All week, Inman is taking a Deep Dive into eXp Realty. We’ll be covering the brokerage’s annual EXPCON event — taking place virtually and in Las Vegas this week. Stay tuned in the coming days for more on eXp, and for future Inman Deep Dives into top brokerages.
Glenn Sanford has undergone a transformation.
Instead of using EXPCON to deliver the typical CEO speech about agent count, sales statistics and brokerage goals, Sanford used talks on Wednesday and Thursday to focus on how a recent health scare encouraged him to eschew the trappings of leadership — high stress, little sleep and bad eating habits — for exercise, biohacking and cutting-edge health tech.
“One of the things that really has been a big thing, if you’ve watched my Instagram lives, is my health journey,” he said on Wednesday after delivering a brief welcoming address to an audience of 6,000.
Sanford touted the benefits of biohacking, which is a general term used to encompass an emerging — and controversial — field of healthcare focused on using genetic testing to eliminate diseases and optimize brain health.
“I’ve been doing all of my testing to get healthier and based on the biological tests that they provide, I actually dropped six biological years in 11 months,” he said to cheers from the crowd. “Amazing.”
The CEO’s revelation has permeated almost every part of EXPCON, with Sanford announcing SUCCESS Health, a new offering that connects eXp agents and brokers with the magic that he’s apparently discovered.
“Many of us have sacrificed health for wealth in order to be successful,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “SUCCESS Health will help balance those priorities and provide a community of resources, coaches and health partners with validated approaches to wellness.”
“Through our community of health partners, we will provide unique access to proven technology that creates a personalized roadmap for health using the latest research on biohacking, precision nutrition, exercise, sleep, meditation and wearables, with the additional support of add-on coaching to help people live their best lives now,” he added.
Glenn Sanford and Naveen Jain at EXPCON
The eXp World Holdings CEO continued sharing his health journey on Thursday, first with a session featuring Viome Life Sciences CEO Naveen Jain, who said poor gut health is the cause of all diseases including cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s.
“We are told genes are your destiny; you were just dealt a bad card. You’re just destined to be sick because that’s what’s in your DNA,” Jain said before advertising Viome’s line of supplements that are tailored to each consumer’s unique microbiome. “When you gain forty pounds and develop diabetes, your DNA hasn’t changed… Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, that’s not in our DNA.”
Sanford credited his recent health success to Viome while encouraging agents to no longer trade their health for their wealth and do whatever is necessary to reach peak physical shape.
“I remember I was eating blueberries like crazy, and then I found out that I have a blueberry virus that causes inflammation in my system, so I had to eliminate them,” he said. “You can probably tell now that my health is much better.”
For those who were still skeptical of Sanford’s new attitude, the CEO graced the EXPCON stage one more time in an intimate Q&A session that recounted his childhood, history as an entrepreneur and plans for the future.
“Entrepreneurship is not all ups,” he said while recounting his father’s zig-zag business journey. “My dad, unfortunately, lost everything because of the oil crash in 1980. So we went from rags to riches to sort of almost rags again.”
Sanford said he’s had similar experiences to his father, which all, of course, charted the course to eXp. Although he’s grateful for the brokerage’s position, Sanford said his definition of success has made a quantum shift over the past few years.
“Success, for me, is the choice you make the moment you wake up in the morning. I think about successes as somewhat of a mindset piece, rather than something that’s sort of outwardly,” he said in a soft, calm tone. “We think about success as being a large amount of wealth and conspicuous consumption.”
“I think success [is about] do you feel good about what you’re bringing forth in the world,” Sanford added. “And if you do, then you’re successful.”
He went on to give kudos to Jain, who he said helped open his eyes to what he was sacrificing for eXp’s success.
“We tend to sometimes sacrifice our health and other things. We do have to put things on the side in order to pursue this over here so there’s that trade-off. But there are only so many hours in the day. And how do you make that trade-off?” he said.
Sanford said he’s still dedicated to leading eXp World Holdings and striving toward his goal of 500,000 agents by 2026; however, he’s taking a more measured approach centered on maintaining a perenially positive attitude.
“I have reorganized my social feeds, I’ve got rid of the toxic stuff, and I’ve added people and pages and things that provide positive inputs,” he said. “There’s a lot of negativity obviously in the world. You know, the reason why newspapers exist is to sell newspapers, and the way to sell newspapers has actually put stuff that basically says you’re gonna die or you’re gonna get sick, or somebody you know is going to get hurt.”
“That’s why I’m excited about SUCCESS Magazine and putting out positive content,” he said. “It’s about figuring out how just to make sure that we’re feeding our mind, so we’re not stressed, so we are energized, so we think about possibilities, so we think in abundance.”
