Welcome To The Real Estate Underground Show #102!
In today’s episode, we delve into the inspiring story of Brian O’Neill, the host of the W2 Prison Break Show. Brian shares his journey of breaking free from the corporate world after 25 years in sales, paving the way for a successful career in real estate.
In this episode,
If you're looking to break free from the corporate grind or delve into the world of real estate, Brian O’Neill's W2 Prison Break resources and coaching program await you at w2prisonbreak.com. Explore the free resources and connect with Brian for invaluable insights.
Resources:
Additional Resources:
Welcome To The Real Estate Underground Show #102!
In today’s episode, we delve into the inspiring story of Brian O’Neill, the host of the W2 Prison Break Show. Brian shares his journey of breaking free from the corporate world after 25 years in sales, paving the way for a successful career in real estate.
In this episode,
If you're looking to break free from the corporate grind or delve into the world of real estate, Brian O’Neill's W2 Prison Break resources and coaching program await you at w2prisonbreak.com. Explore the free resources and connect with Brian for invaluable insights.
Resources:
Additional Resources:
Zen. This his real estate underground. Greetings and salutations. Real estate undergrounders. It's Ed Matthews with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for joining us today. Today I am very excited to introduce you all to Brian O'Neill from W2 Prison Break. I had the honor of appearing on his amazing podcast a few weeks back and the conversation was so interesting that I begged him and pleaded for him to join us on our podcast, and he has graciously agreed. So, brian, welcome to the show and thank you very much.
Speaker 2:It's great to see you again and I got to say that's probably the best intro ever. Thanks so much. My day has been made.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Well, hey, we aim to please, right, hey? So, brian, obviously I've been a fan of your podcast for coming up on a year, right that you've been doing this. And so for those of us who haven't discovered your podcast and who you are and what you do, why don't you give them a little bit of background and then we'll dive?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. The Name of Life podcast is the W2 Prison Break show, the one that you were on. We had a great conversation. I would encourage everyone to go listen to that episode.
Speaker 2:You really, we just had an awesome and we aligned in the right ways, yeah it was a lot of fun, and where the show really got its motivation from was for me I mean, I'm talking to the younger version of Brian O'Neill because I was like you. I was in a corporate position for 25 years. I was in corporate sales for 25 years 17 years with the same company and I was traveling 100,000 miles a year not nearly as much as you I know you are north of that but I was away from my family. I was gone every other week on an airplane and I always knew that I had something else in me. I had a business in me.
Speaker 2:I was not meant for this. I really was not meant for this. And the older I got, the more money that I earned from my W2 position, the more that I traveled, the more that I started to really challenge what I was taught as a child, which was go to school, get a job, get good grades, get into a good management training program and work there for 40 years and retire at 62, and hopefully, if you want, we're not a money- yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And then what?
Speaker 2:happened. Ed was. I had a son and I was missing him. Grow up I'd come back. He looked different. He's talking different. I would miss moments of his life that I would have to catch on, either FaceTime or my wife sent me a little five second clips and that's already eat away at me.
Speaker 2:And then one day he said to me he said, dad, I don't like when you leave the house, I don't like when you go. And that was it for me. I really I tell this through all the time my son gave me the courage to quit being afraid and to try, and it was from that moment on where I started believing in myself and saying I've got one shot to watch this kid grow up. I'm not going to miss it. And that's really what the show is about. Like, hey, I went through all this stuff. You don't have to do it too. It can be a much more compressed timeline if you just follow some simple steps.
Speaker 1:Right. And so in terms of the yeah, I mean I totally hear you. I vividly remember my wife, patricia, and I having a similar conversation around. You were missing so much good stuff and you only get 18 years and then they start their lives. I mean, I'm experiencing this now with my older daughter, who's 20. And I mean, yeah, she's still a integral part of the family and it's awesome having her around, but she's not around that much between work and boyfriend and school and all the other stuff that she does. She's already starting her life. So we only get her for a few months a year now and that will dwindle as she gets older and starts her own career in her own adult life and it's yeah, it's really interesting. So let's talk about your business and how you broke free from the corporate shackles that you and I both neither of us miss yeah.
Speaker 2:So I had been dabbling in real estate for a long time. It's ironic, before I actually opened up my real estate business and went into business, I had named it seven years prior to that. The reason that I know that is because the note was saved in my iPhone. So there you go. I had the name. I never incorporated and, man, seven years go by really fast. But again, my son helped me with that.
Speaker 2:So I would say that probably the biggest thing that I did other than have that moment where it's like, okay, I'm no longer going to let my self-limiting beliefs and my fears and my doubt run my life, like I'm taking control of my life and my son gave me that boost. Right, and I remember that moment vividly. When I told my wife that and the next day I hired a coach, I said, okay, I've identified my exit from the W-2. Like, this is going to be it. But I'm not going to make the same mistake I made for the last 15 to 20 years, which was, hey, I know everything, I'm good, I don't need anybody's help, I can figure it all out on my own.
Speaker 2:Huge mistake. That's why I stayed in the same place for so long, hired a coach, I committed, I surrendered and with those there's a lot more that happened in between there. But with that mentality and having a coach, I was able to leave that job in nine months. Months I left my job. I was able to do enough real estate deals where I quit the W-2. We're coming up on three years now since that happened and I mean it seems like it was just yesterday. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, blinky, yeah, it goes fast. I had that conversation with my old boss. It was December of 2017, and I went full-time February, second of 2018. And it feels like it was yesterday. So it does go fast. It does go fast, yeah, and it's wonderful, right. So let's talk about your real estate business a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely so. I mean, I've always loved real estate. From a little kid. I used to beg my parents to take me to see model homes, so that was something of passion for me.
Speaker 2:What I specialize in, what I specifically do at, is we buy properties using creative financing strategies. Right, so we don't go out and qualify for a bank debt, we don't get loans. I'm not saying that's bad, it's just. This is the strategy that I use on a daily basis and we don't pay cash for properties. So, looking for motivated sellers who maybe they got divorced, they had a job loss, they're relocating, they can't sell their house conventionally. The conventional market doesn't solve their problem. I go to them and I use a variety of different methods, whether it's a lease option subject to their existing loan, seller financing or owner financing if they own it, free and clear, and I acquire their property. Typically it's without any money down, it's always without banks and you're typically solving a specific problem, which is what real estate is all about. Is problem solving right? Absolutely yeah, and you could do this on singles, multis, whatever, as long as a seller is open to it. You could do seller fine, you can do something creatively.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, and so it's one of the things that I've always so I'm more of a traditionalist, right, I have banking relationships and commercial loan relationships and a couple of really good hard money relationships, and that's the way I had operated for years and years and years, and actually one of the reasons that I got so interested in your podcast was because I wanted to learn. There's a handful of people that I've seen and paid attention to and I've learned a massive amount. I'm actually negotiating a seller financing deal right now out in Indiana, so knock out wood that that will go well. But the thing is is that I, you know, I paid attention to you, as well as a handful of other folks that I've met on LinkedIn and Twitter, and it's amazing how much you can acquire with. You know able to mitigate your risk and also you know solve a problem for someone. So you get to, you know, you get to. You get to acquire, you know build your wealth by helping other people out. Right, but it's that problem solvers mentality that is the core of this 100%.
Speaker 2:When I'm talking to I mean, I don't talk to as many sellers as I used to because I have a team now, but when I used to talk to sellers all day long and my team still does, that's what we, that's what we coach them to do, which is, hey, don't. Numbers are secondary, math is secondary. In real estate, it's always about, hey, what are you trying to accomplish? Mystery misses, cell? Yeah, okay, and how can I solve that problem? I might not be able to, but if I don't understand what you're trying to do, how, how I can help you get there, then the math doesn't make any sense. Great deal To talk about.
Speaker 1:It's irrelevant, right, if you can't solve the problem. Yeah, I mean, I always sold my team, so I have a couple of folks that do acquisitions for us or we get the ball rolling, and you know I've always sold them. I said, if you feel like you're in a position where you're trying to convince somebody of anything, stop thank them for their time and hang up the phone, because that's not the business we're in, right? We're in the business of okay, where are you? Where are you trying to get? Okay, here's the things that we do to help folks like you, and here are your options One, two, three. Do any of those make sense? Yes, okay, then let's have a conversation about numbers, right? Well, I got a lot of it from you, so thank you.
Speaker 2:People would do a lot more deals if they would simply take that approach right, as opposed to just trying to throw numbers that don't make any sense to people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, so many people are in the habit of either. You know, here in the Northeast they're overpaid for properties, you know, good luck. And I had a conversation this morning with an agent, a broker really who I have a lot of respect for, and we gave a really I thought an aggressive offer and came back and said you're 150k low to where you need to be and I was asking like how the heck are these folks making these things pencil? And the honest answer he gave me was they don't and they don't care. Okay, well, that's so being able, and so I'm dealing with a whole lot of competition. When you get into the problem solving business, almost invariably you're it's a one on one situation, right? You have found this person and I want to get into how you do that and you're typically one of, if not the only, person who's interacting with owner, the couple, whatever and trying to solve their problems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Absolutely 100%. In most cases, when I'm working with sellers and we're talking about doing or create a financing transaction, like I had mentioned, they're usually at the end of their rope, right Like they've exhausted everything else. They got to go, they got to move. Maybe they'll lose their house and then it becomes okay. That's how we start helping them and they just want to be done with the house. At that point, the house is blocking them from whatever it is that they're trying to do. Right, right, your job as a real estate investor, especially when we're talking about single family, is to remove that piece from them so that they can go do what they really want to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the thing is is that the techniques that you talk about on your show and in your coaching program I use that in multifamily world. Like I don't buy single family homes anymore, I'm entirely focused on multifamily and a lot of the things that you talk strategies and taxes you talk about are directly applicable to multifamily. Industrial, commercial office, retail, you name it right. It's just because it comes down to human beings figuring out how to solve a problem and then working out the math to do it right, I agree, and in multi.
Speaker 2:I'll just say this COVID, you know, this is to be true. Covid made a lot of people tired of being landlords, and that includes apartment building owners as well, so not just single family, I mean it. Just it became a hassle, became a headache and they won out, especially maybe some of these mom and pop owners who have been doing it for 20, 30 years and like, hey, I just want to be done with this.
Speaker 1:Those are people you can help, without a doubt, and so I'm curious. I want to kind of break down your system and how you do this. So how do you fill your pipeline full of deals? Because that's one of the things I always, you know when I'm talking with other active investors. You know we've got decent deal flow here and they're like how can you do it? And I was like buy me a cup of coffee or check out, buy you a cup of coffee and we'll start about it. Curious how you do it, sure.
Speaker 2:So I have a lot of different ways that we get leads and a lot of different leads. Anyone starting new, I would always recommend mastering one or two and then adding right, because then you just get distracted and then you do nothing. But it's just so. When I first started and this is one of the easiest ways to get started for free is the internet. Like we call on properties that are actively listed for sale by owners, like you can go to Zillow and just scan all of them and call them the numbers there and then you can have conversations with them about what they're trying to accomplish and then you know, see if they're open to creative financing. I have access to a expired listing, so homes come off the market. They're actively trying to sell. We wait for them to expire or cancel a drawn. We call them Like we're calling them up. Realtors are doing the same thing, right, so we're calling them up, but those are motivated sellers because they're trying to sell and they couldn't.
Speaker 2:Then there's a bunch of targeted lists that you can pull. I mean, I could do a whole show on targeted lists. But pre-foreclosures, tired landlords, vacant houses, lean you know there's leans on the properties. How to stay free and clear. There's so many that you could pull and grab those. You could do mailers you could do, cold calling, you could do. I have an SEO campaign that I'm doing right now where I'm trying to get organic leads or I'm trying to rank high on Google. Again, this is a colossal effort. I would not do this day one, but I'm three and a half, four years into the business now we have the bandwidth and the team members to be able to do that, so we get the organic leads. You can do Facebook ads. I mean I got to say I could do a whole show, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, but your point is well taken and brought on right. I mean on focus matters. When you're creating deal flow, when you're creating capital flow, pick one thing, maybe two, get really good at it. Direct mail, email, lead magnets, content, social media ads, whatever. Pick one, and there are dozens and dozens of ways to do it. Get really good at it and then invent it. Because even in my own life I have a profound case of entrepreneurial ADD, so it's shiny objects syndrome all over the place. And the times where I see folks that I work with or friends in the industry or me, when we're not advancing the ball down the field is when a human being is trying to do 14 things at once. Be great at one or two and then get those to the point where your team can take over, like you were saying. Then pick another one and then another.
Speaker 2:We make it sound so simple, but you just alluded to it. It's not easy to pull that off, because you are distracted. Our brains are looking for distractions constantly and if you allow it, you're going the brain's going to win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's also an abundance thing, right? Because I think the reason that people throw the net so wide, or tend to on a marketing and other areas of the business, why they throw it so wide, is they don't want to miss a deal. And the fact is that it is a big world out there and, as Robert Kiyosaki I remember saying, the deal of the century comes along just about once a month. So everybody breathe, do what you focus and your deal of the century will come soon enough, right?
Speaker 2:The deal of the century is in your backyard. You just don't look there and that's I've. Firmly, I got better, better deals, bigger deals and more when I niched down, so I didn't cast that. The first time I heard that I said you guys are out of your mind. I'm not doing that.
Speaker 1:And then I did do it Right.
Speaker 2:I started getting bigger deals and faster and closer to me and the deals that I wanted to yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean in the markets we're active, Connecticut. I'll use perfect examples. There are 120 properties in the state of Connecticut that I had like to own someday. That's it. So that's my market, that's what we focus, that's it. And you know, I don't own, I don't know, I'd love to own 10% of them, right, I don't know 1%, but you know, the fact is, by niching that, niching down like you were saying it's, it is really the only way to become. Let me talk about it. In previous shows I've talked about concentric circle marketing and you know, basically you want to suck the oxygen out of the market so that by the time that owner is ready to sell, you're the obvious phone call or the obvious email right 100%.
Speaker 2:I mean, be the authority, be the person, be the one that they're going to remember when they're ready to sell. And you can't do that if you're, you know, covering the United States, unless you have a huge team right. So that's why I say just get super hyper focused. I mean you could just you said Connecticut, you could do a county. You've got to go to a county.
Speaker 1:I'm out of the insurance and cognitive.
Speaker 2:I could do one county and get a bunch of deals if I focused on that one county.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know that's that's what we started with. We started with one county and got really good at it and grew the team a little bit. And you know land and expand, that's right.
Speaker 2:I like that Land and expand. There you go.
Speaker 1:So so, as far as your team goes, let's talk about that. So you but acquisitions team? Yeah, I wonder what you tell me about your team and how that's constructed.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. I do have a team of four people currently on staff and then again I have partnerships. So I have somebody doing my taxes and my bookkeeping, and you know attorneys and all that stuff. You know the drill and what we're focusing on every single day is lead flow, Like we're trying to get, we're trying to fill the funnel right, Like motivation scale on a one to 10, where I'm looking personally as the closer to talk to people who are like eight, nine and 10 on the motivation scale the team is just filling the funnel.
Speaker 2:Like you know, even if it's a no, it's a lead. Like my philosophy is you're either going to sell your house to me or you're going to sell it to somebody else. So that's a lead. So I have a person that's calling all day long, right, and then I have an assistant yeah, I have an assistant who does all the stuff that I shouldn't be doing and that would be, you know, if anyone who's going into the real estate business and or any type of business don't be a one person show, Hire somebody from the jump, Otherwise you're just going to be go from W2 employee W2 employee in your business and you're not going to have a good time at creating your own.
Speaker 1:Creating a business and then having a job within that business is not the you break free.
Speaker 2:No absolutely not. And then I have I have a social media person, so we do a lot of content creation someone helping with my podcast. I outsource a lot of the podcast stuff and you know we work. It's been the team's been together for a couple of years. I've had one since the beginning. But you know I've been cycled out the back door as well. You know people come and people come and go, and then again I have my coaches and my mentors and my support group. But there's a large circle of people that I'm connected with and that's the biggest lesson I think that I've really learned in business versus when I was in my W2 is like like hey, you can't do this by yourself. Like you've got to have a team, have to have a team, and I'm always looking for like who's the next person that I can add? Right, you got to manage capital, but you're cash flow, but I'm always looking at like who's the next person I can add to drive the business forward.
Speaker 1:Totally, totally, yeah, and that's the thing you know. I had this, so I worked for it. I've had the pleasure of working for several amazing CEOs and one of them, rob Bernstein, had said to me once you know he said look, every human being that I hire, there's a return on investment. Right, we're spending whatever we're spending in salary and benefits and all that overhead and we need that plus back with each person that we hire. It's a word. There is a distinct, measurable return on investment and it never and I was pretty young in my career at that point it never occurred to me that that's the way it worked, right, I just thought you hired, you ran hard, you drove revenue and you know it turns out. You actually have to, you know, measure your progress and figure out what your cash situation is so that you can invest in another role, so that they can return additional value to the business, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, goodness for that. Better, myself and I work with a lot of small business owners. One, two person show and they just they can't see that right. Right, they get nervous about investing the capital. And it's like this is if you're going to invest anything, this is what you need to invest in. Systems are important, processes are important, but if you don't have human capital, you're not investing in human capital. Your business is only going as far as you are capable of taking it, which is normally not where you want it to go right, and you know, you're most pretty, pretty, pretty sure most human beings require sleep.
Speaker 1:So there's six to eight hours a day that you're not going to be working, right? That's right, right. So you got to create that operational leverage to be able to scale and grow the business. So so, in terms of the systems that you have in place now, when you say virtual assistants, are they US based or are they or are they overseas?
Speaker 2:They're overseas and they're awesome. I mean, I love them.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic, and so how do you manage communication with them?
Speaker 2:Sure, so we do a couple of. Now. They work US hours, right, and they're in the Philippines, they're all in the Philippines, so they're working, you know, regular eight to nine to five hours. And we communicate in a couple of different ways. We use WhatsApp, which is a great communication tool, and then we have systems for tasks, like we use Asana, we use Slack and that kind of assigns roles and tasks, so that we're not constantly having to, you know, go through a WhatsApp because it's hard to, you know, manage that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's hard to keep track of it, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but there's the communication is is dialed in and then we meet several times a week. You know, I have. One of the things that I learned again is why I have a coach is you have to have weekly meetings. I have one. We call them one to one. I have a weekly meeting with each member of my team and it's their meeting, so they're supposed to bring me the one, you know, one, two or three things that they need my help on, like how can I help you? And they've gotten accustomed to it. Like they'll come in and be like what do you need, what do you need help with? And then they go right through their list and then we're done, and then the business drives forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's hard, you know. I'm so glad you're saying that, because working on your business, helping you know, serving the people that work for you so that they can do their job, is absolutely critical. I was interviewing another investor, Nick Huber, and one of the things he had said was and it really drove it home for me he said look, I need to create systems that any normal human being can walk into, understand and be and succeed at. Right, and I'm paraphrasing him. You know he said it a little more eloquently than I did, but the fact is is that you know it's not always hey, I got to go hire A plus players everywhere. Right, the you can. You know, as long as you have created systems and you spend the time that you were just talking about in terms of driving home those systems, the values upon which you operate, and then transition to problem solving, you're able to, you're able to work on your business, as opposed to having a job where you're doing everything. Having a job, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I'll just lend one other, two other comments there on the systems pieces I have my my staff make a video library. They record everything that they're doing Right. So, whether it's you know how they generate leads or whatever tasks they're doing that they're repeating multiple times a week, they get recorded into a library and that ultimately becomes the SOP, standard operating procedure, and if somebody's out and they don't know how to do something, they just go to this, they go to the video that's been, that's been recorded. It's also a training, training, onboarding device tool as well, you bet. And then I'll just to your comment, which was great at, about, you know, working on your business.
Speaker 2:My wife and I are going to Mexico in a couple of months, less than less than two months, and I'm going there for a week and I'm telling you I will shut everything off. I will. I will shut my email off, I will have on my phone that I won't be answering phone calls and I'll all answer them on this date. I will not touch the business and I will not miss a beat. I'm proud. I tell you and I said it to a lot of business owners that I, that I coached like what are you? They think I'm crazy, but that's what you're trying to get to. Right Is to be able to do that, and it's easy if you just let go. Most business owners are the block in their business and I was for a while and I realized that I said I got to get out of this business so that it could move forward. I'm the one holding it back because I have an ego.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. I mean, it comes down to highest, best use. Where do you add the most value? And those are the things you should do. Everything else you should have somebody else doing them or stop doing whatever. Those are right, completely yeah. And you know it's, it's, it's a. It's an amazing realization when you come to understand that business. Yes, they need you, right, but the business will run. You're gone for seven, 10, 15, 30 days. I have a friend of mine, stephanie Casarote. She spends tons of time traveling because she's done such an exceptional job of creating her back office that the folks that work for her much like the folks who work for you and I think the folks who work for me. They're great at their jobs. And so when you go to Mexico, the contractors get paid, the taxes and mortgages get paid and all the utilities get paid and work orders get responded to and customer service calls get responded to and you come back and pick up ring where you left off, because everything else was handled Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Again. I miss nothing and all gets done, yeah magic, but not really. No.
Speaker 1:So so, Brian, now we've, I'm going to move on to the final four, which is the four questions, the four loaded questions I like to ask everybody and so so, first off, you know I am a.
Speaker 1:I buy into having a coach or mentors, wholeheartedly. In fact, I don't know how to do it any other way, because you know you are basically, when you're dealing with a worker, with a coach, you're taking their life experience of 10, 15, 20 years and compressing it into you know bite-sized portions that you can then turn around and implement in your own world, right. And so I'm curious about the mentors you've had in your life and, specifically, you know what's the best advice you ever got and who gave it to you?
Speaker 2:Okay, Best advice I ever got was from my current coach. His name is Chris P Fontaine. I believe you've been on.
Speaker 1:Doing well yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, you've been on his podcast and I'll never forget this and I tell him this all the time. This is when I again, I wanted to leave my job, right, and I remember what I had enough cash flow, like I felt about the deals on my camera to leave the job and I was still nervous about it. Like I said, man, is this the right move? Yeah, we went back and forth and he said to me he said, brian, the W2 is the risk. And I stopped. I thought about that's all he said. And I thought about for a second. I said, yeah, he's so right, he's 100% right. Like that's the risk, me staying in the job is the risk. And I had seen that because I'd been through all the 08 layoffs. Sure, I survived all three rounds. Sales people usually are the last to go. And I said, hey, that easily could have been me, and if this happens again, I'm toast, you know, and I can't replace my income. So he was right. And then that was. I think I had resigned, maybe two days after that.
Speaker 1:Nope, didn't Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I haven't looked back.
Speaker 1:I'd say conversations. So my wife and I are wired very, very differently. She grew up in a house like you were talking about, where you go to college. You go to school, you get good grades, you go, get a good job, you work there for 40 years and then you retire. They give you the gold watch and off you go, right. I think that's so. You know. So risky. It's because you're at the whim of, you know, in most cases, a manager or an executive who doesn't even know who you are. You're just a number, and when 2008 happens and Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy and they've got a cut third of their workforce, if the numbers work, you're gone.
Speaker 2:Completely. I mean and to expand on the risk part is people think being at your own business is more risky and I just say, okay, well, let's, let's, let's make a hypothetical here. Let's just say you have a business, you have 100 customers in your business. You lose one. Well, you still got 99 other income streams. Well, what if you lose your job? Now you have zero. People don't look at it that way. They're just like hey, I got health benefits, I got which all is nonsense, they don't can be replaced. That's, that is a and I don't mean to offend anybody that is a foolish reason to stay in a job, especially if you don't like the job and you're missing your kids grow up. Is health benefits and a retirement account? Yeah, sure, you could come up with a different excuse.
Speaker 1:And in fact, I would submit that the health benefits you can you can get exactly what you have today outside of outside of your employer, and the retirement accounts that you have access to are far superior, as a self employed person, than the traditional 401k, 403k right.
Speaker 2:Without question, You're 100% right and then some yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, so so let's move on to the next question. So I'm always looking at you know, executives and leaders like you, and how they pull in information and sharpen that saw, so to speak. So I'm curious, you know, first off, how do you consume information? You physical books, audio books, podcasts, you know whatever and who you paying attention to these days?
Speaker 2:I can tell you I don't pay attention to, and that's the news that doesn't go on in my house.
Speaker 1:Good, Makes you happier, I'll tell you.
Speaker 2:It does and you can. It makes you angry too, if you, if you watch it. So I consume and I was an anti reader for a long time. Yeah, yeah, and one of the reasons I stayed stuck in my job. But I like audibles. I like, I do like physical books. I typically read the physical books. I'm in like an environment. Otherwise, I'm doing a lot of audibles. Yep, I get the advice from my coaches and mentors and people I'm connected with, from my mastermind, higher level people. I get their opinion. Yeah, again, not the TV, and I love listening to podcasts as well. If I'm driving in the car like this was a big shift for me. Sure, I was traveling, uh, w2. I used to sit in the airport lounge. I'd watch Netflix. You know I would just do stuff that was, you know, mindless. I started to replace that with podcasts or books, or I would call sellers or I would just do stuff. I would make valuable use of that time. So that's why I consume information. I think a lot of people do it that way as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm one of them, for short. Who are you paying attention to?
Speaker 2:Right now I'm reading a really I keep saying reading an audible. You can't do that. You can listen to an audible. So I'm listening to the story of Grubhub, chicago guy. The book is called Hangry H-A-N-G-R-Y and he's telling the story of you know the owner former owner. He sold it, but it's a fascinating book about what it takes to build something right.
Speaker 2:And you mentioned shiny object syndrome earlier in the conversation, ed, and one of the biggest takeaway I think it was two days ago, I was listening to it he said hey look, any time you're doing something disruptive, making sales, asking people for money, doing something difficult, self-doubt will always be present and you can't make it go away, right? So he said. And then he had a quote after that and he said he said the voices in your head will always be present. You just have to choose whether or not you're gonna listen to them, right? Something I'll paraphrase, but that was the message and I love the audible I listen to probably you know one at a time, because otherwise I get too distracted. And then podcasts yeah, excellent, excellent.
Speaker 1:So that begs the question so, having been through your life experience right, I mean you've done a lot of different things in your professional career. If you had to start over, what would you do differently?
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm sure everybody says they would have started sooner. And you know, I let go of that regret, right, because at least I started. But I would say that if I had to and I don't want to use that answer I think that if I could go back to the younger version of myself, I was filled up with anger and resentment and fear and I just wish somebody would have pulled me aside and just said hey, hey, it's okay, man, it's okay if you mess up. Right, you're supposed to, you know, it's all right. And that's probably my biggest regret is I just didn't believe in myself, even though outwardly I projected it right, but inwardly I was just a scared little eight-year-old kid in my 30s and 40s.
Speaker 1:And so many of us are right. I was certainly that person as well. In some respects, I still am right, but you learned to battle the negative talk and replace it with positive talk and vision for the future, and that's what gets you out of bed on Monday morning, even if that scared little eight-year-old is screaming, crying as you're finishing your coffee and getting in the car. That's right. That's right. So, Brian, when you're not talking about real estate or any of the other things that you do, I'm curious about how you like to spend your time with your family.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love this question and this is what it's all about is, you know, just spending time with them and creating memories, or what I'd like to refer to as front row moments. And I have a wife, I have a young son. He's 11 years old. He plays again. He's the one who gave me the courage. I tell him that all the time. It's important to let them know he plays, travel baseball. We're having a heck of a summer just being consumed with that and going all his games and watching them and just watching them thrive and just being together and being with a good group of people. So that's what we're doing right now. And you know, we asked for that and we asked for it and it's come to fruition. So it's really I guess you used the word earlier it's just magical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I fundamentally believe that having a child is the single greatest thing any human being can ever do, right, and so, you know, as you said, you signed up for it. You suck the marrow out of that experience, right, it's do everything. You know, I had my someone who's close to me had asked you know, hey, what are your hobbies? And I'm like daughter one, daughter two, I follow that one too, swim meets and all the other stuff that she does on the side, and that one I follow to all the softball games and all the stuff she does on the side, and choral concerts and dance recitals, and you name it right, and it's the best. I can't imagine anything else. I'll build models and play golf and all that when they're off in their lives, but right now I'm, you know, like you. I'm just happy to spend some time with them and watch them grow. I love it.
Speaker 2:You know, ed, that's the stuff they're going to remember. I can remember how many apartment buildings you bought my kids. I can remember how many houses I own. He's going to remember me playing catch with them out in the backyard. That's what it's going to be.
Speaker 1:Yep. Or standing on the pitcher's mound and look, you know, into the, into the stands and seeing you and your wife there, you know cheering them on. Right, that's right, that's the best. So, brian, as always this was I always enjoy having conversations with you, so thank you very much for your time today. If people want to learn more about your podcast, w2prison Break, or your coaching program or you in general, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Everything's on my. The W2Prison Break show is my podcast. You can just go to W2PrisonBreakcom and everything's there. Right, Everything's there. I've got some free resources. The podcast is there, If you, if you want to talk to me about coaching or getting touch with me, it's all there. That's why I would recommend everybody go Awesome.
Speaker 1:So, brian O'Neill, with W2Prison Break, thank you so much. It's good to see you, my friend, and forward to catching up again soon.
Speaker 2:Definitely Thanks, Ed. I appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1:This has been the Real Estate Underground Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. It helps us grow. Until next time, happy investing.