Wake Up to Wealth - THE SUCCESS TRAP NOBODY TALKS ABOUT WITH KELLI AND MIKE SALTER

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

In episode 67 of Wake Up to Wealth, Brandon Brittingham interviews real estate power couple Kelli and Mike Salter. With a combined wealth of experience in real estate, entrepreneurship, and military service, they share their journey from corporate America to building successful businesses across multiple states. Tune in for a takeaway of valuable lessons on entrepreneurship, leadership, and the true meaning of wealth SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS Brandon Brittingham Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mailboxmoneyb/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.brittingham.1/ Kelli Salter Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelli.salter.5 Mike Salter Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.salter.798 WEBSITES Brandon Brittingham: https://www.brandonsbrain.org/home ========================== SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS: Accruity: https://accruity.com/  

This is Wake Up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham. This next segment is brought to you by my good friends at Accruity. Now, if you run a business, most business owners neglect their back office, and they don't even know where to go or who to trust when it comes to their financials or CPA or taxes. That's where Accruity comes in. You can trust them. They can give you advice.

and they understand the back office. Listen, you're not running a business correctly if you don't have a hold of this, and it's really hard to trust people that are out there. And most CPAs, frankly, work for the IRS and don't work for you. That's not the case with Accruity. Check my good friends out at Accruity for any needs that you have when it comes to helping with your back office, getting your book straight, getting your taxes correct,

and they guide you and give you advice, which most firms don't. So check out my guys at Accruity, tell them I sent you. Hey, what's up, everybody? We are back with another episode of Wake Up to Wealth. And I start every episode pretty much saying the same thing. And it is a huge thank you to everyone. I think as of today, we're sitting at about 4.3 million downloads. Our average episode now, we're hitting about almost 130,000 downloads.

So we really, really appreciate all the support, all of you guys out there. supporting the show, helping the show consistently grow, making us one of the top shows in the United States on iTunes. We constantly rank in the top three in investing. And we've been trending in the top 30. Sometimes we get below in the 20s on business, which is remarkable when you think what we're up against as far as huge studios with huge budgets, huge shows, huge celebrities. So just a testament to everybody's support. So thank you guys so much. It gives me the the opportunity to bring on people that I respect and that are my homies. And today I've got two of my good friends, Kelly and Mike Salter, joining us on the show. What's up, guys?

Hello. So if you wouldn't mind, just give us the 30,000 foot view on both of you. The 30,000 foot view. I'm Kelly Salter. I am a real estate agent. I have a team in North Carolina and a new team in Alabama that we're very excited about. We have been in multiple verticals in the real estate space throughout the years that I've been in real estate. And for many years, I did it without Mike. And I'm sure, Brandon, you will touch on Mike's career and what he did before he joined me in the real estate verticals. We've been in mortgage. We've got a 300-door property management company. Like I said, an anchor team in North Carolina and then an expansion team here in Alabama. And we've been a part of your world for almost six years now. I'm grateful to you

and all of the people that you've introduced us to that have truly changed our life. What about you, Mike? I'm Mike Salter. I retired Marine. Was up around your neck of the woods there for a period of time and then landed in North Carolina. I spent about 12 or 13 years in North Carolina before I retired. Transition went and got my general contractor's license in the state of North Carolina to help Kelly and crew up there. And with our recent transition to Alabama, looking at moving that license down to Alabama and seeing where I can help here. So I know you're a pretty humble guy, but like you weren't just a Marine. You were like a badass Marine.

So I worked up north in the Baltimore area for about four and a half years and did three deployments out of there to Afghanistan. And after that, I was like, how can I help more? Like, in what way can I put more boots on the ground or my boots on the ground more often? And so I decided at that point, I was like, what's out there? And that's when I found the Marine Special Operations Command, Marsock, and packed up. We left Maryland, headed down to North Carolina in like 2013, I believe it was, 2012, 13. And at that point, hit the ground running. Fast.

Yeah. So we were a test bed during that time. I told Kelly, I said, I think we had 67 days head on pillow in the first 18. months of me being there, just running wide open and was able to go over there to special ops side, learn all aspects of my job field. I'm an intel guy by trade, signals intelligence specifically, and really worked up with teams, deployed to Iraq two additional times, helping out where I could, came back. We had a little one in the mix during that time, Andrew came about, and I transitioned to the schoolhouse to try to give

back, and I spent about four years in the schoolhouse teaching guys. It was with a course called Dyok, which was the multi-discipline intelligence operator course. I was the chief instructor over there for about two years as a chief instructor, and really just teaching the guys what they're going to need you to know down range. Yeah. See, that's very different than I was a Marine. That's why I asked that question. So a question for you, Mike, is, you know, you transitioned to the civilian side. You got into business, right? What do you think you kind of learned, right? Because you were, this was different. Like, you were essentially special forces, right? Am I quantifying that correctly? Yeah, inside a special operations community.

Yeah. So some of the things that I, that translated well between the military and entrepreneurship was, was leadership. I mean, there's, we would say it all the time. There's two things you can learn from leadership, what to do and what not to do. So you're constantly learning, but being able to get in front of people, be able to communicate with individuals. I would say one of the, biggest things with leadership that isn't talked about as often as it should. It's simply listening. You need to listen to the individuals around you. A lot of people come in, try to slap the table, start making changes day one. Listen to what's going on and then put your spin on it. So leadership's probably one of the biggest aspects, communication. The difference, or one of the biggest

things is having to communicate quickly, make decisions quickly. That, whether you're down range, whether you're back here, that's a huge part of the business element. Kelly and I have both, some people look at us and they're like, how do you guys, how do you guys move so quickly? She can shoot me, cut her eyes across the room and we can make a decision right then and there. And I think that's testament to all the years being in the Marine Corps is being able to be that decision maker and making those decisions quick. Yeah. The shoot, move and communicate. And that requires flat comms.

It requires being very clear on what the mission is and being able to communicate that quickly to the people around you in a way that they understand. and they can move as fast as you move or as fast as you need them to move in a situation. One of the biggest things, Brandon, since I was on the intelligence side for so many years, every commander I worked with, Ground Force commander, team leader, whatever the case was, kind of had a different way of doing things. But I knew at the end of the day, my job was to provide them, with as much information as possible for them to make the best decision they could at that moment. Some of them wanted all the information.

Some wanted waftops to cut down on comms. Either way, they just needed as much information as possible to make the decision that they were about to have to make. That's good. So go transition to, Kelly, you weren't always an entrepreneur, right? like you weren't you corporate America? Yes. So I, shortly after we got to Maryland, I was about, I lasted about two weeks as a stay-at-home wife and took a job, a temporary job actually, working for the chief marketing officer and the vice president of sales of a company in Maryland that went on to

take two companies public in the renewable energy mergers and acquisition space. And so they asked me to come back and work for the CEO. So my resume includes two very large startups. And we took one of them from idea to Wall Street in nine months. And it was the craziest journey. that you could have ever imagined. So we were, that included raising capital and included marketing from,

from nothing to full-fledged website, to staffing up meetings. It was just, I trudged across Washington, D.C. with pitch books one day, meeting with every, every major bank that you can think of. I am so grateful for that opportunity. because it taught me so much about entrepreneurship and it taught me so much about business and building

big business quickly. And all of us can agree that there is always something to learn and that you begin to realize that every situation, every experience that you've ever had in your life is compounding on each other to get you exactly where it is that you are now. And I harken by, to that experience as well as building the first real estate team as we embark upon building this real estate team. I pay close attention to how we built it. How did we build it to be as successful as it was? It went public 25 times oversubscribed. How did we do that? What was the consistency of the team? Who was on the team? Where did we put our focus? It translated very, very well into building companies inside the real estate vector.

I don't, you know, it's funny, people ask, what do you do? I always, they expect you to say, you know, I'm a realtor. I'm a real estate agent. At the end of the day, now I see myself very differently than I did when I first started my career. I was going to sell a few homes. When I started, I was just going to get my license to be able to flip homes and be just a small personal investor, you know, I would at least know what we were doing as we moved through

our real estate journey and it changed very quickly. I was good at it. And then what we realized was was that we could take all of my corporate business background and combine it with my real estate license and build something much bigger than just an individual agent that was out slinging, you know, a hundred deals a year. So what do you, uh, But on that note, what do you, what's one or two things that kind of stick out in your mind that you learned kind of in this journey of working with a company that went public? And, you know, like something that just sticks out in your mind of like, man, I learned this or I saw this. And this is what I was able to translate in my business that helped me become successful later on. The importance of the team, especially early.

and then also understanding that the same team that has the insatiable appetite for the insanity that is a startup is not going to be the same talent that sustains the company through decades of business. It's just not going to. The crazy people who are in the startup industry are absolutely insane. They are, you know, and I am one of them. I say that, you know, I tell people all the time that once it, once it runs and all of its problems are gone, I don't want anything to do with it. I'm going to go start up a new company. And that is truly, that is my personality. And knowing that is also very important, knowing yourself and then knowing the personalities and the appetites of the people around you to understand who's still going to be sitting at the table with you when in three years, five years, 10 years or 25 years, it's not going to be the same. group of people. So that was really watching them assemble a group of extremely, extremely talented Ivy League educated professionals to be able to do what we did in such a very short amount of time. And I say we, because I was the only non-executive invited to stand with them on the floor of Goldman when we went public. So I will tell you, one of the more memorable moments of my career is when the COO

looked back at me and said, you're coming to New York, right? And I was, I said, you know, of course. Sure. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. We're going to be like it was, and I was personally asked to be with them on that day. And it remains one of the highlights of my career to know that my contributions as, you know, the executive assistant to the CEO and to the executive team meant that much to them that they invited me to be there on the day that we went public. So the team with you start with is not always going to be the team that you play the game with. And that's okay. We understand that everybody has unique skills and abilities and everybody has, you know, a desire to be with companies at different phases. What I really took from it truly,

you were going to boil it down and how did I move it through to real estate was marketing. We had an absolutely brilliant marketing director who was from Madrid. And she was so just extraordinary. From the importance of the logo, it's going to be everywhere. We're going to put it on everything. We're going to plaster it everywhere we can. But also knowing that that marketing is going to be on every pitch deck, that marketing is going to be on every, every piece of paper that gets passed down that the table at all of these meetings where you're asking people for millions and millions and millions of dollars. It's so important that you be able to present yourself in a way that people want to do business with you.

you. And I know in your world and sometimes in our world, that is also being able to convey surety and confidence so that people want to do business with you. You've got it together. Now, behind the scenes, that may be a completely different story. But we can tell the story. We've got it together. We've got the website. We've got all of the brand. The brand kit matters. All of it matters, especially the further you get in. to into business, people are going to judge you on what you can present to them and having that part nailed down matters tremendously. And for my team, my new team, they're biting at the bit. They are ready to go. They're ready. They're ready. They're ready. They're ready. They're ready.

And I'm constantly having to tell them, not yet. Not yet. We're almost there, but we're not to the point where we can take it to the street, if you will. We're not to the point where I'm confident in putting it in front of a consumer. Two weeks, we're playing a different game. It is so important that what you present is what you want to be judged on because that is what you're going to be judged on. Yeah, that's great. It's funny you say the startup or the, you know, just the team analogy, the one of the founders of Netflix, I had not the guy who's still runs it today, but it was started by two people. A lot of people don't know this. And the guy who actually started Netflix got out pretty early. By conventional wisdom, he got out way too early. Still

walked with about 100 million. I'd say that's not a bad day. But it was funny, we were in a room with him and we got to interview him. And everybody was like, why did you not see the vision? He said, absolutely a solid vision. He said, I'm a startup guy. And he said, it got to a point where it was no longer a startup and it was a huge company. And there's nothing wrong with it. I got it to the point where I wanted. I needed to go find another startup. And you would, to me, that was crazy as shit.

Right. But he was just like, I know what I am and I know what I'm not. And he was like, and to be honest with you, I wasn't the right seat. I was not the CEO to take it to the level that Reed, who's now the CEO took it to. and him and Reed started together as partners. So that's a very interesting take that you talked about because I've heard that from founders more than once. Like I've heard from very successful founders,

I've heard that more than once. So that was a really interesting take. I'm glad you brought that up. Well, Brandon, you and Kelly both alluded to the team aspect of things. And I can tell you when we first started, because I've walked beside Kelly on all of these ventures, When we first started, it was really a family-oriented organization and that sort of thing. And we viewed ourselves as a family.

And one of the things that we quickly realized is that your family will let you get by with things. Every family does. I'm on a diet, but you know what? It's somebody's birthday, so we're going to eat half this cake. They'll let you get by on things. And so we transitioned from that on a business side pretty quickly. And I started viewing it as a team. And I'm like, you are the individuals to the left and right with me.

You're going to have a bad day. I'm going to have a bad day. And we're going to have to fill in for one another. But at the end of the day, our mission is this. And we come together as that team to move the needle forward. and I would say when we when we transitioned into to EOS and started operating inside of that realm, it fed back into my military background very. Yeah, so that's where I was going to go.

Yeah. And so it fed in there very nicely due to the structure associated with it with department heads, you know, on the military side, that could be a company commander to a battalion commander. And so I quickly understood it from our L10 meetings, our to-does, our rocks, and everything else. That once we understood our mission, our vision, our core values, and establishing the meetings and the KPIs that we needed to get, that was the structure that we needed to really expand. Yeah, let me make a point on that. So if you're listening to this and you run businesses, EOS is the most brutal thing you'll ever go through.

I mean, it is brutal. It's the best thing. You can run all of your businesses at such a high level. It's probably your ability to function multiple verticals now. I know for me, I just look at everything completely different. On that note, I just hired for our off market investment team. I just hired a manager for that side who's just so dialed on. EOS and oh my God, he came in and fixed three or four things in like three weeks because of his knowledge of EOS and how to run a business through EOS and that whole understanding. If you don't know what EOS is, you're listening to this. You need to learn it. You're running any business. You need to run your business off EOS. You truly are running shit broken.

I don't care how good you are until you implement EOS, right? So one of, we, we made a fatal mistake the first time that we implemented EOS. And I will say this publicly so that hopefully people don't make the same mistake. We had our entire team retraction, which were the instructions that were given. We now start every team member off in our companies with reading what the heck is EOS. and so many people try to start with the traction and rocket fuel books. From one EOS operator to a future EOS operator, please do not start there. Start with what the heck is EOS.

It's a two-hour read. I read it on a plant. The first time I read it, I read it on a plane on a regional puddle jumper. Like that's how short of a read it is. Yeah. It is the basics. It's the framework for your team. It is much more palatable than the rocket fuel and the traction books.

It gives real world examples. If you've never heard it before, start there. Or if you've read all the books and you want to be able to convey what EOS is to a junior staff member, read that book. probably one of the best books I've read last year. Like, I mean, it's just, and now it is a book that is like a reference book that we use. And it also allows me the opportunity to say to my team, remember in the book when it said this or remember the example they gave in the book, it's far more user-friendly than anything else that anybody's going to point you to.

Start there. Now, that's good. You just got me thinking when we talked about EOS and kind of your military background, like, what did you learn in the military that has kind of helped you in business when like shit goes wrong, right? Because I got to imagine. Hey, hey, this is the, this is this is this is the, this is the, this is the, this is the mission. This is the mission if everything goes right. Right. I don't think you can say some of these things on. Well, but, you know, how many times did it all go right? And let me quantify this. So I think that, unfortunately, I think in the age of social media, I think that too many people play the comparison game. I think it's created, I think it's created real fear and anxiety in people, right?

and I also think that, you know, a lot of people don't go online and, like, share all the shit that's really going on, right? And don't share all the shit that's going wrong and that's breaking. So someone sees, and even me, myself, like, I share some of it, but, like, I don't share all of it. So someone sees the shit I'm doing. And they don't realize that, like, there was times when, you know, my, bank account was negative and I had to meet 60 grand of payroll the next day and shit like that, right? And so, you know, I'd just be interesting to hear your take on that of like, I'm sure missions went wrong. What did that teach you and what did you learn?

So I'll give you three pieces on that, Brandon, what Kelly was alluding to a second ago. And that's stop the bleeding, start the breathing. And so let's figure out what we've got. What is the how large thing? Yeah. Like, let's cut it where it is and let's focus on how we're moving forward. The other piece to it is something is always going to go wrong. Exactly.

It's always going to go wrong. However, the way that we look at things is we have our different coas and that's courses of action. So we have our primary, we have our secondary, and then we have our tertiary or contingency. And so if all goes well, we're going to stay on that primary. If it goes awry, we're going to hit our secondary. And then if everything breaks loose and we're in a difficult situation, we have a contingency plan in place. And so the last piece I'll leave you with, Brandon, is really more of a character aspect of things. And that, that, comes down to me, and that is I am going to hope for the best. I'm going to expect the worst,

and I'm not going to be disappointed in the end. I'm making the best decisions I can in this moment to push it forward. The worst thing that we can do is paralyzed by perfection, because that's eventually just going to stall out everything. You have to make a decision. You have to make a decision quickly. Are they always the correct decision? No, they're not. But we were able to keep moving and pushing and we will worry about those decisions that may not have been the best in the moment. If I may, the piece of not stopping when it, you know, and real estate is not war, but I am certain that this got brought home because of some of the situations that he's been in in his career.

But the worst thing that you can do is to freeze and do not. And so the question always is, is what's our next best step? What are we doing right now? What is the next best step that we can do to move things forward? What are we starting? What are we stopping? Where are we applying triage? What are we doing? And that is a piece that I think comes both from the military and from just corporate background of, you know, I mean, we, we, We can't give up. We can't stop. We've got, you know, in their world, it's literally surviving.

In the corporate world, it's, you know, we got a board to answer to. We've got Wall Street to answer to. We've got, we can't stop. Things may be in crisis, but we can't stop. We've got to continue to move forward in figuring out where we're stopping the bleeding, the bleeding and starting the bleed, the, ooh, I messed that all up, didn't I. Stop the bleeding. Start the breathing.

Yeah, start the breathing. Yeah, so kind of, Kelly, where you're at now, I got two, three more questions for you guys. Where you're at now, like, just kind of sitting over a couple of different businesses, different verticals. You know, I'm sure it's not just one, but like, what could you share to our listeners of where you've gotten to now with, you know, moving to a different state, running two teams, having a property management business, doing a bunch of things, like, What do you think is a very important lesson you could share with people of how you got there? You know, it's funny. You brought this up a few minutes ago, and I would be remiss in our current time and space if we didn't somewhat talk about this.

But make sure that the dream and the goal that you're chasing is a life you actually want to live. So we were, I have not said this publicly at like, at all. I'm about to say this right here on the Wake Up to Wealth podcast. We were the number one medium-sized team in the state of North Carolina in 2025 for real trends. That's awesome. And I was chasing a life I wanted nothing to do with. And so you said in the age of social media, you know, it's the comparison game. It's this, that, and the other. It's don't build your own hell.

Don't build your own prison. Yeah. If you wake up one day and find yourself in your own prison, go figure out a way to get out of it. You know, we had all the things. We had the big house. We had the, you know, we had the big team. We had all of the things.

And at the end of the day, day, what I really wanted was just to come home. I just wanted to come home. And I very transparently shared it with Michael a while ago. And he said, hey, he actually said packed your stuff. Let's go. And I, you know, I can't leave my team. I can't leave this, that and the other. Home meaning where you guys live now. Yes. Yeah. So the things got a little bit better, you know, how they do right when you think you're going to, you know, you're ready to throw in the towel. there's a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of a false diamond there,

fools gold, if you will. But when we got the opportunity and we looked back, what I realize is is make sure that you're living and building a life that is your dream and not a dream that somebody else gave you or an outcome that somebody else, that somebody else said you could. Like, well, I can do a lot of things. That doesn't necessarily mean that that's what I want to do. So at this point, I do.

I sit over a lot of companies. I've got a lot of irons and fire, if you will. I love business. People ask me, what do you do for fun? I'm like, I work. And you and I share that. Um, it's, it is not work for me. It is fun. It is a problem that I can solve. It is somebody needs something. Somebody needs, you know, there's, there's always a puzzle, a problem to solve. Um, and that, that to me is fun. It is, it is, it's just fun. And it, it requires a lot. Even, even on a small scale with two small teams. because they are small now.

They are small and mighty, but it does require a lot. It requires me to be in alignment, though. And there is a, there was a time in my life where I was living anything but alignment. And I find when, when I am in alignment, everything is easier. One of the things that hasn't necessarily come up yet that I believe is something that is so important that, more of us talk about. And that is just simply transparency. Transparency with your team, where we're going,

why we're going there, what are we doing, who's in the boat, and becoming very unattached to who is on the journey with you. That's a good one. That's been told me years ago that he would love me no matter what, and I'm good with that. Like there are, there are going to be people that come and go out of your life, especially in the business world. They are there for seasons, reasons, or lifetimes.

And those seasons and those reasons are, are okay. And the smallest category is going to be lifetime. Mm-hmm. Yes, it is. And the smallest of categories. Mm-hmm. Running this many companies now in different states. requires alignment. It requires clarity. It requires accountability. And it requires an extreme amount

of transparency among my inner circle of what's working, what's not working, where do you need me to show up? Where can I, which meetings do you need for me to fly there for? And which meetings, can I handle via Zoom or who on my team am I transferring my current skill set to so that they can stand in that gap so that I don't have to be everywhere. And EOS is very good about this in the elevate and delegate exercise,

but truly I understand that my role is to transfer the skills that I have right now to someone else on my job. team. And then they also understand that one of my most important jobs is to go to the next level and get the skills that are necessary for me to continue to elevate myself so that then I can in turn give that knowledge to them. And that's what makes the world go round. Great answer. You kind of touched on this a little bit, but I'm going to ask you guys both this question. I ask everybody the same question when we end the show.

So I name the show Wake Up to Wealth because when I started to make money, what I learned is there's a world that exists that a lot of people are not privy to. We're not educated on money. I'm a conspiracy theorists where I think we're not educated on money for a reason to keep people not wealthy and could keep the wealthy in power. So I think two things. I name the show Wake Up to Wealth because I wanted people to wake up to have an intelligence around money and how to keep people. get it and how to become wealthy, but also I want people to wake up to wealth. And that's different for everybody, right? And so I'm going to ask both of you the same question, what does waking up to wealth mean to you? And I want separate answers. I always have to go first. He's at golf morning.

So I grateful for you for so many reasons. And that is for putting us in rooms, putting us in the right rooms and there's a whole there's a whole another podcast in in and of itself there but putting yourself around people who want to see you succeed people who will help you people who will turn to you and say hey come on like you're they're there when things are not great and they're there when things are really great um the but for i think for us we're a since we're not even 40 yet. And we could retire. I threatened to retire this year.

It was funny because everybody said you can't. I can't. You can't sit still long enough. That's bullshit. I can't sit still long enough. But the truth of the matter is that I believe that I am as close to being retired as I'll ever be because I get to wake up every day and do what I want, when I want with the people that I want to do it with.

And that to me as a level of immeasurable wealth that you simply cannot put a number on. And life changed very quickly for us last December. And I looked at Mike and said, we're moving. And he looked at me and said, you've lost your mind. And I said, no, we're like, no, we're moving. We're doing it. We're doing it. We're leaving all of it behind.

We're closing companies. we're keeping what makes sense open. We're all, you know, the other ancillaries that are only around just because, because they're, you know, we're exiting those. The ability to turn on a dime, the ability to know that you've got income coming in that will keep your bills paid regardless, that's a level of wealth that, that, people would aspire for, would want to work towards. And it's crazy to think we're there. And that to me is the ability, I've never, the real estate afforded me with the opportunity to

never miss anything. I never missed, never missed anything. So not a school program, not a, not a doctor's appointment for our son, not a vacation. we just never missed anything. And I find that the more wealthy people there are in my world, they don't talk about their money. They talk about the time that they got to spend. They got the opportunity to enjoy the time with the people around them. They got to venture together, travel together, enjoy things together. And so I think for me at this point in my world, waking up to wealth meant realigning my life,

realigning my life with people that I wanted to spend a lot of time with. It means that the people that I get to invite around my dinner table and get to break bread and spend time with are people that truly want what's best for me and my family. And the feeling is very mutual. It is getting to go and see the world and do the things. and know that we built something that is, first of all, a sellable asset, which is, you know, we do have company, most real estate agents believe that they have companies that are assets.

And at the end of the day, you realize that without them, they are nothing. We have companies that actually are assets that we've built over all these. years and just that's a that's just a it's something that I don't think that I realized that that I would be here when I started real estate I didn't don't think that this is what I saw but but also getting into rooms with people that are going to help you grow the money that you have that are going to help you do the deals that are going to help you also grow personally and grow professionally and make those introductions. And the people that'll say, you know, hey, I'm, I'm in a tough spot. I need somebody to talk to. And the next text message is

a contact card from somebody that you can't actually get that person's phone number. So it's just, wealth is so much more than money. It's about how we live. It's about who we get to live with. It's about the experiences that we get to share and share together. And that is the point that I'm at in my world with an overwhelming amount of contentment. I'm like you. I love the deal too. I'm chasing the thrill of a deal, but also with a level of contentment that as a mom and as a wife and as a daughter and as a friend really brings me an overwhelming amount of happiness. Same question, Mike.

So, Brandon, I, this question to me, I didn't grow up with a whole lot of money around. And so to be honest with you, throughout the years, I figured, I figured out the difference in rich and wealthy. But from my standpoint, I had always viewed money as a negative thing. I believe the individuals that had money were jerks. Yeah. Better terms. And kind of going through life, learning, getting into some of these rooms with Kelly, being invited to different places, I begin to, I begin to be introduced to people.

And is it okay if I name drop individual? Yeah, of course. Okay. So, Brandon, you're one of them, a huge, huge contributing. factor to it. Sammy Knight is another one. I love Sammy. Right after I transitioned out of the Marine Corps, Sammy pulled me.

That's a dude that whatever he touches, he makes money. And so he pulled me to the side at one of the big masterminds in Texas. And honestly, at the time, I wasn't ready for it. I wasn't needed to have that conversation with him. I was barrel-chested. Like, I'm going to figure this out on my own. Since then, I've had a couple more conversations with him at different events and just calling him on the phone to have the conversations. I would definitely look at him as a mentor to where I am.

But I began to understand that these individuals that are wealthy aren't jerks. Yeah. They actually want to see you succeed. They actually want to prevent you from. making the same mistakes that they made that cost them hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. And they're willing to provide that to you because they want to see everyone else around them win as well. And so when it truly comes down to the wealth, the biggest aspect of it in my life is being able to be present. That is how I see wealth.

There's time and there's money. and time is finite. And I miss a lot of things through the years of being gone, whether it being workups or deployments or that sort of thing. And as I've transitioned to where I am now, being able to be present is the most rewarding aspect of life. And I'm able to, we live a little bit of a unique life with Andrew. but if I want to go kayaking with Andrew on Tuesday morning, we'll go out and catch some fish on Tuesday morning. And that is what all of the entrepreneurship, all of the hard times,

all of these things have led to is the freedom for me to be able to be present. Yeah. Well, those are two good answers to end on. I appreciate you guys for coming on here. always listeners. I appreciate you guys for tuning in. And guys, thank you so much for coming on here and dropping some good shit on my audience today. Appreciate y'all. Thanks for having us, Brandon.

Thanks for having us, Brandon. Thanks for having us, for tuning into this episode of Wake Up to Wealth. We're sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcast. This way of good updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review on Apple Podcast and tell your friends about the show. It is how new people find it. Until next time.