger business?

In this episode of The Faithful Agent Podcast, Garrett Maroon shares a powerful true story of an agent who chose 30 homes over 70 — and how that single decision changed everything. This intentional decision was made so this agent could finally pick her daughter up from school — the very reason she entered real estate in the first place. Through this story and his own journey, Garrett exposes how hustle culture baptizes burnout, ties identity to production, and quietly steals what matters most.

This episode explores what it means to define a healthy ceiling, work from obedience instead of pressure, and trust God as the true builder of our businesses. Garrett shares how reducing his workweek from 60 hours to 40 didn’t shrink his business — it saved his life, his marriage, and his peace.

If you’re winning on paper but losing at home, this conversation will challenge you to rethink success, redefine faithfulness, and choose a pace that protects your family and honors the Lord.

Key Takeaways

• Hustle culture often disguises burnout as ambition
• Choosing fewer clients can actually increase impact and referrals
• Selling more homes is not always obedience
• A healthy business starts with a healthy home
• God builds the business — not your availability 24/7
• Working fewer hours can strengthen your marriage and family
• A hurried agent can never be a trusted advisor
• Defining a “healthy ceiling” protects faith, family, and peace
• Clients respect clear boundaries more than constant access
• Sometimes the bravest decision is choosing less

Chapters

00:00 – Introduction & the Story of Choosing 30 Over 70
02:20 – Why Hustle Culture Is So Dangerous
04:25 – When Winning on Paper Means Losing at Home
06:30 – Reducing Work Hours Without Killing Your Business
08:40 – Setting Boundaries Clients Will Respect
10:40 – Defining a Healthy Ceiling
12:55 – Obedience vs. Opportunity
14:30 – Why Fewer Clients Can Mean More Referrals
15:30 – Protecting What Matters Most
17:20 – Final Encouragement & Call to Action

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Resources & Opportunities:

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Transcript

0:01

What's up, faithful agents? Welcome back to another episode of the Faithful Agent Podcast. I am truly excited for you to be here as I talk today a story about an agent who chose 30 homes over 70 and it changed her life. I'm sharing a chapter from my book called The Balanced Breakthrough. You can go grab it literally wherever books are sold. I would be honored if you got it. But part of that is a story of this agent. I'm going to tell you the story here in just a minute. of an agent who chose 30 homes over 70 and it literally was going to change her life and how that could change your life too. But as always, let me start with the Christian dad joke. A boy was inspired one day when he read the verse about forgiving 70 times seven. One day when he was in math class, he refused to work on the next problem. The teacher was frustrated and asked why. The boy said, I've been counting. So far this semester, we've worked on 490 math problems. Today we've reached the 491st math problem. And Jesus said, I only need to forgive you 490 times. That's fantastic. All right. So let me tell you this story. I never know how to transition from those. All Let me tell you the story. So it was 2023 and I'm teaching. at uh this real estate conference. And I'm sharing a lot of what ended up becoming the book. I hadn't written the book yet. And a woman comes up to me afterwards and she says, Garrett, I really appreciate your talk, but she introduced herself as a solo agent and a mom. And she said, Garrett, last year I sold 55 houses, my best year ever, which is an incredible year. And she said, everyone keeps asking me what am I gonna do this year? And I keep telling them 65 or 70 because this is her words, because we're supposed to do more. right? And then she said, but this year I'm going to do 30, I'm going to sell 30 homes and it's going to change my life. And I said, no, why? I hadn't given the talk to encourage agents to sell less necessarily just to find purpose of what we were trying to do and what success looks like. And she said, Garrett, I got into this industry because I wanted to pick up my daughter from school, but I've been so busy selling homes. Guess what I've never done. And I it. I say this all time. I wish I'd gotten her information. I could follow up with her. could do all those things, but I think about her often and think about hopefully she went out in pursuit of what she just said and imagine how that could change the course of her life and her daughter's life that she could intentionally say, you know what? I'm going to do less because I'm going to show up for what I want to show up for. Not for the client. I'm going to show up for those 30 clients, not for the 70 clients. I'm going to show up for my daughter. And I think about what could have happened in the opposite direction, right? The ripple effect of the decisions that we make, what could have happened? She could have said, I'm going to go for the 70. I'm going go for broke. And it doesn't matter when or where if I'm on vacation, I'm working. If I'm out at the beach with my daughter, I'm working. If I'm in the pickup line to pick her up from school, I'm working. And maybe I'm not even there anymore. I hire some money or my mom or dad or somebody comes and picks her up. My husband picks her up. And it's okay because I'm doing it for her. I think about the ripple effect of those decisions, right? The ripple effect of us getting pulled into this idea of hustle culture, this seduction of more, right? Maybe you, she sells 70 homes and people praise her left and right, and she feels like the industry's golden daughter, but maybe her life would have been falling apart quietly because she would never be home. Maybe her husband would be exhausted. She'd be anxious and distracted and spiritually empty. working 70 hours a week, quote unquote, for the family, but barely even seeing her daughter, who was the reason she got into the industry. And I remember feeling the same way. You all, many of you know my story, but I was winning on paper, but losing where it mattered most. And the worst part, I thought it was a noble thing. I was selling a lot of homes. I was doing all those things, but I remember the conversation with my wife, which I'm going to share in a minute that just changed everything, but that's what hustle culture says. That's what hustle culture does. It baptizes busy. It celebrates burnout as ambition and overworking as dedication. It teaches you that rest is weakness and pace is for people who don't want it badly enough. And friends, that's just not true. There's one night and you can read about it again in the book, The Balance Breakthrough, go grab it wherever. I'd be honored for you to read it. I hope it makes a difference in your life. But I remember when my wife told me, I feel like you're choosing real estate over us. And I couldn't argue with her because the truth was she was right. Like my identity was wrapped in production. My worth was fulfilled in the numbers and my security was wrapped in my pipeline. And God needed to break me down to rebuild me. Yeah, my business stayed really strong. That's not what I mean. In His kindness, I kept closing 50 a year, but it was this identity problem. It was this trust. Problem, Psalm 127 says, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. I realized I was building something impressive, but not something eternal. I had gotten into this industry for the sake of my family, but who was losing out my family? So I remember the radical decision I had to make not to shrink the goal of selling 50 homes, but to shrink the allowable time. I spent doing it. And here's what I mean. I went from giving myself a 60 hour work week where I could take those 60 hours and sell 50 homes. was putting me in the top 1 % in our area. And I said, you know what? I'm not going to do that anymore. I have to do this under 40 hours. Is that even possible? And not going to lie. Many of you have heard my story. The industry told me, no, it's not possible. My own team leader in the office I was in said, not possible. Most of the people around me said, Not possible, right? Certainly not only by relationship, it didn't make business sense, right? The people around me, you know, maybe behind closed doors were mocking me saying, look, Garrett is going to sell 50 homes in under 40 hours a week. That's not possible. But I decided that was most important was I was going to be in pursuit of what I wanted to be in pursuit of, which was my wife and my kids. And I believed and I wanted to show that if you honor the Lord and you rightly order your life, that he can build your business even when I'm taking time off at 5 p.m. and turn off my phone so I can be fully present with my six-year-old playing Legos. If I am on date night and I leave my work phone at home, and because I want to honor my covenant bride, that the Lord can still be growing my business even when I'm not there. Because who builds the house? The Lord does. So I said, I'm going to sell 50 homes in under 40 hours a week. And guess what happened? That's exactly what happened. The Lord did that. The Lord did that, right? Because I wasn't willing to lose everything that mattered. So I made that decision, right? I wanted to work less. I wanted to be more present at home. I wanted to choose health over hustle and obedience over opportunity and the calling over cloud because people were making fun of me and hear this, this might be for you today. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is choose less. For the woman I shared about at the beginning, it was choosing to make less money so she could show up better. For me, it was choosing to work less, even if that meant my business would sell less, but in the Lord's kindness, it sold the same. But choosing less, being willing to do less. And now hear me, if you're in a place where you have to provide and your family is not providing, then you probably need to be choosing more. You need to get out there and figure it out. But if you're in a place where your family's okay and you keep hustling, You keep grinding, you keep making the excuse that at dinner you gotta pick up the call and talk to that client that you can't take 20 minutes off to be with your family. You probably need to start choosing less. I thought my income was going to tank. thought my clients would be disappointed when I said, Hey, Wednesday night is date night and you can't get me after five Saturdays by appointment only in Sunday. I don't work unless we're actively negotiating. When I told him that, Hey, I'm free from two to seven or excuse me, two to five on Tuesday to show houses. And they said, I'm working. And I said, I totally understand. That's what I'm available. And they figured it out. Keep in mind, I was a hundred percent referral. have been for 11 and a half years. And so people have challenged me and said, well, that's not very good customer service. You're telling him you're available during the day. What about after hours? And I would always say I had to protect my family first. And guess what? My clients respected that. I thought my income was going to tank. The clients would be upset. The business would slow down, but instead my marriage, excuse me, my marriage strengthened. My health got mostly better. I still love to eat. My peace returned. My kids got to see daddy more. And my business literally grew. Right? Yeah, I was selling the same amount of homes, right? For the first few years, I was selling 50 homes evenly, exactly the same amount, but I was keeping more of my money. I was keeping more of my sanity. Because when you remove the chaos, you create space for clarity. When you show up as a whole person, you serve your people better. And I really believe when you replace hustle with purpose, your impact multiplies. saying to my wife that I'm going to work 40 hours instead of 60, didn't shrink my life, it saved it. That woman who chose 30 over 70 sales didn't shrink her life, it saved it. It restored probably her relationship with her daughter, which she would never care how many homes her mom sold if she never got to see her. What is the table going to look like? What do you want the table to look like 20 years from now? Who's at the dinner table? Is it your family? Is it your kids? Are they married? Do you have grandkids? Is it your spouse? Who's going to be there? And are they going to be talking about how many homes you've sold? Or are they going to be talking about how much time they've had and the fun and the experiences and the joy and the memories they've created with you and how they love to be at your table? You know, inside the balance breakthrough, I do talk about a healthy ceiling, right? The maximum number of clients you can serve without sacrificing your values. And you got to determine it like this. You got to define what matters most, right? With your marriage, your faith, your kids, your health, your sleep, your time. And then you decide what pace honors those priorities, right? So how many hours can I work in pursuit of that? The hierarchy of attention, which I talk about, if it's for me, it's the Lord, it's my wife, then it's my kids, and then what's left? Once I am obedient and honoring those relationships, whatever time is left, go be excellent and a good steward in building that business. It's not necessarily about what maximizes GCI, though that matters, right? You got to be a good steward in your business, meaning making wise decisions. But you first need to think about what maximizes obedience and impact. If you build a business, right, if your husband listened to me. If you build an amazing business that sells a ton of homes and makes a ton of money, but you did it by ignoring your wife, that is sin, brother. if you're a wife, if you're a mom, and you build a huge business by ignoring your responsibility to love and serve and support the kiddos and raise them up. That's sin. And it doesn't mean there's not grace because there is praise God for that grace because I need it every day. Many, many, many, many times a day. But it's about honoring the priorities. One more sale is not. Obedience sometimes. Turning down a sale. So that you can go be at your kids soccer game and be fully present there. Sometimes that's what obedience looks like. So you got to find the pace and then you got to build systems that support that pace. Go back and listen to. my solo episode from two weeks ago. And then you got to communicate it. You got to tell your team. You got to tell your spouse. You got to tell your clients, Hey, this is what I'm free. Right. These are my hours. You got to tell your spouse. I remember having the conversation with Rachel. Hey, okay. I'm going to cut down my hours to 40. And this is when I'm thinking I'm going to be available. Right. From Monday to Friday, from nine to five, uh, by appointment on Saturdays, right. I may have to take a call between five and seven to help out a client, but if I do or if I have to work late one night, I'm going to try to take a few hours off the next day or as soon as I can, whatever. Are you OK with that? Business isn't us thing, not a me thing, right? You got to communicate what's going on. Clarity creates freedom. And then you have to protect it ruthlessly because the world will always offer us more and more is rarely neutral. My friends, it usually costs something. So here's the twist that most agents don't see. When you work fewer clients or more intentional clients, when you have margin, when you're not operating at burnout, you serve each family better, which means they talk about you more. When I chose to work 40 hours, not 60 hours, it didn't hurt my referral business. It grew my referral business because people refer agents who answer their phone. Sure. Who have time for them? Yeah. But who aren't frantic, who don't seem overwhelmed? who follow up faithfully, who serve generously, who honor their families. When I would sit down with somebody, and nobody ever questioned my hours, but when I would sit down with someone, I was always ready to say, look, if I can't serve my family well, I certainly can't serve yours well. A hurried agent, a hurried agent can never be a trusted advisor. So if you hear one thing today, hear this. Just like that woman in the story, you don't have to do more to be more. And if you want to be more, who do you want to be more to? the industry or to your family. You don't have to chase the industry scoreboard. You don't have to sacrifice your family for production. Like that woman, you can choose 30 over 70. You can choose 40 hours over 60. You can choose faithfulness over pressure. You can choose a pace that honors the Lord and protects your home. And I promise you, when you choose obedience over hustle, you'll find breakthroughs you didn't even know that you needed. faithful agents, I truly love you. I am cheering for you. I am deeply here and committed to serving you. And I'd love to be in conversation. I hope you go grab the book, The Balance Breakthrough, wherever it's sold on Amazon and Barnes and Noble doesn't matter. You can go to garrettmaroon.com to find where it's sold. You can grab some free resources there. You can connect with me there. Whatever I can do to help. The reason I wrote the book. The reason that I do this podcast, my heart is to restore the real estate agent family. That, and I, what I've learned over years of coaching, what I've learned over years of helping other agents is simply this, that most of us got into this industry because we want to have more money and time freedom. And oftentimes we either have more time freedom or more money freedom, but rarely do we have both. And what I realized is if I want to help the agent family, I've got to help the agent's business first. because that's often what stands in the way. So I hope that as I do these solo episodes, I hope as you go grab those free resources at garramaroon.com, I hope when you go buy the book, maybe you buy two and you give it to a friend and you say, let's read this together and hold each other accountable. I hope that those things start to show you how to build a bigger, better business, which leads to a bigger, better life. The one that the Lord is calling you to, the one that you've always dreamed of. I hope. that one day I get to meet your kids and your kids come up to me and say Mr. Garrett, thank you for bringing mommy home. I love you guys, genuinely do. That's why I do this podcast. And I hope that the conversation we had today will make a difference for you. If it did share it with a friend, the whole point is just to get the word out. How do we go against the industry? How do we fight against what the world says matters? How do we build what the Lord says matters? Let's do that together. I love you, faithful agents. I will see you next week.