S1 E16 - Always Trust Yourself

Welcome to the Broke to Woke Podcast. Our mission for this podcast is to help each and every person out there in the world not only become a force for good, but also uncover those micro magical mental moments that help you become an absolute cerebral pyromaniac. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends and family from the entire world, this is the Broke to Woke Podcast. This is Brittany Turner. I'm Jeremy Newsom. And in this episode, we're going to be discussing her first lawsuit. We're going to talk about why it happened. And one of my favorite takeaways in this episode is Brittany's discussion with the women out there on what you can do to improve yourself internally and really know how to understand where you're going and what you're dealing with. Let's talk about it right now. Again, this is one of the coolest things. When you gave me the answer, I asked the question, you got $40,000. What are you doing now? And you tell me you buy more properties. Blows my mind. So I want to start there. You have these four homes that you bought. Let's go and let's start. What do you do next? How do you scale? Where are we going?

So I put each of the $10,000 as my contribution to buying this house, and I had hard money lenders fund the other four, and then those four turned into 10, and those 10 turned into 12, and then we turned into 25, and then we turned into 40, and then, and then, and then, and then. And I got over 100 properties, and they're all over Nashville. I'm never sleeping. I mean, I really worked 18 to 21 hours a day for the first seven years of my career. And I wonder why I need energy drinks now to stay awake. But we're figuring it out. So I'm fully operating off of that. Running around my head, cut off. I'm managing all the jobs by myself, and I decide to get a contractor and I test him on one. You know, I've never let somebody else manage a job before, and he does pretty well. You know, he walks the house before I buy it and double checks that the budget I did was correct. You know, he puts it in writing, became of an official bid. So I worked with this one guy for about a year, and then at the, you know, near the last seven months mark, I mean, six, six, seven months, he starts going over budget. I'm like, you're the one that made the budget.

You did that.

He was like doubling it. But then the Nashville market started going up. So this is 2012 okay. And he. It was like early 2012, and the budget's, like, doubling, you know, each time. And I'm like, I didn't even borrow this much money. I started going into cash crunches, which was really scary. And you got to remember, I was used to managing the crew. I found a way to pay this guy. I had never took one dime for myself. You know, it was all in. All cash all in and no extra cash for sure. But I had been scaling. And so this guy had about eight or nine of my houses and $1 million house, which is a $20 billion house in today's market. That was a big deal house in Nashville at that time, like, we did not have million $.

And the subs started acting really weird around me. They started, like, not making eye contact. And I was like, I wonder what he said. But I've had other people be like, don't talk to Brittany. Because sometimes guys will hit on me on the job site, and they're like, do not mess with boss lady. Blah, blah, blah. So I thought, maybe it's that. But I'm really nice and saying hi. So I went to the contractor. Cause he came to me and he's like, yeah, we're gonna go. We're gonna go way over budget on this. And I was like, you gotta know I only borrowed so much money. You cannot keep going over. You've gone over in the last five. You're the one that set the budget. I need you to manage it better. And he said, okay, no problem.

And then I get 200 phone calls that day. And I was like, what's going on? From angry Subs okay, this guy hasn't paid us in three months. He said, you haven't paid him. Which I killed myself to pay him every Friday. I killed myself.

He hasn't paid us in three months. I'm gonna come hurt you and your family, and you're gonna be on the news tonight if you don't pay me. Blah, blah, blah. Ends up this guy ran off with all the money, came back, stole everything from every job site, took lights out of ceilings, and never actually even pulled real building permits. He had used a PDF reader to create fake building permits and put them up in windows. So I had to re rip out entire additions, roofs, like, all of the works. And this was the first year my little sister, who's 14 years old, came up to intern with her big successful sister, Brittany.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah. Now, I didn't have banks at the time. I had all these hard money lenders, money. But it was their retirement accounts. It was their this, it was their that. And.

What is it? I mean, I'm on eggshells over here.

So I thought I had lost maybe $500,000 of profit by the time this thing was over. I had no idea I was doing. I'm not a contractor. Like, I'm still not that skilled in the stuff. I never had to really learn it because I've always.

Remember, you don't know anything.

No.

You don't know anything at all.

No, no, no. I'm like, 22, 23, and my little sister's up there. And it's those moments that you actually understand who you really are. You always think that you're gonna do the right thing. You hope you would, but until you face that much pressure, you don't really know, because it's pressure. When you squeeze it, you find out what's inside. Just like fruit. And if I look back at my life, that's actually one of my most proud moments, because I didn't think about myself for one second. I was throwing up every five minutes. Like, for sure, definitely. This is when I learned the power of waterproofness. Mascara. Like, I was so stressed, but I didn't think about myself. I only thought about my investors. Now, when you have a hard money lender, they charge these ridiculous rates again, anything from 1 to 5 points, 15%, 15, 20% interest. And so their deal is, if the deal goes bad, you just give them the house back. I could have done that, but I knew these people were not equipped to be able to take over these projects. So I'm throwing up, crying, crying, crying every day, finding out worse and worse and worse news about what this guy did. And then I just put on my boots. I went out there, my baby sisters over here were, like, praying for me. I went, put my boots on, and I repaid every single sub, and I finished every single house. It took an extra three, four months, but I finished them all. I paid everybody back. I communicated with my lenders. I was so embarrassed. Like, how on earth. On my watch, this horrible thing happened. How would they ever trust me again?

Right?

It's insane, right? Five months later, my company was five times bigger. I lost every dime I had ever made. So again, I'm working 18, 21 hours a day. Never vacation, every day, every weekend. Like, I. Nothing, no breaks.

Your birthday.

Oh, Jesus.

Birthday.

Come on. Yeah. And I killed myself. And every dime I'd ever made up to that point was gone. But my company was able to grow because my investors, which I Thought again, would never invest in me again. Went to all their friends and family and said, no matter what happens to Brittany, she will pay you back. Which was crazy. I never assumed that that would happen at all.

No, no.

I had no clue.

But you put them first, right?

Put them first.

You go back to your giving that your mindset is, let me make sure they're protected because I care about them. Right. That's an essential message in your life in general, is like, you love caring about people.

Well, before we had grown five times bigger. I get handed a freaking lawsuit.

There we go.

I get served. This is my first one. What is going on? This turd bag, okay?

The turd bag.

This turd bag. I had actually made it up in my mind. Women, I need you to listen to this crap. I had made it up in my mind that he didn't mean to do it.

I think I was scared because I trusted this guy. I think I was scared of suing him. And because he had adopted some special needs kid. He had six kids. He had adopted some special needs kid. I'm like, he's a good guy. He must not have meant to do this.

Wow.

And I was too scared to go after him. I knew to go after him, but I've never been in a lawsuit. I had no idea what to do. So I let this quote, unquote, compassion, but I think it was actually sponsored by fear. Make me not go after him. And he sued me. After all that, he's like, no, I own half her office.

Amazing.

I know. He's like, I made her who she is, and I own half her office. Just automatically couldn't believe it.

I'm over here not believing it either. He sues you.

He sued me. This is sued after all that?

This is so good.

Couldn't. Oh, my gosh.

And he thinks he's gonna win too, right? Yeah.

The level of greed that this guy had, brutal. And he goes under this really holy, guys. Da, da, da, da, da.

The point, ladies, is to trust your gut. He always had a snake vibe. He said the right things, and that's where we fall for it. He creates value. He's helping me. He's saying the right things, but he has a snake vibe. When people have a snake vibe, just don't mess with them. Just don't learn. We never trust ourselves. We're like, well, maybe I'm just being overly emotional. Maybe I had too much caffeine. Maybe I'm da, da, da, da, da. Maybe it's that week. Whatever it is, I don't care, ladies, you feel it for a reason. Just don't mess with it.

Right? Right. And you have to go with that instinct because. And I'm not a woman. However, I know women very well, like my mom, my sister. They don't trust themselves. They go with, mmm, it's me, it's not him, or it's me, it's actually my fault. And they really always internalize it when it's like, no, it's not your fault. That person did that thing to you. It is their fault. And attack, go after it.

I thought I was being a good Christian. Sure I did. And that a lot of times is a holy sounding excuse. So it's one of the biggest mistakes in my life. But what allowed us to scale was that pain.

Yes.

The sheer crumbling weight of the world where your entire system can't hold down food. You just live with diarrhea for months. Like it's just that much anxiety.

That forces you to actually overcome. I'm not a paperwork person. I'm not an organized person. My mom would say I'm the messiest kid. Blah, blah, blah. Like I just am fun and people. And I love the projects and running the team. Ba ba ba. Like I've. But the backup of the boringness of all the words.

I hated it. Got real freaking good at it, though.

You better believe that's right.

Pain is a focuser. So that was the biggest mistakes, was just not having everything documented to death and really getting clear on the front end. So putting in these checking policies, procedures, getting lean releases from the subs throughout allowed us to just grow, grow, grow. Plus all these investors open their doors and we're like, what else do you want?

Because again, you crazy. Yeah. You focus on them. You made sure that they were protected. They got their money back. And if you're an investor and you get a return on your money, you're happy. You know, and that's a track record that I know you stand by very proudly. Is like your investors are always happy. They're always taken care of. They're always paid back.

Yep. I've lost so much that I make sure that they're paid. Why? Because I know I'll make it again. I can make it again. You can't build trust back very easily. So I love that you paid your people. Yeah. Once they. Once you burn them, punch them in the face, you're not going to forget.

And there's times where if you're. If you're clear about it, if you set expectations, like people know that they're going to have losses, things will occur. But it's just that communication. It's just that I trust you, they trust me. And that open line of communication, that's a huge key in any relationship.

Man. We are about to go into how I went from rehabbing to new construction. But I want to hear, okay, how you started scaling. So you start your company. You're finally quitting your job. Let's take a quick sidebar and say, it's so weird to me that you had a job for so long. Like, to me, you're unemployable.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, you've got a really likable personality. I can see how people would want to hire you, but why did it take so long? You're so entrepreneur. Why did it take so long? Especially with that much money coming in and out of your life?

Right. I think the job situation, you know, working in nationwide and then. And then going to another company up in Nashville. Nashville, working for them for two years. So you're talking eight years of life, right. From. From 18 until 26. It's a long time to be at a job. And honestly, it was because I had a fear at one point that I wasn't good enough.

Wow.

Yep. That was a big, big fear of mine, was, this job is going to keep me protected. This is a source of income. It's very hard to buy a house, you know, if you don't have W2 income. Right. Self Inc. Employed. And I just had this feeling, I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough to create a company. I'm not good enough to do this. I don't have any training. I mean, yeah, I'm a trader, but I've never done this before. So who's going to listen to me? Why would you listen to me? I don't have any validation. I don't have any certificates. I don't have any licenses. Why would you believe me? I'm young.

Why? And so I just didn't. I was terrified. I was scared. But then that leap started happening because I was going to webinar and seminar and program after programming, and I'm sitting there in that audience and I'm hearing people on stage, and my mind keeps going, you are better than this person.

You are better.

You are better.

Like, even better. Not just good enough, but better.

Yeah. That was crazy. Like, you have the conscious awareness and then you have the subconscious. Right. So the conscious awareness is I'm sitting in this audience and thinking to myself, I am better than this person. But Then my subconscious is, no, you're not. You're lying to yourself.

Nah, dawg, you can't do it.

And that's why I think it took so long for me to finally make that leap. So it was 26 before I totally gave up the job. Yeah, 24 when I made a tiny, tiny leap. But 26 is when I made the big one and said, I'm doing this all myself.

Wow. Yeah, man.

Yeah. And then from there, as far as scaling, this is going to be. So you're talking about a lesson, right? You mentioned your mistake and how you learned from it. Here comes mine. So in order to scale, I go, all right, how can I grow this thing? I don't know anything about business. I don't know anything about paperwork. I'm not good at accounting, I'm not good at math, I'm not good at websites. I don't know anything. Let me go find people that can help me with all that and give them a part of my company in return.

No, you hoard out your company.

I did. Yep. Made that cardinal sin. Right. So give up equity in the company for work.

You don't have a lot of things to trade, but.

Right, right, exactly. So that was just a mistake that was unaware of. Now I say a mistake. It was only a mistake in the example of it's easier to not do that. Right. So now going forward, when I have younger entrepreneurs ask me like, hey, what's one big mistake that you would avoid? I answer, don't give up equity in your company because they now actually own what you're building. And they can come in and they can ask and they can do and they can manage or they can not do and they can not work, and then they still actually own. And you're building and building and building and they own and they own. They own. You're building for other people. And the people I was working with actually were fine, but I just totally went down that path unknowingly. So that was a big mistake. But that did help me scale because I had other people in this company that are going to allow me to build. So I have a website person who's doing a phenomenal job and I have an amazing CPA office back end accounting woman to help me and she's just incredible and powerful and so that does help me scale. So I do allow.

Are they still in your life?

Not as partners, but as friends. Okay, so I have purchased out their. Their ownership much farther down the line, but yeah, they're still in my life and it was a good relationship. But again, it was a. It was a very expensive lesson.

Yes.

And that's okay. Right? You pay for expensive lessons, and they're expensive because they're good. But that's how I scaled. And my scaling was I lent out equity in my company for things I was unaware of. I didn't know how they did. I didn't know how they worked. And I asked for other people to help me grow. And through that growth and through that, through that scalability, that's where we really started doing things I just did not know that were even capable.

That's really cool, though. I mean, as much as it sounds like your biggest mistake yet, all these people actually care about the company. Yeah. Instead of just take. Because they provided a service, they actually cared. So it's. It's kind of a mistake, but kind of.

Not exactly.

It's very cool.

Exactly. And it's a very good lesson. When you go out, people really did care, and they see the vision and they see the dream, and they kind of understand where that's going and what that'll do is. It really helps. You know, you and I go into our next discussions as well, because what we really have to do is start defining some of these terms for our listeners and for those who are still with us. Because we all need to know, what is success? Like, how do we know when we're there? Like, what is failure? What is happiness? What is joy? Why do all of this work? And we're going to kind of circle back and kind of go through those definitions and those terms in the next episode. Because as we're listening and going through all this, I want to make sure that our listeners really can start understanding that these things that are holding you back, all of them are in your mind. And one of the ways to unhold yourself back and create limitless dreams is to do a little bit of self diagnosis, go in, do a little bit of mental therapy, meditation, and figure out those hurdles and those roadblocks that are holding you back and just figure out how to overcome them.

It's not even that hard. It's really not that hard. You just have to take a minute to get clear. And by defining it, yeah, I think you're going to be able to unlock it.

Let's define some terms in the next episode.

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