Exposing the Myth of Hustle in Real Estate

What if your drive to hustle is actually holding you back from the peace and purpose God intended?

In this episode of The Faithful Agent Podcast, Garrett Maroon challenges the hustle culture dominating today’s real estate industry and invites Christian real estate agents to redefine success through Biblical business principles and faith-driven living.

Garrett shares candid stories from his journey as a Realtor, husband, and father—revealing how burnout and busyness can masquerade as productivity. With honesty and humility, he unpacks how faithfulness, obedience, and rest lead to greater impact and longevity in both business and life.

Don't forget to grab The Faithful Agent E-Book below!

Learn how to:

• Set healthy boundaries in business while serving clients with integrity
• Trust in divine provision instead of striving for control
• Trade hustle for faithfulness, finding true peace in God’s plan
• Apply Biblical insights to redefine success and avoid burnout

🔑 Key Takeaways

• “Hustle was glorified, but it rarely leads to peace.”
• “Faithfulness is more about trust, obedience, and peace.”
• “The Lord is the one who provides—the Lord is the Lord of the output.”
• “Hustle may be a disguise for fear.”
• “Help me, Father, to choose to honor You by resting.”
• “If you can outthink someone, you don’t have to outwork them.”
• “God’s economy is upside down.”
• “Customer service doesn’t mean I’m available 24/7—it means I serve with wisdom.”

🕒 Chapters

00:00 – Welcome to The Faithful Agent Podcast
03:00 – The Downside of Hustle Culture in Real Estate
09:00 – Balancing Work, Family, and Faith
15:00 – Trusting in Divine Provision
21:00 – The Power of Rest and Obedience

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If this episode challenged or encouraged you, leave a 5-star review and share it with another Christian agent who needs to hear this message.

Resources & Opportunities:

📞 Want to be in Business with Garrett and Christian agents around the globe? Schedule a call with Garrett to learn about the 2:10 Collective on the eXp Realty platform
🔗 https://calendly.com/garrettmaroon/210collective

📖 Download The Faithful Agent E-Book: ➡️ Grab it HERE

📩 Join the Movement:
➡️ Pre-order Garrett's Book - The Balanced Breakthrough - HERE

Want to Sell More Homes While Honoring God?
Download my free guide REDEFINE THE WIN to learn how to implement my PDA Formula so you can build a more predictable and profitable business that actually aligns with who you are - get the guide here - https://www.210collective.com/redefine

📩 Send Garrett your Hampton Roads & Richmond, VA buyer/seller referrals:
🔗 7572662876

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🔗 ...

Transcript

0:01

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Faithful Agent podcast. I'm your host, Garrett Maroon, and today I want to speak to the agent who's been told that hustle is the only way to win. You know, I have been in this industry for 11 and a half years. Those of you who have been listening to the show and following along, I've been fortunate to sell over 650 homes, but I remember early on that I believed and was taught by the industry leaders. that if I just worked harder, I stayed up later, I answered more calls, that I'd finally feel successful, but truthfully all it did was burn me out. And you might feel that same way. And so I started to ask myself the question because yes, I was selling homes, it was working. It's not that it wasn't working, but I was burnt out. I was exhausted. I never felt like I could be away from my phone. I remember waking up early, checking my phone and. thinking, well, I'm not gonna work, but there's an email right there from a client and I'm answering it at 5.30 in the morning. Like, what am I doing? Remember answering the phone at 10 p.m. on a Friday night trying to help a consumer and a client who had a question that could easily have waited till Saturday and quite honestly, till Monday. And so I had to start asking myself the question, what if hustle isn't the answer? What if harder isn't better, but obedience is? And what would that? look like. You know, the world gives us a really clear definition of success. We're praised for being busy, for doing more, for always being available, open 24-7. You know, you might have heard me tell the story, but early on in my career, I was doing a transaction with one of the top agents in, actually in our office. And I uh got a call from him on a Sunday and had multiple missed calls. I wasn't gonna work. And that was early on. but had been selling a lot of homes, right? So I'd started to create some sort of boundaries for myself. Well, I get a phone call from him and multiple calls and voicemails that I don't check until Monday, and it's literally him cursing me out, saying, you've gotta be available 24 seven, I have important information for you, right? We're under contract, I've got important information, we gotta talk today. So I call him back Monday morning, he's cussing me out again, and I just say, his first name was Mike, said, Mike, I respect what you're saying, but here's the reality. you don't get to determine my hours for me. I'm gonna run my business how I run my business. Now how can I help? And he said, I needed to let you know that we got the termite moisture inspection back and it was clear. And I thought, why did you need to tell me that on Sunday? Just because you're hyper doesn't mean I need to be hyper. Just because you feel like you need to be available always doesn't mean that I need to be available always. And so this world's definition of success, right? The industry idolizes activity. It idolizes volume, it idolizes net profit. And the people that get celebrated at the end of the year, whether or not you're going home that night to an empty house because you no longer talk to your wife, you no longer talk to your kids, as long as you run an award, nobody cares, they're gonna celebrate you anyways. That hustle was glorified, but it rarely leads to peace. That's the world's definition of success. Whereas Ecclesiastes 2 verse 22 to 23 says, And this is King Solomon, who is widely believed to be the smartest and richest man who's ever lived. In today's net worth, they think King Solomon had a net worth of $2 trillion, $2 trillion. And yet what does he realize? What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? As believers, we gotta be different. As believers, we need to pursue something different. And I started to realize that there was two opportunities here. I either had to outwork somebody or I had to be able to outthink somebody. And if I could out think them, I wouldn't have to outwork them. And so what did I do instead of always doing all these crazy hours? I started setting boundaries, but I intentionally spent an hour every single day reading a business book. I was learning new ideas. was garnering new thoughts, right? My brain was going to the gym and exercising and coming out stronger. And no, it didn't change right away day one. But if I did that 50 weeks a year, five days a week, That's 250 hours, 250 hours of learning. Imagine that compounded over two years, three years, four years, where maybe your competition isn't spending time learning. And so their only option is to outwork everybody if they wanna have a good business. If you can outthink someone, you don't have to outwork them. Now I'm not putting anybody down. I'm saying that we take every thought captive. I'm saying that we do not conform ourselves to the patterns of this world, but we transform. our minds, we develop what's going on in there in the head, the rational brain the Lord has given us. And it allows us to think differently, think at a higher level and start to understand that there's a difference between hustle and being faithful in the business. There's a difference between hustle and knowing the right levers to press on that doesn't require me to work 80 hours a week, right? Hustle is More about control and striving and burnout. Whereas faithfulness is more about trust, obedience, peace. Hustle says it's all on me. Faithfulness says I'll do my part and trust God with the rest. There's a massive difference there, my friends. In scripture, all throughout scripture, we're reminded not only of just the Lord's promise of provision, but the actual act of his provision. Right? You think of the Israelites in the Old Testament. They come up, they're escaping Egypt. They come up to this massive Red Sea and they're grumbling and complaining, uh Moses, did you bring us here just to get us killed? We should go back to Egypt to be slaves again. And then he raises his hands and you know the story, the Red Sea parts. And imagine that picture, right? These hundreds of thousands of Israelites walking through. And to their right and to their left is this 30 foot wall of water, however large it was. And they could probably see fish swimming in the water wall, literally right next to them. And here they are walking right through it. They get to the other end, Egyptians chase them and then it collapses and all the Egyptians are destroyed. Then they get into, they're wandering in the wilderness, right? And it's like, well, you just brought us out here to kill us, because now we have no food. The Lord... literally rains food down from heaven. And they're like, yeah, but what have you done for us lately? The reality is the Lord is the one who provides. Your job is not provision. I'm not saying you don't go work and say, I'm working hard because I want to provide for my family. I mean that in that language, I think is okay. But the reality is who provides. There's two pieces in the business. One is for provision and one is for action, right? The reality is the Lord is the Lord of the output. You are in control of the input. So therefore, when you do your part, you know, you trust God that He's going to provide literally to the scent exactly what you need, exactly what He has for you. It doesn't matter if you're excellent at lead generation. It doesn't matter if you're the greatest cold caller in the world. If the Lord doesn't desire you to have that kind of business or to sell 30 homes or 40 homes or 50 homes, it doesn't matter what you're gonna do, you're not gonna get there. Now, that's not a reason for us to be lazy, it's a reality of accepting. In the provisioned space of my business, the Lord has got that on lock. Therefore, my freedom is to go say, I'm gonna do my part. I'm gonna stop and ask the Lord, Lord, okay, you promised you're gonna provide for me. What does stewardship look like in my business today? What do you have for me this day? And let me pursue that with excellence. Yes, if you're going to cold call, you should be the best in the world because you're a follower of Jesus and you want to honor Him. If you're going to be on social media, you should be the best in the world because you want to honor the Lord and you want to be a good steward of the opportunity He gave you. That's what we should strive for. Now, I'm not the best in the world at anything, but that's what we should strive for. I'm going to do my part. I'm the input. He controls. the output. You work from a place of provision because he said he's going to provide and he never lets us down. Matthew 11, 28 to 30 says, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. So my friend, if you're in that hustle culture right now, if you feel that burnout right now, that's Jesus's call. Come to me. If you are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Where does that rest come from? The rest comes from among many, many, many things, right? And understanding in our business, he is the provider. I am freed up to go pursue what it is that he's called me to be excellent in. And he's gonna determine what that is. He's gonna determine how big that gets. He's gonna determine how much money comes in because of that. That's not my job. My job is to seek first the kingdom and all these things will be added. So seek first, right? How do you honor him in the work that you're doing? All right, how so? can also be, let's talk about this, can also be a disguise for fear, right? A disguise for fear. And I'm coming out a little hot today, I'm not gonna lie, but it's just true and it's true of me too because hustle is this disguise for fear. Sometimes we overwork, not because we're ambitious, but because we're afraid. Afraid of slowing down, afraid of missing out, afraid of not being enough. Maybe. Maybe hustle has become an identity. Maybe hustle has become an idolatry. And I say that my friends because I've been there and I'm convicted, just saying it out loud. I'm convicted because it's true that a lot of times if I, now I don't, honestly I'm pretty good about protecting my hours most of all, but what I'm not good at protecting is after hours when my brain keeps thinking. about everything that I was thinking about. And I'm not present with my family fully. I'm not present with my wife fully because I'm so consumed by all the thoughts that I've already had and I can't leave them at the door because I'm afraid that if I stop working, if I stop thinking, if I stop processing through, then someone else is getting ahead of me. And so instead of slowing down, instead of trusting in the Lord's provision, I just want to keep hustling. I want to get up and work. It's hard for me to go to work. It's hard for me to stop. It's hard for me to pay attention long enough to my family where I'm not interrupted by all the thoughts of all the things that I've been thinking about and trying to figure out how do I build something bigger, better. It doesn't mean those things are inherently wrong, right? We should be ambitious people. We've talked about that, but the reality is, is hustle may be a disguise for fear. It's not, it's not a place where we put our trust in the Lord that he's going to provide. It's a misunderstanding. It's a fear that if I don't do it, no one's going to provide for me. Brother and sister in Christ, if you're truly in Christ, that's not true of you. The Lord rained down manna from heaven. He made quail fall down dead so they could eat them. There is example after example of the Lord's faithfulness all throughout scripture. That's who He is. He can't not be faithful. He can't not provide. He will provide for you. So is the hustle because you believe it's necessary or because you're terrified that if you stop hustling, where's your food gonna come from? How are you gonna provide? Maybe it's become... this idolatry, maybe you love when people talk about how, man, you just work so hard and we just love it. We want that praise. As opposed to being able to say Psalm 127, one to two, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for He grants sleep to those He loves. What is that saying? Unless the Lord builds the house, you're gonna labor in vain? And so if you're out there every single day, me too, hustling, hustling, hustling, thinking I'm going to build this massive house. Well, unless he does it, we're doing all that in vain. In vain, you rise early and stay up late toiling for food to eat when the reality is the Lord grants sleep to those he loves. What does that mean? He's going to take care of you. You can go to bed resting in that truth. All right. Finally, the fruit of obedience over effort, the fruit of obedience over effort. You know, I think We probably all had this experience, right? Where you're getting ready to go on vacation and of course as you're getting ready to go on vacation, guess what happens? All the business comes in. And I don't know why that's just true. It just feels like that happens a lot. And so maybe we should just go on vacation more often. But in that truth, when we are able to stop and rest. When we are going, now I'm not saying we're great at being on vacation and actually being on vacation, that's another conversation for another time that we need to talk about. What I am saying is when we are in pursuit of that rest, the natural rest the Lord has called us into, sometimes, guess what happens? Boom, the Lord brings business our way because we're trying to seek to honor Him. You know, God's economy is upside down. It's upside down. He honors the Sabbath. He calls us to stillness. He multiplies what we surrender. And so are we in this rotation of rest? Are we in a space where we just slow down and we move away from the work? Now, if you guys are like me, I've got five little kids, you know that. It's not like I get to slow down. It's not like Sunday is a uh full-on day of rest because we've got five little kids who trying to get into church. We're there for a couple hours, right? There's a lot happening. I'm not saying that. I'm saying the Sabbath, the rest away from work, feeling like we must toil 24 seven, feeling like Customer service means I'm open always whenever they need me. God's economy is upside down. When we surrender to Him and say, okay Lord, here's what I know is true. Maybe you're in this space. Here's what I know is true, Lord. The first thing is true is my business is not working the way I want it to. And I really need your help. The second thing I know is true is you've called me to be present and to lay down my life for my wife, for my uh family, whatever your scenario is. I know you've called me to do that too. Those are attention, Lord, it feels like those are intention against one another. Help me, Father, to choose to honor you by resting. And Father, please build my business while I rest in honor of you. He can do that. Maybe you're on the other side, Lord, thank you that my business is going so well. God, here's my first point. I'm struggling. because I'm afraid it's going so well because I've been working 90 hours a week. I've been hustling. I've been doing all the things that the industry tells me to do and I'm getting celebrated for being open 24 seven, Lord, and it's working. But here's the second piece, Lord, I know you've called me in to rest and I'm terrified that if I rest, everything's gonna go away. Father, those are attention. Those are in odds. Help me to rest, trusting that you will build the house. Because you will. At the end of the day, this is about obedience. It doesn't mean we don't work hard. I like hustle, right? What did we say when we're coaching our kids soccer team? Hustle, hustle, hustle, run out there, get out there. Come on kids, fast, let's go, full speed, full speed, that's good. But when the whistle blows and the game is done, do they keep hustling? Or do say, you gave it your best effort? Whether you won or lost, not fully up to you. Guess what? There's a lot of players on the soccer field. Did give it your best effort? That's what you control. What was the outcome of the game? That was the Lord's decision. And when the whistle blew, guess what's over? The game. Stop hustling. Stop running around. Go get those orange slices on the sideline and go home to your family. Here's my challenge. Where are you hustling instead of trusting? And my invitation for you is, what would it look like to choose faithfulness this week? Those are the questions that I need to wrestle with too. What would it look like to choose faithfulness this week? So if this is at home for you, I hope you share this with another agent, maybe who's on the verge of burnout, and I think a lot of us are towards the end of the year. Share this episode with them. I do this honestly because I love you guys and I genuinely need to learn this too and I want to help and I want to go on that journey with you. And if you want to go a little bit deeper, don't forget to grab my free ebook, The Faithful Agent, that's going to walk you through 10 different days of scripture truths or anchor you in that and then actual action items that you can take. That's going to just help you really get your business, I hope, back in the right order. So go to faithfulagent.com. It'll take you redirect you right where you need to go to grab that. I hope that that will be a blessing to you. Here's the question. Where in your business have you started hustle? Have you started chasing hustle instead of choosing obedience? Where in your business have you started chasing hustle instead of choosing obedience? Friends, my hope for all of us is that we will be marked as a people who take time to rest. That... the industry will look around and say, why are all these Christian agents stopping on Sundays or Saturdays or whatever? Why are they on vacation not answering their phone? I don't understand. How are they doing this? And yet they're still selling houses. This doesn't make sense. And we get to go to them and say, I'd love to share with you why. And they say, okay, tell me. And we say, because I believe in a God who builds. He builds when I honor Him. And let me tell you about who He is and what His promises are. That's my hope for us. I love you, faithful agent. I will see you next week.