Brady McDonald's Journey: From Real Estate Challenges to Ultra-Marathon Resilience
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Right. And you want to impress somebody that's much older than you. Just be tenacious in the pursuit of whatever you're trying to get with them. Yeah. Just put it in the fucking work. That's how they, that's how you show your serious. Most people won't do it. Well, that's how you show your serious. 100%. Showing up every day. Yeah. It's just, it's just, it's just proving them. Yeah.

And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm Jon Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now. Welcome back to the program, everybody. Like it says in the opening, man, the show that gets you from where you are to where you want to be and today in studio.

Man, you think doing things is hard. You think if you're a person that can't quite finish things, you can't push through, you find you have some mental weakness. Now, this dude, and I always like to say when people come through, I'm like, this is a friend of mine. This dude legitimately is a friend of mine. Like, I've known this guy for a couple of years now. And

And I just never marvel at the things that he done, the feats that he, that he finishes. He is not only a massive dude in the self storage industry. And we'll talk about some of that, but this is a guy that just says, you know what I want to do today? I think I'm going to run a hundred miles at once at the same time in the same direction. Oh, I'm a dude that wants to run a ultra marathon just because I want to do it. I mean, the stuff that he does to himself, uh,

and just has this mental strength to him.

We got to learn something today. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the studio. This is Brady McDonald. What's up, Brian? Brady, what's up, dude? What's up, brother? I'm so glad you're here. Much like so many of my friends, I see a random Instagram post. They're like, I'm laid over on my way to Vegas. I'm like, Vegas, come to the office. See you in, when can you be here? As it works out, as it does that. But dude, your level of mental toughness is insane.

unbelievable to me. Just the stuff you're able to push yourself through and the transformation you made in your body and your mindset and all of that stuff is amazing. So let's back up because I

I want to get through all of this because, you know, this is one of those definitely is the hero made or is the hero born? You know what I'm saying? Because you got some, you got some mental toughness this next level. So tell me, let's tell them, well, I'm going to interview you like I know nothing about you, which sometimes it's harder than it is because, you know, nothing worse than a podcast with not full of inside jokes. But yeah,

Tell me about the Upgring. Where'd you grow up? Tell me about that. Yeah, I grew up in Owens Town, 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. Lost my license at 16. My parents said, kid, you got to grow up. So you're going to college. So pick what you want to do. And at that point, I thought the most, well, the most successful people we knew in our 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 forester? Like in some shithole town in Lindsay, Ontario, Canada. Okay. I was going to say, cause yeah, I'm from a shithole town in North Florida where they have a forestry school. Yeah. Like, so exactly. So you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. So, uh, you know, there's like five girls there and yeah. So, uh,

So yeah, so that was, I was there for a year, figured out, hey, there's this dream job working for this big corporate company that was a big power company across all of Ontario. And I realized the guy had a brand new truck all the time, 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. Well, until they had to, because they're like, this guy is not going to quit. Yeah.

But that started a good career. I had to make it $120,000. Dude, let's talk about that for a minute, right? Because that's already telling me that you're just determined and can do what you want. That was when I was 17, 18. I know, but back again, what do you think about the way you grew up made you that way? Yeah, you know what? I think it was a necessity. Like I had to paint, I had to...

cut grass and shovel snow at 5 a.m. before school. It sounds like an old dad story, but legitimately to pay for my hockey gear. Because my parents were like, money doesn't grow in trees. There was no extra money. And then when the parents got divorced, there was really no extra money because nobody's paying for shit. So it was necessity. And if you want it, you got to go get it. See, I found when my parents got divorced at an early age, I figured the hustle out.

or if I needed something, I would go ask both of them for it and get the money. 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. And both of them thought they bought it because they weren't talking to each other. 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. Okay. So you're hustling and doing that.

Which is great. You go off to forestry school at 17 and you're doing that. And you go to the facts, the resume thing over and over and over, you know? So let's go back to that moment. The first time you fax it to him, just nobody calls. Yeah. Nobody calls. I mean, for months, bro. And you just kept faxing to him every week. 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 tournaments and stuff. 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, you'll need cooking, barbecuing out of the back of the pesticide truck. Maybe that's what's wrong. That's what's wrong with you. But I met this guy and he, you know, I was at that point, I was 17 or 18, just turned 18. And, and 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,

And he has two kids and he took my resume, faxed, sent it to everybody he knew. And they all made the connection. And within two weeks I got job. Oh, it's awesome. After that. Yeah. You know, it's funny. One of the best agents that I ever hired here at the company was somebody, this, this person came to the office and said, I want to work for you. Brand new agent. I hired brand new agents. It's not what I do. You got to be experienced. Come here. Okay. Thank you very much. Came back the next day.

Hey, I said, I want to work for you. I'm going to come here every day to hire me. And literally after like three days, I was like, dude, if this chick is, she's going to come here like this every day, she's going to be successful. And to this day now,

probably 10 years later since that thing. She crushes, man. She's still here. She does great. Yeah, it's just consistency. And I mean, it took me a long time to actually pull this lesson out. I think too, though, man, is because I think our generation, right, that you look at kids, you're like, oh, you're entitled to this and that, blah, blah, blah. So if you want to prove something, if you're listening to this and you're a younger kid,

right and you want to impress somebody that's much older than you just be tenacious in the pursuit of whatever you're trying to get with them yeah just put in the fucking work that's how they that's how you do what most people won't do well that's how you show your serious showing up every day yeah just prove it's just it's just proving them well like ari rastegar was on the podcast once it said that his one of his best mentors in his life the only thing he asked him was can i walk you to and from work every day just just talk to you yeah like i was like you want to show up you show he goes

I never asked him if he was going to be there the next day. I never knew there were long periods of time where he wouldn't show up because he was gone or on vacation or traveling and whatever, blah, blah. But when he would come back, I'm standing in a stoop waiting on him to walk him to work every day. It's unbelievable. And how many people are willing to do that anymore? Yeah. They're just not willing to do that stuff. It's wild. Yeah. So you're working for the power company. Yeah. That's going. 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 yeah,

Then I had an opportunity to start climbing and teaching the men and women that were moving through the apprenticeship, how to do that. And I saw an opportunity in there because they weren't, 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, 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. Yeah.

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. 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 that. And that was not safe work too. That's, that's a little bit. 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, and so it's, it's dangerous work. Right. And it, and, but it was, it,

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 cause I did all my boss's job, right? Like again, that's just, you know, you want freedom, you all your boss job, he doesn't show up. Yeah. And so I mean, he was two hours in a different town. I did all 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. Like again, 120 grand a year. And, um,

I'd be banking over time and not having to put it in, which is good. But eventually I just realized, holy shit, like I got limited freedom, really. I've got limited income potential. I've limited personal development potential. You still have to put in for vacation. You still have to put in for vacation. Yeah.

And I'm like, what am I doing? And actually I'll go to, 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, to, to trade school and we got to push them, put them through these 15 steps. They got to go up these trees and teach, you know, and do this move and do that move and cut limbs off safely. Okay.

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. And anyway, so he's, I'm like, dude, you just gotta do, you gotta 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 gotta come down and take a shit. I'm like, just, just do this move. And then you can come down. Yeah. 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,

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. And I say that to him anyway, that went like, then he, he wrote a complaint to the union. And then I was investigated for the next three months. And,

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 because it wasn't even true. Like, I mean, I said that what his allegations were weren't true. He later apologized for it. But that was 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, um, that we started to look at what was next. You know, we're just, we are, we're pregnant with our baby girl. And so we, we eventually met a guy who was a full-time real estate investor. And it was kind of like that guy with the truck with the full case of beer and brand new truck. I'm like realized, Hey, if he could have this great job and I can too, well, I,

I met the real estate investor and it was the same thing. The curse of the entrepreneur. That's my curse. Like, dude, I met this guy and he does this thing and he's got all this money and he's not that smart. I swear, I can totally do this. 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. 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 U S 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. 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? Um, 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. Is it different in Canada? Not really, but it's just like. Did he just niche down to sell the more books? It's about 15 years later. Okay, there we go. Yeah, just niching down. Yeah, your filing systems are still paper, where here they had the internet. You know the difference? He references everything in the metric system. Exactly, yeah. And they're referencing igloos for houses and not actual real houses. Fair, fair, fair.

There's a French translation. There's, there you go. That's the book in Canada. Yeah. So you read the book. So I read the book and I'm like, I figured it out. And so we bought a house, did the birth strategy on it. We refinanced two of our properties. What year was this?

2015. Okay. 2015. Yeah. And then, um, 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. We were converting all single family homes to duplexes and triplexes and then did a lot of accessory dwelling units in the, in a few years later. And then a lot of new construction doing. Yeah. So, um,

yeah, we ended up doing a few hundred properties up there and 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 as 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. Yeah. So, so how are you getting multiple mortgages? What were you doing? So I was, 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 would have to give 50% of the equity. Oh, so,

So we did that. I mean, you know, it still worked thankfully, but just not to the scale of what of here. And we did very well. I mean, 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 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 a hundred properties and

And they went from sub like 1% to seven and a half percent in six months. Yeah. Did anything you have cashflow at that point? No, bro. 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, we were trying to pull out three. We're, we're losing 300, 800 a month for like a lot of months, bro. It was terrifying. Yeah.

What year was this? This was in 2023. Oh, so this just happened. Yeah. Oh, my God. This was like right before I went to Kent. Oh, wow. Yeah, like, and thankfully I had Kent around me, because, you know, you just get stuck in it. You're like, you can't see the forest for the trees. What did Kent tell you now? He's just like, well, thankfully, like, I had these big problems, but I had a big portfolio. Did he call you names? He just said, don't be a little bitch. Yeah.

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, and we're, we started mastermind cashflow, 300 grand. We thought we were like figuring this out. All we were doing is creating more chaos, more distractions. And you know, and the problem's getting worse, not better. And so, um,

That all happened at the same time as when I quit drinking too. I think that was... We can go into that too, but for me, that was the moment where I actually said, okay, I need to take control of this shit because it's like...

no, this is going to end up really fucking bad if I keep drinking it away. Yeah. And I think it's so funny, man, how many people chase those bad investments like that? Like, I'll just, oh dude, I just got to make it this month and then we'll make it next month. Next month. It's like, bro, sometimes just cut bait. Yeah, dude. I, that was the best advice I could have ever got.

He's like, 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. 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. You'll be able, you'll be, you'll be good. Your head, your headspace becomes clear. Yeah, 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. But cause you went from, you went from hemorrhaging money to all of a sudden I've got no more debt and I just got, I'm sitting on this cash and now I can breathe. 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. We were only in real estate. So we didn't have any cash flowing, like real business. You know, the, the property's cashflow, like two or 300 bucks a month. And you got jackasses up in Ontario. Like the, the landlord laws are up there. Like probably like New York or California would think, but yeah,

you know, you'd lose that cash flow, you know, all the time. Very quickly, you know? And so, but you can't eat that equity when shit hits the fan. And so I'll never do that again.

um you know so we're doing it differently now which is which is good are you because like i know that there's now you could you could potentially cross-collateralize that entire portfolio you you can't really do that here you can't find one big buyer like that you could you know you down here you'd sell your portfolio you can't do that up there no but i'm saying you could pull a line against it by cross-collateralizing the entire portfolio yeah if the bank was giving out loans ah

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. Did you become infinitely more bankable by doing that? Um,

Not necessarily because again, you max out at 10 mortgages anyway. It doesn't fucking matter how bankable you are. It's a different play. 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 a U S tax citizen down here. And you're done. So now, but, but you shifted, you shifted asset class now. Yeah.

So now you're just buying storage, yeah? 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. Yeah.

Because I think you told me at one point you were clearing like seven-figure wins on that. Yeah, and we are still. Yeah, that's a huge play. Yeah, so they could be anywhere from like 600 to a million in –

you know, value increase by doing the entitlement. Let's talk about that. So, cause obviously every market is different for how, you know, how you get to work with the city and the County and whatever else to get things entitled. For those of you who listen, don't know, we're talking about, you know, when you buy a piece of dirt, you don't just get to automatically build whatever you want on it. The city has a little say so in that. And then you've got to kind of get your plans together and you put them through city council and zoning and planning and all of these things. And then eventually they stamp off and say, yes, you can do that. And again,

You can take a piece of land that might be zoned for, let's just say, light residential or light density where there's not a lot of housing. If you can get the zoning on that flipped to commercial or industrial or something else, multifamily, it makes that land infinitely more valuable. So you kind of...

can create incredible value in land for people just by understanding how to deal with political red tape. That and just highest and best use. Yeah. Right. So how, so is all of this stuff you're doing in the same market? No, they're all over the U S they're all over the U S all in different. So how in the world are you figuring out,

how to navigate all of that. Yeah. So we, 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, did it all. So I understood it. And yeah,

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. Like there's no fucking blueprint to be a developer, right? I mean, if there was, we'd all be super rich, 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 and the big things that can catch you up is the political 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. 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 but other other municipalities, you have good conversations. 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 route.

right? To, you know, people hate storage for the most part because they look like the garage doors. So we're showing them nice class A, modern apartment looking facilities, whether they're single story or multi-story, you can make them look nice and we get approvals. So,

And the question is, when you're doing this, you're not closing on the land. You're doing long escrows contingent on the entitlements. Correct. Yeah. We will actually close on the land. We close. And then basically our buyer closes the same day. So it's essentially. Okay. Yeah. We have transactional funding. So we'll get it under contract and have like 150 days due diligence time. Yeah. And then 120.

20 days entitlement period. So we're not, you know, we're 150 days. 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. Yeah. 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.

Yeah, it's just such an interesting way to make money in real estate. Everybody thinks, you know, real estate is multifamily. You're buying houses. They don't realize that you can literally, if you're just good at dealing with the city, you can have a serious real estate career and make some serious money. Yeah, 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. Yeah, it's just- And you sever the thing in the middle. Well, just, you're such a savage in the fact that you just, you do this in all these different municipalities because if you think about it, even like here, right? Like if you drive around in Vegas and you look at a lot of the shopping centers and stuff, there's the same name on them.

And I play golf with that dude. Yeah. Right. Like, I mean, and I know that that guy can get anything entitled in Vegas because he's been doing it here for like 50 years. Right. So he just he can get anything done. But to think that you can just roll in as an outsider and just pull these projects off is just is wild to me. One of the things that helps is just using local civil engineers and relying on local people.

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

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. And that is a lot of money that could be deferring down the line. Well, that's wild. Okay, listen.

That's the, that's the how Brady got rich flipping real estate part of the story. But I want to get, I want to get to the real stuff. Cause this is the stuff that just makes my fricking mind explode when you're like, Oh yeah, I'm gonna run an ultra marathon. I'm like, Oh, what's that? You're like, I mean, I won't let you talk about what this, some of this stuff is. So let's talk about your journey from fat, drunk and stupid. I threw this. No, that's totally true. Yeah. Just to be fun. I'll throw the stupid in there. Yeah. Yeah. Uh,

not really stupid, but I just think it's funny. So I'd be stupid, especially when I was drunk. All right, let's go, let's go from, let's go from fat, drunk and stupid to a dude that can run a hundred miles at one time. Yeah. Yeah. 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, 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. And, um, 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 told me, it 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. And the people that I was hanging around was just like, just limiting, limiting.

Me 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, the, 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. And, 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. Yeah. 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? And so I did a couple of half Ironmans and that, 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. 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, like,

My daughters, like they're going to follow whatever I do. Yeah. I was literally sitting on my boat. 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. Right. 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.

Right. So it was all the, you know, I think the running that we'll get into here in a second was the thing that replaced the booze. Right. And it gave me that thing to focus on. It's kind of silenced the mind. Because you. OK, so here's my question, dude. But because you was what? How much more did you weigh at that time?

Um, see, I probably weighed about as much as I do now, like 205, but I was just like the wrong 205. Yeah. The wrong 205. I was just poofy. Right. Cause I'm just think, I thought you were much bigger. Like, I never understood how you went from being like kind of overweight. Yeah. Cause I was just, don't you have bad knees? How, like, cause my knees are garbage. That's why I'm so jealous. Yeah. I trained. So yeah, I guess I have never had injuries like I said. Good for you. You know, I was lucky. Maybe I didn't play enough football or something, but, um,

Yeah. So what happened was I actually saw Jesse Itzler. You know, Jesse is great. So I saw him right around the same time he did Ultraman, which is a 6.2 mile swim, a 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 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 big ass calendar.

miles. Yes. Right. 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. Yeah. And I just, so I got super intentional. I got close to Jesse. I'd be

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 that. And, uh, and then, 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 train for three months, right? Quit drinking three months.

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15 degrees fahrenheit with humidity yeah like you could eat the air yeah and we started at nine o'clock in the morning it was insanely hot and so the first 12 miles it was just i 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 you can't get out you can't get out the door's locked right and

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 moat, 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. I would stick it in my growing, you know, for the one minute walk. And I dumped the, you know, the ice all over my head. And when 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, they didn't know what place I was in. And I didn't even know where it was to be honest. I got lost before I got to the end.

And so we waited around there for a few hours waiting. And they're eventually, they said, congratulations, you're in third place. So that's great. So two hours later, we, I didn't drink anything. I didn't re eat anything. Like I didn't even know what I was doing. We just, my wife was crewing me with my daughters, right? There were six. They're just handing a granola bar. There was not even like, you should rehydrate yourself. You should like reelectrolyte 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 hospital. I was just like, and she's now cruising back to Marathon, Florida, sees an ambulance.

Right. And she pulls over and the ambulance driver's like, ma'am, you can't stop here. You got to keep going. She's like, look at this dude. 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 thought they didn't know what was going on. Like they were like, where, where did you run? Am I in Canada? Yeah. They were like, what's your daughter's name? So I'm, 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. But,

Yeah, I ended up with rhabdomyolysis, which could kill you, 100%, 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. It's funny. 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. 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. Right.

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 to be on. And, um, you know, long story short, it took me about two weeks. I got clearance and then I did two nine Oh two nine, which is Mount Everest thing with Jesse. Yep. It's awesome. Um, like three weeks later than that. And then my coach, Chris real quick, real quick about, I want to talk about that real quick. What's harder was the 50 mile or harder than 20 or two. Cause the 20 or two was serious mind game.

For the people that I know that have done it, I said it's just because it's so slow. Yeah, the 50-miler was for sure harder. Yeah. Yeah, for that. Just because probably the heat. But then running for 50 miles. Running is different than also hiking. Hiking is way longer. Like, it was a way longer event. It's way more mental, like, slow. Yeah, 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,

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. So then you go out and do 1.5k. 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,

but you have to do the 1K. Yeah. Right? And that's when you start to do like 29029 after that experience. It's like, okay, this is actually not that bad. Although it's longer, it's more manageable. But, you know, hard is...

Everybody has different heart. And so that's the big thing that people maybe get a little, when we start telling these stories, it's like, I can't even relate to this motherfucker. But my wife would never even walk 5K. But not too long ago, she just hiked 20K or 20 miles. Sorry.

20 miles and she's doing 29029 and it's again because it started small right yeah and um well and plus the proximity she is to you doing this crazy stuff percent 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 my 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

Yeah. It's because this is just what we do. It's normal. Just who we are. Yeah. It's what we do. So what's the craziest thing you did? So what was harder, the ultra miler, the hundred, the hundred miler or so that, yeah. So the next thing we did was the hundred miler. My coach said, what do you want to do next? I said, well, I think I want to run a hundred miles and raise a hundred thousand dollars for charity. I think you donated a bunch of money for that. I did. Thanks again, John. Uh,

Um, and we were, yeah, we ended up raising 85,000 for charity for that, for, for that run. So we ran the a hundred 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 mine named Tony Grappo, those here in town. And Tony's like, Tony did this when he was like 65. Yeah. I think he did a hundred miler. And I asked him and I said, bro,

You know, what is it? He goes, well, your, your toenails come off. Yeah. And he goes, he goes, he goes, it gets to a point where it's not, it doesn't hurt anymore. Yeah. Yeah. There's no more hurt. It's just the same hurt. Yeah. And if you can just get to that place where you hit the same hurt and you just understand this is just what it's going to be. Yeah. And accept that you can do it. 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. Yeah.

Like, all right. So I, and it gets bad. Well, let's talk. So let's walk through that, man. So as you start running, where was this? This was, this was, as was that Jesse answers fifth festival. It was a one mile track around a track. So similar to the a hundred miles that were buddies running tomorrow is one mile track. That's what, yeah. So first 32 miles, I ran it and we started at 4 PM. So I started running and, you know, circles essentially, uh,

And I, 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, 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. Um,

Um, 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 Eagle, like your ego is gone. And it's like the closest part to death. I honestly think that you can get, how do you fight the, cause you gotta have a voice in you saying, quit, quit, go sit down, go sit down. Like what is that voice of your head saying to you? And what are you saying back? 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, 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. You can't listen to any, 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 everybody, anybody talks to you. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You know, and like you said, like the pain is just, it's 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, cause 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 just, I don't know. I just, I just, they just keep going. Yeah. On the, on that 100, I don't, I think I only had a couple little blisters. It wasn't too bad. The next one.

Yeah. Well, the next hundred miler was just in October. That was through the mountains, 13,000 feet of elevation. And so that was a little harder. And that one actually hallucinated. Is that the one where Kent's wife came out to crew? Yeah, she was crewing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. She, I was hallucinating seeing cows and, and, and like horses and shit that weren't there.

And yeah, that was the people were pretty good there too. But just dude doing that in the mountains was like, I was never fucking do this again. Yeah. Yeah. But then now you're like, well, I could do that again. So then, yeah. So I've got, I am doing another hundred miler in April Zion, 100. But okay. So then 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, 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. 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. Like darn. Cause I, cause I was actually pretty scared. I was with your heart and we were in a terrifying, it is terrifying, bro. And, but then, you know, it's funny if we're, we're driving one day with my wife's over there and my buddy calls me, he's like, Hey, congrats on getting into Moab. She looks at me like you signed up for Moab. Yeah.

Yeah. We didn't talk about that. I'm like, Oh gosh. 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 i'm guessing here Okay, so like i'm gonna guess like around if 250 started probably like 180 Start finishing. All right. Okay. Yeah, I like your odds. Yeah. Yeah, i'll finish it It's not like five people come up i'm gonna race it. Oh, you're like I want to win. I you know, i'm gonna do good It's my goal. I don't know if i'm gonna do good. I might not make it. I might not finish it There's a chance like 240 miles

Thank you.

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It's like three and a half days straight is my goal would probably be my goal. Maybe three days. Yeah. That's like you running from right here to my house in orange County. Yeah. I think it's 240 miles from here to my house. 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 race. Yeah. 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 your general stress levels or how you dealt with stress before and after like these experiences, how would you compare those two things?

Yeah, I think, well, before I drank and I was just like, that's how I dealt with stress before. Right. 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.

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 8 30 wake up at 4 30 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

I'm handling it better now than I ever have. - Well, I was gonna say, 'cause when you put your body through so much stress like that, and you stretch what is possible for you to do,

I mean, I got to believe what used to really bother you maybe five years ago is just like, it's not even, yeah, it doesn't even blip on the radar now. Yeah, totally. 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, like those things change you. And so you can actually do that.

intentionally and it doesn't have to be a hundred miles. It could be a half marathon like that is intense. And that is the same type of, you know, fortitude and mental, you know, whatever that word is to get you through that. And it's good practice for when things go upside down in life for when they happen. Yeah. And you build, you build the same muscles. Yeah. Right. And so that's,

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 a lot of risk you know in a lot of fear um but but even your ability to deal with risk must be much and people think through it yeah 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. You know, being more vulnerable is another thing I think too, is just being real with myself on, 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. Yeah. And whether it's with my team or with my kids or with my wife, or just even with, you know, if I go off side because I'm sometimes around a lot hot, imagine that, right. But I'm okay with,

saying I fucked up. Yeah. And right. And just being, Hey, listen, I'll put in the work. I'll fix it. Well, I know that now you've taken your passion for this stuff and you, dude, you you're all in bro. There's no question. And you want to share it with other people. So you did this and this is, no, this is not where this turns into infomercial. I know what you're thinking that way. This is good stuff.

So tell me about zero to a hundred, bro. Cause obviously you're telling everybody it's all over you like a billboard. It's a way of life. Don't ask me what it is. It's a way of life. Yeah. So, um, so before I ran the a hundred mile run, I was with a buddy in Puerto Rico 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. 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, um,

And then we, you know, we did the zero to 100 miles, raised a hundred grand for charity. And then I'm just like the, every time I would hit a stage, I would get, I would tell a story that, Hey, the thing that got me on this good path into, 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.

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 gotta be a better way. So we started the zero to 100 day challenge, which is 45 minutes of exercise a day.

eating healthy, no boosts. 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. It's just a given that people an opportunity to have the same,

you know, chance of getting in healthy and getting clarity and courage and confidence through fitness that I had. Yeah. 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. And it's kind of like the... It's funny, as you're sitting here describing that, all I could think about was average Joe's gym versus like the good, the purple Cobras and dodgeball. You're like, hey, man, you missed a day. It's okay. Come back tomorrow and double up. You'll be all right. Yeah. You're going to fall down a little bit, and that's okay. 100%. I'm not kicking you to the woods because you didn't, you know, get that 45-minute run at 3 o'clock in the morning just today. I get it. 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. Every day it does. Yeah. Well, dude, I love it, man. You're, you're, you are literally one of the strongest mentally people I know that can push yourself and stuff. And I, I,

I'm rooting for you. This Moab thing. I think that is insanity. And dude, you're, you're one of my craziest friends for the best possible reason. I love that. 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. I love it. Well, dude, if you listen to that today in, uh,

Listen, push yourself. Do hard things because the harder the things that you do, the easier everything else in your life will be. We'll see you next week.

What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review, give us a share, do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully, you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.