Episode #706 - How Wealth Drives Humility, Empathy, And Giving with Shawn Moore of Vodyssey

Welcome to this edition of the million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

I heard a great, I read a great article and I remember they had a great phrase about warning people about that thing is like, and they call it skin in the game. It's like all of the things. How much skin, you know, the person who's telling you this thing. How much skin do they have in this game?

Yeah.

And other successes they've had in the past. How much skin do they have in that game and stuff. That's, you know, when you're paying for it. And you know, there's a thing about the wolf of Wall street and the real wolf of Wall Street.

Yeah.

When he was they, they, he was at a party where there were, there was another con going on and I forget which, which name this was. It was, I won't even say the, the nationality and everything, but they were in stolen money around like crazy in, in New York City. You know, they spending money here and they have hot tubs here and they had the girls coming in here and they, you know, and there was a reporter along with him and asked him what he thought about these guys. He said they're crooks. He just walked into the party and saw, you know, he said all their crooks. He said you don't spend money like that if it's your own.

If it's your own money. Yeah.

If it's your own money.

Yeah.

And you know that's a sign to look out for. But when you went out, I mean, you also said they did something good for you. You got to move in different circles. What did you pick up, would you say, other than your own confidence about I'm the guy, you know, in the private jet picking people up, showing them around to the $25 million homes. Other than the prestige of that position. What did you learn or what did you absorb by being around a whole nother level of person? The way they talk in terms of successful person up close and personal. You know, you're spending time on the plane, you're talking about just how their mannerisms, just their attitudes about thing, how they treated other people or how they talk. What did you, you remember any particular lessons you picked up from that?

Absolutely. The biggest was, you know, I always, I've always was. I grew up very blue collar and we worked hard and I didn't have come from a lot of Money and kind of the mindset of, you know, rich people are greedy and they're, you know, they're, they're, you know, they're, they're flaunting their stuff. And. Because I feel like that there's these levels, you get to the level where you have a little bit of money and you show off as if. And spend as if you have more than you actually do when you talk. What I felt like I learned when I, when I was meeting these people that really had money, right, they have their own jets, they have their own stuff is they were very, very down to earth. They were very humble and nice. We would go out to eat with somebody at a restaurant and they were super kind to the servers, right? And, and it was, that was more across the board. And that is something that opened my eyes that, hey, these are, these are people that I could really like to be around and, and I don't have to be this, you know, this cocky. Like at the time, there was times, and I'm not, you know, I'm not super proud of this. I'm totally different than this now. I feel like as you learn, as you get older and you get some gray hairs and have some, have some miles on. But I remember trying to, when I was doing my fix and flip stuff, trying to show off as if I even had more than I did, right? Buying the fancy cars, wearing the cool clothes and just. And it was for show, right? And I assumed that's what rich people did. That's what people that are really wealthy did. When I actually was around wealthy people, completely the opposite. They were super kind. They were very, very smart, right. They were very calculated with things. They were super conservative. And for the most part, the ones that I met, you know, they weren't what you would think if I'm going to go to Hollywood and what I would think the rich people were doing, that's what they do. That's not, that wasn't the people that I interacted with. And when you change your mindset of what it, what it is, what wealth really is and what it looks like and what that lifestyle looks like, all of a sudden it becomes a lot more attractive as well to say, hey, I can, I can do that. But it's also something I want instead of something that I'm, you know, not despise, I guess is the right word, but something that, like, it's greedy, it's bad, it's not good to have that money. They do a lot of really good things. You know, the, the impact that they, that those people had. And when I would have those conversations with them of the, you know, the charities and the donations and the things that they were able to do, I was like, man, that's a whole different side of wealth that I wasn't ever really exposed to.

And, you know, the, the thing I've noticed about high achievers, it's just so hard to get them to talk about how successful they are.

Exactly. They don't want to.

If somebody's bragging, you know, you know, talking. They ain't got nothing, you know.

Exactly.

It's like my son's talking about girls he's dated. They. If they ever say I'm a good girl, oh, boy, run.

Right? Yeah. They have to tell you how. Hey, trust me, you know, if they have to tell you how trustworthy they are or anything or. Oh, yeah, I'm. I'm a. I'm a super good girl.

Yeah, that you reminded me. But we. Early in my career, we expanded out of Atlanta, pioneered expansion movement up into North Carolina. And so the first two years, we're floundering around, you know, looking. Looking for a tuna cans, you know, to feed the kids. And then we started. Started doing well. And so let's, let's get out of this rental property and move across town. So we started looking at all the neighborhoods, and there was one that was like, perfect for us. You know, there's, you know, the, our age group and, you know, they had young kids in the schools and they were upwardly mobile, doing well. And the people back in the neighborhood where we were renting said, oh, you don't want to go to that neighborhood. Oh, oh, those people stuck up. They're arrogant, they're titled, they're this and that. You don't want anything to do. You won't have any friends, you know, and we moved over there. The nicest people in the world.

Yeah.

Exact opposite.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's what I learned too. I'm like, well, that's not the, that's not the experience I had on the. And. And, you know, and it's good to have that mindset shift, right?

Yeah. You know, and the good thing also to point out, as we have people listening, that are different stages when you get that. When you get the natural thing is to get arrogant and cocky when you're on a winning streak.

Yeah.

The thing for all of us to understand, we're vulnerable to shifts in the economy and we're vulnerable. It's like almost like being a NFL Head coach. There's so many things that can get you beat on Sunday, you know, and all you could do is just be a monomaniac for, you know, detail and checking and rechecking and this, that and the other. And there's all kind of stories about the last, you know, reminder the coach did to the player, you know, before he went on the field. Defensive player. Watch for this. And then that was the thing that happened in the last second and they won the game. And you have to wonder if that player wasn't thinking about that. But that. What for watching that one player, that one action.

Yeah.

Had they not been that fresh of a reminder. And so, you know, we. You have to re. You know, realize now there's so many things we're vulnerable to that our run of success. But the thing is, if you have your head up, the one thing you can do, you cannot fight the economy, the, you know, the COVID the quarantine, things like that. You can't fight like you're. What happened to your company. I wasn't in your control. But you can minimize it.

Yes.

You know, you can minimize it and you keep your head up. And one of those things is follow your instincts. But you don't want to be. When you're on a winning streak, you want to. You want to be the one that keeps yourself in check.

Yes.

And where that can really get into a problem is like the thing you talked about. You get other people's money invested and you think, and you're talking to them like this is going to happen. That's going to happen because you. You've had. You're on a winning streak, but the losing streaks happen to everybody. You know, there's like the. The old Texan said there's never been a horse that couldn't be ridden, and there's never been a cowboy who couldn't be thrown, you know.

Exactly.

And. But, you know, I've been on. In terms of. You can't get things out of them. There was a. We went on a pheasant hunting trip to the south of England years ago, and there was a nice Texas couple there. And, you know, they. They had some land, they did some ranching and raised some elk, by the way, raise some of the biggest elk in the world. And I heard the lady mention at dinner that they had sold. They sold a. A piece of land. You know, they sold a little. Little parcel. You know, in the conversation, it came up that, you know, they hardly ever sold anything, but they did solo, a small parcel. And then about two days later found out that that little parcel was 80,000 acres.

Oh, just a sliver, right?

Yeah, yeah. Just kind of get the crumb off the table.

Yeah, yeah.

Our portfolio. And so the people who don't need.

To brag, don't, they don't exactly. Right.

And so you got to watch yourself. If you're fighting yourself, you want, you're talking about yourself too much. It's like, you know, come at it from a different vantage point where somebody else doesn't have to do it for you. Now talk about, let me explain why we got the cowboy hats on.

Yeah.

And Sean got on and we got ready to start the, the interview. He, I, he showed up with his cowboy hat and I said, you know, I want to make him feel at home. I said, well, I got one of those in the closet. So he said, well, go get it.

I have never had a host do that, Larry. So I appreciate that. That was right, that was awesome.

Yeah. So you know, we're, we're buddies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Now let's talk about. You know, I'm just another thing. I'm proud of you before you built your started your company company and got up to a thousand. I'm proud of you going through that transition. So how did you go through that? You, if you look back in your life, you've got to be proud of the way you handle. You came out of that disaster and got yourself re established. Talk about how you did that.

Yeah. And I, and I think probably looking back, what I'm most proud about is learning, at least learning the lessons of okay, don't get so high in the highs, don't get so low on the lows. Right. I, I, I try to remind myself that every single day and also learning the lesson that, that, that, that you know, I don't like to talk about, you know, your 10 rules to success or this or that. Or the other. Because anybody that's had any success knows that, that the difference between success and failure is a sliver, right? And if you don't, you have to have certain things go right to have successes. And a lot of times people look back and. And I would have in the beginning, if you're always on a winning streak and you haven't lost everything to realize and think that was all me, right? There's a lot of things you have to have go right to have success. And you also have to be able to, to really minimize the lows as well. Like you're going to have lows. I grew up playing sports my whole life and it's what I always try to hire athletes. I love to work with athletes mostly because if somebody has been an athlete and been in a game for long enough, it's very, I mean, you've got ups and downs nonstop. You know, you've got them throughout your whole career. You've got them in single game you play. And they understand how to deal with the highs and the lows and, and they understand that neither one of them is going to last forever. And so that you're going to have to get through it and be able to battle through it. And when we went through this, you know, I, like I said, I, at the time, I didn't, I wasn't ready to learn the lesson of that this is going to, this is all going away. So all I did was played the victim, right? I played, I, I pointed fingers at everybody else for six months. Well, in six months time, I lost my house, I lost our vehicles. We literally lost everything. We didn't have anything. I had already sold my passive investments. I didn't have anything to do. And so we ended up going all the way back to zero and beyond zero. And I was, I remember.

What's that like, I mean, emotionally, you and your wife, I mean, how did you get through that? What was it? What was it like? Did you have kids at the time?

No, we didn't have any kids. My wife and I had been together since we were 15 years old. So we were, we'd been, we've been together for a long time. And so it was the two of us. And bless her heart, I don't know. I always say, I don't know that I even asked her how she was feeling during it. You're almost numb to what's going on a little bit. And until.

It's like a survival for. It's almost like having a baby in terms of minute to minute Hour to hour.

It is, it is. Yeah.

Yeah.

And that wasn't that. I look back and I feel like that was not that long ago. Right. That wasn't that for us. That was in, in 2009. I mean I was, I lost everything. And, and to the point where we were, you know, at the, at the time people were still using cash at drive thru and stuff. And I would go and walk through drive throughs at night because you know there was always change when the, that people wouldn't pick up, you know, that would get dropped right by the drive thru window.

You walk through the drive through windows at night after they close because you'd.

Always find a couple bucks on the ground and so. And we would use that and so and then trying to figure out what we were going to do. Right. The only thing I had ever done to make money at that point.

You went from selling, right. Private jets, selling 25, 30 million dollar homes to walking through at night. The drive through.

Yeah.

Spare change on the ground in a.

Matter of six, six months, eight months. I mean it was, it was. You want to talk about your world just changing overnight, right? And but when you go through that.

Because you'd lost your cars, right?

Yeah, well, yeah, we had, we lost our cars. My, my parents actually lent us a car that they had and we, we went into a rental. I'd never had rented it. Nothing wrong with renting, but I'd never rented a house. I'd always owned my own homes ever. So we write one. I mean when we were 20 years old we bought our first home and we were off. I never rented, so we had a rental. My parents loaned us a car that they had, that they were, that they had that they weren't using and we were just having to rebuild. And I remember one time I was sitting at the dinner or the, the dining table area of our, the rental and I had this real estate magazine and there was an ad for a guy named Craig Proctor who was the top real estate agent in all of North America. He was a number one agent at ReMax and he had this conference coming up and we had actually had our real estate licenses. My wife had her license to sell the all of our fix and flips and then I got my license when we were working at that resort. But we had never sold real estate before ever. Like we'd never, we would, had been in the real estate game but I couldn't, I didn't have any money to invest and so I went up to this conference, borrowed some money from my mom and I, My mom and they were so excited that I wanted to do something because honestly I really, you know, I blamed everybody else for a long time. And their lesson there is, nobody's coming to save you. You've got to save yourself. Right? Nobody's coming. And let's.

Let me, let me just insert this. I like to disabuse people of the idea that winners don't whine and bitch wine and bitch just like everybody else. But the thing is they move through it, get it out of their, you know, because.

Oh, yeah, you know, when you get.

Overwhelmed, you just can't help it, you know, you know, blame other people and why. But it's like you don't stay there.

You don't.

That's, that's about a. So it's not like, you know, if you whine, you know, you're not a winner. No, no. I've been around billionaires that do nothing, but when they, but then they turn, you know, they'll turn that thing around. Never bet against a winner. No matter if they're in a, you know, losing streak, they're in a grumbling streak. Dome bet against them because, you know, you come back next week and they'll flip the whole situation around.

Yeah, yeah. But they're gonna, they're gonna have their bad days just like anybody else. Right. And they're going to, and you're going to. And, and eventually those bad days, you say, okay, I'm gonna. I'm done, I'm done. I'm done whining. I'm done playing the victim. And you, like I always tell people, you just kind of, you know, it feels like life kind of bitch slapped me at that point and said, get, you know, get your together and let's go.

Yeah. And what you do, you come back and you do that realization that I can whine all I want, but nobody's going to come help.

Nobody's coming.

Yeah. In other, you flip back in the proactive mode. Like, yeah, I gotta do something. I gotta get exactly, you know, I gotta take. I gotta get my butt in gear. And that's what a winner will do. They won't stay on their back foot the whole time.

Yeah. And I work with a lot of investors and I always say one of the benefits of that I had, I think, is that we actually went through that, that we lost everything and that we. You realize one, you're not. When you've gone through it, you're not. You. You know what it feels like. You, you learn the lessons there and you understand what that is like to go from the very top to the very bottom. I mean, and that's a, that's a big drastic change that we went through like overnight it feels like. And, and then you just start having to build it back up and when you start moving forward again, you, you don't. You just kind of get out of that mode again and now all of a sudden you're productive and it's, and it goes from, you know, we, we ended up selling a house, selling another house. And by the end of the year, we were nominated for or we won the rookie of the year for the, the new sales team in the, in Utah. And then we were by a couple years down the line, we're nominated for the largest sales team in Utah selling houses. And so that's how we built back up some capital.

You said you, I, I interrupted you there, but you said you borrowed mother money from your mother.

Yeah.

You went to that course.

Yeah, I hired a mentor.

You know, the point about that is get some new information in there.

Absolutely.

You know, get some, get some new input. Go, you know, get something that you can get excited about and see, you know, find something that you, and the thing that you, you know, I think we all look for wow in our life. You know, that's one thing I try and you know, my whole thing is basically wow. You know, you're looking for things you can get excited on because if you get, that's your internal motivation gets lit. It's like you see something that you're fired up about. You got fired up about that opportunity you weren't looking for. But they came in. No, you know, I think this and the other. That's at sizzle, you know, and you went to them, but then you got knocked down, you know, in the dirt again. But you're looking for. You could have gone back to fixing and flipping, but you, you know, you know, type thing, but you wanted, you know, you wanted something you could get excited about. You went in there, got re. You know, got some new information. And then what was the transition, you know, as you went to that course? How long was that course?

Yeah, so I went. It was a, it was a three day super conference they called it. And I thought that's what all I was going to do. I got there and then they were selling their, their coaching.

Right.

The mastermind. And, and I, and I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to do this, but I was excited about a new opportunity and I didn't the heck I was signing up for, you know, or I shouldn't say what. I knew what I was signing up for. I didn't have any business signing up. I signed up for a coaching program that was $2,000 a month when I was walking through getting a couple dollars a night at Drive Throughs. Right. And so you, I mean I was at this conference, I, my mom, my mom was nice enough and she put it on her credit card, got us Teresa and I there. But I didn't think through enough to even think, how are we gonna, what are we gonna do when we're there? We walked up and down the hallways and I used, I would just get everybody's hand me down their room service trays at night because there was a lot of good food there. And we were like, I mean it sounds crazy now, but. And, and I'm signing up for a $2,000 a month mentorship for a year. And I'm thinking, what the heck. I mean, they tell the story now at that. I've spoke on their stages now many times and they were instrumental in, in helping me really accelerate my success and progress. But they, they tell the story when he was walking through and taking the things he said, when he shook, when I shook his hand, he said, you about broke my hand. And I thought I was going to fall over because you stood there and you looked me in the eye and said this has got to work. And he's like. And that's all I said to him and. But I mean it was a big deal. I'm a huge believer in coaches not trying to reinvent the wheel. I've always been a believer that that could accelerate my progress and success. And I made that decision at that time that we were, that we were going to run down the road and we were not going to stop until it worked.

So you left the conference, now what happens?

So then we got to work. We, that conference was in April and so in April we left. We did exactly what they said. I said, listen, I'm not going to be the, I'm not going to be the one that says, hey, this does, if this doesn't work, it's going to be on them, not on me. Right. I'm going to do everything they say for me to do. And by June we had, we end up closing on six houses in June and then the next month we closed on nine houses and then the rest was kind of history. We, like I said, we won rookie the year we won a Quantum Leap award. The next year we were Nominated for large sales team of the year by 2011. And everything started rolling and stacking up again where we had the. Put some money in the bank, started paying bills, bought another house. And, and then we started to say, okay, now, now what's next? Right? What do we, what do we really like to do? I didn't really ever want to sell houses for a living for the rest of my life, but it was, it really dug us out of a hole. And, and we were, and if you remember, the real estate market back in 2009 wasn't great. Right? It was, right. That was a tough market. And, and so we also learned a skill set to operate in a market that was really, really struggling. And, and so it was, it was, there was a lot of lessons that we learned as far as business goes.

Or what, what would you say is the main distinguishing thing about that skill set to sell in a bad market?

Yeah, is. Well, one, it's understanding that you're, that you've got to solve somebody else's problem. Right. If you can help solve somebody's problem, you can make decent money. Right. It wasn't just about selling a house or, you know, listing a house or helping a buyer find a house. We were, we really were worried about like, okay, what problems do they have that we can solve? And, and what we decided to do is we were working with a lot of first time home buyers at the time, and that was kind of our niche. And I worked with a lot of investors because I understood investors. So I really built my business on understanding the underwriting and the numbers that Fix and Flippers were looking for. And in a market that was, you know, they buy it here today, they knew it was going to be worth less tomorrow when they bought it. And so they had to have this value add in a market that was going down. And I understood that. I understood their mindset, I understood what they needed where most real estate agents didn't understand investors. And, and so I was able to find deals for investors that they were like, holy crap. You know, this is, this really does work because I lived, I was them, right. I was the person buying it back in the day. And so because I could solve a problem for them, I realized that we could just keep, we could just keep doing that and parlaying that, that success and being able to go into looking at how to solve the problem versus how to make a quick commission check.

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