The Exchanges

Q 26, had a couple million dollars in real estate net worth. You know, making a couple 100,000 dollars a year to flash forward a year bankrupt financial struggle to six hundred million dollar office. I know you've, you've mentioned this before, obviously, but I think there's a lot of people that are more like the former you than the current you. What was that like back then? And what happened?

A Well, we were, um, uh, I got my degree in real estate, and I sold my first house three weeks after I turned 18 years old, so I've been in real estate my whole life. Mom and Dad were in the business, and so when I got out of college, I bounced through a couple jobs pretty quick, and then started buying and selling houses, and I was doing Flip This House before there was cable TV or Chip and Joanna were born, you know, and so it was a long time ago. This is in 1984, right? So, um, but I was good at it. I'm always good at making a deal, and math is easy for me, and that Kind of stuff, so I would, and I hustled, and so I bought, started from nothing. We ended up with about four million dollars worth, a little over a million dollar net worth, and I'm making a couple hundred a year at, at 24 years old in eight, 1984, but I'd borrowed too much money, and I had a lot of short-term notes. The bank got sold to another bank, and a guy in another city looked down and said, there's a kid, 24 years old, owes us a million dollars. This is crazy, and they said, let's limit this relationship, which is banker talk for ruin his life. They called them, Um, and that started a snowball, a bad snowball. That took two and a half years to unfold, and we were bankrupt at the end of it with a brand new baby, a toddler, and a marriage hanging on by a thread. So, like my old pastor used to say, a man with …

AI assessment note: “I'd borrowed too much money, and I had a lot of short-term notes.”

Q Or do some people just have to go through it?

A Yeah, you can, you, you don't have to go through, uh, drug addiction to know it's bad. Uh, you don't have to go say, you know, cocaine kills people. I know that, and I've never done cocaine, so I don't have to go there. Um, but, um, and you don't have to go deeply in debt and lose everything to figure out that debt will choke you to death. Uh, you know, basic common sense observation ought to help most folks get there, but it doesn't. Um, but we did a full CSI on it because we were not only broke, we were broken. Uh, so any illusions I had to my academic prowess or intelligence or whatever I thought I was, obviously I wasn't. And, um, so I got the opportunity to start from emotional and spiritual ground zero as well as financial. And When you look at that, you go, okay, what really happened here? Who's really at fault? And you can choose victimhood. You can go, oh, you know, I just spilled hot coffee on myself. Turns out McDonald's serves hot coffee. I think I'll sue him. You know, or you can say, um, ah, I'm a klutz and I just spilled some hot coffee and, um, and I should have expected it to be hot since I just bought coffee. And so in my case, I signed up for this debt and, um, it was short term notes. Well, and then they chose to call them in a short term. Well, who's the idiot? The one that signed it's the idiot. So you got to learn from that and go, okay, what the Bible sa…

AI assessment note: “observation ought to help most folks get there, but it doesn't.”

Q Yeah, it's so true. Well, and one of the other things I loved that you talk about is that, speaking of your employees, that you never want an employee again, that you've had them before, you never want an employee again, but you have a A 1100 team members here. What's the difference between the two? And how do you decide if somebody's an employee or a team member?

A Well, I think we've all had, if you've ever hired someone, or if you've ever worked anywhere, for that matter, you've observed people that were what I call employees. They come late, leave early, steal while they're there, check Facebook all day. And so, um, not much work, right? And so, no productivity, don't care. They're there for what they can take rather than what they can add. And so, um, around our organization, we're a team. We add value. Everybody here adds value, and we're, um, and if you don't add value, what are you doing here? I'm not paying you. I need to get an ROI on this, and it's not because I'm a jerk. It's just because if I don't get an ROI on you, I can't pay the other guy, so we can't make enough revenue. We can't pay payroll. Hello, so, um, you know, we want team members. We want people who, uh, treat the place like they own it, and when we have an argument, and we have a A lot of arguments around here every day. They're wonderful arguments. Uh, we have an argument about which call to play, which play to call to win the Superbowl, which play to call to get the ball in the end zone. We're not arguing about, you know, some irrelevant thing or some political internal thing like trying to, you know, we're not sitting around talking about somebody, you know, we're not, we're just getting stuff done. It's very utilitarian. And so if you don't want to get stuff …

AI assessment note: “They're there for what they can take rather than what they can add.”

Q about being a builder, which is like, you're not in the game unless you've sat in the dark, head in the hands, completely unsure of what to do next. And if you have, then you're in the game. Then you've played. What would you tell somebody that is in their business right now, and they are struggling, they're in the pain cave, and they don't know how to get out?

A Um, The only thing that we've done, and there's nothing, uh, I tell entrepreneurs this all the time because I deal with them like you do that are there, they're in that. Anytime I'm talking to an audience of a thousand people, a certain number of them are in a pain cave, right? Um, is first do a gut check and say, why am I in this business? Am I in it just to make money? Uh, you may be done. Um, because the pain cave may be telling you it's time to quit, because you suck, and you know, it's not going to make you money. Your goal was to make money. Your only goal was to make money. I'm not against making money, don't misunderstand, but if that's your only thing, um, money's great, get you some, but if you eat enough lobster, it tastes like soap. So it's just, there's only so much you can do with money. So, but if you're not in it just for money, you're the second category, and you, you want to make some money, you want to bless your family, you want to do those things, but The reason you're in the business is because something's burning inside of you. You can't not do it. You have to do this. Um, if that's you, and you're in there with your face in your hands, uh, welcome to the club. You're in the game. Take the next step. Take the next step. Don't sit. If you're in the pain cave, it's time to stand up, and step out, and step out. Take another step, take another step, and prett…

AI assessment note: “first do a gut check and say, why am I in this business?”

Q Yeah. So why do you think we are programmed to think that money is bad? So many of us, I think, are programmed that way. Where did that come from?

A Um, it's come from, uh, some toxic teaching in the spiritual world. Uh, sometimes, sometimes some churches have, uh, twisted some of these scriptures, and usually they do it in a demographic area where they're ministering to poor people, and then, uh, so they, they, you know, run that rich down. Um, I was having dinner with some folks in Australia, uh, a couple years ago, Australians, and we were talking about this, and they said, um, the Australians have quoted Aristotle, they call it tall poppy syndrome. As soon as someone's, as soon as one poppy sticks its head up above the others, it must be cut. And so we want to tear down those that are ahead of us. That's just jealousy and envy, which the Catholics would call that one of the seven deadly sins. And so, um, you know, the, the, it comes from, uh, you know, negative human nature and that we just, we don't want other people to win. But again, oddly enough, those are usually poor people and poor in spirit, uh, not, not necessarily poor in wallet, but They're usually people who have not attained something. Most successful people, they want to help others. They reach out and go, you know, you're, you know, you're, uh, just starting in a business that I'm already in. I'll show you how, or, uh, I'll spend time with you. Now, you can't mentor everybody that has to be mentored. I don't mean that, but I have to, you know, say, no, yo…

AI assessment note: “it's come from, uh, some toxic teaching in the spiritual world.”

Q The five stages. What are these, and why do they matter as an entrepreneur?

A Well, most of us that are entrepreneurs, um, the, uh, the, oddly enough, the, um, You're, you're, if you have dyslexia, you, uh, are more likely to be an entrepreneur than anything else. The, um, um, if you have ADHD or, um, ADD, um, uh, confirmed or unconfirmed, Dave talks too much, he's hyper, was on my report card every single year. Um, unconfirmed, but probably, you know, and so, um, medically unconfirmed, but the, uh, uh, Um, you know, so you're, you're probably in those categories because what happens to those of us that have those different things is, um, we, we live our life doing workarounds. And that is the ultimate definition of an entrepreneur. You're, you're, you're finding a problem and solving it. You're doing a workaround for somebody that doesn't even think that way. Doesn't even know they have a problem and you're going to solving it for them. And that turns into a product, a service that becomes very profitable and very much of a blessing to the customer. Um, as we talked about earlier. Uh, we find a high degree of those folks, and, and we start as a treadmill operator. We start with, I'm gonna go get this thing done, and you get up on treadmill, and you start running, and running, and running, running, running, running, running, and you get home at night, and you're exhausted, and you go, what'd you do today, honey? I have no idea, but I worked my butt off, …

AI assessment note: “we start as a treadmill operator. We start with, I'm gonna go get this thing done”