Since 2003, Brad has successfully bought and sold 4,000 houses across the country. Today, Brad's business operates seamlessly without his direct involvement, showcasing the impressive journey from hands-on beginnings to a thriving real estate enterprise.
Since 2003, Brad has successfully bought and sold 4,000 houses across the country. Today, Brad's business operates seamlessly without his direct involvement, showcasing the impressive journey from hands-on beginnings to a thriving real estate enterprise.
All right, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Game Changers show. I'm your host, Mike McKay, based in the Jacksonville, Florida market. And each and every week we do this show with people who are changing the game of real estate all over the country. And this is a live show guys. So if you have any questions, please put them in the comments for our guests to answer. If anyone in the Jacksonville area is looking to get into real estate and has sales experience, we are currently hiring acquisitions people. So feel free to send me a DM on Instagram, if that's something you're interested in. This week on the show, we have Brad Chandler. Brad, welcome to the show.
Brad:Hey, thanks for having me.
Mike:So for Brad, for the people who don't know you I know you've obviously made a lot of shifts over the years, which we'll talk about on the show, but how did you first get involved in the real estate business?
Brad:I read a book when I was in ninth grade on how to buy real estate with no money down at that. And at that time I knew I wanted to do real estate because there was unlimited income potential. And we'll get to later in the show why that was so important in my life.
Mike:Yeah. So you read that book then when you were in ninth grade, when did you actually kind of jump into real estate in terms of doing it?
Brad:So I got educated in real estate. So I went to Virginia tech and got an undergraduate degree in residential property management and real estate. And then I came out and worked for developer in like 1990. What did I, no, I did property management from 95 to like 98. I went back to graduate school, got a MBA in real estate, and then worked for developer from about 2000, 2003. And in late 2002, an investor bought my neighbor's house in Vienna, Virginia. And I went and talked to him and he said, yeah, I buy houses at 30%, 20% below market. Fix'em up and resell'em. I was like, whoa, that's what I'm gonna do. And so I I decided in December of 2002 to buy my first to make this business work. And it took me eight long, strenuous, hard months of working a full time job. I had a new son, so I'd come home, spend six to 8 PM with him. And then I'd like go pound. We buy houses signs until 11 o'clock. And in July of 2003 I bought my first house in July and August of 2003 I bought six houses and in October I went to my boss and quit and I came home and told my wife at the time I said I just quit. And she's like, I'm starting to express home buyer. She's like, are you crazy? We have a newborn son. I have two kids. Like, how are we going to live? And I was like, it'll be fine. And yeah, 20 years later, we're not still together, but it's all been fine.
Mike:Gotcha. So, you know, you bought those bunch of houses, quit your job, right? And then, I mean, you guys over the years, I mean, you've bought, I think over 4, 000 homes with express home buyers. So,
Brad:We, we have, we did 253 houses in 2022 and 223 houses in 2023.
Mike:A lot of people who listen to this show they're interested in like kind of scaling their business, right? They've got, maybe they're doing a couple of deals on their own, but you really built it. Into like a really systemized scaled business. And do you want to talk about some of the, maybe the challenges you faced along the way and how you overcame those,
Brad:Yeah. Oh, I had a lot of challenges. I mean, there was constant chaos in my business. I, the reason in ninth grade where I, Wanted to find an industry or business. I can make a lot of money was because I thought that money would bring me happiness and worth. And cause I didn't really feel worthy, but I didn't know it. It was like buried in my subconscious mind. So, from day one, I started reading the first book I ever read when I started the company, it was called E Myth by Michael Gerber. And it was all about systematizing your business. And while I knew that was really important, my partner and I were just terrible. We're both visionary. So we were terrible at systems, but I always knew they're important. So I kept pushing and pushing. And over the years we got our systems and we got our people and yeah, we've got a, we've got a bunch of really great people. You know, some great systems that they follow up.
Mike:what were some of the like systems that you built that allowed you to really hand over the business to other people?
Brad:Yeah, it's probably nothing I built. Two years ago we brought in a CFO and he our books were a mess. He really cleaned them up and we had some amazing software, this we probably too big for us. We. Bought it back when we were trying to scale years ago, but it's a really solid accounting platform. And he came in and just got that all dialed in so that we have numbers by the fifth or sixth of the month, we have all our numbers in. And now we've got the backend of Salesforce with all the analytics. We've got so many numbers and dashboards that we look at. So, I work about an hour a week. I show up to a manager's meeting and look up the KPIs and that's really it.
Mike:Yeah. And then what other challenges did you face along the way besides having to, you know, not being a systems guy and having to build some systems or get some systems built?
Brad:So, I didn't know this at the time, Mike, but up until age 47, I had this nagging buried belief that I wasn't enough. And so I was constantly trying to prove myself at business, at home in my intimate relationships, and it cost me a lot. It probably cost my partner and I made five critical business mistakes that cost us 9 million and looking back, all of those business mistakes were around trying to prove my worth, opening new markets, trying to do 80 rehab spread four hours apart, getting involved in, you know, trademark lawsuits buying development deals where we're like, Oh, we'll just knock down this house and put new how to new houses up. But it wasn't zoned that way. And we lost 934, 000 buying a house, a row house in DC near the XM serious headquarters and being like, Oh, we'll just pop another level on there. Well, we didn't know we had to check the zoning first and then it wasn't allowed. So a lot of mistakes, a lot of chaos, a lot of just chasing money. For the sake of it, me thinking it was going to bring me that missing piece of me that I always felt was missing. So
Mike:What made you discover that though? I mean, you said you kind of didn't realize it for 47 years. What was the catalyst that helped you under uncover that?
Brad:three years ago, trying to get my son help for a severe anxiety. I was on a zoom call with a performance coach and she was like, you have a tick. And I just met her. So I was like, what are you talking about? Like, do I have a tick on me? What do you mean? She's like, you blink profusely. When you talk about your childhood, you may have some unresolved childhood issues and trauma that's affecting your son. And I'm like, First of all, lady, my childhood wasn't perfect, but it wasn't that bad. My dad hit me with a belt, made fun of me, my parents fought a lot, but it wasn't that bad. I didn't have any trauma, and in no way, I'm a single dad, I do everything for my son. There's no chance that I'm affecting my son. But after, she's like, but you can come out and work with myself and my husband for a weekend if you want, and I did. I was like, I'll do anything for my son, because I tried so much at that point. And I came out there, and over the course of a weekend, Mike, or really, A three hour session in this bedroom in an Airbnb, my life forever changed and I realized that for 47 years I was living behind this mask of, you know, high self image. I, you know, I thought I love myself. I thought I had You know, high self worth. And I used to tell people all the time, I don't care what other people think, but it was all just a lie. I really did care what other people thought. And you know, the use of weed and alcohol and the business mistakes and two marriages that didn't work out. And both of my kids with anxiety and my relationship at the time with them wasn't so great. I mean, I, looking back, I was a mess. From, but from the outside I look freaking amazing. So that's how I figured it out. And that was three years ago. And since that time literally I'm a completely different person and everything in my life has changed for the better.
Mike:what, like, specifically, if you don't mind sharing, like did they put you through a certain exercise that helped you figure that out or
Brad:Yeah. I'll show, I'll share it. There's nothing I won't share. And the reason there's nothing I won't share is because this is who I am and this is my story and. If anyone wants to judge me for it, I now realize I would have been afraid to say certain things about myself and mistakes I made because I didn't feel great about myself now that I have this, you know, internal self love. If you want to judge me, I know it has nothing to do with me. It has to do with how you feel about yourself, but it goes both ways too. If I'm judging someone else, which I hardly ever do anymore, I try not to. It's about something I have inside myself internally that I need to have to work on. So the exercise that he put me through, Mike basically asked me when in my childhood did I felt like I lost control? Did don't buy that. I don't mean like I went crazy and went and drank or something where control was taken from me. Where I had some stress, where I had some trauma, where my needs weren't met. And then we spent hours talking about what was the story around that. So there's a book you can't really see it behind me on the bookshelf called The Myth of Normal. And it's by Dr. Gabor Matei. He's one of the, I think, the tops in this area of kind of trauma and happiness. And he says that Trauma isn't actually what happens to you as a child. That's a traumatic event. The trauma is what happens internally around the story that you tell yourself. So, we've got 7 billion people on this planet, and probably about 6. 8 billion of them have at some point in their life not had their needs met. As a child and they develop these stories of these meanings around why weren't my needs being met. And do you know what most of the, when a child is six years old and his father's hitting him with a belt or his father's gone or his father works all the time or makes fun of him, what do you think that little boy is saying about himself?
Mike:something negative? I mean, that it's their fault.
Brad:You got it. It's my fault. I deserve it. Something's wrong with me. And why do they do that? Because It gives them a a modicum of control because if it's dad is the problem, then I'm shit out of luck. There's nothing I can do. If I'm the problem, if I'm not enough, all I've got to do is be enough and then I'll get the love that I deserve. So it's actually really good as a child. It helps you. Your brain is doing exactly what it should. It's protecting you. But at 47 years old, when you've. Failed in two marriages and you're buying a 42 foot boat to take to the Bahamas when you can't even read a chart. It becomes a real problem. What I just said, Mike, is the crux of 98 percent of every problem in this world. From the war in Ukraine and Israel, to our prisons being full, to obesity, to addiction, to 33 percent of Americans being on a anti anxiety or anti depressant drug. It's all the same story every single time our needs weren't met. We developed these coping mechanisms and these coping mechanisms have turned into pain for us. Crazy. And that's why I'm so passionate. And that's why I'm on this podcast. And that's why I now have, you know, been graced and blessed to have a company, my real estate company running without me because I get to do what I do every day. I mean, I just finished with a guy. And one of the questions I asked was what would you pay for my program now knowing what you know, he goes, Brad, I would have sold my house. I would have given you a year salary. I'm like, well, just give me a number. He was like 400, 000. He goes, you have literally changed my life. He was because he was in a really bad place as a child. And so what did he tell himself exactly what you just said? Something's wrong with me. So lack of joy, relationship problems, business problems, you name it. And it's all boom in five weeks it's up and gone and he's a different person.
Mike:So is the idea that, you know,'cause you said it's based on the story that we tell ourselves, right? Is the idea like changing the narrative that, of that story? or how did you go about changing that? Okay. So
Brad:Yeah. So, so there's we have three Rs that I feel are needed to absolutely a hundred percent required to permanently change any mental state. That mental state can be, you eat too much, you drink too much, you yell at your spouse, your kids a lot, you're always angry, whatever it is. The first is realize, do you know how many of my clients come to me and say, this is exactly my problem, Brad, can you help me? No. They're like, I have anxiety. I have depression. I drink too much. I smoke too much, but I don't know why. So how can you change something that you have no idea what's driving you? So we start by recognizing what is it? What are those underlying beliefs and now that we know those now we can do the recode part where neuroplasticity They've only known this for 20 years from Freud up until a hundred years after that They believe that those meanings and those implicit memories that are buried in your subconscious mind around these emotional times you had as a child, they thought they were stuck in your brain forever. They now know through neuroplasticity that you can literally pluck those neurons out and replace them with a new neuron with the correct story. So the second R is recode and then the third R is rewrite. You now get to, now that you know the issue and you're recoding your brain, you get to rewrite the life that you deserve. So if you're struggling in a marriage, if you're struggling in your business, if you're overweight, If you have a relationship with your kids, if your kids have anxiety, it's not your fault. Your brain doesn't know the difference between you at 56 46 or six years old because that's, it's, that's its job. Your subconscious mind is to keep you alive. It doesn't care if you're happy or sad, so it's not your fault. And as soon as you have awareness, Everything can change.
Mike:what are some tactics that someone could use to like recode and rewrite. That story, once they've identified it.
Brad:Yeah. So I'm going to say it a little bit different. All of our coping mechanisms, the anxiety, the drinking, the depression, the anger is, even though all of that brings us negativity in our life, we're doing it because we think that it's keeping us from feeling something even worse. And that even worse thing is oftentimes that story that we've told ourself as a child. So you can, In a deeply relaxed state. What does that mean? It means meditating for 10 or 15 minutes, getting super relaxed and then thinking about a time. If anxiety is your thing, I get really anxious when I got a good public speak. So now I'm going to put myself on the stage. I'm going to put myself walking up. I'm going to see, I'm going to smell what I smell. I'm going to hear what I hear. And I'm going to say, what if I walked up on that stage And I didn't have the anxiety. What would that be like? And if I asked you that question, Mike, you're, you'd probably say, Oh my God, it would be great. I'd bounce up on stage. I blah, blah, blah. And that's all great. But those are all positive things. Your brain goes to, there's a reason that you feel the anxiety and it's preventing you from something negative. So what, that's what you have to ask yourself. If you didn't feel whatever your issue is, what would that be like? And for let's use a, let's use a it's an easier analogy for someone who's drinking. Let's say the drinking is the problem. I start drinking at six o'clock when my wife comes home because. If I don't, then I'm gonna have to talk to her and open up. And if I open up, when I opened up as a kid, my mom would do her love. And that was so painful to me that I'm gonna avoid that by drinking. So now you know. Now you have awareness. And you say, but is that true? And you think of times in your life when did you open up and you didn't get hurt? And then your brain has what's called a mismatch detector. It's like, but wait. That doesn't make sense. I can't hold these two conflicting thoughts in my mind, right? One is I open up I get hurt, but I opened up when I told my wife blah blah blah And I didn't get hurt. So oh my gosh, I don't need to Hide behind that anymore and then boom the drinking goes away the anxiety goes away that the stage fright goes away because there's something that's causing that Does that make sense?
Mike:Yeah, it does. Yeah. And then like, I mean, is this something that's like, can be a quick thing to change or is this like a process that takes time to.
Brad:It takes as long as you want it to take. It took me three hours. And now with my clients, I see just amazing turnarounds. And like between hour three and hour five, it's not therapy, man. It's not it's, I'm not a therapist. I don't want you coming to me and sitting on my couch, you know, Tuesdays at 10 30 AM every morning and talking about your problems and, you know, The problem with most therapy is that it focuses on the conscious mind. What are your symptoms? And let's figure out how to deal with your symptoms. It's like going to, to going to the back doctor or a chiropractor or a black back surgeon, and they're just like, well, let's just do surgery. Well, brother, there's a reason my back is out of alignment. If we don't figure that out and we just do surgery, isn't my back going to go out of alignment? It will. And then you'll be back in here for more surgery and more money. Right. So you've got to go to the source. What is creating this? Because none of you were born with the issue that you're struggling or suffering earth right now. It was learned. And if it was learned, it can be unlearned. So yeah because we go to the subconscious mind I use hypnosis. Why do I use hypnosis? I think it's the greatest tool on the planet for mental health because your subconscious mind knows the source of all of your problems. And when you're in that deeply relaxed state, You know, do a couple deep breaths and I walk you down some stairs in your head with your eyes closed. You're able to say, Oh, this is why I have the anxiety. It's just a beautiful thing. So it can happen really rapidly.
Mike:Yeah, it's interesting you bring that up. I've actually done quite a bit of hypnosis myself in terms of going to hypnotherapist and it has helped me out with a lot of things. I actually listened to the recording she made to me on a regular basis.
Brad:Yeah, that's what I do. So I make a recording and then at night when you're going to sleep and your brain is in an alpha wave brain state, which is the most suggestible. Well, that and theta, but. Fate is actually when you're in deep hypnosis you actually, that's when you do the neuroplasticity, the reprogramming of your, you know, neural pathways in your brain.
Mike:Yeah, for people who maybe don't have, or maybe haven't experienced like hypnosis in the past. You want to maybe just shed a little bit more light on that and like kind of, yeah.
Brad:because I've had so many clients have been like, hypnosis, really? And can you really do that at resume? And we start by doing an eye exercise where you just look up, take a couple of deep breaths in because when you look up, you start the alpha wave brain state. If you've ever seen a child go to sleep, they roll their eyes up, right? So we roll your eyes up, we do a couple of breathing exercises. And then we walk you down some stairs. I mean, it's literally just, and I'm telling you, Hey you're going into a deep relaxation. Just that's really it. It's not what most people think about, you know, stage hypnosis where you're like chasing around, you know, a mouse. It's just, you're not drooling on yourself. You're not out of it. You remember everything. You're in a conscious state.
Mike:Yeah, gotcha. And is your style of hypnosis? I've done a couple different ones. Is it having a, are you having a conversation at all with the person? Or are you more doing like making the suggestions to them based on what they've told you that they're looking to move towards?
Brad:Once they, once I get them into that relaxed state, I just, I have a conversation with them. It's not hypno, it's not conversational hypnosis. It's actually trying to get them into a deeply relaxed state and then having a conversation where I ask them the questions because their brain knows the source of all their problems.
Mike:And you find that in the hypnotic state, they are relaxed enough to discover that, like, the true answer on their own or.
Brad:It happens every time. Yep. It's really powerful because sometimes I think I know what they're going to say and they come up with something that's even better than what I would have come up with. It was just like, wow that's amazing. Think about this, Mike. I mean, how interesting is this? We've got, like I said, probably six point something billion people out of the 7 billion people on the planet that are suffering to some degree, number one, it's all self inflicted, but number two, their brain holds the solution and the key to everything. But they don't know it for 47 years. I didn't know it again. I thought that I love myself. I thought I had high self esteem. I thought that I didn't care what other people thought and it was, I was wrong. Right? So I created this three minute. If you're listening, like if I was listening to this podcast and you guys were talking about self love, I've been like, that's, that, that's all woo. Like that's crazy. But that, that self love has caused my, first of all, caused my health to never be better. Never been in a better relationship. Never had a better relationship with my kids. My net worth has jumped more in the three years than it did any prior three years by, you know, a factor, an X factor. And so self love and figuring out these problems will change your life. So I created this literally 12 question, three minute self love quiz that anyone can take to see that this is where the awareness comes in because I didn't even know it at age 46 I thought I had self love. If you go to bradchandler. com forward slash quiz, take this quiz, Mike, you should take it figure out if you've got extreme self love, awesome. I bet your life in all areas is great. If you've got mild self love. Or lack of self love. I can assure you whether you know it or not, that every single area of your life is negatively affected to some degree. So don't look at that as, Oh, woe is me. I scored negative self love just the opposite. Look at gosh, my life can get so much better because myself and a hundred of my clients are living proof that can happen.
Mike:Yeah. Well, I'll definitely give it a shot after the show. I, it's where I think it's worth it. Three minutes. Sure. Why do you think that if people don't have that, or maybe you can just talk about your own personal experience that it caused them? I mean, I think you said you made a lot of bad business decisions because you didn't have that self-love. Like why do you think that happens?
Brad:Yeah. I mean, look, I think, I think every major athlete most major athletes, I think most major CEOs to some degree lacks lack self love cause that's their drive. Tiger Woods, look at Tiger Woods. You think Tiger Woods was trying to prove something? Yeah. You think Tiger Woods is happy? No, he's almost killed himself twice in the last three years drinking or on drugs and, you know, medicating himself heavily and then driving a car at high speeds. No, knock on him, not his fault. His dad was brutal to him. I don't know if you've watched this documentary who it was brutal that what he grew up and how, I mean, his dad was cheating on his mom and he knew it and he had a girlfriend that he was in love with and they like basically ran her off and I'm going in a couple of directions. Sorry but one of the thing about hypnosis is Tiger Woods dad had a friend, I think in the Navy or the Army, who taught him how to hypnotize himself. So when people are like, Tiger was in this trance state or this flow state, he was in a hypnotic state. That's why he did so well. But going back to your question, sorry, I get excited about this stuff. Most people are trying to prove something. When you have to prove something, look, I just happened to make a bunch of mistakes. Maybe I was reckless. I know that my lack of self love also created a lot of the ability to make the money, but then I gave it all back. And even having all that money, I wasn't happy. So why does that happen? Why do people make mistakes? Because they're trying everything they can. I mean, you know, in real estate, you've probably got buddies that their business is absolute chaos, or they're driving around a Ferrari, but you know, they have no money or, you know, they're calling you saying, dude, I don't know how I'm going to make. Payroll this week, I know people like that and I know how they feel about themselves. It's all about, I need to prove more and more. Or you've got the person who doesn't even need to work, but they're working like crazy at the expense of their marriage and their kids. Because when you don't feel enough and you lack self love, nothing is ever enough ever more.
Mike:And what's your, you know, there's some people who say, right. And I don't think this is accurate, but I'd like to hear your take on it. That's what drives them. What do you say to that?
Brad:Yeah. It's one of my slides. And when the presentations I do, the entrepreneurial myth, if I fix myself, Will I lose my drive and I say it's a complete myth because I'm living proof that my drive has never been stronger because now I have killed that proverbial lion chasing me and I am in a flow state because I'm doing exactly what I want to do having this conversation with you. Spreading this word, shining my light, telling people that they don't have to suffer and that there is a way in a matter of hours, not months and years, that you can completely change your life. Yeah it's marvelous.
Mike:Yeah, and then do you feel like you start to notice like different opportunities if you start to think this way, like how does your, I guess, how does your, how did your mind shift?
Brad:I mean, it's interesting. It's almost not more opportunities. It's more opportunities and more saying no to stuff that's out of alignment. I when people come to me, when you lack self love, you lack authenticity, which means you've lost connection with yourself, which means you're not following your gut instinct. So as a child, you have two primary needs authenticity, which means to be able to feel your true feelings and express them because think about a thousand years ago, if you see a lion outside the cave and you didn't follow your gut instinct, you'd be dead. The other is the attachment. If you're not attached to your parents, you're going to die. If you're with a parent that can't take, you know, emotional or yelling or whatever you do as a child and they shut you down, you change your authenticity. So that's the real, when you lack self love, you lack self connection. So oftentimes I didn't follow my gut because I was overridden by forget my gut. I need to survive. I need to make a bunch of money. So now I find myself where. You know, I was looking at an investment the other day and something just didn't feel right about it. And there was probably a lot of upside and my old self probably would have taken that gamble. But I'm like, no, I don't need to take that gamble. So it's not only opportunity. It's also what you say no to. You become much more clear on what you stand for and you don't need to go prove anything. So you don't take these, I just took way too many risks trying to hit the home run, thinking that if I hit the home run, I'll be worthy and I'll be happy.
Mike:Yeah, you you want to talk a little bit about the word alignment because there's a couple I talked to a lot of people about that word and there's a lot of people have different definitions of it and I'm curious to hear what yours is.
Brad:Yeah. You know, I've never thought about this before, so I'm just going to tell you what I think off the cuff alignment. When I think of alignment, I think a little bit of authenticity. We're all born this, you know, whether you believe in God or whatever, it doesn't matter who you believe in. We're all from one creator, right? And we're all born equal. No one's, you know, I'm no better than you or you're no better than me. So I think alignment is alignment with who you truly are. Like that's how you become free. And through these unmet childhood needs and society and school and neighbors and all this social media influence, we so often try to become people who other people want us to be. My business partner and life partner, she spent 25 years working in Accenture. She never wanted to do that. She did that because her mother told her that's what she should do. Now she's doing this work and she's changing lives and she's never been happier. So she's in alignment with her purpose. And now she's in flow as well.
Mike:How does someone go about writing a transcript? Okay. Finding that what their purpose is.
Brad:You, you gotta kill the lion because think about if you lack self love you're likely in a negative mind state a lot. And anytime you go into a negative mind state, you're in a fight or flight, which means danger exists. If you've got a lion chasing you, Mike, do you think you can figure out your purpose? Do you think you can plan creatively and effectively what your next business move should be? No, you kill the lion. And within, when I killed the lion, the proverbial lion, literally within weeks, I was like, I know this is why I was put here. And now you know, I've got 150 books on my wishlist. I could buy all of those books and go sit on the beach for the rest of my life under an umbrella and read eight hours a day. Because I love it so much. So do you think I'm going to be, this is the first company I ever started where I didn't have money in mind, but do you think when we talk in five years that I'm going to have tremendous financial success? Because one, I absolutely love it and I have an insatiable appetite for it and I've scaled a business before and I'm not focused on money. I'm focused on making an impact in changing people's lives. So,
Mike:yeah, for sure. How was that transition? So you went to meet with that person that weekend and you had that kind of turning point, but did you really, like, immediately kind of get out of your real estate business or.
Brad:you I I was working full time then and I wasn't working really hard. It was slow, but it was fast. It was over the couple of months that I got back, I started just reading and I was like, wow, I can't put down these books. Like I just love it. And I started studying under Dr. Gabor Matei, and then I got hooked up with this lady, Marissa Pierre, who was the. 2005, number one therapist in all of uk. She's got this program called Rapid Trans Transformational Therapy, and it's like a five, 600 hour program. It's a combination of hypnosis, cognitive behavioral therapy, and NLP. And I was just like, I love this. And the more that I loved it and the more that I healed, the more I realized that real estate was. all about money and proving my worth. And I knew that would never happen anymore that I, that there was nothing outside of myself that could bring me the internal peace. So I don't know. Probably six months after that I was probably working, I was coming to the office like two or three times a week. And then it was like once or twice a week. And then, I mean, I went to the office on a Saturday. To pick up some, I thought I was picking up an aura ring cause my aura ring broke. And I hadn't been in the office in like 45 days or something. And I used to, and I used to hate the funny thing is I used to hate working from home and I've never thought I've just, you know, these thoughts. It's incredible. Why did I hate working from home? It's because I didn't like myself and I didn't like being alone period. And now I love working from home. I got my little golden doodle here. She's not in the room now, but lane, I mean, we just have a ball and yeah, so everything has changed, man. So, so how do you find your purpose? You got to get to a point where. You are, you find the internal happiness and you kill that lion so that you can take a couple of deep breaths and you can look around. We did an exercise, I don't know, a month or two ago. And a part of the program comes with a a weekly group mastermind call and my partner led this this hypnosis where. We did it, we did a quick hypnosis and then we had people go back to between the ages of like six, seven, eight, nine. And we asked them what was it that they really love to do? Because what you really love to do then you really love to do now. And for me, I thought about, I loved transforming landscapes in my mom's yard. I would work so hard transforming something. And now I'm transforming people's lives. It's, it was, it's remarkable.
Mike:Yeah, have any of the things that you've learned? I know you're not fully involved. You're not, you know, you're not very involved in the real estate business anymore, but have any of it like transitioned over, like, have people who work at that company taken any of these principles and applied them or.
Brad:Absolutely. The, one of the first, before I even started charging, I was taking on, you know, close to three years ago, I was taking on free clients and I took on a number of one, one was this 35 year old virtual assistant in the Philippines. And she came to me and she was like, Brad, I'm sleeping two to three hours a night. I've got massive anxiety. My relationship with my partner, my son isn't that great. I've got migraine headaches all the time. And she's got, she's one of the reviews on my site. She's like, I sleep eight hours a night now. My anxiety is all but gone. My relationship is improved. And I ask you the listener. If you don't think you have people in your company that are struggling with the same things that I struggle with and the rest of the world struggles with, whether it's bad marriage or health or drinking too much or smoking too much weed, it's affecting their productivity. It's affecting your bottom line. So absolutely. I've I've helped a number of people in my company.
Mike:Yeah, and if, like, if people wanted to, like, take some of those learnings and, like, maybe apply them to their company, do you have any suggestions for them?
Brad:Yeah. This is a suggestion for your marriage, for your kids, for your business is get out of judgment, fear and judgment and get into curiosity. Just be curious about everything. Why is it that Sally showing up late to work every day? Not like chastising her, but getting to know her, asking her like, what's going on and really come from a place of love as opposed to, Oh, Sally's costing me money. That's the biggest thing is look, how can you make an impact? Go around your company. When you look at systems and you look at acquisitions and you look at how do you raise money and how do you make a bigger impact? How can you get the investor reporting better so that your investors have a better experience? How can your seller experience? How can you, if you're wholesaling, how can your buyers? Just constantly look and be curious at, you know, why do I come home and drink three glasses of wine? Why didn't I go to the gym for two weeks? Why when my wife says something to me I get so mad and I become distant for three days Stop judging and get into curiosity. Albert Einstein said he really didn't have any special traits. He was just passionately curious
Mike:Gotcha. What else have you done, like, maybe over the course of these last three years that you have found that has personally helped you get to where you are today in terms of happiness?
Brad:You know, I created this thing called the joy regenerator And I give it away for free because like I said, I want to make an impact. You can grab it if you want, bradchannel. com forward slash joy. And it's this incredible process of how to process any negative emotion. So when you are in a negative state, you are in a fight or flight, which means you're not present. So, first thing is, as soon as you feel a negative emotion, whether it's your wife saying something or someone at work or someone cutting you off, just take a couple deep breaths, box breathing, five seconds in, hold for five seconds, breathe out for five seconds, hold for five seconds, repeat. That'll help you get present. Then you identify the emotion. What am I feeling? I'm angry. Well, unless you're being attacked by a bear, your kids are being attacked by a bear. Anger usually is underlying sadness or unresolved hurt. So I usually go to, I'm sad and then I give myself compassion because not many of us got compassion as children for our emotions. Some of us were told, you know, one of my clients said this the other day, he says, you know, if you want something to cry about, I'll give you something to cry about. Right? So you give yourself compassion for that because. When you're feeling a negative emotion, Mike, when your wife says something and it irritates you, it's not you as an adult, it's that six year old that's feeling it. So imagine if your six year old self came up and said, Mike, I'm really sad. Would you say, suck it up? Or would you say, go smoke a joint? Or would you say you're an ass? No, you'd pick that little boy up and you'd say, it's okay. You feel sad. I've got you. You need to do the same thing for yourself. Then you go into what are three things I can be grateful for about my life in this situation? Because when you're grateful, it's really hard to find negative emotion. The final couple of pieces are where did this come from? What is the source of this? And it's always an initial thought that creates an emotion that creates a behavior. So in my case, Every single time I feel sad, I feel angry, I feel frustrated, I go back to the old Brad, Oh my gosh, I don't feel enough. And I asked myself, is that original thought true? Am I not enough? And I know now emphatically, no, that's not true. So that's why it's called the joy regenerator. You can step back into joy because Why are you going to be sad about something that's not even true? We as human beings, most of the suffering is self inflicted by our thoughts. And those thoughts are always untrue. It is nearly impossible to suffer, Mike, if you live in the truth.
Mike:Yeah. Huh? WhaT?
Brad:Oh, Mike, one thing, one thing about that, maybe the most important part, cause if you're in a relationship, so you go through that and then you say to your wife. Betty, Margaret, Sue. What you just said or did made me feel sad. It's not your fault, but would you help me process it so that I could heal and we could become closer as a couple? Is that different than it? When my ex wife would come to me and say something that made me sad, I would turn it on her. I would fight with her. And then I would fight or the flight part would be for three days. I'd be cold and distant. Is that different? If I said to her, Hey, what you just said made me feel this. Can we talk about it? Do that tonight. And your spouse is going to be like, who is this guy? Like what the hell happened to my husband? Right? Instead of attacking, because you have to protect yourself because you feel less than you're opening, opening up, you're being vulnerable. And that's where people run from conflict in relationships. You shouldn't run from conflict because when you have conflict, it's your body and the universe's way of saying you have work to do. So look at it as an opportunity to heal yourself and grow closer to your spouse.
Mike:Yeah. Are there any like things that you do on like a daily or weekly basis to keep yourself in like a good happy state?
Brad:I meditate. I meditate sometimes twice a day. I work out five to six days weight training and then I get in the sauna and then I get in the steam room and then I get in the cold shower. I, when I get in a triggered state, which is very rare, I use the joy regenerator in my head. So I'm almost looking my goal in life. is to not have any person or situation negatively or super positively affect me. And I'm closer and closer. I couldn't, I can't believe how close I am to that. But when I'm, when I do get triggered, I go into that and then now I can do it in milliseconds. Really. It's just, it's so fast because every time for me, if I'm feeling bad, It has nothing to do with the situation. It has me going back to I'm not enough and someone doesn't love me or something. So I do that. I stay active like I love to travel. I've got an amazing relationship when we have conflict. We practice these things exactly what we teach our clients. Love to boat, which is, you know, being on the water is peaceful. I I kite surf. I wake surf. So just, yeah, I do. I do. And I'm a health nut. I I eat usually, unless I'm in Antigua like I was last week, stuffing my face with chocolates. I usually eat incredibly well. No sugar, no, no carbs. And yeah.
Mike:Gotcha. Cool. If people were curious to learn, because I've found science helped me you know, over the, I 18 months, like hypnosis or things like that, like where you have any resources you suggest or books that they could read. Yeah.
Brad:Wow. I mean, I've got so many books, man. I've got a couple in my hand right here. They're kind of, I don't, for people, so the way of miracles, I had this gentleman on my podcast a couple of times ago. I have a podcast by the way. We just found out it was ranked in the top 3 percent of all podcasts out of like 3. 2 million. It's called how to be happier for entrepreneurs. This gentleman, Mark Minkola has helped like 60, 000 people over 40 years. It, this is a phenomenal book. It doesn't talk so much about hypnosis. The book that I recommend more than any is the way to love by Anthony de Mello. In terms of hypnosis I mean, Erickson is one of the, one of the guys, it's been, you know, one of the most famous hypnotists of all time. So Milton Erickson, if you want to check out some of his stuff,
Mike:Yeah, I read My Voice Will Go With You not too long ago, which was,
Brad:Erickson book?
Mike:I think it was written by a guy who studied underneath him, but it was, and Wrote kind of his stories and everything was it's really interesting.
Brad:Nice.
Mike:Yeah. Well, we're kind of getting close to the end here. And I'm going to adapt one of my questions that I usually ask at the end a little bit, because I know you're not fully full time in the real estate business anymore, you if you could go back in time, give one piece of advice to your younger self, you know, when you were really like, kind of focused, like just grow in real estate, knowing what you know now, what would you tell that person? Yeah. Yeah.
Brad:Oh my gosh. Um, I think it's really simple. I would have prayed that there would have been a self love quiz that I could have taken to see just How hurt I was as a human being. Because had I know, look, I don't have any regrets. Everything that I've gone through allows me to help people. So I wouldn't want to do it again. But if I could know what I know now about life and relationships and mental state and health, happiness and health I mean, I'd have an empire because I just love this stuff. So my advice to you is there's a really good chance you're getting into business for the same reason that I did. You didn't have control as a child and you think you can control your situation in your business or you don't feel enough or you think that if I can only make 10 million, I'll feel great. And what I teach people is I'll teach you how to get that state that you think you're gonna get to when you're at$10 million today, and then the chances of you getting a$10 million are a hundred times greater because you're gonna be doing something that you love and that you have purpose.
Mike:Yeah, it's a great piece of advice. Brad, if people want to reach out to you after the show you know, if they want to take the self love quiz, or if they have any questions for you, how can they go about getting in touch with you?
Brad:Yeah. Brad Chandler. com is my site. If you go to bradchandler. com forward slash contact, it's got a link to the quiz. It's got a link to my podcast. It's actually even got my cell phone number. We lost one of the Titans of this industry to to suicide a couple of weeks ago. Really sad. In South Florida. So if you're struggling, if you're suffering, literally go there right now and my cell phone's on there. If you need help and you're in a desperate place, or if you're not in a desperate place, if you just need help, please reach out. I so bad, badly wish I would have known this and I didn't because I wasn't close to this person. I just knew of him. But I wish I could have had a, you know, a conversation with him because his problem is, was my problem. And as the problem of, you know, the other 7 billion people on the planet, it all, there's no mental illness. It was just the wrong meanings and the wrong thoughts in this person's head. It's, you know, just really sad. So if you're if you need help, reach out and I'll do my best to help you.
Mike:Awesome. Well, this is great, Brad. Thanks for being on the show.
Brad:Thank you.