July 30, 2025 • 50 mins
This episode is with Trevor Schade, who went from hustling toothpaste in MLM to building multi-million-dollar wealth through strategic real estate investing. You'll hear how his background in programming, a life-threatening stroke, and deep sales psychology helped him not just survive—but thrive.
Trevor Schade is a distinguished figure in the real estate industry, blending a deep understanding of market dynamics with innovative strategies and relentless drive. With over a decade of experience, Trevor has built a robust real estate portfolio valued at over $4 Million and led a skilled team of agents to new heights.
His programming background allows him to leverage technology for enhanced operations and marketing, while his Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification highlights his commitment to operational excellence. A voracious reader, Trevor has absorbed insights from over 100 books on psychology and sales, equipping him with a profound understanding of human behavior and sales strategies.
Overcoming a near total life implosion including near bankruptcy, divorce, and a paralyzing stroke now allows Trevor to empathize and strategize with others regardless of the season or challenge they’re facing.
Find out more about Trevor Schade by visiting https://trevorschade.com
Listeners are invited to connect with Trevor one-on-one and explore the life-changing investment opportunities he offers. He’s ready to help move your business or organization monumentally forward, handing you unfathomable goal achievement—and giving you your life back.
🔑Rob Z Wentz is a Leadership Communication Expert. Rob teaches, trains, and develops people and organizations to become exceptional communicators and leaders. With Rob, leaders find clarity, take action, and succeed with integrity, making them “the expert” in their industry.
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Discover everything about Rob Z 📲 Linktr.ee/RobZWentz
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🔑Rob is also a Christian entrepreneur, founder of The Unstuck Movement (on all social & podcast platforms), best-selling author, social media marketer and strategist, award-winning radio personality, speaker, and influencer. For over 20 years Rob has been leading people to communicate at a higher level.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:24):
Hello and welcome back to the Unstuck movement.
True testimonies, A breakthrough.
I am your host as always, Rob Z and today we have an incredible
guest with us. Trevor Shade is on the platform.
We're talking, you know, tactical empathy, having that
wealth life that you want to live, building power and and
pass passive power into your life, being lean and lucrative
(00:46):
and unstuck scaling, among so many other things.
But Trevor, one thing that I find really interesting is
something you talk about being ambitiously lazy, and this is a
whole mindset that you stand behind.
So how do you teach or instill that ambitiously lazy mindset?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, thanks for
having me on the unstuck move, unstuck movement, Rob.
(01:08):
I appreciate it. And yeah, ambitiously lazy was
invented, I'd say, by my sister.She's a year older than me when
we were eight and nine years oldand she called me out and she
said, Trevor, you will outwork anyone so that you don't have to
work. You're ambitiously lazy.
And I thought, and at that time I was like, I don't understand,
(01:31):
you know, it's complex and whatever.
And as I, as I grew and I got AI, got certifications in lean
and in Six Sigma and these, these efficiency business
process methodologies, I startedlearning that there's things
like, you know, smarter, not harder.
And there's actually these termsaround it.
And that's really all it was. I naturally hung out and waited
(01:51):
for the low hanging fruit and I would hit a home run and I would
just, I was comfortable waiting for the for the easy one, for
the lob. And and that turned into a
lifestyle of business approach. And I'll, I'll redline, I'll
grind, I'll get dirty and I'll get, I'll, I'll power into stuff
when I need to. But at the same time, I've
(02:13):
always got that monitor on for Iwill on a very intense way look
for the lazy way, meaning the 8020 rule, that Pareto
principle. That is just something I live
and breathe and everything I do.And and so I just took the
phrase from my my 9 year old sister and and it is is become
my path and my journey and my method.
(02:34):
Before we move on from that, canyou give me an A practical
example in your life, in your business that kind of
exemplifies ambitious laziness? Yeah, yeah.
So if I look at a, a big chunk of my career was being a real
estate agent for people. And I remember if, if I had a
client that was just taking my time.
(02:57):
And so this could apply to indieindustry or any corporate arena
or if you have somebody that is just taking all your time.
Mine was a client and they, and they were complaining and they,
they always had questions and they, they wouldn't take, they
wouldn't operate by text and they wouldn't operate by e-mail.
And, and Tim Ferriss in 4 hour work week, he talks about don't
(03:18):
do a verbal conversation when ane-mail suffices, don't do an
e-mail when a text will suffice.And, and you know, to have that
kind of hierarchy. And so somebody that was just
eating up my time, my quote UN quote potential hourly rate, but
they weren't being billed for that.
It was like, well, no. And and so I would start looking
(03:39):
for, you know, listing houses with clients as much as many
agents are like list to last. I get it.
I hear that you can use listingsto drum up more clients, so I
don't discount it completely. But I'm like, if I look at the
number of hours that I put into doing emotional damage control
and the type of like torment that I get.
(04:02):
And so then even when I'm off ofthe call, how down and slow and
low I am for the next hour or two, when I really grind the
numbers and add that up like a true PNL, it's a pretty big
cost. And so I would look at, well,
what about a first time home buyer?
What about a second time home buyer?
Or you know, what about an Internet lead that doesn't know
(04:24):
me from anyone and will trust mepretty immediately.
I mean, I started looking for those opportunities that were
actually more suitable for a streamlined process and
automation and outsourcing. So then, even if it took more
time holistically, it didn't take my time and it didn't take
my energy and my brain away fromthe other creative parts of my
(04:48):
life and the other businesses that I run that I want to pour
into. I love that, man.
Yeah. Because whether people mean to
or not, they can really suck up a lot of your time.
And you know, it's an interesting way of looking at
that because you want to be efficient, you want to be
effective, you want to get things done.
You want to be successful. You want to help people, though,
too. You want to make sure they get
(05:09):
what they need. And you're actually probably
doing them a favor a lot of the times in that situation.
You're saving them the conversational time too.
Yeah, that's right. And I've had many conversations
with clients and I've just said,hey, you know, I don't know if
my style is the right fit for what you need.
And that's OK. I'm sorry.
I wish it was. I mean, I take the apology and I
I own it. And you know, really, I want to
(05:31):
say I can't stand you, but really I'm like, my style does
not work for what you need. And I get that and I hear that.
So let's get you a pairing and let me do a little work here to
get partnered up with somebody that's going to service you in a
way that you're going to be really excited about.
And it's just a fit not fit situation is all.
(05:52):
Yeah, man, I love that. It's really good.
OK, so before we go any further,I just want to welcome everybody
here. The unstuck movement created
because I've been stuck, Trevor,I'm sure you've been stuck at
certain points in your life and professionally, right?
We need breakthrough in our lives.
And so I love this show to be examples of real breakthroughs.
So you know that it's possible for you wherever you're stuck
right now. We're sponsored by the Connected
(06:12):
Leaders Academy, check out connected leadersacademy.com
over 500 heart centered entrepreneurs all over the world
helping each other grow and alsothe pro podcaster Academy.
So if you're somebody who wants to have a podcast, all the nuts
and bolts are slowing you down, but you want to make that
lasting impact on people's lives.
You want to be the go to authority in your space and also
(06:32):
create incredible personal and professional connections.
You should launch your platform and if you already have one, how
do you streamline it? How do you monetize it?
I'd love to help you with that at robzwentz.com.
Today with us is Trevor Shade, areal estate investor, Lean 6
Sigma Black Belt and former teamleader who built a $4 million
portfolio after starting in MLMA.
(06:53):
Stroke survivor and sales psychology expert Trevor now
teaches others how to create passive income and reclaim their
time, which we've already gotteninto just a little bit here.
But I'd like to just switch gears for a second and talk
about because this is all about getting unstuck.
And for you personally, your story, I imagine that stroke had
a big impact on your life and probably was a a sticking point
(07:17):
for you for a while. If you don't mind, can we go
there? What led up to the event and how
did things change afterwards? Yep, Yep.
So there's a, there's a lot of layers here, but to, to keep
the, the story as as concise as possible.
I was in a, you call it an unhealthy or codependent
marriage. Like it was, you know, high
(07:39):
school sweetheart story, you know, 1516 got married, had the
kids, all that kind of stuff. Well, somewhere and in there I
had multi level marketing and I had a really lost who I was.
I didn't necessarily have my ownidentity, neither did my
ex-wife. Everybody, we just, we were
really blind following as a lot of us do in our 20s when we're
(08:00):
trying to figure stuff out, right?
You just have to like sell out, commit, run the race for a hot
minute and then realize, oh, andyou have that Jerry Maguire
moment. And mine was at about age 27.
And I was like, I don't like whoI am in this world.
And I didn't know what that meant and I didn't know what to
do with it. And I've now had 27 years of
practicing one way of doing it. So now it was like the beginning
(08:20):
of experimentation. And, and so by the time I was
about 3233 years old, that's when everything really imploded.
I had a pretty total life implosion.
I had kids at that time. So there were about three and
five years old. A divorce was now filed.
I had my, my consulting gigs andjobs of lean and six Sigma and
(08:46):
process improvement design and all that.
Well, all of that. I got laid off and and shut down
and I had I had gotten a real estate license and I had helped
one client with a house because I plan on just doing flips and
rentals myself. And now I find myself 100% on
Commission in the middle of the of the divorce, which turned
into a custody battle, which I also had a grandparent in
(09:09):
Hospice and pass away and it wasthe same time.
It was the first time that I hadever experienced death,
especially being in the room of 1 and I had a fiveplex that got
bedbugs. And so I had to let everybody
out of their lease in in a winter and carry the heating
bills of five units while unemployed and do the
(09:33):
renovations and do the heat and do the chemical treatment and
try to get out from under this, this implosion of honestly, I
was looking at the different forms of bankruptcy because what
do you do? And then I remember sitting and
writing down on a piece of paper, shelter, food, custody,
because I knew I was about to lose custody of my kids because
(09:54):
I couldn't, I didn't have shelter myself.
I didn't have food. Like you don't, you don't get to
have responsibility over children when you're missing
those two items. And and so those had come to to
pass. I had a couple of other smaller
instances and things show up. And then what, what ultimately
happens? I had a chiropractic adjustment
(10:15):
and because of the amount of stress, strain and pressure that
was on my entire system. A couple other contributing
factors. The honestly the chiropractor,
he's like a physical therapist. I still would swear by him and
he's a great guy. He does a really great job and I
even still support chiropractics.
For all the listeners out there that don't that are wondering if
I'm about to hate on chiropractors, I'm not.
(10:36):
I and he did an adjustment in myneck and my artery wouldn't
stretch a normal distance and the inner wall popped and
created a little flap that shut the blood off to the left side
of my brain. And right there on his table,
the whole right side of my body shuts down and my face starts
doing the droop. And I make a phone call to my
dad and tell him I'm headed to the hospital.
I think I have a pinched nerve. And he couldn't understand a
(10:58):
word I was saying. It sounded real to me, not to
him. And so anyway, they showed, they
showed me on the MRI where I hada, a blood clot hit the base of
my brain and they in the tear inthe artery and all that.
And two days later it got retoreand I had a second one that was
worse. And, and that was back in 2014.
And so, so all to, to, you know,success story that I'm one of
(11:22):
the fortunate ones. And I had a pretty, a pretty big
moment in the hospital, but I ended up having no, no remnants
other than extreme paranoia. Any time I sit on one-on-one leg
too long or my, my fingers go tingly for any reason, like I'm
all freaked out, of course. But other than that, no, no
ongoing factors. And when I was in that hospital,
(11:45):
I was, I remember it's the, the Nebraska Med Center.
World renowned people come to the Nebraska Med Center
specifically because of the degree of care and treatment
they do. And I remember I, I was walking
around probably about 3 days from being released and the
floor is shaped like an H if you're to aerial it.
And, and I'm walking down one ofthe legs and I get to the kind
(12:05):
of the crossbar where the elevators and reception are.
And I look across to the other, to the other side, and there's a
little lady there and, and she moves her Walker 1 foot or I'm
sorry, one inch, not a foot, oneinch.
And then she moves her feet one inch, one inch.
And then the Walker and then oneinch, one inch, one inch, one
inch, one. And as I had been walking up
that H, I've been looking, you know, in the rooms and the doors
(12:27):
and there was people laying there in beds and, and we're on
the neurological floor of the Nebraska Med Center.
And it was right there that my eyes kind of went dark, my knees
buckled, my hand hit the ground.And I realized that was the only
person on this floor that could both walk and talk.
Wow. Everybody else could either do
one, the other or neither. And, and so that was the
breakthrough of the shell that cracked what I had created back
(12:50):
when I was, I mean, about 8 years old.
I had, I'd learned I didn't liketo feel controlled and I had, I
gave up my empath nature and I learned to be a narcissist and I
learned to really crack down on this belief of control.
And, and I thought control was safety.
And my, my whole persona became that.
And right here I, I shattered and I could feel other humans
(13:10):
again and I could empathize again and I could, I could
understand somebody that had been laid off and that that
ringing in their head of you're not wanted and the same ringing
when you get a divorce and you're not wanted.
And even if it's not the messageand even if it's not what makes
sense, that was all I could hear.
And I understood immediately that that's what other people
were hearing and feeling. And then, you know, to face
(13:31):
financial bankruptcy in businessand then now to have these
hospital bills and to be lookingat medical bankruptcy.
I, I understood connecting and feeling with, with people again.
And from there I really did justhave that list, shelter, food,
custody. And I added to it and one at a
time, I fixed one piece and thenI fixed one piece.
(13:54):
And that was how I got unstuck after probably took two or three
years of just pick an item, fix one, pick an item, fix one, pick
an item, fix one. And after about 2-3, maybe five
years, I could look back and go,I've restabilized everything
equal or better than it was before that shattering.
(14:15):
And I came out of it with all ofthis new understanding
perspective in connection to people.
Wow man, that's such a good story.
I I love that. I love, you know, just to also
the vulnerability of saying, youknow, for many years there you
were shut off the people probably had something to do
with the marriage not working too right like that.
(14:36):
That'll do it mixed in there. I think a lot of people shut
down in that when they're in a when they're in something where
there's not open communication, when there's when everybody's
practicing non vulnerability, when they are just not safe to
go in that space, either in their own mind or truly because
of the other person that you just you're, you are stuck.
And I had to have AI, had to have a pretty big shattering, a
(14:59):
pretty big hammer to unstick me from that.
Yes, wake up calls. They they come in all different
severities and all different shapes and forms.
Myself too. I divorced once remarried and
really blessed. And I'll tell you, I can relate
to that in my first marriage forsure that I was definitely stuck
(15:21):
and I didn't know that I was andit was very a lot of self
centeredness revolving around mecausing a lot of problems.
It takes 2 to tango, but I I definitely had my my stake in
the whole thing and I love that you, you, you named something
really simple there. You said shelter, food custody,
right. So I always think about goals
(15:43):
and targets we're trying to reach, right?
As as business owners, as coaches, you know, it's always
goals. What are we going after?
And I've come to a place just recently, over the past, I'd say
several months of like making mygoal extremely simple.
The goal is provider and protector from my home.
That's the goal and everything falls in underneath that.
And so when I heard you say thatcustody or a shelter, food
(16:04):
custody, it's like, wow, that's a, a really profound simple
goal. And so I guess I have a question
behind that. And the question would be, I
think the simplest things are the best things, but you
encompassed so much inside of that goal.
So how did you know what to start going after to build the
(16:24):
building blocks back together? And do you still follow those
goals? Is that still the mindset?
Yeah, Yeah. I think what I've I've been able
to reflect on now is I think this applies to anyone's goal
that they have achieved and likely have forgotten used to be
a goal because we tend to achieve our goals, set new ones,
(16:44):
and then forget about ourselves 10 years ago, yearning for the
thing that we've already achieved.
And So what I like, what I like about that, that memory of how
clear it was. I can remember the color of the
ink on the paper of shelter foodin custody.
I can easily keep myself grounded and humbled because I I
(17:06):
heard another phrase, I can't remember who said it, but when
you're on top, you're not as good as you think you are.
When you're on bottom, you're not as bad as you think you are.
Because I'm extremely hard on myself.
And if I'm, if I'm on top, I canget cocky and I can be like, oh,
I got nothing could touch me. I'm untouchable.
Well, that's when the world touches you and you know, and
(17:30):
then if you're, if you're like, I'm no good, I'm terrible.
You're really hard on yourself. You're not as bad as you think
you are. And when you're, when you're the
big deal, you're not as good as you think you are.
And so having that is a very comfortable and easy way that I
am able to stay grounded and go,yeah, but you did achieve
shelter, didn't you? And you did achieve food and you
(17:51):
did achieve custody and then everything in between.
I can do the same memory with those.
So any other goal, if somebody never fell that far, every one
of the folks listening can definitely look at their own
life and their own achievements and go, but I'm not chasing that
anymore, am I? I did achieve that.
I did it. And it's it's a humbling
experience. I think that that I can use
(18:12):
those still to this day in a little bit different way.
Yeah, I just. I love the the clarity,
simplicity. I I hope everybody can find that
sort of clarity because that sounds so.
It sounds so impossibly broad. Yeah, right.
But I understand that's the mostclear you can possibly give.
You can boil it down to 123 words.
(18:34):
Yeah. I mean, holy smokes.
Now you've really got something to go after.
Yeah, and you know, I hear, I hear.
I'll give this too. This is one that's that I hear
people talk about. Everything happens for a reason
and I hear that and there's, there's definitely a part of me
that's on the on the energy level and I understand and I get
it. But I'll challenge it a little
bit and I'll say everything happens if you give it reason.
(18:58):
Because right in that moment, ifwe, if I get real vulnerable
here in that moment of that lifeimplosion, I was very suicidal.
It was a very dangerous space tobe in.
And I understood when your kids are so young and you're the
father, they don't want dad, they want mom.
That was how I thought. I had no friends, I had no
career, I had no, what did I care about?
(19:20):
I didn't even have an identity. I had already flushed all of
that for 10-15 years. And so being in that space, in
that moment, it's a very dangerous space to be.
And so I got to relate with anybody that's feeling that
absolute despair also. And I got to, I got to think
about where do you draw that line and where do you decide and
(19:42):
what do you do? And everything happens for a
reason. Not really.
I could write in that moment, choose to no longer exist, or I
could choose to give it meaning so that everything did happen
for a meeting. And I lean.
And that was the choice, you know, no one could take credit
for. Oh, yeah.
And look what you became throughthat.
That's all fine and good. But I had a choice to make and
(20:03):
then a whole lot of work to do. So I do believe that everything
happens for a reason. Maybe.
If you give it reason. It's really good.
I'm always looking for themes when we do these episodes.
That is a great theme. Everything happens when you give
it reason. And that's so much better than
everything happens for a reason,right?
It's like, man, everything happens when you give because it
(20:25):
gives you the power of like, listen, give this thing a reason
and you're going to get something amazing out of it.
And that's the truth my mentor always says.
And the last episode I did, we talked about this a lot.
There's a blessing in everythingand if you look for it, and
that's what I hear are you saying, and everything happens
when you give it a reason. You got to look for the
blessings and they're there in the worst of things and the best
(20:45):
of things. And that's really good, man, I
love that. So real fast we got to pause to
shout out the sponsor of the show.
When we come back though, I wantto talk about the title of the
episode, You shutting down a multi $1,000,000 real estate
team and also the fact that you hired 26 agents over five years
and never lost anybody, which isunheard of, which had to do with
(21:07):
that empathy that came from thatrealization in the stroke.
But I want to cover that dive into that when we come back in
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(21:28):
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(22:11):
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(22:35):
join us. Take care.
So Trevor, loving this conversation, man, really,
really interesting. Just the the breakthrough that
you found through that stroke and, and what came from that.
And I'm really curious, you know, you talk about shutting
down your multi $1,000,000 real estate team.
You had a team, you hired 26 agents over five years.
(22:56):
You never lost anybody. How is that possible, number
one? And what is the story of of
getting rid of all that? Yeah, yeah.
So all of this came to be post strokes.
So that was, you know, when I went 100% self-employed is
during that whole season. And part of that was being a
real estate agent and leaning into clients.
And what I had learned was as I was, I was being an agent just
(23:19):
solo for the first three years. I took, it took three years for
me to admit this, but three years.
Then I realized I'm not, I'm not, I'm not putting in the same
time as these agents that are mypeers.
I'm putting it about 25% of the time, as most are.
And it was because my backgroundwas in programming since I was
in 8th grade and or I'm sorry, since I was in fifth grade.
(23:39):
And then in 8th grade I learned about three more coding
languages and on, on, on. And then I became this techie.
And then I got taught these systems of smarter, not harder,
automating with machines and using Zapier, Zapier and API
Nation to tie technologies together.
And then I started using Upwork and Fiber to hire staff I could
(24:00):
afford for hourly rates that fitthe business and the level I was
at, so I could start creating machine optimized tools and
systems. But also sometimes I needed
somebody just to ask me if I wanted something done on a
regular schedule. So now I could have these
assistants and these people thatwould ask me this rather than
machines just automatically sending things.
(24:22):
And I had all of that in place because I was ambitiously lazy.
I, I got angry at things on a Friday and then Friday,
Saturday, Sunday, I launched a whole new company because I just
never wanted to have to deal with that annoyance again.
And I didn't know that this wasn't normal.
I thought people just, you know,when you get frustrated enough,
you just go figure it out and build a thing.
And I, I, I can understand, and now I can look at things from a
(24:46):
very linear technological programmary, stereotype brain.
And at the same time I can understand.
Well, yeah, but in Lean and Six Sigma training and teaching and
these statistical analytics and these reportings and all of
this, if I were to get people ina posture of inspiration, I can
(25:10):
have half of the metrics and I don't have to overlook and
Overwatch it. And I have to have quite as much
of A QA department. I don't have to be hard on
people. I don't have to motivate them.
I can instead have somebody become, you know, in in high
school or college. I think we've all had that
moment where we we were working on a project and we had already
(25:30):
completed what was required. But we are enjoying it and it
was, it was fun and it's somewhere leaning into and we
got neurotic about it and we gotinspired really.
And all of a sudden it was 2 in the morning.
We are still cranking away and over performing because we were
all about it. And I thought, well, my sister
runs a Gallup strengths coachingbusiness and I learned those
strengths and gifts and talents of what are the top five things
(25:52):
of 34 different strengths? What are the top five things
that people are so innately built into?
And they're, they're in them. And it's who they are that they
can't help but to do it. They they do that work or they
do those things in those categories and they actually
feel more energized than a full night's sleep.
And they're so good at them thatthey're terrible at teaching
them because they don't know howthey do them.
(26:14):
And I've thought if I could start building teams,
departments, cultures with that in mind, I'll do my automation,
I'll do my outsourcing, and thenI'll also build a culture that
has a sense of you. You belong here, you fit here,
you're heard in your scene. And that all sounds good.
And those are buzzy words. But I mean, I had everyone take
(26:36):
those Gallup strengths tests andwe had them up on the wall, all
of them. And I would walk in almost every
day and I'd have somebody standing in the middle of the
room staring at the board, understanding themselves better,
understanding who they work withbetter.
Why is that person so competitive?
Why is that person always bringing up positive responses
to everything? Why is that one so adaptable?
Why is that one so aggressive? And they also, now we're
(26:57):
building into them. They saw their own face and name
up there and they said, everybody's understanding me
too. And it really played out that
way. And everybody that joined the
team, the organization, it was. So I started offering these
tools and these systems to real estate agents that are more
stereotype salespeople rather than stereotype programmers.
And they now held all its automation.
(27:19):
They could unload and offload all the crap and they could just
go work on relationships and negotiating and stay in their
lane. And along the way, now their
time was free, they also then got a whole host of people that
understood why they ticked the way they ticked.
And as they developed friendships and bonds, there was
no reason to look anywhere else or go anywhere else.
(27:42):
And I'll tell you, that's one ofthe most accidental things that
I did right, too, was that the creating of that friendship and
bond when we had our first five agents on the team, it was after
the first year I had a sales incentive program put in place.
And what it was is a percent I didn't like when someone had to
perform and you have to hit thismany sales by October 1st or
(28:02):
something like that. And if you do, you get this.
If you don't, you get this. I watched a really great agent,
29 of the 30 in a in a previous and and they got left out.
Well, of course, that person within the next 3-4 months,
switch, switch companies. I mean, they, they were told
you're 29 doesn't mean anything to us.
You have to get 30 to mean anything to us.
So I did a percentage and I said, whatever percent of your
(28:24):
goal that we set together on thefront end of the year, whatever
percent you hit of that, I will pay that percentage of your
airfare and your all inclusive resort trip to Mexico.
Well, we get through this first year and I look back at my, my
OG 5 agents and I said, well guys, I think if I would have
had the systems in place to helpyou perform, I think you all
(28:46):
would have hit your sales goals.And so I'm going to own this,
this is on me. I'm going to pay 100% of all of
your trips, your, your airfare and your all inclusive trip.
You can pay for your spouse, butI'll pay for you.
And and we'll go do this together and celebrate that We
did our first launch first year startup real estate organization
together. And when I made that decision
(29:06):
that was in February I think of 2017 and we had no money.
We had all nine bank accounts were total, I think it was about
$64. We had something like $11,000 a
month in expenses. So that was coming up in March
and we had $108,000 in credit card debt that I just maxed out
(29:27):
to make this thing happen. And by all means, would I
recommend somebody to do this, this way from a business and a
financials perspective? There is another way, but I
didn't know it at the time. And, and I said yes.
And I did it. And those 5 were glued to each
other. They became real friends, real
bonds. They experienced something in
(29:47):
the world. I didn't require them to stick
around or do anything on the trip.
They came to 1 dinner and anything else was like, hey,
let's go hit a catamaran. And every year I did that trip
and I watched everybody that hadjoined the organization that
came on that trip. They then became part of the
glue and that that that culture of belonging being seen, being
(30:10):
heard, their life being made easier by the automation and the
tools. And then they actually had a
running mate, a friend side by side that all together created
the some intentional and some accidental right thing recipe of
what really grew that organization and kept it
together. I, I wanted to get back to, so
(30:33):
you took all of those strength Finder tests.
I'm, I'm fascinated by this and put them on the wall.
So everybody, did anybody have pushed back from that?
No, no one really did. I mean, I think I explained why
my my nature. Is it's such a great idea, man,
it's such a great idea. You can see everybody now.
I see you. You know what I mean?
Like eliminates a lot of confusion, eliminates a lot of
(30:55):
like, why is this person this way?
Well, there it is. Here's why I am the way that I
am. Yeah, we had someone that had a
number one Gallup strengths of competition, and he was very
abrasive if you didn't know that.
And it's because he likes the game.
He likes to compete, and it's not good enough to always win.
That's not competing. He needs a worthy adversary that
(31:18):
almost beats him or does beat him once, but then he gets to
win nine times. And when we would get together,
you know, for some kind of holiday party or something like
that and play these games, they'd get very heated.
And now we could know why. And we could even give him a
little, a bit of a hard time. And but he knew that we
understood him and we accepted, accepted him for who he was and
(31:39):
and nobody needed anybody to change.
Yeah, man, that's so good. That's such a, such a simple
concept. And it's also fascinating and
fun, right? It's fun to like learn about
yourself, learn about other people.
I I really love that idea. Was your information also up
there? Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. Just making sure that would be
the blue that would make it stick.
(32:00):
Yeah. And you know, part of that was I
know that I'm quirky and I know that I'm intense and I know that
I am hard to swallow. And it's just like I needed them
to know I'm just as human as everybody else.
And our admin staff that live that were in the Philippines and
India and we had some folks in Dallas across the country,
everybody was up there and everybody could understand and
they could even see why our admin staff, they had certain
(32:24):
gaps in their set of strengths as a whole and as a team,
because we didn't need them to be extremely influential.
And then our our, our sales staff and our sales team, well,
we didn't necessarily we needed one person to be able to
advocate for them and go influence in, in a, in a
professional setting or documenta process, but not really.
(32:45):
We didn't need them to be as administrative.
And so I used my sister's tools and, and we analyzed our
different teams to figure out what do we actually need and
want in these teams and why to make sure that they were, they
were the right people. And we did it.
We did that on the hiring. And any time we brought somebody
on, we would have them take thattest to, to make sure that it
(33:07):
was the right fit and feel. And I also told the team, the
real estate team, the sales team, that the agents, I said,
hey, guys, I know that I have a bias.
Any breathing human can create asale, can create profit.
But I had seen that done wrong so many times that I said here's
the deal. I will only ever bring anyone
into this organization if I can get at least two of you to say I
(33:32):
would enjoy drinks on a beach with that person.
And if I couldn't get at least two people, because I understand
once you get big enough, you got, you can't have the whole
cultures buy in and you can havemicro cultures within it.
And if I could get two people tosay I would enjoy hanging out
with that person, I would enjoy drinks.
And I'm like there that that works.
If I can't get that and there was at least 15 people that I
(33:55):
would have brought on and my team, I couldn't get two people
to say yes to. And I think at least half of
them I got to see within a monthor two afterward.
I got to observe that the team was right and I I protected us
and me through that design. Yeah, I see it so much with the
(34:16):
companies that I work with is just this desperation to
hireright and just hiring peoplebecause we need to hire people.
We we don't have enough people. And and so they bring people in
and and you get a lot of toxic people that way.
And it's a great idea. Bring the team in.
How do they, And so how did the team meet this person?
(34:38):
How did they get to interact with them?
What did that? Yeah, yeah.
We didn't tell the person, but Isaid, hey, I want you to meet
the team and I want you to make sure that you feel like you vibe
with the team and let's just go get some drinks and get some
appetizers. And we would just meet up
somewhere in the world and I would let the team know, hey,
this is happening. I need some of you available.
And anybody that could show up did.
And it was almost always that original 5 or original 10.
(35:03):
I mean, they were, they were kind of the, the core group or,
you know, we had a couple that came in way later, maybe agent,
you know, 19 through 23. And they made themselves part of
the core group. And so they were actually there
and, and helping us decide on the culture.
And so I guess it didn't really matter when someone came in.
But yeah, we just did something casual.
And I let the, I let the new person believe or feel like
(35:31):
they're deciding if they liked the team was the only reason
because that was true. I, I wanted that to be true.
I needed to know, do you feel like you fit here?
Because that would tell me abouttheir self worth and self-image
and it all kinds of other things.
And then I knew that the team was vetting them and I knew that
I was just going to, I was goingto take the hard job if I had to
(35:54):
deliver the message to them that, hey, we met, we talked,
what I observed in the interaction, it's just not
something that I want to move forward with.
And they could be mad at me and they could still have great
working relationships on future transactions with the team as
they did from another brokerage or anything like that.
And I just didn't, I didn't haveto say the team decided against
(36:16):
you. It was all me and I just owned
it. And I knew that I could carry
that. And it didn't, it didn't matter.
I didn't have to. I didn't mind being the bad guy,
I guess. And I did it in a nice way.
Yeah, great leadership. That's that's awesome.
I love just just that whole story there is really, really
cool and super going back to thesimplicity, super simple makes
(36:36):
it super effective. It's not complicated.
So as we with the time we have remaining, you shut down that
team, right, that business, yeah.
Why was something going so well?Why?
Yeah, yeah. It was going really well.
And you know, the, the real estate market's gone up and down
and it had 20/22. It was a little bit harder of a
year 2023, harder of a year 2425.
(36:58):
Like they've all been a little funky and different.
And, and that's OK. It made me go through an
exercise with the team to go, OK, with our expenses, let's
shrink some. And I had, you know, the kind of
the core group vote on, do we keep this?
Do we reduce this? Do we have the agent pay for
this themselves? What are we doing?
We went through all of that and as we got through it, it really
(37:20):
started making me, it made me evaluate what do I want and what
do I want to run. And I, I knew that I wanted to
be able to run businesses remoteand I wanted to.
I only ever wanted to start something up that I believed I
could run from any beach in the world.
And that's again, real simple, real clear state of mind.
(37:42):
I only want to start something that I can run from a beach.
I didn't see this as ever being able to progress to that.
You know, there was a there was a maybe, but the risk was high
because that would require me tofind somebody that the team
wanted to follow and wanted to be part of as much as they did
(38:05):
me. You know, I could build in the
systems for that that want and yearn to be with each other, but
it just I just didn't see my waythrough it.
And here's something that ties back into my my multi level
marketing days. When I when I jumped into a
multi level marketing business, I was 19 years old.
I had no credit with banks. I had no cash as down payments
(38:27):
or any any fundable money towardany business.
What I had was an abundance of time because I was 19 years old.
So that was the a commodity thatI could spend in great amounts
to build and create a business. That's why that business at that
time kind of made sense. Well, later in life I had credit
with banks and I had the abilityto put a down payment down on a
(38:50):
flip property or a long term rental or I had money or
leverage with real estate that Icould put into buying cash flow
producing businesses. Well, similarly, this business
was one that I could, I could probably have made it runnable
from a beach someday, but not nearly as simply as some of the
(39:15):
other businesses that I now had access to.
And so I could do that uphill push and climb, but I didn't
have to anymore. And so I decided to let the let
the whole team know that we weregoing to part ways and I started
talking to the brokerage on their behalf and helping
negotiate better splits for themthan they even had on on our
(39:37):
team. I offered Ala carte
opportunities and ways that theycould keep their systems that
that I had built and they could just hire kind of as a group and
separately the the people that Ihad already assembled and
trained in the Philippines or locally on any of the, you know,
non license needing admin stuff.And, and then I just, I just set
(40:02):
up a little bit new of a design so I could, I could step back
and go, all right, I'm going to lean into some other ventures
and other businesses that I do believe I can run more
realistically and more effectively from a beach.
Interesting man. You know, letting that go would
be something that most people would have a really hard time
(40:22):
with, right? And just making that decision of
like, well, this has been extremely successful, you know,
and, and that it's time just to,to, to let it go.
And I guess the question I have is what, what do you think?
What character trait or skill orwhatever, whatever that is?
What is that that allowed you tohave that clarity and the
(40:43):
confidence to be able to do that?
Because even somebody who might be successful in a couple
different areas would would havewould struggle with that.
Yeah, yeah. I think something that I've, I
was, I was either taught or I have in my nature.
I, I, I can zoom way out really big picture.
I can come in super granular like a programmer too, but that
zoom that way, way, way, way far, zoom out.
(41:05):
I can keep track of what is my ultimate goal.
I what am I actually accomplishing here?
What am I after? I will put the blinders on.
I've told people for years now Itruly I personally, I can't set
goals because if I set a goal, Iwill achieve the goal and I will
destroy every other part of my life to achieve the goal.
(41:26):
OK. So I have to set trajectories.
That's all I can allow myself todo.
And I'll set a trajectory which is no different than a goal,
except it, you know. Different word, little different
concept. Lets me tweak my own
personality. Yeah, and what it adds in and
requires in a in a goal, you're supposed to do this anyways, but
I could never do it with a goal.With a trajectory.
(41:46):
I knew I was on a path and in a direction for a period of time.
And so then I had in my calendarthree or four months from now
meeting with self to revisit trajectories and I would have
that meeting. And I gave myself permission
because I ran down a blind path of multi level marketing and I
(42:08):
was selling and I was, I was talking to people and I was
recruiting and I was doing the whole thing.
And I ran that blindly for eightyears and I learned a ton and I
got so much education and gratitude and, and growth up
until about year 6. And the last two years, I kept
running blind in a direction I shouldn't have.
(42:30):
I, I was already, I was done with that business and I needed
permission to myself to revisit my trajectory.
And is this still the path I want to be on or do I want to
change it for any reason? I choose just to be conscious
about it and do it intentionallyrather than doing it blindly out
of principle or ego. Or here's one for the group.
(42:53):
I've, I don't think I've ever said this on a podcast before,
but in when I was 16, I, I bought a Jeep and you know, sold
a car, bought a car, did whatever.
I had you to buy this Jeep and Idrove this Jeep CJ7 is what it
was and I put the license plate on it.
Never wrong because my ego was so out of whack and I meant it
as a joke kinda. I was really.
(43:15):
Impressed. Listen, if you put it on a
license plate, it's probably true.
Right then I'm like, yeah, it's a good joke and all, but really,
So what that was is it was an extreme fear of mine to be
wrong, to be embarrassed, to be seen that way.
And so for me to say I'm going to do this, well, now my
integrity's on the line, my ego's on the line.
(43:35):
I could never fail a goal because now I was wrong.
I chose wrong. There was a lot of wrong in
there. And I didn't realize that that
is one of those illusions of control that I had.
I thought I had control and thatwas safety.
When I shattered and the stroke happened and all of that, I
realized, oh, I have influence. I can create ripples.
(43:56):
I can create likelihoods and probabilities.
I can create really vast likelihoods and probabilities,
but I do not have control. Control is not safe.
It is not the most opportunities.
People do not give control people all of the great good
opportunities. And so that was that was that
was all part of it. And as I, as, as I got through
(44:18):
some of those seasons and out ofthat, I started realizing how I
could keep that big picture zoomed out.
What, what am I actually trying to create in 15 years?
What am I trying to create in 20years, 10 years, 5, any, any of
that? Well, is it to run this business
and to, to have my, my name on the business?
(44:38):
Is that what's important? How about 30 years from now?
Is that what I want? And, and if I zoomed out far
enough with a number of years, I'd go, oh, no, I actually don't
care if my name is a part of a real estate team within a
brokerage. OK, OK.
So if that's actually how I feel30 years from now, when does
that change? Is it 20 years from now?
How about 10? How about today?
(45:00):
And if, and I just found when does that change?
Because if it obviously doesn't matter to me at age 30 or in 30
years from now, maybe it is today.
Maybe I actually don't care today and I'm just I'm just
running blind. Yeah, good chance if it's not to
if it's, Yeah, that that's right.
(45:20):
Now would be the right time to do it, most likely.
And make a decision. Yeah.
And that decision, you could delay that for decades.
That's right. And and dig yourself into a a
hole or however you want to lookat that.
But man, that's fascinating. Thank you for sharing all that
really good stuff. Did you ever get pulled over in
that Jeep? Let's see, I, I think I got
pulled over once when the speedometer didn't work.
(45:41):
So, you know, and I got a warning and I got to fix the
ticket and all. That, but did they make it like
I would imagine the comments about the license plate.
If I was a cop I'd be looking for a good joke.
Good pun. He did he he made a small
comment. I remember where I was in
Bellevue, NE. I remember, I remember it.
But yeah, I actually, what happened a lot is at at traffic
(46:02):
lights. I, you know, I had no top, no
doors. You know, I was out there in the
world and I'd have people pull up next to me that were behind
me just so they could laugh and love it and talk together about
it because they were like, you are some kind of special if
you're going to put that on yourcar.
So yeah, I got, I got comments by the by the other drivers on
the road for sure. And I kept them.
(46:24):
I kept them. I have them in a, in a box in
the garage and, and, and a memorabilia and I hold them up
next. So my, my sons and I, they're
now 14 and 16. About four years ago, we, we
remodeled and built a whole new Jeep and then and use this Jeep
as a, as our model and, and ground up and did whatever we
needed to, to it to, you know, keep it itself, but then but add
(46:46):
to it and new license plate. Now it says live more on it and
that and I I hold the two up next to each other and be like
all right, it's a little bit different message these.
Days, there's some growth there,yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, man, that's good, Trevor.
I love that great conversation. Really good stuff.
Thank you for being on here today.
I want to thank you just for showing up and and being who you
are. Really value it.
(47:07):
This has been so good. Your website, trevorshade.com,
that's SCHADE links in the bio. What do you want people to do
when they go there? Yeah, yeah.
I work mostly now with organizations, teams that either
need efficiencies brought in thetechnology side and all of that.
Sure, the culture creation, evenjust a speaker to their
(47:30):
companies to help people understand overcoming or getting
unstuck. I mean, I, I really resonated
with with your, with your podcast here and the message and
what you're trying to share withpeople because I think
everybody's there. And so, yeah, if there's some
kind of a business need that I can, I can provide and help.
That is my my, my gift, my nature, my strengths.
(47:51):
I see solutions to problems, be it technological culture,
creation or if somebody really wants to go wealth creation
primarily in real estate and then later into other
businesses. I do that kind of consulting and
public speaking in keynotes withmany organizations.
Excellent, trevorshade.com. Check them out.
(48:14):
And as always, as we wrap this thing up, listen, if you and I
never talk again, anybody who watches or listens this never
hears from you ever again, what is a message that you would like
to leave them with? Yeah, yeah.
I would say one of the one of the key principles I was able to
lean into and lean on since I was, I mean, three or four years
old was act as if and act as if or act your way into a new way
(48:38):
of thinking or act your way intoa new way of feeling.
You know, there was many sporting events or practices
that I just didn't want to go toas I grew up.
And if I just acted as if I wanted to go to them, well, I
shook it off. I got upbeat, I got bouncy and I
went to the thing and all of a sudden I was there in motion.
(48:59):
And on the way home, I was always so glad I went and it was
so fun. And I don't think that's any
different in someone's relationships.
I don't think that's any different in someone's business.
I don't think that's any different any in someone's
trajectories or goals, if you will just act as if, act as if
you have that new next job, act as if you're excited about the
(49:20):
relationship that you're in, actas if.
I think that is really applicable in about every area
of life and it's just a matter of figuring out how to apply it.
Great advice, act as if and I just thought of my son.
He's 11 and he complaints about almost doing everything anytime
we go somewhere and almost every.
(49:42):
And I've been reminding him thissince he was five years old.
After the thing's over, he's like, Dad, that was actually
like a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun.
I'm like, yeah, remember the 400times before this when you said
the same thing? Remember, just go start doing
the thing. And then you're once you're in
it, you're enjoying it. It's and then it's halfway done,
then it's finished. And then you actually had a
great time. And it's just a you have to act
(50:04):
as if because you got to remind yourself, hey, man, it you might
not want to do it right now, butif you act as if when The thing
is done and you have the accomplishment, you're going to
feel great. You know, that's coming.
So go do it. Yep, great advice.
I definitely agree. I mean, my kids are the same
way. I'm the same way.
I think we're all, I think we'veall got that in our nature.
Yeah, for sure. Another amazing true testimony.
A breakthrough on the show today.
(50:24):
Until next time. This has been the unstuck
movement.
Hello and welcome back to the Unstuck movement.
True testimonies, A breakthrough.
I am your host as always, Rob Z and today we have an incredible
guest with us. Trevor Shade is on the platform.
We're talking, you know, tactical empathy, having that
wealth life that you want to live, building power and and
pass passive power into your life, being lean and lucrative
(00:46):
and unstuck scaling, among so many other things.
But Trevor, one thing that I find really interesting is
something you talk about being ambitiously lazy, and this is a
whole mindset that you stand behind.
So how do you teach or instill that ambitiously lazy mindset?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, thanks for
having me on the unstuck move, unstuck movement, Rob.
(01:08):
I appreciate it. And yeah, ambitiously lazy was
invented, I'd say, by my sister.She's a year older than me when
we were eight and nine years oldand she called me out and she
said, Trevor, you will outwork anyone so that you don't have to
work. You're ambitiously lazy.
And I thought, and at that time I was like, I don't understand,
(01:31):
you know, it's complex and whatever.
And as I, as I grew and I got AI, got certifications in lean
and in Six Sigma and these, these efficiency business
process methodologies, I startedlearning that there's things
like, you know, smarter, not harder.
And there's actually these termsaround it.
And that's really all it was. I naturally hung out and waited
(01:51):
for the low hanging fruit and I would hit a home run and I would
just, I was comfortable waiting for the for the easy one, for
the lob. And and that turned into a
lifestyle of business approach. And I'll, I'll redline, I'll
grind, I'll get dirty and I'll get, I'll, I'll power into stuff
when I need to. But at the same time, I've
(02:13):
always got that monitor on for Iwill on a very intense way look
for the lazy way, meaning the 8020 rule, that Pareto
principle. That is just something I live
and breathe and everything I do.And and so I just took the
phrase from my my 9 year old sister and and it is is become
my path and my journey and my method.
(02:34):
Before we move on from that, canyou give me an A practical
example in your life, in your business that kind of
exemplifies ambitious laziness? Yeah, yeah.
So if I look at a, a big chunk of my career was being a real
estate agent for people. And I remember if, if I had a
client that was just taking my time.
(02:57):
And so this could apply to indieindustry or any corporate arena
or if you have somebody that is just taking all your time.
Mine was a client and they, and they were complaining and they,
they always had questions and they, they wouldn't take, they
wouldn't operate by text and they wouldn't operate by e-mail.
And, and Tim Ferriss in 4 hour work week, he talks about don't
(03:18):
do a verbal conversation when ane-mail suffices, don't do an
e-mail when a text will suffice.And, and you know, to have that
kind of hierarchy. And so somebody that was just
eating up my time, my quote UN quote potential hourly rate, but
they weren't being billed for that.
It was like, well, no. And and so I would start looking
(03:39):
for, you know, listing houses with clients as much as many
agents are like list to last. I get it.
I hear that you can use listingsto drum up more clients, so I
don't discount it completely. But I'm like, if I look at the
number of hours that I put into doing emotional damage control
and the type of like torment that I get.
(04:02):
And so then even when I'm off ofthe call, how down and slow and
low I am for the next hour or two, when I really grind the
numbers and add that up like a true PNL, it's a pretty big
cost. And so I would look at, well,
what about a first time home buyer?
What about a second time home buyer?
Or you know, what about an Internet lead that doesn't know
(04:24):
me from anyone and will trust mepretty immediately.
I mean, I started looking for those opportunities that were
actually more suitable for a streamlined process and
automation and outsourcing. So then, even if it took more
time holistically, it didn't take my time and it didn't take
my energy and my brain away fromthe other creative parts of my
(04:48):
life and the other businesses that I run that I want to pour
into. I love that, man.
Yeah. Because whether people mean to
or not, they can really suck up a lot of your time.
And you know, it's an interesting way of looking at
that because you want to be efficient, you want to be
effective, you want to get things done.
You want to be successful. You want to help people, though,
too. You want to make sure they get
(05:09):
what they need. And you're actually probably
doing them a favor a lot of the times in that situation.
You're saving them the conversational time too.
Yeah, that's right. And I've had many conversations
with clients and I've just said,hey, you know, I don't know if
my style is the right fit for what you need.
And that's OK. I'm sorry.
I wish it was. I mean, I take the apology and I
I own it. And you know, really, I want to
(05:31):
say I can't stand you, but really I'm like, my style does
not work for what you need. And I get that and I hear that.
So let's get you a pairing and let me do a little work here to
get partnered up with somebody that's going to service you in a
way that you're going to be really excited about.
And it's just a fit not fit situation is all.
(05:52):
Yeah, man, I love that. It's really good.
OK, so before we go any further,I just want to welcome everybody
here. The unstuck movement created
because I've been stuck, Trevor,I'm sure you've been stuck at
certain points in your life and professionally, right?
We need breakthrough in our lives.
And so I love this show to be examples of real breakthroughs.
So you know that it's possible for you wherever you're stuck
right now. We're sponsored by the Connected
(06:12):
Leaders Academy, check out connected leadersacademy.com
over 500 heart centered entrepreneurs all over the world
helping each other grow and alsothe pro podcaster Academy.
So if you're somebody who wants to have a podcast, all the nuts
and bolts are slowing you down, but you want to make that
lasting impact on people's lives.
You want to be the go to authority in your space and also
(06:32):
create incredible personal and professional connections.
You should launch your platform and if you already have one, how
do you streamline it? How do you monetize it?
I'd love to help you with that at robzwentz.com.
Today with us is Trevor Shade, areal estate investor, Lean 6
Sigma Black Belt and former teamleader who built a $4 million
portfolio after starting in MLMA.
(06:53):
Stroke survivor and sales psychology expert Trevor now
teaches others how to create passive income and reclaim their
time, which we've already gotteninto just a little bit here.
But I'd like to just switch gears for a second and talk
about because this is all about getting unstuck.
And for you personally, your story, I imagine that stroke had
a big impact on your life and probably was a a sticking point
(07:17):
for you for a while. If you don't mind, can we go
there? What led up to the event and how
did things change afterwards? Yep, Yep.
So there's a, there's a lot of layers here, but to, to keep
the, the story as as concise as possible.
I was in a, you call it an unhealthy or codependent
marriage. Like it was, you know, high
(07:39):
school sweetheart story, you know, 1516 got married, had the
kids, all that kind of stuff. Well, somewhere and in there I
had multi level marketing and I had a really lost who I was.
I didn't necessarily have my ownidentity, neither did my
ex-wife. Everybody, we just, we were
really blind following as a lot of us do in our 20s when we're
(08:00):
trying to figure stuff out, right?
You just have to like sell out, commit, run the race for a hot
minute and then realize, oh, andyou have that Jerry Maguire
moment. And mine was at about age 27.
And I was like, I don't like whoI am in this world.
And I didn't know what that meant and I didn't know what to
do with it. And I've now had 27 years of
practicing one way of doing it. So now it was like the beginning
(08:20):
of experimentation. And, and so by the time I was
about 3233 years old, that's when everything really imploded.
I had a pretty total life implosion.
I had kids at that time. So there were about three and
five years old. A divorce was now filed.
I had my, my consulting gigs andjobs of lean and six Sigma and
(08:46):
process improvement design and all that.
Well, all of that. I got laid off and and shut down
and I had I had gotten a real estate license and I had helped
one client with a house because I plan on just doing flips and
rentals myself. And now I find myself 100% on
Commission in the middle of the of the divorce, which turned
into a custody battle, which I also had a grandparent in
(09:09):
Hospice and pass away and it wasthe same time.
It was the first time that I hadever experienced death,
especially being in the room of 1 and I had a fiveplex that got
bedbugs. And so I had to let everybody
out of their lease in in a winter and carry the heating
bills of five units while unemployed and do the
(09:33):
renovations and do the heat and do the chemical treatment and
try to get out from under this, this implosion of honestly, I
was looking at the different forms of bankruptcy because what
do you do? And then I remember sitting and
writing down on a piece of paper, shelter, food, custody,
because I knew I was about to lose custody of my kids because
(09:54):
I couldn't, I didn't have shelter myself.
I didn't have food. Like you don't, you don't get to
have responsibility over children when you're missing
those two items. And and so those had come to to
pass. I had a couple of other smaller
instances and things show up. And then what, what ultimately
happens? I had a chiropractic adjustment
(10:15):
and because of the amount of stress, strain and pressure that
was on my entire system. A couple other contributing
factors. The honestly the chiropractor,
he's like a physical therapist. I still would swear by him and
he's a great guy. He does a really great job and I
even still support chiropractics.
For all the listeners out there that don't that are wondering if
I'm about to hate on chiropractors, I'm not.
(10:36):
I and he did an adjustment in myneck and my artery wouldn't
stretch a normal distance and the inner wall popped and
created a little flap that shut the blood off to the left side
of my brain. And right there on his table,
the whole right side of my body shuts down and my face starts
doing the droop. And I make a phone call to my
dad and tell him I'm headed to the hospital.
I think I have a pinched nerve. And he couldn't understand a
(10:58):
word I was saying. It sounded real to me, not to
him. And so anyway, they showed, they
showed me on the MRI where I hada, a blood clot hit the base of
my brain and they in the tear inthe artery and all that.
And two days later it got retoreand I had a second one that was
worse. And, and that was back in 2014.
And so, so all to, to, you know,success story that I'm one of
(11:22):
the fortunate ones. And I had a pretty, a pretty big
moment in the hospital, but I ended up having no, no remnants
other than extreme paranoia. Any time I sit on one-on-one leg
too long or my, my fingers go tingly for any reason, like I'm
all freaked out, of course. But other than that, no, no
ongoing factors. And when I was in that hospital,
(11:45):
I was, I remember it's the, the Nebraska Med Center.
World renowned people come to the Nebraska Med Center
specifically because of the degree of care and treatment
they do. And I remember I, I was walking
around probably about 3 days from being released and the
floor is shaped like an H if you're to aerial it.
And, and I'm walking down one ofthe legs and I get to the kind
(12:05):
of the crossbar where the elevators and reception are.
And I look across to the other, to the other side, and there's a
little lady there and, and she moves her Walker 1 foot or I'm
sorry, one inch, not a foot, oneinch.
And then she moves her feet one inch, one inch.
And then the Walker and then oneinch, one inch, one inch, one
inch, one. And as I had been walking up
that H, I've been looking, you know, in the rooms and the doors
(12:27):
and there was people laying there in beds and, and we're on
the neurological floor of the Nebraska Med Center.
And it was right there that my eyes kind of went dark, my knees
buckled, my hand hit the ground.And I realized that was the only
person on this floor that could both walk and talk.
Wow. Everybody else could either do
one, the other or neither. And, and so that was the
breakthrough of the shell that cracked what I had created back
(12:50):
when I was, I mean, about 8 years old.
I had, I'd learned I didn't liketo feel controlled and I had, I
gave up my empath nature and I learned to be a narcissist and I
learned to really crack down on this belief of control.
And, and I thought control was safety.
And my, my whole persona became that.
And right here I, I shattered and I could feel other humans
(13:10):
again and I could empathize again and I could, I could
understand somebody that had been laid off and that that
ringing in their head of you're not wanted and the same ringing
when you get a divorce and you're not wanted.
And even if it's not the messageand even if it's not what makes
sense, that was all I could hear.
And I understood immediately that that's what other people
were hearing and feeling. And then, you know, to face
(13:31):
financial bankruptcy in businessand then now to have these
hospital bills and to be lookingat medical bankruptcy.
I, I understood connecting and feeling with, with people again.
And from there I really did justhave that list, shelter, food,
custody. And I added to it and one at a
time, I fixed one piece and thenI fixed one piece.
(13:54):
And that was how I got unstuck after probably took two or three
years of just pick an item, fix one, pick an item, fix one, pick
an item, fix one. And after about 2-3, maybe five
years, I could look back and go,I've restabilized everything
equal or better than it was before that shattering.
(14:15):
And I came out of it with all ofthis new understanding
perspective in connection to people.
Wow man, that's such a good story.
I I love that. I love, you know, just to also
the vulnerability of saying, youknow, for many years there you
were shut off the people probably had something to do
with the marriage not working too right like that.
(14:36):
That'll do it mixed in there. I think a lot of people shut
down in that when they're in a when they're in something where
there's not open communication, when there's when everybody's
practicing non vulnerability, when they are just not safe to
go in that space, either in their own mind or truly because
of the other person that you just you're, you are stuck.
And I had to have AI, had to have a pretty big shattering, a
(14:59):
pretty big hammer to unstick me from that.
Yes, wake up calls. They they come in all different
severities and all different shapes and forms.
Myself too. I divorced once remarried and
really blessed. And I'll tell you, I can relate
to that in my first marriage forsure that I was definitely stuck
(15:21):
and I didn't know that I was andit was very a lot of self
centeredness revolving around mecausing a lot of problems.
It takes 2 to tango, but I I definitely had my my stake in
the whole thing and I love that you, you, you named something
really simple there. You said shelter, food custody,
right. So I always think about goals
(15:43):
and targets we're trying to reach, right?
As as business owners, as coaches, you know, it's always
goals. What are we going after?
And I've come to a place just recently, over the past, I'd say
several months of like making mygoal extremely simple.
The goal is provider and protector from my home.
That's the goal and everything falls in underneath that.
And so when I heard you say thatcustody or a shelter, food
(16:04):
custody, it's like, wow, that's a, a really profound simple
goal. And so I guess I have a question
behind that. And the question would be, I
think the simplest things are the best things, but you
encompassed so much inside of that goal.
So how did you know what to start going after to build the
(16:24):
building blocks back together? And do you still follow those
goals? Is that still the mindset?
Yeah, Yeah. I think what I've I've been able
to reflect on now is I think this applies to anyone's goal
that they have achieved and likely have forgotten used to be
a goal because we tend to achieve our goals, set new ones,
(16:44):
and then forget about ourselves 10 years ago, yearning for the
thing that we've already achieved.
And So what I like, what I like about that, that memory of how
clear it was. I can remember the color of the
ink on the paper of shelter foodin custody.
I can easily keep myself grounded and humbled because I I
(17:06):
heard another phrase, I can't remember who said it, but when
you're on top, you're not as good as you think you are.
When you're on bottom, you're not as bad as you think you are.
Because I'm extremely hard on myself.
And if I'm, if I'm on top, I canget cocky and I can be like, oh,
I got nothing could touch me. I'm untouchable.
Well, that's when the world touches you and you know, and
(17:30):
then if you're, if you're like, I'm no good, I'm terrible.
You're really hard on yourself. You're not as bad as you think
you are. And when you're, when you're the
big deal, you're not as good as you think you are.
And so having that is a very comfortable and easy way that I
am able to stay grounded and go,yeah, but you did achieve
shelter, didn't you? And you did achieve food and you
(17:51):
did achieve custody and then everything in between.
I can do the same memory with those.
So any other goal, if somebody never fell that far, every one
of the folks listening can definitely look at their own
life and their own achievements and go, but I'm not chasing that
anymore, am I? I did achieve that.
I did it. And it's it's a humbling
experience. I think that that I can use
(18:12):
those still to this day in a little bit different way.
Yeah, I just. I love the the clarity,
simplicity. I I hope everybody can find that
sort of clarity because that sounds so.
It sounds so impossibly broad. Yeah, right.
But I understand that's the mostclear you can possibly give.
You can boil it down to 123 words.
(18:34):
Yeah. I mean, holy smokes.
Now you've really got something to go after.
Yeah, and you know, I hear, I hear.
I'll give this too. This is one that's that I hear
people talk about. Everything happens for a reason
and I hear that and there's, there's definitely a part of me
that's on the on the energy level and I understand and I get
it. But I'll challenge it a little
bit and I'll say everything happens if you give it reason.
(18:58):
Because right in that moment, ifwe, if I get real vulnerable
here in that moment of that lifeimplosion, I was very suicidal.
It was a very dangerous space tobe in.
And I understood when your kids are so young and you're the
father, they don't want dad, they want mom.
That was how I thought. I had no friends, I had no
career, I had no, what did I care about?
(19:20):
I didn't even have an identity. I had already flushed all of
that for 10-15 years. And so being in that space, in
that moment, it's a very dangerous space to be.
And so I got to relate with anybody that's feeling that
absolute despair also. And I got to, I got to think
about where do you draw that line and where do you decide and
(19:42):
what do you do? And everything happens for a
reason. Not really.
I could write in that moment, choose to no longer exist, or I
could choose to give it meaning so that everything did happen
for a meeting. And I lean.
And that was the choice, you know, no one could take credit
for. Oh, yeah.
And look what you became throughthat.
That's all fine and good. But I had a choice to make and
(20:03):
then a whole lot of work to do. So I do believe that everything
happens for a reason. Maybe.
If you give it reason. It's really good.
I'm always looking for themes when we do these episodes.
That is a great theme. Everything happens when you give
it reason. And that's so much better than
everything happens for a reason,right?
It's like, man, everything happens when you give because it
(20:25):
gives you the power of like, listen, give this thing a reason
and you're going to get something amazing out of it.
And that's the truth my mentor always says.
And the last episode I did, we talked about this a lot.
There's a blessing in everythingand if you look for it, and
that's what I hear are you saying, and everything happens
when you give it a reason. You got to look for the
blessings and they're there in the worst of things and the best
(20:45):
of things. And that's really good, man, I
love that. So real fast we got to pause to
shout out the sponsor of the show.
When we come back though, I wantto talk about the title of the
episode, You shutting down a multi $1,000,000 real estate
team and also the fact that you hired 26 agents over five years
and never lost anybody, which isunheard of, which had to do with
(21:07):
that empathy that came from thatrealization in the stroke.
But I want to cover that dive into that when we come back in
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(21:28):
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(22:11):
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(22:35):
join us. Take care.
So Trevor, loving this conversation, man, really,
really interesting. Just the the breakthrough that
you found through that stroke and, and what came from that.
And I'm really curious, you know, you talk about shutting
down your multi $1,000,000 real estate team.
You had a team, you hired 26 agents over five years.
(22:56):
You never lost anybody. How is that possible, number
one? And what is the story of of
getting rid of all that? Yeah, yeah.
So all of this came to be post strokes.
So that was, you know, when I went 100% self-employed is
during that whole season. And part of that was being a
real estate agent and leaning into clients.
And what I had learned was as I was, I was being an agent just
(23:19):
solo for the first three years. I took, it took three years for
me to admit this, but three years.
Then I realized I'm not, I'm not, I'm not putting in the same
time as these agents that are mypeers.
I'm putting it about 25% of the time, as most are.
And it was because my backgroundwas in programming since I was
in 8th grade and or I'm sorry, since I was in fifth grade.
(23:39):
And then in 8th grade I learned about three more coding
languages and on, on, on. And then I became this techie.
And then I got taught these systems of smarter, not harder,
automating with machines and using Zapier, Zapier and API
Nation to tie technologies together.
And then I started using Upwork and Fiber to hire staff I could
(24:00):
afford for hourly rates that fitthe business and the level I was
at, so I could start creating machine optimized tools and
systems. But also sometimes I needed
somebody just to ask me if I wanted something done on a
regular schedule. So now I could have these
assistants and these people thatwould ask me this rather than
machines just automatically sending things.
(24:22):
And I had all of that in place because I was ambitiously lazy.
I, I got angry at things on a Friday and then Friday,
Saturday, Sunday, I launched a whole new company because I just
never wanted to have to deal with that annoyance again.
And I didn't know that this wasn't normal.
I thought people just, you know,when you get frustrated enough,
you just go figure it out and build a thing.
And I, I, I can understand, and now I can look at things from a
(24:46):
very linear technological programmary, stereotype brain.
And at the same time I can understand.
Well, yeah, but in Lean and Six Sigma training and teaching and
these statistical analytics and these reportings and all of
this, if I were to get people ina posture of inspiration, I can
(25:10):
have half of the metrics and I don't have to overlook and
Overwatch it. And I have to have quite as much
of A QA department. I don't have to be hard on
people. I don't have to motivate them.
I can instead have somebody become, you know, in in high
school or college. I think we've all had that
moment where we we were working on a project and we had already
(25:30):
completed what was required. But we are enjoying it and it
was, it was fun and it's somewhere leaning into and we
got neurotic about it and we gotinspired really.
And all of a sudden it was 2 in the morning.
We are still cranking away and over performing because we were
all about it. And I thought, well, my sister
runs a Gallup strengths coachingbusiness and I learned those
strengths and gifts and talents of what are the top five things
(25:52):
of 34 different strengths? What are the top five things
that people are so innately built into?
And they're, they're in them. And it's who they are that they
can't help but to do it. They they do that work or they
do those things in those categories and they actually
feel more energized than a full night's sleep.
And they're so good at them thatthey're terrible at teaching
them because they don't know howthey do them.
(26:14):
And I've thought if I could start building teams,
departments, cultures with that in mind, I'll do my automation,
I'll do my outsourcing, and thenI'll also build a culture that
has a sense of you. You belong here, you fit here,
you're heard in your scene. And that all sounds good.
And those are buzzy words. But I mean, I had everyone take
(26:36):
those Gallup strengths tests andwe had them up on the wall, all
of them. And I would walk in almost every
day and I'd have somebody standing in the middle of the
room staring at the board, understanding themselves better,
understanding who they work withbetter.
Why is that person so competitive?
Why is that person always bringing up positive responses
to everything? Why is that one so adaptable?
Why is that one so aggressive? And they also, now we're
(26:57):
building into them. They saw their own face and name
up there and they said, everybody's understanding me
too. And it really played out that
way. And everybody that joined the
team, the organization, it was. So I started offering these
tools and these systems to real estate agents that are more
stereotype salespeople rather than stereotype programmers.
And they now held all its automation.
(27:19):
They could unload and offload all the crap and they could just
go work on relationships and negotiating and stay in their
lane. And along the way, now their
time was free, they also then got a whole host of people that
understood why they ticked the way they ticked.
And as they developed friendships and bonds, there was
no reason to look anywhere else or go anywhere else.
(27:42):
And I'll tell you, that's one ofthe most accidental things that
I did right, too, was that the creating of that friendship and
bond when we had our first five agents on the team, it was after
the first year I had a sales incentive program put in place.
And what it was is a percent I didn't like when someone had to
perform and you have to hit thismany sales by October 1st or
(28:02):
something like that. And if you do, you get this.
If you don't, you get this. I watched a really great agent,
29 of the 30 in a in a previous and and they got left out.
Well, of course, that person within the next 3-4 months,
switch, switch companies. I mean, they, they were told
you're 29 doesn't mean anything to us.
You have to get 30 to mean anything to us.
So I did a percentage and I said, whatever percent of your
(28:24):
goal that we set together on thefront end of the year, whatever
percent you hit of that, I will pay that percentage of your
airfare and your all inclusive resort trip to Mexico.
Well, we get through this first year and I look back at my, my
OG 5 agents and I said, well guys, I think if I would have
had the systems in place to helpyou perform, I think you all
(28:46):
would have hit your sales goals.And so I'm going to own this,
this is on me. I'm going to pay 100% of all of
your trips, your, your airfare and your all inclusive trip.
You can pay for your spouse, butI'll pay for you.
And and we'll go do this together and celebrate that We
did our first launch first year startup real estate organization
together. And when I made that decision
(29:06):
that was in February I think of 2017 and we had no money.
We had all nine bank accounts were total, I think it was about
$64. We had something like $11,000 a
month in expenses. So that was coming up in March
and we had $108,000 in credit card debt that I just maxed out
(29:27):
to make this thing happen. And by all means, would I
recommend somebody to do this, this way from a business and a
financials perspective? There is another way, but I
didn't know it at the time. And, and I said yes.
And I did it. And those 5 were glued to each
other. They became real friends, real
bonds. They experienced something in
(29:47):
the world. I didn't require them to stick
around or do anything on the trip.
They came to 1 dinner and anything else was like, hey,
let's go hit a catamaran. And every year I did that trip
and I watched everybody that hadjoined the organization that
came on that trip. They then became part of the
glue and that that that culture of belonging being seen, being
(30:10):
heard, their life being made easier by the automation and the
tools. And then they actually had a
running mate, a friend side by side that all together created
the some intentional and some accidental right thing recipe of
what really grew that organization and kept it
together. I, I wanted to get back to, so
(30:33):
you took all of those strength Finder tests.
I'm, I'm fascinated by this and put them on the wall.
So everybody, did anybody have pushed back from that?
No, no one really did. I mean, I think I explained why
my my nature. Is it's such a great idea, man,
it's such a great idea. You can see everybody now.
I see you. You know what I mean?
Like eliminates a lot of confusion, eliminates a lot of
(30:55):
like, why is this person this way?
Well, there it is. Here's why I am the way that I
am. Yeah, we had someone that had a
number one Gallup strengths of competition, and he was very
abrasive if you didn't know that.
And it's because he likes the game.
He likes to compete, and it's not good enough to always win.
That's not competing. He needs a worthy adversary that
(31:18):
almost beats him or does beat him once, but then he gets to
win nine times. And when we would get together,
you know, for some kind of holiday party or something like
that and play these games, they'd get very heated.
And now we could know why. And we could even give him a
little, a bit of a hard time. And but he knew that we
understood him and we accepted, accepted him for who he was and
(31:39):
and nobody needed anybody to change.
Yeah, man, that's so good. That's such a, such a simple
concept. And it's also fascinating and
fun, right? It's fun to like learn about
yourself, learn about other people.
I I really love that idea. Was your information also up
there? Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. Just making sure that would be
the blue that would make it stick.
(32:00):
Yeah. And you know, part of that was I
know that I'm quirky and I know that I'm intense and I know that
I am hard to swallow. And it's just like I needed them
to know I'm just as human as everybody else.
And our admin staff that live that were in the Philippines and
India and we had some folks in Dallas across the country,
everybody was up there and everybody could understand and
they could even see why our admin staff, they had certain
(32:24):
gaps in their set of strengths as a whole and as a team,
because we didn't need them to be extremely influential.
And then our our, our sales staff and our sales team, well,
we didn't necessarily we needed one person to be able to
advocate for them and go influence in, in a, in a
professional setting or documenta process, but not really.
(32:45):
We didn't need them to be as administrative.
And so I used my sister's tools and, and we analyzed our
different teams to figure out what do we actually need and
want in these teams and why to make sure that they were, they
were the right people. And we did it.
We did that on the hiring. And any time we brought somebody
on, we would have them take thattest to, to make sure that it
(33:07):
was the right fit and feel. And I also told the team, the
real estate team, the sales team, that the agents, I said,
hey, guys, I know that I have a bias.
Any breathing human can create asale, can create profit.
But I had seen that done wrong so many times that I said here's
the deal. I will only ever bring anyone
into this organization if I can get at least two of you to say I
(33:32):
would enjoy drinks on a beach with that person.
And if I couldn't get at least two people, because I understand
once you get big enough, you got, you can't have the whole
cultures buy in and you can havemicro cultures within it.
And if I could get two people tosay I would enjoy hanging out
with that person, I would enjoy drinks.
And I'm like there that that works.
If I can't get that and there was at least 15 people that I
(33:55):
would have brought on and my team, I couldn't get two people
to say yes to. And I think at least half of
them I got to see within a monthor two afterward.
I got to observe that the team was right and I I protected us
and me through that design. Yeah, I see it so much with the
(34:16):
companies that I work with is just this desperation to
hireright and just hiring peoplebecause we need to hire people.
We we don't have enough people. And and so they bring people in
and and you get a lot of toxic people that way.
And it's a great idea. Bring the team in.
How do they, And so how did the team meet this person?
(34:38):
How did they get to interact with them?
What did that? Yeah, yeah.
We didn't tell the person, but Isaid, hey, I want you to meet
the team and I want you to make sure that you feel like you vibe
with the team and let's just go get some drinks and get some
appetizers. And we would just meet up
somewhere in the world and I would let the team know, hey,
this is happening. I need some of you available.
And anybody that could show up did.
And it was almost always that original 5 or original 10.
(35:03):
I mean, they were, they were kind of the, the core group or,
you know, we had a couple that came in way later, maybe agent,
you know, 19 through 23. And they made themselves part of
the core group. And so they were actually there
and, and helping us decide on the culture.
And so I guess it didn't really matter when someone came in.
But yeah, we just did something casual.
And I let the, I let the new person believe or feel like
(35:31):
they're deciding if they liked the team was the only reason
because that was true. I, I wanted that to be true.
I needed to know, do you feel like you fit here?
Because that would tell me abouttheir self worth and self-image
and it all kinds of other things.
And then I knew that the team was vetting them and I knew that
I was just going to, I was goingto take the hard job if I had to
(35:54):
deliver the message to them that, hey, we met, we talked,
what I observed in the interaction, it's just not
something that I want to move forward with.
And they could be mad at me and they could still have great
working relationships on future transactions with the team as
they did from another brokerage or anything like that.
And I just didn't, I didn't haveto say the team decided against
(36:16):
you. It was all me and I just owned
it. And I knew that I could carry
that. And it didn't, it didn't matter.
I didn't have to. I didn't mind being the bad guy,
I guess. And I did it in a nice way.
Yeah, great leadership. That's that's awesome.
I love just just that whole story there is really, really
cool and super going back to thesimplicity, super simple makes
(36:36):
it super effective. It's not complicated.
So as we with the time we have remaining, you shut down that
team, right, that business, yeah.
Why was something going so well?Why?
Yeah, yeah. It was going really well.
And you know, the, the real estate market's gone up and down
and it had 20/22. It was a little bit harder of a
year 2023, harder of a year 2425.
(36:58):
Like they've all been a little funky and different.
And, and that's OK. It made me go through an
exercise with the team to go, OK, with our expenses, let's
shrink some. And I had, you know, the kind of
the core group vote on, do we keep this?
Do we reduce this? Do we have the agent pay for
this themselves? What are we doing?
We went through all of that and as we got through it, it really
(37:20):
started making me, it made me evaluate what do I want and what
do I want to run. And I, I knew that I wanted to
be able to run businesses remoteand I wanted to.
I only ever wanted to start something up that I believed I
could run from any beach in the world.
And that's again, real simple, real clear state of mind.
(37:42):
I only want to start something that I can run from a beach.
I didn't see this as ever being able to progress to that.
You know, there was a there was a maybe, but the risk was high
because that would require me tofind somebody that the team
wanted to follow and wanted to be part of as much as they did
(38:05):
me. You know, I could build in the
systems for that that want and yearn to be with each other, but
it just I just didn't see my waythrough it.
And here's something that ties back into my my multi level
marketing days. When I when I jumped into a
multi level marketing business, I was 19 years old.
I had no credit with banks. I had no cash as down payments
(38:27):
or any any fundable money towardany business.
What I had was an abundance of time because I was 19 years old.
So that was the a commodity thatI could spend in great amounts
to build and create a business. That's why that business at that
time kind of made sense. Well, later in life I had credit
with banks and I had the abilityto put a down payment down on a
(38:50):
flip property or a long term rental or I had money or
leverage with real estate that Icould put into buying cash flow
producing businesses. Well, similarly, this business
was one that I could, I could probably have made it runnable
from a beach someday, but not nearly as simply as some of the
(39:15):
other businesses that I now had access to.
And so I could do that uphill push and climb, but I didn't
have to anymore. And so I decided to let the let
the whole team know that we weregoing to part ways and I started
talking to the brokerage on their behalf and helping
negotiate better splits for themthan they even had on on our
(39:37):
team. I offered Ala carte
opportunities and ways that theycould keep their systems that
that I had built and they could just hire kind of as a group and
separately the the people that Ihad already assembled and
trained in the Philippines or locally on any of the, you know,
non license needing admin stuff.And, and then I just, I just set
(40:02):
up a little bit new of a design so I could, I could step back
and go, all right, I'm going to lean into some other ventures
and other businesses that I do believe I can run more
realistically and more effectively from a beach.
Interesting man. You know, letting that go would
be something that most people would have a really hard time
(40:22):
with, right? And just making that decision of
like, well, this has been extremely successful, you know,
and, and that it's time just to,to, to let it go.
And I guess the question I have is what, what do you think?
What character trait or skill orwhatever, whatever that is?
What is that that allowed you tohave that clarity and the
(40:43):
confidence to be able to do that?
Because even somebody who might be successful in a couple
different areas would would havewould struggle with that.
Yeah, yeah. I think something that I've, I
was, I was either taught or I have in my nature.
I, I, I can zoom way out really big picture.
I can come in super granular like a programmer too, but that
zoom that way, way, way, way far, zoom out.
(41:05):
I can keep track of what is my ultimate goal.
I what am I actually accomplishing here?
What am I after? I will put the blinders on.
I've told people for years now Itruly I personally, I can't set
goals because if I set a goal, Iwill achieve the goal and I will
destroy every other part of my life to achieve the goal.
(41:26):
OK. So I have to set trajectories.
That's all I can allow myself todo.
And I'll set a trajectory which is no different than a goal,
except it, you know. Different word, little different
concept. Lets me tweak my own
personality. Yeah, and what it adds in and
requires in a in a goal, you're supposed to do this anyways, but
I could never do it with a goal.With a trajectory.
(41:46):
I knew I was on a path and in a direction for a period of time.
And so then I had in my calendarthree or four months from now
meeting with self to revisit trajectories and I would have
that meeting. And I gave myself permission
because I ran down a blind path of multi level marketing and I
(42:08):
was selling and I was, I was talking to people and I was
recruiting and I was doing the whole thing.
And I ran that blindly for eightyears and I learned a ton and I
got so much education and gratitude and, and growth up
until about year 6. And the last two years, I kept
running blind in a direction I shouldn't have.
(42:30):
I, I was already, I was done with that business and I needed
permission to myself to revisit my trajectory.
And is this still the path I want to be on or do I want to
change it for any reason? I choose just to be conscious
about it and do it intentionallyrather than doing it blindly out
of principle or ego. Or here's one for the group.
(42:53):
I've, I don't think I've ever said this on a podcast before,
but in when I was 16, I, I bought a Jeep and you know, sold
a car, bought a car, did whatever.
I had you to buy this Jeep and Idrove this Jeep CJ7 is what it
was and I put the license plate on it.
Never wrong because my ego was so out of whack and I meant it
as a joke kinda. I was really.
(43:15):
Impressed. Listen, if you put it on a
license plate, it's probably true.
Right then I'm like, yeah, it's a good joke and all, but really,
So what that was is it was an extreme fear of mine to be
wrong, to be embarrassed, to be seen that way.
And so for me to say I'm going to do this, well, now my
integrity's on the line, my ego's on the line.
(43:35):
I could never fail a goal because now I was wrong.
I chose wrong. There was a lot of wrong in
there. And I didn't realize that that
is one of those illusions of control that I had.
I thought I had control and thatwas safety.
When I shattered and the stroke happened and all of that, I
realized, oh, I have influence. I can create ripples.
(43:56):
I can create likelihoods and probabilities.
I can create really vast likelihoods and probabilities,
but I do not have control. Control is not safe.
It is not the most opportunities.
People do not give control people all of the great good
opportunities. And so that was that was that
was all part of it. And as I, as, as I got through
(44:18):
some of those seasons and out ofthat, I started realizing how I
could keep that big picture zoomed out.
What, what am I actually trying to create in 15 years?
What am I trying to create in 20years, 10 years, 5, any, any of
that? Well, is it to run this business
and to, to have my, my name on the business?
(44:38):
Is that what's important? How about 30 years from now?
Is that what I want? And, and if I zoomed out far
enough with a number of years, I'd go, oh, no, I actually don't
care if my name is a part of a real estate team within a
brokerage. OK, OK.
So if that's actually how I feel30 years from now, when does
that change? Is it 20 years from now?
How about 10? How about today?
(45:00):
And if, and I just found when does that change?
Because if it obviously doesn't matter to me at age 30 or in 30
years from now, maybe it is today.
Maybe I actually don't care today and I'm just I'm just
running blind. Yeah, good chance if it's not to
if it's, Yeah, that that's right.
(45:20):
Now would be the right time to do it, most likely.
And make a decision. Yeah.
And that decision, you could delay that for decades.
That's right. And and dig yourself into a a
hole or however you want to lookat that.
But man, that's fascinating. Thank you for sharing all that
really good stuff. Did you ever get pulled over in
that Jeep? Let's see, I, I think I got
pulled over once when the speedometer didn't work.
(45:41):
So, you know, and I got a warning and I got to fix the
ticket and all. That, but did they make it like
I would imagine the comments about the license plate.
If I was a cop I'd be looking for a good joke.
Good pun. He did he he made a small
comment. I remember where I was in
Bellevue, NE. I remember, I remember it.
But yeah, I actually, what happened a lot is at at traffic
(46:02):
lights. I, you know, I had no top, no
doors. You know, I was out there in the
world and I'd have people pull up next to me that were behind
me just so they could laugh and love it and talk together about
it because they were like, you are some kind of special if
you're going to put that on yourcar.
So yeah, I got, I got comments by the by the other drivers on
the road for sure. And I kept them.
(46:24):
I kept them. I have them in a, in a box in
the garage and, and, and a memorabilia and I hold them up
next. So my, my sons and I, they're
now 14 and 16. About four years ago, we, we
remodeled and built a whole new Jeep and then and use this Jeep
as a, as our model and, and ground up and did whatever we
needed to, to it to, you know, keep it itself, but then but add
(46:46):
to it and new license plate. Now it says live more on it and
that and I I hold the two up next to each other and be like
all right, it's a little bit different message these.
Days, there's some growth there,yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, man, that's good, Trevor.
I love that great conversation. Really good stuff.
Thank you for being on here today.
I want to thank you just for showing up and and being who you
are. Really value it.
(47:07):
This has been so good. Your website, trevorshade.com,
that's SCHADE links in the bio. What do you want people to do
when they go there? Yeah, yeah.
I work mostly now with organizations, teams that either
need efficiencies brought in thetechnology side and all of that.
Sure, the culture creation, evenjust a speaker to their
(47:30):
companies to help people understand overcoming or getting
unstuck. I mean, I, I really resonated
with with your, with your podcast here and the message and
what you're trying to share withpeople because I think
everybody's there. And so, yeah, if there's some
kind of a business need that I can, I can provide and help.
That is my my, my gift, my nature, my strengths.
(47:51):
I see solutions to problems, be it technological culture,
creation or if somebody really wants to go wealth creation
primarily in real estate and then later into other
businesses. I do that kind of consulting and
public speaking in keynotes withmany organizations.
Excellent, trevorshade.com. Check them out.
(48:14):
And as always, as we wrap this thing up, listen, if you and I
never talk again, anybody who watches or listens this never
hears from you ever again, what is a message that you would like
to leave them with? Yeah, yeah.
I would say one of the one of the key principles I was able to
lean into and lean on since I was, I mean, three or four years
old was act as if and act as if or act your way into a new way
(48:38):
of thinking or act your way intoa new way of feeling.
You know, there was many sporting events or practices
that I just didn't want to go toas I grew up.
And if I just acted as if I wanted to go to them, well, I
shook it off. I got upbeat, I got bouncy and I
went to the thing and all of a sudden I was there in motion.
(48:59):
And on the way home, I was always so glad I went and it was
so fun. And I don't think that's any
different in someone's relationships.
I don't think that's any different in someone's business.
I don't think that's any different any in someone's
trajectories or goals, if you will just act as if, act as if
you have that new next job, act as if you're excited about the
(49:20):
relationship that you're in, actas if.
I think that is really applicable in about every area
of life and it's just a matter of figuring out how to apply it.
Great advice, act as if and I just thought of my son.
He's 11 and he complaints about almost doing everything anytime
we go somewhere and almost every.
(49:42):
And I've been reminding him thissince he was five years old.
After the thing's over, he's like, Dad, that was actually
like a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun.
I'm like, yeah, remember the 400times before this when you said
the same thing? Remember, just go start doing
the thing. And then you're once you're in
it, you're enjoying it. It's and then it's halfway done,
then it's finished. And then you actually had a
great time. And it's just a you have to act
(50:04):
as if because you got to remind yourself, hey, man, it you might
not want to do it right now, butif you act as if when The thing
is done and you have the accomplishment, you're going to
feel great. You know, that's coming.
So go do it. Yep, great advice.
I definitely agree. I mean, my kids are the same
way. I'm the same way.
I think we're all, I think we'veall got that in our nature.
Yeah, for sure. Another amazing true testimony.
A breakthrough on the show today.
(50:24):
Until next time. This has been the unstuck
movement.
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