Brady McDonald
Appearances
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
I'm a real estate investor. It's either feast or famine. It's like, I want to put, I want you to put a million bucks back in your bank for the first time. And the next one was we had another business. He's like, I want you to get that to 200 grand a month, which, so we, you know, sold the properties and he's like, you have 90 days to get this done. He's like, you'll have bandwidth back.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
You'll be able, you'll be, you'll be good. Your head, your headspace becomes clear.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
dude. And I'm like, all right, well, I'll go to work. And we ended up putting 3.8 million in the bank and, you know, and, and everything was all good.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. I can breathe. Yeah. Now we can like, okay, we can slow down. We can sell the properties in a controlled manner and whatnot. But yeah, it was, you know, when you look back and you're like, fuck, I wouldn't wish that on my enemy. But yeah, I am glad it happened. You learn lessons. Like the one of the biggest lessons there is that you can't eat your equity. And that was one of the big thing.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
We were only in real estate. So we didn't have any cash flowing, like real business. You know, the property's cashflow, like two or 300 bucks a month. And you got jackasses up in Ontario. Like the landlord laws are up there, like probably like New York or California would think. But, you know, you'd lose that cashflow. you know, all the time, very quickly, you know?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And so, but you can't eat the equity when shit hits the fan. And so I'll never do that again. You know, so we're doing it differently now, which is, which is good.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
You can't find one big buyer like that. You could, you know, you hit down here, you'd sell your portfolio. You can't do that up there.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. If the bank was giving out loans, right? Like that was the other big problem. It's just everything tightened up the rules. So you couldn't, that was our option was to sell, but you know, the blessing in disguise was that we've had the portfolio for a while and we were buying right and renovating right. And we, so we had lots of equity.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Um, not necessarily because again, you max out at 10 mortgages anyway. It doesn't fucking matter how bankable you are.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
I'm like, Vegas, come to the office. See you in, when can you be here?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. So what our strategy is just to liquidate. We've only got 17 properties left and then we're being a U and then we're becoming us tax citizen down here.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah, so when we came down, we got two big storage developments in Houston, and then debt got challenging in 2022. Same moment in time, right? So I syndicated these two big deals, and debt got hard. So we ended up focusing on sourcing the land, doing all the entitlements for self-storage specifically, and then selling the dirt to other developers.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. And we are still, yeah, that's a huge, it's a huge play. Yeah. So they could be any, anywhere from like 600 to a million in, in, um, you know, value increased by doing the entitlement.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
That and just highest and best use.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
No, they're all over the U S they're all over the U S all in different.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. So we cut our teeth in Ontario and understood like in Canada. And so I did all the entitlement stuff myself. And so I just acted as if I was the planning guy. Right. And I went through rezones and did it all. So I understood it. And so down here, like some municipalities are great. Some are super political. And we just learn by doing. Right. I think that is really the only way.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Like there's no fucking blueprint to be a developer.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Right. I mean, if there was, we'd all be super rich. Yeah. Right. But you just go in and you just have to know what the right questions is. And at the end of the day, you have to trust but verify. And that's the biggest thing. I think you just like the processes aren't overly complicated, but there's nuance between every municipality.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And the big things that can catch you up is the political structure. The relationships. The relationships. Sometimes like some municipalities are just straight by the book. They'll just, you know, this is the way it is. But some of them, some of the other ones are like, if you don't get approval by this council person or this person, don't even submit the paperwork. I'm like, wow. Right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
So we went to a couple of these states, a couple of these places in North Carolina or sorry, in Virginia. And it's like, it's not happening. It's not happening. It's not happening. So yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
but other other municipalities you have good conversations and and and the one big thing is like people want to know what you are building and make it look nice yeah and storage has a horrible rap right to you know people hate storage for for the most part because they look like the garage doors so we're showing them nice class a modern apartment like looking facilities whether they're single story or multi-story you can make them look nice and we get approvals so
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Correct. Yeah. We, we, we will actually close on the land. We close. And then basically our buyer closes the same day. So it's essentially, yeah, we have transactional funding. So we'll get it under contract and have like 150 days due diligence time and then 120 days entitlement period. So we're not, you know, we're 150 days.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And as long as our buyers know we're moving forward with entitlements, because we are, we're actually showing them and we're communicating to them, like over going above and beyond, then they give you more time.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Right. Because, and I think that's the half of the battle with almost anything is just whether it's investor relationships, dealing with municipalities, dealing with, you know, contracts, it's communication. Yeah. People just want to know what's up.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And you can do it in any asset class. It doesn't have to be storage. We started by just finding big lots in a town, right? And if you just know that an R1 lot is this frontage and this lot size, well, then just go find a lot that's twice as big. And you sever the thing in the middle.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Well, one of the things that too helps is just using local civil engineers and relying on local, uh planning consultants and that that is part part of it too because they can navigate a little better exactly they know who to talk to and and like
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
I'm saying this in the same sense that I don't know that it's actually that important, but they just know the nuance that we don't, that would probably make it take us three to four months later because we'd screw up a few things. Yeah, dude, for sure. That is a lot of money that you could be deferring down the line.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Oh, that's totally true.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Just to be fun. I'll throw the stupid in there. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, not really stupid, but I just think it's funny. Yeah. So I'd be stupid, especially when I was drunk.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
I wasn't like, I mean, it was literally John, like it's not even may. So it hasn't been two years. Um, Yeah. Well, when I quit drinking, okay. So before this, you know, like I realized it was in 2021, I did the 75 day hard. And so again, a professional drinker, right? We had the big boat at home and that's what we lived on. And so it was like Thursday to Monday drinking every day.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And I was just tired. And I saw one of my buddies do the 75 day hard. And I'm like, what's that? And he tells me the rules. I repeat the rules to my wife. One is not drinking. And she laughed her ass off. She's like, there is no way in hell. Like I've been drinking since I was 14 and I'm like, I know I'm scared too. Right. But I was just like, I was just done.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And the people that I was hanging around was just like, just limiting like, And I just knew it. I'm like, the conversations are the same, right? We're not, you know, they're not doing anything near what I'm doing. You know, I'm the top of the pole here. And so I went and did this thing and I changed my mindset. I changed my body. I became a better dad, blah, blah, blah, all those things. Right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah, I grew up in Owenstown, Ontario, Canada. So small town Canada, 20,000 people. The family was divorced at 11 years old. lost my license for drinking and driving at 16. I was pretty good at drinking. Started it when I was 14. Actually, I was pretty bad at it, I guess. Yeah. Drinking and lost my license at 16. My kid, my parents said, kid, you got to grow up. So you're going to college.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And took the family to Costa Rica, had the courage to do that. So I just had this clarity and stuff. And then, so when we got back from Costa Rica, back into Canada in 2021, they locked us back down. And that's what really triggered us to come to the U S cause I said to my wife, like next winter, we're going away, but we're going to the U S and we're going to scale life and business there.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And so went back and hung around the same people, start drinking again, just like I was everything kind of, you know, went back to normal, same old thing. Right. Well, then I said, okay, well, I'm going to get back into fitness because the 75 hard was the thing that kept me clean and sober. And I wasn't a raging alcoholic. I was just like everybody else, right?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And so I did a couple of half Ironmans and that worked. I'm like, perfect. I'm focused on that. I'm not drinking as much, you know, more focused on business, being a better dad, better communicator. Well, then all that stuff I just told you happened with the bleeding of the money, the company, the interest rates going through the roof. And eventually I just came to my wits end.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And I just, my dad also died at 73, just not too long ago, like a year before. And he started drinking at 50 years old and did all that damage by the time he was like 65. Right. Just like heavy drinking. Right. And I just realized like I just looked inside myself and I saw my daughters like they're going to follow whatever I do. Yeah. I was literally sitting on my boat.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
We have a 53 foot boat in the Exumas looking out the back and I'm bleeding. The business is bleeding to death. And I just like I just said tomorrow's the last day I'm drinking. And I told my wife that, and that was the decision. I made it. And it wasn't harder than that. And then from there, I went to Kent's office, and I also started training for a 50-mile run.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
So I think the running that we'll get into here in a second was the thing that replaced the boost. And it gave me that thing to focus on. It kind of silenced the mind.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
See, I probably weighed about as much as I do now, like 205, but I was just like poofy. The wrong 205. Yeah, the wrong 205. I was just poofy.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
My knees are garbage.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah, I trained. So, yeah, I guess I have never had injuries like I did here. Good for you. You know, I was lucky. Maybe I didn't play enough football or something, but...
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
yeah so what happened was i actually saw jesse itzler you know jesse is sure great so i saw him right around the same time he did ultraman which is a 6.2 mile swim uh 90 mile bike on the one day and jesse itzler like if you go look at him like you look at him and you don't think he's an ultra athlete yeah he looks broken down he's he's sold he's sold multiple companies for hundreds of millions you know he's super successful and i saw him do this 6.2 mile swim 90 mile bike i got his
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. And then he did. So the next day is 170 mile bike. And the next day after that is 52 mile run. And I'm like, he does this. I'm like, there's something more to this guy than just business.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And I just, so I got super intentional. I got close to Jesse. I became friends. And then I hired his coach because I'm like, whoever did that, got Jesse to do that is who I'm going to is who's going to help me do it. And so that's when I quit drinking. And then we started training for a 50 mile run that we did in the Keys. And so trained for three months, right? Quit drinking.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Three months later, ran 50 miles from Marathon, Florida down to Key West. And it was 119 degrees Fahrenheit with humidity. Like you could eat the air. And we started at nine o'clock in the morning. It was insanely hot. And so the first 12 miles, it was just... I was like so frustrated because you couldn't cool your body down. It's like sitting in the sauna. Yeah. That's 200 degrees.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
So pick what you want to do. And at that point I thought the most, well, the most successful people we knew in our like world were these guys, like uncles that were forest firefighters. So they said, okay, well, why don't you go to school for forestry? And that's what I did at 17 years old. And, but I met a guy who was one of my buddy's friends. Um, Where did you go to school for forestry?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
You can't get out. You can't get out. The door's locked. You can't get out. Right. And, and I'm just like, what am I going to do? And I put this towel on. Anyway, I figured it out. I got into this, this, this routine where I had a bag of ice. I would take it. I'd run for four minutes. I'd have it on my neck. I'd walk for one minute. I'd run for four, walk for one. And I'd take the bag of ice.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
I would stick it in my groin.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
you know for the one minute walk and i dumped the you know the ice all over my head and i did this 50 miles you know the 30 the other 36 miles well i get finished at you know like 10 hours and 40 minutes later in that excruciating heat and they said they didn't know what place i was in and i didn't even know where i was to be honest i got lost that before i got to the end
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And so we waited around there for a few hours waiting in there. Eventually they said, congratulations, you're in third place. So that's great. So two hours later, I didn't drink anything. I didn't re-eat anything. I didn't even know what I was doing. My wife was crewing me with my daughters, right? There were six of them.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
handing a granola bar and slap you in the back there was not even like you should rehydrate yourself you should like re-electrolyte your body like anyway so got back to where our rental was i started puking my brains out my wife throws me in back in the car she's like we're going to the hospital and i was just like and she's now cruising back to marathon florida sees an ambulance Right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And she pulls over and the ambulance driver's like, ma'am, you can't stop here. You got to keep going.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
She's like, look at this dude.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
That's exactly what she said. And the ambulance people and I kind of remember them like like opening the door or opening the expedition door. And they looked at me and they just like grab the stretcher and they literally yanked me out, put me in the stretcher and rushed me to the hospital. And then from there, it was three days. They didn't know what was going on.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
They were like, where did you run? I'm like, in Canada. They were like, what's your daughter's name? And I had no clue. No fucking clue. And so everybody thought I was dying, including them. They rushed me. So they did brain scans, heart scans, the whole body. Then rushed me. Didn't know what was going on. Rushed me to Miami. you know, more tests and thankfully survived. Right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
But yeah, I ended up with rhabdomyel, rhabdo and which could kill you a hundred percent and then severe dehydration. But, you know, at that point I was just like, I think I'm on the path, which is stupid to think. So you're sitting in the hospital, almost killed yourself.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
I look back and there's a picture and it says not human. It's like an Ironman shirt. I'm like, what a stupid shirt to wear in here. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
you idiot so but the doctors they found this heart abnormality in there accidental and they said you can't do any of this ever again until you get that heart fixed so they said i had a leaky heart and i'm like damn i'm just getting good like this is putting me on the path yeah beyond and um you know long story short it took me about two weeks i got clearance and
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Like in some shithole town in Lindsay, Ontario, Canada.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And then I did 29029, which is Mount Everesting with Jesse. Yep, it's awesome. Like three weeks later than that. And then my coach, Chris... Real quick, real quick.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah, the 50-miler was for sure harder. Yeah. Yeah, for that. Just because... probably the heat, but then running for 50 mile running is different than also hiking. Hiking's way long. Like it was a way longer event.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And I think I had the four, I had like, I built some mental fortitude by running that 50 miles and built a lot and built some trust in myself. Right. So when you go into these things, I mean, I think that's the secret to, to, you know, we're going to talk about some way crazier things in a second, I'm sure. But yeah,
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
When you, it's like, if you don't believe you can run 5k, which a lot of people don't believe, but if you can go and run 1k, which everybody can, you will start to believe that chances are you could run 1.5k. Cause you're like, yeah, I wasn't dead. I wasn't done. You know, I could probably do another half a cake. Right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. Like, so exactly. So you know what I'm talking about? I was like, wait a second. Yeah. So, uh, you know, there's like five girls there and yeah. So, yeah, so that was, I was there for a year, figured out, hey, there was this, you know, dream job working for this big corporate company that was a big power company across all of Ontario.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
So then you go out and do 1.5k and then you're like, yeah, I think I could do two, you know, and you do that over and over again. That's how you create this trust and belief system in yourself. Right. It doesn't happen by you, but you have to do the 1k. Yeah. And that's when you start to do 29029 after that experience. It's like, okay, this is actually not that bad.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Although it's longer, it's more manageable. But hard is... you know, everybody has different heart. And so that's the big thing that people maybe get a little, you know, when, when we start telling these stories, it's like, there's no, I can't even relate to this motherfucker. Right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
But like my wife would never even walk 5k, but you know, not too long ago, she just hiked 20 K or 20 miles, sorry, 20 miles. And she's doing two nine Oh two nine. And it's because it started small. Right. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
and um well and plus the proximity she is to you doing this crazy stuff yeah she's like look she's seeing you what you're worth she's like if this jerk does exactly yeah dude the other day was so cool so we were uh before the clearwater marathon might i have a four-year-old daughter she ran a 5k 14 minute miles she's this big that's awesome yeah and it's just proximity
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah, so the next thing we did was the 100 miler. My coach said, what do you want to do next? I said, well, I think I want to run 100 miles and raise $100,000 for charity. I think you donated a bunch of money for that. I did. Thanks again, John. Mm-hmm.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
um and we were yeah we ended up raising 85 000 for charity for that for for that run so we ran the 100 miles and that was hard dude like like you're in a pain hole like you've never experienced like next to giving birth like if i was to give birth or you know if i knew what that was like this would be like giving birth but for like 18 hours straight but i have a friend of my name tony grappo that was here in town and tony's like tony did this when he was like 65 yeah i think he did 100 miler and i asked him i said bro
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. I got the same advice actually. Like somebody said to me, he's like, Brady, this is the best piece of advice I can give you. It's going to get bad, but just know that it's not going to get any worse.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Like, all right. So I, and it gets bad.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
This was, this wasn't as was that Jesse answers festival. It was a one mile track.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
around a track so similar to the 100 miles that we're buddies running tomorrow is one mile track that's what yeah so first 32 miles i ran it and we started at 4 p.m so i started running and you know circles essentially and i started doing a run walk at about 32 miles in and then all night long pitch black you know you're looking through a headlight and all you see is foggy as shit so all you're seeing is this tiny little beam and
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And I realized the guy had a brand new truck all the time, a full case of beer. I'm like, hey, I'm going to go get that job. And that's what I did. So that kind of, you know, that was the first testament that if you just do something and be relentless, I just faxed my resume to them every single week for. Until they wanted to hire you.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
You know, you're starting to get a little wheezy and like delirious and start, you know, I don't think I hallucinated this, this particular one, but I did the last one. Yeah. And dude, you just go into this pain hole. That's like, it rips you to your core. Like if you think you're fucking awesome, you're not anymore. Like you have zero ego, like your ego is gone.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And it's like the closest part to death. I honestly think that, you can get.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. Like I think, well, for me, I just, you just have to like, for me, I'll, I'll, I'll run four minutes and walk one. And it's all about just getting to that end of the four minutes. and then walking to one. And so you really go into robot mode. And initially you start, you want to talk, you're with your crew. But after that, dude, like you can't listen to music.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
You can't listen to anybody talk. Like it's just so, you know when you run or exercise and the worst song comes on? You're like, fuck, change it, change it. Well, that's what it's like, you know, for 18 hours when anybody talks to you. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You know, and like you said, like the pain is just, it's,
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
overwhelming but you just have to you just again you just keep moving right and i think that's the secret is just don't stop so how do you i mean how do you because obviously you got to do something to protect your feet while this is going on how do you protect is there any way to protect your feet or they don't know i just i just they just they just keep going yeah but on the on that 100 i think i only had a couple little blisters it wasn't too bad um the next one
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
The next 100 miler was just in October. That was through the mountains, 13,000 feet of elevation. That was a little harder. That one I actually hallucinated.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah, she was crewing. I was hallucinating seeing cows and horses and shit that weren't there. The feet were pretty good there too, but just doing that in the mountains was like, I would never fucking do this again.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
yeah yeah but then now you're like well i could do that again yeah so then yeah so i'm i am doing another 100 miler um in april zion 100 but okay so then i i kind of like okay well what's next so i thought okay there's this new 200 miler coming out in mammoth california I'll sign up for that. And because I did put my name in for the Moab 240. So I don't know if anybody's listened.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Well, until they had to, because they're like, this guy is not going to quit. But that started a good career. I had to make it $120,000.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Probably, you know, David Goggins. Yeah. Goggins ran the Moab 240. This is a famous race. Very hard to get into 240 miles straight. And I'm like, ah, you know what? I'm just going to put this in. I'm not going to tell my wife because she'll fucking kill me. And so I put my name in.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Well, funny, this other guy that I'd met did an introduction to the race director at some point because I was trying to get into this other race. Well, sure enough, was my name not one of the very first ones to get picked? And so, but my credit card didn't run through. Oh, no. Perfect. Oh. I'm like, I have an out. Yeah. I don't have to do this. My bad.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Because I was actually pretty scared. I was with Gearheart. We were in. That's terrifying. It is terrifying, bro. But then, you know, it's funny. We're driving one day with my wife's over there. My buddy calls me. He's like, hey, congrats on getting into Moab. She looks at me like.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. So I did, I did pay for it. When does that race October? Yeah. So 240 miles. I think you have like 130 hours, five days to get it done. How many people do this? I think there's like 250 or 300 people. How many finish on average? Probably like my, I'm guessing here. Okay. So like, I'm going to guess like around if two 50 started probably like one 80 start finishing. All right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. Yeah. I'll finish it. It's like five people come up. I'm going to race it. Oh, you're like, I want to win. I, you know, I'm going to do good. It's my goal. I don't know if I'm going to do good. I might not make it. I might not finish it. There's a chance. Like 240 miles is like three and a half days straight is my goal would probably be my goal. Maybe three days.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
So that when you're starting to deal with like B and, and so one of my bigger problems that I do end up getting a swimmer induced pulmonary edema, my lungs fill up with fluid. Um, and I got that when I did that Ultraman Ironman Ultraman, uh, race. Um, yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
That was when I was 17, 18.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
So that's the, that's kind of the big fear that I've got is like, if my lungs just, what, what is your, since you started doing this, if you had to compare, uh,
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah, I think, well, before I drank and I was just like, that's how I dealt with stress before. Right. Um, but, and now, and I had a lot of chaos in my life because I mean, it's just, you know, I wasn't just as focused now. Um, because I can like when I run and I train, like I get clarity and confidence. I'm just, I literally, you know, go to bed at eight 30, wake up at four 30.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah, you know what? I think it was a necessity. I had to cut grass and shovel snow at 5 a.m. before school. This sounds like an old dad story, but legitimately to pay for my hockey gear. Yeah. Right. Because my parents were like, you know, money doesn't grow in trees. There was no extra money.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Like my life is very like dude to do. And we travel a lot and have lots of adventures and stuff, but it's very, just like super basic, super focused on business. And so the, the running does de-stress very well. I mean, now my cortisol levels are probably through the roof and I had to go on testosterone and a whole bunch of other shit. But, um, I'm handling it better now than I ever have.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
It has to be. When you think about the times that you grow the most in your life, it's like when really bad things happen. There's death, the financial issues, divorce. Those things change you. And so you can actually do that intentionally. And it doesn't have to be 100 miles. It could be a half marathon. That is intense. And that is the same type of fortitude and mental...
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
you know, whatever that word is to get you through that. And, and it's good practice for when things go upside down in life for when they happen. Yeah. And, and you build, you build the same muscles.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Right. And so, you know, when, you know, this year still, you know, we're on the path to having a massively successful year, but nonetheless, like lots of reinvestments and a lot of risk, you know, in a lot of fear.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
like methodically and with confidence make the right calls also gotten really good at just knowing that i don't know the answer and who to call next and be okay with that yeah you know being more vulnerable is another thing i think too is just being real with myself Listen, I don't need to be perfect. I don't need to know all the answers. If I'm wrong, I'm fucking wrong and I fuck up a lot.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And whether it's with my team or with my kids or with my wife or just even with, you know what, if I go offside because sometimes I run a little hot. But I'm okay with saying I fucked up. And just being, hey, listen, I'll put in the work. I'll fix it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
so tell me about zero to 100 bro because obviously you're telling everybody it's all over you like it's a way of life don't ask me what it is it's the way it is yeah so um so before i ran that 100 mile run i was with a buddy in puerto rico and and we were working on a whole bunch of other things that turned into this zero to 100 because he's like bro everything you do is zero to 100.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And then when the parents got divorced, there was really no extra money because nobody's paying for shit.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And that was just like a way to connect a life philosophy on how I do everything. So it's an easy way for people to understand a message, right? Which is like move fast, you know, play all out, you know, just commit fully like you're on this path, this journey. And then we, you know, we did the zero to 100 miles, raised a hundred grand for charity.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And then I'm just like the, every time I would hit a stage, I would get, I would tell the story that, Hey, the thing that got me on this good path and to, you you know, cause the path that I'm on created some massive relationships. Right. And then that spins into more money and more revenue and everything. Right.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
So it all, but it all started with doing the 75 hard and I would talk every, you know, I would get probably like 50 to 60% of the room would sign up to the 75 hard the next day. And within that week, 90% of them have dropped because it's hard. Yeah. Right. And I'm like, hey, there's got to be a better way.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Right. So it was necessity. And you know, if you, if you want it, you got to go get it.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
So we started the zero to 100 day challenge, which is 45 minutes of exercise a day, eating healthy, no booze. Right. And it's just the life that I live. Right. Really. So it's sustainable. If you miss a day, you just double up another day. And so we just that's what part of that is, is just a given that people an opportunity to have the same.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
you know, chance of getting in healthy and getting clarity and courage and confidence through fitness that I had.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Right. And so we, it's free, you know, they go to zero to 100.com and we have accountability huddles. We have guest speakers that come on all the time and just pour into people and help them get through that a hundred days. Cause yeah, Yeah, man. That's where it starts. It's like, we succumb to our habits.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
It has to be realistic too. Like, I mean, life like is like shit happens, right? Every day. Pretty much every day. Yeah. Multiple times.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
I love that.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
I should just hope I survive. If they want to find you, man, how do they find you? Yeah. Instagram, Brady dot McDonald, 84 Facebook. Same. Yeah. And then they go to zero to 100. If they want to check out the challenge.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. I didn't know what the money to buy it from one of them. And then the money from my pocket for the other one, both of them thought they bought it because they weren't talking to each other.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. Yeah. Well, neither of them had a pot to piss. So that was probably part of the problem there, but yeah. So, I mean, it was a good thing. I mean, I think there's, I mean, that's where I got the hustle at 11.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And then eventually I, I was spraying pesticides in the summer. So in between first year and second year, I was spraying pesticides about four hours away from my hometown and, driving four hours every single night back to play junior B lacrosse practices and junior B, you know, tournaments and stuff.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And eventually I just met a guy who worked for a power company and he took me in because I was living at, staying at the college dorm, you know, in the cooking, barbecuing out of the back of the pesticide truck. Maybe that's what's wrong. That's what's wrong with you. That's going to do it. But I met this guy and he, you know, I was at that point, I was 17 or 18, just turned 18.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And, and, uh, I told him, you know, my goal that to work for this power company, cause he worked for a power company. He's like, well, why don't you come and meet my family and have dinner with us? And so he literally invited me that night, had dinner at his house and he has two kids and he took my resume facts, sent it to everybody he knew and they all made the connection.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And within two weeks I got job after that. Yeah. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
100%.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
It's just proving them.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
So yeah, so that was a four-year apprenticeship, climbing trees, roping trees down around the hydro lines. And so I got through the four-year apprenticeship and then I had the opportunity to start climbing and teaching the men and women that were moving through the apprenticeship how to do that.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And I saw an opportunity in there because they were teaching people on forestry practices like SOPs and shit like that that we would have in our business, but they weren't quizzing them on it. So I just, I volunteered to do that. So just going above and beyond and said, hey, I'll create all this content in this course.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
you know, content to actually test everybody to make sure that they're actually retaining it. And so they gave me that job that led into being a full-time instructor at 23. So then I was one of the six instructors that trained 1500 staff around the province and then ended up opening a training center in my hometown.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
So that's, that's what I ended up doing for 12 years is running this training center and just teaching men and women around the
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah, you're basically teaching them how not to kill themselves, right? And before that, like I did fall, I almost fell out of a tree. And so it's dangerous work, right? But it was, you know, it took, it probably is 10 years into that career. I just felt like I had, I did have a lot of freedom because I did all my boss's job, right?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Like, again, that's just, you know, you want freedom, you want your boss's job, he doesn't show up. Yeah. That's a good lesson. I mean, that's a good lesson. He was two hours in a different town. I did all of his job, all of my job. I ran the trainer center training center. He never showed up. And, you know, I was making good money.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Like I get 120 grand a year and I'd be banking over time and not having to put it in, which is good. But, um, eventually I just realized, holy shit. Like I got limited freedom. Really? I've got limited income potential. I've lived limited personal potential.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. And I'm like, what am I doing? And actually I'll go, I'll tell you this story. This is actually the thing that got me out of it. All right. So I'm, we've got this apprentice that kind of sucks, right? So they got to come to trade school and we got to push them, put them through these 15 steps.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
They got to go up these trees and teach, you know, and do this move and do that move and cut limbs off safely. And we got to see them do it. Otherwise they don't move on to the next year. Well, this one kid was struggling and he was clearly scared, right? And he wasn't even a kid. He was older than me at the time. He was probably like 35. Yeah.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And anyway, so he's, I'm like, dude, you just got to, you got to do this. And he's like, you know, you could tell he's nervous. I'm like, he's like, dude, he's like, dude, I got to come down and take a shit. I'm like, just, just do this move. And then you can come down.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Right. And he's like, no, I'm coming down and take a shit now. So he comes down and I'm like, all right. Like, and there's a whole bunch of people around. Like there's apprentices everywhere and, and trainers. I'm like, all right, dude. And he's like, no, I'm going to town to take a shit. I'm like, dude, just take a shit in the bush. Like my wife would. Yeah. And I say that to him.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Anyway, that went like, then he, he wrote a complaint to the union and then I was investigated for the next three months. And, you know, like at that point is all I knew. I started there at 18. So that, but that was the icing on the cake. I'm glad it happened. Cause it wasn't even true. Like, I mean, I said that, but what his allegations were, weren't true.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
He later apologized for it, but that was the getting hazed. And it just, yeah. Well, the union just comes after you and tries to fire you. Right. That's just what they do. Oh my God. Yeah. So we started to look at what was next. We were pregnant with our baby girl. And so we eventually met a guy who was a full-time real estate investor.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And it was kind of like that guy with the truck, with the full case of beer and brand new truck. I realized, hey, if he could have this great job, then I can too. Well, I met the real estate investor and it was the same thing.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
If that dumbass can do it, I can do it. The curse of the entrepreneur right there. I can do it too. I know I can do this. Yeah. Yeah, dude. Yeah. Okay.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
So that's exactly what it was. I mean, like I read the red or like I talked to him and I learned what he was doing. He was buying like, you know, in Canada, this is a lot, not nothing like it is in the US, but he bought like 16 properties that year. And it was just June. I'm like doing the math. I'm like, bro, this guy's making a million bucks a year.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
I'm like, if I can do it, if he can do it, I can do it. And so we read a book. What book? It's a real estate investing in Canada by Don Campbell. Okay. So it's just, you know, it just, it's like the 30,000 foot view of, you know.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Is it different in Canada?
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Not really, but it's just like.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
That he just niched down to sell the more books.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
It's about 15 years later. Okay, there you go. Yeah. Just niching down. Yeah, your filing systems are still paper where here they had the internet.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
You know the difference? He references everything in the metric system.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Exactly, yeah. And they're referencing igloos for houses and not actual real houses.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Fair, fair, fair. There's a French translation. That's the book in Canada.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
2015.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
2015.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah. And then so that worked. We proved the strategy and then immediately hired, like started a construction company, property management company. We ended up doing seven properties that year with all of our own money and then started doing joint venture partnerships, which and we burned everything.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
We were converting all single family homes to duplexes and triplexes and then did a lot of accessory dwelling units in a few years later and then a lot of new construction.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
doing yeah so um yeah we ended up doing a few hundred properties up there and um yeah it was it was good it's just really slow compared to here yeah so like you know from a perspective you can get most you can get is 10 mortgages there with a really high income it's just a rule it's just how it is it's just the way it is yeah you know you come down here and it's unlimited
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
What were you doing? So I was tapped out at 10. My wife had 10. And then what we had to do was go and go get joint venture partners. They would put up all the money and qualify for the mortgage. And you were doing work. We'd have to give 50% of the equity. Oh, doing work. So we did that. I mean, it still worked, thankfully, but just not to the scale it would have here. And we did very well. I mean-
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
um you know but you know when we came here and it was 2022 we came down here and we weren't really looking at things or the numbers up there he's generalizing down here with the united states yeah united states florida is where you florida so we came down the u.s and then yeah that's where interest rates in canada i wasn't really paying attention to everything and i you know we were variable mortgages on over 100 properties
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
And they went from like 1% to 7.5% in six months.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
We were bleeding. Okay. So on top of that, Hurricane Ian smoked us, but we had big developments finishing. They were yanking mortgages out from under us, dropping the values. We were trying to pull out three. We're losing 300, 800 a month. Wow. For- like a lot of months, bro. It was terrifying. What year was this? This was in 20, 2023. Oh, so this just fucking, yeah. Oh my God.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
This was like right before I went to Kent. Oh wow. Yeah. Like in, and thankfully I had Kent around me and he, cause he, you know, you just get stuck in it and you're like, you can't see the forest for the trees.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
He's just like, well, thankfully, like I had these big problems, but I had a big portfolio.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
He just said, don't be a little bitch. What he said, it was just simple. I'm like, why didn't I think of this? He's just like, dude, just sell the fucking red. He's like, if you just, the sooner you get over that red, the sooner you'll have bandwidth back. And then you can actually solve your problem. You know, and I'm trying to start masterminds. And we started mastermind cashflow, 300 grand.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
We thought we were like figuring this out. All we were doing is creating more chaos, more distractions. And, you know, the problem is getting worse, not better. And so, you know, that all happened at the same time was when I quit drinking, too. And I think that was, you know, we can go into that, too.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
But like for me, that was the moment where I actually said, OK, I need to take control of this shit because it's it's like, you know, this is going to end up really fucking bad if I keep drinking it away.
Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
Yeah, dude, that was the best advice I could have ever got. He said to me, actually, so I went to his office, told him all this shit, showed him all the books. And he's like, okay, we've got to sell the red, sell the red as fast as you can. That's probably property number project. Number one. He's like, have you ever, ever had a million dollars in the bank? I'm like, fuck no.