When the housing market collapsed between 2008 and 2011, most real estate companies were in survival mode. Agents quit, offices closed, and fear was everywhere. Yet something unexpected was happening inside Keller Williams.
Instead of being on the verge of leaving the industry, many agents were experiencing success at the rate of 14 transactions in eight weeks – not because the market changed, but because they did.
They were part of a program called BOLD: Business Objective, Life by Design, created and authored by Dianna Kokoszka . Because agents were focusing on the bleak market conditions, she knew she must design a course that not only taught scripts and sales tactics, but also had to shift the way agents thought. BOLD was the first program of its kind in the real estate space to integrate mindset training with sales strategy.
BOLD wasn’t a theory; it was a lifeline backed by mindset training and repeatable systems. Years later, those same agents, some now industry leaders, continued to contact Kokoszka, asking her to write a book.
California Business Journal sat down with Kokoszka to learn about her journey, lessons she’s learned along the way, the impetus for the book and the key takeaways she wants to share with readers. If you’re looking for a way to break limiting thought patterns, rewire your thinking so you can change your mindset and start living your dreams, Kokoszka has the blueprint as she has done the work.
I started working at my parents’ grocery store at the age of 5, and what I found was that success doesn’t come to those who wait; it comes to those who take action and have a strong work ethic. When I started real estate, I put my kids in a little red wagon and went door to door. No leads, just grit. I went on to open my own real estate agency and that eventually brought me to Keller Williams Realty International as CEO of their coaching and training division. We went from losing a million dollars a year to producing over $500 million, which led us to be the largest and most profitable coaching company in the real estate industry.
Through her writings and teaching of Coaching Skills Camp, Advanced Coaching Skills Camp, ReCharge, and other innovative programs, Keller Williams became the number one training company in the world for five consecutive years, placing it in the T125 Hall of Fame for training.
“I wrote BOLD during a time of chaos,” Kokoszka explains. “I trained coaches to guide agents through proven steps that would help them reshape their thoughts, rebuild their businesses, and reimagine what was possible. After stepping down as CEO, I dove into more research and developed practices and principles that are now offered in ‘Becoming More.’ I have drawn models for others to follow that show how anyone, whether in business or desiring a better life, can apply them to create lasting success.”
Many things influenced Kokoszka’s eventual path, including the fact that both her brother and her sister had brain tumors.
“I started studying the brain when I was in 8th grade,” she says. “I found it fascinating that at an early age our brains were programmed by those around us and continue to be programmed to this day by the people we hang out with. Knowing this 28 years ago, I stretched my budget to join John Maxwell’s inner circle. There were 14 of us total. I got to know John, who became my friend, mentor, and coach. I attended every training program in our industry and around leadership I could. I have had the great fortune to travel to many countries with John and his team, meeting with presidents and prime ministers, bringing value-based training into children’s schools. The focus is on kids learning values, implementing values, and leading with values.”
The organization’s program covers kindergarten through high school. Board members of Maxwell’s Leadership Foundation have traveled to Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Brazil, Guatemala, Panama City, and more. Now, they’re starting in U.S. schools. After introducing their training in South Carolina, bullying went down 10% in one year.
“I thought this result was so huge because bullying hurts everyone involved,” she says.
Maxwell wrote the foreword to “Becoming More,” and the two are collaborating on a mentorship program to help others become great leaders.
“I think one of the biggest misconceptions people have about leadership is that they think they have to have a title to be a leader, and you don’t,” she says. “Everyone is a leader, even if you’re only leading yourself. There are all types of leaders. Leadership is important no matter what you’re doing in your life.”
Kokoszka believes one of the biggest barriers to success, whether it’s professional, personal, or creative, is that people keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Albert Einstein famously called that the “definition of insanity.” Kokoszka, who is a certified practitioner of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), says it illustrates that thoughts are not just habits, they are the way in which we’ve programmed our brains – or allowed our brains to be programmed – into certain thinking. And it’s that thinking that becomes a barrier to our success and progress.
“Neuroscience tells us that nerve cells that fire together wire together and neuroscience also tells us that nerve cells that no longer fire together no longer wire together,” she says. “In my book, I talk about this as walking across a patch of grass. If we do it repeatedly, the grass wears down until it disappears entirely. If we stop walking across it, it can grow back. That’s what happens in our brain, the more we have the same thought, as it travels from one neuron to another neuron along an axis, the connection becomes thicker and thicker until it’s the only way we can think because our brain loves to go fast, therefore taking the path it is accustomed to. It’s what we know. The interesting part to me is that we’ve all been programmed in a certain way, whether it’s incessant messaging through media, advertising, Facebook, Instagram, etc. I don’t think people realize how extensively their brain is being programmed by others.”
NLP was created in the 1970s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. It focuses on changing someone’s thoughts and behaviors to help achieve a desired outcome. It has been used to reduce anxiety and improve overall well-being.
“It’s a study on how language, both internal and external, shapes our actions and the meaning that we assign to everything,” says Kokoszka. “Thoughts form beliefs, which then form values, which then form emotions. Emotions and thoughts are the body and mind working together, and all of those make up our mindset .”
Kokoszka says that the driving force behind writing “Becoming More” was people reaching out and asking her to do it, even years after taking the BOLD training.
Her book, Becoming More: You Can’t Get to Better Until You Get to Different, has been recognized as the No. 1 book for Divergent Entrepreneurs. If you are wondering who some Divergent Entrepreneurs are, they include people like Sir Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
Some additional highlights in “Becoming More” include:
Becoming the creator, character, crusader, and champion of your own story Recognizing and reshaping limiting patterns and turning breakdowns into breakthroughs Adopting a “Be-Do-Have-Give” approach to life for transformative change Reframing your words to ensure a better future Developing the Four Energies of Success to achieve your desired goals Embracing a mindset characterized by growth, positivity, abundance, and gratitude Leaving a positive and life-changing legacy that adds value to others When asked to define the Four Energies of Success, she explained it as this:
“I love energy because energy can’t be created or destroyed; it can only be transferred or transformed. People feel your energy before you speak. In fact, we hand out an energetic calling card before we ever hand out a business card. Essentially, we’re all like a little radio station, constantly broadcasting signals about ourselves and our lives. The people and situations that match those signals are the ones that will tune in to us and be drawn into our life experience. We can only attract the same kind of energy that we put out. Much like a radio station broadcasting on station 104, others that are tuned into that frequency will be attracted to us and those people tuned into 98.5 will not. It’s the energy we are sending out as to the energy we receive in return. We have emotional energy, cognitive energy and physical energy. In my book I talk about the energies of success.”
As she defines them, the Four Energies are optimism, confidence, gratitude, and being in the present moment. Those who can harness these can transform their energy and mindset to achieve whatever they set their minds to.
Kokoszka is currently developing a concept called the Thought Habit 14 Mindsets assessment to help individuals, companies and leaders. She is still mentoring others alongside John Maxwell, and training coaches and leaders in strategies, models, and systems to increase their businesses.
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