Digital Social Hour - The $5M Secret to Flipping 'Junk' Land | Shawn Kaplan DSH #953

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Discover the $5M secret to flipping 'junk' land with Shawn Kaplan! 🏞️💰 In this eye-opening episode of Digital Social Hour, Sean Kelly dives deep into the world of real estate development and personal growth. 🚀 Shawn Kaplan reveals how he turns unwanted land into million-dollar opportunities, sharing his journey from childhood trauma to entrepreneurial success. 💪 Learn about the power of mentorship, overcoming adversity, and the importance of self-love in business and life. This episode is packed with valuable insights on: • Finding lucrative opportunities in 'junk' land 🗺️ • Overcoming childhood trauma and building resilience 🌟 • The impact of generational trauma on success 🧬 • Breaking negative cycles and creating positive change 🔄 Don't miss out on this powerful conversation that might just change your perspective on real estate and personal development! 🎧 Tune in now and join the conversation. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets from successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders. Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🔔 #financialeducation #wholesalerealestate #longdistanceinvesting #moneyavoidance #realestaterookie #wholesalerealestate #landflippingmastery-travisking #wholesaleland #landflipper #realestatewholesaling CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:18 - Shawn Kaplan 05:00 - BetterHelp 06:38 - Nashville Growth 13:17 - Impact of Dad's Death 15:04 - Overcoming Bullying 16:00 - Overcoming Circumstances 17:14 - Childhood Bullying 21:55 - College Party Phase 23:14 - Mortgage Industry Challenges 23:50 - Trauma and Decision Making 27:50 - Trauma and Relationships 29:50 - Understanding Anger 33:05 - MDMA and Brain Reprogramming 33:58 - Ownership and Giving 37:20 - Jealousy and Comparison 41:05 - Trauma's Effect on Success 44:10 - Breaking Generational Curses 45:54 - Personal Impact 47:45 - Advice for Young People 49:07 - Outro APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Shawn Kaplan https://www.instagram.com/theshawnkaplan/ https://www.youtube.com/@TheShawnKaplan SPONSORS: BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com/DSH LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Gambling problem? For free assistance call the Connex Ontario Helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. With Uber Reserve, you can book your Uber ride in advance. 90 days in advance. Perfect for all you forward thinkers and planning gurus. Reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance. Uber Reserve. See Uber app for details. I like to buy junk land. I like to buy land that somebody else won't buy because

there's an issue. Because I had a mentor 20 years ago who'd make your money on the dirt. You can find a piece of land that's got an issue. Every problem is solvable. That's where you'll make your money. All right guys, here with Sean Kaplan in Nashville, Tennessee, your hometown, right? Yeah, hometown, baby. Never been to LA, we were talking just now.

That's pretty crazy. Never been to LA, gotta go check it out, I guess. I don't know after hearing some of the stories though. You must really like it here if you're not leaving often. I love Nashville you know I was originally from New England lived in New York and Vermont but Nashville is super cool great people tons of charisma and character here I really love the fact that people just are not pretentious yeah it's a great town and there's a lot of opportunity.

Absolutely what opportunities have you been pursuing lately? Well, I've gotten into real estate land development. I'm on my second piece of property. I found that's pretty lucrative, especially with the rural nature of Tennessee. It's not as lucrative as it was 10 years ago when I started, but there's still opportunity. Yeah, so you're buying land?

Yeah. I get Facebook ads for that all the time. Land flipping. Yeah. I'm sure you get those too. Yeah, yeah. Or they're selling the lots at the lake that nobody wants, for $14, but I like to buy junk land. I like to buy land that somebody else won't buy

because there's an issue. Because I had a mentor 20 years ago and he's like, you make your money on the dirt. He's like, if you can find a piece of land that's got an issue, every problem is solvable. He goes, that's where you'll make your money. Wow. And you can make millions of dollars just by doing that.

That's interesting, because some people would see that as more risk. It is risky. And there's heavy carrying costs, because if you finance it, for example, you're making that payment. And it can be like one piece of land to have is five years. It's been five years to take to get through city council and get fixed. And actually, the final meeting is tonight.

Wow. Congrats, man. Five years, though. You've got to have some balls to be able to council and get fixed. And actually the final meeting is tonight. Wow, congrats, man. Five years though, you gotta have some balls to be able to withstand that. Yeah, we went to an auction at a lunch break and with my buddy, who's my partner on it, and he's like, you wanna go to this land auction? I was like, sure, whatever.

And so we go and there wasn't a lot of people there, nobody started bidding. So they brought the bid price down and being a competitive guy, I was like, all right. So next thing I raised my hand and I realized we're in it. And we bought this piece of land for $430,000, 37 acres, right near downtown. And we ended up finding out that it was an unbuildable lot

15 minutes after we won the auction. So you couldn't build on it at all. I freaked out. And then I was like, I just remember hearing Steven tell me, my mentor, like like hey, everything's fixable and We went through the steps. We'll go there tonight. We'll get it approved We'll be able to build on it and that 37 acres will probably market it for four to five million. Holy crap So 10x yeah, well 10x insane. So why was it not buildable at the time?

It was a straight is a stupid easement where I own the access road We bought the land in the access road but they had given easement to two other properties on either side of it and there's a weird rule where like if you put more than three units or three properties on this piece of land in this county, Williamson County, that the road to it has to be 52 feet and we're only 32 feet. Wow. So we found out that like four or five feet at the front of the property near the road touches the city limits. So we said, well, we'll just call the city

and see if they'll annex it into the city. And that was our loophole that we got figured out. That's cool. So why did you lean more towards land than actual houses? I've done houses too. But I started with my first house, zero down. My mentor said, live in it for two years, because after two years, you don't

have to pay any taxes up to 250,000 on a gain on real estate. And he said, then you turn it into a rental if you want. So I buy a house, low down payment, turn it into a rental buy a house, low down payment, turn it into a rental. And I did that about 10 times over the last 20 years. Well, I made a lot of money doing that. But it gets to the point like we don't want to move out of our house. Yeah, you know, so get comfortable. Yeah, I mean the last house

probably similar Vegas we doubled we bought for 750 sold it for 1.5 million Wow three years and then I put that 1.5 million into a house set on 20 acres and now that's worth about almost 5 million. Damn you could get 20 acres out here for one five. Well that was a couple about eight years ago I bought that. Okay, wow. No, but that land eight years ago, 20 acres, I bought that for 340,000. Holy crap. Yeah, yeah.

So I wonder if you just held the whole time if you would have made more. Probably, but by putting the house on it. And I also built a house during the supply chain crisis. So while I was building this house, the values were going up like crazy. Everyone was bidding their faces off on real estate. So it was just pushing my value up.

So I got 2 million bucks between the land and the house, and it's worth 5 million now. And so that's really where you can capitalize and make your money. Like right now is the time to buy a house because if these rates go down, everybody else is going to be bidding and it's going to drive your price on your asset that you already own way, way, way, way up. But everybody waits for everybody else to do something. You got to do it when everybody else is not doing it. That's true.

Yeah so for people watching this they need maybe an upcoming city like Nashville to do this? Yeah or just get out like I'm out in Nolensville. It's a Williamson County address. This episode is brought to you by... Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook Born in Vegas gives you the chance to take

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ride as soon as you book your flights. To all the planners, now you can reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance. See Uber app for details. I better help. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com slash D S H and get on your way becoming your best self. My fiance, Ariel plays a big role in my mental health, helping me realize my true potential. Everyone's trying their best around you, so take time to appreciate someone close to you. I've tried therapy in the past,

and it helped me go through some tough times when I was in college dealing with mental health. I was on prescription medication. I actually had agoraphobia when I was in college, and therapy helped me figure out some answers on how to fix that problem. For two months, I couldn't even leave my house, or I would have a full on panic attack.

So I love companies like BetterHelp that can get therapy in front of the masses. But therapy definitely helped me get better. And I definitely appreciate companies like BetterHelp because it's completely online and it's conveniently suited to fit your schedule and accommodate life surprises. Fill out a brief questionnaire

to match with a licensed therapist today with the freedom to switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Visit betterhelp.com slash dsh to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash dsh. Check them out now. You got Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Maury County, Wilson County. All those counties they're touching Nashville, they're exploding. So if you can get your hands on something at a reasonable price, but what most people do, especially a lot of people coming from out west,

they see Williamson County, which is highly attractive. That's where a lot of the country music, medical industry moves, and that's where they wanna go. Well, you're a minimum of a million bucks to get anything in Williamson County. Yes, people are getting priced out. Yeah, you gotta go to one of the other areas. Why do you think Nashville is exploding right now?

Great question. I would say it was affordability. It's starting to get out of reach. Taxes are super low. We have no state sales tax. School systems are good. It's relatively safe. So people from California are coming out here

and they're automatically putting 11, 12% back in their pocket right from the beginning. Right. And then on top of all the other stuff. So I think it has a lot to do with taxes and affordability. But it's also a cool city. It's fun, man. Yeah, it's my first time here, but I'm already gonna lock in some future trips. Nice. Well, we hope you come back. Yeah. Yeah, everyone here has been super nice, man, to be honest.

Yeah, they're down to earth. You know, like you met Adley and some of the other folks yesterday, and it's just like, we just like to help people. It's like there's no hidden agendas or anything. And that's kind of how Nashville rolls. We actually had several years ago TMZ came out here, and we ran them out of town. Literally ran them out of town. Because you don't go to Starbucks

and see Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman and harass them. They're sitting there having coffee, leave them alone. Whole Foods, I see Carrie Underwood. It's like nobody's hassling these people. That's part of the draw on why people move here to next. That's awesome, man. Yeah, because the LA culture like you get TMZ following you or paparazzi or whatever. You can't live a regular life, you know. They just want to be left alone like everybody else, you know. It's kind of like you. You probably go places and meet people, and you're kind of like, man, I just kind of

want to do my thing right now. More and more now, yeah. As a podcast host, it's a little better than a celebrity, I'd say, because you don't get fanboys. It's more like high-level conversations or people that you help. So it's cool. The power of social media and the opportunity.

Gary V said this a couple of weeks ago at this Mastermind I was at, and he said said we're in the greatest opportunity in small business history. We're actually in the third quarter of it and he's like I'm really passionate about this and I'm gonna start really drilling people because if you're not using this opportunity of these seven platforms right now and I would have never met you if it wasn't for that platform. Instagram right? Yeah you know and growing up as a poor kid with like nothing I've always looked for the hack

I always looked for the way that I didn't have to pay for something But I could learn or grow and when social media came on the scene I remember I was out of college But everyone was like that was a time when you had to be in college to get a Facebook account Yeah So I like lied and somehow got in there and I was like I can see all these people and connect with all these people Without having to drive around town and call. And I just kept doubling down on it.

Unfortunately, I did it really bad social media for like 10, 12 years until I met Neil and some of the other people. And I've just really been trying to become a student of all of it. But I think it's the greatest opportunity that we have in front of us right now. And it's sad that people don't take advantage of it.

Yeah, no, it's cool to see you and the guys older than me, like utilizing it now. Gary V is actually someone I learned from. Did you really? Yeah, when I was first starting out in entrepreneurship, I watched him daily. Wow. For probably a year or two straight. He's so, I mean, just the guy's a,

he's a legend in our industry. He's responsible for so many people activating that opportunity that they normally were being held back. And he's an innovator. Yup. He asked at the mastermind, he's like how many people stand up if you use ChatGPT as your primary search bar right now? Well there's only 12 people and I was one of them and he's like you are way ahead of it. Like I'm like who thinks about that? He's so ahead of it and he's current and relevant and modern but he's you know older in generation. Absolutely it's cool. So you use Trachi between more than

Google? I do. Wow. I'd use as a search bar. I might have to start doing that. As a Fizz member you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month at Fizz you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply details at Fizz.ca always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. I kind of question myself on everything I do. Like, can I use chat GPT for this?

Like, I, yesterday, you could take a picture of something and it'll tell you what the macros are in it. What? Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, I was like, whoa, that's crazy. What other prompts do you use it for? I use it, I just used it this morning for an email to a client

because I'm terrible at grammar and punctuation. Wow. So I was it, I just used it this morning for an email to a client because I'm terrible at grammar and punctuation. Wow. I was like, hey, reword this and rewrite this, correct the grammar. I use it all the time. My text messages, I've got an app on there that will update it. I write my weekly newsletter. It goes out to maybe just about 6,000 or 7,000 people, but I use it to write that, clean

it up. That's impressive. I just used it for demand letter generation. Really? Yesterday, yeah. My moving company stole some, we got them on video stealing from me. Yeah.

And yeah, demand letter. My lawyer looked it over, but still it generated most of it. That's pretty smart. You can, so you can go ahead and literally like use it to save you some money and having to call your lawyer all the time. I've used it for NDAs,

cause why would you pay a lawyer a thousand for an NDA when you could just draft it on Chad GBT? You know what I mean? I couldn't imagine when I was like coming up in high school and college if that was a resource that was available to me. I told my daughter she's 14, just turned 15. And I said, if I would have had some of these resources growing up, I don't know where I would be like how much further ahead.

So I said, she always wants allowance and money. She's money motivated. She's got a little calendar. She has people come to our house on Tuesday, Thursdays, and she does their nails, and she's a little entrepreneur. But I said, I'm not just gonna give you money, but I'm not gonna make you work around the farm.

I said, here's what I'll do. If you listen to these 10 Ed Mylett YouTube videos, and you give me a half a page, I was like, I'll pay you 50 bucks for each one. If you read these 10 books, I'll give you $50 for each book. Right? And she's really honest.

I don't have to question her. Like, at first I was like, what if she goes on chat GPT, right? But she went through and read all, watched all 10 of those and read all 10 books. And like some of the things I've even seen her say and do now, like with a friend, a friend really did her wrong. And a couple of months later, I said, well, what are you doing tonight? She's like, well, I'm going to get coffee with Alexis. And I said, well, what for?

And she goes, I just figured I would be the bigger person, you know, because what I'm keeping in size doing more damage to me than it is to her. And I want to just smooth it over. Wow. And I think it came from watching some of those resources. Absolutely. I love that. PBD does that too with his kids watching some of those resources. Absolutely. I love that. PBD does that too with his kids.

Do they? Yeah, he makes them read books. I think that's where I got it from, from Patrick Bette-David. So he makes them read a book to access the iPad for an hour, I believe. That's awesome. Yeah.

They should come out with an app for that. Yeah. Or it's like, do this and do this and then you get access. Yeah. That's so smart though, because I hated reading as a kid with the books they assigned in school, but if you were to pick some interesting topics, I probably would have read as a kid. Have you seen where Dr.

Jordan Peterson's starting his own university? I heard about it yeah how's it doing? I don't know how it's doing yet or anything but I'm just thinking I'm like I bet you all of his curriculum is going to be like stuff that we should have been reading. Oh yeah you know and there's a few guys in our space starting schools now. Really? It's exciting for for someone like me that's going to have kids in a few years, that there's an alternative to public school now. It needs a reinvention. I mean, we have pretty good schools here,

but you still have the classic bullying and the criteria and the curriculum. Yeah. But man, we need like a modern shakeup, new approach to like how kids can get their education. Yeah, and speaking of bullying, you and I both got bullied. I'd love to hear about why you got bullied

and what you took away from that. Mine was a progression. I didn't really know it was bullying until it got so bad. But I was six years old when we got a phone call from my father. He was at a payphone in New York City. And he called my mom. I still remember I was sitting on the floor on a console, watching it out of a console television,

watching TV. And I remember my mom, like she was crying and stuff, and I didn't know what had happened, but that was him at the payphone about 10 minutes before he drove to the Verrazano Bridge and he jumped off the Verrazano Bridge. So I grew up without a dad. My sister was only six months old.

We were living in Vermont. They were apart. He had a lot of PTSD. He was 30 years older than my mom. He served in the Marine Air Wing in World War II. He was a Jewish immigrant in 1926, and then he joined the US Air Wing. He really suffered from that. He tried to get help over the years, and he met my mom in the 70s, and he was 30 years

older than hers. He was 47 and she was 17. Holy crap. Yeah. And she got pregnant with me. They were on and off. He didn't want to get married again. He had been married before, but she moved to New York City with him. And then they ended up splitting up. When they split up and she went back to Vermont, that's when he went back into depression. And it was interesting, because when they met, his business was, he had a tape and record salvage. So they were taking eight track tapes and they were apparently fixing them and reselling them.

Well, later in life, my mom told me he was counterfeiting them. Oh wow. And he had a full warehouse. And part of his problems were for 10 years they didn't pay taxes and the IRS got a hold. Oh damn. So at six years old you know when you don't have a father and you're like well I want to play Little League. I want to learn how to make a Pinewood Derby car and you don't have a man there like you go and you find other men that

will help you right and so I think that's where mentorship started Sean where I was like I can learn from other people. It was automatically put in my DNA and I had eight uncles and aunts. My mom came from a big family, very tumultuous family, drugs, rape, incest, just really bad in upper Vermont. And so she's had a really, really rough past and but she raised me. She was the father and the mother. And kids would get a hold of that. And I didn't really know we were poor. We were on government assistance.

We got food stamps, all that sort of stuff. Oh, your mom hid that from you? Yeah, I didn't really know. We always had food. But the first time I ever knew was when I wanted a Huffy BMX bike that was the black one that came out with the gold bars and everything in the 80s yeah and we couldn't afford that you know everything always was like we can't afford that you know I want tricks you know or fruit loops nope we got to take

the corn flakes right and so I remember having a bike and she had painted it like she taped it all off painted it she's very crafty my mom's really really you know can fix anything and gave it to me for Christmas. And so I was on that bike and I remember being around like six or seven other kids and then they all started making fun of me. They're like, look at his bike. Like it's been spray-painted. It's not even a real thing. And I think that was the first time that I felt like, oh wow, all these people are ganging up on me. And then there was, you know, there was some, you know, situations where, you know where there was sexual

like things that happened in my life that shouldn't have happened with other kids, beaten me up. But they, like I remember one time when Reebok pumps came out. Yeah. And we're sitting there. I don't even know what that is.

So they were like, where you pumped up the shoes, the Reebok pumps and Cavuto had some on yesterday. But I remember a kid came into class, I couldn't afford them, but I remember saying, hey, can I pump your shoes? And he's like, no, you can't pump my shoes, Sean. And then they ended up telling all the other kids and I got bullied over, you know,

Kaplan can't even afford his own shoes, all that. But so then it got, when I moved from Vermont, my mom remarried and we got planted in Clarksville, Tennessee. That's how I got to Tennessee. The man she had married had family down here. And when I got put in high school from Northern Vermont with a butt chin, and I was five foot

tall, 115 pounds, it was game on on the bullying. Wow. It was game on on the bullying. And the first day, Sean, in this new school, there was a black girl and she said something to me and I probably had some smart remark trying to defend myself or whatever, not really knowing. Well, she went off on me. She started chasing me around the school.

Of course, all the kids are laughing. And she landed on me in the English pod and she was on my back and just hitting me. Holy crap. On the first day. Yeah dude and that was like it was horrific. And that was from the point that the guys started bullying me. I remember one time they were like you want to go mudding so in Tennessee we go mudding and pick up trucks and stuff. Yeah. Well one day they were like you want to go mudding and I'm thinking well why do they want to hang out with me? Yeah I want to go with all the popular dudes

I have the big big trucks and I had a little truck that I'd saved up and They all ran through the mud pit and then I ran through and I got stuck and they knew I would get stuck And then they all left and abandoned me. Why no stuck way out in the wood car got stuck Yeah, my truck got stuck. I was way out in the middle of the woods like holy crap I didn't have a cell phone at the time. I know back then I didn't have cell phone at that time and right? No. Back then? No, I didn't have a cell phone at that time. And I had to hike back. And that was pretty bad.

Wow. And so that's where I said, I started getting that chip on my shoulder, where that chip started to grow. And I was like, I'm going to prove to everybody. I'm going to show them that I can do something with my life. And they're going to regret it. And that's really motivated me a lot.

But it motivated me for a long time in an unhealthy way. And that's another whole story that, you know, things I fell into and how I had to really, really go through a lot of personal development and change and force change, you know, a couple of years ago. Wow, that's intense, man. Yeah, I got bullied, but nothing like that. I think it was a new era where like you couldn't physically

like touch kids in school and stuff. But some of the things they say. Yeah, the verbal stuff is almost as bad sometimes. Yeah, and it'll fuck you up like 10 times worse. So I remember a kid told me, he goes, hey, they found out my dad killed himself. Wow. So my mom didn't tell me my dad died until I was 12.

She told me originally it was a heart attack. So you didn't know for six years. Six years. And so when I was 12 years old, we were in the kitchen, we were arguing and I said, well, you're the one who said you didn't plan me. And she didn't say anything. She walked in the bedroom,

came out with a metal filing cabinet, and she opened it up and pulled out this pink piece of paper and slammed it on the counter. And she goes, no, your father's the one who didn't want you. And it was the death certificate. And I had to read how they found him in the river and he fell 300 feet and what it did to him. And that was very death certificate and I had to read how they found him in the river and he fell 300 feet And what it did to him and that was very very traumatic

I bet and so I carried that Well on top of it like kids at school found out and I remember this one time a kid said he's like Well, if you would have killed yourself your dad would have never killed himself Holy crap and like I think words I would rather get beat up. Yeah, like the I was telling my daughter She's like, you know bullying I was like, come on like you don't know what bullying is She goes dad some of the things people say and then I started growing my social media and seeing what some of the people say I'm like, I'd rather just probably fight you. Yeah, cuz those words can penetrate you spiritually they can they can affect you How did they affect you?

nothing physical But they would just make fun of me. So I'm half Asian and I wouldn't get the best grades in schools, so the Asian kids didn't really like me. And then I'm half Irish and the white kids didn't really want to hang out with Asians. So I had a lot of identity issues growing up. Like I couldn't find a solid friend group

and I found myself pretending to be someone I was not to fit in with the cool kids. So similar to you, after I graduated, since I got bullied so much, I wanted to prove everyone wrong. And that's why I pursued entrepreneurship and making money. That identity thing is like really, really tough. My dad was Jewish, my mom was Roman Catholic.

Well, the Roman Catholics didn't wanna hang out with me because they were like, oh, he's Jewish. The Jewish people didn't wanna hang out with me because they're like, he's not a real Jew, right? And so, yeah, and I would hide being Jewish. It was almost like being black in New England. Like you just didn't tell people because fear of getting bullied and made fun of and that's another thing later in life that I've learned like how important it is and the honor and legacy of my family. Like I'm proud to carry it on. Yeah looking back at it. Yeah now with my kids they're going to be four different races.

But I want them to embrace that. It should be a good thing. You shouldn't be shameful over your background. Absolutely, absolutely. But I'm interested to know more about how did the later in life, where did that bring you in bad places before you got to the good places? Yeah, I mean, I went through a party phase in college,

drinking like five days a week, no chasers. So I did some liver damage. I still get blood tests every year and my liver still is damaged from that. I was on Accutane, cause I cared a lot about my appearance. That messed me up. I was smoking weed a lot.

So yeah, I pursued that stuff. And it was super lonely, honestly, in college. You didn't have friends or anything. I had bad examples that I fed off, and it drove me towards doing a lot of that stuff, thinking, oh, that's what I need to do. And it was the same thing. I tried to work my way to people loving me.

I tried to drink my way to people wanting to hang out with me. I hadn't done anything until I actually moved to Nashville area. I went off to college. I was a good kid and everything. But when I moved to the Nashville area, I realized, oh, everybody wants to hang out with the guy that has weed, right? Everyone likes you a lot more when you're drunk. And I just doubled down on that. And that was my life for so long and I started realizing the dark dark places It was taking me but most of all what you just said was I looked up one day and I was like who the hell are you? I don't even know who I am because I'm trying to be this person here this person there this person there But and in mortgage and real estate industry specifically, that's what I've done for 24 years now is

And in mortgage and real estate industry specifically, that's what I've done for 24 years now, is you're constantly trying to please people. In my industry, you're told I choose you or don't choose you multiple times a day. I choose you for the loan, I don't choose you for the loan. And with people with trauma and issues, I didn't realize how bad that could get and it just built up to the point that

I was smoking weed all day. When vape came out, it made it even easier. Yeah, those vape pens. Yeah, so I'm vaping all day, every day for eight years just to numb the pain and not disappoint people and rejection and about two and a half years ago it came to a screeching halt and I was like this is not gonna end well. I wasn't drinking. I'd tried pretty much any drug or whatever through high school and college or after college, but for me it was the fact that I just didn't want to be numbed out every single day. And it's not legal in Tennessee, so I was also having to deal with

the guilt of I'm a dad, I'm a businessman. And so about two and a half years ago, Cody Sperber, like I don't know if you know Cody, but really good dude, and he's like hey, I went to this place. It was the most fucked up like a year of my life I lost my marriage I lost my mom and he's like I went to this place called PCS services in Arizona And I was like I want to know more about that so I went to the website did some research Signed up for an intro you know. And I had this conversation with a guy and he's like, yeah, this is where Mike Tyson came. And I'd saw the change in Cody. Yeah.

And I knew Cody's past story. And I said, well, what would this look like for me to go? And he's like, well, next thing is you do $5,000 deposit and then we'll take you through some tests and phone calls. And it was a lot. It was like 10 different tests, hours and hours, blood work, past records. And I checked myself in voluntarily and I went out there for seven days to Arizona. I got an Airbnb, went to the class every day from 7 30 a.m. till eight at night.

Geez. You have about 10, 12 doctors, people around you. And I, you start with discovering where's your trauma. And I had went there with, oh, my dad died. And I walked out of there with 26 more cases I had never even thought about. Whoa. Yeah, I mean, massive different trauma

that just I had disappeared and stuffed. So I was 13 years old. I always gravitated towards animals and pets. I think, cause like animals provide unconditional love. And so I had a beagle, and the beagle got cancer. And in Vermont, and growing up the way we grew up, my mother was like, you need to take him up in the woods. And so I went up there, and I put my dog down.

Well, in PCS services, they were like, could you ever imagine telling your daughter, 13 years old, to go up to the woods and put a bullet in her dog's head? I was like, no. And so that was another case of trauma that I was just like, I didn't even realize was there. Wow.

You know? And it can be little t and big T, but it really fucks you up and it impacts every single decision that you make in your life. Whether it's big T or little T, we all have it. And that's how we're formulating our decisions every day. Right.

And I wanted freedom from that. That's important, because we all have our belief systems that some of us don't even know we have, right? We just feel a certain way when a certain topic is presented. You see it with politics. People just have this inherent hatred towards whatever candidate, right? They do.

And that's from their belief systems. Exactly. And that belief system doesn't notify you or give you warning. And sometimes you don't even have any correlation to it. And I think that was the biggest thing I took away from being out there was I remember telling my wife, I said, I just want to understand why I make the decisions the way I make them. And they said they had a red light, green light, yellow light system where like you can recognize things.

I'm like, okay, whatever. So I go out there and I come back and I'm realizing, holy crap, I understand what it is now. So good example, I would get road rage. Why do I get road rage? Well, the person's not respecting me by not putting a blinker on, right? Well, out there they equip you. Okay, red light, hold on, you're feeling your anxiety, your heart rate go up, you recognize the characteristics. What's going on? Well, that person doesn't even know who I am. Matter of fact, that person might have just came from the doctor finding out they got terminal ill cancer. Right?

Red light, yellow light, green light. And there's also activities that are red light, yellow light, and green light. Like for red light, I had to make a list. I can't be around people that smoke weed all the time. I have to be careful in the casinos. Like, I got to be careful having then there's yellow light activities. And

then there's green light, like working out meditation, ice bath, things that I need to have fixtures that help me with all that. That makes sense. Man, it changed my whole life. Wow. I mean, literally, I have people, my wife, my friends, people at work, my employees, and they're like, you are a different person. That's incredible. Yeah, all from a seven day retreat. Yeah, you are a different person. That's incredible. All from a seven day retreat. Yeah, I recommend it to anybody that's just like, I can't get over this.

I can't fix this, whether it's sexual, drug addiction, or there's just people that just had anger issues. People there that didn't really have a really bad childhood. It can help anybody. I mean, look at Tyson. He seems like a changed man, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he could be further along, but I'll tell you,

Mike Tyson wouldn't be where he's at if he didn't go under the toolage of Dr. Marilyn Murray, who's the lady who runs it. I wonder what age he went there at. So he seems very mellowed out right now. Yeah, I think he got out of prison at 36, was it? 36 or 37, and now he's like 50. But except for the incident on the airplane,

but that guy was harassing him. That guy was, yeah, being a dick and filming him, like 50, but except for the incident on the airplane, but that guy was harassing. That guy was, yeah, being a dick and filming him, like annoying him, right? Yeah, but it also allows you to see it in other people. So like I can now have friends or people I meet and like I can immediately see like, hey, they're not a bad person. Here's what they have going on. So I won't name any names, but there's a guy I love to follow on the internet. He served in prison and he's like, you know, like I just watch him He's always angry and screaming and yelling and but he's just a badass, right? And I'm attracted to that like I like that's how I grew up was like just my mom would tell me once

Second time you get a slap upside your head, right? No empathy whatsoever. My dad died. She's like, hey buddy, your dad died You know, and so I follow those types of people because that's how I was raised. But now I can look and I can be like, man, there's just some issues there just like we all had that there's looking for some sort of validation and acceptance and want to make something of themselves. And it allows me to have deeper connections with people too.

I already feel like I have a better connection with you because I understand what you went through in your life Yeah, you know and you could do something tomorrow that would piss me off, but I'd be like, oh, it's not him He's making a decision out of fear. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah, it's important to get this stuff off your chest I think as men. Yeah, a lot of guys bottle it in anger is a secondary emotion I never knew that before going to Arizona anger anger is not a primary emotion anger comes from fear, loneliness. It's a reaction. And I just always thought, like, I'm just going to be an angry

Jewish man for the rest of my life. No, that's not in my DNA. That can be changed. So if people have anger issues, for example, I think that gives you a lot of reprieve that hey You're not you don't have to be like this forever, right? It's a secondary motion if we can deal with the first emotion and I was operating out of fear everything was I hope they don't Leave me. I hope you like me so you don't leave me Yeah, you know because you know, my dad wouldn't have killed himself if he liked me right or loved me more Well, that wasn't that's not the story, right? And I had to go through that experience in Arizona. MDMR was the thing that changed it. MDMR?

Yeah. So MDMR is where you're able to rewire those patterns in your brain. So my story was if you don't do enough, if you don't, if they don't find enough value in it, they're going to leave you, right? And one of the stories was, hey, if my dad loved me more, he wouldn't have done what he did because kids had told me that, right? And so MDMR, when I was out there, what you do is you lay down or you can sit in a meditating position, you'll close your eyes, and they put little paddles in your hand, little electrodes. They don't shock you. They vibrate.

And what happens is they'll go left, right, left, right, left, right, and it starts stimulating your left and right part of your brain. And as you're going through that, they'll take you through a guided meditation of things that you want to reprogram. So one of mine was that was really hard when I found out my dad died. I had been lied to for six years, and I didn't really get the consolation that I needed, the empathy I needed. They were like, you want to go back to that moment? I said, yeah. So we went back to that moment. I wear Yankees hat a lot. But I went back to that moment where that little six-year-old boy was sitting on that couch with his Yankees hat on. And 45-year-old, 44-year-old Sean went over and sat down and gave him what I needed. So they'll say,

where are you at? And I'm like, I'm just sat down on the couch next to him. What would you like to do? I'd like to put my arm around him. They're like, go ahead and do that. And the thing's vibrating. And then they're like, what would you like to tell him? And you tell him everything that you needed to hear, which is, I'm very sorry. I love you. Your dad loved you. It's going to be okay. You're valuable. God created you in his image, like all those sorts of things. And then, well, what would you like to do now? I said, I'd like to talk to my mom. And I went to talk to my mom and I said, that was completely inappropriate. Like no human being should ever talk to their son that way. So, and then I took him to my farm current day. He was riding in the seat with me. And this whole thing time, they're guiding you

through with questions and it's vibrating. And I brought him to the farm, Sean pulled up to my farmhouse, I just want my dad to be proud of, right? Walked him up to the front door, my girls opened up the front door, they came out and hugged him. I took him for a ride on the four wheeler through the farm. I sat in the deer stand with him. You know, and that MDMR, now my brain is reprogrammed,

you know, in a way that it comes from a healthy place of what happened in my life. So I went from victim to being a victor. Wow, that's beautiful man. Yeah, because a lot of people have victim mentality. Yeah. How's your relationship with your mom these days? Did it get repaired? It's better. It's better. I've also come to the conclusion that it's not my job to change people. You know, so I one thing I learned out there was boundaries. Yeah and I've learned what my boundaries are with my mom like I can I can hang out with for about 48 hours. She lives in Clarksville. I moved her down here We got her a house years ago

and so I just know boundaries but You know, there's a certain age that and let a certain point where unless somebody's saying I'm willing to like really push myself into that a certain point where unless somebody's saying I'm willing to like really push myself into that you're not gonna see the change but you know she's 60 years old and she's just not gonna change in her ways so yeah a lot of people try so hard to change their friends their siblings their parents and it's like they spend years trying to change them when you can redirect that energy it'll drive you into the ground yeah it's almost impossible right they have to change I you do this thing out there that's either like circles it's almost impossible, right? They have to change. You do this thing out there that's like circles, like a bullseye. And one thing I had heard Dr.

Marilyn say in the opening day, she goes, you cannot give away something that you do not own. And she was talking about self-love, self-respect, you know, looking at yourself in a high regard, being proud of yourself. Well, in these circles circles what happens is you start labeling who you put where before she tells you where you're going Well, everybody else in my life was in circle one and I was way out here, you know That's what you do. Like as a Christian, it's like you serve people you give you give you pour, you know Okay, part of that is true But you don't give to the point that you're so empty that you can't give to other people And what I realized was I have to be in circle number one. I got to feel good about myself. I

got to physically be... I got to be happy with my physical nature. I got to be happy with my progress and my... where I'm growing and my imperfections. And once I can brace that, then I can give it to circle two, which should be my family, my very close family. Circle three should be my close intimate friends, some of my, maybe my employees. Circle four and circle five are business acquaintances. And what I was doing, Sean, was I was putting everybody in circle one, and I'd look up and there's always gonna be

somebody disappointed. And it was just a constant cycle. And that's why I was just smoking weed or vaping weed every single day to just not disappoint people. I love that system, man, because I'm very similar where I'll try to please all sorts of people and there should be a priority list Yeah, right. Absolutely. Yeah, my girl and I used to fight about that because I would please all my friends and put her kind of To the side not on purpose, right?

I was just so giving because of your given nature and it would drain me and you know what the one thing I found out Is a lot of those people they will receive I mean we're giving people like they will receive but if it's not in their nature they don't reciprocate and that's where you get resentment and anger from. That's for me like you're not finding value in me. I feel like I'm being used. You're not reciprocating in this friendship. You know like I would get so pissed off when a friend wouldn't text me back. I'd be like if you're supposed to be my friend how how can you just ignore my text, right? Right. Now I just say, I'm like, look, maybe something happened.

I hope they're OK. Texting back, hey, man, everything OK? Yeah. You know? And it's just that giving thing can really drive you into the ground. And I think the Christian faith, you know, I've talked to my pastor and my wife and people about this. I think the Christian faith really drives that home in people.

I mean, my poor father-in-law, he'll give you the last dollar out of his pocket and then he's broke and having financial hardships. It's like that's not what God in my opinion calls us to be. God calls us to live really, really super big so we can give. I'd love to live off 10% of what I make and give away 90% one day. So we just got to be careful with that giving thing. Yeah, some people are a little too extreme, right? Yeah, the tithing doesn't work for everyone. No, and where you tithe, you know? Like, I give to my church, but I believe giving is giving, right? And I'm just not into religion. I'm into having my relationship with God. I'm Jewish, but I'm Christian, relationship with God. I'm Jewish, but I'm Christian, and you know, it's my own personal relationship. And I understand that the church is not perfect, and so

I'm able to go in there and be like, well, I agree with that, or I don't agree with that. And I think that's something that people need to really, really learn in today's age. You know, the legality part of it is not fun for people. And it really messes up a lot of things, and it causes people to go away from their faith. Did you struggle with jealousy and comparing yourself to other people? I did. I did. You know, funny story. I've always been a car guy. When I was like eight, seven or eight years old, my mom used to clean big fancy mansions. She would always work three jobs, but one of

them was cleaning people's houses. And she'd have to take me with her sometime. I remember going to this one house And this guy had a red Porsche in the garage and the first time second time I knew it was there the third time I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go out and I'm just gonna look at it So I went out and I looked at this Porsche It was bright red tan leather calfskin and I'm like looking around well I decided would open up the door and I was just gonna sit in it just for a minute now got in that car Sat there doors kind of open and all of a sudden I heard a garage door open and I'm thinking oh my mom

Nope, it wasn't her the garage. She wasn't opening up the garage door I look in the rear-view mirror and it's him getting out of his car and I'm like, oh my gosh, and I just froze Yeah, and he walked up Shawn and he I remember it was just like this big giant shadow you know at that time because I was only seven or eight years old and he pointed at me he goes get the hell out of my car he goes if you ever touch something of mine ever again I promise it'll be the last time you do it get out of my car Wow and I sat there and that was another chip right I was like motherfucker I'm gonna get me a car one day right and so I've I always had matchbox cars models I would polish them and paint them and all

this different stuff well I got my first car when I was like you know 15 years old worked hard for it worked my way up the ladder kind of like real estate yeah and the story is a couple of about four or five years ago I bought my dream car I wanted a shark grade Audi R8 V10. So I went and I bought it. At that time, I'm vaping every single day and my thing would be, you know, get up on the weekend like on a Sunday and go for a drive.

Country roads, that's my favorite thing to do. Turn the music down, turn the windows down, blare up the music. And I'm sitting there, Sean, and I'm driving this country back road, beautiful day, got this car. Things are going great for me in my life. And I said, you're fucking miserable.

And it just hit me, and I was like, why? Why? And I'd heard all the things like, as you get more successful, I was more miserable than ever and all of that. And I decided I was going to sell that car. And I sold the damn car, regretted it for a couple of years, went through my

therapy, but I was doing it because I wanted to be like other people. I wanted to show them, look what I did. And I realized that was the wrong place. So about, I've gotten healthy. I'm operating from a good place now. And about a month ago, I went and I bought the same exact car out of Washington and I love it shipped it here And it's different now riding in it Wow comes from a different place. Yeah, did you ever talk to that guy? Again the one that confronted you at eight years old I didn't he actually his family of a big giant cereal conglomerate that we all know I wish I could look him up one day know about the impact. Yeah, right

But you know that's that's another thing is like it also allows me to understand the power of my words in other people's lives. Right. You can speak life into people or you're going to take life from them. And I'm really just trying to speak life into other people. That's why I just try to be open and honest about my issues because I know somebody else is out there like, man, like Cody did with me. When I talked to Cody about that, it was a game changer.

I was like, here's this person who's willing to throw it all on the line and tell me all his shit that he's been through, instead of telling me how much money he has, how many properties he has, and all that. And it really made an impact. And it's motivated me. I've told him this.

It's motivated me to share with other people that it can change. It's not going to be easy. It was the most pain, hardest thing I probably ever had to go through in my life. And that's where the most growth comes from. All the successful people I have on the show, they have some massive trauma, man. There's got to be some correlation there. Yeah, it really, really is. I think you, I mean, you can really be successful off trauma.

Well, you can be really successful off that chip on your shoulder. But again, I truly believe that it will eventually crash and burn. And I see people at the height of their careers right now that have drove them to that. But I also have enough knowledge to say, that's going to crash and burn. I mean, have you ever seen somebody super successful and you're like, wow, like Britney Spears,

like that's going to be great. But then you also say, hey, that thing's headed in a really bad direction. 100%. Right? Yeah, it can easily do that. I wonder what the middle ground is to coast. I think that you just have to have an experience that takes you back.

I think you have to have an additional experience that says, holy shit, I want something different. I truly believe people will only change until they're forced to do so or they got so sick and tired of current circumstances that they're willing to do So right and that's a shame because it takes people in near-death experience to see that right when you could kind of work on it Proactively. Yeah, and I pray to God that you know, we're gonna get to I got to the point that it happens before You know, like I actually have to like, you know it happens before, you know, like I actually have to like, you know, be forced into somebody dying close to me, you know, or crashing and burning in some area, you know? And I wanted that before that, you know, like my father, like, he was very successful.

He made millions, lost millions. And he was a hero. He's American war hero. He had everything. I mean, and he crashed and burned because it didn't come from a healthy place. He wanted to be loved by his dad. I have a picture that I share with people often, but it's him in 1926 with his four brothers and sisters, and they're all tailored out because my grandpa Isidore was a tailor from Belarus,

Minsk, Russia before the Holocaust. They were coming over here. Well, he was a tailor. Within hours of being in Brooklyn, he found a businessman, he said, I'll tailor you a suit. But in this picture, they're all tailored out, and they had no money. But I always tell people, I'm like, look at my dad, look really close, and if you look in that picture, he's got a bloody nose, and it's because my grandpa slapped the shit out of him right before the picture.

And that's all my dad ever wanted, was to be loved, be accepted. And when he disappointed people, look what it drove him to. And I told myself, I said, I'm never going to do that. I had a guy about 10, maybe seven, eight years ago that he's a very direct guy. And he had permission to speak into my life. But he told me one day, he goes, I

see the path that you're on. He goes, you're doing great. He goes, but I'll tell you, if something doesn't change, you're going to end up like your father. Wow. And at first I was like, motherfucker, who are you? Right? But then I was like, there's truth to this. Yeah. And I don't want to end up like my father. You know, he is my hero, but I also use that story to tell other people that we should learn from our generational situations. You know, I saw the

gentleman that you had on one time, one of your episodes where he was talking about how it can be passed on from your parents. Generational trauma. Yeah, like it can be in your DNA, your RNA, right? And I do believe that. 100%. I think we're here to kind of learn from our parents

and break that curse, you know, or else it's not gonna just stop with you because your kids witness it. So it's gonna keep going until someone breaks it Right if we looked at that the same way as generational wealth like I'm a first-generation wealth builder I don't you may be too right? Yeah, and it's like I'm changing the course of my family's history, right? I'm son. Well, we have to think about that also as like our childhood trauma, you know The things that our parents dealt with we got to be aware of that because we got to shift that course too. Yeah, like my mom's brothers and sisters were all alcoholics.

Same. They've all lost their teeth, everything. I'm very aware that I don't want like I don't like to drink anymore. I just don't do it. I've done it. So your family too bad? Oh, the Irish and me. Yeah.

So my dad's side, his dad, his dad. So my grandfather beat the shit out of him every day. Wow. My dad never laid a hand on me. Really? Yeah, so I just love that, you know, that he broke that cycle. Cause I'm assuming my grandfather's dad did that to him.

That's why he was doing it. So. Are your parents still alive? My dad passed away a couple of years ago, suicide. Same thing. And then same with my grandfather, he committed suicide. So I'm going to break that curse too. But problem with being, they both had genius IQs.

You get so lonely and in your own head, man. Cause you feel like people don't relate to you? Yeah. Have you battled suicide? I haven't, but my dad had a couple other kids they have in medical school. But no, I never have. But I've definitely had like depression, anxiety.

Yeah, me too. But I've never had like depression, anxiety. Yep. For sure. You too. But I've never like bad enough where like I wanted it to end. Yeah. You know, I think it's because we see the impact that it has on people. A lot of people would be affected a lot, you know, I would never want my kids to have to go through like what I went through with my father. Yeah, never. How did it affect you later in life and not being young? Like when I was six.

Yeah, it was two years ago. I really um, I felt like at first guilt, like I should have been there more for him. Yeah. Because I feel like if I was in his life more maybe he wouldn't have done it, but you never really know that sort of thing. Yeah. Maybe it just happened for a reason. I had to go through forgiveness with myself. I had to, and I had a lot of resentment towards my mom, like, oh, he did this because... And what I realized is it has nothing to do with us. It really doesn't. Yeah, we could have maybe changed the circumstance a little bit, but we wouldn't have changed the outcome. Really? You believe that? Yeah, I truly believe that. I think because what they're dealing with is it's the same things that sometimes we find our disappointment, regret, you know,

the same things that sometimes we find our disappointment, regret, you know, not forgiving themselves or loving themselves. And we know we can't change that for somebody else. And so like my dad, it wasn't that he didn't love me. You know, he jumped off a bridge because of the fact that he was so sad of the lives that he took in the war that he didn't want to live with that pain and that regret, you know, and that disappointment in his life anymore. You know, also in the 50s, he was one of the first people that they did shock therapy on, so that screwed him up. Shock therapy, what's that? Like frontal lobotomy, they hook up electrodes

and they thought that would fix it, that will shock it out of you. Yeah, it's called lobotomy, frontal lobotomy, but it was shock therapy. And then he was one of the first people that got on lithium in the 60s and 70s, they put him on lithium. Jeez. And he was good when he was on lithium.

I mean, probably anybody would be good on lithium, but when he got off it is when he'd go into depression. The withdrawal, right? The third time he, yeah, he acted like he was okay and got a weekend pass. And that's when he called my mom, so. Yeah, man. Well, we're here to share their stories

and their insights, you know? Yeah, absolutely. It's been really insightful, man. Well, we're here to share their stories and their insights. Yeah, absolutely. It's been really insightful, man. Anything you want to close off with here? We've got a pretty young audience. I think that the audience, if I could speak to myself years ago, I really truly mean it that we are all created individually, uniquely, for a purpose and for a reason.

And I wish I could have found a way to embrace that, share that, love that, and be me the way that I do now, sooner in my life, because it would have served me to a greater purpose. And so I just want to say, like, one of the things that I always carry with me is that life is happening for me, not to me. So when bad shit happens or bad people come along, just ask yourself, what is the lesson that I'm learning? This is only temporary and how can I use it to craft my story in the future? Instead, don't go down that road of why is this happening to me? I'm a victim because that will not serve you at all. But you know, it's

tough growing up in today's generation. Make sure that you keep community around you and be open and honest with people. I hid for so many years, like, things that were going on with me and I wish I would have just told my friend, man, I'm having a really tough time right now. And all you need is, the other thing, and I'll shut up, but,

is two or three, four really good friends. I've told my daughter this. You don't need to be friends with 30 people in school. You need two or three good friends and by the way you probably won't be friends with them later in life. You'll probably have a new group of friends. Good chat. I love it man. Thanks so much for coming on. Yeah, Sean. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for watching guys as always. See you next time.