Start With A Win - Q Burdette: How to Actually Grow Your Business

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

How does a real estate powerhouse and two-time Survivor competitor master the art of leading under pressure and thriving in high-stakes scenarios? Dive into the mindset and strategies of Quintavius Burdette, who's conquered the boardroom and the island, as he shares his secrets to planning, prioritizing, and executing under challenging conditions. Discover how to reset and recharge daily, manage a bustling real estate portfolio with a young family, and stay laser-focused on your goals. If you're ready to level up your leadership and personal discipline, this Start With a Win episode with Adam Contos is your game plan for winning.Quintavius “Q” Burdette is a high-performing real estate leader, former Division I athlete, and nationally recognized reality TV competitor known for his relentless drive and competitive edge.  Originally from Senatobia, Mississippi, Q grew up in a large family where he developed the grit and discipline that would define his success. He went on to compete in both football and track at Ole Miss before taking a bold leap into real estate.Today, he’s a top-producing RE/MAX agent, leading a high-volume business and earning a reputation for hustle and results. Many also recognize Q from his standout appearances on Survivor, where his fearless, strategic mindset made him one of the most talked-about contestants.  Whether in business or competition, Q lives by a simple principle: bet on yourself, stay adaptable, and never back down from a challenge.00:00 Intro02:42  Leadership Lessons…07:20 Don’t have time, you sure?11:10 Everyone, Needs to be able to set this…15:40 How to compete every day!19:30 How do you want your story?21:30 Mindsets and Systems to be the best!26:39 To grow your business you must know this!!!29:50 Oh it has changed…===========================Subscribe and Listen to the Start With a Win Podcast HERE:📱 ===========================YT ➡︎ https://www.youtube.com/@AdamContosCEOApple ➡︎ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/start-with-a-win/id1438598347Spotify ➡︎ https://open.spotify.com/show/4w1qmb90KZOKoisbwj6cqT===========================Connect with Adam:===========================Website ➡︎ https://adamcontos.com/Facebook  ➡︎ https://facebook.com/AdamContosCEOTwitter  ➡︎ https://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOInstagram  ➡︎ https://instagram.com/adamcontosceo/#adamcontos #startwithawin #leadershipfactory

To grow your business, you have to know your business. Go back to when you first started, dive deep into all of your numbers, understand what is driving your business, what is killing your business, what is hurting your business, who is holding your business down and who is making it thrive and start to make changes. Who businesses come down to your ability to connect? It's not about connections. It's about the ability to connect. connect. You can have all the connections in the world, but if you can't connect with them,

what's the part of having it? Welcome to Start With a Win, where we unpack leadership, personal growth and development, and how to build a better business. Let's go. Coming to you from Area 15 Ventures and Start With a Win headquarters, it's Adam Contos with Start with a Win. What does it take to go from the real estate grind to surviving on a deserted island, literally? Today I'm catching up with my friend Cuba Debt, who's no stranger to pushing limits. When we last talked back in 2023, he was already making waves as a powerhouse in real estate and leadership. Since then, he's taken those skills to a whole new arena, competing in Survivor, not once,

but twice. From closing deals to surviving the wild, Quintavius knows what it means to lead under pressure and stay focused when the odds are stacked against you. And how do you plan your day around working? on a bunch of real estate investments. We'll cover all that today on Start With a Win. Q, welcome back to the show. I'm happy to be back. You know, it's like we did the Christmas theme and time went by. A lot has changed. It's only right to come back, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, you're, you got a young family. You're expecting another, so congratulations on that.

I have a baby girl coming. My son now is 21 months. So new dad life is just kind of taking over. with my life. Man, and I mean, it's, and you did, you know, you were on a second season of Survivor again. Survivor 50, the biggest season ever in 25 years. Wow. They asked me

to come back and, you know, it was a joy just to be back out there and seeing all the familiar faces and some of the legends who've played 25 years ago in the very first season to finally meet them, but also play with them. Man, it was

amazing. Wow. Okay. So I think that's airing right now. It is. It's currently on live. I'm not going to spoil any any folks who don't watch it. You should go watch it from episode one. All right. I like it. All right. Well, I want to unpack some of the leadership lessons that you've come up with because you're an entrepreneur. You've been, you know, one of the top real estate agents in the world. You know, you went on Survivor and made it almost all the way through. and I mean, you're still a young guy. You play D1 football. You got your MBA.

I mean, you've done a lot. How old are you right now? 31. Okay, 30. I mean, most people don't do any of that stuff in 80 or 90 years for crying out loud. Yeah. So, all right. I mean, this has got to start with you beginning your day or you leading yourself.

I don't want to know how you begin your day because we'll talk about that later. But how do you lead yourself to get it? into all these different circumstances and make yourself, I guess, available, but also grab these opportunities by the throat and run with them. Yeah, so it all boils down, Adam, to understanding the importance of my 168, and that is the amount of hours there are in a week. And I look at my schedule and I say, okay, can I fit this in? And if I can, I will.

And there's a lot that I can fit in nowadays because, you know, the real estate. business for me is kind of second to everything now. In a way, I still sell, people still call me to list their houses, but that's not my main source anymore. You know, I went from being the real estate agent with nothing to the real estate agent with something, so now I can choose my time better. But when I break down my 168 and I put in there that I want to go and play pick a ball in the morning. And I want to have, you know, two hours a day just to sit in my office and conduct business and do work. And I want to have an hour and a half a day for me to just go and work out. That starts with me making that commitment and sticking to that schedule. So most

folks, what they do is they delay the scheduling part of their schedule, which then pushes back their results as to what they want to do within their 168. I said it. And, Every Sunday I look at it and I say I want to do X, Y, Z by this day, this time this week. When it shows up on my schedule to do, I go and knock it out. So you plan your week ahead of time? I plan my week ahead of time. Okay. So what does that?

I mean, you sit down and write it out or do you type it in a calendar? I mean, what do you? I write it down and then I put it on my calendar at home. And then I just go around and look at it. And look, it's not anything crazy. It's not, hey, go and meet with John at 2. It's nothing like that. It's a block because I don't have any time within my schedule,

meaning I don't have anything on my schedule that says to do this by 9 p.m., 9 a.m. Because the second that life happens and I have something on my schedule for 10 a.m. And now it's 10.30. Now I feel like I'm behind, which I'm not because I have all day to do it. But what I have on my schedule is like today is Thursday. And this week, I knew I had this coming. So I blocked off my morning for coming in, reducing my email account. My emails had got up to about 400.

I normally like to keep those to zero if I can. But stuff just comes in. So this morning I got here early. Went through all of my emails, got them down now to where I have no unread emails, and then to prepare for this podcast right here, right now. And after that, I know I have to go and check on rental properties. I know I have to go collect rent because today is the ninth. And, you know, it's due on the first, late by the fifth, but some people, they think,

okay, the fifth means the night. I'm okay. Pay you're late fee. I come and collect it. And then from there, my day kind of opens up to life because you cannot just be work, work, work, work, work. So after I pick up rent and check on tenants and do all those property management things for my real estate portfolio, I go and work out.

and I'll go and play pickleball some. Then after that, I'll rock back in and try to do some sort of business to end my day. And I try to be done every single day by 2 o'clock because my son from 2.30 on, he has all my time. I love that. So you've got your priorities. Yes. And you make sure that those things happen when you want them to happen. But the rest of it, you just kind of build timeframes around.

these goals, right? Is that? 100%. Okay. It's in the schedule. Because a lot of folks think, oh, I don't have time. Kew, somebody asked me yesterday. Q, why were you out spraying your rental property yards? Why you didn't hire somebody else to do that?

Well, it's real simple. I know that it's going to take me per yard about 30 minutes to do it. I block off time in my schedule to go and do it. That is kind of a way for me to connect with my tenants, but also, connect with my property, disconnect from everything else. I put my headphones on, I'm walking with my sprayer. But I'm thinking about other things that I need to do once I'm done here. Because it's not always go, go, go, go, go. Then also, the money that it costs me to go into the co-op, buy a five-gallon bucket of it for, you know, $113, buy me a sprayer for $29 and walk and spray it.

it's much cheaper than what somebody's going to charge me to do it for all of my properties. I have 51 properties. So now you're talking about paying somebody close to, I think it will come out to be a lot. They're going to be charging you a couple hundred bucks per property. It's 175 per property just... That's $10,000. Not even, not even counting if they have to use extra material, if they have to use extra spraying or whatever it is. So it's not not worth it to me that that dollar to spend. And a lot of, and that's what people go wrong Adam. They say, because I have the dollar, I should spin it. Whereas I look at it and say, I have the dollar. Can I save it by using just a little bit of my time every single day

throughout the week to push that dollar somewhere else where it makes sense? So you're very disciplined in how you operate that. So if somebody calls you up, him goes, Q, why don't you come on over here and, you know, hang out and watch whatever with me? I mean, what's your response to that if you've got these other goals that are standing in front of it? It depends on the day. If I finished every single thing that I need to do for that day, it might be yes. If I haven't, the answer is real simple.

I can't do it today, maybe tomorrow. And if tomorrow comes, hey, I can't do it today, maybe the next day, maybe next week. if you catch me far enough, like my HOA, for instance, they had a meeting in the neighborhood. They want me to attend. Well, you can't text me on Monday to attend a meeting on Wednesday. You should have texted me maybe the previous Monday, because then I want to pencil that into my schedule coming up for the next week.

I'm always operating ahead. So it's one of those things. I have time to do a lot of things we all do, but we have to be able to say yes to the things we need to. do today and know to the things that we can do tomorrow. And if we live by that, and for me, if I live by that, I know I'm going to get everything done, but I'm going to also have a personal life. I'm also being in my son's life to a way that he remembers at a young kid. And I know my son naps from 1130 to about 1.30 every day. That's the time when I'm out the most, doing the most,

because by the time I get back home around 2 o'clock, he's back up again. and we can go and do our father or son. I'm huge on that because growing up one of 17 kids, my dad did not have that choice. He had to work nonstop. And I've put myself in a position where when I got involved with real estate, you know, now it's been seven years. But when I first got involved, Adam,

I told myself I only wanted to do this for five years. And I'm going to be as successful or I'm going to be, fail as much as I can within these five years. And it's one of those things you look up and people are surprised when they ask me, Q, are you full-time real estate now? And I say no. It's because I set that goal five years ago when I did it and I stuck to it. That's how I am. If I set my mind out to do something, I'm going to do it. But the leadership part of it, it starts with being able to said it. Most people say show up and they work and some of them work really, really hard. But at what point where you look up and say, this is the direction I'm going to go by this

date and time? I love that. Okay. So a lot of people just kind of ebb and flow with the day and hope that they're going to get those things done. But it sounds like you're willing to very eloquently, for that matter, redirect people if they're trying to get into your schedule. I mean, It sounds like you 100% control your schedule. 100%. So, I mean, it's because a lot of people who are like, oh, such and such wants to meet me at this time. This person wants to meet me at that time. How do you control that where you're in charge instead of everybody else being in charge?

Where it starts with being honest. And it starts with being disciplined. And then when you're okay with hearing no, you start to learn how to tell people no. So when I was cold calling and I was door knocking, I got. so comfortable and so used to hearing, no, not right now, no, no, no, no. To the point it conditioned me to be immune to it, but also trained me how to see it. And it's a wonderful thing. So when someone calls me and it can be for anything, like a lady called me yesterday, around

four o'clock, it's like, hey, you know, we're thinking about putting out house on the market. my husband gets off at 5.30, because you'll be here at 6. Adam, my day finishes around 2 o'clock every day. Right. That's a non-negotiable. So I simply told her, hey, listen, my schedule today is just about done. If we can schedule a time between 11 and 1.30 tomorrow, I can be there. And if your husband can't be there, what we can do is sit down and we can record our conversation and our doings.

and you can shorten when to get off. Or you can FaceTime. It doesn't matter. But this is the time I can do it. Or we can wait until the weekend. Because the weekend, I know he's off. My hours are the same just about. I still got that same window of time to go and conduct business.

But it's all about most agents. They get that call and they drop everything. And now they're behind on so many other things that they need to do and should do because they're going out for a listing appointment that they might not even get. No, no, no. I'm going to do the for sure thing first. And then I take on the things that might conduct my business and move it forth.

I love that. Do the for sure thing first. And that's the thing that you've already committed to doing. 100%. Wow. And it goes back to that thing, being honest. And a lot of them say, are you too busy for me? I say, no, no, no, I'm not too busy for you.

But I say, if I had an appointment schedule with you for today at 12 o'clock, and somebody just up and called me that had more properties to give to list and I counsel on you and go and be with them. How would you feel? Oh, I wouldn't like that. It's the same thing. So I already have obligations today for this time. So if you can, can you respect the fact that I'm not going to counsel on you, therefore I cannot counsel on them. And then it just becomes easy because they understand it when you explain it in that way.

But again, that goes back to me learning how to say no, learning how to control my schedule. It's a skill that you have to learn to where you got to tell somebody what you need them to hear the way that they need to hear it. Very high emotional intelligence. Yes. I love that. Hey, you, I mean, clearly you compete like a very high performing athlete in everything you do. Yep. How do you integrate that into, even, you know, you say you're not full-time real estate anymore.

I mean, granted, you run over 50 properties, you know, with your investments. You're a pretty busy guy doing a lot of things. How do you continue to compete at such a high level even though you're... It's what? It's just a reset. Every single day, every single year, you can almost think about it. Because when I was selling, for a time, it was getting four points a day. that was my thing. And every single day, there was a drive. Now it's as simple as, can I be better

today than I was yesterday? Can I potentially go out and even when I'm spraying my yard safe instance? I don't compete with myself with that. I spray seven of my properties yesterday. Today can I at least spray eight of? And the next day can I spray nine? So I'm not doing this for two weeks. But how do I contentionally show up? It's because I get bored with doing the same thing over and over and over again. But I also understand

now it's much bigger than me. It's now about, I have a son, I have a daughter, I have nieces and nephews. I want people to see me in a way that they say, you know what? If he can do it, so cannot. And me doing it does not stop at

31. Because the second you stop your body, stops, your mind stops. And then that's when bad things happen. Have you ever noticed when folks go to retire shortly after? Most of them, they die. Yeah. Yeah, it's because the drive left. And I'm so scared that if I just stop, there's something bad is going to happen to me. So I'm always trying to find the next thing. That's how I got a survival. And it's one of those things where they say, well, how do you have time to go on Survivor? I plan. I set things up well in that bans to leave. I put things in place. But it just boils down to not being complacent, not being

happy in terms of, okay, enough is enough, which I feel that. I'm not a greedy person and I'm happy in life, but I'm not going to allow myself to think that more than a day. You know, as a day has come by, I'm like, you know what, I'm good. I'm not doing anything. But then it's days come back. You know what? You're 31. Something can happen tomorrow to where you would lose it all. how do you replace it? Well, I replace it by continuously to try to grow today. I love that. That's the mentality that I'm always in.

And it's one of those things, you know, I was buying seven to eight houses a year. Now in this market, you know, it's difficult to do that. So where do I go? I move to the stock market. And I'm learning more about businesses and how to buy businesses. And I'm learning about going in and buying accounting practices. and stuff like that to where if I can't buy a house in this market, can I buy a business? Can I buy stuff?

Can I buy? So learning that has now become my new itch and I get up every day and my loan goes off. And this is not how I start my day with a win, by the way. So I'm not going to ruin it. I'm just telling you what my day looks like in the mornings with my new adventure is, you know, the market opens at my time 8.30. I'm up around seven because I want to look at the futures. I want to look at potentially what's going on while I was sleeping. What has happened in the market that maybe I can benefit from once it opens.

And every single day I'm finding little things and you learn lessons when you lose. I don't learn anything when I buy a stock and it shoots through the, I don't learn anything. It's probably the worst thing that happens when that happens, okay? Because now I'm feeling myself. And I'm like, oh, I'm good. And it kind of dips. It teaches me the patience that it requires. It teaches me why maybe my entry was too soon.

And so it's one of those things I'm always trying to run. I stop doing real estate for a term because I never wanted my story to be. Q. Oh, he's a great agent. Hold on. Wait, Adam. I got something for you. All right.

Hold on. Hang on. Hang on. This is fun. I love surprises. I'm the only agent in the next history that's under 30 with two of these, with either one of these. I'm the only agent under 40.

I love it. Two of these. But I did not want my story to be just Q the real estate agent. That's how he wants how to do. I want multiple skills. I want multiple things to be able to discuss and talk about. about and run because someday, one day, I've always told myself, I want to be the CEO of a company. I can't be the CEO of a real estate company. I could be. It's one of those things. I'll be so

limited to debt. I want to learn as much as I can. And then when an opportunity comes and I want to go and move forward in that, I have more to say. I have more to give and more to offer other than my skill of just being a great hustler in the real estate industry. All right. So do that, that point, I have a question for you. So, and you know, you always hear this is very kind of cliche question of if you're dropped on a desert island somewhere, what are you going to do to stay alive or whatever? I mean, you've got all these systems. You've got these processes for being successful. You're dropped into desert island. And this has happened twice to you now. So, I mean, what happens? Which of those mindsets and systems do you, do you?

implement to go, here's how I'm going to be the best here. Yep. It's my eagerness for attention. That's the first thing. So the first thing I'm going to do if I'm dropping the desert island, I want to understand the population. I want to know how many people are here. What type of people are here?

What do they like? What do they don't like? And the only way for me to find out is for me to go talk to them. And I'm dropped here, right? So they don't know I'm here yet. My daughter of business is to figure out day one, how many people can I talk to today that can maybe remember me tomorrow? And I'm going to get a number. I might talk to 50.

I might talk to 100. Tomorrow, I'm doing the same thing again, but with a purpose to beat my fellow self from the previous day. And eventually, what's going to happen is enough folks will start to know my name. they'll start to see me in the same places, same areas. They'll start to get familiar with me, get comfortable with me. My personality is going to come out and show, and then they're going to give me an opportunity. And the first opportunity I get, I'm going to make sure it's right. And I'll make sure I go over and beyond to a point where they're going to start telling people.

And my order of business, when they're meeting these folks, is not to do business with them. No, I want to impress them so much that they introduced me to. their circle. That would be my first order of business. And from there, what will happen is I will watch my business, kind of my circle start to grow, grow, grow, and then I start showing them exactly what it is that I'm here to offer. Nice. Nice. So that then, I mean, so they've, they've brought you in their circle. They now trust you. Yep. And, and now you start solving their problems. 100%. And that's the order that I want it to be. I don't want to be the guy who comes in and now all of a sudden.

But see, the thing about my approach, Adam, you can do it with no money. You don't need any money. If I had a tent outside outside in the sleeping bag, I'll be just fine. If I can give me some water every day, a little bit of rice, I can go and build a business

in that deserted hour within 90 days without spending a dime on it. And then once that business start to grow, I know exactly where my dollar, should go to make it grow even more. But I'm probably going to be by myself, so I don't want it to grow too fast, right? I don't want 50 people calling me

the second, third week that I'm there. I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready for that. But what I'm ready to do is meet as many folks and get them to understand me as a person to the point to where opportunities will start to show up. That's awesome.

If people listening to this podcast do nothing more than go do that, you're going to build your business. They'll do business, 100%. But see, most folks, they don't want to get down and dirty and they're scared that maybe they're going to walk up to somebody and they're going to be rude. Guess what? That person is not your person.

There's no world in which that person will do business with you. You can offer that person on Cheeseburg perfectly wrapped and they were hungry and they wouldn't take it because they don't trust you. They don't want to be around you. And that's fine. What you have to do is. go on to the next. But you're going to learn in that what traits that that person have that maybe someone else do, that maybe the way they walk, maybe the way they talk, maybe the

where they are to where you say, you know what? Because I've met 15 people in this area so far, and five of them has been X. This, 33%, maybe I spend more of my time over here where I've met 20 and only two of them was like that. Wow. It's now utilizing your space and your time wisely. Why would you go to a place where you're not welcome where you can go over here and it's an abundance? And I think most folks are doing business in a space and a place

where they're probably not wanted, but they're going to force it because they're getting little increments of, hey, success, sprinkles of success. And there's a lot of agents out here who are selling, you know, There's nothing wrong with selling five, 10, 15, 20 hours a year in certain markets. But in a market like mine, and you're doing that, I'm not sure how you survive. This market is telling you, this business is telling you that maybe this is not for you. But year in and you're out, you show up and you do these things and you wonder why you're not the top Asian

or you're not produced in a way that you're doing because you're ignoring the rejection. go and figure out what's accepting you and the people that's accepting you and that's what you need to put your energy. Wow. I mean, this has been very enlightening and it resets our focus on what we need to be working on. Q, if you're going to give the listeners the best piece of advice you could possibly give them, what would that be in order to grow their business? To grow your business, you have to know your business. business. So what I would encourage you guys to do is go back to when you first started, dive deep

into all of your numbers, understand what is driving your business, what is killing your business, what is hurting your business, who is holding your business down, and who is making it thrive, and start to make changes around what you know about your business. And when you understand that, then sit down, and I don't mean sit down for it. hour or two and write it out, take a week, take a month, and really write out the direction in which you want your business to be five years from now, either it has grown X amount each year, or you've grown so much that you can now exit that business and go into another. But write out what that looks like year after year, month after month, week after week,

day after day, and then implement that plan each and every day. And it's as simple as starting with day one, the first 24 hours of your 168. What does that look like? What does your business look like over 24 hours span? What do you want it to look like? What changes can you make to make sure your goals are accomplished? But if nothing else, all businesses come down to your ability to connect. It's not about connections. It's about the ability to connect. You can have all the connections in the world, but if you can't connect with them, what's the part of happening? But if you can connect, it's no connection in the world that you cannot go up to and have a decent enough conversation to where they're thinking about you tomorrow and the week after.

there's not one room that I've ever walked in that I've left and the people was not like, I'm kind of interesting in that guy. I see something more in that guy. I want to know more. And it's the energy that you have to give. Yeah. I love it. The first time I heard you're 168, you know, 168 hours of available time to score some points in the week.

I mean, it sticks with me. And it drives me every week, you know, every Sunday when I make my plan for the week, I absolutely love it. You know, you got to have a game plan to win the game. So, Q, this has been really insightful. It's great to connect with you again. It's great to see you again, my friend, and hear how great your family's doing. That's awesome.

I have a question that you've answered a few times before, but it could change. So, you know, would love to hear what your latest is. But Q, how do you start your day with a win? Oh, yeah. I like this question, Adam. So it used to be I wake up, I meditate, I go sit in my closet, and I just think and be to myself, and then I go to the gym. But since having a family in terms of kids, my son, who's 21 months old, he sleeps with me every night. And he wakes up around 6.30 now.

and I take him downstairs to my wife. How I start my day with the wind is from the time he wakes up to when my alarm goes back off at 7.30 to get up, I just sit and I nap. I'm starting my mornings off every day with getting my body up, laying it back down to rest, then getting back up again. And the days that I don't do that, the days to where he wakes up and I'm having to go, I feel trained, I feel sleepy, I feel behind all day long, all the door on my head. And it's just one of those things to where waking up next to my son, taking him downstairs, leaving him with my wife, going back to lay down to just get 45 minutes of just close I sleep or rest.

I'm also thinking that I doze off and my wrong goes off. That resets me. And that's the reset that I'm telling folks that you're having their business. Every single day, reset yourself. Find a way. I don't care what it is. And then from there, my day starts and it's an adventure. Like when I leave here right now, I'm going to check on properties, pick up rent,

go to the gym, work out, play some pickleball, I'll be back home by 2 o'clock. Awesome. Q, it's great to see you again, my friend. Yes, sir. You're doing so well. Keep killing it. I know you will.

I mean, who knows where you're going to go next. The sky's the limit for you because you can do anything. Yes, sir. Staying focused. Staying in my range, staying focused, and always being available. That's it. All right, brother. Well, thanks for being on Start with a Way.

in. We love hearing from you and catching up with you about what you're up to. You're an inspiration to us all. So appreciate you, man. Thank you. Yep. Thank you for having me.