Understanding The Real Estate Market with Brady McDonald and Casey Quinn
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This is Wake Up To Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham. We are back today with another episode of Wealth, and I am super fortunate because I got two of my homies, two of the smartest dudes I know in the real estate space.

Brady McDonald and Casey Quinn. And we were at an event today together that we all spoke at. So I get the privilege of having both of them here at the same time. We're having a threesome. Welcome, Jeff. Same damn time. I'm having a threesome with you fellas, boys. Are you going to talk about horses or what? I would say I would use smartest guys very loosely when you've got me in the group. Right. Yeah. So people who don't know who you guys are, who are you? Go ahead.

All right. Brady McDonald from Canada, but live in Florida. So I cut my teeth in real estate doing multifamily developments in Canada and then came down to the U.S. in 2022. We do storage and car wash, land development, land flipping and do hard shit. That's my Coles notes. And I love that. Production wise, this might be a little difficult since we didn't really prepare to be on that.

Same side of the mic here, but Casey, you know, accounting nerd from Pittsburgh, PA, built a pretty big portfolio in a short period of time, but take a massive action using numbers and back office to be able to leverage real estate from a debt perspective to scale portfolio and begin getting myself around the right people to learn and educate myself on how to scale.

So one of the things we can talk about is like the struggle always seems to find a way to show up no matter where you're at in your life. And you guys both recently, you know, great operators run great businesses, but you guys found your both. You guys found yourself on on the side of shit being fucked up. And you guys were in not great spots. And you had to make very quick decisions to.

And I mean, we're talking about on the brink of shit being really bad to millions of dollars in profit in a short period of time. Right. Just, you know, I'd love for both of you to take just walk us through that mindset of where you were at and how you overcame it.

Yeah, absolutely. I can start to write. So, you know, about a year, year and a half ago, you know, we were in a situation where we were continuing to build wealth by investing in long term real estate assets. And so as we continue to do that, we continue to build equity. But cash flow was always one of the struggle points. We're continuing to scale a company because the market was so hot and so good. And so we're able to scale cash flow wise, enterprise value wise, portfolio wise.

All of a sudden, right, the market took a deep turn and we were not able to cash flow. And so our model, which was building long-term equity and wealth in real estate, flipped itself on the head overnight. All of a sudden, we were going into the hole $150,000 every single month.

The ego side of me said, no problem. We can outgrow this thing. We've just got to pivot and scale revenue. And at the end of the day, getting myself in the right room really allowed me to kind of drop the ego and understand you can't outgrow that. Right. You have to know and understand the game that you're playing, the inning that you're in today, what is happening in the market today. And you've got to pivot.

So for us, again, it was not we can't outgrow this thing. We can't outgrow revenue. So how can we figure out on the cost side in order to be able to get to the margin? The really nice thing for us was we had built such a nice piece of equity on our real estate through building the wealth through investing in that real estate. And we were able to take a quick, massive pivot there.

Obviously, unleash some of that equity before the market got too bad to make it hard, as well as make some hard decisions internally to cut costs to right size our P&L.

Again, luckily for me, getting around the right people that had an outsider's view and outsider's perspective to be able to look in and say, hey, dude, you're not going to outgrow this thing in revenue. Changed my life. I had to make the hardest decision I've ever had to make in my entire life, which ultimately was best for our company and for everybody involved on both sides of it. But we did have to make several layoffs within the organization.

Again, hardest thing that I've ever had to do in my life to this day in business. But it turns out it was the greatest thing that we were able to do. Really able to right size and everybody's better off. We've been able to scale back since. Yeah. And what about you? Yeah. So we were in a situation that similar, obviously similar times that caused it. And we were very fortunate that we also had a large portfolio. So at this point we had about an $80 million portfolio and

And part of the challenge, I guess, that I got in was, you know, I'm just a massive action taker. And it's probably one of the things that got us to where we are, obviously, from a winning perspective. But it also can be the thing that keeps the blinders on when problems aren't real, right? And so I went to the U.S., invested a ton of money, bought a pile of real estate at the peak. I didn't do as much due diligence probably as I should. And then the market in Canada turned real fast. And it went from like sub-two interest rates to seven.

And the portfolio was bleeding. We had about $15 million in new construction developments in the pipeline, and there was $800,000 months, lots of 300,000. - And losses. - And losses per month. And then everything in the US wasn't selling, you know, and it was,

You know, the part of my problem, I think, was also that I was just, you know, I was using alcohol to mask the fear and mask the real situation. And like and and eventually I just made an internal decision. I could see within myself I had to make a change. Yeah. And it was all kind of came to a head when I knew I had an opportunity that I'd never had before. And that was a meeting with Ken where.

where I've just believed if I was vulnerable and I was real with the situation with him when I walked into that meeting and I made some life choices like cutting out the booze that we could fix this. And that's what it was. So I cut it. I stopped drinking. I went and saw Kent and came up with a very clear action plan. And, you know, same with Casey. It's really super important to have be around the right people and be vulnerable, you know, and be honest and be

and just listen and then obviously take massive action. And the thing about it was that, you know, we couldn't I couldn't see the solution. You know, what I thought was the solution was actually creating more problems. Yeah. Right. I was trying to create other ways to create businesses and more noise. Right. To create more money where, you know, Kent's like, dude, you've got like

you've got a million dollar solutions for a hundred thousand dollar problems. And the growth of your business is inside of your business. I say all the time. A hundred percent. Yeah. You know, just two quick points added that right to his exact point, similar situation for me when I went to Ken, Ken really helped. Ken and Ken's team really helped. And by the way, we're talking about Kent Clothier who coaches all three of us. Yeah. Right. And so the really cool thing that I'm learning around getting myself in the right rooms, getting around guys like you is we all face similar problems, right?

But the really cool thing that we all do is, one, take massive action, whatever that is that needs to happen. And so we don't know everything. One of the most massive actions we could possibly take is learning and understanding, eliminating ego, like I talked about, and saying, hey, I don't know what I don't know. Let's get the education, whatever that is. Let's find people that have been there and done that and ask for help. Stick up your hand and say, hey, I need help. And so I think the problem that you face with some folks that –

that run into chapter 11s and run into bankruptcy or don't actually scale their businesses the right way. We're all gonna run into those problems and challenges at some point. We're all gonna have to scale back to scale back up at some point. The people that make those pivots are the people that are realizing they don't know what they don't know and getting the help

The people that don't do that is what really run into the ultimate problems because they let their ego get in the way or they think they know more than they know. And it just continues to bury them and they're not able to really dig out of that. Yeah. And you know that, you know, you bring up a really good point is so when times get lean, a lot of times where people stop investing is in their self, right? They stop coaching or they stop education or they stop going to masterminds or whatever and,

and in my opinion that's actually where you should be doubling down because the lid of your organization is always tied to your own personal development right and what happens is you guys did the opposite right when time for ruff he said i'm gonna pay a very expensive coach because he knows more than i do and

But what it did is it compressed time where maybe the fee seems expensive to the outsider, but to you guys, it was a bargain. Yeah, let me add to that point really, really quick because I think I'm a very good example of someone that didn't necessarily believe that for a long period of my life. I always equated that back to college. I played football at college, and then there was massive fraternity, sorority world on campus. And I used to always say,

Dude, I can make my own friends. I don't need to pay for this shit. And so then when I kind of got into this entrepreneurial world and we're scaling a company and like, you know, the ego started growing, we're starting to do okay. Early on, the concept was somewhat like keep my head down, keep focused. I'm not going to, I don't need to, you know, the mastermind comments and things are coming. I don't need to pay for my friends. Well, I don't need to join a cult. I don't need to do those things. You know, and I realized at one point, no, I need help.

Right. Like, I just don't know what I don't know. And then I joined because I knew I needed help. And then the world opened. Right. Then it's like, holy shit, this isn't just this is nothing to do with paying for friends. I'm paying for my education, but I'm also getting opportunities, getting all of these different things. And it's literally changed my life, changed my life completely. Yeah. So the other thing I said, I like to say this a lot and I believe it. I think a lot of things are energy and energy is transferred, transferred, transferred.

And I think what happens, too, is when you get in these rooms, you meet your frequency. We, us three, even though you're a nerd, we still have a similar frequency, right? So at its core, your frequency and my frequency are the same. We may go about it the same with you. We may go about it differently, right?

Like you're a Steelers fan, as an example. But it is a frequency that is the same. And then what happens when you get around your frequency, and I believe this, you get around another one that's your frequency, someone else, and then it doubles, and then it magnifies, and then you magnify each other. One plus one is four. Fucking right. And then all of a sudden, you're doing really cool shit because it's like this frequency...

that you've met is doubling and tripling your own frequency. And it just becomes a game changer. And I think that's one of the things that people underestimate sometimes is, you know, you can be one mastermind, one phone call, one coaching call away from completely changing your life, but you're scared to take that risk or you're scared to spend the money or whatever, especially when your back's against the wall. But man, it's a,

I've met almost every single one of my business partners or where I've gotten to the next level was getting in a room where I met that person. That was my frequency, right? Yeah. Can I comment to that too? Because I think it's not just, can I spend the money? I think we, and myself and probably you and you at some point, right? Like all of us, it's, it's also an imposter syndrome thought process of like, if I pay that money,

can I execute to get the value out of that spend? It's the same when I buy real estate, I always call it, I have a perfect standard deviation. When I invest in people,

The sky's the limit or it's going to be a dud. And the same thing goes for ourself. I'm making this massive investment myself. Am I going to be able to get the return out of that? And so I question myself there, right? And I've got to get over that hump. Yeah, see, for me, I just know that I'm such a high action taker that I'm willing to do the work regardless. And we all are, right? And so...

What I love about having a coach and being around other people is like if somebody just gives me the guidance and sees what I don't see but just tells me what they think I should do, like I'll get it done faster than anybody else. Yeah. And in that, that's what I believe. I know that in me and I just need to be around the right people. Did you always have that mentality?

Did you always think that way? I was terrified the very first time that I ever paid $20,000 for my high ticket coach. But that was the outcome because he's just like, fuck you. There's nothing I won't do. There's nothing I won't get done twice as fast as most.

And almost to a detriment, like you can kind of get sidetracked too. So now knowing that you got to stay focused. Well, you're going to move fast and break shit. Yeah. And you can kind of go sidetrack too if it's like, well, fuck. But I learned at that time. And once you're working with high ticket coaches or high performing coaches and they give you that feedback, I'm like, fuck, I'll invest a hundred grand to get good advice because I know I'm going to pull $10 million of value out of it. A hundred percent. Yeah.

So here's a good example of that, is getting in the rooms and being intentional is us three is an example, right? I'm working with you on some cool stuff, which is going to lead to a lot of shit. I already know that. But it wasn't just that. One of the things that I took from you was the pie stuff you had on everyone's doors. Mm-hmm.

I fucking love that. So we're doing that at our company because I'm a big believer in communication and everybody communicates differently. And Hey, if you can, before you walk in someone's office, if you can understand how they communicate, you're going to be able to communicate better with them. Right? So I showed up to your place to help you with something, but I took away massive value, right? You and I got to hang out in Yellowstone. You came and spoke on, both of you guys came and spoke on a stage for me today and

So, I mean, that's the example of what can happen and how fast shit can change when you get in the right room and you get around the right people. Yeah, I think you mentioned a good point there, the one word intention. Yeah. Right? Like I said this on stage earlier today that I intentionally – you guys invited me to stay in Yellowstone. I called my wife and I'm like, listen –

You know, and she was cool about it, but, you know, I'm like, I listened, like I said, the reason I'm staying is because I want to be around Brandon. And obviously the Gearhearts are my friends, but, you know, I love them to pieces, but I wanted to be around you. Right. And it's just that intention, that time we spent together created that, that trust and that bond that, you know, again, to like three weeks later, you know, we're, we're on stage together and, you know, like,

Just deepening that relationship. Who knows where it's going to go, right? But its intention is a huge fucking thing. Yeah, 100%. Another thing that's really cool that you just did that a lot of human beings aren't going to do, and now you got him fucking climbing the equivalent of Mount Everest, but you ran a 100-mile in 22 hours, right? Yeah. 100-mile marathon? Yeah. Like, what the fuck?

Yeah, man. I mean, it wasn't really, I would never have fucking thought I was going to do this six months ago. Yeah. You know, but yeah,

You know, it all started about a year ago when I saw Jesse Itzler do Ultraman, which is this crazy three-day thing. And I thought, fuck, if he could do it, I could do it. And because I just, I knew he's super successful and I wanted to know how he got the brain. Right. And I started making the connections to doing really hard shit. Yeah. To the success. And so I started going down that path and I was super intentional about getting close to him. And then I hired his coach.

Because I'm like, whoever got him to do that is what is going to help fix me too, right? And I had my own issues and stuff and drinking and things, right? And I saw the connection to becoming a better human by doing these hard things. I became a better dad, a better communicator, a better husband, a better business. And I was just showing up better for the community and myself too. And so, you know, we started training for a 50-mile back in May.

actually March and I did 50 miles in May, uh, May 20th, ended up three days in the hospital. But I realized in that after $48,000 bill, my wife said, you could never run again. Like you're fucking done. And I'm like, yeah, whatever. You know, I'm talking to my coach and, uh, you know, within, um, uh, two weeks of that did the Mount Everest simulation climb. And right after that, we decided that we're going to do a hundred miles to raise a hundred grand for charity. And,

And my coach was all in and, you know, and it was three months of training and it was by far the hardest fucking thing I've ever done. It was spiritual. I've kind of talked to you about this offline, like, which I really dig that. Yeah, dude, it was out of body experience, really separating your mind from your body. And like, it was weird. Like I was running, you know, mile 70 to 100 took seven and a half hours, seven hours probably still. But I just feel, remember just kind of like,

or hovering over my body and watching all these guys and girls running with me there with my crew and just feeling the love. Yeah. And let me add something to that too, right? Because you mentioned that he, you know, inspired me and now I'm going to be climbing the equivalent of Mount Everest with him in this coming summer, which, you know, for me, I'm not. I don't like running. I don't like that kind of stuff. But what really resonated with me, you know, you didn't say today, but you said it in the past, which was,

i don't like running and so because for me when like i found out you were going to do that and heard about all that i'm like oh this is probably run or whatever and i kind of brush it off 100 miles is insane for sure but like it's probably a runner right like it's not as hard for runner to do that and so to me what that was was justification or rationalization in my head once i realized and heard him say you know i don't like running you know it's something bigger than me i want to do hard that's what inspired me to say you know what like

I need to do some hard shit mentally. There's nothing to do with anything other than really put myself in a situation to do hard shit. Yeah, it's about becoming the best version of us, right? Or for me, it is. That's what it's about. And I just... Running is a very easy thing to do anywhere, right? So, and it puts you into such a hard position constantly that you can only become better if you're going to continue to put one step in front of the other. Yeah, so...

Two things you guys just said, and I can't take credit for this because my performance coach, John Czeplak, I've coached with him for 10 years. And one of the things that he programmed me early about doing hard shit, right? So John is almost 60 and he looks like he's 30. And one of the things that, and John talks about how he hates going to the gym. I don't particularly like going to the gym either. I like the results.

I remember a long time ago, he said, here's what I want you to program you to do mentally. When you pull up to the gym, you don't feel like it or you got to make the next call or, you know, whatever it is. It's like, man, it's it's it's gut wrenching fear and it's hard as fuck. You just don't want to do it. He said, you've got to call me and tell me what's going through your head from a standpoint of I'm not going to do it. Right. Because he knows he's going to tear my ass down.

And he said, not only that, you got to your your significant other, the people you lead, whatever. You got to stand up in front of them. This is the mental exercise and what you're thinking in your head. You have to say it out loud to them.

And like, I don't feel like going to the gym or I don't feel like making this sales call or I'm afraid that I'm going to get rejected in this deal or whatever. And he said, anytime you get that negative thought, I want you to place that thought into your head that you have to say that in front of the people that you lead and the people that you love. One of the most powerful things he ever taught me. And so people underestimate the power of consistency. It's like.

you don't quit right yeah you think you think the magic pill is some

You know, me, Brady and Casey are in the fucking Illuminati and we got the fucking secret that y'all don't have. No, I literally just gave it to you. That's the secret. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be like this consistency. People like I talked about this on stage, but like, you know, a lot of people focus on the deal and the money and like the consistency really just needs to be coming within. Like focus on your fucking body. If you can just wake up every fucking day, go to the gym five days a week.

If that's the one skill that teaches you consistency, that's what's going to teach you how to win in business. 100%. Because it's going to make you overcome so much hard shit by just having that routine. Because I don't particularly know that many people that are like, I want to get up and go to the gym. Yeah, let's fucking go. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's like, fuck, I just got to go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So one of the things that I always ask everybody, and I'd like both of your versions of this, is we call this show Wake Up to Wealth, and we call it Wake Up to Wealth for a reason. But I'd like you both to give me your version of what is waking up to wealth mean to you?

- Yeah, for me, I mean, I'm just discovering this and I think that's part of this 100 mile journey and all this hard shit. But it's ultimately becoming the best version of me because once I know that, once I do that, and as I continually become the best version, then I can pour in to my kids, to my wife, to my peers, to my community,

you know, and really create impact. And for me, that's what's waking up to the best version of me. You know, I realized that, you know, I need to, you know, win for this person first so I can just pour out to the fucking world, like become the best savage person for everybody else. And that's, that's what it means to me. I love that. What I would say for me, it's, you know, it might sound a little cliche, but at the end of the day, it's about chasing happiness.

What are the point? What's the point of living, right? If we're not happy at the end of the day, we're all going to die. We all only have 24 hours. At the end of the day, we're all the same. And so how can you go about chasing your happiness? Literally the wake up to wealth, right? You know, wealth is a vehicle to be able to provide opportunities for yourself and for others. And so certainly I'm very interested in attacking that in order to be able to provide myself additional happiness. And I would be kidding you if I didn't tell you that I know what that is for me.

What I've learned, you know, because people say, hey, you know, I want to retire and be on the beach. You know, I know for a fact I'd be bored after three days. So that's not it for me. What it is for me is really waking up and being on the journey of chasing happiness that like I want to win. I want to learn. I want to develop myself.

And it changes. It's a moving target forever for me. And I think that's what I'm realizing and learning. And that's my happiness. Because in a year from now, I'm going to be willing to bet you when I wake up to wealth, whatever my answer would be would be totally different in a year from now. Because the journey over these next 12 months is going to continue to develop me and continue to allow me to chase whatever that happiness ultimately is for me.

And so to me, that's what wake up to wealth means. Wake up to what it is that you want to do on a daily basis that makes you happy. And by the way, it's incredibly different. Like my idea of happiness is probably very different than yours and very different than yours.

What the word wealth and rich and money does is allow us a little bit of freedom and opportunity to continue to go after that a bit easier, as well as help other people, right? Help other people find that, which at the end of the day, I think is mostly everybody's dream is to allow other people to have that opportunity. Maximum fulfillment for us is seeing other people win. And I think that goes like nobody likes to see other people. Very rarely is someone happy.

seeing other people lose 100 right so powerful powerful answers uh guys uh man it's been a long fucking day but it's been a great day it's been a great day we've been at an event all day together and we're still hopping on podcasts uh but man it's been it's been phenomenal i appreciate you guys today i appreciate you guys coming on the show and uh you know thank you guys for for doing life with me this has been it's been awesome

Hell yeah, brother. Thank you for having me, man. Glad to be part of your circle, dude. I echo the comments from both of you guys. It's an incredible journey we're on together. I'm so excited.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Wake Up to Wealth. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way we'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends about the show. It is how new people find us. Until next time.