What do you want, and why do you want it? | Episode 134

You'll notice on this one, Sean Mooney & Tim Garrity went waaay too long on the casual episode intro. So if our small talk is not your bag, please skip ahead to the 6 minute and 30 second mark to get started; haha. In this Bricks & Risk stinger, we go over something a bit more philosophical than usual; even though, we have been known to get philosophical on B&R. The topics is "What do you want?" The reason we chose to tackle this one is because so many people we know in business are just running around like chickens with their heads cut off; most of the time, they just don't know what they want out of business. Unfortunately, there is a true lack of focus out there in the small business world (we fall victim to this as well on occasion), and we hope that this episode will help bring some purpose back to your own business journey.

Big shout-out to our show's loyal and dedicated sponsor: Property Management Redefined. John Sacks and his property management squad love our show and continue to support our mission of helping people through podcasting!

Our goal with Bricks & Risk is that you walk away with 1 or 2 valuable nuggets that can help build your own business. Our audience grows through word of mouth, so if you would please take a moment of your time and give us a review on the platform you’re on, that would be fantastic!

Please also help spread the B&R word by sharing your favorite episode with a friend. You can find all B&R episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and anywhere else you get your podcast content. We greatly appreciate your time and trust.

Until next week, keep learning and keep growing!

** Episode Shout-Outs **
→ Daniel Dumile: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2237198/
→ Episode Sponsor, Property Management Redefined: https://gopmr.com/

📲 Contact Info 📲
→ Sean Mooney, Mooney Insurance Brokers: www.mooneybrokers.com/
→ Tim Garrity, The Tim Garrity Team: www.timgarrityteam.com/

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:00

What do you want? Like, what do you want? And some people will come in and say, Here's here, I don't know what I want. Here's what I don't want.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

I don't want to work for a company that no one's ever heard of. Because there's an insecurity, or that makes you anxious, or you like you feel like you're missing out, or you're not going to get the value, or you're not going to get enough training, or you're not going to get lead opportunity, whatever. It doesn't matter what the reasons are, but that's a fear. Someone going out on their own, like you said, when you went out and did Mooney Insurance Brokers, you were like, no one did this from scratch. They were like inheriting, inheriting like a family brokerage from like their parent or their grandparent.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Yeah, but if you were starting, if you were starting it new, you would need to have that brand with you.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Join us as we take you along our own business building journeys with additional wisdom from our network of local and national experts. Welcome to Bricks and Risk.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

This episode is brought to you by Property Management Redefined. PMR is not just managing properties, we're creating partnerships that build long-term success for property owners. John and his team can be reached at manage at gopmr.com or by phone 267-753-6005. Tim. Yes, Sean. Who's a good client for PMR?

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Property management redefined is looking for property owners who value three things accountability, reliability, and a results-driven approach. You want to maximize returns, but still provide client and tenant satisfaction. There's a lot of property managers out there. There are. What does PMR do really well? Biggest thing is they're seamless and they're worry-free. So with that approach in mind, it allows the property owner to put their trust in PMR and know that the results will be there. The other thing I think a property owner is really going to value because they do it so well is that they have a local expert team boots on the ground, managing your properties and your tenants' expectations every day so that you feel good about your investments.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

We have millions of listeners out there. Tens of millions. If they want more information, how do they find PMR?

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Right here, guys. Take good care of you. I'm Timothy Michael Garrett and you the first.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

And his co-host for the day, filling in for Victor Vaughn, is me, Sean Mooney. Sean Patrick Mooney the first.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Sean Metalface Mooney. Otherwise, what was the name you gave me the other day? The nickname? You said you named the episode. First of all, Apple Podcasts just officially approved Bricks and Risk for videos on their podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

We are their 11th podcast that is now offered as a video.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

So if you want an autograph copy, you can get it.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

It's like us and the Kelsey brothers and like a couple others.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

But you did the first, so you did the first example. You're like, look, yo, you can download the actual podcast video to an Apple Podcast now. And then what was the name in the episode? I was like, who the hell is that? Oh, I know exactly who it was.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yeah, who was it? It was our interview with Daniel Dumalay. I'm like, did you Google it? Of course I did. Why would I not have? And now you need to Google it. Now they have to go out and Google.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

You need to Google it.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Daniel Dumoulet, D-U-M-I-L-E.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

And now you need to understand another reason why Mooney is so bizarre. I live and have created a bizarro world. It's true. Just like the shirt. We were just talking about the shirt, and we were talking about how it's made of like bathing suit material. And I said it looks like kind of like women's cruise wear from like 1996.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Which is the look like when I tapped. That was the fact that you gave me. Oh. And I was like, what? I didn't know this. Maybe this will blow a couple people away as well that didn't know or weren't aware. And the only reason I'm aware is because I've ordered women's shirts before. On purpose or by action? But this is not a woman's shirt because the buttons are on the man's side of the shirt. The right side. The right side. So if you're a man, you button from the right. If you're a woman, you button from the left. Tim wasn't aware of that. And we would love to get your feedback. So if you have feedback on this, if you knew about the man's shirt on the right, correct. Let us know. Hit us up on the website. Or the woman shirt on the left. Bricks and risk at gmail.com. Let us know if you kind of knew that already or if this is groundbreaking. We'd like to know your button knowledge. Yeah. I wonder, like in Sweden, is it the same? Is this an American thing or is this like over in Europe? Why is Sweden? Where the hell did that come from? Well, if you watch the bud kezz sprout stats, we have a good contingency of Swedish listeners. We do? Yeah. It's like number four on countries. Okay. What's number two? Canada. Okay. What's number three? Argentina.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

And number four is Sweden.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Okay. It's crazy. Well, I don't know. Hey, listen. Swedish folk. We love you. Thanks for listening. I don't know if that's a VPN thing or if that's an actual geographical location thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Or uh we're just getting, you know, spammed by people from Sweden. And they're like The bots? These two dopes are frickin' open target.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

But you would think if it was a VPN, it would bounce. It wouldn't be a static thing in those countries. True. Do you have any relatives in those countries? Like I feel like if you had like relatives, maybe you'd get like three or four hits from that country. True. All right. What are we getting into today? Today's topic, folks, is women's cruise wear. Women's cruise wear. 1989. No, but for real. What we're going to discuss today. Topic of discussion today is what do you want? What do you want? What do you want?

SPEAKER_02 6:58

And so broad yet so specific. Because a lot of people who get into business, let's call it, into sales. A lot of what we talk about is sales, marketing, building a business, whether it's you by yourself or you with 50 people. It doesn't matter what you're trying to do. But a lot of what we talk about on bricks and risks is small business minded, small business mindset, how to grow, like how to do it right, how to understand what kind of person you are, you know, how to market yourself, what speed are you doing it at, or what kind of money are you spending, or are you too stressed? Are you getting burnt out? We teach a lot of fundamental things about business on this show to help you identify a little bit more clearly as to what works for you and why. Well, one thing we have never brought up is what do you want? And while while that is such a broad question, so like we just did this on a past episode, and some people will just get into business or get into sales and say, I want to make as much money as I can make. I want to be rich. Filthy, rich, filthy rich. I want to blow my nose with 50s. That's what I want to do. So if that's what you want to do, why? Like what do you want? I know you want to be rich, but what are you gonna do with those riches, with that wealth, once you get there?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

I think most times in that particular sense, the that when that is given, or if that's their driver and motivation, I think a lot of times it's like you grew up dirt poor.

unknown 8:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Like you grew up with nothing.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Um, and that is how I mean you look a lot of these um entrepreneur types that are worth you know millions of dollars. Yeah, a lot of them a lot of them, you know. You know, Gary Vaynerchuk grew up in like eastern Russia as a toddler and came here with nothing and you know, saw his parents, you know, work like around the clock, you know. So I think a lot of those people that make it and make it big are I grew up with nothing.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Nothing.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

And I want, I want to be able to own my own house and you know, fly on a private jet or whatever it may be. It's just you're trying to find the motivation that fits. And a lot of times it's, you know, I had nothing. I grew up, you know, in in an apartment, you know, a two-bedroom apartment with three brothers or something, you know, something like that's their story about growing up, and they wanted they saw people that would drive these nice cars or do things, and they're like, that's what I want, you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

I'll give an example. So let's talk about, and I've talked about this on the show before. Let's talk about like how I got into real estate. So graduated from LaSalle University in 2001, Go Explorers, shout out, and had a marketing degree. So got out. You we should have this show on at LaSalle one day.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

We should. LaSalle, if you're listening or watching. We'll be calling. Maybe we know some touch.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

We do. All right, so graduated college, marketing degree, spent every penny I had in the world, traveling Europe, went backpacking through Europe. How'd that go? Fantastic. One of the most fun trips of my life, if not the most fun. And when I got back, 9-11 had happened. So there were no jobs, stock market crashed, people were getting laid off, like the whole American economy was like crushed by that because people just lost faith. Like people were taking the money out of the bank, like all sorts of things were happening. So between that time, that was in the fall of 2001, to around like the spring summer of 2002, I was hustling, I was waiting tables, I was expediting, I was working in restaurants, making money, you know, going out, drinking beers with my buddies, dating, doing that whole thing, moved to Manneonk, my first apartment. Then um, I got in the mortgage business. My dad was a street loan officer for over 40 years. Shout out to John Garretti.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

John Jardy, one of our favorite listeners.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Full commissioned loan officer, four children his entire life. Unbelievable. But he said to me, Have you ever thought about the mortgage business? And I said, No. And he started telling me about it. Hey, here's what I do. I advise people, I help people. Someone wants to buy a house, someone wants to refinance their mortgage. They call me. I tell them what the rates are, the best fit for them. I have to check their credit. He's like, tell me all about this.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Do you think he had that same conversation with Pat, your brother?

SPEAKER_02 11:47

I don't know. Uh that's interesting. I think he knew I was a little bit more dialed into what I wanted to do because it was a marketing major. I was like, look, I want to do like business slash marketing.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Pat was an English major, nothing against that, as were you. So I think you were probably a little less sure of where you wanted to go. Yeah. So I think me knowing where I wanted to go, that probably helped. So good question. Um, so I ended up getting a job with JP Morgan Chase. Thank you for the opportunity. Street loan officer, did very well with it. Was able to get another job after I got a management job with Pulti Holmes when I was 24. And when I took that job, uh, I was doing really well, doing well financially, like doing well in my career. I was like leading people, I was like hitting goals, like I was learning about myself, I was building confidence, I was presenting, I was training, I was marketing, I was doing all this amazing stuff. Then the crash came in 2008, the great financial crisis. And my division here of Poulty in the Philadelphia area was 400 people. When I finally got laid off, it was down to 40. 90% of the people were laid off. So I lost my job. I mean, you would you would think it's like, man, I made it pretty far. I made it all the way down the end. Still ended up losing my job. Doesn't matter why, we don't need to get in all that. So one of my main purposes of what do I want in business, in a career, was I wanted to get into real estate because I didn't want to lose a job again. I was part of the reason, and I wanted to find a way to be feel more free and control my own destiny. So this is I was basically 30 when this happened. It's when I got my real estate license, just turned 30, was married, you know, Marie and I, we owned a house together, no kids yet, but we had two cars, had student loans, had credit card debt, had the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

And I said, My what I want, what I want to do is I don't want to lose a job again, and I want to have control over my career. So that was what I wanted. Now I didn't have a coach, I really didn't have someone that I like was venting to and said, Well, what do I want?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

I think at that moment in time, because I had had like almost 10 years in like corporate America and I had a couple different roles, I had a sales job, and then I had a management job. I just kind of knew that I wanted to work for myself in some way, shape, or form, and that if I could do that successfully, it didn't I'd even think about the time. I didn't think about, well, what if this takes me five years? I want to say I didn't think about it at all because I did make the deal with Maria, and I've said this before. I said, you gotta give me a year and a half. Give me 18 months. If you give me 18 months, that deal expired. Give me 18 months, and if it's 18 months from now and neither of us are pleased, you like if you're like, no, stop. We're drowning here, then I will stop. But if we get to 18 months and neither of us is saying that, we both have enough faith and confidence, even if we're not there yet financially, but we see light at the end of the tunnel, and we think the only way to go from here is up, then I will be doing this for the rest of my life. Okay, that was 16 years ago. So I'm not even, let's call, I'm probably like halfway through my career. And at this point, what I wanted was I wanted to control my own destiny. What about you? So in my case, I had worked. I want a shirt that looks like a women's bathing suit.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

And feels and fits from the late 80s like a woman's bathing suit.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Mid-90s.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

That was that didn't come till later. Initially, when I was working, I worked at uh the State Forum office, I worked at an all-state office.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Those were your first jobs out of college, right? Right. And what was your major? English. Okay. So you weren't doing anything to do with your major.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

No. Well, the fun I always reference this is the funny thing that everybody says, Oh, you're an English major, oh, you're gonna wait tables or you're gonna be an English teacher. That was what I heard a couple times. Like I'll wait tables. So um, so after those two jobs, um it was really at the end of my all-state run when I was starting to really put the pieces together that okay, one day I'm going to go start my own office. How many years in would you say? Two, three years in? To insurance or that insurance. Uh so I told you this uh in my first job, I knew uh right away that at some point I was going to own uh my own office.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

You could see you had a vision, you could see that.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

I didn't know how that would be, and I know how it like pan out or like would I go this way with this company, would I go this way, this company, would it be a part owner or like whatever? I didn't know what that how it would take shape down the road, but I knew that seed at a very uh early stage was that I was going to be an owner as part of an agency at some point.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

So as my time with um Allstate, uh, that was an eight-year run. I would say probably in years four to five, I was like, all right, I'm definitely going to do this. I knew it was starting to take shape in terms of what direction I wanted to go. I was talking to some um people outside of my office um to kind of get an understanding of who the players were, were, how you could really um put it together, the carriers, the the commitments, those types of things. Um so that for two or three years, I was really like having the conversations, talking to people in the know. Like I wanted to, I knew I wanted to be independent. So I started having those conversations with independent agency owners to pick their brains and to find out, you know, if I were going to do this, how we would do it. So you so you wanted to be your own boss?

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Yep. What made you early on start to distinguish between just being like a a state farm or an all-state office versus being like an independent insurance brokerage? Like, how did you ask a lot of questions about the state farm all-state process, or was it just because you were working in that environment, you saw the limitations?

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Yeah, that's what it was. It was more of that. So, like we were in Huntington Valley, a guy down the street, Castor Insurance. Uh, if you know Bruce Castor in PA, I think he was district attorney or something, some high-ranking office. Shout out to Castor Insurance. Um, his brother had an office down the street, and they were independent and they could write anything. How did you know that? Was it because you sent them opportunities? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, we had like a relationship where, you know, if it was a business or something, we didn't do any of the business insurance. So we were literally like, hey, hey, hey, prospect, you know, go down the street and talk to I forget the guy's name. I think it was George.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

It's like cash is fantastic, and they can help you with your business insurance. We're a state farmer, we're all state, we cannot. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

So um, seeing that uh arrangement, I was, and then I would be like, Well, why don't you do this or why don't you do that? You know, it became um clear to me that if I was going to do it, that was a much better model to start uh and putting it together because it would check a lot of the boxes that that I would want. And you know, being being an exclusive agent um with one contract with one company, it was I got to see firsthand, like you know, you had to abide by all of their rules. You know, you um had to market, you'd have to like get permission, you'd send out your whatever you wanted to get a blessing from someone in some department. You really wouldn't be your own boss. You would be, but you wouldn't be. You you'd be your own boss. It's just you know, you'd have to kind of play within these bounds of this.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Yeah, there's there's red tape of being your own boss.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Like you'd have to paint your like I remember like you had to paint your office a certain color. If you were gonna order furniture for the office, it had to be uh out of this catalog and then, you know. And so everything to me was a restrain or constrictions upon how you did it. Um, and that would be, you know, anything from clients to commercial clients, you know, you couldn't do them, you had to send them down the street, or picking out furniture and or marketing, or every every every facet of the business had to be someone else's decision. Gotcha. And so for me, it didn't really hold a lot of value in what I perceived to be my business, right? So if it were to be my business, I wanted to market the way I if I wanted to write funeral homes because I have a lot of friends that were funeral directors. Andrew Rikowski, he's gonna be one of our guests uh upcoming. Awesome. Shout out to Andrew, uh Buddha, as he's known to us. Um so he'll be on the show. But it's really being selective and developing a business model that you came up with, right? This is your idea. This is this is where you want to have your office. You know, that was another thing geographically. Like you you were told where you had to be or where you could go or open up. Um it was just constraint after constraint after constraint. So for me, it's like if I want to do this, if I want to do it and be my office, there was really one avenue that was available that would allow me to do it in the manner that I I wanted to do it. That was the independent agent model.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

All right. So let's let's one point we had down here of like what do you want was like what's important and what isn't. Yeah. Like again, whether you run a state farm all state office and like, you know, no bias. Those are great models. Or you run Mooney Insurance Brokers, an independent office, like you can make money doing all three. You could arguably make more money one way versus the other versus the, you know, it's like you can go either way. Yeah. So you can be successful, you can basically go into work when you want. You can technically be your own boss, but even those two things are completely different. It's apples and oranges, in my opinion. Meaning if you go the state farm all state route, like you want the red tape because you're not trying to think about all the things that you want to think about. I don't, I don't know, really. Let me finish my thought. So let's say that person who wants to do the state farm and the allstate says, like, you know what? I don't want to think about the colors of my office. I also don't want to think about business insurance. Because if I know I focus on home and auto in this shop, in this location, in this state, wherever I am, I will make a couple hundred thousand, if not a million plus dollars a year. If I just do that for 30 years, for 20 years, for 40 years, if I just do that, I will probably make this. So those people just do it. Then there's you, a little bit more intentional about what you're doing and why. Like it here's a great question. Why did you even want to get into the business insurance game, commercial insurance, if you didn't have to? Like if you're like, hey, I could just write people's, I could protect people's homes and cars all day, make a ton of money, not overthink it, and grow my business that way. Like, what was it for you that you wanted to get into like business insurance or life insurance or different forms that Castor did, let's say.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Yeah. So talking to uh other successful independent agents, they really put a premium on what they call a balanced book.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Meaning, you know, an optimal goal for an agency. And this is I I know I'm gonna catch a lot of flack, whatever. Catch flack.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Hey everyone, this is Tim, your favorite bricks and risk co-host. But don't tell Sean. I hope you're enjoying this episode, and I'll get right back to it in a moment. Our audience grows through word of mouth. So if you would please take a moment of your time and give us a review on the platform you're on, that would be fantastic. Please also help spread the BR word by sharing your favorite episode with a friend. We greatly appreciate your time and trust. Now, back to the show.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

50% personal, 50% commercial.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Is what I would describe as almost an optimal book of business.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

In a perfect world, that's where you'd want to be.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Yep. Because you're not, you know, you're gonna have times where commercial is, you know, a hard market and a personal might be soft. You lose a big commercial client, but you gained, you know, 10 personal policy accounts. So there's the balancing effect that you have. It's like the scales. Right. And you're and it's rare that you're gonna have a time where it's like both are just really going. Like it's unusual.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

So, um, so in that and talking to people and getting an understanding of how, you know, we talk about earlier in one of the episodes is book composition. It was Greg Hogan, right? And you would talk about the book composition about what percentage of your book is personal versus which is uh personal.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Shout out to Greg Hogan, Caraba Insurance.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Greg's the man. If you're in New York, hit him up. Uh we see we actually just sent a client uh up his way. Nice. Um, which again talks about the uh you know scarcity versus uh abundance. Um but book composition is a big thing, it's an important thing you should be aware of. Um even guys that write a lot of commercial now. I'm starting to um hear, oh, I want to add in personalize. And I'm like, oh, okay, you know, kind of you know, it makes sense um uh for that um because it balances that out. Um so for me, after talking to these people, it's important, right? Um, so by by that being an important way to go forward, is um I wanted to have that as part of the agency.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Yeah, and therefore you're like, I'll paint the office any color that I want, I'll figure out where to where to order the office furniture. I I won't have a big brother telling me like how to do it because I have enough confidence in myself and a vision for this thing that I'm up for the challenge to do those things to see it through.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

And this happened to me in insurance or insurance. This happened to me in real estate. I wish. I wish. I do. Um, in real estate, when I got started, I only really wanted to work for an independent brokerage. People are like, why would you do that? Like, it's smaller, maybe there's not as many high producers there, they don't have as much training there, they don't have the best tech there. This is what people would tell me my first couple years, like, what are you doing? Why are you working at like a six-person shop? Yeah. And I said, Here's why I'm working there. I don't want all that noise of the brokerage's training or the high producer telling me how to run my business or any like rah-rah-rah, drink the Kool-Aid. I didn't want any of that. I already worked for corporate America and I was turned off by that. I said, I want to go learn the investor game. And I'm probably, it doesn't matter where I work per se, but the brokerage that I aligned with when I first started, Brown McKitty, shout out to Rudy Brown. Rudy, they were all working with investors. So I was like, look, I'm gonna go with this brokerage because I think my friends, family, my SOI, my sphere of influence is gonna work with me no matter what brokerage I'm at. This is 16 years ago. No one thought that way. It was all about the brokerage back then. I said, I disagree. And on top of that, with me building my agent business from scratch, I am also going to learn intravenously by example of the people I work with how does the investment game work? Why is that client flipping houses versus holding houses? Why did that client buy a parking lot and build a new construction building versus buying the old paint warehouse down the street and turning that into loft apartments? Why do they do one versus the other? Or, like, why is that person uh turning that from a multifamily to a single family? And why is this person only doing quadplexes? Why is that? So I was learning a lot about the investor game by strategically working around McKinney. So that's why I was doing that, because that's what I wanted to learn. Whereas maybe so many other agents getting into the business at that time who were my age, let's say they were 30, 25, 35 years old, are just like, well, I see all these Keller Williams signs on the streets. Why wouldn't I why wouldn't I work with Keller Williams? Yeah. Isn't that where this producer works and that producer and the other guy or girl? So they were more attracted to like that brand is pretty popular. I want to go work for that brand.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

I guess people think a lot, like I wonder if people are like, oh, Rob Rosenhaus is at Keller Williams. That's a sweet name. He must be successful because of Keller Williams, and if I go to Keller Williams, I will be successful. Nothing against Keller Williams. No, no, I'm just using that as an example. As an example. The brand, like the brand is making, like, do people think that the brand is making these people successful rather than he's a high performing salesperson that just chose to be under the roof of name your broker, and and that's how it works. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Well, it's just like it's the state farm all state argument versus the Keller Williams compass Caldwell banker argument. I need to work for one of those brands to be successful, to realize my goals in business of being my own boss, but I want to align with those brands for whatever reason, versus having a vision for what you really want to do with your real estate license, with your insurance license, with where what do you want? Like, what do you want? And some people will come in and say, here's here, I don't know what I want. Here's what I don't want.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

I don't want to work for a company that no one's ever heard of. Because there's an insecurity, or that makes you anxious, or you like you feel like you're missing out, you're not gonna get the value, or you're not gonna get enough training, or you're not gonna get lead opportunity, whatever. It doesn't matter what the reasons are, but that's a fear. Like someone going out on their own, like you said, when you went out and did Mooney Insurance Brokers, you were like, no one did this from scratch. They were like inheriting, inheriting like a family brokerage from like their parent or their grandparent. Yeah, but if you were starting on top of it.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

If you were starting it new, you would need to have that brand with you. It's almost a must. Like you you couldn't uh like you get oh mooney insurance, like who is that with? Or you know what I mean? Like it's the who are you aligned with? It's like who's your business companion? You know what I mean? It's like, no, is it this?

SPEAKER_02 32:00

And we write with like no, and I wear this shirt to work on my first day. Like, that's what I do, and that'll generate a conversation and they'll say, interesting shirt. Where did you buy that?

SPEAKER_00 32:11

My favorite story is I told this before was the day that I came down and I was I think uh it was during the summer, and I was wearing pants or something, maybe at a meeting, and my son Brendan is like, Dad, what's wrong with you? Like, why aren't you wearing a bathing suit today? He thought it was like so strange. I'm like, got a big meeting today, Bran. Good point, son.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

You know, I should be in a bathing suit. Should I probably be better in the big meeting in a bathing suit. All right, let's do this. If you could give an actionable step or some advice or what do you want? Like get someone to think about, let's call it the first step, one foot in front of the other. What would you tell them if they didn't know?

SPEAKER_00 32:58

First step, because I think this is almost the Simon Sinek episode. I would go out and get his book, start with why because I think this episode is really finding your why. Why do you want to go into real estate? Why do you want to go into insurance? Why do you want to be your own boss? That starts to have you understand um what's gonna motivate you, what goals do you want in life, and how to achieve them. So that would be my first step is really go get that book, digest it, because it's gonna really dig into um a subconscious maybe of how you're motivated and what you really value and what you want out of business. So I'd start there. Um, and really just start to like when I was in year four or five, when I was starting to really put the pieces together, um having conversations with people that are already where you want to get to, I would say that that is the most important part in all of this. Yeah, you want to get in the room and have the conversations with people that have already achieved the status of where you want to get to, and they then can provide ways to get there, or perspective, whichever. And so go get the book, start with why, and have as many conversations with those people who are two steps ahead of you to help you get going and find your direction.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

I'm not gonna start with a book.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Don't start with a book, start with a podcast.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah, because I don't pretend to read. Um, if I could give someone a podcast, this is actually there was a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Yeah, that's actually a good question.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

That I listened to very early on, one of the first podcasts I ever listened to. I don't believe it's still on anymore. It was a great, great one. You can still get it on Spotify, it was called Hack the Entrepreneur. So it's kind of similar to the one that you listened to on NPR, where they were just talking to like business people all different shapes and sizes. Could be someone who was doing like a million in revenue a year and then walking away with like 200 grand, or someone who's doing who built like a hundred million dollar empire or sold a company for like a billion dollars. Like this guy, I can't remember the host name. I'm sorry I feel like.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Did you ever hear the story about the OnlyFans guy?

SPEAKER_02 35:35

No.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Dude, look up the guy who started OnlyFans. He's got like a billion dollar business, and I don't I don't even think he has any employees. Oh wow. It's the it's it's the singular most profitable uh business that's that's out there today.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Interesting.

unknown 35:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Um, so I used to listen to Hack the Entrepreneur. And I was listening to this a lot when I got into real estate because I'm I'm working for myself now. I'm my I'm my own boss, I'm running my own business, you know, Philly Urban Living Inc., that's what I registered. So I'm running my business. I'm trying to get a sense from these entrepreneurs on this podcast. Why did they get into their field? How did they get into it? How long did it take them? Like, where was like the shift, the pivot that got them to the next level? I was just learning a little bit about like the steps, the runway. So the one piece of advice I would give people out there to understand like what you want, I would first ask, like, what's your timeline here? Because that was the what I was faced with. Because I was married, I had responsibility, I had bills, and I had a great job. But I'm like, hey, honey, I'm gonna sacrifice all of our well-being for this dream of me working for myself and having control over my career for the rest of my career. So I need you to buy into that. And one of the things I used was time. I said, look, if you give me 18 months, I feel like that's plenty of time for us to really understand what this thing is. If you gave me six months, we probably wouldn't know. A year, probably not enough. If two years, maybe a little too much. Because neither of us knew. Like I had no one to feed off of to tell me, I didn't have a coach, I didn't have a mentor, I had no one looking out for me but myself. Yeah. So I would probably say, like, what's your timeline? And like, why is that your timeline? If someone says, hey, I got five years to figure this out because I'm living at home and I'm 22 years old and I will continue to live at home until I'm 27, if I have to, I'd be like, man, you got you got a lot of flexibility here. So then I'd I'd try and give that person different direction based on that situation. Or if someone was like me, hey, I'm 30 years old, I was making like six figures in my last job, I just lost it, and now I'm about to go into business for myself. I'm married, I'm thinking about starting a family, maybe buying a move up house in the next like five, 10 years. Like, I had to give that person different advice because I'd say, well, your goals are like pretty high. Like you might have to look at it this way. So I would say the best advice I would give is I would want to understand what amount of time we're working with here until either it's like I'm gonna give this thing up, or like I won't be able to pay my bills, or like I'm gonna be completely dissatisfied, or I'm gonna be extremely satisfied after this amount of time if I'm making X or Y or doing this or doing that. So I'd probably ask that.

unknown 38:19

All right.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

All right, go ahead and shut this one down. We made a lot of references to uh my shirt being a women's cruise, what did you say?

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Woman's cruise wear women's cruise wear to 1996 and nothing against women's cruise wear from the 90s in case you're gonna be able to do that. It's a niche.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

I'm trying to niche down on these that particular line of clothing. Yep. Um but I my question is, would they be able to see the shirt if they were on Apple for our podcast? That's the question.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Now, if they go on Apple, you can see the shirt. So you will know exactly now. Here's the thing. I want to hit on that for a second. Now you cannot not watch us. Because really, if you're on Spotify, you have to watch us because we upload the video. If you're on Apple, you didn't have to watch us before, but now you must. No, you're that's incorrect.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Oh, is it? It's incorrect. Okay. Here's why. On Apple, the default is video, but there's a button that if you're like, I don't like Sean's shirt today, I'm going audio only. Can you? Spotify have that too? Yeah, yeah. Spotify, if you want to just listen to audio, you I I think I know for sure that Apple, you can just go audio.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

No, a fact check, fact check that one for us. Can you can you do audio only options on Spotify as well as Apple? I want to make sure that Mr. Moon. No, I'm telling you Mr. Moon Stradamus.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

No, I'm telling you on Apple, I no need to look that one up.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

Okay, just Spotify.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Just Spotify. Can you toggle between video and audio, or is it always video if it's a video show?

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Okay. All right, go ahead and shut the shut this one down.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

So if people want to give feedback on their uh experience with cruiseware from the from the 90s, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at bricks and risk at gmail.com. All podcast platforms, Amazon, Apple, Spotify, check us out there. Video on a couple of them. Social media, we'd love to hear from you. Facebook, Instagram. We got a great community on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

Check us out on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

And if you're up for it, we would love to hear a review on Apple. If you're an Apple listener, watcher, get us a review. Helps with the show, helps us with our community. And we overall would just love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

And also, one last thing: don't forget about Bricks and Risk community events every six months in the greater Philadelphia area, in person. There's always networking, learning, and food. Check us out.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Food with the exclamation point.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

That's right. Well, that's all we have for this one, folks. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Bricks and Risk. See you next week. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Bricks and Risk. Our goal is that you walk away with one or two valuable nuggets, and we greatly appreciate you sharing your time with us today. You can find all BR episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and anywhere else you get your podcast content. Until next time, keep learning and keep growing.