Two-time Emmy and three-time NAACP Image Award-winning television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Brandon Bronaugh.
A life transition expert and one of the faces of A&E’s hit show Hoarders.
🎯 Purpose of the Interview
The interview aims to:
- Explore the deeper emotional and psychological aspects of hoarding.
- Highlight Brandon Bronaugh's unique approach to helping individuals and families transition through crisis-level home situations.
- Educate the audience on the realities behind the TV show Hoarders and the broader mission of Brandon's company, Lifecycle Transitions.
🧠 Key Takeaways 1. Hoarding Is a Mental Health Crisis
- Hoarding is not just clutter—it’s often a manifestation of unresolved trauma.
- The physical accumulation reflects emotional and psychological pain.
“You learn more about a person from their home than any other facet of their life.” – Brandon Bronaugh
2. Lifecycle Transitions: A Holistic Approach
- Bronaugh’s company blends emotional, logistical, and real estate support.
- Services include cleanup, therapy, home evaluations, and even relocation.
- The Transition Evaluation Assessment (TEA) helps clients decide whether to stay, sell, or relocate.
3. Clients Often Don’t Self-Identify as Hoarders
- Most clients are high-functioning individuals who don’t recognize their behavior as hoarding.
- Shame and embarrassment are major barriers to seeking help.
“Very few people have ever called it. I mean, we do… but what I didn’t know is what it took for them to get to that point.”
4. Health and Safety Risks
- Hoarding environments can lead to respiratory issues, mold, fire hazards, and even death.
- Bronaugh created a mold remediation division after realizing the health dangers hidden behind clutter.
5. Demographics and Challenges
- About 80% of Bronaugh’s clients are Caucasian, but hoarding affects all races and socioeconomic backgrounds.
- Cases range from teenagers to the elderly.
- Hoarding has a high recidivism rate (65–70%).
6. Spiritual and Entrepreneurial Journey
- Bronaugh started as a property preservation contractor.
- His mission evolved into a humanitarian effort to save lives.
“God had a plan. He said, no, you’re going to save lives and change.”
💬 Notable Quotes
- “When you go home, that’s when the mask is taken off. That’s when you can be your most authentic self.”
- “For every one year that a client goes without addressing the hoarding conditions… is equivalent to about one day of actual cleanup.”
- “We’re going to build this ecosystem… that we can do what most companies would take nine months to do in 30 days.”
- “The home is killing them.”
📞 How to Get Help
- Website: LifecycleTransitions.com
- Email: info@lifecycletransitions.com
- Services include in-home evaluations, virtual assessments, and a zero-contact cleanup option for clients too ashamed to be present.
#SHMS #STRAW #BEST
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Rashan McDonald host this weekly Money Making Conversation
Masterclass show. The interviews and information that this show provides
off for everyone that includes you. It's time to stop
reading other people's success stories and start living your own now.
If you want to be a guest on my show,
Money Making Conversations Masterclass, please visit our website, Moneymakingconversations dot
(00:20):
com and click to be a guest button. If you
are a small business owner, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, inflorencer or nonprofit,
I want you on my show. Now, let's get started.
My guest is America's life transition Expert, one of the
faces of A and East hit TV show Hoarders. That's right, Hoarders.
He's the founder of life Cycle Transitions, the first company
(00:43):
of its kind to blend emotional, logistical, and real estate
support for families facing crisis level home situations from hoarding
and inherited homes to addiction, mental health, and eldercare. He
has helped thousands of people reclaim their lives and dignity
to compassionate action. Please welcome to the Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
(01:05):
Brandon Bronette, Ah Brandon I'm good.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Well, thank you, sir. You know, let's get started with this.
It show hoarders, because I've called my wife a hoarder,
and the show last night said, don't you ever call
me a hoarder again. I am not that. So my
question to you, Brandon is when people use the word
(01:31):
horder in general, like I've through it my wife, what
exactly is a horder?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, that's an interesting question.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
What the word hoarding has done is it's given a
face to a much deeper mental health issue, in fact,
a much deeper mental health crisis.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
And a lot of that is what manifests itself in
a physical form. That what people are dealing with, going
through and experiencing the most importantly, what they're suffering from,
shows itself in the physical and a lot of that
is and the accumulation of the inability to let go
of the past traumas or experiences.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Now, how do you get there though? You know, let
me back up a little bit. Okay, how do you,
as an expert see the problem before they acknowledge the problem?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, that's that's good. I mean that's a twofold question.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
One I get calls all the time when clients want
us to come in and do an evaluation assessment, and
most often the night before we arrive at the home
is the most challenging, most difficult, most embarrassing, most shameful
moment of their life because they're.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Now allowing themselves to be vulnerable.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
So the first thing they try to do is tidy
up and clean up because like, you know, like think
about it, when you got people coming over your house,
how many of us have thrown a bunch of things
in the closet.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
You open the closet, things just sort of fall on
top of you.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Well, when my clients, what I try to explain to
them is that without being morbid, because this may sound
little bit more of that, if I were a crime
scene investigator, if I was a homicide investigator, would you
want to move the body around before I get there?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So for me, I learned you learn.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
More about a person from their home than any other
facet of their life.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Okay, I want to work, which is good information to
know because of the fact that I will tell you
I am a neat freak. You know, one of the guys,
would you, you know, maybe just I move a glass
if it's not Okay, that glass needs to be right there.
And so that's another smeter issue, right.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
That's the opposite end of the spectrum.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Right right, right, So that's me, that's what you're talking with,
Rushan McDonald. So my wife has to deal with that.
But when I hear the word life transition expert, it
almost seems like you know, morbid. But explain me when
you used in the word life transition, what does that
mean in your terms?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Well, it's all cool, it's all in, all encompassing, it's holistic,
it's everything they're dealing with mentally, physically, emotionally and financially.
And most of the cases, you know, their home is
their biggest asset.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
So you can't when.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
You're dealing with that home and you're trying to decide
to sell a home, fix a home, or move from
a home. There's a lot that goes into that decision
making process that meets the eye.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
And when you say that, because because I want to
pull a little bit deeper into your Brandon, because this
is what you do, shayd Holders. So you kind of
cut off a little bit because you think I got it. Okay,
I don't have it because I watch television and television
is edited, and so like you said, a day before
people know you're coming, they try to clean up. You
(04:42):
walk in there still a disaster. Okay, And you said
rishon to hey, if it's a crime saying you don't
move the body, they have to come in and investigate. Now,
people who call on you to come to these places,
what is that converse, like Brandon?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Okay, Well, let me tie into that crime scene question
because I was going somewhere with that. The reason I
don't want them to get rid of their things and
to move their things because you learn so much from
what they're doing. You know why they're doing what they're doing,
and how they're functioning in their home. Gives me the
ability to take from it, which is the mental health
and the and the illness, and to learn from it
(05:23):
so that we can grow from it and move past
and heal from it. Because when people go through that trauma,
they're doing things unbeknownst to them in their in their
in their personal space that they aren't aware of.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And like the real world, you go to.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Work and your function and you're high functioning and you're professional,
you're productive, but when you go home, that's when that
mask is taken off. That's when you can sort of
be your most authentic self. And that's why you know,
violating people's home is so is so detrimental because it's
the only place in the world where.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
People can feel safe.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
So when when I tie back into what you're saying,
going into these environments and trying to figure out why
they do what they do and how they do what
they do and why they're nervous, is because they.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Don't know who's coming in that door.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
They don't know what questions I'm going to ask, and
they're not really at that point sure how much they
want to reveal.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Right, So it's a cat and mouse can right in
a game that we have to get to the bottom
line because they do have a problem that they may
not be acknowledging. I'm talking to Brandon Brunei. He's the
America's Life Transition Expert, one of the faces of A
and E s hit TV show Hoarders. I guess I
got to start right there a TV show. How did
you get involved, Brandon?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Well, I started when we first started, We're a property
preservation company, and we were working with dilapidated distress properties
and getting them.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
On the market.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
As we were going in and out of these houses
doing the country's most vulnerable time during the housing crisis,
we begin to see idio secrecies or patterns, And I said,
what if there was a company that can sort of
help people mentally, physically and emotionally through all these different
situations that I was experiencing. So we started to see
more often people with an accumulation of life in their home,
(07:10):
like a bunch of things, knick knacks, and you know.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
What, accumulations see you so nice? Okay, I don't see life,
but I want to. I want to, Jock, I see trash,
I see unlivable conditions. But you say accumulation of life.
But that's a very professional term for what you see.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Well, the reason I say that, though, m M mister McDonald,
is because if you've heard the terminology are well lived
in home, right, this is a home that's probably generationally
passed through Grandma's, grandma grandma home and inhering it from
that point on.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So there's there's a life. There's a lot of life
in there.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
And also when you get over the age of sixty, unfortunately,
there's a lot that goes on in a person's life
there's family members that pass on, there's parents that pass on.
And what's the first thing people do when that happens.
They go over to the home and they start taking things.
And guess what, that's where the hoarding begins. Is when
you go into your loved one's home and you don't
(08:10):
see junk, You don't see this. You see the memories,
you see past experiences. You see when they bought that
bike and you told them they paid too much money
for the Honda. You see all of those things and
you're not and nobody else understands it in your mind
quite like you do. Well, that's what happens in a
lot of cases with people that are going through these
various situations alife.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Brandon is, so, what's the number one mistake that people make?
Are mistakes? I want to just put it on mistake
Like you've kind of mentioned it. People don't see what
they're doing and not acknowledge it. Is it. Let me
just let me back up a little bit. My number
one thought is it has to be some form of
isolation with these people because people don't visit them and
(08:52):
they don't make note of it. And you know, because
if I'm visiting somebody house and I see something, quite frankly,
will comment, go, what's going on on here? What is
the I guess them of these of the typical hoarder lifestyle, I.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Would say that most of them are high functioning. That's
that's that's the common denominator. And and it's funny because
we originated in Massachusetts. So if you can imagine, my
pool of clients are some of the most gifted, most intelligent,
most educated people.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
In the world. And you know, and I had to
go into their environment.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
And a lot of them were more educated, probably more
abreastive things in a specific segment than I was. And
I had to dummy down a lot of those conversations
because it didn't negate the fact that you got a
bunch of junk or trash or whatever in your home.
So you can be a rocket scientist, you can be
an m I. You can be an m I T
professor or Harvard graduate, but right now none of that's
(09:51):
serving in fact, is serving against you. So a lot
of them are highly intelligent people. Some of them are
on the spectrum, you know, and we're starting to realize
that there are quite a few people that are highly
intelligent and mental health sort of paralleling or going in
between those two spectrums.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Some of them have not been married before, some of
them have.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
But one thing I do know is that when they
are married, that this creates a huge wedge in their
marriage and a lot of them do end up, unfortunately
dealing with marital status issues and diorse as a result
of this.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Now you said it's what I was going through your
questions for the show. I ran across, of course, and said,
t TEA, explain to my audience why you feel that's
a good place to start. Well.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I started the THA program, which is Transition Evaluation Assessment,
about seventeen years ago because I needed a guiding tool
in order to really break down a lot of what's
going on in people's lives financially, mentally, emotionally, physically and
come up with a blueprint because let's face it, you
don't know what you don't know until you know. And
a lot of times when I prevace the idea when
(11:00):
I talk to people, do you want to stand this
home or are you looking to downside or relocate?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I'll give you three options.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
You want to stay and let's make it so that
it's livable if you want to put it on the market.
Let's make it so that it's you can sell it
for the highest retail value. Then option three if you
don't have the time, money, energy, and resource, we have
a home rescue program where we can get you out
from under this and find you a home anywhere in
the country in thirty sixty and ninety days, full spectrum,
and we'll front load all the money and everything that's required.
(11:28):
We'll bet on our ability to make your situation work
for you and immediately reflax.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Clients say no, I'm not selling my home. I'm not
doing this. But guess what.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
As we did the evaluation assessment and they started to
see things that they didn't see, some clients would see
that they couldn't afford to live anywhere else because the
cost of rent and expenses was just too high. So
they were going to have to live with some of
those things that maybe were challenging before and just peer
them down over at a period of time, and we
would help them do it, even through our monthly help
(12:00):
plan or either through dealing with one thing at a
time or dealing with the hoarding over a longer period
of time.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
But we would say the best plan for you is
to stay here.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Some clients that we immediately ran the reason the handsay,
I'm out of here. I don't want to sell, I
don't want to leave. I don't want to sell my house.
I'm staying here. But after we looked at the plumbing,
the electrical, the molde the hoarding, clean up, the roof
falling apart, and we broke down comparable analysis as to
what the home is worth in its current condition and
what it's going to take in order for it to
sell and get past an FHA Fanny Man inspection that
(12:33):
a thirty year mortgage can be granted to the buyer.
They didn't want to spend the sixty eighty or fifty
or twenty or whatever.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Thousands of dollars and they were like, look, I want
to get out of here.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I'm done.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
So the evaluation assessment, the transition evaluation assessment, is a
tool to really get down to the nuts and boats
of what's really happening and what they really need to do.
And nobody in the market has done it, and it's
been sequential in me being able to transition over seven
thousand people in the past seventeen years.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Now, that's the large number so now that allows me
to ask this question from a racial standpoint, just gotta
know because you a black man, and I don't that
already kind of like a black man doing this, I
would call me stereotypical because I would think that's I'll
be interviewing a white person doing this, because it feels
like this is a a area that will be dominated
(13:24):
by whites. What off the seven thousand from a racial
component and from an age component. We talked about the
intellect earlier because you said you started in Massachusetts, but
from a racial component and an age component, what is
the typical order?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Me?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
And studies are still gathering. We're still gathering studies. One things,
hording has a high recent division recentivisim rave about sixty
five to seventy percent that we know. In terms of
my clients in life cycle, I would say about eighty
percent of my clients might be Caucasian. And then there's
the other percentage that sort of goes between different races
(14:03):
and so forth. Socio Economically, I don't think money has
a variance. There is one common denominator that we cannot
deny and we can't lie. Is that in order for
me to help a lot of these clients, they have
to have a home. So when you look at that
definition of that number, I think it's kind of a
little jaded when you may have to look at another
(14:24):
number and say, well, how many Americans are homeowners in
this country, because that would have to play a role
in being able to look at those numbers unbiasedly. But unfortunately,
the number one common denominator is that there is a home,
and that home, unfortunately is either been neglected or hoarded,
or there's some trauma or some issues going on within
those four walls.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
And the age range would be what.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I'm actually getting calls from clients that are suffering from
hoarding at seventeen.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Eighteen.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Wow, you know, we're getting a lot of calls from
parents and actual appearance about their daughter and their son's room.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It's a lot more common than I think most people do.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
And when I tell people that you put a name
on a face on on this disease, it's a lot
more intricate than that I used to think. Like when
you say the word, it's like saying crazy and just crazy.
There's different variations of crazy, and people are crazy for
different reasons.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Sometimes it's because you're making them crazy jokingly.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
money Making Conversations master Class. Welcome back to Money Making
Conversation master Class with me Rashaun McDonald. Absolutely, and I
know they were crazy. You know, we could laugh at
it and it's been but it's a word I grew
up saying crazy to do. You're grazy to do. And
(15:46):
we have to take a step back and realize that
it's a lot deeper with the mental situation and people
coming forth with their acknowledging their mental situation. But I'm
talking to Brandon bron I if you watch the show
holders talking to him my man, one of the key
experts in this hit TV show. But he's the founder
of life Cycle Transitions, the first company is kind to
(16:08):
blame emotional, logistical, and real estate support for families facing
crisis level home situations. Like you just mentioned, teenagers are
now dealing with holders and pammeras are now acknowledging that.
And when you get to that point, what don't we
see on TV that is shown on TV? I guess
(16:28):
I have to ask because TV is a production. But
you call in there's an end game because you're not
there to just do a production. You're also there to
rescue people. Yeah, yeah, sorry, just talk to us.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, I mean well the first thing too.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Just to sort of piggyback on our previous conversation, what
percentage do you think of the clients that we receive
phone calls actually refer to themselves as actual orders?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Would you guess I.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Was at zero? I would think nobody would acknowledge they
have a problem. Alcoholic wouldn't manage they add an addiction,
No addiction person, crackhead wouldn't say they got a problem.
So nobody who has a problem would acknowledge that.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, and that's and that's that's the biggest challenge right
there is the fact that very few people have ever
called in. I mean we do, and let me tell
you when that happens. Why that happens. Well, I do
get calls from people saying, Hi, I'm I'm Rashan, and
I'm a hoarder and I need assistance with my home.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Enough is enough and I'm ready for a change.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
But what I didn't know is what it took for
them to get to that point.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
And I would literally go into people's homes and they
would have one at least three or four times, I
would going to their home and I would sitting in
the living room and I would see a brochure of
ours from ten years ago on their refrigerator. In one
particular instance, a couple said, older couple said, Brandy, you
know what, every morning, me and my husband we make
a cup of coffee and make some tea, and we
sit down and we point at your brochure and we say,
(17:56):
today is going to be the day that we call you.
That's a reality of sorts. People do that they you know,
they're to acknowledge themselves as being a hoarder is not
like being you know, schizophrenic or bipolar. Being mentally ill
is so hard. So when you're trying to combat it
(18:17):
with trying to come up with intentional measures so that
people cannot buy things, don't collect things, get rid of things,
you're fighting from multiple different spectrums, and most importantly, you're
fighting them.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
You're fighting against themselves.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
You're fighting them in that process, and they're wanting to
fight you back.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Well, you know, some Brandon, you're more than a TV show.
I think that's why it's important that I'm interviewing you
because of the fact that when you pull back the
lens and that's what You're there to save lives. You're
there to create, like you said, life transitions. But television
doesn't really tell their story because they're just doing a
(18:54):
television show. They're there to uh uh sensationalize a situation,
give viewers, fix the situation on to the next episode. Right,
And I'm never So how does one get in touch
with you? Because, like I said, this is what you
do for a living. Yeah, sovera is just an extension. Yeah, correct,
(19:16):
absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
They can get a hold of us at life cycle
Transitions dot com. You can send us an email with
any inquiries at info at life Cycle Transitions dot com.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Now they send an email to you. Let's go through
the steps. Let's go through the steps. They send an
email over to us. We get the information, we evaluate
the questions. We'll get on the phone call to a
zoom call if we can. In some cases, a lot
of these clients, like I told you before, they don't there.
Some clients talk us for years, so they'll send it,
(19:50):
they'll fill a form out and then we'll have to
chase them for an enormous amount of time until finally
they pick up the phone.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
So they pick up a phone. In a perfect situation,
we'll talk to them on the phone. We'll schedule an
in home evaluation assessment to go out and meet with them.
If they're not comfortable letting us in the home because
they're still not quite sure Rashan that there are one
hundred percent comfortable, then we would recommend and suggest do
a video, take some pictures, tour the home if they're
not comfortable with that. I created the very first of
(20:18):
its own content, which is our easy Exit zero Contact.
That's it, Easy Exit zero Contact. That means we go
into actual hoarding situations with clients that are too ashamed
to embarrass to deal with being present while these hoarding
projects are done, where we'll actually do the entire project
(20:39):
without them physically being there under certain conditions. Those conditions
are even though the embarrassment of standing over a lot
of these things is too painful, that we want you
to go into some of our therapy programs so you
can speak with a counselor and agree to do our
transition care plan where after we do the cleanup, we
come in every week or every two weeks. That's the embarrassment,
(21:01):
the shame and all those things out of the equation.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Now it's time to get right into the healing.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Okay, let's talk about that then. Because you're using word
embarrassment and shame and they are hoarder, when does the
word embarrassment or the feeling of shame come into play
Brandon in this conversation? Because they are living this lifestyle,
like I said, pretty much, they'll probably by themselves or
they don't have many visitors just come by to make
(21:28):
comments about it. When does the embarrassment and shame come
into play? When is acknowledged that they need to get
it done and you're sitting there revealing to them the problem.
When does it happen?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
I would say ten to fifteen years ago? On average.
A lot of our transition projects are five ten years
in the making. So for every one year that a
client goes without addressing the hoarding conditions in their home,
it's equivalent to about one day of actual cleanup between
two to three technicians doing decluttering, separating, sorting, organizing, halloway
(22:02):
and cleaning. So if you let two years go by,
just think two days, and if you're thinking fifteen ten years,
then you can just add that into the equation.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Also, wow again, Education for me and also for my
audience because you are a small business owner, you're an entrepreneur.
You've developed this business and did this business? Was this
what you was? This the end game? I'm not talking
about the TV show, the end game of how did
we get here? Because of the fact that I'm my
(22:33):
degree is in mathematics. Then I became a stand up comedian.
Then I became an abroducer, so my game kept changing. How
what did you start to get here?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Well, well, I'm a very spiritual person and I'm gonna
be honest. When we first started this business, we started
it as sort of like a one stop shop.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
We had these these contracts from the largest housing entities
in the country. Fanny made Freddie Mac and we were
we were contracted to do decluttering, separating, renovating, all this
miscellaneous things. So I wanted a one stop shop to
offer those services. And then I said, what if we
can take that to people dealing with things mentally, meant physically,
(23:13):
mentally and emotionally. But then that plan, as I said,
spiritually changed because I had a plan of being a
company that's offered great service to great people. But God
had a plan and he said no, you're going to
save lives and change it.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
And that was when the turning point realized that I
couldn't that you touch everything Rashan that touches you. When
you go into people's lives, you are responsible to making
sure that they're okay, and that means that you have
to bite off a lot more.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Now let me ask this question, how exactly do you
work alongside realtors when a home has to be restored.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Well, we have a whole host of partners and realtors
specifically are our anchors, you know, and we vet them,
you know, rigorously check their background. We know exactly who
they are, what kind of work they've done, We look
at their reviews, and once we vet them and we
go through this process, we we certify them as life
cycle uh reallyers. Particularly when we're doing our transition evaluation assessment.
(24:14):
We need facts in that town, on that block that
can support you know, missus Smith or mister Brown deciding
to do whether to fix their home up and renovate
it or to exit it because it's just not enough
meat on that bone.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
From from an equity.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Standpoint, we want to know all of these things make
sense and to the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Now here's interesting this day. I'm gonna be honest with you,
Brandon uh I saw holders. That's why I brought you
on my show, Orders, Orders, Orders, What I am now
on the transition of I said I didn't respect this interview.
But when I peel back, man you doing you are special.
You're doing some unique work from a mental standpoint. You're
(24:56):
not only this when there's no other words. When they
when they when they light goes off or they say cut,
you still out there hustling. You still out there doing
like you say, Guard's work saved lives. That has to
make you feel good at night.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
It does.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know it does. And you know I'm obviously maybe
one hundred percent honest and has this. It's ups and
downs because sometimes you do give you feel the fatigue,
you know, mental health caretaker, burnout. All of these things
were things that we came across when we were experiencing.
And when I tell you I've transitioned over seven thousand people,
what I didn't tell you is that I've been in
the homes of even more thousands of people. And I
(25:33):
remember in my heart the ones that I couldn't save,
the ones that were too stubborn or just not ready,
or they died or passed away, or the evaluations that
I've done with clients with their entire family in a
living room and having these conversations and then at the
end of that conversation they're not ready to do it.
And then I can tell you hundreds, late hundreds of
(25:54):
those cases where they call me later when that person
passes on and say, my mom passed away. Brandon, can
you now come out and can we now deal with
this issue? Because what the hoarding doesn't understand doesn't tell
on the TV, like you mentioned earlier, is that people
are dying in these environments. They're dying from respiratory pulmonary
(26:15):
pulmonary complications, trip hazards, and fire hazards. When I got
our first contract, it was from the largest health care
provider in the Northeast.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
It was Toughs in Harvard Pilgrim.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
They gave me that contract because they knew something that
we didn't know ten years, twenty years prior, and that
it was in indoor environmental conditions were compromising individuals help
from a respiratory standpoint. Chronically, these are people who think
they have allergies, think they got asthma. Think they have
all these things, but in reality, the home is killing them.
(26:47):
And what we realize is that what I did when
I did the mental health and I can go into that,
but when I created our whole remediation division, it was
because when there's smoke, there's fire, and when there's hoarding,
there's often mold. And the reason that is is because
when there's an accumulation of anything, you don't know what's
behind those walls, brewing, when the pipe is, when the
(27:08):
pipes are broken, when the roof is falling apart. These clients,
these clients were sean when they have HVAC issues, when
they're having complications with their roof, because of the embarrassment
and the shame, they go without heat, they go without
running water. So when those things accumulate to the tune
that they are, they reach a point in no return,
(27:29):
with the distance of continuing to normalcy and reality, it's
just too far removed for them that they suffer and
they unfortunately die in these environments. So for me, this
was an humanitarian objective and a goal of minds to
save lives and change them, because if I didn't do it,
nobody else was. When I went to the realtors and
I said work with me. They wanted to do their
(27:50):
own thing. When I went to contractors and trade me
and said going to contract with me. When I went
into the moldor mediation business and said we need to
do this. So I went to the mental health therapist
for five the seven years, pounding down their doors saying
we're cleaning these houses out, but that's not enough.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
This client here needs more help. Can you help me?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And they shut their doors on me because they wanted
to know how they were gonna get paid. They wanted
to know how this was gonna happen. They wanted to
know if my clients had a college degree. And I said,
you know, enough is enough. We're gonna start our own
mental health division. We're gonna start our own mold remediation.
We're gonna get realtors that are gonna abide by our
rules of ethics, and we're gonna build this ecosystem that
(28:28):
we can do with most companies, well most clients would
take nine or ten or nine months to do in
thirty days.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
That was a goal of minds.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I'm gonna tell this brother. As we get deeper into
this interview, Brandon I'm more impressed by you because you
know what you don't know. You don't know I can assume,
but you are true fire hazards, health issues. And some
people might say Gene Hackman was a hoarder. When they
(28:57):
went through his house after he had passed away, looking
at some of the film footage that was out there,
they eventually led to rat infestation, which has definitely led
to people them being poisoned, his wife being poisoned. Because,
like you said, it becomes a health issue, it becomes
a lifestyle issue, becomes a fire hazard, and all these
(29:19):
things come into play. And it's not about money. And
you're bigger than the TV show. The TV show is
just a great part of your branding. But life cycle
transition is you. It has grown from you to more
than two hundred experts. How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
It happened one day at a time. I mean one
day at a time.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Listen at the first eight years I was in business,
I didn't make a penny, and you know, and my
wife was telling me we should shut the doors. You know,
I didn't make a penny because I didn't figure out
how to learn what I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So we went through trial and error.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
I created a concept of a transition company that had
no advertisement, vertical or category. To fit, I had to
go on yellow Book, yellow pages and all these categories
and advertiseing the landscaping, carpentry, cleaning. And then I had
to go through the page taking process for Sean and
asking them these questions, why are you doing this? So
I went the long way and you know, you know,
(30:14):
seventeen years later, now we're the number two hoarding company
in the country, and we're the most visible company out
We're more visible than Yelp and a number of other
big companies that have that are venture capital funded, that
got Silicon Valley money. They are franchised, and this is
privately owned based on my sacrifice and my family sacrifice
(30:37):
to keep pushing a brother.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Thank you man, Thank you for guiding me through this interview.
Thank you for allowing me to have an honest conversation
about my ignorance and again my education through your eyes
and through your career. But I always knew it was
a problem, but I didn't know the man behind fixing
a lot of these problems, and that's you, than bron
(31:00):
I thank you for coming on money making Conversation Masterclass.
My friend, it's been a blessing and an audience having
an interview. And I say that very seriously because I
heard and I see the passion in you and it
is God to work.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Thank you, thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
It means a lot to be here and your work
is amazing as well, and I'd love to be back
here anytime in the future.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Keep doing what you're doing. Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
This has been another edition of Money Making Conversations Masterclass
hosted by me Rashaan McDonald. Thank you to our guests
on the show today and thank you our listening audience.
Now if you want to listen to any episode I
want to register to be a guest on my show,
Visit Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media handle is money
(31:47):
Making Conversations. Join us next week and remember to always
leave with your gifts. Keep winning a
Hi, I'm Rashan McDonald host this weekly Money Making Conversation
Masterclass show. The interviews and information that this show provides
off for everyone that includes you. It's time to stop
reading other people's success stories and start living your own now.
If you want to be a guest on my show,
Money Making Conversations Masterclass, please visit our website, Moneymakingconversations dot
(00:20):
com and click to be a guest button. If you
are a small business owner, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, inflorencer or nonprofit,
I want you on my show. Now, let's get started.
My guest is America's life transition Expert, one of the
faces of A and East hit TV show Hoarders. That's right, Hoarders.
He's the founder of life Cycle Transitions, the first company
(00:43):
of its kind to blend emotional, logistical, and real estate
support for families facing crisis level home situations from hoarding
and inherited homes to addiction, mental health, and eldercare. He
has helped thousands of people reclaim their lives and dignity
to compassionate action. Please welcome to the Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
(01:05):
Brandon Bronette, Ah Brandon I'm good.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Well, thank you, sir. You know, let's get started with this.
It show hoarders, because I've called my wife a hoarder,
and the show last night said, don't you ever call
me a hoarder again. I am not that. So my
question to you, Brandon is when people use the word
(01:31):
horder in general, like I've through it my wife, what
exactly is a horder?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, that's an interesting question.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
What the word hoarding has done is it's given a
face to a much deeper mental health issue, in fact,
a much deeper mental health crisis.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
And a lot of that is what manifests itself in
a physical form. That what people are dealing with, going
through and experiencing the most importantly, what they're suffering from,
shows itself in the physical and a lot of that
is and the accumulation of the inability to let go
of the past traumas or experiences.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Now, how do you get there though? You know, let
me back up a little bit. Okay, how do you,
as an expert see the problem before they acknowledge the problem?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, that's that's good. I mean that's a twofold question.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
One I get calls all the time when clients want
us to come in and do an evaluation assessment, and
most often the night before we arrive at the home
is the most challenging, most difficult, most embarrassing, most shameful
moment of their life because they're.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Now allowing themselves to be vulnerable.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
So the first thing they try to do is tidy
up and clean up because like, you know, like think
about it, when you got people coming over your house,
how many of us have thrown a bunch of things
in the closet.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
You open the closet, things just sort of fall on
top of you.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Well, when my clients, what I try to explain to
them is that without being morbid, because this may sound
little bit more of that, if I were a crime
scene investigator, if I was a homicide investigator, would you
want to move the body around before I get there?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So for me, I learned you learn.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
More about a person from their home than any other
facet of their life.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Okay, I want to work, which is good information to
know because of the fact that I will tell you
I am a neat freak. You know, one of the guys,
would you, you know, maybe just I move a glass
if it's not Okay, that glass needs to be right there.
And so that's another smeter issue, right.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
That's the opposite end of the spectrum.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Right right, right, So that's me, that's what you're talking with,
Rushan McDonald. So my wife has to deal with that.
But when I hear the word life transition expert, it
almost seems like you know, morbid. But explain me when
you used in the word life transition, what does that
mean in your terms?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Well, it's all cool, it's all in, all encompassing, it's holistic,
it's everything they're dealing with mentally, physically, emotionally and financially.
And most of the cases, you know, their home is
their biggest asset.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
So you can't when.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
You're dealing with that home and you're trying to decide
to sell a home, fix a home, or move from
a home. There's a lot that goes into that decision
making process that meets the eye.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
And when you say that, because because I want to
pull a little bit deeper into your Brandon, because this
is what you do, shayd Holders. So you kind of
cut off a little bit because you think I got it. Okay,
I don't have it because I watch television and television
is edited, and so like you said, a day before
people know you're coming, they try to clean up. You
(04:42):
walk in there still a disaster. Okay, And you said
rishon to hey, if it's a crime saying you don't
move the body, they have to come in and investigate. Now,
people who call on you to come to these places,
what is that converse, like Brandon?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Okay, Well, let me tie into that crime scene question
because I was going somewhere with that. The reason I
don't want them to get rid of their things and
to move their things because you learn so much from
what they're doing. You know why they're doing what they're doing,
and how they're functioning in their home. Gives me the
ability to take from it, which is the mental health
and the and the illness, and to learn from it
(05:23):
so that we can grow from it and move past
and heal from it. Because when people go through that trauma,
they're doing things unbeknownst to them in their in their
in their personal space that they aren't aware of.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
And like the real world, you go to.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Work and your function and you're high functioning and you're professional,
you're productive, but when you go home, that's when that
mask is taken off. That's when you can sort of
be your most authentic self. And that's why you know,
violating people's home is so is so detrimental because it's
the only place in the world where.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
People can feel safe.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
So when when I tie back into what you're saying,
going into these environments and trying to figure out why
they do what they do and how they do what
they do and why they're nervous, is because they.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Don't know who's coming in that door.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
They don't know what questions I'm going to ask, and
they're not really at that point sure how much they
want to reveal.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Right, So it's a cat and mouse can right in
a game that we have to get to the bottom
line because they do have a problem that they may
not be acknowledging. I'm talking to Brandon Brunei. He's the
America's Life Transition Expert, one of the faces of A
and E s hit TV show Hoarders. I guess I
got to start right there a TV show. How did
you get involved, Brandon?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Well, I started when we first started, We're a property
preservation company, and we were working with dilapidated distress properties
and getting them.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
On the market.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
As we were going in and out of these houses
doing the country's most vulnerable time during the housing crisis,
we begin to see idio secrecies or patterns, And I said,
what if there was a company that can sort of
help people mentally, physically and emotionally through all these different
situations that I was experiencing. So we started to see
more often people with an accumulation of life in their home,
(07:10):
like a bunch of things, knick knacks, and you know.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
What, accumulations see you so nice? Okay, I don't see life,
but I want to. I want to, Jock, I see trash,
I see unlivable conditions. But you say accumulation of life.
But that's a very professional term for what you see.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Well, the reason I say that, though, m M mister McDonald,
is because if you've heard the terminology are well lived
in home, right, this is a home that's probably generationally
passed through Grandma's, grandma grandma home and inhering it from
that point on.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So there's there's a life. There's a lot of life
in there.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
And also when you get over the age of sixty, unfortunately,
there's a lot that goes on in a person's life
there's family members that pass on, there's parents that pass on.
And what's the first thing people do when that happens.
They go over to the home and they start taking things.
And guess what, that's where the hoarding begins. Is when
you go into your loved one's home and you don't
(08:10):
see junk, You don't see this. You see the memories,
you see past experiences. You see when they bought that
bike and you told them they paid too much money
for the Honda. You see all of those things and
you're not and nobody else understands it in your mind
quite like you do. Well, that's what happens in a
lot of cases with people that are going through these
various situations alife.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Brandon is, so, what's the number one mistake that people make?
Are mistakes? I want to just put it on mistake
Like you've kind of mentioned it. People don't see what
they're doing and not acknowledge it. Is it. Let me
just let me back up a little bit. My number
one thought is it has to be some form of
isolation with these people because people don't visit them and
(08:52):
they don't make note of it. And you know, because
if I'm visiting somebody house and I see something, quite frankly,
will comment, go, what's going on on here? What is
the I guess them of these of the typical hoarder lifestyle, I.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Would say that most of them are high functioning. That's
that's that's the common denominator. And and it's funny because
we originated in Massachusetts. So if you can imagine, my
pool of clients are some of the most gifted, most intelligent,
most educated people.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
In the world. And you know, and I had to
go into their environment.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
And a lot of them were more educated, probably more
abreastive things in a specific segment than I was. And
I had to dummy down a lot of those conversations
because it didn't negate the fact that you got a
bunch of junk or trash or whatever in your home.
So you can be a rocket scientist, you can be
an m I. You can be an m I T
professor or Harvard graduate, but right now none of that's
(09:51):
serving in fact, is serving against you. So a lot
of them are highly intelligent people. Some of them are
on the spectrum, you know, and we're starting to realize
that there are quite a few people that are highly
intelligent and mental health sort of paralleling or going in
between those two spectrums.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Some of them have not been married before, some of
them have.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
But one thing I do know is that when they
are married, that this creates a huge wedge in their
marriage and a lot of them do end up, unfortunately
dealing with marital status issues and diorse as a result
of this.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Now you said it's what I was going through your
questions for the show. I ran across, of course, and said,
t TEA, explain to my audience why you feel that's
a good place to start. Well.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I started the THA program, which is Transition Evaluation Assessment,
about seventeen years ago because I needed a guiding tool
in order to really break down a lot of what's
going on in people's lives financially, mentally, emotionally, physically and
come up with a blueprint because let's face it, you
don't know what you don't know until you know. And
a lot of times when I prevace the idea when
(11:00):
I talk to people, do you want to stand this
home or are you looking to downside or relocate?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I'll give you three options.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
You want to stay and let's make it so that
it's livable if you want to put it on the market.
Let's make it so that it's you can sell it
for the highest retail value. Then option three if you
don't have the time, money, energy, and resource, we have
a home rescue program where we can get you out
from under this and find you a home anywhere in
the country in thirty sixty and ninety days, full spectrum,
and we'll front load all the money and everything that's required.
(11:28):
We'll bet on our ability to make your situation work
for you and immediately reflax.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Clients say no, I'm not selling my home. I'm not
doing this. But guess what.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
As we did the evaluation assessment and they started to
see things that they didn't see, some clients would see
that they couldn't afford to live anywhere else because the
cost of rent and expenses was just too high. So
they were going to have to live with some of
those things that maybe were challenging before and just peer
them down over at a period of time, and we
would help them do it, even through our monthly help
(12:00):
plan or either through dealing with one thing at a
time or dealing with the hoarding over a longer period
of time.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
But we would say the best plan for you is
to stay here.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Some clients that we immediately ran the reason the handsay,
I'm out of here. I don't want to sell, I
don't want to leave. I don't want to sell my house.
I'm staying here. But after we looked at the plumbing,
the electrical, the molde the hoarding, clean up, the roof
falling apart, and we broke down comparable analysis as to
what the home is worth in its current condition and
what it's going to take in order for it to
sell and get past an FHA Fanny Man inspection that
(12:33):
a thirty year mortgage can be granted to the buyer.
They didn't want to spend the sixty eighty or fifty
or twenty or whatever.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Thousands of dollars and they were like, look, I want
to get out of here.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
I'm done.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
So the evaluation assessment, the transition evaluation assessment, is a
tool to really get down to the nuts and boats
of what's really happening and what they really need to do.
And nobody in the market has done it, and it's
been sequential in me being able to transition over seven
thousand people in the past seventeen years.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Now, that's the large number so now that allows me
to ask this question from a racial standpoint, just gotta
know because you a black man, and I don't that
already kind of like a black man doing this, I
would call me stereotypical because I would think that's I'll
be interviewing a white person doing this, because it feels
like this is a a area that will be dominated
(13:24):
by whites. What off the seven thousand from a racial
component and from an age component. We talked about the
intellect earlier because you said you started in Massachusetts, but
from a racial component and an age component, what is
the typical order?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Me?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
And studies are still gathering. We're still gathering studies. One things,
hording has a high recent division recentivisim rave about sixty
five to seventy percent that we know. In terms of
my clients in life cycle, I would say about eighty
percent of my clients might be Caucasian. And then there's
the other percentage that sort of goes between different races
(14:03):
and so forth. Socio Economically, I don't think money has
a variance. There is one common denominator that we cannot
deny and we can't lie. Is that in order for
me to help a lot of these clients, they have
to have a home. So when you look at that
definition of that number, I think it's kind of a
little jaded when you may have to look at another
(14:24):
number and say, well, how many Americans are homeowners in
this country, because that would have to play a role
in being able to look at those numbers unbiasedly. But unfortunately,
the number one common denominator is that there is a home,
and that home, unfortunately is either been neglected or hoarded,
or there's some trauma or some issues going on within
those four walls.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
And the age range would be what.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I'm actually getting calls from clients that are suffering from
hoarding at seventeen.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Eighteen.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Wow, you know, we're getting a lot of calls from
parents and actual appearance about their daughter and their son's room.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It's a lot more common than I think most people do.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
And when I tell people that you put a name
on a face on on this disease, it's a lot
more intricate than that I used to think. Like when
you say the word, it's like saying crazy and just crazy.
There's different variations of crazy, and people are crazy for
different reasons.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Sometimes it's because you're making them crazy jokingly.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
money Making Conversations master Class. Welcome back to Money Making
Conversation master Class with me Rashaun McDonald. Absolutely, and I
know they were crazy. You know, we could laugh at
it and it's been but it's a word I grew
up saying crazy to do. You're grazy to do. And
(15:46):
we have to take a step back and realize that
it's a lot deeper with the mental situation and people
coming forth with their acknowledging their mental situation. But I'm
talking to Brandon bron I if you watch the show
holders talking to him my man, one of the key
experts in this hit TV show. But he's the founder
of life Cycle Transitions, the first company is kind to
(16:08):
blame emotional, logistical, and real estate support for families facing
crisis level home situations. Like you just mentioned, teenagers are
now dealing with holders and pammeras are now acknowledging that.
And when you get to that point, what don't we
see on TV that is shown on TV? I guess
(16:28):
I have to ask because TV is a production. But
you call in there's an end game because you're not
there to just do a production. You're also there to
rescue people. Yeah, yeah, sorry, just talk to us.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, I mean well the first thing too.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Just to sort of piggyback on our previous conversation, what
percentage do you think of the clients that we receive
phone calls actually refer to themselves as actual orders?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Would you guess I.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Was at zero? I would think nobody would acknowledge they
have a problem. Alcoholic wouldn't manage they add an addiction,
No addiction person, crackhead wouldn't say they got a problem.
So nobody who has a problem would acknowledge that.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, and that's and that's that's the biggest challenge right
there is the fact that very few people have ever
called in. I mean we do, and let me tell
you when that happens. Why that happens. Well, I do
get calls from people saying, Hi, I'm I'm Rashan, and
I'm a hoarder and I need assistance with my home.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Enough is enough and I'm ready for a change.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
But what I didn't know is what it took for
them to get to that point.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
And I would literally go into people's homes and they
would have one at least three or four times, I
would going to their home and I would sitting in
the living room and I would see a brochure of
ours from ten years ago on their refrigerator. In one
particular instance, a couple said, older couple said, Brandy, you
know what, every morning, me and my husband we make
a cup of coffee and make some tea, and we
sit down and we point at your brochure and we say,
(17:56):
today is going to be the day that we call you.
That's a reality of sorts. People do that they you know,
they're to acknowledge themselves as being a hoarder is not
like being you know, schizophrenic or bipolar. Being mentally ill
is so hard. So when you're trying to combat it
(18:17):
with trying to come up with intentional measures so that
people cannot buy things, don't collect things, get rid of things,
you're fighting from multiple different spectrums, and most importantly, you're
fighting them.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
You're fighting against themselves.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
You're fighting them in that process, and they're wanting to
fight you back.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Well, you know, some Brandon, you're more than a TV show.
I think that's why it's important that I'm interviewing you
because of the fact that when you pull back the
lens and that's what You're there to save lives. You're
there to create, like you said, life transitions. But television
doesn't really tell their story because they're just doing a
(18:54):
television show. They're there to uh uh sensationalize a situation,
give viewers, fix the situation on to the next episode. Right,
And I'm never So how does one get in touch
with you? Because, like I said, this is what you
do for a living. Yeah, sovera is just an extension. Yeah, correct,
(19:16):
absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
They can get a hold of us at life cycle
Transitions dot com. You can send us an email with
any inquiries at info at life Cycle Transitions dot com.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Now they send an email to you. Let's go through
the steps. Let's go through the steps. They send an
email over to us. We get the information, we evaluate
the questions. We'll get on the phone call to a
zoom call if we can. In some cases, a lot
of these clients, like I told you before, they don't there.
Some clients talk us for years, so they'll send it,
(19:50):
they'll fill a form out and then we'll have to
chase them for an enormous amount of time until finally
they pick up the phone.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
So they pick up a phone. In a perfect situation,
we'll talk to them on the phone. We'll schedule an
in home evaluation assessment to go out and meet with them.
If they're not comfortable letting us in the home because
they're still not quite sure Rashan that there are one
hundred percent comfortable, then we would recommend and suggest do
a video, take some pictures, tour the home if they're
not comfortable with that. I created the very first of
(20:18):
its own content, which is our easy Exit zero Contact.
That's it, Easy Exit zero Contact. That means we go
into actual hoarding situations with clients that are too ashamed
to embarrass to deal with being present while these hoarding
projects are done, where we'll actually do the entire project
(20:39):
without them physically being there under certain conditions. Those conditions
are even though the embarrassment of standing over a lot
of these things is too painful, that we want you
to go into some of our therapy programs so you
can speak with a counselor and agree to do our
transition care plan where after we do the cleanup, we
come in every week or every two weeks. That's the embarrassment,
(21:01):
the shame and all those things out of the equation.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Now it's time to get right into the healing.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Okay, let's talk about that then. Because you're using word
embarrassment and shame and they are hoarder, when does the
word embarrassment or the feeling of shame come into play
Brandon in this conversation? Because they are living this lifestyle,
like I said, pretty much, they'll probably by themselves or
they don't have many visitors just come by to make
(21:28):
comments about it. When does the embarrassment and shame come
into play? When is acknowledged that they need to get
it done and you're sitting there revealing to them the problem.
When does it happen?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
I would say ten to fifteen years ago? On average.
A lot of our transition projects are five ten years
in the making. So for every one year that a
client goes without addressing the hoarding conditions in their home,
it's equivalent to about one day of actual cleanup between
two to three technicians doing decluttering, separating, sorting, organizing, halloway
(22:02):
and cleaning. So if you let two years go by,
just think two days, and if you're thinking fifteen ten years,
then you can just add that into the equation.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Also, wow again, Education for me and also for my
audience because you are a small business owner, you're an entrepreneur.
You've developed this business and did this business? Was this
what you was? This the end game? I'm not talking
about the TV show, the end game of how did
we get here? Because of the fact that I'm my
(22:33):
degree is in mathematics. Then I became a stand up comedian.
Then I became an abroducer, so my game kept changing. How
what did you start to get here?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Well, well, I'm a very spiritual person and I'm gonna
be honest. When we first started this business, we started
it as sort of like a one stop shop.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
We had these these contracts from the largest housing entities
in the country. Fanny made Freddie Mac and we were
we were contracted to do decluttering, separating, renovating, all this
miscellaneous things. So I wanted a one stop shop to
offer those services. And then I said, what if we
can take that to people dealing with things mentally, meant physically,
(23:13):
mentally and emotionally. But then that plan, as I said,
spiritually changed because I had a plan of being a
company that's offered great service to great people. But God
had a plan and he said no, you're going to
save lives and change it.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
And that was when the turning point realized that I
couldn't that you touch everything Rashan that touches you. When
you go into people's lives, you are responsible to making
sure that they're okay, and that means that you have
to bite off a lot more.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Now let me ask this question, how exactly do you
work alongside realtors when a home has to be restored.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Well, we have a whole host of partners and realtors
specifically are our anchors, you know, and we vet them,
you know, rigorously check their background. We know exactly who
they are, what kind of work they've done, We look
at their reviews, and once we vet them and we
go through this process, we we certify them as life
cycle uh reallyers. Particularly when we're doing our transition evaluation assessment.
(24:14):
We need facts in that town, on that block that
can support you know, missus Smith or mister Brown deciding
to do whether to fix their home up and renovate
it or to exit it because it's just not enough
meat on that bone.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
From from an equity.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Standpoint, we want to know all of these things make
sense and to the bottom line.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Now here's interesting this day. I'm gonna be honest with you,
Brandon uh I saw holders. That's why I brought you
on my show, Orders, Orders, Orders, What I am now
on the transition of I said I didn't respect this interview.
But when I peel back, man you doing you are special.
You're doing some unique work from a mental standpoint. You're
(24:56):
not only this when there's no other words. When they
when they when they light goes off or they say cut,
you still out there hustling. You still out there doing
like you say, Guard's work saved lives. That has to
make you feel good at night.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
It does.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know it does. And you know I'm obviously maybe
one hundred percent honest and has this. It's ups and
downs because sometimes you do give you feel the fatigue,
you know, mental health caretaker, burnout. All of these things
were things that we came across when we were experiencing.
And when I tell you I've transitioned over seven thousand people,
what I didn't tell you is that I've been in
the homes of even more thousands of people. And I
(25:33):
remember in my heart the ones that I couldn't save,
the ones that were too stubborn or just not ready,
or they died or passed away, or the evaluations that
I've done with clients with their entire family in a
living room and having these conversations and then at the
end of that conversation they're not ready to do it.
And then I can tell you hundreds, late hundreds of
(25:54):
those cases where they call me later when that person
passes on and say, my mom passed away. Brandon, can
you now come out and can we now deal with
this issue? Because what the hoarding doesn't understand doesn't tell
on the TV, like you mentioned earlier, is that people
are dying in these environments. They're dying from respiratory pulmonary
(26:15):
pulmonary complications, trip hazards, and fire hazards. When I got
our first contract, it was from the largest health care
provider in the Northeast.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
It was Toughs in Harvard Pilgrim.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
They gave me that contract because they knew something that
we didn't know ten years, twenty years prior, and that
it was in indoor environmental conditions were compromising individuals help
from a respiratory standpoint. Chronically, these are people who think
they have allergies, think they got asthma. Think they have
all these things, but in reality, the home is killing them.
(26:47):
And what we realize is that what I did when
I did the mental health and I can go into that,
but when I created our whole remediation division, it was
because when there's smoke, there's fire, and when there's hoarding,
there's often mold. And the reason that is is because
when there's an accumulation of anything, you don't know what's
behind those walls, brewing, when the pipe is, when the
(27:08):
pipes are broken, when the roof is falling apart. These clients,
these clients were sean when they have HVAC issues, when
they're having complications with their roof, because of the embarrassment
and the shame, they go without heat, they go without
running water. So when those things accumulate to the tune
that they are, they reach a point in no return,
(27:29):
with the distance of continuing to normalcy and reality, it's
just too far removed for them that they suffer and
they unfortunately die in these environments. So for me, this
was an humanitarian objective and a goal of minds to
save lives and change them, because if I didn't do it,
nobody else was. When I went to the realtors and
I said work with me. They wanted to do their
(27:50):
own thing. When I went to contractors and trade me
and said going to contract with me. When I went
into the moldor mediation business and said we need to
do this. So I went to the mental health therapist
for five the seven years, pounding down their doors saying
we're cleaning these houses out, but that's not enough.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
This client here needs more help. Can you help me?
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And they shut their doors on me because they wanted
to know how they were gonna get paid. They wanted
to know how this was gonna happen. They wanted to
know if my clients had a college degree. And I said,
you know, enough is enough. We're gonna start our own
mental health division. We're gonna start our own mold remediation.
We're gonna get realtors that are gonna abide by our
rules of ethics, and we're gonna build this ecosystem that
(28:28):
we can do with most companies, well most clients would
take nine or ten or nine months to do in
thirty days.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
That was a goal of minds.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
I'm gonna tell this brother. As we get deeper into
this interview, Brandon I'm more impressed by you because you
know what you don't know. You don't know I can assume,
but you are true fire hazards, health issues. And some
people might say Gene Hackman was a hoarder. When they
(28:57):
went through his house after he had passed away, looking
at some of the film footage that was out there,
they eventually led to rat infestation, which has definitely led
to people them being poisoned, his wife being poisoned. Because,
like you said, it becomes a health issue, it becomes
a lifestyle issue, becomes a fire hazard, and all these
(29:19):
things come into play. And it's not about money. And
you're bigger than the TV show. The TV show is
just a great part of your branding. But life cycle
transition is you. It has grown from you to more
than two hundred experts. How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (29:34):
It happened one day at a time. I mean one
day at a time.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Listen at the first eight years I was in business,
I didn't make a penny, and you know, and my
wife was telling me we should shut the doors. You know,
I didn't make a penny because I didn't figure out
how to learn what I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
So we went through trial and error.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
I created a concept of a transition company that had
no advertisement, vertical or category. To fit, I had to
go on yellow Book, yellow pages and all these categories
and advertiseing the landscaping, carpentry, cleaning. And then I had
to go through the page taking process for Sean and
asking them these questions, why are you doing this? So
I went the long way and you know, you know,
(30:14):
seventeen years later, now we're the number two hoarding company
in the country, and we're the most visible company out
We're more visible than Yelp and a number of other
big companies that have that are venture capital funded, that
got Silicon Valley money. They are franchised, and this is
privately owned based on my sacrifice and my family sacrifice
(30:37):
to keep pushing a brother.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Thank you man, Thank you for guiding me through this interview.
Thank you for allowing me to have an honest conversation
about my ignorance and again my education through your eyes
and through your career. But I always knew it was
a problem, but I didn't know the man behind fixing
a lot of these problems, and that's you, than bron
(31:00):
I thank you for coming on money making Conversation Masterclass.
My friend, it's been a blessing and an audience having
an interview. And I say that very seriously because I
heard and I see the passion in you and it
is God to work.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Thank you, thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
It means a lot to be here and your work
is amazing as well, and I'd love to be back
here anytime in the future.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Keep doing what you're doing. Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
This has been another edition of Money Making Conversations Masterclass
hosted by me Rashaan McDonald. Thank you to our guests
on the show today and thank you our listening audience.
Now if you want to listen to any episode I
want to register to be a guest on my show,
Visit Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media handle is money
(31:47):
Making Conversations. Join us next week and remember to always
leave with your gifts. Keep winning a
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