Mick Unplugged - Standing on New Shoulders:The Polite’s Path to Financial Freedom
Episode Date: November 17, 2025Crystal and Dedrick Polite are visionary real estate entrepreneurs, TV personalities, and founders of Be Polite Properties. As stars of A&E’s “5050 Flip,” they’ve built a multi-million-dollar ...real estate empire rooted in faith, family, and an unwavering commitment to generational wealth. Raised in backgrounds shaped by generational poverty, the Polites turned intentionality, resilience, and service into their guiding principles, paving a legacy that goes beyond building doors to opening them for others. Their journey inspires countless aspiring investors through mentorship, coaching, and a powerful message of lifting as they rise. Takeaways: Intentionality fuels success: Crystal and Dedrick attribute their achievements to going into every partnership and opportunity with purpose and clarity—from their first “business meeting” date to scaling their real estate ventures. Mentorship matters: Their path was forged not by luck, but by investing in themselves, seeking out guidance, and ultimately becoming mentors to others. They stress that those who pay for mentorship are the ones who truly commit and succeed. Legacy is impact: Building wealth isn’t just about accumulating properties; for the Polites, true legacy is measured by how many doors they open for others—dedicating themselves to empowering the next generation and uplifting their community. Sound Bites: “You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.” —Crystal Polite “People who pay, pay attention.” —Crystal Polite “Start how you want to finish… and that’s exactly what we did on that first date.” —Dedrick Polite Connect & Discover The Polites: Instagram: @dedricpolite @mrsbepolite YouTube: @bepolite Website: politewealthportal.com 🔥 Ready to Unleash Your Inner Game-Changer? 🔥 Mick Hunt’s BEST SELLING book, How to Be a Good Leader When You’ve Never Had One: The Blueprint for Modern Leadership, is here to light a fire under your ambition and arm you with the real-talk strategies that only Mick delivers. 👉 Grab your copy now and level up your life → Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million FOLLOW MICK ON: Spotify: MickUnplugged Instagram: @mickunplugged Facebook: @mickunplugged YouTube: @MickUnpluggedPodcast LinkedIn: @mickhunt Website: MickHuntOfficial.com Apple: MickUnplugged Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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From flipping houses to flipping the script on generational wealth, this dynamic duo turned a first-date credit check into a multi-million dollar real estate empire.
Stars of A&E's 50-50 flip and founders of Be Polite.
property. They blend faith, family, and financial freedom into a blueprint of success.
Please join me in welcoming the visionary, the resilient, the trail blazing, Crystal, and
Dedrick Polite. How you both doing today? Mick, we are doing awesome, man. Appreciate
you having us. I am the honored one. You know, we were talking offline about all the cool things
that we have in common. But what I wanted to tell you both, and I wanted to look you both in the eye
and tell you this is that I'm just so freaking proud of both of you and not just the work that
you do, and we'll get into that, but more importantly, the human beings that you are.
You know, I'm a man of faith, and I believe that good is rewarded in good.
And I just wanted you both to know just how freaking proud I am of the human beings that you are.
Ah, thank you so much. We really appreciate that.
Yeah, I definitely appreciate that. I mean, I know that's from the heart.
We appreciate that.
Absolutely.
It's the Carolina way, right?
Absolutely.
I usually start the episode by asking my guests, like, what's your because?
That thing that's deeper than your why.
You know, Simon Sennick wrote a book called Start with Why.
And while I believe that's really important, I also believe we have a deeper mission and I call it your because, right?
Like if I were to say, you know, Crystal Dedrick, what's your why?
You're probably going to tell me your kids, your family, your community.
But when I say, why are they your why, that response is what I call your because.
So if I were to ask both of you individually, like, what's your because today?
What's that deeper purpose and mission that you have?
Wow, that's a great question.
And the first time we've ever been asked that.
So, because, my because, hmm, and it's easy.
But now I'm trying to figure out how to frame it around my why.
How do they correlate with each other?
So I would say my because is because I came from generational poverty.
Because we both came from generational poverty, we understand what it was like.
So we do what we do now to help someone else try to change the situation.
of their family tree, even if it's giving them a nice place to stay, even if it's a rental,
even if it's providing affordable housing to a single mother or a single father.
Everything we do is really centered around because it's something that we experience directly
in our lifetime that we're trying to literally make it a little better for that next
generation. And my mother always told me every generation should go one step further.
at least than the previous.
So for her, it was like,
my kids can just go one step further than I did.
She would have done her job.
So for us, that's what I always keep in mind.
If I can go one step further and lead my children to do the same.
So I think that would be my because.
I think you've gone a few more than a one step further than your mom.
But, you know, we stand on the shoulders of giants, you know, like the previous generation.
Mick, what I would say is my because is similar to crystal.
it's because we've been the underdogs, right?
Because we came from living on Section 8 housing, right?
Because I used to have food stamps as a kid and go to the grocery store, because we've been evicted.
So we've been on the bottom and people see us now like, oh, you guys must have always had it going on.
No, we started from the bottom.
And because we started from the bottom, we want to serve as an example to others who are starting from zero or less than zero of what's possible.
I love that.
I love that.
And I want to hit on something that you said talking about standing on the shoulders of giants.
And this is a part of what I feel like I need to tell you both, too.
You now are those shoulders that people are standing on, right?
And I want you to always know that and remember that.
And again, as part of the reason I'm proud of you because I have family members that look up to both of you.
I have friends that are diehard followers of all the things.
that you do. And you now are those shoulders. So again, kudos to you both for all the things
that you do. And I love your because. Thank you. I appreciate that. And sometimes I'm just
amazed like you standing on the shoulders of giants. Just living in North Carolina, living in
South Carolina, look how far we've come in 50 years, 100 years, where our parents and our grandparents
weren't allowed to even buy properties in certain neighborhoods back in the 1950s, 1960s,
and before and before now, we're buying properties on TV, right?
So it's just amazing.
Again, I appreciate the sacrifices of the previous generations to allow us to do what we're
doing and be an example.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
All right.
So we're going to go to where this started with you both.
We're going to talk about that first date.
But maybe we call it the first business meeting, right?
So I'm going to let you tell the story, but I'm going to frame it up a little bit for the
view as a listener.
So first date, you know, everybody's going in, casual, we're at a dinner, getting to know each other.
And Crystal's like, what's your credit score?
What's your business plan?
What you're trying to be when you grow up?
I love that.
She put me on a hot seat, man.
It was a hot seat.
But you got to flip it a little bit.
So we're going to talk about that.
So I don't know who wants to start first, probably Crystal.
Let's talk through what this first date was.
Like, let's set that state.
Well, it definitely was intentional, right?
And I always tell people, intentionality can take you a lot of far ways, right?
When knowing and going into it with a purpose, a reason.
So for me, at that point in time in my life, I wasn't dating just to date, right?
And I've done that, been there.
At this point, I was looking to build.
And I had already started in that trajectory.
So when I met Dedrick at a gas station.
In Boston.
in Boston and
he asked me out
for lunch. I said
okay, not a problem. We exchanged
business cards and
we met at Joe's
Grill. Joe's Grill and Dedham.
At our fruit one. And when we sat
down, I know he thought
you know, she cute.
About to have a real look, you know,
I thought it was just going to be a little bubble gum conversation,
you know, first date.
No, he thought he was going to get this
slide in some lines and be real smooth with it.
And tell me about all on surface level that what he was doing.
Well, you know, I went to a really nice university and I got a really nice job.
I got the company car.
I knew he's going to slide all that little stuff in there.
And I said, you ain't about to waste my time.
So as soon as we sat down and started talking, it was just told me where he's from and stuff like that.
I said, oh, okay.
And then I said, he asked me, same little surface level, or are you originally?
from and I said oh North Carolina stuff like that and I said oh okay so what do you do for work
he said you know told me what he does for work and I said okay do you plan on doing that forever
and he was like no I said oh well I said are you an entrepreneur have you done anything
the entrepreneur around he was like oh absolutely and then he started telling me about some of the
stuff he did which was a bunch of MLMs and I said oh okay
and I said, okay, well, what's your credit score?
I said, well, damn, we get right to it, huh?
Let's go.
Let's go.
And he told me his credit score was like an 810, 815.
Hey, I had the Halle Berry credit, Mick.
You know what I'm saying?
And I always like to tell people, I didn't ask him his credit score as a factor in determining
whether or not I would give him a second date or I would continue to talk to him or give him
a shot, I asked him his credit score so I knew how much work we needed to do, right?
Where are we going to start from?
That's what you said today, Crystal.
This credit score was a 5-10 and not an 8-10.
We don't even know if there would have been a second date.
It would have been a second date.
It just would have been, I didn't know, like, okay, so we're going to do some credit.
We both need credit repeal.
Right. We both going to need some credit.
Repair.
Because you had just cleaned up your credit.
I had just cleaned up mine.
So I was on the track.
I know the important.
And you know, you do the first thing you do, your parents tell you not to do when you get to college.
Get these credit cards.
So, of course, I did exactly that.
So I literally just cleaned up my credit score.
My credit score was climbing back up.
And I was in the 600th.
Told that, Drake, he was like 8, 10.
I said, oh, okay, okay.
So we ain't got to do no.
We can work with that.
Boom, we got to do no credit repair with him.
Excellent.
But it had just been like, okay, so while I'm already done did mine, I know what I need to do for yours.
So we're just going to pull that report and we're going to get the work.
But he didn't need that.
So I said, okay, I said, well, do you plan on living in Boston forever?
And he said, well, I mean, I ain't got to.
I ain't got no kids.
I ain't really got any time to me to Boston.
And I said, okay, so anyone who's planning to be with me must be willing to move within the next year or two because I won't be staying here forever.
And that, again, most people might be taking it back like, damn, she interviewed you, she grilled you, but it was refreshing to me. It was exciting because it wasn't the norm when you're in your late 20s, early 30s dating, first date. So I was like, wow, this woman is ambitious. She's driven. She knows what she wants. That was like, this is what I'm looking for in a wife. Now, I knew for the first time I saw that I was going to marry her, right? She didn't know that yet.
But like, and again, when we met, I wasn't ready for marriage at that time, but I was, that just further cemented like, man, she is a dynamic woman.
This is the type of person that I would want to be with because we're equally yoked.
So I'm going to summarize this first date, though.
So first date, you already know you're going in business together.
You know you're moving.
You know you're getting married.
All in the first 30 minutes of this day.
Start how you want to finish.
That's one of our models.
Start how you want to finish.
And that's exactly what we did on that first.
first day.
Yep.
I love it.
Everything knew if you wanted kids.
We knew I asked about preexisting conditions and the family.
Like, all of that came out at Joe's.
There it is.
There it is.
So, so, Deirdre, you were in, you were doing several MLMs, as, as Crystal was saying, right?
When did you know that real estate was going to be a jam for you?
And then more importantly, what made that move happen, that switch happened for you?
Yeah, so I went to college, graduate from Ivy League school, Amherst College, you know, got good grades, got a corporate job doing sales, pharmaceutical sales, big pharma, had the company car, had the company, AMX, all that good stuff, war suit and tired of work.
But I knew that wasn't for me as a career corporate guy.
I just knew I didn't want that, right?
But really, I got the bug for real estate when I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, in 2001.
Matter of fact, it happened earlier than 2001.
I got two VHS tapes right here.
In the 90s, my mom had these VHSs, no money down, right, than late-night infomercials.
And it was these guys who get on there, yeah, you can make millions of real estate, and you can drive a Rose Royce, you can have mansions, but none of them look like me.
But I was like, man, one day, I want to do what they're doing.
I want to own properties.
I want to drive a Rose Royce, all that stuff.
and like 25 years later, I'm doing exactly that, right?
That's the power of, of, you know, intuition and planting a seed in someone.
So I always knew I wanted to get in a roasted.
I just didn't know how.
When Christo and I met, she's the one who saw the entrepreneurial dreams and visions in me, right?
But at that time, I was more of a entrepreneur because I had a safe corporate job.
I grew up, broke.
I didn't want to go back to that.
So I was afraid of jumping out and taking a risk.
So I would dibble and dabble in little network marketing here and there,
make a few dollars, but I didn't make enough money, allow me to leave my job until I met her.
I love that. I love that. So, so Crystal, you both start business together. Talk through,
and, Derek, I love that you brought up the, the entrepreneur because a lot of people don't
understand the challenges and the adversity that, that we face as entrepreneurs and growing a
business. So I love for you. So talk to us about some of those initial challenges.
that you had to break through to get to where you are today.
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Oh,
some challenges.
What wasn't
a challenge?
How many
businesses have
we started and failed?
Um,
and that's what
people don't
understand, right? Like, they see the end result. They see the visibility, but they don't see the
grind. And they don't see, I think, to what you're saying now is it's a continual. Maybe not a
struggle, but it's continual challenges. And sometimes the more successful you get, the challenges
become bigger. Absolutely. More money, more problems, right? Like they say, the challenges do get
bigger. And for us, it was a struggle figuring it out, right?
And especially when we got together early 2000s, mid-2000s, it was really, you didn't have a lot of coaches and mentors out there.
Though for us, it was trying to figure it out, figure out what we want to do.
No mentors, no guides.
Figure out where we want to go, starting and failing.
The difference was I was never afraid to fail, ever.
Dedrick, not so much.
Dedrick was not trying to go back broke, right?
My mentality was, I'll lose it and I'll get it back again.
But you were still living at home, right?
So you had a little more of the safety.
I had a house.
I had a mortgage.
I had a new car.
I had a car note.
I had some bills.
Yes.
And I'll tell you one of the best things.
And I always try to tell this to young college students, high school students,
especially parents.
One of the best things my mother ever said to me was once you got out of college,
come back home, live with me.
don't rush to jump out there on your own come back home figure out what you want to do
while your headaches are my headaches your worries and my worry don't rush to get out there
and put the weight of the world on your shoulders before it's time so out of her four kids
I was the one that listened I came back home you had a safety net I had that safety net I was
able to start a non-profit I was able to start my own business I was able to fail at everything
and my mother was right there.
Keep going.
Keep going.
Okay, I'm here to support you.
And it allowed me to spread my wings.
It allowed me to get out there and do things that made me truly uncomfortable with it.
So when I met, by the time I met Dedrick and Dedrick was very risk-averse, it was just like.
Her mindset was totally the opposite.
She's like, oh, we don't need a business plan.
Let's just do it.
Let's figure it out.
Well, jump and grow wings on the way down is what I tell him.
Dedrick was like, we need the structure plan, we need the details, we need step and step two, and we can't go to step two.
We need a smart analysis and we need a business plan for the business plan because that's how I was trained in going to college, right, in school.
Yep.
I love that.
And, you know, Crystal, you brought up not having mentors, not having coaches.
And I would say for me, one of the things that later in my business career, because early on I was just like you, like I didn't necessarily have.
a blueprint or a person or people I could really talk to.
But then as I got older in business, I was able to be mentored by a Damon John or Robert
Irvine, a Les Brown.
And I know that you're so passionate, both of you, about mentorship and being those resources
and allies for others that you turn it into a coaching program.
So talk a little bit about what you do in your coaching program and, you know, who would
good mentee might look like for you as well too. Yeah, I mean, we figured out we we solved real
estate investing, right? We became very successful from real estate investing. Then we got our own
TV show. Right. And then so many people would reach out to us like, hey, how can we do what you
guys are doing? We're inspired by watching you. How can we duplicate it? That's what made us start
the coaching program. And the reason is, is because we didn't have that rich uncle. We didn't have that
rich dad. We can call when we were coming up to be like, all right, what do I do? How do I do it? It wasn't
until we were in our 30s that we met our rich dad, which is one of our mentors who lives right
in Winston-Salem, who had already achieved what we wanted to achieve. And we were able to pay him
for his time and expertise. And he gave us the blueprint. He gave us the roadmap. So we were like,
hey, when we become successful, we want to turn around and do the same thing. We thought
obligation to turn around and do the same thing for others. Yeah. And you hit on something I want
to double down on. I want to unplug, no pun intended, this. Because I did. I did. You
did the same thing. You paid for coaching. You invested in yourself. I'm going to hurt some
feelings today. And I don't want this to come across from Crystal and Dedrick. This is purely the
commentary of Mick and Mick only. People need to invest in themselves. And here's why I say that.
And I want you to talk a little bit more about your coaching program too. When I first started coaching
and helping people, I was willing, and sometimes today I still do it for free.
But the people that invested were more accountable to the success, to the results, and do the
actual work. And so this is my message. This isn't coming from Crystal and Dedrick,
so don't at them, don't yell at them, yell at me. If you're not willing to invest in
yourself, don't always ask for free advice. Don't always ask for free mentorship.
because it's draining.
I'm not going to lie.
The people that want it for free over and over and over again
are the ones who aren't going to be willing to commit
to do the actual work required to get where they're trying to go.
They're always going to think there's an easy button that you can press
and there's no such thing as an easy button.
And then I'm also going to say this.
They want people to invest in their dreams,
but they don't want to put that same investment into their own dream.
So I said that so you didn't have to say it, Andrew.
Listen, well, we keep it real.
We're going to agree with you a thousand and ten percent because we have been there.
We've been on both sides.
We've been the mentee and we've been the mentor.
We're there now.
Let me tell you.
We are there now, like today.
And we tell people we still have mentors, literally that we've called because we're not done, right?
We are still building.
We're still climbing.
But we do believe in.
lifting as we rise.
But it goes back to that saying, people who pay, pay attention.
And we've learned just giving information to individuals.
It drained us.
It was a waste of our time.
No one ever acted on that information.
And then you don't hear from them.
They come back around in six months.
Hey, I got a question real quick.
We ain't got time for all that.
And then the people who pay, they pay attention.
They're at every coaching session, they are emailing, they are actively taking action.
And those are the ones who are constantly hitting us and DM in us.
Like, hey, I just got my first deal locked up.
I just bought my first rental property that I'll be passing on to my kids within two months' time.
And it's just a simple listening, sitting down, listening, following instruction and getting out of your own way.
And I tell Judge, one of the best things about that TV show was, for me, is the exposure to people who said they'd never seen, one, a show like ours where it was attainable as well as inspirational.
So it was at a price point where people who worked at grocery stores, who were secretaries, were reaching out, and was like, I can.
People in prison.
Prison.
Wow.
A lot of brothers in prison have reached out to us saying.
So many letters from prison.
One guy, the most humbling letter I've ever read was from a guy in prison who wrote
and specifically spoke about Dedrick.
And he said, for the first time, watching your show has, I've held myself accountable
for my actions that got me here.
He said, because looking at you, we're the same age, we look the same, we come from the
same neighborhood and to see where you have gotten, my brother has for the first time shown a
light on myself and said, why could I have not done what you've done? And we came from the same place.
We came from the same background with the same age, you look like me. He says, so he really just
wrote the letter thanking us and thanking the network for actually showing someone that he could relate
to. He said, so for him, it was a mind.
shift where he's now like he won't he can accept responsibility that he and he alone got him to
where he's at and now he's prepared to do better um even while there to get out to one day be
able to do what we're doing for the family that he still has out there that's what i tell people
the tv show did that was that was powerful to me yeah it's just the fact that people can see
themselves flipping a property or buying real estate and aren't million
Yeah. And again, I go back to what I said earlier when I wanted to give you both praise. You are now those shoulders, right? And that's why I'm proud of you. You are those shoulders that people are standing on and looking to. So that's awesome. So let's talk about the show, 50-50 flip on A&E. First off, A&E is a big network. Right? Like, it's a real legit network. So talk to us about. Now is on Hulu. And Hulu.
Who bought the rights?
And even bigger, even more distribution, right?
More, more views.
Let's go back to the beginning of the show.
How did you get the call?
What was it like when it was like a yes, we're going to do it?
Like, I'd love personally, I just want to hear this story.
Well, yeah, let's go all the way back, Mick.
It actually started because we invested in ourselves.
What do I mean?
We joined a mastermind.
We had not closed the deal.
We were trying to figure out how to wholesale,
money wholesaling. We joined a mastermind. We spent 16,000 joining a group of high-level real
estate investors. And the leader that mastermind said, hey, we're like, hey, we're having
trouble raising money to buy our first rental property. What do we do? He was like, document your
process. What do you mean? Go on social media, show people what you're doing. Every time you do a
walkthrough, every time you meet with a contractor, document what you're doing. So we started doing that,
right? 2017, 2018. So we built a following. And as a result of that following, we started a
YouTube channel, and that's where the
producers from A&E found us. They were
looking for a couple in North Carolina.
They were just looking for people, period.
They were green lighting, they were getting back into
the home space, which
they were originally, before
everyone knew about HGTV, it was
A&E with Thane Meryl.
Thane Meryl flipped this out, 2008.
The first one. So,
they were looking to now get back into the
home space, and they were looking for
three shows. They were green lighting, three
shows. So they
was looking and searching all over and they were looking at hundreds of people. They had ended up
DM in us. I don't, I at a certain point, I just stopped going into the DMs. I wasn't really looking
at them. So one of the executives, the casting company, contacted, called our 800 number, got our
secretary, made our secretary promise to give me the message and to promise to get me to call her
back. So they had been DM in us for a year. Wow. Which we hadn't known.
And I had seen it in there, but I, one time that I think it's spam.
So, you know, I told by it.
And so as soon as I walked in, our secretary at the time was like, hey, a lady name, I think is Ali from Annie.
She said, if you could please give her a call back, she really wants to speak to you.
And I said, oh, okay.
And I kept going on, kept walking to go into the office.
She came and she was like, no.
She made me promise to have you please give her a call back.
And I looked at, I said, and you promise?
And she was like, yeah.
And I said, well, don't promise nobody else unless you call in a back.
And she was like, please, I don't want, I don't want to be made out a liar.
Could you please call her back?
So I was like, all right, fine.
I called her back.
And she was like, first off, I want to say, I am not a casting company.
She was like, I work exclusively for A&E.
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Landman, TV's biggest phenomenon, returns to paramount.
Plas from Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Yellowstone, starring Billy Bob Thornton.
You have to know the rules of the game and bend them.
And you really have to know them to break them.
Demi Moore.
I want success.
Get it for me.
Andy Garcia, Ali Larder, and Sam Elliott.
You don't even know the game we're playing to you.
Landman, new season, now streaming.
Only on Paramount Plus.
And I had no idea what that meant.
So it didn't impress me.
I was just like, oh, okay, all right.
So what can I do for you?
And she was like, and we've been following you guys.
I've been trying to get a hold of you for a year, past year.
Now, this is during COVID.
Right after COVID.
No, we started right after COVID.
They started hitting us about a year during COVID and stuff.
Then I was like, oh, okay.
She was like, we love your YouTube.
We love your Instagram.
We're looking for a couple to do a show.
We're interviewing hundreds of people.
So we was like at that point,
I told Dudrick, I was like, okay, well, we ain't going to really do it.
Let's just see how far we can get.
We didn't think they was going to pick us.
And I'm super private.
Like, extremely, if they had a TV show on extreme people who were private, I would definitely.
FBI, me, CIA.
Yes.
That's Crystal.
I'm right there with you, Crystal.
I really am.
So it wasn't even a thought in my mind to do something like this.
So me and Dudgeon was like, yeah, we're just going to get TIF.
we can go so then we can tell people like,
you know we won the finalist, right?
It'll be a cool story at the dinner party.
Yeah.
All of a sudden, maybe six, seven months later,
Zoom after Zoom after Zoom, they call us and they was just like,
hey, can we get on another Zoom?
Since it's an email, we'd like to hop on another Zoom with you guys.
We was like, yeah, sure.
We got on the Zoom and it was even more people on this one.
And it was like, hey, we wanted to offer you guys a slot for this upcoming season
for one of the TV shows.
I mean,
and Dedrick looked at each other
was just like,
oh.
Like literally a fake smile
and everything like,
oh, okay.
I get a copy of that recording
and get our reaction.
Oh, like couldn't,
we were literally like stone face like,
oh.
And then we got off
and Dedrick was like,
we're not really doing the TV show, are we?
I was like, we kind of have to now?
He was like, why?
I was like, because,
like they've already chosen us.
He was like, so?
So now I'm having second thoughts.
I'm like, really want to do this?
I was like, we can't go back on our word.
Like, we didn't got this far.
They didn't eliminate all these other people.
Like, we got to do what we say.
We were going to do.
He was like, babe, I never said.
So we were here to see how far we were going to get.
I said, I know.
We don't have to just do it.
We don't have to do it.
I know.
I know we don't.
And it was really us like, we didn't think.
Could you know you dream about being on
TV one day, but you don't think it's going to actually
happen. So we were shocked. I mean,
we were just like, man, God, God works
in mysterious ways. And after like
months of contract negotiations,
we had, you know, you got to remind the TV
show a network that you ain't a starving
artist when you ain't starving. We're already
successful. We have a successful real estate
company. We own a bunch of rentals.
So, you go, they sent over to
starving artist contract.
So, yeah, it took a while.
What we did was we went straight to
we called straight to series. Where most
people would get a TV show, they'll do like a sizzle reel, which was like a five, ten minute.
A pilot, but we went straight to series, which means they, they, as soon as that contract was signed,
they had boots on the ground within two weeks.
It started filming, which never happened in the industry.
Literally.
And they was like, oh, it'd be like two or three days a week.
It went to, from two or three days a week to five days a week.
Filming.
Filming 10 hours a day straight for like seven months, seven, eight months.
and the first season you don't know what you don't know
so first season broke us
when I tell you it broke us
after that last day we wrapped
we sat in that bed and looked at each other
and said we will never come back for season two
but look at you now
look at you now
what are some of those things
really quick that you learned
after or during the first season
that you now know what to do differently better, ask for, say no to.
What are some of those things that you learned?
Well, the first thing we learned is that we had to do 10 houses.
We ended up doing six because our team just wasn't big enough at the time to handle 10 houses.
But I didn't want to do it because we'd have to raise about two or three million dollars
in investment capital in order to pull it off.
And I didn't think we could do that because I'd never raised that much money before.
But when you stretch yourself and you challenge,
yourself, it's amazing what you can accomplish and we ended up getting it done. So that was a
big thing for me. It's like doing something I was afraid of doing. I was terrified, but we got
it done and I grew in immense ways. Yeah. And understanding that we definitely learned from
season one, it was literally three of us doing the work of 10 people. So we understood that we
couldn't do everything. We learned that we couldn't do everything ourselves. Like we
I think I lost 15 pounds I see.
We both lost a lot of weight.
I went from like two gray hairs to like
10. It was crazy.
And we learned that we had to find
a team and delegate some of these
responsibilities and tasks. And I remember
we had talked to a couple people who had already
had TV shows in flipping. And they had said
oh yeah, the TV show is going to be your new
business. So all that other stuff is going to fall
by the waist side. This is going
going to become your everyday. And we was like, yeah, all right. They don't know. We can handle
this. They don't know what. When I tell you, baby, we were up there like, I told, remember what
they said? Because we were suffocating. Because we still had wholesale and flipping company.
We still have a rental company. We have an Airbnb division. We had all these divisions of real estate
going. Plus, you had a TV show, which is another 50, 60 hours a week. So it was intense.
So season two, the only condition we came back on is that we had a.
team. We have project managers. We had designers. We had 10 people doing the work of 10 people
versus three who are overstretched. There you go. That's what's up. That's what's up. So that's
awesome to hear. And that's great insight. I think that also correlates into the business world too
that I think a lot of leaders, we tend to put everything on our shoulders. Yep. Right. And I would
say for me, the hardest lesson I had to learn was delegation because I wanted to do it all. But
I can't scale if it's just me.
I can't scale of all the major responsibilities.
And I'll be honest, too, the major headaches can't just be mine.
Right. I need other people to deal with those too.
You got to have a team.
You got to have a team.
That's one of the big things we've learned is that, again, you know, as an entrepreneur, self-employed,
you feel like, hey, if it has to be done, if it is to be, it's up to me.
And you can't work on the business if you're working in it.
Right.
Grand of that.
Amen to that.
One of my mentors said, you can't read the ingredients when you're inside the box.
There you go.
That's a good one.
I love that.
One thing I had to learn.
All right.
So you both are very busy.
You've been gracious with your time.
I'm going to get you out of here with my quick five rapid fire.
So you can determine who wants to answer the question.
Okay.
So after the credit score revealed from Crystal, I guess the first one is going to be for
Patrick.
Were you nervous at all?
Did you get nervous when yours was an 8-10 and hers was a 6-something?
No, I wasn't nervous at all.
And I had to 8-10.
That's it.
All right.
You've had a long day of filming, a long day in the office.
What's your favorite comfort?
Favorite comfort meal for me other than mine would be soul food.
So smothered, pork, chob, baked macaroni, and cheese.
She yams is definitely soulful.
Making me hungry.
Mine is whatever my wife cooks.
She is an amazing cook.
Now, when we first started dating, my baby couldn't boil water when we first started.
Right, right.
But her condition was, she said, until you put a ring on it, that's when we start cooking.
And that's exactly what happened.
Once I put a ring on it, really, once we had our first child, her cooking is amazing.
So that's my favorite comfort.
Okay.
All right, so then let me parlay that into question number three.
For you, Crystal, what's your favorite?
dish that you make?
Well, my kids would definitely say baked macaroni and cheese.
It's like every week thing, every Sunday, we got to have it.
I would say, I'm a mac and cheese, not.
Oh, yeah.
Like, and it has to be baked.
Four cheeses.
No, out the box.
Like, it has to be baked macaroni and cheese.
Yep.
Okay.
I love it.
What's one word that you would use to describe your partnership?
Hmm.
That's the first.
Yeah.
My word would just be powerful.
Hmm.
Hmm.
I like that.
I like that.
One word.
Mine would be intentional.
I think everything we do with each other from the day we met has been very intentional.
You know, dating him from the beginning, I made it so that he understood he never had to lie to me.
We can work through whatever we got to work through, be intentional, be respectful of my time.
I'm going to be respectful of your time.
Don't be late.
Like, I've been very intentional with each other along our entire journey.
You know, intentional and powerful.
Sounds like a great book title for YouTube.
I'm just going to go.
I like that.
All right.
Last one.
When the story is written for the polites.
what do you want that legacy to be described as?
I mean, I would say people look at us and think, you know, we've accomplished everything.
I would say we're in like our second inning out of nine innings.
We're just getting started.
With us, it's about impact.
It's not about how many doors we own.
First of all I like to say it's about how many doors can we open for others to walk through, right?
How big of an impact can we have?
So that's really our goal is to marshal enough resources.
so that we can give massive amounts of resources away.
Yeah, I definitely would say a saying that I learned 10th grade,
I read it somewhere on something.
And it has literally been the whole basis of my existence
from 10th grade in high school all the way through.
I've had it written on everything, all books,
you name it, is you make a living by what you get.
You make a life by what you get.
And I've lived my life.
way. My entire life and my mother tell people from four years old, it's been, what can I do for
others? So I think for us, that's what we try to embody. How can we be of service? How can we
open a door for some other family, some other individual to be able to walk through to change the
trajectory of their family tree? Because like I tell people, our children are going to be okay
because we're going to teach them not only how to live in today's society, but get it out the mud if they got to all over again, right?
We're not raising those privileged children.
They're going to learn how to get it out the mud just the same way we did as well as responsibility for what they have now, but also and more so to be a blessing is what we're teaching them.
To be a blessing means to be blessed and you are blessed.
so it's more important for us to teach them how now to be a blessing to others.
Wow.
I love that.
I love that.
You two are so awesome.
Thank you.
You are the epitome of good.
You're the epitome of like who we all should strive to be.
So just again, thank you for being who you are.
It means the world of me to have you on the show.
Where can people find and follow you?
Where do you want to find this?
Be polite.
So be polite properties.
on Instagram, on YouTube, also our website.
Dedrick andcrystal.com.
Dedrick and crystal.com.
It has all our information. Anyone who has questions about real estate,
how to get into real estate, how to build wealth,
feel free to reach out to us and our team and we'll be glad to help.
And we appreciate you. Thank you for having us on, Mick.
And we've got to do this again.
And make sure you guys go and watch the TV show.
So one, two, before we hit you with a third one.
There it is. We will make sure we have links to all that in the show notes.
I'm going to make sure weekly I'm promoting
the show and when it comes on. I'm going to also promote the coaching program that you all have
because I think that's amazing and it's honorable that you are mentors to so many. So again,
thank you from the bottom of my soul for all that you do. Oh, thank you for having us, Mick.
We appreciate you. You got it. For all the viewers and listeners, remember your because is your
superpower. Go unleash it. You've been plugged into Mick Unplugged. Don't just listen. Take action.
Rate and subscribe. Follow me on social and get the full experience at mithuntofficial.com.
Keep building, keep leading, and most importantly, keep dominating.
Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first...
There, the last one.
Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.
