Frank McKinney, the 'Daredevil Developer', Philantro-Capitalist, and 8-time International Best Selling Author

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey there, I'm Tal Zlotnitsky from Ignite IT Consulting.

(00:05):
You know me from the Braving Business podcast, but when I'm not behind the mic, I'm helping
tech startups and established companies ignite their full potential.
I also help entrepreneurs and businesses in distress reset for success.
With over three decades of entrepreneurial success, I bring hands-on experience to drive
growth, navigate turnarounds, raise capital, and lead to innovation.

(00:28):
Whether it's executive coaching or strategic transformation, I'm here to turn your business
challenges into success stories.
Visit igniteitconsulting.com and let's spark that change together.
That's igniteitconsulting.com.
Your journey to business brilliance starts now.

(00:48):
And one last quick thing.
If you enjoyed this episode, please stay on after the show to learn more about the Braving
Business podcast and other great episodes for you to discover.
And now, let's get the show started.

(01:13):
Well hello there.
Hello, you're looking orange today and the background is a little orange.
Yeah, I was trying to blend in.
This is my camo.
Well, you're doing very well with that.
I can literally just see your face and nothing else.
Oh, well, that's all you need to see, man.
It's like staring in the sun.
Don't worry about it.
I guess.
And then on the other side, I'm looking at our guest, Frank McKinney, who I got to say,

(01:37):
I did my homework.
I swear to God.
PJ, you know this.
I take my job very seriously.
I read up whatever is given to me in the pre-production I look at, but I did not actually look at
a photo of Frank and he came on it and I thought we're looking at a rock and roller.
I mean, seriously.
He is.
Are you a rock and roller, Frank?
Didn't Wall Street Journal call you the real estate rock czar?

(02:01):
2002.
They gave me that.
I don't wear tattoos, but I was tempted because I liked it.
Oh my God.
Go get one, dude.
Come on.
Where would you tattoo that?
I'm just curious.
Me?
Shoulder to shoulder.
We start out.
I'm a lot less exciting than I look.
My wife calls me a nerd in sheep's clothing.
She has a few tattoos.
I have none.
So I wouldn't do it.

(02:23):
I wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't do it.
I have a lot of tattoos.
Not a lot.
I have like five tattoos.
People find that surprising when they see me.
They think I'm really clean cut and then they find out I have quite a few tattoos.
You and I suffer from the opposite syndrome.
What would that make me?
That would make me a sheep in nerd clothing?

(02:43):
Is that what that would make me?
A wolf in nerd clothing.
A wolf in nerd's clothing.
Wow.
That is nerd in sheep's clothing.
So there you go.
I like that.
I love that.
I love that.
Well, I think that's a great segue.
It is a great segue.
Just so you know, I don't have any tattoos, but you know what?

(03:06):
Maybe we could be bonded for life and get some Braving Business tattoos.
What do you think?
What do you think?
Frank, PJ's wearing the Braving Business hat, which will be available on our website,
www.bravingbusiness.com.
Is it already available, PJ?
It's going to flip the switch.
We got everything set up.
So okay.
Well, well, it's first of all, what do you think of the hat?

(03:27):
And second, what would you think of it as a tattoo?
Well, let's do it in that order.
First of all, I did do my research on your podcast.
And once you get to you're in the top half a percent of podcasts, I think nationwide
or something like that worldwide, worldwide, worldwide.
Once you're in the top one tenth of one percent, then we go to the tattoo until then.
I like it.
I like it.

(03:48):
That is an awesome standard.
PJ, that's what we're doing.
All right.
So we're going to do it until we're one tenth of one percent, which would put us with some,
you know, in rarefied air.
We're talking Anderson Cooper is in that.
Listen, I'd be there to watch that tattoo get administered.
You could do it live to put on YouTube channel and you get a bunch of people following when
you do it.
I like everyone.
That's why Frank is so successful.
I'd like to introduce Frank, our new marketing director.

(04:13):
That's amazing.
Why don't we actually introduce Frank and tell people who he is?
Because we do have a true rock star across many genres on the call here.
So Frank McKinney is a person that, you know, we're going to call him a modern day Renaissance
man, sometimes referred to as the daredevil developer.

(04:34):
Frank has captivated the media and public for nearly 30 years.
And as a real estate artist, or as we like to say, artist, Frank has created and sold
44 ocean freight mansions on spec with an average price ocean freight spoken like a
true transportation guy.
You know, business transportation.
They are talking about ocean freight.

(04:55):
Sorry, ocean front mansions.
No one wants an ocean freight mansion.
Ocean front mansions on spec with an average of average selling price of $14 million each.
As a philanthropist capitalist, which I love hearing this, Frank has built 30 self sustaining
villages in the last 21 years in Haiti, providing over 13,000 children and their families with

(05:19):
homes, schools, clinics, community centers, churches, renewable food and clean water and
means to support themselves, which is outstanding.
And eight soon to be nine time international bestselling author in seven genres.
Frank's vision, risk taking and generosity has been the subject of numerous television,

(05:40):
radio and print features, including hometown favorite Oprah, ABC's 2020, the cover of USA
Today.
CBS is the early show.
Also Fox, CNN Discovery Channel, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fortune, Barron's
and put my hand down.
Oh, yes.
We can't we I'm what can we say?
I mean, the credentials are as long as my arm, which is heavily tattooed by the way.

(06:04):
Well, you've been in over 2900 TV and print stories.
So you know, we 901 man, one thing that's right.
That's one.
And we are.
PJ was just about to go through all 2900.
I was.
I was.
Yeah, I gotta take some out of all.
All right.
Anyway, move on then.
Yes.
And yet, as in the case with all of the successful people that we have on our show, Frank's life

(06:27):
has not been without adversity.
The man was asked to leave three high schools and went to juvenile detention seven times,
which means you really wanted to be there.
The man was asked.
Sorry.
And then he even turned his life around.
He faced massive challenges.
As he tells us in his recent bestseller, Adversatology from the root word adversity, he was at the

(06:51):
top of his game when he received devastating when he received a devastating diagnosis,
essentially a death sentence.
He's alive, thank God, to tell us a story today.
And we're grateful for that.
So now, Frank, before we get started, given your fondness for descriptors like philanthropocapitalist
and adversatology, I thought we'd coin a descriptor today in your honor, and hopefully you're

(07:14):
ready for it.
You, sir, are our guest-rordinaire as an extraordinaire.
Guest-rordinaire, PJ.
You are an artiste yourself, sir.
I am bumbling all over this.
I'm going to go eat something.
Frank McKinney, in all seriousness, thank you for joining us today on the Braving Business
Podcast.
Well, in doing the research for your podcast, when the invitation was extended, there's

(07:38):
that list you read, Oprah 2020 USA Today, and then the Braving Business Podcast.
So we say yes to opportunities to these really high-profile, high-quality shows.
So you touched on the bio.
Underneath the first layer of that bio, the first sheet, the first cover sheet, is a corn-fed
country boy who was born in Indiana.

(07:59):
Listen, I'm the oldest to sixth.
I went to those four high schools in four years, left with a 1.8 GPA after those seven
stints of juvenile detention, had a one-way plane ticket out of Indiana, little Carmel,
Indiana, landed in Palm Beach.
Man, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
You guys are younger than me, but that was a show that was on TV.
Think MTV Cribs for you young people, like the voyeuristic look inside the Lifestyles

(08:19):
of the Rich and Famous.
Are we younger than you?
I don't know.
I mean, you look like you're not younger than me.
You know the program?
Oh, yeah.
You remember that?
Oh, absolutely.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
Of course.
Yeah, absolutely.
I wanted that lifestyle, guys.
We're in our 50s.
I know we look like we're in our 30s, but we're in our 50s.
You do.
You do.
All right.

(08:40):
So we're close to the same age.
Anyway, I wanted that lifestyle, but how was I going to get it?
I wasn't going to get it with a 1.8 GPA.
No hope of pursuing a formal education with that kind of GPA.
Not even a community college would take me.
I began digging sand traps on a golf course as a maintenance worker.
I earned 180 bucks a week.
I love the opportunity to earn my own money.
I might believe in the welfare system, but I don't believe in the welfare mentality.

(09:01):
Big difference.
Well, welfare mentality is a toxic way of thinking.
I went from digging sand traps on a golf course to teaching tennis from $4 an hour to $40
an hour.
Eventually, when I was teaching tennis, guys, I was teaching tennis to the very wealthy
people living in oceanfront condominiums or homes.
I asked the question, how did you get here?

(09:21):
I earned my PhD in entrepreneurship, my master's in real estate on that tennis court.
I'm tiring my students out after 45 minutes.
They paid me for an hour.
I made sure they couldn't finish.
I'd sit them down and ask them, how'd you get here?
In over a two year span, the answer I heard over and over again was real estate.
And the late 80s, I bought a crack house, fixed it up, flipped it and made seven grand.

(09:44):
So that's a great segue.
My first question was about the real estate artist label that you gave yourself or someone
gave you, I don't know.
And I found it quite interesting.
We've heard of developers, we've heard of real estate agents.
You don't consider yourself, even though others have called you, as PJ said, a daredevil developer,
you consider yourself a real estate artist.

(10:06):
Can you help our audience understand what is a real estate artist and what attracted
you to real estate artistry?
So it was a Wall Street Journal who gave us the real estate rock bizarre name.
And it was Fortune magazine that called me a real estate artist again in the late 90s.
I always, listen, I always wished I could sing or play an instrument or sculpt or paint,
but I didn't have that gift.

(10:27):
I was blessed with the professional highest calling, a gift from God to put money on the
table, food in the pantry and money in the bank, to design and build these oceanfront
mansions on speculation.
And so I, even back in the crack house days, guys, I put $25 a yard carpet in instead
of 10.

(10:48):
I put three coats of paint on the wall instead of one.
I put a new grass sod down instead of just grass seed.
I put a new roof on instead of, you know, patching the hole in the roof.
I believe from a very early stage to sacrifice your bottom line, you needed to build your
reputation.
Let me rephrase that.
Your ROI is significantly enhanced by your ROR, return on reputation.

(11:10):
So I compressed my margins early on to build my reputation.
Build your reputation first and the bottom line will follow.
And yes, I went from making maybe seven grand per little crack house.
By the way, I didn't do a house worth more than a hundred grand for the first five years
of my career.
And after those five years, I didn't jump from 100 grand to 200 grand, went from 100
grand to $2.2 million.

(11:30):
That was my leap.
So all along I create now three-dimensional art on a sun drenched canvas, known as the
Atlantic ocean.
You can live in high art as a three-dimensional artist.
As long as the check clears.
As long as the check clears, it's a really important point.
I want to think about, there's more we want to dive into specifically around real estate

(11:52):
and what you do, but you said something and as PJ would tell you, and I know you've listened
to some episodes, I like to stop and kind of marinate in wisdom.
And I really, really like, you know, return on reputation.
I got to say, I've never heard that before.

(12:12):
So I don't know if you've coined that or you read about that, which is it and what does
it mean to you?
Yes, I have coined it.
My whole new book coming out is all about aspirational thoughts.
This is the book of quotes, thoughts, ideas, and soundbites over my entire 26 year writing
career.
So I realized that a lot of my competitors were in real estate.

(12:33):
They were developers.
They were bottom line driven.
They were spread-sheeters.
I always thought of this business as a craft, not a business.
I wanted to be good at the craft of real estate.
And I thought maybe if Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet were walking into a paint store to buy paint
supplies, would they buy the cheapest or would they buy the best?
Would they buy the best canvas, the best palette and the best brushes?

(12:55):
Of course they would.
So if I wanted to be a three-dimensional artist, I was going to build my reputation first,
believing that my bottom line would follow.
And that's where that little soundbite, build your ROR and your ROI will follow.
It was proven true.
Sure, my margins were tiny on my first few houses.
I mean, 7% margins.
By the time I graduated from the crack houses, how it worked less than a hundred grand, I

(13:20):
did hundreds of them.
We had increased our margins to 25%.
And then I went to a $2.2 million spec all the way up to a $50 million spec.
And you better believe that at the beginning of that career, my margins were pretty compressed
at the high end level because I wanted to build my reputation.
And as the dollar signs grew, as the zeros grew, so grew my margins because I paid attention

(13:43):
to my reputation.
If you knew Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet were painting a painting and you knew you could buy it,
wouldn't you line up outside waiting for it to be done?
That translates to the average days on market for our 44 mansions with an average selling
price of $14 million was 54 and a half days.
54 and a half days.
That included some stints that a house lasted a year.

(14:06):
So I mean, we knew we had people lined up to buy the Frank McKinney artistry because
of that return on reputation.
Very cool.
Very cool.
So you were teaching people how to play tennis at the, I'm assuming at the Bath and Tennis
Club out there in Palm Beach.

(14:26):
And they're kind of telling you the way to go.
What was like your first sell like?
Like you've got, I know you said you did a crack house.
Obviously that was not at Palm Beach or maybe it was, I don't know.
But like talk about the first Palm Beach purchase and sell.
Like what was that like?

(14:47):
The first impression really you have to let's talk to the person who's listening to this
who's maybe 30 or under you're young, you're consumeristic, you're materialistic, you're
impressionistic and you're egotistic.
That was all me under 30.
When I saw these people driving up to the tennis lessons in Ferraris, they had a Beyonce
lookalike wife or Richard Gere lookalike husband.
They had two beautiful kids, a yacht and a mansion.

(15:09):
Like man, I wanted that.
I wanted that lifestyle.
Once they taught me they earn theirs through real estate, I went to school on them.
And so I had to cut my teeth somewhere, PJ, and it was on those crack houses.
I got really good at the craft of real estate, not the business, the craft of real estate.
I felt, and in Malcolm Gladwell's book, blank, he says, you know, to put being an expert

(15:30):
in anything in life, you got to put in 10,000 hours.
That's five years.
After five years of flipping crack houses, I had exercised my wrist tolerance like a
muscle and eventually became stronger and able to withstand greater pressure.
So jumping to 2.2 million, it wasn't the biggest risk.
The $50 million house wasn't even the biggest risk.
The biggest risk was leaving a $100,000 a year job as a tennis instructor.

(15:52):
I bought a Ferrari when I was 21 from teaching tennis and then getting into the mind of the
ultra wealthy.
So my first transaction on the ocean wasn't very profitable because I over improved it
on purpose so I could build that reputation.
And so it was a $2.2 million house.
I think we made about, we barely cleared 10% on that house and that's a lot of risk to

(16:16):
make 10%.
I mean, if it went wrong, I could have, you know, my typical margins are 35%.
That's my Colonel Sanders secret.
For those of you who are wondering, acquisition basis plus improvement basis should rarely
equal more than 65% of retail.
I can slow that down if you want, but that's kind of my secret and I kind of stick to it.
Well, that's a good nugget.

(16:37):
So anyone in the audience who's in the buying, repairing and flipping, that's a metric to
aspire to.
PJ took you to that first house, the first multi-million dollar house.
I'm actually curious about the first house.
So the tennis was paying you well.
I'm a little surprised by that.

(16:58):
How well?
But tennis was paying you well.
I imagine you used earnings and savings from tennis to buy that first property, but what
was your connection?
I mean, were you a designer?
What is it that you do other than buying and I imagine you're a good salesperson, maybe
not.
What is it that you contribute to a real estate transaction that has your name associated

(17:23):
with it?
Everything.
I'm everything.
I'm the visionary.
I'm the builder.
I'm the, take the word, developer.
I'm the designer.
My wife does the interiors.
I'm the financier.
So on that first deal, I had saved $36,000 from baking out there in the hot sun as a
tennis instructor.
I was making 50 bucks an hour.

(17:43):
This is before the IRS existed, by the way.
Okay.
So I didn't know anything about the taxes.
That's how I was making so much money.
The statute of limitations had run for those of you who are working for the IRS and listening.
So I'm untouchable.
When it comes to, I went to my tennis students, I went to my tennis students and said, I want
to raise a hundred grand.
So I want to be able to do two houses, you know, buy it, buy them cheap, fix them up

(18:07):
and sell them.
And I had, I had about 15 tennis students that said no.
Two of them said yes.
So I took my 36 grand, put my money where my mouth is.
I didn't know no money down other people's money.
I didn't know any of that stuff.
I just put my money where my mouth was, took that 36 grand, combined it with another 64,000
that I had raised from a couple of students.
And we bought those first couple of crack houses.

(18:27):
And my approach at that time was, you know, I had to, I walked in the door with a mask
on this is way before mass, right?
It was smelled so bad.
There's used condoms.
Well, what are the, what are the kind are there, but used condoms, there's used condoms,
there's used needles, there's mattresses, there's, you know, dead animals in the corner.
But I saw opportunity and I took out a yellow pad of paper, you legal side.
And I started to write down what I was going to do to make that the nicest little crack

(18:49):
house on the block.
And wouldn't you know, we sold it for 103% of retail.
That's awesome.
Well, that's very cool.
You have since pivoted, right?
So you stayed with construction and in real estate, but you've also, at some point started
writing bestsellers.

(19:10):
What prompted you to write your first book?
Can I digress to the, just for a second to the name of your podcast?
I think it's really important to break the braving part of business, the bravery associated
with business.
So, okay.
One of the things that were stacked against me, no education, obviously no money, no friends,
no connections.
I, in my second to last book, aspire how to create your own reality and alter your DNA.

(19:36):
I get very deep into this concept, not concept, this belief, this fact now that motivation
washes off and goes down the drain with a soap at night.
It just doesn't last.
Aspiration lasts about as long as a bad sunburn.
Aspiration can alter your DNA and allow you to create your own reality.
What holds people back from pursuing these unworldly, ungodly, huge endeavors is fear.

(20:01):
So braving business, braving, you must be brave to get over fear.
Fear is associated with the thought of taking a risk, not with the actual taking of the
risk.
One of the things I learned real early, guys, I'm still afraid every day in my life, okay?
But I learned fear is a trigger, is a motivator.
If I'm afraid, that means I'm about to undertake a big change or big challenge in my life,

(20:23):
financial, spiritual, relational, dietary, what have you.
And when I'm feeling fear, it's because I'm thinking about taking a risk.
Once I take the risk, it's like the roller coaster that goes up the tracks before it
goes over the tracks.
It's like a car through a bowl out of its chest because you're afraid of what is about
to happen, but you're perfectly safe with that burden over your waist.

(20:46):
Once we go over the cliff in business or in the roller coaster, the fear dissipates and
it's replaced with joy.
So I just want to make sure one of the things I understand better than most is the importance
of taking risks in life.
And when we're stopped in our tracks, it's because of the thought of taking that risk

(21:06):
elicits the sensation of fear.
Feel the fear.
I feel fear every day.
That's a good sign you're about to undertake something, some big change or challenge in
your life.
So let's run with that and actually link that to my question because ultimately at the time
that you made the decision to start writing books, you're already a very successful entrepreneur

(21:31):
with a thriving business where everyone who was coming into contact with you, presumably
thought of you as something of a prodigy.
And here you are going into a new realm of writing books.
There is no guarantee even very, very famous people write books and many of those books,

(21:53):
in fact, most of those books fall completely flat.
What made you decide that you're going to take that risk of writing the book?
What is it that you wanted to say that you felt was so important that you chose to write
a book?
So you and I, we don't, we just know each other half an hour.
Maybe your people watching this do a little research.
You're going to say, well, that guy's got a, that guy's got a lot of flash.

(22:16):
He's got a lot of sizzle.
That's just the opening act to the substance that has allowed me to be around for 35 years.
I am the opening act to everything that I do.
I don't come with the house, some of the unveilings we do are so theatrical.
So they're scripted Broadway, you know, Vegas, back lot, theatrical grand openings.
The idea to draw attention to the fact that I sell a piece of property that only 50,000

(22:38):
people out of the worldwide population of 8 billion can afford.
When it came to the books, people were enamored with the fact that I was building, you know,
$20 million spec houses with a 1.8 GPA.
So I was asked to talk to business organizations, Harvard Business Club, even commencement speeches.
And I used to carry around in my top pocket, a piece of paper, a regular piece of paper,

(22:59):
eight and a half, I would fold it in half and I would be in here and I'd pull it out.
And if I was talking to a Harvard Business School, I had 49 little philosophies that
I lived by and I would handpick two or three based upon them on a time I had and I'd talk
about.
If I was talking to a commencement from an eighth grade class or something, I'd pick
another five that I would talk to.
Somebody came up to me and says, what is that you're holding onto?

(23:20):
And I said, oh, it's these little philosophies that I live by.
There's actually 50 of them on there.
And the guy said, well, you should turn that into a book.
Okay, well, three years later and umpteen rejection letters from publishers and from
agents, I finally got my book published.
My very first book came out in 2002, Make It Big, 49 Secrets for Building a Life of
Extreme Success.
That book was ahead of its time, guys, because the chapter, 49 chapters and each chapter

(23:44):
was seven or eight pages long.
This was before the attention deficit, not disorder that we all have, but the intention
deficit syndrome that we have right now.
We don't have the intention to read through a long chapter, long book.
So that was the result of one single piece of paper that had 50 philosophies that I lived
by that I turned into a book that had 49 because the publisher wanted 49, not 50.

(24:05):
And I thought that, hell, that's, hey, you know, this is the first kind of 20 years of
my business career in 2002.
I've been in business for 20 years.
Maybe I should represent the philosophies as I thought then as a late 30s year old person.
It was a philosophical book.
The publisher said, that's great, Frank.
You did really well with that.
You're a real estate person.

(24:25):
Write us a real estate book.
So my second book, Frank McKinney's Matrix Approach to Real Estate Success, I had to
go from a $50,000 fixer up to a $50 million mansion.
That satisfied them that I could write on the real estate.
And then I kind of got bored.
I went into young reader fantasy.
I went into spirituality, Christian romance.

(24:46):
I went into mindset, another real estate book, memoir.
And it satisfies me because I like to write different genres.
And I believe that I'm not bored when I'm writing.
It's my hobby.
That's what I love to do.
Okay.
No, that's very cool.
Very, very cool.

(25:06):
I wanted to, and I think Tal's going to follow up with your book about adversity, which I
think is awesome.
But I wanted to really kind of take a step back.
There was something that we covered in the preamble that I think is super cool and important.
And that is your work with Haiti.

(25:28):
And first of all, I love it when people take positives in their life and where they get
to a certain point and then they give back.
And you giving all of these thousands, tens of thousands of children and their families
opportunities in Haiti, which was just in the news the other day about the terrible

(25:52):
conflicts between all the gangs and what's left of the government and everything.
I mean, they're in a terrible spot.
And the fact that you have given to them-
4,000 prisoners just escaped from the two largest prisons in Haiti over the weekend.
Or didn't they let them out or something?
It's nuts.
No, no.
The gangs basically took on the police guarding them and got them out.

(26:15):
Yeah.
We can't fathom that kind of stuff going on in our little world.
So tell us about what got you to, what inspired you to help out Haiti?
What got you there?
What did you do?
And share that story with us.
If there was ever an encore to this, if we did make it to the 110 to 1%, it was because

(26:37):
I pushed you over the top.
I would spend the whole time talking about the five minutes that I'm going to share with
you right now.
So there's a passage in the Bible that reads from Luke 12, 48 that says, to whom much is
entrusted, much is required.
To whom much is given, much is expected.
If you're not in the Bible, it's a great life mantra.
Please don't turn the podcast off.
It's a great way to live.
To whom much is entrusted, much is required.

(26:58):
When I realized that God had blessed me with a professional highest calling to build these
mansions on speculation with really no training, it was something that I was very grateful
that I was given that gift.
And I took full advantage of that gift of building these beautiful houses, designing,
building, selling, marketing, what have you.
I was at the bottom of my spiritual life.

(27:18):
I was really ready to either put a gun to my mouth or jump off a bridge in the early
2000s because I had reached the pinnacle of success professionally, but I had lost all
the heart in my soul.
Every bit of soul in that little heart was gone.
And I went to my mentor and I said, why I don't cuss off, I don't want to say one bad
word.
Why do I feel like shit?
I went to my mentor and he said, Frank, you haven't discovered your spiritual highest

(27:39):
calling.
You know what your professional highest calling is.
You do great with it.
You've been a responsible steward for that professional highest calling.
What are you doing with your spiritual highest calling?
I said, Rich, Rich DeVos, the co-founder of Amway, 65th richest person in the world at
the time was my mentor for 20 years.
He said, you have this gift of building houses where you're super wealthy.
If you don't know what a spiritual highest calling, why don't you provide housing to

(28:00):
people who don't have it?
I mean, you're a linear thinker, Frank.
You've got this one point in GPA.
You don't have to be too smart.
Just provide housing.
Oh man, the light bulb went off.
So I started volunteering in a soup kitchen one hour a night right before Monday night
football.
And I felt the soul coming back to my heart.
I got really good at helping the homeless just by feeding them from the back of a beat

(28:20):
up old Econoline van.
And then in the late 90s, early 2000s, we started this Caring House project wherein
we coined that phrase, I'm a Philanthrocapitalist, which basically takes the best of philanthropy,
which is the heart gets rid of the worst, which is charity.
Charity exacerbates poverty, does not solve the problem.

(28:43):
Takes the best of capitalism with this money gets rid of greed.
You marry the two together and we have built now our 31st self-sustaining village in Haiti.
Why?
Back to that passage from the Bible, too much is given, much is entrusted.
I now am able to dovetail my professional or my spiritual highest calling.
And I'll tell you what, it saved my life.

(29:05):
This happened in 2001.
Look at all the houses I built since then.
Look at the design ideas I've come up with since then.
So it gave me, it gave purpose to my passion.
I was passionate about these mansions, but you know what I was passionate about?
Putting more cars in my garage, closing my closet, and booting my pantry.
I was not passionate about filling my soul.
And when we were able to go over to Haiti and build an entire village for a family of

(29:31):
400 people, for less than 300 grand, I can build a house in Haiti for under five grand.
Man, oh man, did that give me purpose to not only continue to do what I did for a living,
but to involve others on the philanthropic capitalistic side and build these 31 villages
in Haiti.
That's my legacy.
It ain't going to be the houses on the ocean.
Sure.
Sure.
No, I mean, and what an incredible calling.

(29:53):
So you'd mentioned that, you know, you just said it saved your life.
Tell us more about that.
What does, what does that mean?
I know you were saying the soul is coming back to your heart and all that, but when
you're saying it saved your life, dig a little more into that for us.
You got everybody listening, use me as the Petri dish.
Use me as the metaphor.

(30:14):
This is what happened to you.
If you listen to the Braving Business Podcast and you get all this great advice and you
implement it, you can succeed.
You know, forget the rags to riches story that you just told in the beginning.
That's not hard.
What's hard is to find your true calling in life beyond the professional calling and that
almighty pursuit.
Basically it's like a flywheel.

(30:35):
It's a maddening cycle where the energy that we put into the pursuit of material things,
the bigger house, a faster car, a prettier wife, whatever it is, never returns the favor.
That energy never comes back in the same, with the same force that you put out.
Once I found that I could take some of my material successes, and we have a lot of donors

(30:55):
now and we involve them, and basically, listen, simpleton, I provide housing to the world's
poorest of the poor by selling housing to the world's richest of the rich who don't
even need another house.
I mean, listen, they've got houses all over the world.
I'm probably selling their fifth or sixth house, but be able to take five grand, let's
say, and provide a concrete house for a family of eight that was living in a mud shack covered

(31:18):
with palm fronds from a roof, rodents the size of cats running across the floor, gnawing
on the children's fingers and toes as they slept.
That's the legacy.
That generational, the impact we had on those families is going to be generational.
By the way, I don't feel any better or worse about myself.
Frank, don't you feel so good doing that?
I don't feel any better.

(31:39):
I'm grateful.
I'm not proud.
I substituted gratitude for pride about a decade ago.
I'm not proud of anything I've done.
I'm grateful there for the opportunity to have been aware enough to take advantage of
this spiritual highest calling.
And now when I hear these children, 14,000 kids, they're eating dirt guys flavored with
bouillon and lemon juice.
Now they're eating two part protein, one part carbohydrate because of this philanthropic

(32:02):
capitalistic approach.
So I'd be remiss because our approach with this podcast is generally speaking to get
our guests to talk about their innermost experience.
And so far in this episode, I'll tell you what I'm hearing.
I'm hearing a hugely passionate, successful individual who feels grateful to have had

(32:31):
the life and opportunities he's had.
But you've said some things that suggest that inside you were experiencing some angst and
I feel obliged to go there a bit.
What prompted you to not feel okay given you were setting the world on fire professionally?
And what did you mean by save your life?
I mean, PJ asked you that question.
I think you glossed over it.

(32:52):
You went to the outcome.
What did you feel?
What was it about where you were that didn't feel complete to you?
So when you're on this rapid rate of ascent that begins on day one when you walk out of
juvenile detention for the last time as a 17 year old in 364 days, right?
Because when you're 18, you're going to go to prison.

(33:14):
You walk out of there, you get on a plane, you go to South Florida with $50 in your pocket
and basically a backpack with all you can carry on your back.
And from the moment that plane hits the ground, it is almost straight up line from the early
80s until the mid to late 90s.
From nothing to those houses.
So the sensation of always bettering your previous best became my drug.

(33:39):
And yes, my therapist says you are addicted, Frank, you have an addictive personality.
You're addicted to excitement.
And in my case, when I was younger, the excitement, the outlet for that excitement was destructive.
It was self destructive.
Selling drugs, stealing cars, holding up gas stations at gunpoint, whatever it was.
I didn't need the money.
I didn't need the car.
I didn't need the drugs.
I did it because it was exciting.

(33:59):
I found a constructive outlet for a destructive tendency.
Selling spec houses for $15 million and not knowing if I'm at either Ruth Chris Steakhouse
or out of a dumpster.
That satisfies my need for excitement.
When that upward spiral started to crest, telling the most expensive spec house in the
history of Palm Beach County, what's next?
This still happens to me today, guys.

(34:21):
This isn't something I've mastered.
Well, the only thing I've mastered is being aware of it.
Being aware, if you go to my web page and how I decided to unveil this new aspirational
thought, inspirational images, I jumped a motorcycle over the cummer and landed in a
lagoon at my age.
So that need to have the thrill, the addiction to the excitement fed caused me to hit some

(34:44):
dead ends where I thought about taking my life.
It's almost like the rock star who's no longer performing on the main stage, he's on a cruise
ship somewhere and he walks into the bathroom and takes a handful of pills.
I know that feeling.
Going from being on Oprah to talking to the Kiwanis Club or something, that was devastating
to my ego, I guess.

(35:06):
I got therapy.
I learned that there was something else out there, basically through that mentor, guys,
that said, Frank, you have a whole other dimension that you can expand upon being the spiritual
highest calling.
And where it's led me, not only the 14,000 kids, but every single book that comes out
that I write, we do a book tour, a massive book tour that stops at homeless shelters,

(35:29):
soup kitchens, food pantries, detention centers, abused women's facilities, veterans' facilities,
treatment facilities, delivering the message of hope because I've been there.
I know what it's like to lose everything and the only thing you're just hanging on to,
and you look at the cover of my aversitology book, that hand's hanging on to a little thread
of hope.
I don't want you to let go because I know what it felt like to almost want to let go.

(35:53):
So PJ, if you don't mind, just before your next question, first of all, thank you for
sharing that and you shared some incredibly personal and vulnerable things, which I appreciate.
And we've done something in a range of 50 episodes.

(36:13):
We probably recorded 60.
So it's amazing to me how many people that are hugely successful have experienced tremendous
highs in their careers and their lives.
Tell us the story about I contemplated suicide.
I was not feeling that I'd found my calling.
I needed more.

(36:34):
I didn't feel satisfied.
I want for the sake of the members of our audience who are listening, who have not yet
achieved the highest point in their careers, one thing I want to call out is if your assumption
is that when you do, your problems will be solved and you'll just be, you know, wake
up in the morning rolling into $100 bills in your bed and never have angst again, I

(36:57):
think the stories that we hear on the Braving Business podcast and what we just heard from
Frank would be, should be a resounding slap in the face to anyone that has that fantasy.
The reality is life does not just become a ball of cherries because you've had success.
The reality is time and again, the people who have been on the show that have told us

(37:20):
the stories that have stirred us the most, it's been because they found a higher calling.
They reached a point where it was no longer about that one significant deal or one major
business accomplishment.
Those things, they should not be diminished anyway.
I don't think Frank is saying those things don't matter.

(37:41):
I think he's saying that's not what matters most.
That's not where you derive meaning from.
What would be your reaction to what I just said, Frank?
Would you agree with that?
I'm going to paint a little picture.
Let's close our eyes and pick.
I totally agree with that.
Let's draw a little picture.

(38:01):
Let's paint a painting on what you just said.
The more concentrated the positions of your bank account become, meaning the more zeros
you have in whatever accounts or brokerage accounts that you have, the more concentrated
that becomes because of your successes, the more concentrated life's minefields become.

(38:24):
So you're working at 7-Eleven, you're making $8 an hour and you go home at the end of the
night, you've got a six pack, you drink a beer and you've got the other five tied around
your belt loop.
You're not going to step on a minefield.
You're not going for it.
I'm not knocking you if you work at 7-Eleven.
But if you're aspirational, if you want to succeed, if you're motivated, if you want
to make all this money, you will begin to populate your own life's minefields.

(38:47):
And believe me, you will step on one, just like you would in war, and you will blow the
F up.
That's what I'm talking about happened to me in the late 90s.
It's happened to me on multiple times.
There's many processes that you take to become aware of what it's going to happen again.
But you referenced a word just a second ago, Tal, that's important.

(39:09):
You all know what an all-terrain vehicle is, an all-terrain vehicle.
What's the acronym for an all-terrain vehicle?
ATV.
Bring that to your life.
Authenticity, transparency, vulnerability.
Like ATV.
So the people that I look up to, that I put on a pedestal, aren't the people who put themselves
on a pedestal.

(39:30):
These are people who aren't afraid to be authentic, to be transparent, and to be barbed.
And in this case, yes, listen, I'm asked to talk all over the world with these books.
And I do start out with the lifestyles of the rich and famous story because I know how
to get your attention with it.
The $50 million house and a 22-bedroom, 24 bathrooms, and an 18-foot garage.
And who bought it?
And how long was it on the market?
And what the countertops were made out of.

(39:51):
I'll get your head spinning, but then I'll take you down a really dark path where I went
and ask you the question, what's it all for in the end?
And that's when I come in with our carrying house project and what we've done before 14,000
kids who were eating dirt.
So I can still do my big mansions or whatever I want to do in real estate, but now I have
a purpose behind the passion.
And that purpose isn't materialistic.

(40:11):
It isn't to put more cars in the garage, clothes in the closet, food in the pantry.
My mentor said, Frank, you will take care of your needs.
Like how much food can you eat?
How many clothes can you wear?
How many cars can you drive?
In his case, how many airplanes can you fly?
And how many, he owned the Orlando Magic.
How many sports teams can you own?
So once he reached that full level, then he was the most giving person I ever met.

(40:35):
So it's, we don't have enough time, but you know where it starts guys?
Guys meaning the hosts and the people listening.
If you go to, if you're traveling through the airport, find a custodian.
Find a custodian in the airport, they're invisible.
Nobody pays attention to watch how nobody pays attention to them.
Go up to them and tell them you're doing a fantastic job and give them $5.

(40:58):
If you happen to be a Denny's and you've got a, you know, a nice meal or whatever, go into
the kitchen.
Just excuse me, Mr. Manager.
I'm going to go give this guy $5 and tell him it's the best meal I ever had.
Every single stop of my book tours, 26 cities, 27 hotels, every hotel, I take the free, the
free stationery.

(41:19):
This is the cleanest room I've ever stayed in.
Thank you very much.
$5 copy of the book.
Those kind of things, you know, look for the invisible, the downtrodden, the forgotten,
the oppressed.
And yes, it's biblical and we can go that way if you want, but this is what life's about
when you've been given the responsibility to be a steward for these gifts you've been

(41:40):
blessed with.
No, that's first of all, I love, I love that idea, right?
Touching lives at every stop.
That's fantastic.
I also wanted to let you know and calm your worries that, you know, you had mentioned
that the more zeros there are in a bank account, the more complicated life can get.

(42:01):
I only have three zeros in my bank account.
That's 0.00.
So I have no complications.
Everything's very easy for me.
But that being said, I wanted to touch about something that you also went through just
yourself, you, and facing a medical crisis, right?

(42:22):
Like you got a life-threatening diagnosis where, you know, you had to draw upon yourself
some inner resources to navigate this process.
What has that done for you, right?
Instead of done to you, what has it done for you?
Amazing.

(42:42):
I was diagnosed on March 11, 2020, which is the year the country was shut down with COVID.
I was diagnosed with a life-threatening blood disorder.
I don't like to say the word because I don't like to feed it.
It actually speaks to the second chapter of my book.
The title of the book is Adversatology, Overcoming Adversity When You're Hanging On By A Thread.
Physical adversity, financial adversity, spiritual or relational adversity.

(43:03):
We're all going to face them.
I told nobody about my condition.
I didn't tell, I told my mother, my wife knew, of course, I'm the oldest of six, none of
my, my, my siblings knew.
I told my spiritual advisor and I told my therapist.
So the only five people, four people that knew about my condition.
I went about coming about, I went about designing a program, if you will, a way to get over

(43:24):
this adversity and put it behind me.
The word adversity has nine letters in it.
This book has nine chapters in it.
A, accept it.
Put, put your head in the scene, put your head in the scene.
What sticks out of the brown?
You're asked to get kicked.
Accept the adversity that has, has placed itself in your life.

(43:44):
D, dis-identify.
I'm not going to go through all of them.
D, I gave my adversity no energy.
That's why I won't say it.
It was never on any of my charts.
Even though I accepted it, I am not going to, I'm going to starve it from the energy
that I don't want.
I don't want get well cards.
I don't want balloons.
I don't want plasma donations.
I'm going to get through this myself.
B, violate, violate fate.

(44:07):
As predicted upon my life by doctors, by well-wishers, no, I'm going to violate that fate and create
my own.
So what I learned is I didn't write this adversity book, which by the way is a made up word.
It's a study of adversity just like biology or theology would be, but I didn't write it
until I had successfully overcome my adversity.

(44:29):
So I could walk the talk for you, let's say PJ, who was going through a divorce, a bankruptcy,
a spiritual crisis.
You can apply the nine steps that I lay out in adversity in the word adversity to overcome
your whatever your adversity is.
I can't listen, I can make this to cost you.

(44:50):
I can't help you avoid it, but I can, I can for sure help you get through it quicker and
with less pain.
Very, very neat.
I mean, and thank you.
Thank you for, thank you for sharing that.
There's a lot of people that are going through a lot of some real emotional things, right?

(45:13):
Everything you're talking about, whether it's, whether it's financial or, or, you know, what's,
what's happening in their lives is one thing, but when it's your health, it really, that's
when you really hear all the screeching breaks, right?
Like, I mean, talk about something that brings not only, you know, changes all your focus,

(45:34):
it changes your own, your own thoughts of mortality and what the future holds and everything.
I mean, it's, it's scary stuff.
I always listen, I was the poster child for perfect health and I never, this always happened
to somebody else until I got that diagnosis.
And I, I, I, I was on a magic carpet ride where the magic carpet was just ripped out
from underneath me.
I was covered in Teflon until I wasn't, you know, and so.

(45:57):
So you know what?
I'm going to take you there because honestly, as you mentioned, ATV, I really like that
acronym for authenticity, transparency and vulnerability.
And I'm going to say, I haven't heard vulnerability.
I particularly want to, to the question PJ asked you, the question about, man, you're
getting a life threatening diagnosis.
You went and I appreciate that.
You are a man who finds purpose in every challenge you found in that challenge.

(46:21):
You found a purpose that purpose was to help other people overcome adversity.
That's that's that's incredibly honorable.
But talk to me about you at the moment you get a diagnosis.
Hey, my life's at risk.
I'm on this, as you said, magic carpet, right?
What's going through your head?
I mean, at that moment, you're certainly not thinking I'm going to write a book about it.
You're thinking, no, no, right.
What are you thinking about that moment?

(46:42):
So let's make sure that this isn't me seeing some kind of capitalistic opportunity that
there was no vote.
I just want to survive.
Once I realized I made it, that's when the book was written, when I'm when I'm in it.
So what you see on the on the screen here, there's a picture in this book where I went
from, you know, 195 pounds to 170 pounds.
All this hair came out to the point where I was wearing a wig around.

(47:03):
I could get away with it because my hair looks kind of like a wig.
I mean, everything that my brand was being destroyed.
Fortunately for me, it was during COVID.
So I couldn't go out anyway.
But what was happening at home was the degradation of my my body in front of the mirror and everything
that my my member I was a I'm an ultra marathoner.
I run 100 mile races.

(47:24):
I was a tennis pro.
All that I my wife had to carry me down the steps who you weighed 105 pounds to get me
to the doctor.
So it was it was rage.
Like when I got the diagnosis, I didn't cry.
I broke everything in sight.
I picked up things and slammed them against the wall.
I just couldn't believe that God my God, that I'm so good and I'm so honored.

(47:47):
I honor and I build these villages in Haiti that I'm going to die.
And when I say the F word, my best friend had just died from the same diagnosis two
weeks before.
I didn't know I had it until I have it.
And then he died from I'm like, oh, I'm not going down his route to a room like a hospital
with balloons and get well, car.

(48:08):
No, I don't want any of that.
I mean, let's just pre make me and what we're going to spread across the ultra marathon
course that I love the most.
And then I and then once I got the A word, except I started to get so I'm accepting this
is happening to the the Midas man.
Everything he touches turns the goal.
I'm accepting it.

(48:29):
And no, you're not going to give it energy.
You're going to decide that identify from it.
You're going to violate the faith that people are projecting upon you.
You are every certain things I did every single day, every single day, like drink two ounces
of lemon juice so I could alkalize my body.
I still do that four years later.
These are steps.
Once I saw they were working for me, savor everything, cling to nothing.
I learned that whole like philosophy while I was sick.

(48:51):
I was savoring every moment.
I wasn't clinging to anything like it was before.
Once I had the letters complete, then I felt it was time to share.
But in the moment, how I was hard to live with.
Yeah, I was there with a lot of pity.
You know me, Mr. Real Estate Rockstar.
Now he's picking up what and he's weighing 170 pounds and there's clobbed the hair on

(49:15):
this pillow.
And it was it was very rough.
Geez.
That sounds very did you know, just real quick, I do have a question for him.
Did you like what led to the diagnosis?
Were you feeling ill?
Was there something that tipped it off?
Were you just going for a regular checkup?
Tell me what happened.
Yeah, it's a pretty long story.

(49:36):
But I was going thank God I was going for a regular checkup because my my white blood
cell count, which is usually a little high because I'm an ultramarathon runner and white
the high white blood cell count means your body's in a state of repair.
So if I'm out doing a 20 mile training or I'm always in a state of repair, but it went
from your range would be six to 10,000.
It went from 12,000, which is kind of high, but normal for me to 15 to 250,000 and basically

(49:59):
a month, which it would have blown out my bone marrow and I would have died.
So some of the book I talk about adversity being being consequential, meaning you bring
it on yourself.
Think about that.
Your your divorce, your bankruptcy, your spiritual challenges, your physical charges.
Are they are they innocent?
Meaning you your child gets hit by a car.

(50:21):
You know, you're back.
So somebody runs over your kid.
Well, did you have anything to do with that?
That's pretty innocent or consequential.
I was racked with did I do something to my body to bring this on to to to awaken the
demon that was in my own marrow because of how I pushed myself in these, you know, 100
mile races in the Death Valley Desert and 125 degree heat that I was wondering, do I

(50:45):
actually bring this on?
Like was I doing something so extreme that I brought it on myself?
I don't know the answer and I won't unless I get to heaven or when I get to heaven.
But after a while, it didn't matter.
And it was there and I accepted it.
That's awesome.
So the and look, you've first of all, we can't be a we're not going to do a Joe Rogan con,

(51:05):
you know, podcast where we're on here for four hours because we easily could have you
on here for four hours.
You got you got a ton of stories and a lot of great things to say.
One of the tidbits that I found them that I found just awesome is that you drive in
1988.
You go.
I do.
I used to say that I wanted to put a 454 Hemi in the you go and just go just go race everybody.

(51:32):
I love that.
I've seen a year when a demolition derby didn't fare too well.
But but yes, I do.
It's my primary driver.
I have two of them.
I have a I have a 1988 you go that I wrapped to look like it was in a barn for like 30
years.
It's all it looks rusty and patina probably looks bad words underneath the wrap.
And it does with the wrap and I have a rare 1990 convertible you go that they only brought

(51:56):
7200 United States.
That's amazing.
PJ, do you know why you go is called the you go?
I mean, it's maybe self evident.
But yeah, it's from it's from the former country of Yugoslavia.
When it came out, it was like the their their thing was the cheapest vehicle you could buy.
That was new.
So I'll share with both of you as PJ knows.

(52:16):
I don't know if you know this, Frank.
I was born in Israel and I was born in Israel in 1970s.
And in the 1970s, Israel actually was producing its own cars and Israel produced a car.
The name of the car was Susita.
I guess in English it would be spelled S.U.S.I.T.A.
And it was made out of pressed straw, pressed straw and Susita literally Seuss means force.

(52:41):
So the car was in effect glorified horse.
So there you go.
My parents proudly owned one.
And I think that beats that beats a eighty eight.
You go, I don't know.
Maybe not.
Maybe it's kind of a close call.
I think when we were more down on Google and that are they around at all?
You know what?
I'm not sure.
They must be.
There must be some around somewhere.

(53:01):
There were the ugliest things you've ever seen.
And I actually remember there was a piece that I don't know if it was eaten off our
car by a passing animal, but there was a definite missing piece of our car.
I remember that vividly.
That's about my you go story.
I've never heard.
So it's made of hay.

(53:21):
It was made out of pressed hay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Israeli ingenuity.
We we we need to wind up, but we have a couple of questions I'm going to ask one.
Peter will take the last.
My question is about a quote you gave us in a pre interview, which was your advice is
to regret the things you've done, not the things you haven't.

(53:43):
I mean, everything you've said in this interview, I think reinforces that.
I I think I know why you have that mindset, having heard you speak for the last 45 minutes
or so.
But can you share with the audience what you mean by that?
It's very in this.
It gets back to the risk and fear conversation we had before.

(54:06):
So I'm not going to repeat it.
Just go back and listen to it again if you didn't catch that part.
I learned pretty early on that regardless of my pursuits, regardless of your pursuits,
you are going to have regrets in life.
And as I'm gotten older, I do see in the distance that rocking chair on the front porch as an

(54:26):
80 year old.
And I see me sitting in that rocking chair and I see me rocking back and forth and talking
about some of the things I regret.
And I would rather regret what I did because I tried versus the things I can never do again.
And so if you're going to have regrets, which you will regret what you did, meaning it's

(54:51):
something that you tried that didn't work out.
I tried to do be the first to do a nine figure spec house.
That's a hundred million dollars back out.
It didn't work.
I spent a year in Italy and designed the sixty two thousand square foot house.
I put half a million dollars into this and it didn't work out.
So we came and bought the land out from underneath me.

(55:11):
I was a willing seller, but it never came to pass.
The bad water race that I didn't get a chance to talk about, which is this ultra marathon
I run in the Death Valley Desert in the summer, 125 degree heat, 135 mile race with the pavement
being 200 degrees.
I've attempted that race 12 times.
I've failed it.
I finished at seven.
I failed five.
So I'd rather regret going out there and trying and having like I had a heart arrhythmia one

(55:35):
year and I had issues than saying, man, I'm too old for this.
I shouldn't do this anymore.
You know, even this stunt I did, you got to go to my YouTube channel.
Look at this.
I'm 60.
And just a few weeks ago, I jumped a motorcycle with no practice over a 15 foot book cover
landing in a lagoon and then riding the motorcycle out of the lagoon.

(55:56):
I could have easily said, son, double do that for me.
Don't make it look like I did it, but I didn't want to have that regret.
So when you're on that rocking chair in that rocking chair on that front porch, regret
what you did with a little chuckle and maybe a few stars, not what you didn't do.
I love that actually.
Side note, there's a lake and, and, uh, did you hear about that?

(56:18):
The lake that's in Death Valley right now?
Uh-huh.
I know it very well.
Like manly.
That's got me nuts.
That would, that would be cool.
So, uh, we want to kind of share what you have coming around the corner.
You have a big old project that's coming out for 24 of 2024.
Can you give us a sneak peek into this?

(56:39):
You know, what we can expect in this new adventure.
So what this is, this is a, it's not a book.
It's a compilation and it's a very unusual compilation where it is a let's call it 300
pages on the left-hand side of every page is an image.
On the right-hand side of the page are a few quotes.
Take you back to early childhood when you learned how to read and retain.

(57:03):
The image helps you retain the thought, quote, or idea.
Ten chapters, hope, love, introspect, breathe, risk, God, family.
If you're in the hope chapter and you need some hope in your life, there'll be 15 images,
full page, full color, almost cocktail size book, image that relates to the hope that

(57:25):
you're seeking on the right-hand page are quotes, thoughts, ideas, soundbites that I've
written or spoken that represent hope.
That compilation, I, you know, it's a book.
Yes, but it's more of a compilation comes out on at a book launch party on April 24th
at a museum.
We're running out the whole Boca Raton museum because this thing is a work of art.
This photography, all of the photos are mine, by the way, I've got into photography last

(57:48):
five years and these aren't just sunrise and the sunsets.
These are evocative, creative from the mind of Frank McKinney photos, but the whole idea
is to get rid of this purpose built up in chapter books.
Use the image that's going to knock your socks off to help you remember the thought, quote,
or idea that really resonates with you.
We're doing that at a museum where I've got a pretty interesting live metamorphosis where

(58:12):
this I will come to life through a piece of art.
All of our grand invasions are very theatrical.
We're sort of in sharing limeade moonshine shots, which people are going to love that.
I've got apricot, paviar being served.
So our parties are never missed.
Don't want to miss the launch party.

(58:34):
I don't care.
It's funny.
It's funny you said that, you know, I live fairly close to where you are and I would,
you know, if an invitation happened to arrive, I would I would be honored to join with my
girlfriend hint hint.
But I was also going to ask you whether you'd be willing to make a couple of these books
available to readers who write in to the business Braving Business Podcast and tell us why they

(58:58):
think, you know, they should get one of these new Frank McKinney books.
Would you be up for that?
You tell me how many you want for your readers and and they should you know what they should
write in and say?
Yeah, well, it's fine why they deserve one.
But why should the Braving Business Podcast be in the top 10 of a percent?

(59:20):
Like what?
No, it's it's it's funny.
Bring that up because as we're finishing, you know, you said that in the beginning and
you know, we have we have an enterprising associate who sent me a couple of websites
and he's like, hey, I want you to know, he looked up Anderson Cooper since I sent Anderson
Cooper and he is he is in fact the top one fifth of he's point oh five.

(59:43):
So five one half of I don't know that's better than than one tenth.
Right.
But very interestingly, the right view with Lara Trump, we we are more popular than her.
That's very interesting.
So there you go.
People people would rather hear about hope and in stories like ours than other.

(01:00:03):
So that's kind of compelling.
You know what?
I think it'd be great.
Let's let's go ahead and do three.
We'll do three books.
I love Frank's suggestion.
I'm also going to say if you want to write this and tell us why you think you should
get that book, you know, maybe Frank will be kind enough to sign it and we'll be happy
to send it your way.
Frank, it's been an absolute pleasure, a complete privilege.

(01:00:24):
Thank you so much.
I you know, I you never know what you're going to get with your guess is kind of like a box
of chocolate.
Right.
And between the rock and roll look, you know, the energy, the fact that you and I actually
share some super interesting things.
We got the diagnosis, you said, on March 11th of 2020.

(01:00:46):
That same week, the business that I was running, a company that I built from nothing to process
billions of dollars in payment, had a setback that essentially cost me tens of millions
of dollars and really changed my life.
I actually gave up my home with 11 bathrooms and a whole bunch of bedrooms and four stories
and went in a different direction in my life as a result of that.

(01:01:07):
And trust me, at the moment, I also wailed at the gods and said, why the hell did this
happen to me?
I was a good person.
And looking back at it now, I don't see it anymore as something that happened to me.
I see it as something that happened for me.
And I think that everything that we've heard from you today has been about how you no matter
what you're faced with, you have opportunities to to engage in self pity.

(01:01:29):
And I'm not saying that there's no place for that at the initial reaction to almost anything
difficult is to say, you know what, this sucks and I don't deserve it and that's OK.
But then after you do that for a minute, being able to pivot and find your way to purpose
is the best way out and the best way to ultimately be able to look back at whatever the experience
is.

(01:01:50):
Hopefully nothing life threatening.
But even if that's what you're facing, be able to look at that and say, you know what,
whatever it is, wherever it goes, I'm going to get something valuable out of it and I
will help others get something valuable out of that.
And that makes life, frankly, in my opinion, worth living.
Frank McKinney, thank you so much for making time to join us today on the Braving Business

(01:02:10):
Podcast.
It's been a real honor and privilege.
Absolutely.
Thank you, pal.
And pal, you are coming to the party.
If you don't mind, go to the aspirationalthoughts.com page, aspirationalthoughts.com.
There's a little sign up form.
It doesn't cost you anything.
It'll fill up in the next few days.
So I'd love to have you there.
You got it.
I will be I will do that.
So we are listeners and viewers, there's a bunch of ways to reach Frank.

(01:02:32):
We are going to share them in the listening notes.
So if you like what you heard, you want to read a book, Frank Road, you want to see some
of the homes he's built, please go to those links.
We have Instagram, we have Facebook.
I think we have LinkedIn and ex formerly known as Twitter.
So we have all of those in the listening notes.
Go find Frank.
He's fascinating and worth finding.
Have a good one.

(01:02:53):
Go out there and be brave.
Thank you so much.
Bye, guys.
And that's a wrap, folks.
Like what you heard?
Want to support the show?
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Visit us on YouTube and please like and rate us on all of your favorite podcast streaming
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You can also see exclusive content, subscribe for free to our weekly blog, support our sponsors

(01:03:14):
and soon buy our merchandise at www.bravingbusiness.com.
Thanks for being a part of our production and we'll see you next time on the Braving
Business Podcast.

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