Living The Red Life - Unlocking Success: Beyond Intelligence with Shawn Meaike

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Join us in this eye-opening episode of "Living the Red Life" as we dive into an inspiring conversation with Shawn Meaike, a serial entrepreneur and the mastermind behind multiple successful business ventures. Shawn shares his journey from a state worker focused on child welfare to becoming a multi-millionaire by embracing risk, action, and a unique perspective on intelligence and success.---Key Topics Covered:Redefining Intelligence: Shawn’s observation on how over-analysis and risk aversion often hold back highly intelligent people from achieving financial success. The advantage of action over analysis in the entrepreneurial journey.Shawn Meaike's Background: An overview of Shawn's diverse career, from social work to founding and selling multiple companies in real estate, waste management, and life insurance.Creating Opportunities for Others: Shawn's passion for empowering others to achieve financial success, creating more six and seven-figure earners than any company he’s worked with.The Blend of Confidence and Continuous Learning: How maintaining a balance between confidence and the willingness to learn and adapt can propel individuals toward success.Launching with Momentum: Shawn’s philosophy on the power of launching ideas quickly and refining them on the go, despite operational challenges.---Key Takeaways:From Social Work to Serial Entrepreneurship: Shawn shares his unique journey and the lessons learned from transitioning between vastly different career paths.Intelligence vs. Action: A discussion on how sometimes, taking bold actions without overthinking can lead to greater success than cautious analysis.Empowering Financial Success: Shawn’s most rewarding achievement - helping others build their own successful businesses under his mentorship.Momentum Over Perfection: The contagious energy of launching projects quickly and the impact of momentum on brand and team dynamics.---Join us in this episode of "Living the Red Life" as Shawn Meaike reveals the unconventional wisdom behind his success and how he uses his achievements to inspire and uplift others. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or someone seeking motivation to take action, Shawn’s insights offer valuable lessons on the path to financial freedom and success.---Don’t miss out on more inspiring episodes. Subscribe now and share your thoughts on Shawn Meaike’s entrepreneurial philosophy in the comments below!#LivingTheRedLife #Entrepreneurship #SuccessMindset #FinancialFreedom #ShawnMeaike---Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

Funny is after the years of doing this, along the way I've met some pretty stupid millionaires and I tell my members that I'm like, there's people out there way dumber than you making way more money than you, right? So you got to remind yourself of that. Like, cause even the, I came from a science background, master's degree in science and a lot of the smart people make no money cause they're over analytical. They, they, they don't take risks. They want to study things a hundred times and map it out.

And it's like, you know, sometimes the dumb people, they just start going and they just keep punching and just keep going and they win. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast. And I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of Living the Redfield. Join me in Wonderland and change your life. All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. We're here in my Miami office kicking off. We've got Sean in. He's sold a lot of companies. He's helping a lot of people make a lot of money, not only for himself, but now empowering others. So welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, man. This is quite

an impressive place. Yeah, well, it's a lot of red at least. It makes me feel good about myself. Good, good. So let's kick off. If anyone doesn't know you, what do you do? What have you achieved and what are you up to now? So I've been in business for myself for probably 30 years. I'm 51 years old and I didn't make money in my 20s. I had a job working at the state, helping kids make sure they weren't abused and neglected. That was my focus coming out of college. I started a real estate company in my early 30s.

Scaled that, sold it. Kind of by accident, didn't even realize you could do that. All right, so then I launched a real estate company in my early 30s. Scaled that, sold it, kind of by accident. Didn't even realize you could do that. Hey, hey, hey. All right, so then I launched a waste management company, the exact same thing there in Connecticut. Moved to Florida four years ago. I launched a life insurance distribution deal 10 years ago.

I sold that four years ago. So I've sold multiple companies, and yes, it's been great money. It's hundreds of millions of dollars. That's all cool. But the best thing I've done by far, Rudy, is, and I said this to somebody the other day, I don't care what company you work at. I believe I've created more people making six, seven figures than they have. And for me to make money is fine, but that's not what drives me. Most people say that, but I mean it. It don't

drive me. But we've created wealth for so many other people and been able to sell their own companies and have the same umbrella. So that's what I've been doing for the last 20 some odd years, man. Okay. And I would love to dive into that. So a lot of people watching this, entrepreneurs or startup entrepreneurs, or maybe soon to be entrepreneurs, right? And we have a lot of business owners too. What would you say are some of the key things you've learned after doing this yourself around making money, starting the business, that sort of thing? I think a lot of people that were doing what I was doing, they weren't working hard.

Sweat equity is how you build it, right? Sales, most everything I did was service business. I was like, okay, if I'm gonna sell real estate, I'll sell it at a high level. Then I'll get my mortgage license, then I'll get my construction license, and I wanted to make all the money I could make and keep it in and put it back in the business.

So a lot of folks that I've seen as entrepreneurs don't ever scale because they start their business. They never go out and make the money. And you make the money by going out there and doing what you like. You busted your ass and built it. Yeah. And that's what it takes. Yeah. A lot of people get into it and they're like, I can't wait. I'm like, buckle up, dude.

It's a lot more work than you ever thought it would be. And I think also it gets harder, not easy. You just get better, more equipped. Right. Definitely gets harder. Yeah. For me, it was like, if I can find a way to show people that I can do this, that will increase their belief level themselves. What I found is most people fail. They don't believe in themselves.

Yeah, yeah. And like, I believe in me, not as a businessman, but I believe in me. Like, I can go to work. I can figure some stuff out. And then once you show people how to do it, and then also dummy the doubt. Most people get good at something and they tell you how good they are. Yeah. Like, dude, that's stupid.

If I get really good at something and I want everybody around me to do it, why won't I tell everybody they can do it? Yeah. Take away. And first of all, what I do is not complicated. People are like, you're really good at it. I sell life insurance, dude. Everybody's going to die.

Hey, Tommy, what life insurance is what? You're going to die. I just don't know when, you know, real estate, waste management, things that everybody had to do. Matt, we say in our company, third grade level, right? i we say in our company third grade level right everything we try and do is third grade level and i use trump as i teach a lot you know around the world and i always say whether you love or hate him he's a great example of this right make america great again there's no no one's confused about the message here and it won an election so

yeah i think making it third grade level and then also something i teach a lot is the four minute mile i came from an athletic background um and i think there's so much power and understanding the psychology behind the four minute mile which is you know once um you know roger bannister hit the four minutes then hundreds of people have done it ever since and it's the same for you that i found after 10 years the strategies and tactics help but actually half the people don't have the mindset to even use them, right? So it's kind of interesting that you notice the same, that actually they have to believe and empower them. And I think as entrepreneurs that hit these big goals is we have this like, you know, for some reason we believed in ourselves, right? And that wasn't a thing we had to always battle with. And that can get you a long way in life, even if you're,

you know, not maybe the smartest guy in the the room but if you just believe and keep going. You know what's funny I had a guy I went to college to play baseball I didn't go to study got a degree in social work because everybody the baseball team is a social worker okay then I went back to graduate school because I'm gonna play football yeah right and then I got a degree in psychology and criminal justice okay and I remember my psychology professor said people start with low self-image I said what is the biggest causation in your opinion of low self-image?

And he said, the lack of unconditional love. And I was like, huh. So I started talking when I meet him and I try to figure out like my mom, if I was getting arrested, if I was beating up my brother, she loved me. She told me every day that she really loved me. You know what I mean?

And I see a lot of people, you know, to your point, I had a great guy that was mentor me when I was about 18 years old. He'd made millions of dollars a long time ago. Sure. A long time ago. A million dollars is a lot of money in the 80s and 90s annually. And he said to me, Sean, there's two reasons that most people fail. And I said, what are they? He said, they think too much. Like what we do is not complicated. He said, the other thing is they spend their time telling everybody else how great they are and they worship other

people. And he worship other people. And he's like, first of all, you're not supposed to worship anybody. I say I worship myself. But you should feel so good about yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People should get around you. And that's what I've done.

I've made it because I don't think I'm the smartest one in the room. I don't think, but I've learned to be open enough, make good decisions. That's why I have me life insurance. I got in the business and I was like, dude, I'm 36 and I'm young in this business. Like old are all these people i remember i said to one of the companies said what's our biggest issue i said your folks are gonna die yeah like your distribution is just

gonna die yeah yeah yeah and then they were so backlogged just technologically i saw a phenomenal opportunity for sure yeah yeah yeah life change it's funny because it's like i did an instagram post most normal people confuse the confidence of myself or an entrepreneur with arrogance right and it's like you have to have this perfect blend like i'm always super like ever since a kid i always thought i could be the best in something and win right and you have to have this perfect blend i mean of having that belief in yourself but then being open-mindedness that you always want to learn right so i have this blend of confidence borderline arrogance blended with i want to be the best and i want to study and learn and like so i want to hire him do that go to that event consult here and always be open to like well

what if right and i mean if you can combine those two elements where you're not too confident or arrogant where you're like i know everything but it's enough that you just keep going. When you get punched in the face every day in the world of business, you're off to success. Well, I think, you know, just you, I've only known you a short period of time, but I've watched a lot of your content and you care about other people. You want them to win. And by the way, your confidence is what I feel about. Like you have to exude your confidence. You want me to follow you. So I can't walk into your business and go like, yeah, Rudy even like himself really don't feel good about himself why am i here it's a path of destruction yeah yeah you need to make up for my lack of confidence yeah and i work real hard when i find that when you look him in the eyes i said a guy one day i'm like dude if you'll ever

see yourself the way other people see you you just don't see yourself not yet and if you ever decide to because the greatest thing for me getting around really wealthy people early on because i was raised with no money was i'm like they're not any different like why yeah of course yeah i can go you know i'm like you i believe in me yeah and i had to survive i had to believe in me yeah and i think putting that helping other people find that because going out and winning in america dude it takes work and a grind but you can do it yeah of course i don't care what your limitations are what's funny is after the years of doing this along the way i've met some pretty stupid millionaires and i tell my members that i'm like there's people out there way dumber than you making way more money than you right yeah so you gotta remind yourself of that like because even

the i came from a science background a master's degree in science and a lot of the smart people make no money because they're over analytical they they don't take risks they want to study things a hundred times and map it out it's like you know sometimes the dumb people they just start going and they just keep punching and just keep going and they win right so i mean that's a great message to anyone listening like you've got to blend yes you want to have a plan and you want to know your numbers and all that stuff and i talk about that a ton but you could just go to start right like we coach a lot of members and some of the smartest ones they take six months to launch and some of the less smart ones let me put it that way they launch two days later without and half of it's broke but at least they start you know and they create the mess when we start the

insurance it's fun to have this tiny little office had a few bucks it made some money and we took i print it on my damn printer move fast and break things, we put it on every freaking car. Yeah, great, yeah, yeah. And we made a disastrous mess. We went from $11 million that year, we did about $750 million in paid premium last year. We made all kinds of, we were doing this.

We were always moving. And most of the people, you're right, they do this. They park, they move. And I met some stupid billionaires on top of millionaires. I'm impressed. I'm not the smartest guy, but if they can do it, I sure as hell can. Well, I think there's this, I teach something like, there's this snowball effect. It's easier to roll once it's rolling.

And I mean, a lot of people, it's kind of like weight training. It's easier when you're in the middle of the reps versus a stop, pause, stop, pause, stop, pause. It's way harder. So that energy and that momentum can be contagious for your brand for your staff for you and uh you know my ops people hate that right like jen sat here behind me she hates that stuff because i'm like let's just launch it tomorrow and figure it out she's like well we don't even have insurance yet i'm like well bring the insurance company today and get insured right so that's as an entrepreneur and then you need those people around you that clean up your mess right

you know so well how did you find let's talk about the selling of the businesses side, because a lot of people grow businesses, I say stages of entrepreneurship. First, it's figuring out how to make money, then how to keep money, and then eventually how to actually build to sell and then invest that, right? So talk about some of the lessons from actually coming to the part of the exit, preparing for exit, and then I would love to hear like, hey, you wake up one day and you've got millions of dollars all of a sudden. Where are you putting that money? Well, first of all, I educated myself.

I did nothing about it. The first time somebody asked me what my EBITDA was, I said, what is that? And the guy don't explain it. Why don't you say my net income? The money in my bank account. Tell me that. So I took a lot of meetings. I met with a lot of companies to really do my research.

And I never felt inadequate because I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing, but so what? Like the company, my real estate was international. That was all new to me. Matter of fact, that was right before COVID hit.

Oh wow. And it was like, literally to give you an idea, there was another a hundred thousand dollars in permits or something. They went, and my guys are so smart. They're like, no,

we're going to argue. And I'm like, just tell them we'll pay half. Yeah. And three years, three days later, COVID becomes this. I could have won back 30 cents a dollar multiple times, and I still didn't. What I would tell you is, first of all, you have to make sure, because a lot of people say, I want to sell my business.

I go, let me go over your numbers. Then I'm like, would you buy this? Yeah. Like, you don't make any money. Yeah, yeah. You didn't create something. Like, you didn't make any money. You're in the service business as opposed to Mar, tomorrow right so you really have to do your research and what's blown me away is there's multiple ways to structure them there's cash there's earnouts we

keep making money there's stock so i've gotten quite a bit i always leery of people that want to give away their stock that means their company doesn't much value typical my old time i say i want you to be on my board i'll give you this percentage of the company i'm like you don't even know me yet yeah well i'll give equity away that easily it means you're not it's not that valuable so what i will tell you is do your research get around people ask as many questions as you can relax don't make a decision overnight i mean i never thought i'd sell something make hundreds of millions of dollars i remember last time i came back and i went to the staff like what happened i'm like i think i sold the company. I'm like, they offered this.

I countered with this. We did this. I got everybody this, and we moved on. What I learned about my money, first of all, I'm a huge, huge fan of tax-free municipal bonds. I just am. I'm a big fan of that. And I'm a big fan because it matches my personality.

Sure. And explain what that is for everyone. So you kind of laughed about Jen and the ops people. I started, I got paid a lot. And I was that is for everyone. So you kind of laugh about, you know, Jen and the ops people. You know, I started, I got paid a lot. And I was like, you know what? I've been managing my money my whole life. I'm done pretty well. Life's good. But I really probably should go to one of these bigger brokers,

see what they actually offer. Sure. And I'm sitting down with this guy, and you go to J.P. Morgan, you go to Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and they're all trying to do this. And I said, here's what I want. I have all this money over here that I'm going to play with. I'm going to keep my real estate.

I'm going to invest in the market and my equities. I'm going to lose and win. And I win more than I lose. But I do want to take, here's what it costs me to live a month, which is a lot of money. My buddy said, I can live on $20,000 a month. I'm like, huh? You can live on like $250,000.

Yeah. And I said, I want to take a chunk where you spit me off an income that i'm not taxed on yeah so and i want a rate so i started to learn about bonds like what do you all buy and i'm like how do you how do i know they're safe and he's like well it's taxed in authority and they do this in schools and toll booths and i'm start doing all this research on it and now for all these years i'm like do they pay me every month my principal don't go on animal i play with this money over here life's really good and what i learned is the more money i had the more access i had to buy as an institution right so i could buy at a different rate and so i really but what i would tell people is

surround yourself with good people i found a good attorney early on and a good accountant because i knew i'd get sued yeah it was 100 percent you know watching the last deal i got enough people i guess soon i'm like i got sued, I'm like, I got sued. Federal court, state court, because when you go do something big, the people that you upset, Yeah, of course. That's just the way it works.

And Beverly's like, what'd you do when you got sued? I'm like, I just tried to figure out what I was gonna have for lunch. Like, who gives a shit? Like, it's just part of business, man. Yeah, it sounds scary at first. Yeah, it sounds really scary. Yeah, it's in process, yeah, yeah.

Okay, I like it. You know, my daughter one day is like, what do you do when they show up? I'm like, what's the guy want? She's like, he's downstairs dorming. He's probably serving me something. Should we throw on the table and send to my turn? And eventually you don't even deal with it, right?

No, I never deal with it. I just go, y'all pay me, send me a bill every month and move on. But what I did learn, Rudy, is honestly, man, is I learned that there's so many ways. And find out what matches your personality. Like I'm a risk taker by nature. I'm a big life insurance fan. I've taken out some really big index universe life policies for my kids and built retirement that way a long time ago. But there's so many different

vehicles out there. Just do your research, man. And I talked to everybody. I talked to all the big brokerages, like when I went to the private equity deals. And what happened was some of the people I talked to in real estate, I didn't do a deal with them but then come waste management yeah i was like okay i knew them and then life insurance so i built this network of people who knew the businesses i built and now they call me like why don't you come work with us we're going to acquire i'm like dude i'm just too busy doing this other stuff over here yeah well what i like and hear from that is like and this is what i do too is you have that like kind of throw away or usable fund, right?

I'm going to take some risk, do some of this. And then you have the more, hey, I'm going to invest long term, play it safe, and it's going to cash out. And I always try and find deals. You know, I bought a castle a couple of years ago. Castle? Yeah. It's near Atlanta, North Carolina. Actually, it sounds cool.

Near Asheville. Yeah, well, that was one of the reasons. So I bought the domain Rudy's Jet, Rudy's Island, Rudy's Castle. So I'm just ticking off the boxes. So I got the castle so far. But anyway, the cool thing about that is we host all of our big 1500K members there. I actually got married there. We host our events there.

We Airbnb it and it cash flows, right? So to me, I like some fun stuff like that where, you know, could I get a better deal somewhere else on something more boring? Yeah, of course. But having that diversity, I mean, having some stuff like that where, you know, could I get a better deal somewhere else on something more boring? Yeah, of course. But having that diversity, I mean, having stuff, some stuff that's beneficial, fun and still lucrative and then having more of the boring stuff that just runs itself. Right. It's a great way. So so let me ask you one question. You wake up one day. Deal signed. Why is in money is in your account. What do you think? How's that day go? I'll be really honest with you. It was surreal. When I started, because I never thought,

dude, I was trying to make $100,000 a year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I was like, I'll make a million. I didn't make a million dollars a year until I was in my 40s. So you're crushing it. But a lot of the people that they're watching online are not. And everybody thinks they got rich overnight. It was it was a line but when that money when that the biggest why i ever got matter of fact my bank rejected it i had a small bank a true story there's something like on a friday my attorney calls he's like hey they won't and you start learning about banks so like how much can they have on hand yeah it's crazy and i'm like you guys can't take the money we can definitely not take that kind of money and so you know i like, you're sure it's safe and the whole deal.

But when that all got resolved, what I wish I did, and I didn't do this, is I wish I took a moment to reflect on it because I'm a psycho. So I just kind of keep going. That's the Mason way. I really wish, I never really enjoyed it at all. I have now retrospect, look back on it. But I went from that, Muddy's in there, damn, I got to go to work. Who cares? I'm like, who cares, Sean? Congratulations. Big deal. It's not a big deal. And I've really over the course of time now taking some time to reflect on it.

But I think the bigger piece was all I ever wanted to do is provide a situation where I didn't make decisions based on money all the time for my kids, for people I care about. Yes. Yes. I think that's where we all start right like a lot of us entrepreneurs like you know i start because i never want to look at a price tag ever again right or like worry about a bill i grew up in england parents weren't wealthy we had to turn the heating on for like one hour a day and when it's freezing outside you had to have breakfast sat by the radiator and the fire because you couldn't heat the whole house too expensive so it's funny how and then you you know now i live I live on the penthouse on the beach, right?

It's a different world, yeah. But it's just funny how I think over time your goals change, but a lot of us it comes back to just like we didn't grow up with money and we saw how money can be toxic or have control over you, right? Like if you don't have it. So for a lot of us it's just creating that freedom. So if anyone wants to learn more about you, follow you, get some more of this wisdom, where do they find you? Man, Instagram. My name is Sean S H H W. And my last name, even though it's pronounced Mike is M

E A I K E YouTube channel. The same. I got a podcast closing conquer. Uh, wrote a book called punch me in the face. Um, and punching back. And, uh, you can find me at any of those i'm on an app called my neck do you look me up there so and i and i think just like as i listen you taught me i just want more people that are turn the heat on an hour a day or they grew up that way or had a single mom or single dad or had to understand that don't let people trick you yeah any but you can go do it doesn't mean hey listen i can't do what you're doing but there are other ways to do i'm not i can't pull this off if i try to wear that you'd be like dude cut it out get out of here but there are other ways so yeah yeah yeah yeah you've got to find what works for you and what's in your personality what you love to do you know sounds stupid if you love

it like i liked real estate and i liked waste management i like a lot of this but i freaking loved life insurance the first time i wrote somebody a policy and the person died, like two days later in a motorcycle accident in his 30s, I was like, dude, people like really died. Like suddenly. Yeah. You got a quarter million dollars and they had made one payment and it saved like their house.

And I was like, okay, dude, I'm in. I fell in love with it. And then I fell in love with replicating that. And by the way, you're good at selling something. You're selling you. Yeah. You're selling something and you'll make money. You'll become wealthy. Yeah, yeah. You're selling something, and you'll make money. You'll become wealthy.

Yeah, well, I always ask a word of wisdom as we pop. I mean, get good at selling stuff and find something that you love what you do. It's a good summary. A hundred percent. Cool. All right, buddy. Great to see you guys. Check him out.

Until next time, keep living the red life. Thank you.