Parenthood, Entrepreneurship + Resiliency with Garrett Frey (part 1)

How often do you reflect on the evolution of your friendships and personal growth? This episode promises a heartwarming and insightful journey as we welcome our dear friend Garrett Frey, a seasoned entrepreneur and dedicated family man. We reminisce about our first unforgettable encounter, marked by a bold hot pink Cadillac, and the unique branding it symbolized. Garrett shares his reflections on our evolving friendships and personal growth over the years, and we dive into the behind-the-scenes camaraderie that has strengthened our bonds. Expect a blend of nostalgia, humor, and profound insights on personal connections that are often left unrecorded but deeply cherished.

Ever wondered how resilient your children are? Listen to our hilarious recount of a shared experience during the pandemic, where our teenagers, despite living in different states, displayed their rebellious streaks in the most amusing and poorly executed ways. From scaling fences to crafting confident lies, these escapades highlighted their adaptability and resilience in navigating the challenges of isolation. This segment underscores the lighter side of parenting during a global crisis and reflects on the growth and questioning nature that emerged in our kids through these trying times.

Passion-driven success is not just a myth. Inspired by Garrett Frey's father's impactful teaching methods, we delve into the rewarding journey of building a successful coaching brand and team. Garrett sheds light on the significance of understanding clients' underlying motivations and the collaborative benefits within the coaching community. We discuss the crucial shift from a financial gain mindset to one driven by passion, sharing how this transformation led to significant achievements in both coaching and podcasting. Stay tuned as we tease an upcoming continuation where we explore Garrett's personal life, including his relationship with his wife Sarah and their family dynamics.

Transcript

Pamela Cass: 0:06

In the grand theater of life. We all seek a comeback, a resurgence, a rekindling of our inner fire. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience. This is not just another podcast. This is a journey, a venture into the heart of human spirit, the power of resilience and the art of reigniting our passions.

Natalie Davis: 0:29

Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I am your co-host, Natalie Davis, and I am so excited to be back with you guys. If you can't tell from my energy level, we just had a great call that probably should have just been recorded, but we didn't record it. Pam, I don't know.

Pamela Cass: 0:45

We say we are going to record these pre and post sessions and we never do and we miss a lot of gold. We get some stuff in there that we're like dang it. Why didn't we do that? I?

Natalie Davis: 0:58

feel like we can call it like green room conversation, right, like it's a discussion that happens in the green room before everyone gets on stage and the curtains open. Things that are discussed in our green room, oh my gosh.

Garrett Frey: 1:09

Now I know, before you introduce me, I'm going to jump in here because I can't just sit in the background for too long. My editor for my podcast gives us the blooper reels of the before the recordings and after the recordings every year. It's like a Christmas present. It's gold.

Natalie Davis: 1:29

We'll never see the light of day, but it's golden. Okay, keep going, sorry.

Pamela Cass: 1:31

Just for our listeners. We do not hit record before the blooper part starts. We give you the creme de la creme, the best version of us.

Natalie Davis: 1:35

I love it. Well, if you guys are not familiar with the voice that you just heard pop in, we have a guest today we're really excited about. Well, at least I am, I don't know if Pam is I'm excited to have this guest on Our guest today, someone who is handsome, who is smart, who is said to be one of the most influential people of our time, also runner up as the hottest man alive in 2021, no publication noted a family man, a devoted husband and a driving phenomenon. We have none other than Mr Garrett Fry.

Garrett Frey: 2:11

How are you, Garrett? I am so happy you actually read what I typed in, going like, oh here, they'll have fun with that.

Pamela Cass: 2:19

Oh, absolutely, and we did and we had fun. We had a lot of fun.

Garrett Frey: 2:24

I'll take it Appreciate that. Thank you for reading that. That was never supposed to go out, but I'm so happy it did.

Natalie Davis: 2:30

You know what it's out there and we're going to put it in print and for our listeners, make it a thing. If you guys are not familiar with Garrett Garrett Fry, he is one of our friends. He is a serial entrepreneur, has built a phenomenal business over the last 20 plus years, so two decades now. He is actually a dad. Has been married to a fabulous friend of ours as well, sarah, for over 23 years now. No, your anniversary is coming up.

Garrett Frey: 2:55

We're solid 23 now.

Natalie Davis: 2:57

Yeah, 23 years, absolutely so, Garrett, welcome to the show. Thank you for coming on over.

Garrett Frey: 3:03

I'm so excited to be on this with you guys. I mean one. We've been friends for a long time and it's fun to see as we are all progressing as adults. I'm not fully an adult yet, but as we progress and as we grow and we learn, it's really neat to see us slowly enter away to our full adult potential, and it's been fun to see you guys launch this, so I'm excited to be on it.

Natalie Davis: 3:29

Oh my gosh, absolutely. Well, thank you, thank you, and I think you're right. Like the friendship that we have all of us, the three of us it definitely is one that has stemmed for quite some time. I would like us to just dive in just in terms of our history and how we know one another because, garrett, you just told me this I didn't realize this was our first interaction or meeting, and interactions loosely.

Garrett Frey: 3:47

You don't bring it up in the first five minutes of meeting somebody of like oh yeah, this is how I like my first impression of you. But so okay, just so everybody can picture this I was walking over to the Harmony office in Fort Collins, leaving the hotel and all of a sudden there's this stunning black lady getting out of a it's not pink, not like I'm a top salesperson for cosmetics like a hot pink.

Pamela Cass: 4:13

Barbie pink.

Natalie Davis: 4:14

It was Barbie pink.

Pamela Cass: 4:18

Yes.

Natalie Davis: 4:18

Not the soft pastel-y pink.

Pamela Cass: 4:20

It was a bold. It's a bold pink.

Garrett Frey: 4:22

That statement. It's funny as we talk about novelty and we talk about like those things that like make you stand out, make you different than everybody else. Natalie, from that moment moving forward to today, I have always been like. That image is burned into my head. It will never go away. If anybody ever asked me about Natalie Davis, that is the image that comes up for me. Just so you know, I love it.

Natalie Davis: 4:46

I love that, and I don't think you're the only one. I still have people that reference to me as the pink Cadillac gal and, for the listeners, I used to drive a hot pink Cadillac sports car nonetheless, and that was a brand representing the brand for a brokerage that I actually owned. So a different season in life. And it's so funny because I think we're five years out from that and people still flag me as the pink real estate lady and I'm like that's yeah, thank you, that's great branding. I'll have to think about something else.

Garrett Frey: 5:16

I walked into that office asking questions who is that Like? Who?

Garrett Frey: 5:22

And they knew how do I get to know her? And then, pam, you and I met and I was intimidated as all snot of you initially because of your role at the group and the level that you were playing at, and I was like this is one of those. I think it's fun to see this journey that we're all on and where we're at today and and I would say very much like we all sit in this room together as equals and I just love it. I love it yeah.

Pamela Cass: 5:47

It's been a very fun journey and it's so interesting because I've had a couple of milestones. In May, my daughter graduated from college, my son graduates from high school I'm now an empty nester. And then an ending of something that we all were part of and starting a new journey, and I didn't realize how much that was going to impact me until I was just driving. I was like, oh my gosh, there's been like three huge milestones in May, all significant, all leading to something amazing, but also an ending of something that made me a little nostalgic and I'm not going to cry. I'm done with that. Yeah, you will. You'll be crying by the end of this?

Natalie Davis: 6:25

Yeah, you will. You'll be crying by the end of this. Yeah, no, my philosophy is you just take that and stick it over underneath that rug and leave it there. We're done, we've moved on from it.

Pamela Cass: 6:32

I've worked through it.

Garrett Frey: 6:33

There's a lot of change going on for a lot of I mean, you don't have to dig very far, and I've been trying to figure out what it is like right now for a lot of people. You get around the right groups and they'll say it's mercury. You'll get around the right groups and there's, you know, they'll say it's COVID and there's, we're still having stuff come out of that. People will say it's political, but I don't care what it is. There's a lot of people going through a lot of change, a lot of reinventing, a lot of approaching life completely differently than what they have before. And I think it started a couple of years ago, but there's a lot of it happening right now and we're all in the middle of it.

Pamela Cass: 7:07

So yeah, I think it's just called life to be honest with you and I feel like the older I get, the more people I'm exposed to. The three of us are very lucky that we have humongous spheres of people that are outside of our local area and most people don't outside of our local area and most people don't and so I think because of that exposure, it just almost like pushes us to grow and change and evolve. And I'm always saying I'm just still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up, and so this is just me testing out different things, and so maybe that's what everybody's just kind of doing.

Garrett Frey: 7:37

It's funny you talk about local spheres and spheres around the United States. If you came to my house and you said, garrett, round up all the people that you like would hang out with in Reading, I could probably pull together maybe about five or six people. Maybe if you said, let's get on a plane and go pick up people that you know that are important to you all around the United States like we would have to get a couple of planes.

Pamela Cass: 7:57

It's everywhere. It's the way it would work Exactly. So much fun, which I absolutely love. I love that. I love that.

Natalie Davis: 8:05

Well, garrett, you talked about like the change that a lot of people are experiencing. I want to go back and reflect. We're going to go down memory lane just until we talk about the future. But going down memory lane as we were navigating through the pandemic, there was something that the three of us experienced at the exact same time in the world of parenting during the pandemic, and it was the funniest thing, because you can't make this up and you guys, just to give our listeners an understanding at the time, pam and I lived an hour and a half away from each other, in Colorado, and Garrett was in California, and there was one week in particular where all of our children thought that it would be a great idea to sneak out of the house.

Pamela Cass: 8:45

And we all got on. A the funniest, dumbest thing.

Garrett Frey: 8:51

It was so great to share that story with you, natalie. And then have you go. I caught my daughter coming over to the fence and I was just like what is going on with our children?

Pamela Cass: 8:59

Well, they all tried to sneak out and did it so poorly. I was more disappointed in the way they did it than in the fact that they tried to do it. I was like, if you're going to do it, at least be efficient at it or good at it, or put some thought into it.

Garrett Frey: 9:14

I like the four in the morning when I open up the door and she's got her foot pressed firmly against that door and I'm like, open it up. And I open it up and she's like eyeliner, hair perfectly straightened, like in full clothes, shoes on, and then lies directly to my face Like without even thinking about it, it was the smoothest, most confident lie that made me go okay, we have a whole nother set of problems that you can lie to me that smoothly.

Natalie Davis: 9:41

Yes, yes, and also where were you?

Pamela Cass: 9:44

Oh God, it was. I've never laughed and I still tell that story.

Natalie Davis: 9:47

Oh my gosh, it's the funniest thing. And what are the odds? The three of us the same week, all three of our kids, same age range, and Garrett, I think your daughter was the only one that was successful. Pam, I don't think that Dylan was successful, and Elizabeth, I don't know. Her line was not creative. She told me that she needed to go for a walk and the irony is she was scaling the fence where the door would have just been to her right. She could have just opened the door and got out, and instead she was trying to scale a fence.

Pamela Cass: 10:14

I love you, elizabeth, it's fine which I would not have heard, tried to sneak out of the basement and the window wells underneath my bedroom window, and so I just leaned out my window and I'm just watching. I'm like I'm going to wait till he's fully engaged before I say something. I just watched it, children.

Garrett Frey: 10:39

Celeste was. She was on a roll and they'd been doing it for a while. And it was funny because I had her friend's father come over. He was building our fence in the backyard. He owns a welding company in town and I was explaining to him what had happened, that we had caught her sneaking out, and he goes man, if you ever hear that she's out with my son, you got to let me know. And so later that night I was joking around the family and I said, oh man, chad was making a big thing about if his son is ever caught and my daughter kind of looks at me, kind of sideways and kind of winks, and I was like, no, and she goes. Yeah, he was the one that picked us up. I was like, here I am talking to him in the garage Like we're all cool. I'm like, oh, sure, I got your back. And I'm like, oh, now I got to call them. And I was like, no, I'm not doing it.

Pamela Cass: 11:25

It is what it is. It's kids being kids. Parenting.

Garrett Frey: 11:29

That was the hardest part and I think that's. We are like one of millions of people that went through this during COVID, because I could not imagine being so. My kids were 15, 14, 15 when and I couldn't imagine, I could not imagine being that age, being kept up in the house and they were losing their minds. Absolutely, I was watching them lose their minds.

Natalie Davis: 11:55

And everything that they connected their identity to at that time, at that season in life, was basically robbed from them, right, and they didn't have a lot of those comforts that as adults we have comforts and other things. But for kids it was their entire identity, their friend group, their peers, the normalcy of going to school, you know, get work, go to the games any of those yeah, the social piece of that.

Garrett Frey: 12:18

Yeah, she was grounded for I think it was a month is what we grounded her for. We've never that's the only time I've ever grounded any of my three kids yeah, and so her. So her bedroom's in the very back and there's no access to our house besides the front, and her friends would come to the house and they'd knock on the window and they'd be like we're just checking to see if Celeste is still okay, because she had no phone, no computers, no, nothing. She had a TV and that was it, and we'd be like she's fine, girls, you need to go away.

Pamela Cass: 12:44

Okay, and they would just leave.

Garrett Frey: 12:46

They literally have. They have lost all connection, and this is incredible.

Pamela Cass: 12:51

Oh my gosh, oh wow, wow, good friends.

Natalie Davis: 12:56

I was going to say just so the listeners know like all of the kids made it out on the other side, they're just fine.

Pamela Cass: 13:00

They lived. They're all fine today. They're all fine, they're all people.

Garrett Frey: 13:04

I'm actually amazed at how successful they are. You know, you're looking at where they're at right now, coming out of COVID and all this stuff. They are very, very, very resilient group of kids?

Garrett Frey: 13:15

Yes, they have to be that I find also aren't taking anything for granted, and they're also they are in a healthy way. Now again, this is my kids came out of that very questioning of things. They don't accept anything at face value, which I actually think is a good way to go through life. I think I'm a big questioner I've always been that way which sometimes gets me into trouble, but at the same point, it's like I want to know what I'm dealing with and I think all the kids coming out of this time have a healthy dose of questioning.

Natalie Davis: 13:43

Agreed, yeah, I love that. I love that. Well, Garrett, why don't you take us down your professional path? Because for over two decades, you and your fabulous wife have worked to build an amazing coaching business. Walk and talk us through that process. I mean, when do you just happen to say you know, what I want to do is build this massive empire of a coaching business?

Garrett Frey: 14:12

of a coaching business. You know it's interesting as I grew up in the back of a real estate sales seminar is really what I did. My dad ran a real estate company in the Bay Area a couple of real estate companies, big companies like 250 agents and then he would teach for CRS, which is Certified Residential Specialist. They're not as big as they used to be. I don't feel like they used to be. I used to feel like when you mentioned that name, people would stop me like oh to be, I don't feel like they used to be. I used to feel like when you mentioned that name, people would stop me like oh, I don't get that quite as much anymore, but I used to go and travel with them. It was one of the best I think my growing up years was. Some of my most favorite things was when he was teaching. You know, I think by the age of like 16, I had been to like 28, 29 states and just bounced around and sat in the back of the classrooms and it was overhead projector time, like this is oh yeah, and he would give me all the pens and during the breaks I would write all over the slides and everything and he'd be like, hey, garrett, go to the back of the room and Yep, and all the stuff that I coach and teach and train about. A lot of it is what I learned sitting in his presence and just being around him and my dad if anybody took it I was ever taking a class with Walt Fry. He is an amazing instructor and I'm just grateful that I had the opportunity to do that and be around it. But that's where this all led to be is, as my dad was training and he was teaching more, we were out fishing one day and he said I've got these people that come to me looking for coaching all the time. And he says, yeah, I don't really like coaching and I refer them out to. And he gave me a couple of names of people around the United States and I was about maybe about two years into being in real estate, maybe a year being in real estate. I remember exactly where we were sitting on this river, rogue River, in Grants Pass, oregon, and I said could you teach me how to coach? And he says yeah, he's like, would you want to do it? And I said, well, it sounds interesting and I've got two you know we had.

Garrett Frey: 15:52

I think Sarah was pregnant at the time and I was like trying to figure out what my roles were and I mentioned it before we started recording. We had a guiding principle Sarah and I did for our world as we were building a life together, and the more I thought about this coaching idea, it fit perfectly with this guiding principle of our life that we were building, which was allowing to work out of the house, build something with Sarah, be having a business that we had full creative ideas around and it just all of a sudden was like let's figure this out Now. We got done with fishing and the next day my dad said here's somebody you should reach out to. They're looking for coaching. And I said you told me you were going to teach me how to do this and he said you're a smart kid, you'll figure it out. That was my training for coaching. Okay, and that's On the job. She signed up and I coached her for, I think, about two years and then we just started adding more people in and I coached by myself for many, many, many years.

Garrett Frey: 16:53

I was the kind of go-to person for our coaching company and then a handful it was probably about 10 years into it. We're like all right, we need support, we need help. It wasn't a bigger picture of what do we want to grow this into. It was more of a necessity of to help the amount of people that we see that could use our help. We need more people. I've always built businesses backwards from a lot of people. A lot of people build the business focusing on the big numbers and revenue and income they want to make, and I've always focused on if you're providing great service and great value, the business will be there. The people will be there to help. That's how I've always focused on it and that's how we've always focused on the coaching program. Wow.

Natalie Davis: 17:32

That's spectacular. Well, and I think that there were a couple of seasons where you leveled up or scaled up, or however you'd like to say that, because you had that 10 years in of realizing that you needed some help and then, a few years after that, realizing, okay, we need significantly more help, because there was significantly more need.

Garrett Frey: 17:52

Oh yeah, yeah. It just kept growing and growing and growing. And the interesting thing is we kept growing it and building it was trying to figure out, like, how do we also bring in really qualified coaches? There was the easy ways of doing it, which was just, oh, here's somebody that's right in front of us, we can just make them a coach and move forward with it. And then there was the other side of like, how do we bring in people that are not a whole lot of work? Let's put it that way.

Garrett Frey: 18:18

I wanted people that I didn't have to babysit too much. I wanted people that were no brainers, which meant that I had to get really, really, really picky on my hiring process and my way that I found coaches and I decided really quick it could never be, because somebody said trust me, they're good. That was a way to get on the phone with me of trust me, they're really good. You need to talk to them. The process of turning them and saying, hey, now do we have someone we can work with here. That got really refined over the years. It was really self-preservation at the end of the day, of how I was going to bring people in and how they are going to work with us.

Natalie Davis: 18:54

Yeah, amazing Did.

Pamela Cass: 18:55

I answer that question.

Natalie Davis: 18:56

You did and you're working to build a brand and to protect it as well. Right, like when you're building out, if it's coaching, if you're looking at this from a podcast standpoint, which we can talk about that as well, talk about that as well. You're kind of building out a brand that I always talk to my clients about it, like that brand is reflective of you, like that, at the end of the day, it's your face that people are going to say oh no, this is totally Garrett. Like this is all you.

Garrett Frey: 19:20

Well, and that's the interesting element, especially with coaching because you can do a lot of great being a coach you can do a lot of damage being a coach too, mm-hmm, and that was always my thing is that it always made me really nervous when we first started growing it and going, okay, what are we up against and what are we building here and keeping the name and the brand. But then there's the other side of the liability of having people out there that are pushing the limits, crossing lines they shouldn't cross. That became very apparent to me very quickly, and a lot of it, I think, became very apparent in the hiring processes of coaches, because I would record them and I would hear them coach other people and all of a sudden they'd go down crazy route and I was like wow, like don't ever do that Don't ever ask don't.

Garrett Frey: 20:10

Yes, let it go, don't pursue that one. Yes, but it became very apparent to me like, okay, I also need to protect what we're building here and making sure that I look at, like, the group of coaches that we had. We had, at one point, 30 coaches and I would stand behind any of them. You guys were all amazing coaches that I knew. If something was off, the right thing was is that you know, lean to the coach first, because they were bringing the goods every time.

Natalie Davis: 20:38

Yeah, For our listeners that are connecting the dots. Both Pam and I have worked for Garrett and Sarah, so just connect those dots.

Pamela Cass: 20:45

Just in case.

Garrett Frey: 20:46

They don't have to say nice things about me anymore, which is kind of a. It's refreshing that we're still here all talking.

Natalie Davis: 20:51

Well, hold on, let me go. It's a first runner up of the hottest man alive in 2021. I mean pandemic timeframe, that is oh my gosh Connecting the dots. Exactly, exactly. Well, garrett, what's your favorite thing that you enjoy about coaching and building a coaching business? What was your favorite?

Garrett Frey: 21:13

You know, what I like and I've always enjoyed is getting into the nuts and bolts of people's worlds. And it's funny because I grew up in a teaching world and what I always found my dad would always talk about he goes. I like being the guy that comes in and blows holes in the ceiling, makes everybody think and then boom, bounces out to the next town and I never could get into that. I went, I taught for a while and it was just one of those things. I always walked away from going, like I feel like I'm missing something. And for me that was where I really started to figure out that getting into the real nuts and bolts. Why are we showing up? Why are we not that philosophy? And we joke about it all the time with the idea of just do it. And I just show up, just do the stuff, just do the things, and I would always back up and go. It's not just do it, just do. It's a short-term win.

Garrett Frey: 22:05

I want to figure out when you get out of bed in the morning, what is your brain saying to yourself about how you're approaching this day and what you think is going to make this day successful or not. And it's amazing when you can start to really pull back all of these layers and start looking at everything. And a lot of times it's not as complicated as you think. It's something very simple that they're either trying to protect themselves from. They have a misinterpretation of what they think something is. They have a fear that maybe is tied into something that happened to them. And, believe me, I'm saying you got to be careful here because you don't want to be a therapist. But a lot of times I'll ask where did that come from? Like why do you hold on to that? Like what is that? And a lot of times it's like oh well, my mom said something to me and it's like are we ready to let that go?

Natalie Davis: 22:51

Yeah, exactly we move on yeah, pam, and I have done an episode on that. It's like oh, so that's your truth. Is it really your truth, though? Is it anything? Or is it someone else's, yeah, who said that was reality.

Garrett Frey: 23:03

It's like you want to continue to believe that, like I'm ready to let it go if you are. So for me, that was always my biggest thing that I we get so lit up and I still get lit up over every single coaching call. I get to be on and I still coach a good amount of people one-on-one around the United States, and I also I love the learning about different marketplaces. If you've asked me a long time ago do you like stats and do you like numbers and things like that, I would say absolutely not, but I do for some reason notice I really like trends yeah, so, but I do for some reason notice I really like trends. Yeah, so I'm always watching the trends that are happening around the United States, how they show up in different parts of the United States or others, and it's funny. When I was younger, I used to be like, oh, that was interesting. And then when you see it a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth time, you're like, oh, that's not an accident, this always happens this way. Yeah, I accident. This always happens this way.

Garrett Frey: 24:00

I get lit up about that type of stuff and then being able to help others who are wondering why they're seeing what they're seeing, and you can start to decode it and give them the information so they can go.

Garrett Frey: 24:06

Oh, that makes sense. And what do you say can make sense? That they can move forward, as long as they're confused and they can't figure out what the pieces are, they're stuck. And so I find, as coaches and what I've always really liked and what I have helped coaches do is see if you can help people connect the dots, see if you can help them see beyond their limiting beliefs that they might have for themselves, open up new pictures and let them run. And that's the coolest part is like I can't do anything for anybody as a coach, but what I can do is I can give them the belief in themselves and then step back. And if they choose not to take any action, we got to figure out why again. But man, when they do we've all seen it when all of a sudden someone just goes and you're like, oh my gosh, look at us.

Pamela Cass: 24:51

Look at us go A proud parent moment. Yes, it is Totally is. I love it. I love it. One of my favorite things, too, about being part of that was the collaboration between the coaches that we had. I mean, we basically had a community and you didn't have that when it was just you solo coaching, really yeah, and I could see being on your own coaching, that it would be lonely not to have any other people. That because we'd get together and we're talking about things that we're going through and looking for those trends again and there was power in there and that was something amazing which we're going to keep doing.

Garrett Frey: 25:31

That was the crazy thing is like, as this grew, I did not see that side of it initially. It was just about having more coaches being able to help more people. Let's just keep moving forward. And then we would have our weekly meetings. So I met with all the coaches, either one-on-one, or I would meet with them as a huge group and we'd switch off weeks, and what I always got out of this was I was like, oh my gosh, we have a collective knowledge now and a collective interpretation of what's going on out here.

Garrett Frey: 26:00

I could see a trend in one part of the United States and I could call one of you and say, hey, I'm seeing this, what are you seeing right now? And you'd be like, oh, I'm seeing that. Or you might go, nope, not seeing that, that's not actually what we're watching at all right now. We're watching it all right now, but with 28, 30 coaches all of a sudden, we could very quickly narrow down what was happening and what was going on, which then led into the podcast with people going how do you guys always say the right thing in the right time on that podcast, with exactly what we needed to hear? And I'm like, because we've got our fingers in a lot of markets and a lot of places, a lot of different people's realities and, yeah, there's a lot of correlations between all of us.

Pamela Cass: 26:39

Yeah Well, good segue to the podcast. So I would love for you to tell us. You just woke up one morning. You're like let's do a podcast. Tell us how that happened.

Garrett Frey: 26:49

Well, that's what we did, Pam I know, but we're different Pretty much the way it happens for most people. But it's funny. We stumbled into it and what I found is the gentleman that I do the podcast with, matt Bonelli. I coached Matt originally, so he used to work for Terp and Realty in New Jersey and as I was coaching him on his manager side of his systems, he was applying what we ended up is. We just all of a sudden were like, how did this work? We ended up just talking on the phone is what would happen. I do my one-on-ones as he turned into a coach for us and we would just continue to talk and talk, and talk and talk. And at one point I was like, man, we should record this stuff. I'm like, wouldn't it be cool if you think anybody would want to listen to it? And he said, oh, that'd be a podcast.

Natalie Davis: 27:37

I said, all right, like I guess it'd be a podcast. Matt gives it like structure. He's like oh, what you're talking about is a podcast, that's a podcast.

Garrett Frey: 27:45

One thing everybody knows is I surround myself with people that bring structure into my life, because they're the opposite of structure.

Garrett Frey: 27:52

Yes, and he goes, that would be a podcast. And I said, all right. And he said I've always wanted to do a podcast. And I said, well, how would we do it? And he goes, I'll figure out the back end, let's circle back on this. And he basically came back. He said here's where we're going to record it, here's where we'd host it, I'll do the editing on it, let's just record. And we recorded from. I'm trying to think we started I think it was 2019 or was it 2018? I get the years mixed up. I think we started recording in 2018.

Garrett Frey: 28:20

And we recorded a whole bunch of episodes that some of them never saw the light of day Because we just kept recording and then we would sit down and we would talk about it and Matt, early on, would want to go down the teaching element a lot. So he would want to all of a sudden be like let's take this system and teach everybody. And I was very quick to say that can't be the role of our podcast. We can't do that. It crosses lines with other stuff that's going on. So we really just came back and landed on to like let's just throw our opinions at this and we'll bring our own topics and link it back to what was being taught out there and it just started to click and there was a couple episodes we recorded that Sarah, my wife, was like that. One can never see the light of day Like that, never, ever, ever, ever ever.

Pamela Cass: 29:08

Everybody needs that person in their lives.

Garrett Frey: 29:11

Nope, not doing it. We were so proud of it. Yeah, it never needed to see the light of day and it wasn't that it was like raunchy, like that. We went after a certain segment of the industry, of the real estate industry, that it was very valid and I still stand behind the podcast. And, as Sarah said, she goes in three years. Come back to that episode and see if you want to send it out. She goes not right now, not when you're getting launched. You don't want to be on somebody's negative radar out there. We could probably do it now, but I don't think we would. I don't think it would fill our cup, to put that one out.

Garrett Frey: 29:44

But that's how it started and, man, we've done a couple episodes on consistency and we did a lot of research up front about why podcasts succeed and why they fail. Number one reason they fail is that the consistency breaks down Right, and both Matt and I this goes back to like there was never a revenue mindset in it. It was all about creating value and helping people.

Pamela Cass: 30:09

Yep.

Garrett Frey: 30:10

That we never got caught up in. How many episodes do we need to do to be able to monetize, to be able to do this, to be able to do this, to be able to make this happen? It was just like let's just show up and record, which was at 545. My time in the mornings is when we record, which I had to make the commitment to that. That was an interesting one of like oh really, it's like, okay, this better be cool, we better enjoy this. And it turned into the reason why I loved getting up in the mornings.

Garrett Frey: 30:39

I would hop out of bed at five o'clock to get ready and I just found myself being so energized and so excited and then to start getting feedback from people that listened just took it to a whole nother level. But a lot of people don't realize that Matt and I did that for five and a half years under the title that we'd been doing it under. We never got paid for it. We did that for five and a half years completely complimentary and through our heart and, yeah, it's been an amazing ride doing that podcast and now we're in some transition, yeah.

Pamela Cass: 31:13

We call those passion projects. You know, when you are so passionate about something, you don't you're not thinking about the money. That's why you can do it, because I mean, I didn't know how much work and commitment a podcast was until we started doing a podcast, and it is. But it is same thing. We're not getting paid for it. But it is become this thing that you're just passionate about. It has become this thing that you're just passionate about and you get off of them and you've got this energy. You're like, oh my gosh, that was so amazing.

Garrett Frey: 31:40

So let's talk about the passion project here for a second, because I just experienced this. Well, they had a conversation about this. Actually, was it this morning? Oh my gosh. This is what happens when you talk to so many people in a day.

Pamela Cass: 31:49

Like I think it was this morning. No, it was this morning.

Garrett Frey: 31:52

It was this morning and we were talking about how, when we watch people, when we coach them, and they're doing it specifically for the money. They've got big goals, they've got, you know, and they're driven by like I've got to make my closing so I can make this paycheck, so I can get my goals for the end of the year. And then all of a sudden they get to a place that it's not because they just love real estate and they just love helping people or they just love their job, it's not. And all of a sudden their income takes off Right and it's like well, why didn't you bring that energy before? Like why did you have to wait to all of a sudden turn it into a passion thing and not a money thing? Yeah, and for some people like us with a podcast, it was always a passion thing, but it is funny when it changes into a passion thing, because I always watch people's income numbers take off.

Pamela Cass: 32:41

Oh yeah, yeah, totally different. Well, we're almost programmed that we are supposed to have a financial goal.

Natalie Davis: 32:47

You know, it's just I feel like that's or a gain connected to it, right, oh, it's got to be connected to it and so once you flip that connected to it, and so once you flip that, because not everyone's driven by that.

Garrett Frey: 33:01

You said again too, Natalie, because it's not always set a financial goal.

Garrett Frey: 33:02

It's how much more? And I have always had a hard time with that. It's okay to write a lower goal if that's what feels right, if you're building something and you're doing it. I remember I had a gentleman one time. He's like I'm aware that I might make $150,000 less he goes, but I need to take vacations next year and he ended up taking 11 vacations, 11 week long vacations, and it's like at the end of the year that was a. He will still say that was his favorite year he ever had in real estate. That's awesome. Yeah, I get lost in that In the game piece income thing, I think it actually holds a lot of people back, I think it does.

Natalie Davis: 33:38

We hope that you've enjoyed part one of our two-part interview with Garrett Fry. What a fun story to hear the serial entrepreneur and salesperson that has built a massive empire, and also hearing a little bit more about his passions. But make sure that you come back and join us for part two, because we're going to continue to do a deep dive into Garrett's relationship with his fabulous wife, sarah, the family dynamic and what's on the horizon for Team Fry. We'll see you all soon. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of Reignite Resilience. We hope that you had amazing ahas and takeaways. Remember to subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like it and download the upcoming episodes, and if you know anyone in your life that is looking to continue to ignite their resilience, share it with them. We look forward to seeing you on our future episodes and until then, continue to reignite that fire within your hearts.