Birth to Net Worth with Shawn Patrick Monloney - Episode 16

Welcome to Birth to Net Worth, where we normalize the conversation and emotions surrounding money and wealth to effect a massive change for future generations in their relationship towards finances, building family wealth as a collaborative legacy. Here is your host, Trystan Trenberth.

Good morning and welcome to episode 15 of Birth to Net Worth. Today I'm joined by a new friend I met last weekend in Las Vegas at a multi-family conference, broker and entrepreneur Sean Patrick Maloney. Sean, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thanks for having me, Trystan. How you doing this afternoon?

Very well, thanks. Very well. So like I mentioned, Sean and I met a couple of weeks ago in Vegas at a conference, um, wonderful community with Jerome Maldonado from New Mexico, um, ground-up developer. And I think you're, you're a part of his mastermind, right, Sean?

No, actually just a long-term friend. I met him actually sitting next to him at a conference once. We connected. I've spoke at his convention a few times and just a big supporter of everything he's doing because I like honest people in business.

Yeah, he's, he's a, he's a titan in his, in his field, and, you know, just such a genuine human being. And I think that's what attracts people to him and, and him to other like-minded people. So, well, brilliant. So let's crack on with it, Sean. Um, so, you know, this is about birth to net worth, how we can bring legacy to the next generation and so forth. Um, fill us in, what is your kind of first, um, memory of money? What, what is, uh, what was your first experience that you remember?

Well, I guess it really came back to almost like a feeling of anger when I was a young kid. Um, my parents, we never had a lot, but we always had a lot. Like, my parents didn't generate a lot of wealth, they weren't doing these six-figure jobs, but they were maintaining a lot of it and rolling it in and, you know, buying places and letting the rentals accrue and stuff. But when we would go on vacation, I could always remember my friends would go skiing 7 days out of the vacation, you know, they'd go skiing. And now as I'm older, I know how much that costs. Like, I finally learned the true value of it. But my mom used to say you could ski 1 or 2 days, the other ones will be for you to figure out, you know. So whether it be a paper route, shoveling driveways, mowing lawns, whatever you did to your, your allowance, whatever you had, if you wanted to go skiing more days than those 1 or 2 that she allotted, you could. Otherwise, here's a sled there's some snow out there, go have fun, you know. So at that time, I remember thinking like, wow, I wish that I could go skiing 7 days. But I won't name any names. But as time has gone on and the difference in how people react to things, people who were handed a lot when they were younger seem to have a different opinion than people who weren't as much. And we did all sorts of different things to— I guess you'd call it raising capital nowadays. But we used to do pretty much anything you could think of, from wandering the neighborhood to shoveling driveways, you know, whatever took. And my paper route, I guess, was one of my first things that kind of made me realize I was an entrepreneur, because it was that seed business. You don't realize it, but it's the anchor. It gets you to the houses, right? So I had a downhill paper route, which was awesome. You rode to the top of the hill, get your papers, and bike ride your way down. And almost every single person over time would have needs. Can you feed my dog while I'm gone? Can you come by and, you know, mow the lawn? And slowly but surely, it kept feeding me, and it made me think of what else can I do.

That's amazing. Yeah, I did a paper round back in the UK. I remember getting up in the darkness and cycling downhill to the paper shop and then uphill with a big sack of papers on my, on my back. And, uh, yeah, we didn't really meet many people in the mornings. Um, but yeah, I can see how that was an amazing seed opportunity. Firstly, communicating with people, understanding needs, and then fulfilling those needs and, and monetizing that.

That's That's excellent. Yeah, we had Saturday morning, but otherwise it was an afternoon paper route. So you pretty much met everybody. And I mean, not to sound old, but that was the news coming to you. That was the www. You know, when that came, people would be looking for what's going on today, how'd the election go, how'd this go, how'd that go. That paper was it. So when you showed up, you had the news, you know, and usually knew more than most people because you'd taken a look at the COVID and you've already talked the story over with people. Be kind of transferring that social currency, they call it nowadays, social media, you know.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, we, we— I was probably 4 hours from London on the train, and the train used to be where the newspapers were shipped down on, I think, originally. And then I think they had regional centers to print them. But, um, yeah, we had the first edition, so by the time it got to us, I didn't have a chance to really read them. We sorted them and tried to get out and get home and get ready for school as soon as we could. So But yeah, you did certainly pick up some interesting things as a first. I was listening to my Walkman on the radio in the morning, listening to the breakfast radio. That's kind of where I heard the news while I was delivering the news to others. So yeah, great, great memories.

Yeah. Another time that was funny was my dad was always about like, he worked the old route. He worked from bodyguard of a banker all the way up to working for the bank over the years. And he was always teaching us entrepreneurship. And one time we, and now this is probably illegal nowadays, but we went and we had caught turtles in one of the swamps locally and we called around the local pet shops and we were telling them we're young entrepreneurs selling turtles, you know? And one of my cousins misunderstood the word and he said, we're just a bunch of young entre-canoeers, 'cause we had gone out in the canoe to catch the turtles. So he thought that was the word. So forever, I'll never forget that one as an entrepreneur for life, you know? Fantastic.

Yeah. So what, that, what kind of age was that? Was that early teens, mid-teens?

Well, you know, really, I mean, at about age 12, 13 years old was when I had my first real gig. I was able, in Massachusetts, we were able to get working permits at like 14. So I worked for, um, Stop Shop and Shaw's doing bagging the groceries. But I was never a good employee. I'm kind of unemployable. I have my own ideas of what I want to do. And, um, every time I ever had a job, I basically either left or got fired. Not to be proud of it, but it just didn't work for the way that I wanted to do things. So over time it just developed, you know. And as, as of like the age like 16, 17, that's when I really started doing a lot more. And then by the time I went— I actually went to agricultural high school, which was a little different than most people. So agricultural high school just is very similar to a vocational technical institute or anything, if you're familiar with it. But you go to school, regular school, half the time, and then you go to your vocation the other half. So we did, uh, animal science, plant sciences, and mechanical sciences. But at the end of the day, when you worked for the school, you basically worked because it was over 300-acre campus. So if you were working heavy equipment operations and it snowed out that day, it was go out, move snow. So everything was very real life and practical.

Yeah.

And having been from that, I can tell you most of my friends employ college students. They never made it past the level of high school, but they went right to businesses, and a lot of great trade businesses— landscape, you know, construction, metalworking, all these different trade groups. And some of them now have developed themselves. Like, say myself, I'm in a whole different— I started my career in different business than I'm in currently, and now I'm here, you know. Um, after high school, I got into tree and landscaping, and at that point I started to learn that, you know, your body is only limited in what you can do with your hands, especially if you're foolish enough to be charging an hourly wage, you know. So I've started figuring out, okay, I can tell how much money I can make because if I sell all 60 hours I'm willing to work, that's the total. I can just multiply it by 50 and I can figure out that's how much money I'm gonna make. So that's kind of where I really started coming into the idea of leverage. Yeah, um, you know, one of my mom's accountants was willing to talk to me because my family actually owns an ice cream company, like a soft— like a scoop shop. Yeah. And, um, you know, when I talked with him, he was the one who kind of taught me the power of leverage and credit and all that stuff. And he just said to me, whenever you have a credit card— it was probably one of the best pieces of advice money-wise— he said, and you spend on that credit card, I want you to think of the most frivolous thing you bought and until it hits zero, that's the last thing that's on that credit card. And it might make you think twice, whether it be a Red Bull— we'll take for example— that you paid $4 for. Well, if you don't pay it down for 10 years, maybe it comes up, maybe it comes down, that Red Bull still sits there till that $4 is gone. And he said once you start thinking about your money like that, you'll realize you can make your money work for you, and you can do it the opposite direction where you're taking advantage of those points cards, because there's nothing wrong with using credit cards. It's just that you're not utilizing money you don't have to buy things that don't grow you.

Yep. Yeah, that must have been a huge, huge learning lesson for you.

Yeah, because, you know, when I was growing the landscape company, I was coming from the ground up. I really didn't have anything, and I had a lot of competitors locally that had a lot of fancy equipment. And I met with a lot of salespeople during that time. You know, you're buying your lawn mowers. Do I need one that you walk behind? Do I need one of those ones you zoom around on? Do I need a big one? And learning that from him, you know, he was always saying to me, Sean, when, you know, you can't figure out how to walk another lawn, then you need the ride-on lawnmower. But if you think buying a ride-on lawnmower is going to get you more business, you got another thing coming. It's going to take the business you have and make it take half as much time, and then you don't have anything to do with your employees or whatever. So always adding what you can sustain, you know. And I haven't watched the different growth cycles. I've got a friend of mine, it's a great side story. Growing up in high school, he drove a pickup truck, right? Real piece of crap pickup truck. He had a lawnmower in the back that probably bought for $50 and a weed whacker that had to start it every time, so on and so forth. And he took a lot of like making fun of him because, oh, you're a landscaper, and you know, going to an agricultural high school, you got a lot of big beautiful trucks, you get the whole thing. And one day it snowed out and, uh, he caught a pole You know, he hit a pole full speed ahead. Luckily, he walked away with his life, but what he didn't walk away with was his truck or any of his stuff because it got totaled. And the next day, he drove into the parking lot with an F-350, brand new, towing an enclosed trailer with 2 ride-on lawn mowers and a few other things that he had bought cash. Yeah. And every single other person had absolutely nothing to say anymore. And since then, I think he's probably the better part of almost 1,000 employees now that he has working for him. And it's just always been one pays for the next, pays for the next. Yeah, you sure, you know, cash flow. He's got the cash flow to operate the business now, and now it's really going. And seeing the two different levels of how people grew really shows you that having an understanding for money— yeah, and you know, not in the way that most people have conversations about it. You know, I think it's Robert Kiyosaki, right, that says like it's not about If we can afford it, it's the question of how can we afford that same thing.

Yeah, yeah, fantastic. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a, a really stark vision of, of the differences between getting the credit, just using what you've got, and maximizing the efficiency and leverage of even if it's an old tool or piece of equipment that it'll still run. A lot of people just replace things because they can and they don't transform the business to be able to upscale the cash flow to really pay that down. I mean, yes, we can borrow money at, say, 12% interest, 1% a month you're paying on it to do a fix and flip, for example. Yes, that's cheap money if you're only borrowing it for that period of time. But I love the analogy of the can of Red Bull or the soda, looking at the compound of the interest over 10 years. That's probably a $50 or a $70 can of thing, or even more. So I, I love that, Sean. Thank you.

Yeah, and something that you wouldn't have put that type of number to, especially in the— I, I'll call it the American lifestyle, right? The get it now, figure it out later.

Gratification.

Yeah. Now some of us entrepreneurs out there, we all believe almost like a person sitting at a lottery machine, there's going to be some cash windfall down there. But the people you gotta love and you gotta try to wonder how they understand is the people that have a paycheck can do it. You've got simple math. Yeah, you got your yearly earnings, you've got this. But that's the excitement to me of entrepreneurship, is that limitless, limitless. But it is holding your mind from getting carried away from being too much of a gambler. And, um, you know, early in my years in entrepreneurship, um, actually my last business that I owned, the tree and landscape business, there was a time where I was doing really bad really bad. Um, things had changed, market had changed, and a snowstorm came and literally collapsed my building on top of all of my equipment and everything that I knew and owned. And, uh, through insurance adjustments, everything came out fine. But during that time, I had a week where I had no money in my thing, and I had payroll due on Friday, and it was to the tune of 16 employees. So you can imagine, it wasn't like, hey mom, can I borrow $500? I'll get you back next week. It was, I have no idea what to do. So I did what any great entrepreneur did, and I put my head down and I looked online and seen if there was any entrepreneur events, and I went to one for the day. I found a local one that a guy was talking about, you know, properly fixing business cash flows, and I said, well, it's a great place to start, so yeah, I'll go there. And, uh, so I sat through the event. I could see my phone ringing, dinging, binging, everything else that you'd hope it wouldn't do. And I stayed a little bit late at the thing. And the speaker there, the guy named Philip Ashcroft, he's from Professional Business Coaches, he was giving out pens. And for whatever reason, my pen was curved. And for whatever reason, it bothered my brain that day. And I stayed late and talked to the guy. And he said to me, he said, hey, listen, you know, you don't look too good. You okay? I said, well, to be honest with you, no. When I walk out this door, it's probably not the best afternoon. But He's like, well, tell me what you got going on. And for whatever reason, this guy out of nowhere, literally usually charges $500 plus an hour, decided to jump into my life and show me where I had money and help me fix everything over the course of a couple weeks. And then he stayed on for course of over a year, and we ended up getting the business ready to sell and ended up selling the business successfully and moving into the real estate brokerage world. But It was amazing how much I learned during that process with him, and it was a pure timing thing, I guess, of just— I don't know, that whole— I didn't know what to do that afternoon, so I just went back at the drawing board and did it again.

Yeah, well, amazing. I think that's testament to, you know, vulnerability and openness and, and need at the end of the day, but doing it in an empowering fashion, you know. I think there's a lot of need out there which attracts the negative, but you know, just that openness and vulnerability. And, you know, people are willing to help and, and put a, you know, put a hand down and help people up, you know.

Well, one thing he said to me with that was talk to people sooner. Don't let yourself get to this point where you're at right now because you're almost unhelpable for most. If you've spoken to people sooner, you've done things right, you'd not be in the spot you are. The silence that you had was what you got you here, you know, not talking to people earlier. You know, you feel bad about telling the guy you can't have him work for the week. How about telling him you had him work for the week and telling him you can't pay him? Which is better? You know, both of them, he'll be angry with you, but you know, each one has his— you know, he has more right to be angry with you for utilizing his time than to tell him that you got to go home. So learn some hard lessons through that one. Was able to keep everything together and, you know, was able to get some money through some different creative borrowing through different people I knew and made the week work, but it definitely was one that I'll never forget, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think asking for help is a huge thing in any part of life. There's a lot of— we have pride, we don't want to look bad, we don't want to fail in front of people. I mean, Robert G. Allen talks about the breakdown of fear being fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of abandonment, and fear of rejection. Those are really 4 key things that we do worry about. It's prideful. We don't want to look like a loser or a failure in front of other people, especially when there's a reputation. We've got to balance between reputation and pride. We can have a good reputation, be openly, you know, I'm in a position, I need help, and ask. I think that's a great, great lesson for so many people.

Yeah, I think it's harder now too for people to ask for help now that they have social media, you know, this, this glass life that we live now where, hey, I'm eating a steak sandwich, hey, I'm this, hey, I'm that. It's like, wait a minute, 2 days ago you were telling me you're a top performer and now suddenly you're in this situation. So, you know, it's, it's that, that, um, being genuine, I guess, that you really gotta, you gotta be, you know, more than anything. And Everyone obviously has posts that are probably a little above and beyond their britches as far as what they're capable of and where they're at. But being a little more like, over time, my personal brand, I mean, it's not huge by any means, but I take people more into my actual life and show them both sides of the equation, have a sense of a lot of things that have happened. I've had a lot of physical challenges over life. I crashed a motorcycle once and I also tore my hamstring off my pelvis once.

Good grief.

Got to learn to walk 3 times, once at birth and 2 more. But, um, each time, you know, I remember when I did the hamstring one, I got a feeling of like, oh my God, I'm going to become a nobody so quickly in this fast-paced world. So I called my IT guy and I said, it doesn't matter what they look like, we're making videos from bed or whatever, we're figuring this out. And I've got them out there, they're ugly, they aren't the best of my materials. But, you know, similar to the woman Jen that spoke the other day at Real Estate Domination, yeah, when she was showing some of her crappiest stuff, it was like You know what, the consistency matters in that constant. So staying relevant was important to me, you know.

Yeah, absolutely. I took a lot from Jen's talk. My dog wants to play, don't you, Finn? So yeah, Jen was incredible. I think you got to speak to her as well, and just such a such an open heart and, you know, obviously described a number of struggles that she's had. And I think that that vulnerability and the, the willing to share the struggles is even more important than successes, because when people realize that there's a challenge in life and there's a— and then there's a benefit and there's a win, there's success the other side of the challenge. You know, I've told people several times, I think I've failed my kids by not necessarily hiding the challenge from them, but not sharing the challenge with them so that they know that there is a struggle to get past to, and then there's, there's a bright side, you know, light at the end of the tunnel. And if we, if we keep showing up when with our Instagrams in, in the highlight reel and not sharing challenges that we come across, how are going to be— how are people going to want to ask for help, show that they're vulnerable, show that they have a challenge? And it may not be a huge thing, but it may get to a terrible point where it's past the point of no return almost, you know. Or at least without some major downfall of, of their business, their life, their situation. So I think I, I really took so much from Jen, and, and I'm going to be following more of her content and, and guidance in the, in the future for sure. Is there somebody that stands out to you that you've followed? I know that gentleman you mentioned that helped you for that, that year or so. Who else have you come across that sort of had a huge impact on, on you through your career?

Well, I mean, you know, one of the two of them were at the event this weekend. Cole Hatter was one of them. So a friend of mine— I won't go into the long of the story— but a friend of mine called and they said, hey, listen, you know, I don't know, I'm not on the best path with a lot of people. And I don't think anyone will take me serious. I bought events, tickets to this real estate event. Will you go with me? And I'm like, sure. And we went and it was actually Fortune Builders. I'm sure you're familiar with that. But Paul Hatter used to be a big Fortune Builders sales guy. He used to work for them on the constant, on the circuit, going everywhere. So we saw him, and I watched this guy go through the entire Fortune Builders thing, which people argue real or not, it's 100% real. It's if you follow the plan, it'll go great for you. If you don't, it'll go terrible for you. And most people don't have the all-in mentality you need. But what I was impressed by was him being able to speak to people for only the amount of hours he had in pretty much a weekend and being able to get people to put, you know, tens of thousands of dollars on to the, the idea of an investment to themselves to grow. And having seen him pretty much take about 30% of a room and get them signed up after one weekend, I said to myself, this guy really knows what he's doing sales-wise. So I ended up looking him up a little bit and finding out that he ran Thrive, which I believe you actually went to recently as well.

That's right, last year. Yeah.

And so that year I had torn my hamstring off my pelvis and I decided that I was going to cross the country without a leg basically and figure it out. So it was all coincidental that it happened that year. But on crutches, I headed to Las Vegas. I had an Uber driver carry my bag all the way from bellhop to person, and I made it all the way to the far end without the normal ability. And, you know, when I went there, I really liked what I saw even further. So then Cole has the in-person at his house. So I ended up buying an in-person session with about 20 other entrepreneurs where it was a sales pitch— not sales pitch, but just, um, sales and marketing was the whole thing. So we ended up going through that with them. I ended up really liking Thrive, so I went back there. But rewind a little, the first Thrive I had sat next to Jerome Maldonado, and during that time we were in the executive C-level, whatever you call the big seats. I, I, if they want to call it call it inner circle for Thrive, but we were in the top tier seats. And when we got to talk and we realized we had a lot in common, and over time he actually created his own event, which originally was held in Irvine, California, um, and so Hotel Irvine, we did that event together. I spoke there on, um, systems and automation. So that's kind of my big thing is whether it's real estate brokering, that's what I do by trade, but My big thing is I'm a remote brokerage. What you see here is the office. Even though I have 20 agents selling for me, we work, and that's kind of my big thing. So Jerome really liked how I was able to work with multiple different people because, you know, in business, a lot of the guys that we meet through the real estate investment side of things, they're very much do-it-themselves people. Nobody else does it right by me. And they don't usually have many systems together. If they do, it's a notebook. A well-tried and tested notebook, but not something that can be scaled on a mass level to a larger thing. So that was one of the things that I focused with him. And then we ended up going through Real Estate Domination in Chicago, but that was the remote event, and that one was at the Kwok Brothers Studio. They were nice enough, they had a new studio, so we shot it live from the Kwok Brothers Studio. And that was— but I guess all the guys I've met through there through all the different events have been so great. You know, I became friends with Steve Sims through that event. Um, I don't know if you know him. How about you, familiar with Steve?

I've heard the name, I've not met Steve.

Accidentally bought him a beer one day. Um, he didn't have his credit card at the hotel lobby bar, so I paid for it, and then we became good friends. And similar to myself and you, we jumped on some podcasts together, done things. But really what I would say is in life, it's easy, as especially as someone who considers themselves to be a fast-paced entrepreneur that really likes to go, you have to, you have to almost plug into some of those events to revitalize your battery. Because I don't know about you, but I've gone home and told like friends or family an idea, and the look that they give me is like, what? Why would you do that? That's so risky. Or what's this? Versus saying like, hey, I've tried that before and this is how it worked out and I do it this way and great idea. So getting around those entrepreneurs, because you said who is the most influential, it's really when I get around more power players that challenge me. And I don't know about you, but when I was sitting in the crowd the other day, there was certain person saying like about how many years it's been since you've been coming to this and what have you done with it. I almost felt like they were speaking to me. And that's kind of how I take things sometimes is like, you know, Yeah, I've done a lot in my years of doing business. I've sold, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of real estate or whatever, but is it a lot compared to what I want to do? And a lot of times I'm caught in those questions, which if I didn't go to those events, I could become very comfortable because other people don't do what you do. But then when you go to people that do that much more, it really kind of— it opens the window, you know? Yeah, it takes kind of like a no-bullshit thing, right? Like you can say to yourself like, oh, I'm at a high level, and then you see these other people and you're like, I guess I haven't really gone as high as I should go.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It just—

I guess it just shines a light further down the road for you to see what's, what, what's possible, what's ahead of you in your path. Because we sometimes get stuck with the streetlight that only goes so far down the road, and we turn the headlights on the car and not necessarily get a faster car, but a sturdy car that's, you know, got a good foundation. It's going to be stable in on rocky roads and slippery roads. And those are the kind of cars— because there's a lot of people that get out there in the fast car and they're not stable on when the rocky road comes along. And there will obviously be rocky roads right now. We've got a very big change in the marketplace, and we just need to have that adaptability and the flexibility to cross these kind of rocky paths, but really elevate ourselves and those people in our community with, with the skills that we have and the skills that we pick up at events like this, so we can provide affordable housing, so we can prevent foreclosures, so we can buy multi-family assets, so we can improve them and, you know, provide better housing and better opportunities for people to live. And obviously, as, as we've been to Thrive, you know, make that money matter as well. So, you know, circling back to the, the birth to net worth What have you seen compared to your upbringing? Were your parents quite frugal with money? Were they quite— I mean, it sounds like they were good at giving you the tools to manage your money at a very early age, to make decisions strategically on what was going to give you a pleasure, skiing for one day or however many days you wanted to do, but give you the opportunity to maybe go and work and earn more pleasure. Exchange your time for money, but also to manage that time of whether you chose to do it now or later.

Yeah, I mean, you know, when it came to kind of my parents' thing, my mom and my stepdad— my parents are divorced, so my mom and my stepdad are kind of polar opposites. My stepdad would go shopping and keep the clothes in his trunk because my mom would be mad about the extra clothes, right? So my mom We always jokingly say she has her original penny, but she really is the type where she's always learned to leverage off of her money heavy. She came from a very large family, um, where, you know, her father went through the Great Depression, was a World War II vet, blah blah blah, you know, lots of different challenges. So a different level of look at money. And then my father, he, he was more of— he came from you know, like, um, regular parents, but he had more of like the banking and he had worked there. So North End Haircuts, things like that. But both of them at home were very frugal, like as far as, you know, Stop and Shop brand, Shaw's brand, whatever your local brand is, versus Coca-Cola, things like that. But when it came to giving, I'd say they were both generous more with their time than their money, you know. My family has always kind of give more of in the idea of time than money, I would say. Like my grandmother was a big, you know, food, food, what do they call it there, the soup kitchen, basically, you know, where you can go get your food and everything, a food bank that's put around. My dad did a lot of Habitat for Humanity, you know, building houses. And, you know, I think you just touched on a great subject is a lot of people have confusion in real estate, they feel guilty about the money they earn. But similar to what was said at the event this weekend, like ET said it when he originally met Cole, like, if you only make so much money, you can only have such an impact because it's what the numerics say. So, you know, whether you believe in God, Buddha, whatever, the higher powers being don't have a problem with you earning money. It's what you turn it into. If you're the guy who buys a mega yacht, you close the windows and, you know, you pollute the environment and you don't care about a single soul, Maybe you're not the best person to have a lot of money, but in real estate, oftentimes when you're buying a house, a distressed house, yes, some people say it's predatory, but they also don't understand that the other person's about to lose everything. And you may be a generous guy that does cash for keys and say, you know what, I'm going to give you enough money so you can go down the street, you can get yourself a rental, and you can start back up with this. It's certainly a better option. Or the developer, you know, they're well hated. It's funny, you know, 40B is Massachusetts affordable housing. That's like the code 40B projects. So when it comes time to vote, everybody's like, yeah, yeah, I love my neighbor, I love everything. And then suddenly the 40B sign goes up in their backyard and they're like, yeah, but not here, not, not in this location. So, you know, it's, it's learning to give more in the idea of, um, allowing people more space, I guess, in the world, you know. Yeah, got— I've got certain neighbors, I live directly waterfront, you know, and, uh We have a beautiful location on the beach, you know, and we're very lucky for it. And there's some public spots across the way and everything, and I've got certain ones that want to like make it that you need a parking pass and everything. And it's like, but yet they still have signs in the front yard that says, we love everyone, we believe in science, we all this stuff. Yeah, like we believe in anywhere but our neighborhood. So yeah, I think the giving time thing and giving, um, you know, the focus sometimes can help more than the money. But also, you know, be honest, nothing in the world is free. You can donate your time this weekend, you're still going to need $12 for gas to get there, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's the end. It's, it's the, you know, what doesn't make happiness, but I don't know how to do a lot of things without the ability to pay for them.

Yeah, we had this expression in the UK called NIMBY, not in my backyard.

Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, one of the things during all the different crises I went on in life— I died 2 times, my crash from my motorcycle and my huge hamstring tear— you actually learn to be a lot nicer of a person during them because you take them back to the days of a wheelchair and take them back to like, hey, I need something, you know. One time back then, it's like I had to have my stepfather— when I used the bathroom, he had to help me. I can't, my arms don't work, you know. You're back to your basics, you're back to like things that will beyond humble you or whatever you want to call it. So you learn to like, like immediately after that, like whether it be I see someone trying to cross the street struggling in a wheelchair, whatever, I immediately found myself more focused on it. But then it was funny, the second time reminded me that the first time I forgot, you know. I had gone, I said I'd never forget Boom, boom, boom. 10 years later, suddenly, boom, hamstring goes. And I'm like, I thought I'd never forget. And I didn't remember this at all. Yeah, I just remember one night I was at my mother's house because I was forced to move back in with my mom during the time because I was completely stuck in bed. And, uh, the first night my mom came in, and I'm like one to go, go, go, and she sits down and she says, Sean, would you like to have a cup of tea? And in my mind I'm thinking, oh, hell no. But in reality, I'm like, yep, we're back here. You got to enjoy where you're at because this is today. So what it definitely brought me close to my family, made me spend time with them. But also, again, back to the giving, made me realize, you know, you got to give more to people, especially your attention. I think that's one in America and everywhere really with these devices is like you see, you know, the family at dinner and they're like this. And I think the time implications are going to come back to hurt a lot of people. Never given that time, you know.

Yeah, I agree, I agree. So through life, um, business, do you have kids? Remind me, Sean.

Yeah, no, I don't have any kids, just a cat right now.

Yeah, so I mean, it could be a cat farm, whatever. What, what have your ideas become for the next generation? Because obviously there's a lot of adults that are not financially literate. I can do much better, and this is one of the reasons I put this podcast together, is so that I can improve my life and share those thoughts and other people's ideas out there. A lot of adults are very, very prideful and ashamed of, of the lack of control they have with their own money, being living paycheck to paycheck. And I think through conversations like this, we can be aware of these things in ourselves and we can find different things. But if you were to put a book in front of somebody and say, hey, this, this is the book of financial literacy, I want you to read it, It's, oh, I don't need that as an adult because they're prideful. They've got their life. They're uncomfortable being vulnerable. But one of the ways that I think that we can bring literacy to adults is through them teaching children because they're, oh, child, come and read this book called My Money Bunnies. Mike Michalowicz, the Profit First guy, wrote a great book. If we can put materials in front of kids that the parents are teaching the kids, the parents are going to start picking up some of these ideas, even if they're so basic, nuanced ideas that, you know, what have you come across that you see as a common missing factor in adults that are around you that may be able to impart things on their kids, or in kids around you that you see, families that you know, and just kids in general? Are there any thoughts or ideas you have that could improve their future?

Well, you know, actually, some— I, whenever I go to these events or anywhere, I always ask entrepreneurs, like, what book would you read? And I always put them into my thing. And recently, I'm not sure, it could even be you, I don't know, someone told me to read the book Grit. And I've been just in that one right now. And in it, they just talk about the difference between success and unsuccess is really the grit that you have to get there. And I think if I was to teach my children in the future, things, it'd be to take more time to explore what you want to do and have less fixation on the world of like— I guess to me, like, college and the idea of your future career is one of the biggest myths. That's like, it's almost like any other commitment that we make in life that we tell everyone about. Like, the moment you declare, I'm an accounting major, in American culture or most cultures, it's now considered failure by changing or by thinking differently. And to think that at 12, 15, 16, even say 20, you know what you need to be for your whole future. That might have worked when you went to the coal mine next to your dad, you went to the brickyard next to your uncle, you know, you went to the roofing place with your thing, you were in the Teamsters Union, slept in the back of the truck. But we're just in a gig society now. We've changed, you know. And people who understand gig society realize that you can, you know, put your painting on Etsy and sell it across the entire globe, or you can go work for Hallmark for $28 an hour and watch your design cross the globe, you know. Yeah. So I, I would say— and it's funny, I think Cole might have mentioned it this weekend— it's funny that people have more faith in their boss signing their check than themselves. You know, I've been self-employed. My parents left their early career. We own the ice cream business now, so they've left and moved to self-employment. And like I said to Maria, my fiancée, the other day when we're flying to Las Vegas, because she recently left her career, and I said, can you believe this is work? This is our job. This is us working right now. We're working on ourselves, which is our work, which is going to help us grow. Compared to most people, when I told them that I invested and I It's a lot of money that I spent to go to Las Vegas. They would look at me and go, you're crazy, at the same time as they have college debt that is supposedly to earn them a certain income when they get out. And I guess the other half of it would be to have no expectations for your pay unless you deserve your pay, because entitlement is unbelievable after schooling nowadays. They come out and it's almost like a common belief that 60 to 70,000 now is like college minimum wage. And there's no truth to that because if you come up with no applicable skills to what you're doing, yeah, what value do you have?

Yeah, I think that's very valuable. And, and so many kids go to college because that's just the, the dogmatic progress that they need to make. Like you said, they come, come out of college with 8% compounding debt. At least, and for the rest of their life. And that's, you know, the only non-forgivable debt. Um, one, getting the argument of forgiving college debt, but I've always said that, you know, I didn't really like Vegas the first time I went there. I went to photograph a Rod Stewart concert, took my camera looking to photograph on the Strip, and I just, I was just disappointed by the place. Yeah. And the next time I went, I went and visited there with a friend wasn't business at all, had a better time. But then going back for other events, you know, I did a fix and flip up there last year. But going to these events is just a complete game changer. It's a gamble, but it's a gamble on myself. That's the only gamble I'll ever make in Vegas, is a gamble on myself to spend whatever it is that I spend to go to a conference and know that I've got a very serious takeaway. I've got a much stronger network. I've got a much more high level of confidence in whatever it was that I went to learn and gain knowledge on, and a number of other areas that I can make connections with other people to help their network when I get back. And it now is, is like talking to somebody like yourself. Maybe there's something you can connect me with, or vice versa. We've just multiplied our ability to connect people and, and put businesses and people together because Relationships is, is what life is all about in business. And when we can build those relationships and connect people, that's, that's, that's my huge, huge enjoyable, um, takeaway from any conferences— the personalities and the people that I connect with, and obviously the knowledge that I take away that I can share and build on in my own life and business and, and share that with other people that may be suited to the takeaway that I feel by knowing other people that I can plug them in with, with that knowledge and idea.

Definitely. I think some of the most powerful things we get out of all of it is the connections. Yeah, using the word proximity this weekend, and I think proximity is a huge one. And it is funny because you mentioned the gamblers downstairs. If you— if a lot of us said to them what we spent over there, they would have called us crazy, all the while they're pulling down the machine and I always say jokingly, I don't need the lottery to tell me I'm a loser. I already know it, you know, because every time you give them the money— like, to me, the only way to truly win in the lottery is you have a random inkling, you were walking by, and for some reason $5 comes out the only time you played and you win. Then you're a winner. But otherwise, I've, I've met actually a few lottery winners, and I can tell you that they ended up with not the biggest win in the long run of the life of everything that came.

I think that I've read a statistic, 80 or 90% of lottery winners end up less than they had before the win within 3 to 5 years.

There's a strange— there's a strange flip a switch in the brain that takes someone from being a half believer that you can win to believing that that isn't the big win and there's a bigger one coming. Yeah, it's sad to see really, because depending on the person— I knew one that did it right. They only won about a quarter mil, but years ago, and they paid the cars, they paid the house, and they called the debt gone. That was the one person that I met that really did it right. The other ones ended up deeper, much deeper.

Yeah, see, Cole said yesterday, I think it was, um, he said, why is it when there's— it may not have been McColl, I think it was Cole on the stage, but, um, basically said, why is it when there's a $40 million win, uh, $40 million jackpot, it's not enough? Yet when there's a $400 million, they're lining up outside the streets, and then it's enough. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's just the irony.

Everyone's a scratch ticket player at that point, right? Absolutely.

But they don't do it when it's $40 million, when it was still life-changing opportunity. But yeah, it's bizarre, the human psychology of scarcity and greed. Greed not in a mean sense, but it really is, you know.

Well, it's amazing to think you live in a world where we can't figure out proper staffing for teachers or proper budgets for homelessness or all these things, but yet we just allocated $1.9 billion with a B to one person for having bought the right numbers versus allocating $1.9 billion across the population. We give it all to one person, and guess where the majority ended up? Back to the government. And they went and they bought you what they've already charged you for on your taxes. Yeah, the lottery bought you it as well. So it's a very, uh, self-fulfilling thing and it doesn't really take people far. But I think it's always just the same thing with money, right? Those who truly earn it have a respect for it. And it's back to what you were asking about the children thing. It's like, if I hand them briefcases, $100 bills, how long will those briefcases last? And it's not very long if there's no, yeah, understanding of how that became.

Yeah, and it's, it's funny you're saying about half it goes back to the government. How many tickets were sold to make that jackpot possible, plus all the other costs that are built into the cost of the ticket? Well, in the UK, I don't know if you've, you've ever gambled on horses, but in the UK you can choose to pay your tax within stake. So if you put a pound, you know, a pound down, maybe 15% is tax. Or you can say no tax and they'll tax you on the winnings. Oh, but in the lottery ticket, the tax is already built into the ticket price. So that £1, 15% is the tax. So when you win the $500 million or £500 million, guess what? You pay tax on the stakes, so you don't get taxed on the winnings. And that's standard on all of the lottery games. So they, they make however many tickets of tax they paid, which is a much larger amount of tax that goes to the government on every ticket sold. And the winner wins, wins it all. Just different perspective. Yet they make one person pay all of the tax instead of taxing everybody that buys a ticket at 15%, whether the jackpot would be lower. But it's all this psychology. $10 billion or $2 billion well, it's only 60 or 50% of what you see on the board is going to come to you. But it's amazing, people, you know, don't, don't really think about it that way. It's not right or wrong, but just, just a perspective, you know.

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

So, so in, in the last few minutes, Sean, you see kids around you. What are the key things that you see missing from kids? Is it that that Red Bull analogy of the compounding interest of the cost of the thing if you don't pay it off soon? Or what other kind of gems can you leave us with to sort of suggest of how they might invest with their parents or otherwise?

Well, the other one that I see a lot in my world, because, you know, I work as a real estate broker, so I get to see a lot of people's world, is like the happy with a start that needs to be there. Like You know, we go to a, um, a house like that's— say my house here might look a little funky. This is a teardown. It's going to come down next year. We're just sprucing it up enough to live in here, right? I was willing to do that and take the time that it takes. So many of the buyers now want the finished product versus the, the whole process. And I think what it is, is especially like where I live, like I live in a very like, it's not highly affluent. No, you know, we're not Long Beach, California by any means, but everybody lives in a 2,000 to 3,000 square foot house. Everyone has a lot. And I— what I find is, I call them the cellar dwellers. The cellar dwellers forgot where they come from, and like, that if mom and dad were to pass tomorrow, they can't even pay the mortgage. So you never owned that house. So the perception of debt to reality and what payments are and what it really looks like, I feel like for a lot of kids, they've cruised too much of Easy Street, you know, $1,000 cell phone, talking about how the world's not equitable to different people, all these different things, you know. Oh, I, I don't believe in slavery back in the day and the country's oppressors. It's like, well, you know, that's currently— Nike uses slavery in China, right? Like, that literally goes on today, and you're wearing Nike while you're telling me about it, while you're on your iPhone that's also produced in third world countries. So You know, we have a lot of idealistic people that don't follow their ideals, I guess you'd say. And a lot of it is the need to have now. And I'm not a big Dave Ramsey guy, you know, but he says in his thing all the time, he always says like, live like no one else so you can live like no one else. And it's the idea of like, when you're young and you're making your way up, you're not going to live like everyone else because they're all living frivolous, you know. But then when they were all living frivolous later on when you suddenly have your life cash flowing and you're going on these vacations, you get to live like no one else because you got it at the right time. So I guess the, the main takeaway too would be, you know, not everything's for today. And if you plan your cards right for tomorrow, you'll be in much better shape than those— it's not wrong to live for today by any means, you definitely should, but to live beyond your means today will leave you always behind tomorrow, you know. Yeah. And I always say to people, my mom drove a Hyundai when she could drive a Toyota. She drove a Toyota when she could drive a Lexus. She drove a Lexus when she could drive a fancy car, whatever she wanted. It's always been one step behind. I've never watched her go the other direction. I've seen people— I worked for luxury, I worked for Sotheby's International Realty. I watched one guy during the pan— not the pandemic, but 2007, 2008 go from a multimillion-dollar to a very small multimillion-dollar to a single-million-dollar home to an $800,000 home to a renter instead of just making one transition down to a safe place. Obviously a huge earner if he's paying the mortgage on that. Yeah, just dip down for a few months and he could have been right back. But the pride and then desire for today to be today and everything to be today, really, it was huge lesson, you know.

Yeah, I just, I just finished reading, um, The Psychology of Money, which was a really, really insightful book. Um, I forget the author's name, but I, I remember him talking about Warren Buffett investing for 55, 65 years. He said with, with the power of compounding, if he had started 5 or 10 years later— I think 10 years later— he would have had a quarter of what he has now. But he doesn't invest on like the day trader style where he's buying in now, in 10 minutes he's trying to sell. He's just on the long game. He's living for today, he's living for tomorrow, and that's his strategy with Charlie— Charlie, what is his name? Um, I forget his partner's name. That's right, Charlie Munger. And, um, yeah, he's, he's, he just puts the money out there and it sits. And all of these funds that are out there, they're saying that, you know, that they're trying to get these, these gains, that they're trying to beat by 1% or 2%. All of them fall short of just leaving the money where it is over a long period of time, and the gains always fall short of where they are unless they're taking risky actions. And still, over the long term, they're, they're not exceeding just parking your money and let it grow.

Well, you saw the guy— was it yesterday? NFX, the guy that was in the top 100 richest people in the world, fall to a $0 net worth because this company just folded yesterday.

Was that the one that got hacked?

The $19 billion he had, and he had nothing left. Now his business just isn't working out. It's stumbling, bumbling, and fumbling, and, uh, he ran it to the ground. But it's a lot of these get-rich-quick industries. Yeah, nothing wrong with them. There are tons of people that could come on and contest us and say, well, I'm rich as heck But at the same level, I think there's more people that could tell you their losses than wins. Whereas you hardly ever meet a long-term investor that did it and didn't do well. You know, whether it be stocks, bonds, housing, long-term investors, people that truly buy and hold 20, 30 years before moving product, those are the people that you see with returns that almost sound fake. You know, see them, you say, there's no way. You know, say my mom, she's got a house right now. We bought it, uh, when I first started in real estate for $90,000. In this town now, bare minimum is $300,000, $350,000. So she's got a return of 300%, and it's been rented for $1,200 a month for the past 17 years. So you do the math, it's sitting at a pretty— yeah, sitting at a pretty point for her. And you know what we're going to do? We're going to take that house down when it's totally expired, and we're going to build a new house, and we're going to sell it off or rent it out again. And it's a long-term hold play. And, you know, a lot of people could say needs a roof. Oh yeah, it needs this and he said yes, it probably does eventually when it's at the end of life expectancy. But the long-term play versus the constant, you know, the Google era, you know, the click a button and you get a real estate agent, touch this, you get picked up by a car. But my— I mean, we saw— I saw somebody at the conference order Starbucks to their table. Which was downstairs.

Good grief.

And they paid money for the person to bring them the Starbucks from downstairs. I think I saw you on your coffee run. You're on your way back from one of your coffee runs, right? Yeah, actually go get it. But somebody actually ordered it to the table, and I said, wow, what a world that we live in nowadays that someone's getting rich off someone else deciding they can sit in the chair and command people to bring my coffee. Yeah, yeah, it's a new world.

Well, I appreciate you joining me today, Sean. I mean, our conversation at the— conversations at the conference was so enjoyable, and you and your wife as well, and fiancée. Yes, um, we're delightful, and, and this has been so fun. I really appreciate you and, and look forward to connecting with you again soon. Um, is there anything else you want to share with us before we, we, we wrap?

No, I think, think that's it. I mean, you know, the key takeaway for anybody that's, you know, just getting started is, you know, have faith in yourself, have faith in your projects, and have that grit, that fortitude to take it to its full fruition. And know that it's not always going to be easy, it's not always going to be exactly what you thought of, but just like that old, like, meme with the miner that is almost at the end and finds the gold nugget, it's always going to seem like you've gone as far as you can. Just go that little bit further and it'll go okay. Yeah. All right, well, today, Trystan Trenberth.

Thank you so much, Sean. I appreciate you.

Bye-bye.

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