🎙️ Episode 11 – From Dyslexic Underdog to $100-Million Visionary: Shawn Johanson on Commercial Real-Estate, Mindset & Legacy - The Carnivore Entrepreneur Show

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
I had never dealt with that in my life, ever before,

(00:02):
which just made me feel evenless masculine than than before,
because I couldn't figure outhow to fix it. I always tried to
fix everything. Life isn'tperfect. Perfect is the lowest
standard, because you can neverachieve it. So why am I trying
to go for perfection? Why don'tI just progress? And so
progressing is is the big wordthat I use, and took perfection

(00:26):
out of my vocabulary. I didn'tdo super well in school because
I had dyslexia, which I justfound out just a couple of years
ago. And so school wasn't funfor me. I had a lot of friends,
but if like, learning was a lotharder for me to be able to get
through it. Money and happinessequal each other, and so I use

(00:47):
that as my fuel to like I gottabe successful. I gotta figure
this out so that I can help her,because she sacrificed so much
for me, and I had to repay thatfor her. Everyone

KG SHORT STAY (00:59):
is running their race at their pace. They're not
going to run the same race asyou or at the same pace as you.
Hi everyone, and welcome to thecarnivore Entrepreneur Show.
This is the third interview thatI've done so far, and we have

(01:22):
today with us, Sean. And I'm notgoing to take Sean's glory away
from him. I'm going to let himintroduce himself. So over to
you, Sean, tell everyone who youare and what you do. My

Unknown (01:34):
name is Sean Johansen, and professionally, I do
commercial real estateinvesting, and I am a father of
two beautiful daughters and ahusband of an amazing wife who
is crushing it in her own ways.
And so just feeling reallyblessed to be a part of this
podcast. And thank you forhaving me on. Excellent well,

(01:58):
thank you

for coming on. It was really nice to have
connected with you after we metat date with destiny, with Tony
Robbins. What a life changingevent that was. And it's really
nice to see you know, the you'vegot another another half of you
that is absolutely killing it,just like, just like I do. I

(02:21):
feel like I'd be nowhere withoutwithout Kay, she pushes me, and
she has her own, her ownsuccesses as well. So I asked
this one question to all of myguests that are coming on the
show, and that is the carnivoreentrepreneur. Show is all about
meat muscles, mindset and money.
Just one, everyone that comes onthe show to tell me what makes

(02:46):
you qualified to be a carnivoreentrepreneur?

Unknown (02:51):
Well, I like to eat lots of meat. Does that count?

That definitely counts. That's number one.

Unknown (02:59):
I love me some meat.
Some good steak muscles. I thinkmuscles means a couple different
things to me, to be honest.
Number one is obviously physicalmuscles. It's important to be
healthy and to be structurallyfit so that when you end up
being in your I'm 50 now, so Ijust turned 50. Oh, wow, looking

(03:21):
good to 50, bud. Thank you.
Appreciate that. But thinkingabout it, is I want to be in the
best shape of my life, but bythe time I turned 60, and that's
one of the goals that I set atthe last Tony Robbins event that
I did, I'm like, if, if you'venever heard of Joseph McClendon
the third he's like, 72 year oldgentleman who is just ripped,
and I'm like, I want to looklike that when I am 60, so that

(03:44):
I can live to be comfortable inmy 80s and my 90s. And so for
me, it's muscles that way, andthen it's also the muscle up
here, and that kind of goes withthe mindset. Part is you got to
continue to keep educatingyourself, whether it's your
business, being a better dad,being a better husband, you
should be constantly exercisingyour mental muscle to make sure

(04:08):
that you don't fall behind.
Because it's so great that ifyou get focused on one thing,
and I think as entrepreneurs, wedo that, we get focused on I got
to be a better business person.
I'm going to go to this seminar,I'm going to go to that seminar,
and I'm going to read this book.
But the one thing we alwaysforget is, what about our our

(04:28):
life, like, how do I be better?
How do I be mentally better, andhow do I be a better dad? How do
I be a better husband? And ifyou're not spending at least 25%
of your time reading books onhow to be a better person, be a
better husband and be a betterdad. When you get to that
pinnacle of success, whatever itis for you, you're going to be
feeling pretty miserable. AndI've have some friends that are

(04:50):
miserable right now, and I cantell you my story later on, of
how I was miserable afterhitting the pinnacle of success.
So mindset is that. It and thenmoney, of course, one of the
biggest things I've learned inthe last two years is use money
for what it is. It's a tool.
It's a tool to buy back yourtime and to buy experiences with

(05:12):
the people that you love. Themistake that I made is I put
money as my self worth. So mynet worth was my self worth, and
that's why, one of the reasonswhy I was so miserable after I
hit the pinnacles of success,because I just kept pushing it
out, pushing it out. And I haveto do this to be loved, to be
liked, all these other things.
And now I realise that, like,let's put money as a tool. I

(05:33):
wouldn't try and flip a burgerwith a screwdriver. Why am I
trying to make money by myhappiness. That's not what it's
for. It's to buy the time sothat I can focus on these other
things. So, yes, it's

an enabler, so it allows you to do the things that
you want to do with the peoplethat you love most, right? And
that that is the fundamentalpart of it, and also to like
Tony Robbins does uses money toserve and help other people in a
massive way. But yeah, on, onyour point with with muscles.

(06:08):
You know that the meat mindset,muscles and money part, it
flows, but muscles is all abouthealth, longevity, being strong,
you know, because you don't wantto get to your 80s and 90s, and
be frail and sitting in a chairand not able to move and play
with your grandkids, or evenyour great grandkids, right? But

Unknown (06:31):
I think that really ties into my story, too. Is
before I went to my first Tonyevent, I weighed 240 pounds, and
I was on a pathway ofdestruction and to dying and
early death. And because ofgoing to that first UPW that I
went in 2015 it gave me thetools that I needed to get out

(06:52):
of my head and think that Icouldn't do these things because
I didn't have time all the sameBS stories that you tell
yourself in your head of why youcan't work out, why you can't
lose weight. And I got overthose, and I had a compelling
why of what was painted in mypit or in my head after that
event. And I couldn't failbecause I was letting my family

(07:13):
down by by dying earlier. And sothat's what gave me the strength
to be able to lose 70 poundsover the next five years and do
it in a healthy way that I canmaintain it for a lifetime,
instead of doing these stupidfad diets that aren't going to
work for you. So that's in avery important lesson to me is

(07:36):
is take care of yourself,because great, you're going to
make all this money, you'regoing to do all these things,
and then you're going to dielike you won't even be able to
enjoy it. What's the point?
Might

as well enjoy the journey, right? Cool. So the
last time we saw each other wasTony Robbins date with destiny
at Palm Beach. What an awesome,awesome event. What has been the
biggest change in your life orbusiness since that

Unknown (08:05):
week? Wow, there's, there's been so many changes to
be honest with you. But if I hadto pick one, I would say it's
really my mindset around beinghealthier for my brain, of like,
get past the limiting beliefsthat I had in my head, of that I
wasn't good enough, I wasn'tsmart enough, I didn't go to

(08:27):
college, and that was always onething that I always felt like I
had to be better than everybodyelse, because people looked down
on me because of that. And whatI realised is that was just
something I put in my head isthat just because I didn't go to
college doesn't mean that I'many less loved than anybody
else, but in my head, I feltlike I wasn't loved. So it was

(08:51):
really just loving myself moreand getting in touch with my
feelings, because so long astime has been, men have been
told that we're not allowed totalk about our feelings, that we
have to push things down. Andthat's what I did for many, many
years, and I got to a pointwhere it got so bad that I had

(09:13):
uncontrollable anxiety, and to apoint that I actually passed out
on a plane, and I had neverdealt with that in my life ever
before, which just made me feeleven less masculine than than
before, because I couldn'tfigure out how to fix it. I
always tried to fix everything,and when I couldn't, that just

(09:34):
drove me crazy. And so theimportant thing was learning
that I don't have to fixeverything, that life isn't
perfect. Perfect is the loweststandard, because you can never
achieve it. So why am I tryingto go for perfection? Why don't
I just progress? And soprogressing is, is the big word
that I use, and took perfectionout of my vocabulary, and that

(09:57):
has been one of the biggesttools, is just i. Working on my
mental health and stop thelimiting beliefs that I had
before, to getting in my head.
And it's still a journey. Today.
I'm still progressing at it, butI'm so much happier than I was
before. Yeah,

I think Tony makes a big difference when he
talks about you create themeaning in your life, and that's
how you experience life, is themeaning that you give it. And
while my learning wasn't exactlythe same, it was very similar,
in the sense of my happinessbefore David, Destiny was

(10:34):
anchored on other people'shappiness around me, right? So
my limiting question, mylimiting primary question, was,
how can I make everyone aroundme happy? So when people weren't
happy, I was unhappy. So I hadthat all had to be reframed. And

(10:54):
I think since that has beenreframed, the trajectory of my
life has gone in a totallydifferent in a totally different
direction, and I think I'mgiving better meaning to the
things that are in front of me.
So while I'm not exactly sayingvery similar, I think in terms
of the breakthrough moments,

Unknown (11:12):
and I know you're the host, but I'm going to throw it
back to you of changing that,because I know I'm a people
pleaser. Also, how did thatchanged the people around you.
You were trying to make themhappy by doing all these things.
In my experience, by changingthat, I'm actually doing them
even I'm actually helping themmore. So I'm curious of your

(11:33):
position on that, of, did youhave the same reaction of like,
I was trying so hard to makeeverybody happy and I wasn't
doing it now that I'm reversingback and looking towards myself
and making myself happy so thenI can shine the light for other
people, they seem to be happier.
Is that the same for you?

That's the amazing thing about it. I think
people actually felt pressuredto be happy when they were
around me, because I sodesperately wanted them to be
happy, and because of thatpressure, that made them worse.
So the minute I removed thatneed, it made everyone so much

(12:14):
more relaxed and free, whichwhich makes people happier, you
know, and that's the crazything, the minute that you focus
on you and your meaning of amoment and making it an
empowering meaning that willthen transform not only yourself
but everyone else around you.
And you just have to accept thateveryone is running their race

(12:39):
at their pace? They're not goingto run the same race as you or
at the same pace as you. So I'mthink I was anchoring my
happiness in in the wrong place,if that makes sense. Yeah, love
it

Unknown (12:55):
same, same journey here. Feel free

to reverse it and ask questions along the way.
This is a conversation, but,yeah, excellent. Thank you for
that. So getting deep then andmaybe reverse, reversing the
clock a little bit, how did aguy raised by a single mom end
up owning and revitalising amulti state commercial property

(13:20):
company.

Unknown (13:21):
Yeah, it's been an amazing journey. You know, I've
really done a lot of reflectingon that journey over the last
couple of years and just kind ofseeing what like sometimes I
think back on it, like, how didI even get to this place? It was
always a dream, but it alwaysjust seemed like such a far off
dream. And so, yes, my mom was asingle mom. I didn't have a dad

(13:42):
growing up. I didn't even meethim till I was like 25 and so it
was challenging at times. Sheworked two jobs to support us,
and she had her own demons thatshe had to deal with during that
time, and I saw that as mycalling, that I needed to be

(14:03):
successful so that I could helpher in her later stages of life,
or whenever I could get enoughincome, because I thought money
was what was going to change herlife, because I saw her
struggling and unhappy at timesand crying because we didn't
know if we'd have Food or beable to pay rent. And so I
equated that in my brain, ofmoney and happiness equal each

(14:28):
other. And so I use that as myfuel to like, I gotta be
successful. I gotta figure thisout so that I can help her,
because she sacrificed so muchfor me, and I had to repay that
for her. So that's really whatdrove me for so many years. And
you know, I started off in fastfood working fast food
restaurants, because I didn't dosuper well in school because I

(14:49):
had dyslexia, which I just foundout just a couple of years ago.
And so school wasn't fun for me.
I had a lot of friends, but if,like. Learning was a lot harder
for me to be able to get throughit. So to me, I was like, Okay,
how can I make this work? And mylimiting beliefs were kicking
in. I'm like, What can I do?
Well, maybe I can own arestaurant. And then I'm like,

(15:11):
that sucks. I don't want to work70 hours a week to try and build
this empire. And I'm like,that's just not for me. And
luckily, I had certain peoplethat came into my life at the
right time. So I had a exgirlfriend that pushed me into
trying to get a corporate job,even though my limiting beliefs
that I wouldn't be able to dothat because I was just working

(15:33):
in fast food, even though Imanaged my own Pizza Hut store
for like two years. Once I gotinto that job, I realised that
those skills actuallytransferred over into the
corporate world, like I wasreally good at managing people,
and so I ended up working for GECapital, doing loans for pools
and room additions. And I thiswas back in 2005 ish, so the

(15:58):
market was just going crazy. Isaw all these values for houses
going like people would buy it,and within, you know, six months
that by the time it took it toget built, it was worth 60 or
$80,000 more. I was like, wow,this is amazing. This could be a
possibility for me to make thosethat money that I wanted to

(16:19):
make. And so that's kind ofwhere I caught the bug for real
estate. And I had an amazingwife that wanted the same she
owned her own business, but wewere looking for alternatives,
and she's like, Let's go buy ourfirst rental property. So we
bought our first rental propertyin Arizona. Totally bought it

(16:39):
wrong. Went with trying to forceappreciation, or not force
appreciation, but trying toinvest for watching it
appreciate, which is totally thewrong way to do it. And of
course, in 2007 we went from 60or 80,000 in equity to 60 or
80,000 upside down in equity.
Oh, negative equity. So that wasa huge eye opener of like, okay,

(17:00):
we need to get educated. And sowe had read a book called Rich
Dad, Poor Dad, from RobertKiyosaki, I'm sure you and yeah,
and a lot of your listeners haveread that book. And at that
time, he had a partnered withsomebody was doing education. So
we paid $24,000 on our creditcard, which we didn't have the

(17:23):
money to pay for it at thattime, but took a leap of faith
and learned how to do it theright way. So we started
flipping houses, did someresidential rentals, and then I
met my current mentor, Scottshield from the commercial
Academy, in 2010 at a symposium,and he just spoke in a way that

(17:43):
just made it sound easy andcalming. And so we went to his
first event, and then he wasputting this mastermind together
that it was only a couple yearsold, and we joined that, and
we've been a part of that groupfor now, for 15 years. And it,
it really could we have done iton our own, of course, but it

(18:07):
would have been much slower. Wewouldn't have been as confident
when you have somebody to mentoryou who has 20 or 30 years of
experience not only teaching butinvesting himself. It just, it
grew exponentially. So that waskind of the story of how I got
into commercial real estate.

That's awesome, man. So I it's one of my further
questions, but I think I'm goingto skip to it now, which is
around the the dyslexia youmentioned about that, and it
seems like you've turned it intoa bit of a superpower. So what,
I guess, what specific mentalhabits turn that, that obstacle

(18:47):
into an advantage? Do you think?
Yeah,

Unknown (18:49):
and I think dyslexia is such a it's very prominent. One
in five kids have dyslexia, butonly 20% get diagnosed. And so I
was, I'm one of those 80% thatnever got diagnosed. And but my
daughter had it a couple ofyears ago, or has it, and so we
it took us two years to figureout what she had, and in that

(19:11):
process, it really made merealise that I had that. And so
my form of dyslexia, becausethere's multiple forms of it, is
comprehension. I have to readthings two or three times to
really understand it, but if youshow it to me, I can pick it up
like that, and it's super quick.
I'm very quick at picking thingsup. And so I really had to use

(19:32):
that to adapt. It's kind oflike, I equate it to somebody
who becomes blind or whateveryou use all your other senses,
and so as a dyslexic kid, youuse your strengths, which
usually you have a lot of ofother strengths, to be able to
get by. So I skated by by justhaving people show it to me, or,

(19:54):
you know, reading it two orthree times to be able to do it.
I. Always the slowest to getdone with tests, because I had
to read everything a couple oftimes to understand it, but I
always did well in school. But Ithink more than just the
dyslexia, it was more of thestigma around it, that I felt
that I was stupid because Icouldn't read as fast as other

(20:15):
people. I couldn't spell as aswell as other people, and that's
one of the missions that I have,is I don't want kids to think
that they're stupid anymorebecause of this, because it's
totally false. They're just notbeing taught the way that they
need to be taught. The dyslexicbrain learns a different way,
and it's okay. We all learndifferent ways. And so for me, I

(20:36):
think that's the superpower, isthe adoption and using our other
strengths to be able to succeed.
But even better, if I can getthem the right education, they
don't have to ever even thinkthat they're stupid because of

(20:57):
something that their brain.
It'll just be you just learnjust like every other kid does.
You won't even know that youhave dyslexia, because it's just
being taught that way, this way.
And so that's kind of my goal.
My goal is to get to 80%diagnosis over the next, you
know, lifetime, or however longit takes me to be able to make a
difference for these kids,because I don't want them

(21:18):
feeling like I did, and even seesome of the stuff that my
daughter had to go through to beable to feel I don't. I hate to
word use the word normal,because that's the wrong word,
because we all are normal, but Idon't want kids to feel that
way. And another alarming statsis 47% of inmates have dyslexia.

(21:39):
Wow. So that's a huge problemthat I think can be solved
fairly easily. But then youhave, on this other side, over
50% of employees at NASA havedyslexia also. So there's like
this fork in the road that Ithink kids get to if you don't
have the right teachers orpeople that are going to help

(22:02):
you down the road, and maybe youhave some circumstances that
just aren't conducive to feelingloved, you maybe go the route of
crime. And if you have a drivelike I did that, I used it to
drive me to get it, but I couldhave easily went the other way
because I lived in a poorneighbourhood, and I could have
gotten in with drugs and otherpeople, but luckily, I had an

(22:24):
amazing mom that that taught melove and everything else. And so
I know that this is a solvablething, and I don't want to call
it a problem, because it's not aproblem. It's the problem is, is
that people aren't teaching theway that some people learn?

Yeah, and that's that's where the whole education
system is flawed, isn't it? Theyteach in one way and one way
only. So if you don't conform tothat way or don't learn in that
way, you're considered stupid,right? And then people think, or
kids think that they're thatthey're stupid. But actually,

(23:10):
you know, I've always thought,what is what is normal? We're
all we're all individual, sowe're all different to each
other. So there really isn't anormal as such. Your normal is
who you are and and that's whatit really, you know, should be
seen as. So I think it's areally good point. And a lot,

(23:31):
there are a lot of successfuldyslexic people out there. I
think they're some of the mostsuccessful. You know, Albert
Einstein was dyslexic, RichardBranson's dyslexic, so
literally, some of the mostsuccessful people out there. So,
you know, I think it's like yousay, it is a superpower. It's
something that you can turn onits head, but you have to

(23:53):
understand how it is you learnso that you can project yourself
through life, how you want to,how you want to do it. So you
mentioned about mission. I waslooking online, and it's, is
this right? Is is your missiontransforming lives through real
estate and giving back? Is thatcorrect or Okay, cool. So that's

(24:17):
what I picked up, transforminglives through real estate and
giving back. What does thatphrase mean to you right now?
Yeah,

Unknown (24:25):
so I've always thought about that. I've always wanted
to give back to people. I lovehelping people. And so it's
like, maybe some of the limitingbeliefs that I had before was,
what is one guy going to do?
What can I do? You know, I'mjust this one, you know, kid
from the east side of Saint Paulthat you know, barely graduated
high school. What a How can Imake a difference? And as I've

(24:48):
been through this journey, moreand more, I've realised that I
don't have to do this alone. Ican use the people that are
around me, that are. Are amazingand have so many different
talents. And it goes back to theeducation part of like, you
don't have to do this alone.

(25:08):
Dyslexic kids don't have to doit alone. We use each other
strengths to form a bond, to bean incredible force. And it's
like building a house, right? Ifyou just put one wall up and
then try and put a roof on it,it's going to collapse. But if
you put four, you know, walls upand then put the roof on, you're
going to be supported. So I needto find those three other

(25:30):
people, or whatever, howevermany people, to help me make
this mission. So for me, what Ithink of from a real estate
standpoint is, how can I use myknowledge that I've learned and
all the mistakes that I'velearned to be able to help
others give them those toolsthat they need to be able to
feel successful, and not evenfrom a standpoint of teaching

(25:51):
them commercial real estate, butalso teaching them the mindset
part, because I don't want theseyoung kids learning about
entrepreneurship and learningthe same old thing that
everybody learns of, grind,grind, grind. Get up at 530 in
the morning, work 15 hours andthen ignore your family and
you're divorced at 40. I mean,that's not a fun life. I want

(26:17):
you to build, build, build, butI also want you to be building
your relationships, becausethat's really what makes you
happy, if you think back, andthis is an exercise I just did
recently that really brought itall together for me, was what
are the happiest times in yourlife? If you really think about

(26:38):
those times, think of thosetimes you're with your friends
and you're drinking something,and you laugh so hard that that
it came out of your nose, oryour stomach hurt so bad because
you were laughing with yourkids, or, you know, just had an
amazing moment with your wife.
These are the moments that youlive for and that make you
happy, not the things thatyou're gonna buy with your
money. And I'm not sayingthere's anything wrong with

(27:00):
buying nice things, but it's notgoing to bring you happiness.
It's the experiences. It's ifyou're going to buy that fancy
car, it's you and your buddylove cars, and you're going to
go out and bond over it and doit. It's not the actual car.
It's the time that you're goingto have with other people,
bonding over that experience,because it's something you love,
and so that's how I believe thatI can give back from that

(27:23):
standpoint. And and my wife andI have made audacious goal this
last year of we want to make ourinvestors and our partners $100
million and we also want to give$100 million to charity, and so
we want to do that throughpartnering with people on the
real estate side and figuringout how to either bring

(27:46):
investors in or to partner withpeople to help bring them up and
to help them to realise to giveback to others. And then we'll
use any profits and stuff to beable to go and give back to
amazing causes that can changethe world and and we've thought
about that a lot because there'sso many charities that are

(28:08):
amazing out there, a lot of themhaven't made any headway. And so
it's like, how do we really makean impact? And to me, it's, it's
going back to what you've talkedabout, the meat, the mindset,
like, how do we teach thosefour, you know, principles of
meat, muscle, mindset and moneyto as many people so that they

(28:28):
can succeed and be happy? That'swhere you make change.

Yeah, and, and, you know, you mentioned
something about grinding, likebeing being free is is not
grinding every single day. It'snot, it's not a badge of honour
that the fact that you work 100hours a week, you know, because,
like I say, you're leavingrelationships on the table. And,

(28:58):
you know, I, I felt thatfirsthand. You know, things will
suffer when you put too muchfocus on one area. So the
carnivore entrepreneur is allabout, you know, healthy body,
healthy, mind, healthy bankaccount. And if you've got all
three of those, and you putequal focus on all three. It

(29:21):
promotes health, wealth andrelationships. And that's the
whole point. Is you have to haveall three to be able to have
true wealth. And that's andthat's everything that I'm
trying to do. And I think that'swhere, you know, I'm trying to
be bring people onto this showthat that think in the same way.
And this, this, this helps thatmission as well, because it gets

(29:47):
the message out there. Andactually, we can all work
together in our own way to helppeople achieve what we're we're
mastering at the moment. And,you know, I'm not. Are in the
best place in every single area,but I know that I'm working on
every single area, and everysingle area is moving forward,

(30:08):
and that's why I feel that I'mexactly where I'm supposed to
be. And that's that's the trickis when you know you're exactly
where you're supposed to be andyou don't want to be anywhere
else, that's when you knowyou've, you've, you're on the
right path. I think Cool, great,awesome, awesome answer. So
let's move on to the threeareas, the body, the mind and

(30:32):
the bank account. So let's startwith the body. Walk us through
your like, non negotiable dailyroutine for staying energised
throughout the day, not just foryour business, but for your your
family and your friends andstuff as well. Yeah,

Unknown (30:49):
I mean, it starts in the morning. You know, I do
bring my daughters to school inthe morning, which is amazing. I
get to do that every day andspend 25 minutes with them in
the car. And then I come home,and it's my hour of power, is
what I call it, that I stolethat from Tony Robbins, but that
I go out and I do at least twoor three mile walk. And as I'm

(31:11):
walking, I'm either onelistening to an amazing audio
book on, you know, somethingthat's making me better, usually
from a psychological way of, howcan I build my mind up, or how
can I be a better dad? How can Ibe a better husband? Sometimes
it's business books, but I tryto keep that time just for just
for my mind and getting better.
And I also do, like, a lot ofbreathing exercises on the way.

(31:34):
Tony teaches a really good onein his Hour of Power. And you
can look it up on YouTube. It'son there, but you do breathing
first, then you do gratefulstatements, and then you
envision what you want the dayor the week to look like. And
it's been amazing to start theday that way, because you're
breathing first of all. And somany of us like Tony talks about

(31:55):
we shallow breathe because we'realways so stressed and
everything, and sort of like,you know, barely breathing, but
you got to get in there and getthose breaths in and that
exactly. And so you do that. Andthen what I've been doing
lately, on the gratitude part,is I start with myself, then I
work my way to my wife and mykids and then my family, and

(32:19):
then whoever pops into my headof who I'm grateful for that
day, I'll stop after I'm donewith the grateful statement, and
I'll pull my phone out as I'mwalking I just do a quick 22nd
32nd video of texting thatperson I was thinking about and
telling them how grateful I amfor them. And it's been such a
blessing for me, because I couldjust text them, I could call

(32:44):
them, but a lot of times in themorning they're busy, they're
trying to get their kids off andand it just doesn't work out, I
might miss them, and then Idon't have that same energy. But
when I'm thinking about them andbeing like, man, like I'm just
so grateful for grant, like he'sgot such an amazing mission to
help so many people, and wealign so much that I want to
send him a quick video, and soit's just easy, and then I've

(33:07):
gotten so many blessings back ofjust people texting me like I
really needed that today, andthat just lights my soul up. Of
knowing that I could impactsomebody else with just coming
with a positive attitude and andthen going to the visualisation
part has been huge too, becausethere's sometimes that I know
things are might be challengingthat day or that week, and I can

(33:29):
visualise how I want it. It'salmost like scripting and
practising a script in a play ofhow it's going to work. And when
I'm prepared to be able to gointo that situation, I act a lot
different than it trying to doit off the cuff. And so that's
kind of my morning routine. Andthen I will also throw in some
weight lifting and and somemeditation, not always the

(33:55):
meditation. I'm not great atthat yet, but I'm progressing at
it.

Cool, nice.
Sounds like you've got a reallygood setup to the day, and then
stuff throughout the day, justto keep you, keep you energised.
What so have you beenexperimenting with your diet at
all? What's your what's yournutrition, and your diet like on
a day to day basis? Do you focuson that?

Unknown (34:19):
Yeah. So I just finally did the first time I did Life
Mastery from Tony Robbins andsweet Wow, yeah, yeah. So it was
amazing to do. It wasn't, wasn'tas hard as I thought it was
going to be. I was a littlenervous about it, but it was
kind of a detox kind of a thing.
And so I've pulled some somegood things out of there.
Obviously, my diet has beenfairly good, because I've been

(34:40):
able to keep off my weight. ButI wouldn't say it was like,
super great. And so what I kindof took away from there was he
talks about, if we can eat 70%live vegetables and water, rich
vegetables and fruits. I. A daythat will be so much healthier,

(35:01):
so you don't have to give upcarbs and proteins and all those
other things. But if you justeat those 70% you're going to be
so much healthier. And so that'smy takeaway from that, is I'm
going to at least do that threetimes a week, of making sure
that each meal, that when I lookat my plate, I have 70% of that,
and then the other 30% would bemeat, and then potentially some

(35:26):
carbs. I try to stay away fromcarbs, but I also, I also want
to live. And the other thing Ipulled away is that even Tony
Robbins, being this amazingperson, takes what he calls zag
days. And so he allows himselfone zag day, or you call it a
cheat day a week, or a cheatmeal a week, and then he also

(35:47):
gives himself an extra one amonth. So I thought that was
amazing, and that way you're notlike living this miserable
lifestyle. If you want to havepopcorn at the movie, you go do
it. We

are human. And the one thing that I mentioned
in the book that I've just myfirst book that I've published,
is part of the Thank you, thewhole part of the nutrition
framework. Call it performanceplate, and it's about eating
whole foods, you know, and youyou balance it how you want. I
know the carnival entrepreneurssuggest only meat. It's about

(36:25):
having, you know, Whole Foods,essentially, with with enough
protein to build strength. Andthat's where, where the carnival
comes from. But I've got inthere about this 8020 rule, and
it's about being 80% on it, youknow, healthy stuff the way that
you want it to be all the time.
Then 20% plan to, you know, eatsome stuff and do some stuff

(36:46):
that you enjoy. If you like, tohave a beer, have a beer, but
plan to do it. Don't go and getstupidly drunk, because you're
so sick of being honest on thisdiet. You know, you got to plan
these 20% to allow yourself tohave the things that you enjoy.
If you enjoy a pizza or a donut,have it. Just know that you're

(37:07):
having it. Enjoy it for what itis, and then get back on
whatever it is you're doingbefore. In

Unknown (37:16):
my experience, I don't maybe you can tell me if it's
any different from you, but whenyou're living a healthier
lifestyle and eating good like,a lot of times those things that
you used to like aren't asappetising. And a lot of times
I'll be like, that wasn't reallyworth my calories. And then the
next time, I don't really eat itbecause it was like, I'd rather
have something amazing. Youknow, if I'm going to cheat, I

(37:37):
want to do that. And I thinkit's such a huge difference,
too, if you're if you need tolose 70 pounds like I did, I had
to make take massive action. I Ihad to be more strict than it
was. But there was times inthere that I failed. We all
fail. But what I did differentlythan in the past, of all the fad
diets I did was that I didn'tquit. I came back and I got back

(38:01):
on the horse the next day anddidn't beat myself up over it. I
said, Okay, you know, I failed.
That's fine. What did I learnfrom it? Move on to the next
day, and I just kept going. AndI think that's the biggest
secret is, first of all, forweight loss, that I've learned,
find what foods you like thatare healthy, and figure out as
many combinations of those aspossible, so it doesn't get old,

(38:21):
but build a lifestyle of howyou're going to eat instead of
fad diets, because the fad dietsare only good for so long.

Oh, exactly. And what is crazy is people consider
eating whole foods a diet,right? That's what we should be
eating. Like, you know, my myson the other day said to me,
can't you just buy normal food?
And all I had was Whole Foods inthe house. He wanted, you know,

(38:54):
packet stuff, things that go inthe microwave, you know. And
while I will get them stuff likethat, on occasion, in general,
we just eat shiny Whole Foods.
But he was getting sick of it.
But that's the thing. Peoplethink McDonald's and microwave
meals and this process stuff onthe shelves is normal, but when

(39:15):
in theory, it is, if youconsider normal what generally
everyone eats. That's why WholeFoods is considered dieting,
when actually it's somethingthat we should all be eating.

Unknown (39:29):
It's silly. So

on that. Then your kids. I mean, how do you
promote healthy eating with thefamily? Yeah,

Unknown (39:37):
that's probably been my biggest challenge. You know,
it's the same thing is, they goto school, you know, their
friends have stuff. They trade,you know, of things. So even if
I try to institute it, but forme, I don't, especially having
girls, you know, I don't want tocreate a problem with them from

(39:58):
a mental standpoint, by. Reallybeating at home. So it's really
about, I don't even talk aboutweight or diets or anything like
that, because it's really notabout dieting or weight. It's
about healthy living. And I justtalk about how you get energy
from doing the right things,like working out and exercising
and doing these things. And soit's really just trying to be on

(40:21):
the same page as my wife andjust talking about healthy
eating and healthy lifestyles.
And they see us doing it. That'sthe biggest thing. Is if you're
out eating donuts and pizza andall these other things, of
course, that's what they'regoing to do. And so it, it is
challenging, especially withhaving girls that are close to

(40:44):
teenage years, but I think we'vedone a pretty good job of
instituting it. And you know,just recently, one of my
daughters came up to me and andstarted asking me more questions
about how to eat healthier. Andso obviously me talking about it
long enough gave them permissionto be able to ask for that, and

(41:05):
so I feel like I'm doing theright thing, but, you know, at
the end of the day, it's up tothem to be able to do it and to
make the decisions. And I justread a amazing book called
parenting with love and logic,and it really changed my
thoughts around parenting. Iused to just give them all the
answers, because I wanted togive them the tools that I

(41:28):
learned, like, hey, I canshortcut it for you. But in
reading the book, it was like,I'm also then stealing their
chance to fail and to learn fromthat failure and how to do it,
that basically they just come todad every time. So I've changed
my whole mindset aroundparenting of now it's choices.
Give them choices. You caneither do this or you can do

(41:50):
that, this or that. And it'sjust really, really opened up my
eyes. So if you haven't read it,it's great book. Yeah, no,

thank you for that. And something just came to
mind is with with my kids, I tryand lead by example, not
instruction. And it's quiteinteresting. The the youngest,
he's 11, and he came up to me atmy shirt off, and he was like,
Dad, how'd you get how'd you getyour muscles like that? When can

(42:19):
I get my muscles like that. Andthen I got out my salmon and my
avocado, my eggs, and like, thisis what I eat. This is how I get
my muscles. And then he startedeating it and stuff. So that's
the thing. Is, if you're doingit and they can see the results
that you're getting, they'llwant to do what you're doing,
because, you know they want,they want the same things. They

(42:39):
want to know how to get it. Butif you tell them, you know, you
got to do this, you got to dothat, they're not going to
listen to you, you know. So leadby example, not instruction. So,
yeah, cool, man. So that's,that's it for the body. Let's
move on to the mind. So wetouched a little bit on Tony
Robbins and the general journeythat you've been on since date

(43:01):
with destiny. Now, when you'reat date with destiny, you signed
up to the Platinum Partnership.
So that's probably a good placeto start when it comes to
mindsets, Tony is gets intopeople's minds. So what's the
Platinum Partnership been like?

Unknown (43:19):
Man, it's been life changing. You know, Tony talks
so much about, if you're reallywant to improve at something,
you have to really get in thereand blinking on the word that he
uses, or whatever when you, whenyou, you know, just get in it
and you like going to adifferent country. If you want

(43:41):
to learn another language,what's the best way to learn
another language? Plop yourselfinto Mexico for two months, and
then you have to learn my dayimmersion, right? Yes,
immersion. That's the thing thatI was thinking of. So what
better way of when I wanted tochange my mindset of immersing
myself in Tony Robbins events?
So I did a whole year ofbasically every event that he

(44:03):
did. I did that year. I think Idid eight or nine events in a
year's time. So although it wasa huge commitment from time and
everything, honestly, the ROIthat I got from it was off the
charts of just learning so manydifferent things and really just
clicking on what is now that I'm50, what is the rest of my life

(44:27):
look like? What do I want to do?
Do I want to keep doing the realestate thing? Do I want to do
something else? And I think thebiggest takeaway is, besides all
the mental things that I've beenable to to change in my head was
that I really enjoy helpingpeople, and I think everybody

(44:47):
kind of enjoys that that's whereyou get your love and your
connection from people. But itwas really switching before my
top needs, that I that I neededwas certainty. And significance.
And so I needed to feel safe, Ineeded to feel significant, like
people love me and I that'salthough you need those things,

(45:10):
as Tony talks about, it doesn'tneed to be first. If you put
those first, it actually is kindof destructive, and that's what
it was for me in my life. And soI've moved those down in the
list, and now I've broughtcontribution and love and
connection up so like thistoday, connecting with Grant
again after almost it's beenover a year now, is amazing that

(45:33):
I can connect with such anamazing human being that is on
the same path as me, and justreally taking that in where life
before I didn't take thosemoments in, I would see it as
transactional, and that's aterrible way to look at

(45:53):
friendships. And not that I wastrying to get anything from my
friends and whatnot, but I wasalways trying to be like, okay,
they do this. I gotta do this. Igotta be up here. They gotta be,
you know? And it's like findingcomparison, yeah, and competing
with them. And it's like, well,no, what if I just work
together? And so I think that'sthe amazing thing. Is like, when

(46:17):
I'm in the room with somebody, Itell myself when I'm talking to
them now is, what can I What canI receive from them, from a
standpoint of not money, butlike, love and connection and
well, how can I give that backto them? And usually, if you're
giving it, you're going to getit in return. So that's what I
try and do, is Grant How can Isupport you today? That's my

(46:37):
favourite line. How can Isupport you? Because it, it puts
it back on them. Most peopledon't ask that. And, you know,
they might say, well, actually,I'm really struggling today, you
know, blah, blah, blah. And so Ithink that was my biggest thing,
is that I really enjoy helpingpeople out and doing it in a
healthy way. And that's whatTony teaches, is, how do you ask

(46:58):
better questions? How do youbecome a better listener Before,
I used to try and fix peoplethat doesn't work.

Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. And are you? Are you
going to continue on withPlatinum Partnership?

Unknown (47:12):
Yep, so I signed up for my second year. One of the
biggest reasons is he has arelationship course that he does
every other year, and it's aboutfour or 500 people that go. So
it's very intimate, and I'veheard it's just amazing. And I
just want to make sure that Ibring my relationship to the

(47:32):
next level. You know, we'realready working towards it, of
of stepping it up and andputting Janet first in my life,
but this is, I believe, is goingto just bring us to the next
level. And it's really taught meeven more too of how to
understand the feminine energy,how to the feminine. You know,
as guys, we don't understandwomen most of the time, but when

(47:56):
he breaks it down from apsychological standpoint of why
women do the things as you do,and why men do the things we do,
it starts to make sense. Andthen those creatures that we're
married to, those amazingcreatures, they actually start
to make sense. And when theymake sense, we don't feel lost,
and we can actually plant theright seeds to be able to grow

(48:19):
our relationship even better.
Yeah,

and again, I've been on a very similar journey
since, since day with destiny. Ithink you actually came up and
gave me some feedback during theduring the course. But my, my
superpower has always beenenergy, like I can channel this
immense energy inside of me andbring it every single time,

(48:43):
right? And I've had it since Iwas young, and I've all and
that's why my career has beenquite successful in comparison
to maybe the people around me.
And the one thing that I haven'thad, and I've managed to get
over the last six months, and itis totally transformed my
relationships, especially withKay, is a control and a calmness

(49:04):
that I've managed to get whichhas allowed me to control that
energy and to be calm in momentswhere I might not have been
calm, either overly excited oroverly frustrated, because the
problem with bounds of energy isyou can overpower people. And

(49:26):
it's understanding,understanding that I can calm
down and have it under control,which has totally transformed
the relationships in my life.
And that's what this has beenborn from, because it's actually
allowed me to find me, if thatmakes sense. I

Unknown (49:48):
don't know if I've said it before, but I'm sure you feel
the same way. But I think peoplego through life of they put
their job first, then they puttheir kids second, and. Then
maybe their wife is third orfourth, and then we wonder why
they're divorced.
Yeah, yeah. Andit's so much easier to get love

(50:08):
from those other places and toget what you need, you actually
have to work at being a goodpartner. And so I challenge all
those men out there and women toput your spouse first, because
that's really what's going tobring the most happiness. You
don't want to your kids are 18and out of the house, and then

(50:28):
you don't even know who you'reliving with anymore. You're
like, Oh, hi. Who are you?

Yeah, because I bet a lot of wives out there are
just waiting for their theirpartners or their husbands to
turn up, to be present and to bewith them. You know, it's not
about their body being there,it's about their mind being
there with them. And I thinkwomen have like a sixth sense to
all of that, definitely, andI've been divorced and that that

(51:02):
taught me a lot. No, that personprobably wasn't right for me,
and it was Tony that turned mearound. I didn't go to his
events at the time, but again,it was 2015, I found, I found
Tony, and got into his YouTubevideos quite intensely, and it
made me because he saidsomething, change who you are

(51:24):
first before you change yourrelationship. And I changed who
I was, and it actually pushed mefurther away from the
relationship, which made me feellike it was right, but I was the
type of person that didn't bringmyself to the relationship,
which probably would have eithermade us separate quicker or
brought us closer together. Sodefinitely a big, big lesson.

(51:47):
And yeah, up here is where itall starts. So, yeah, great, but
awesome stuff for the mind so onthat then relationships. Do you
have any specific rituals thatyou and Janet do to protect and
fuel your personal growth witheach other? Yes,

Unknown (52:07):
definitely. One of the things that we do, not only for
ourselves but with our kids, iswe do date days. So we make sure
we schedule those on thecalendar. So at the beginning of
the month, we always look at ourcalendars, and we at least do
one date day, if not two. Butthen we also, because we have
two daughters, we rotate withthem. So I will do date day with

(52:29):
one and she does they day withthe other one on the same day,
and then vice versa, so that wecan have that one on one time.
Because I'm sure, as you know,as a parent, sometimes it it's
they have different dynamicswhen they're together. And so
that's one of the big thingsthat we do. And then at the
beginning of the week, the samequestion I told you, or

(52:50):
whatever, is, how can I supportyou this week? What? What can I
do to support you? And you know,sometimes it's like, oh, I have
this meeting, this meeting, thismeeting. Can you pick up the
kids this day, or can you bringthem here? And, like, Sure. And
I think that's one of thebiggest thing is, I'm I am
working on trying to be thatsame man that I was when she met

(53:12):
me, that I would have didanything for her. You know,
think about that Johnny talks

about that, doesn't he, yeah, acts like
you're in the first six months

Unknown (53:20):
Exactly. And that's what I'm trying to get back to,
is act like that, like what canI do for you to make you happy
this week? Because I know thatif I make her happy, I'm going
to be so much happier. It's whenwe try and compete against each
other. That's what I was doingbefore I went to date with
destiny. Is I saw my wife ascompetition because she is such

(53:40):
an amazing person and has anamazing career and all those
things that I was like, Well, Igotta as the man. I have to, I
have to compete against her andbe higher. I gotta earn more
than her. I gotta do this and sothat I can be the man. And it's
like, no, I can just be a greatpartner. It doesn't matter who
makes the most money? It's like,how can I get the currency of

(54:04):
being a great husband and allthat other stuff comes into
line, and when we work together,we make more money, we make
better kids, we make a betterlife for other people. And we
can do so many different things,like you and I today. We can
impact so many more peopletogether than I can on my own.
Absolutely,

absolutely interesting. You say that, Kay
and I have a ritual. We do dodate nights and stuff like that,
which is great. We have thisritual. And I read it somewhere
that whenever one of us leavesthe house and we leave each
other, we have to give eachother a six second kiss. And the
reason why it's six seconds isthe minute you go over four or

(54:46):
five seconds, it releasesoxytocin in your brain and makes
the connection a lot stronger.
So that's one of our one of oneof our rituals. And on your
point around it's. Like beinghappy for them, for what they
achieve, rather than trying tobe bigger or better than them.
We joined a peer group about ayear ago, similar time to when

(55:08):
we went with date with destiny,and there's, there's like 10,000
people in in this group, andwe're part of a group of 100
people. And Kay over the wholeyear, they have awards ceremony
at the end, lots of differentthings, but the one that
everyone wants is the is calledthe property Entrepreneur of the
Year award. And we were both inthe final five, and Kay won, and

(55:32):
I was more excited that she wonthan me like and I think because
I wanted that for her so badly,that, again, makes our
relationship better. Like, theyactually took a photo of me
celebrating when she won, and itshe they said grant. Grant was

(55:52):
more excited about you winningthan him, um, because I was
literally jumping out of myseat. So, you know, I think
that's really important, is tosupport the success of those
around you more than you evensupport your own, because then
you'll be more successful at thesame time 100% but yeah, great.
So awesome. That was the mind.

(56:15):
Now let's finish off with thebank account. So this is on to
more of the money side, thenitty gritty. So takers, I want
to talk about your first bigcommercial turnaround. There was
a 30,000 square foot office thatyou more than quadrupled in
value. What was, you know, theHow did you how did you do that?

(56:37):
What was the key steps that youtook to

Unknown (56:39):
doing that big deal. I think it goes back to the
mentorship again. You know, wehad just joined the commercial
Academy and but we were superexcited to get our first deal.
But we weren't really thinkingoffice building. We were
thinking apartment buildings.
You know, just kind of fit. Wealready doing residential. Might
as well go into apartments. Itjust seems like natural
progression, and but my wife'sbusiness was doing really well,

(57:03):
and it was growing. We wereoperating out of a single family
home, and it was bursting at theseams. I mean, we had so many
cars there, and even to a pointwhere we had one of our
employees in a walk in closet,which was interesting to be able
to do. And so it was justgetting to a point where we
needed to move. And the city,actually, here in the US came

(57:26):
and said, You can't run abusiness out of this
residential, so you got to go.
So it was a a must. And we had abig enough why of why we needed
to make it work. So we went outand we were looking for a place
to move to. So we found thesetwo office condos. And here in
the United States, office condosare not they're kind of like the

(57:49):
bottom of the barrel of officeand but we thought it would work
for us. We had 3000 square feet,or two 3000 square foot ones
that we're gonna buy. I thinkthey were like, 200 250,000
each. And we're like, oh, thisis great. So we brought it to
our first meeting that we afterwe joined, and we're like, we
found an awesome deal. We'regetting commercial real estate.

(58:11):
And then he's like, he's like,that's a not the right way to
go, Sean and Janet. And he'slike, this is your opportunity
to either insert yourself into abuilding where there's a vacancy
that you can make, you know,bring in the income and let them
pay off your mortgage for you,or buy something and then put

(58:34):
tenants around you to be able tobring cash flow in. And so we
changed our whole focus. We weredisappointed, but understood
what he said, and it made sense,and we found this amazing 30,000
square foot office, billion,which just happened to be
actually right next to whereJanet and I met Jen and I met
playing volleyball at a bar, alocal bar. And so it was just

(58:56):
crazy how it worked. It wasforeclosed on for like two
years, so it was vacantcompletely. And when we looked
at it, it was a they it was onthe market for 1.1 million. And
we went to go look at it. Andthen in between the next showing
the bank that owned it, theperson who was managing it
didn't pay for the heat thatmonth, so it got shut off. And

(59:21):
in Minnesota in the middle ofwinter, it gets really cold, and
so one of the pipes froze andburst, and there was about three
feet of water on the main level.
Well for us, that wasn't a bigdeal. We were gonna tear
everything out anyways. And sowe went in and looked at it, and
we ended up they they loweredthe price because of the damage,
down to, I think it was likearound 900,000 we ended up

(59:43):
buying it at 625,000 Wow. And soit was a huge discount. It was
enough that we could stillafford it with just her being in
there, because we the rest of itwas vacant, but it was enough
that we could and then we. Endedup, over the next couple of
years, putting other tenants inthere. And I think at the end,
with my wife paying her fairshare of the of rent to

(01:00:08):
ourselves, but we were paying itto ourselves instead of somebody
else. I think we were cashflowing around 200 grand a year
for I think we kept that one forabout 11 or 12 years, and then
we sold it. And it was worthabout 3.1 million, I believe,
was the sale somewhere aroundthere, give or take, a couple
1000. We probably had about 1.5million into it, in

(01:00:30):
improvements. And so, you know,at the end of the day, we got a
bunch of cash flow. My wife wasable to run her business there
for 11 years, basically, kind ofrent free, and we made money.
So, I mean, it all worked out.
And I think that's one of thebiggest things of getting into

(01:00:50):
real estate. If you own abusiness, it's such an amazing
avenue to be able to own theown, own, your own place. And I
think a lot of people think,well, I can't afford it, or this
own, this big thing, I'm justgoing to buy that office condo
or just one thing, but it'slike, no, actually, you can't
afford not to go buy somethingelse and just insert yourself.

(01:01:10):
And a lot of times, banks loveto finance owner operators. So
think about that, if you're anowner operator, maybe, maybe buy
something that the tenants canpay you, and you can always hire
a property management company.
If you don't know how to run it,hire a property management
company. They'll, they'll managethe whole thing for you, and you
don't have to worry about

KG SHORT STAY (01:01:32):
it. Excellent.
Wow, inspiring. So, yeah, lotsof great stuff going across the
pond. So you work withinvestment investors, right? So,
I we work with a lot of clientsand investors in our business.
How do you build trust with yourinvestors to give you their

(01:01:55):
money? Essentially, it's

Unknown (01:01:59):
a great question. You know, I always say that I
believe when you are pitching aninvestment to somebody, I would
say it's 80 or 90% you 20 or 10%the actual deal. They want to
know that you're going to pushit to the to the end. And I
think that's a few ways. It'sobviously being a good person,

(01:02:22):
right? You know, like we talkabout with our kids, showing
them the example of, like,here's what we do. We do things
ethically. We do things thisway. Now, if you don't have the
time to build a track record,because that's what it takes, a
lot of times, you can alwayspartner with somebody who has
that, that ability. So like, ifyou and I grant, if I'm just

(01:02:42):
starting out and you've alreadybuilt that credibility, I can
say, hey, Grant, I want to beyour boots on the ground. I want
to try and do this. I will doall this work for you, and I'm
attaching to you to help buildmy credibility. Now, the next
time I go out, I can say, hey, Idid this deal with Grant. You
know, it's like building areferral network, and so I think
that's a big part of it. Andthen when you're doing the deal,

(01:03:04):
one of the things that is nonnegotiable for me is I tell them
about the good, the bad, theugly, because most investors are
so scared to tell theirinvestors if something's going
wrong, but you're actually doingyourself a disservice if you're
not, and you're doing yourinvestors a disservice by not
telling them everything, and youcan get yourself in trouble for

(01:03:24):
it if something really goeswrong, but I'm telling them,
giving them updates, you know,usually at a minimum, every
quarter, sometimes every month,like when COVID was going on, I
was giving updates every twoweeks because nobody knew what
was going on. And I'm proud tosay that we didn't lose one
tenant throughout that wholetime. We were able to work with

(01:03:45):
a lot of our tenants and ourbanks to be able to give them
relief, to get them through thathard time and but it wasn't just
me. It was I was going out assoon as COVID was happening. I
was talking with my mentor. Ijoined some other group of other
tenant or landlords that we werenetworking together and saying,

(01:04:05):
What are you using? What are youdoing? What are you doing? You
can't just bury your head in thesand, and it wouldn't have been
it wouldn't have did myinvestors justice if I would
have buried my my head in thesand and just gave up. I had to
do do the right thing for them,and even though we weren't
making money at that time, I wastelling them every time, here's

(01:04:28):
what we're doing. We're helpingthis person, this person, this
person. They're going to have athree month deferral, but we've
talked to our bank, the bank isonly going to make us pay
interest only payments, so we'rebreak even, so we're not going
to lose any money, but we're notwe're not gaining anything
either, and it's just going tobe for this three months. But we
also, in working with thetenant, we were able to get an

(01:04:49):
extension out of them for thatgrace period. So they wanted to
be there still. Maybe they onlyhad two years left on their
lease, and we went back andsaid, hey, we'll give you this
three month. Free rent, but giveus two more years on your lease,
or give us a fresh five yearlease. So it was a win, win for
everybody. And I think that'sthe biggest thing for for

(01:05:10):
investors, is just be honest andbe a good person, and they can
see that. They can feel it.

Yeah, I think that we've we've had a few
situations where it's a thingsthat have happened have affected
our clients, and what's alwaysworked in our favour is not
delaying talking about it withthem and actually having an
honest conversation about notwhat the problem is, but what we
believe is the best solution,and then discussing with them

(01:05:42):
the best way to move forward forthem and their investment. But
if you just come to people withproblems and no solutions, then
they look at you like, what am Igoing to solve your problems?
This is, this is your problem,not mine. But if you come to
them with solutions, you work onit together. And I think that's,
that's the important thing isdon't delay the conversation and
come to people with solutionsrather than problems. But, yeah,

(01:06:06):
great, great advice. And thelast thing I have wanted to ask
you this on the bank accountside of things, not just for our
UK audience, but also, you know,for anyone from the US that will
listen to this as well, withinterest rates quite high at the
moment. In 2025 How do you thinkthe real estate market where you

(01:06:31):
are in the US, I'm presuming,down the east coast? How do you
think that's going to pan outover the next 12 to 24 months?

Unknown (01:06:40):
You know, it's always a loaded question, because I don't
know what the government's goingto do to step into to save
things, but we're already seeingcracks. I moved to Florida three
years ago, and obviously Floridawas red hot after COVID
happened, and we're reallyseeing a lot of cracks just in

(01:07:01):
the residential market rightnow, where things that, you
know, we barely had anyinventory now, we have tonnes of
inventory. People are pricereducing, and this just kind of
happened over the last three orfour months. So we're really
seeing some cracks there. As forcommercial real estate, you
know, there's, there's a lot ofloans that are in default. I

(01:07:25):
don't know the banks have acertain amount of time to be
able to bring them out tomarket. So sometimes they do
something called pretend, extendand pretend. So they extend out
the loans to give them a breakand pretend that it's not in
trouble. And so I think there'sbeen a lot of that so that they
don't lose confidence in theirinvestors and everything else

(01:07:46):
that the bank has going on. Butwe've thought, or at least our
mentors told us, Scott severaltimes of that the market is
about to change, but right whenwe think it's going to change
and hit this downturn, becausein real estate. If you look at
over time before all of thequantitative easing and
everything else that we've doneand spent a tonne of money,

(01:08:08):
which is a whole notherconversation, but you can see it
goes up, it goes down. It goesup, it goes down. Same with the
stock market. It's up and down,up and down, but it always comes
back up. But we haven't reallylet it go down in a long time
because of all those inflated orlow interest rates that we did,
we kept throwing money at it,and so that's something that

(01:08:30):
we've been kind of waiting for.
And what's important to have theright mentor. Because our mentor
told us, before all the interestrates went up, he's like, look,
I think something's going tohappen with the interest rates
so soon. So if you have an assetthat you want to keep long term,
go get long term financing andlock in at a low rate. And if

(01:08:51):
there's something that you don'twant in your portfolio, sell it
now. And so we took that adviceand we sold probably 40% of our
portfolio and got out of it,which was great. And then, you
know, we refinanced everythingelse and got in at that low
interest rate. And so I thinkthat's what's important, is to

(01:09:12):
follow the right people. If youdon't have a mentor, you know,
follow the right person onsocial media or whatever it is,
but you got to figure out whothose people are. There's a lot
of scammers out there. I boughta lot of courses that didn't
turn out what they should be, sodo your due diligence on it. But
at the end of the day, it'sbeing educated, figuring out
what it is. Go to multiplesources. I don't always just

(01:09:37):
believe what my mentor says. Igo try and find out what Tony's
talking about. I try and findout what Ray Dalio is talking
about. I follow all these peopleto try and make my own opinion.
And I think that's where peoplemake mistakes sometimes, is they
get so one side focus, like I'monly going to go to grant
because grant is the only onethat knows. And. It's like, even

(01:09:58):
if I am the expert, I want otherpeople to go out and find other
people, because there's stuffI'm missing. I'm not in the news
every single day. And so what Ithink is going to happen is, I
think there is going to besomewhat of a downturn, but it's
all really dependent on if thegovernment steps in and starts

(01:10:19):
printing money again, which wecan't afford. Yes, I'd love to
hear what, what's going on inyour market, you know place of
what you think, and because Idon't, I don't hear a lot about
the UK. Isn't part of what we'rehearing here. We're hearing more
about Canada and China. So I'dlove to hear what's going on in
your market?

Yeah, well, I mean, again, it's all this
uncertainty at the moment. And Ithink the cool thing about
uncertainty is, while we don'tknow what's going to happen with
interest rates and propertyprices, what that does do, what
uncertainty does do is it stopspeople from investing. And when

(01:11:06):
we've got the majority of peopleinvesting, one of the things
that Warren Buffet says is, whateveryone everyone else is doing
do the opposite. And what we'refinding is with this
uncertainty, comes better deals.
And actually, if you're gettingbetter deals with a higher
interest rate, the result is thesame than getting a more
expensive deal at a low interestrate. You know, you end up

(01:11:31):
paying the same amount. It'sjust balanced in the other way.
So that's what we're finding.
We're finding just this wholeuncertainty is bringing out
better deals. Pete, there arepeople wanting to get out.
There's a lot of regulationcoming in the UK. They're
changing our contracts and howwe do tenants and the things
that we have to comply with. Soit's stopping people from

(01:11:55):
entering the market, and it'smaking people leave the market.
And it's the people that arescared that end up losing out,
and the people that areconfident and professional, like
us that end up winning becausewe know how to make it work,
because we see a differentopportunity. We we repurpose a
property in a different way. AndI think that's that's the thing

(01:12:18):
that we're finding over here, issame as you. We don't know where
it's going to go, but theuncertainty is bringing out
better deals.

Unknown (01:12:25):
Yeah, and I think that brings up the amazing point of
what i The biggest thing I'veever learned from my mentor is
we buy for to forceappreciation, not to hope. For
appreciation, hope is not astrategy. So yes, if you buy
based on forcing appreciation,even if you get caught in a
downturn, you've created aspread. But the people that are

(01:12:49):
buying things at the top of themarket, like I did with that
rental property, and lost somuch, it's because you're
speculating that it's going togo up. And so if I can give
anybody any advice? You know,it's that of like, buy something
to force the appreciation buyit. It has to have some defect
to be able to do it. Maybe it'sjust mismanaged. You know, it

(01:13:11):
doesn't have to look ugly, butsometimes it is. It looks ugly,
and you just make it lookprettier and then and manage it
the right way.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Okay,
cool. So we're sort of coming tothe end now. I've got some
concluding questions, few quickfire stuff just to just to
finish off. So I've got a backupquestion, in case you don't want
to answer this one, or can'tthink of anything because it's

(01:13:41):
quite a deep one, but it couldbe quick. If you could send
every entrepreneur dad listeningto this one text message each
morning. What would it say?

Unknown (01:13:52):
Oh, entrepreneur dad, I would say, listen more to your
children.

Awesome. I was going to say in my head, I was
going to say, show up more foryour children and your family
and your loved ones. But, yeah,no, that's brilliant. Love it.
Okay, perfect. What have yougot? What's what's your big goal
this year, the next 12 months,what are you and Janet going

(01:14:21):
after

Unknown (01:14:23):
the big goal this year?
We have so many audacious goalsfor 10 year deals. So one year
goals would be really justtrying to build out our teams.
Now we read Dan Martel's book.
Buyback time. Yeah, or who not?
How is another good one? But howdo we build a better team? So

(01:14:45):
we're not trading our time formore money. We want to now get
the right people in. So our ourgoal for the next year is to
really build that team. So thatwe can be owners instead of
operators.

Excellent. I love that. Yeah, working on the
business as opposed to in it.
Right? Cool. So fast forward toyour 90th birthday. What do you
hope that your daughters sayabout you when you're 90. I

Unknown (01:15:26):
just think that, I hope that they say that dad was an
amazing listener, and not wasbecause I'm still planning on
being alive. I shouldn't talkthat way. Is a that's the power
of language. But yes, that he isan amazing listener, and that he

(01:15:47):
loved me and that I feel lovedand needed, I think that's the
biggest thing is kids need. Isthey need to feel needed and
they need to feel loved. That'sall you need to give them. All
the other crap that we thinkthat we need to give them is
just crap.
Awesome. Favourite book,favourite book. I love. The one
that I just read was reallygood, but I would probably say

(01:16:10):
never split the difference isprobably my favourite book. Oh,

cool, not have that one. Excellent. Okay, and
then last but not least, howwould you like people to get in
contact with you that want toget in contact?

Unknown (01:16:26):
Well, this is something that's very new to me, of
getting people to contact me,but I think the best way is Find
me on LinkedIn. It's SeanJohansson. You can see the
spelling there. Otherwise,Instagram is just my last name,
then my first name, and thenI've also started a YouTube
channel, which I don't have alot on there yet, but it's

(01:16:47):
called shine the light two, thenumber two day, that's kind of
my saying this last year, is ifI can shine my light and show
People my change and the toolsthat I've used to be able to
make a positive change inmyself, that I can make so many

(01:17:07):
more changes in people aroundme, and hopefully people I don't
even see that I'm makingchanges, because if I can make
generational changes in otherpeople's families, their
grandkids are going to be somuch Different than I am. So
that's my goal. Is, how can Ichange as many lives by the time
that I die? And the only waythat I can think of do it is

(01:17:28):
just live the change and and tryand light people up. Wow, what a

way to end the end the interview. So thank you
very much, Sean for for joiningme today. This has been one of
the longest interviews I've doneso far, but it's been very deep
and and certainly, certainlyenlightening. It's really nice
to see your journey over thelast, sort of just over 12

(01:17:54):
months, and saw you last and Ican certainly see a difference
in you 100% so thank you forjoining any final thoughts
before we finish off.

Unknown (01:18:05):
No, I just like to say, you know, thank you to you for
having me on. I feel blessed tohave met so many amazing people,
and you're one of them that Iknow you're out there trying to
do good too. And for all thelisteners, I would just say,
don't, don't worry about allthose things that you used to
worry about. If you just takecare of yourself and your mental

(01:18:26):
side, you can't help anybodyelse if you can't help yourself.
So maybe even one of the biggestlessons I did is look in the
mirror and tell yourself thatyou're proud of yourself. When's
the last time you did that?

Awesome. Thank you very much, Sean, and I hope
to speak to you soon. Thanks,Grant. If this episode resonated
with you, share it with someonewho needs to hear it. You are a
carnivore entrepreneur. Livelife how it was supposed to be
lived on your terms, withstrength, energy and purpose.
I'll see you on the nextepisode. You.

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🎙️ Episode 11 – From Dyslexic Underdog to $100-Million Visionary: Shawn Johanson on Commercial Real-Estate, Mindset & Legacy

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}🎙️ Episode 11 – From Dyslexic Underdog to $100-Million Visionary: Shawn Johanson on Commercial Real-Estate, Mindset & Legacy