The ADHD Skills Lab

Why Saving Money Isn’t the Same as Financial Freedom - Rebroadcast (Kassidy Warren)

• Skye Waterson • Season 1 • Episode 198

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0:00 | 33:00

You can be successful on paper and still feel stuck.

In this episode, Skye talks with entrepreneur and investor Kassidy Warren about leaving the corporate “safe path,” taking real risks, and the identity shift required to stop playing small. They unpack rejection, procrastination, reinvesting before results, and what it actually means to turn pro — especially with an ADHD brain.

If you’ve built something stable but know you’re capable of more, this one will hit.

What we cover:

  • The hidden cost of corporate stability and “golden handcuffs”
  • Why procrastination is fear in disguise
  • How to handle rejection without shrinking
  • The mindset shift from amateur to professional
  • Acting before you feel ready — and why waiting keeps you stuck

Business owner with ADHD wanting operational clarity and focus? Click here to book a session with Skye. 

https://www.unconventionalorganisation.com for a operational clarity session!


Connect with Kassidy Warren

Kassidy Warren is the host of the For Your Own Good podcast, where he shares practical, direct conversations about business growth, leadership, and building companies that actually work.

If this episode resonated, you can follow Kassidy and explore more of his work here:

He regularly shares insights for operators and founders who want to move from chaos to clarity without fluff or hype.

If you’re an entrepreneur with ADHD who’s tired of being asked “Why don’t you just hire/make a system/delegate?”  We’ve gotchu! 

  1. Click here for a free copy of my 5-year-tested Focus Filter. Instant relief for work-related overwhelm.
  2. Find out what’s holding you back. I’ll personally build you a simple plan to fix it. Click here to grab one.
  3. Join my Focused Balanced Growth Program. If you’re tired of getting blank looks in masterminds full of neurotypical advice, this is for you. Weekly Monday Motivation sessions, plus content you can binge or dip into for strategies specific to you. Apply here.
  4. Your Business Operations Built for Your ADHD Brain. Feel like you can never really delegate because you can’t explain how to do it? Struggling to hire someone who feels like a natural fit for your business? Let us handle it for you. We specialize in using our years of ADHD research and practical support to act as your fractional COO, handling the back-end operations in a way that feels light and keeps you focused. Learn more here.

If you’re an entrepreneur with ADHD who’s tired of being asked “Why don’t you just hire/make a system/delegate?”  We’ve gotchu! 

  1. Click here for a free copy of my 5-year-tested Focus Filter. Instant relief for work-related overwhelm.
  2. Find out what’s holding you back. I’ll personally build you a simple plan to fix it. Click here to grab one.
  3. Join my Focused Balanced Growth Program. If you’re tired of getting blank looks in masterminds full of neurotypical advice, this is for you. Weekly Monday Motivation sessions, plus content you can binge or dip into for strategies specific to you. Apply here.
  4. Your Business Operations Built for Your ADHD Brain. Feel like you can never really delegate because you can’t explain how to do it? Struggling to hire someone who feels like a natural fit for your business? Let us handle it for you. We specialize in using our years of ADHD research and practical support to act as your fractional COO, handling the back-end operations in a way that feels light and keeps you focused. Learn more here.
SPEAKER_00

Something that I've learned really recently too is that it's actually about the people and the journey of who you get to become along the way. I get to become my most authentic best self by going through this journey of entrepreneurship. Who you are as a person determines how much money you ultimately will make.

SPEAKER_01

Hello, everyone. Today I'm super happy to be joined by Cassidy Warren, a real estate investor, entrepreneur, and the host of For Your Own Good podcast. Cassidy focuses on building financial freedom through real estate, including short-term rentals, boutique hotels, which is I think a newer thing, and passive income strategies. He also mentors professionals who want to transition from corporate life or side hustles into sustainable wealth building and entrepreneurship. So it's wonderful to have you here, Cassidy.

SPEAKER_00

I'm so excited to be here, Sky. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01

No worries, no worries. So I want to just jump in. You mentioned in other podcasts you've spoken on that you grew up frugal, which is a word I haven't heard that much, actually. Can you give me an example of how you notice that frugality compared to other families?

SPEAKER_00

It was really noticeable in my family how frugal we were. But at the time, growing up as a kid, you don't know any different, right? So we grow up with these things, whether it's frugality or other things. And we don't really know until looking back or until trying to do something different in our lives that we run up against these things. One of the memories I have that was really consistent actually was around getting gas and saving money on gas with my family driving all over town, outside of town, to go save five, 10, 20 cents a gallon on gas. And this is back when gas was $2 or less a gallon. So as a kid, even I was sitting in the backseat doing the math on how much money we were gonna save versus how many extra miles we were driving to go to that gas station. And then not to mention the time that it took away from whatever else we could have been doing. That concept, the last concept of the time, and actually now the energy around that sort of mentality didn't become apparent to me until recently in life when I realized we don't have a lot of time left. The driving around town, finding gas was a was a huge part. And there's a couple other memories around paying off the mortgage early. And then my parents made good money. Like they were multiple sixth figure back in the 90s, early 2000s, but we didn't enjoy life.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

We didn't go on any vacations. We didn't have fun, right? I was able to find fun and I had friends. And but as a family, almost every single thing centered around money and actually saving money. And not just saving money, but sacrificing your time and energy to save that money. Learning more about my stepfather, mainly, and where he grew up and his family, it's understandable why he is that way and why that was the message in the family because of how poor he grew up and how hard it was for his parents, right? So I understand it, but that affected me so much. And so you mentioned one of the things that I do is I help people like get out of corporate. The reason I'm so passionate about helping people get out of corporate because it's a mindset and a mentality. And most people intuitively don't subscribe to that mentality, or at least they know that they're meant for something more. And that was me. That was my story. We can get I could get into it more, but that's why I'm so passionate about it because I feel like I wasn't opened up to other possibilities besides the corporate path, the frugal path, the 401k path, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00

I am like on a mission to open up the doors for people that know that they're meant for more. And meant for more is just like they want, it could just be they want to spend more time with their kids, right? But two parents, for example, two parents, let's say they're each making $100,000 each. So $200,000. That's a lot of money, right? One of those parents, one of those spouses, is working full-time just to pay for daycare and just pay the other person's tax bill.

SPEAKER_01

It's interesting what you say about the frugal idea, actually, because my parents were quite frugal as well. You just reminded me. I don't know what we called it back then, but it was. It was that idea of you got to work in corporate, they had both worked in banking, that was what they wanted me to do. And um, it was, you know, save every dollar you save is that's it. That's the whole goal. And paying off the mortgage was a huge part of that as well. It was the same thing. Like you had to pay off the mortgage every time. I want to get into your switch then. We talked about the move that you did make. You mentioned obviously you went into engineering, which is a very stable, stable thing. So I get it. And you you really felt like you weren't inspired. This is a really common experience. You know, you're talking to the choir when you say getting out of corporate, like ADHD and corporate, most of the time don't mix. But I want to know when this shifted from a background feeling, because a lot of people have that feeling, to an actual action that you took. Can you describe that to me?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, great question. And the reason I went into engineering actually was I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was always good at science and math. And most of my teachers have said that I'm undiagnosed uh ADD, by the way, but I don't want to, I don't want to disrespect your listeners and say that for them.

SPEAKER_01

A lot of people, we we've very supportive of undiagnosed ADHD here already.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, all right. Well, I'll put myself in there because when I hear all the things, I'm like, yep, yep, yep, yep. The reason I went into engineering is because there was a presentation given at high school and it was a mechanical engineering, it was like an explosion diagram of like a motor or something. I was like, yes, I want to do that. And so I ended up going into electrical. But one of the reasons was because I loved creating things. I love building things. And I didn't quite know that at the time, but that's what I discovered in my journey is that I love creating and building. So my engineering career was actually a lot of fun. The engineering portion was a lot of fun, but I was never making enough money that I felt satisfied or felt like I was living the life that I wanted. And so what I knew to do was to go create and build things and go chase having fun, really. Yeah. And so each each new step up the corporate ladder felt like a new level of fun and learning and growth. This is something that I learned about myself along the way, is that I love building and I love growing. And then I got to a certain point in leadership where I saw how decisions were being made. I saw the focus on not the customer, not the employees, but different metrics. And then I was also just looking at the lives that everyone was living around me and above me. You know, the executives, the the directors, the people that were in positions of power. And I was like, I don't want to be working weekends. I don't want to be on the phone all the time. I don't want to be ignoring my family. I don't want to only take two weeks of vacation. So I was on this trajectory that I could sustain for a while because I was growing and learning. And then all of a sudden it was like, well, I'm almost at the top of the company. If I want to go to the top, it's gonna take me another 10 years. And I'm just gonna be stuck in this, I call it purgatory, really, of indecision where you're you're stuck.

SPEAKER_01

It's the golden handcuffs.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's the golden handcuffs, and it was just so present in my mind that I was meant for more. The other thing that I was really recognizing was the pattern of waking up, going to work, commuting, going to work, working 10 hours, commuting home, probably having more phone calls and doing more work, dinner, Netflix, go to sleep. And there might be a workout in there, and I was drinking pretty heavily at the time. So, like that was all going on. And that was the pattern every day. And then the weekends were just like really recovering and doing chores. So my wife and I couldn't even have time to dream. We didn't even have time to like think about what we wanted to do that was fulfilling for us. Those two things where there was no more learning and growing, and I was kind of seeing the writing on the wall, and this desire to just have some space to connect with my wife and the space to think about what's next.

SPEAKER_01

Do you remember the conversation that you had? Was there a moment where you turned to each other and said, Okay, we really gotta get out of here now?

SPEAKER_00

Let's see. Let me think back so many years ago. I do remember my wife coming home really frustrated a lot. And as I'm thinking about it now, that was one of the more so than my own frustration or stuckness. Seeing my wife be frustrated was like really hard to watch. I don't remember the exact conversation, but I can see us in our kitchen. Yeah. And the great thing about my wife, and I have this level of gratitude constantly, is she's right or die, right? Who you choose to get married to can impact your fulfillment, does impact your fulfillment and your ability to be successful. My wife has supported me in every single decision that I've wanted to make in pursuit of finding fulfillment and changing lives and going and exploring the world. So we were both totally down.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. Yeah, my husband and I, we've been together for 10 years now. And when we first started, it was like we started a business pretty early, and it's been, it was not a good thing, it was like there was no money. And I know you had that with your first Airbnb. It was like you were sharing the space with them, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and honestly, that was my wife's doing. We went up to Vancouver, Canada, and we stayed at an Airbnb that had the hosts there. And I was kind of pissed that the hosts were there because I didn't know. But they gave us a masterclass. Their name are Terry and Selena. They gave us a masterclass, they told us everything. And the next week, my wife listed our spare bedroom on Airbnb. And she texted me. I was at work. Did she tell you?

SPEAKER_01

Did she do it without telling?

SPEAKER_00

She did. Now, we we were already sort of getting the room ready. Like we, yeah, but I was like, I wasn't ready to hit the trigger yet, right? Yeah, it was like F it, we're doing it. And we got a bunch of bookings the first day. Like we rented out for like 35 bucks a night in the, you know, in the off season during winter, but during summer it did really well. But it paid for about three quarters of our mortgage.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we were we were sharing it with other the we had one bathroom, so we were sharing the space with guests and like coordinating who's using the shower. But yeah, that was what it that's what it takes in the beginning. That's what you have to do in the beginning. And then we were learning. We were learning what it took to run a business and and be hospitable and you know, have customer service and understand what turnovers and managing stuff. So it was the genesis of everything that we have today.

SPEAKER_01

I want to dig into this a little bit because you mentioned something you said that working in in corporate was this just always, you know, you're always working, your life is the same, it's so much. And then you mentioned, you know, doing entrepreneurship and it's sort of a similar amount of maybe even more hours. But what is the difference do you feel? Because I know a lot of people feel it. You know, if you would just describe the difference between the hard work of corporate and the hard work of starting your own thing.

SPEAKER_00

The hard work of starting your own thing is that it's driven by purpose for you and your family and your and your spouse, if that's how you're setting things up. And you're creating a future for yourself that doesn't exist. You should be building something that means something to you. Even if it's just more money so that you can go build something that you want or create the life that you want or travel more, that's fine. Like you can start an HVAC company if you don't love HVAC, right? But for me, it was being able to explore what's possible and being in control of the upside. The upside of owning a business is so much greater than any upside in corporate. Corporate is designed to have certain salaries for certain people because they have a budget, because they need to make certain profit margins. And so you're only ever going to be trading your time for money. Maybe you have stock options and you know, all that sort of stuff, but still you're capped. In corporate, you are capped. And I even started out quitting the job and I came back as a consultant. I tripled my rate, but I was still capped because I was still trading my time for money. Also, the hard, the hard work of entrepreneurship is there's a curve while you're building the machine. All these properties that we designed and built, one, it was amazing to create the spaces that we've created, but every dollar went back in to the next property. Like we did not take any money out of the business for like four years, maybe five. And but it was building the machine. Now we get to, in a in a relatively short amount of time, now we get to operate from wherever we want. And I get the opportunity to go build this podcast. I get to, I now have options. I have so many more options than I would have if I stayed at corporate.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think that's so important. And what you said about investing everything back in and not taking a lot out. I think if you're in a business space, that becomes very obvious. But I think it's less obvious if you're not in it. Like, you know, we also reinvested, didn't make a lot, but reinvested what we did, and then, you know, only recently started taking any of it out. But you do it, I think, because you love it. Like you love, like you said, you loved making that. You loved seeing what you created.

SPEAKER_00

Something that I've learned really recently, too, is that it's actually about the people and the journey of who you get to become along the way. I get to become my most authentic best self by going through this journey of entrepreneurship. Who you are as a person determines how much money you ultimately will make, right? There's different levels, but who you are as a person, as a leader, as a husband, as a man, as a wife, as a woman is capped based on how deep and far you're willing to go through self-improvement in the journey of entrepreneurship. If you're always an asshole, or if you're always frugal, or if you're not willing to reinvest, you don't want to support people, you don't want to partner, you don't want to do things, you're only gonna go so far. You're only gonna become so much of a better person. And the same thing is true for corporate. Yes, there's amazing people that work corporate and you have so many opportunities for self-improvement, but there's something about everything being on your shoulders, you adding value into the world and that being reciprocated and you trusting the universe based on who you are as a person and the value that you're adding back into the world through your business, that it's gonna come back to you. It's pretty incredible.

SPEAKER_01

It is, it's it's the ultimate personal development, like people say. I wanted to touch a little bit with this on the idea of rejection because uh everybody struggles with rejection. There's conversations about like if you struggle with ADHD, do you struggle with rejection more? But everybody struggles with rejection on some level. You've probably had a lot of opportunities to experience rejection. How have you managed that? I know the people who win are the people who get the most rejection. So I'm seeing you win, and I'm sure that that's been behind the scenes as well.

SPEAKER_00

I love this question because as an engineer and other people that are engineers or have have ADD, I can bring it back to a very logical answer. If you knew that everything you wanted was on the other side of a hundred people telling you no and rejecting you, how quickly would you get those hundred no's? How fast would you go to get a hundred rejections, knowing that everything that you wanted was on the other side of that? Because that's what it is. Because with each rejection is an opportunity to learn. And it's all practice. People that say they're afraid of sales or they don't like sales, they're actually afraid of rejection. Yes. Or they don't believe in their product or their service well enough. And so the way to get over rejection is having a purpose and a value system and a goal that's so big and so massive that you don't care about anything else but achieving that. And the rejections are just something along the way, and you know that you just haven't found the right people or the right partner or whatever. That's it. It's a very logical approach. Yeah. Get as many rejections so you can find your people. But your purpose and your drive and your vision have to be big enough for you to act in spite of fear. Entrepreneurship, every single day, all it is, very simply, is number one, you don't stop. You literally just don't stop. Now, some days you might go backwards, some days you might sprint forwards, other days you might take the babiest of baby steps forward, but you didn't stop. And how you don't stop is you act in spite of the fear that comes up every single day. Because once you make it to the new level and you get over one level of rejection, well, now you have just opened up a new set of doors and a new set of people and a new set of problems. You get to go experience new levels of rejection and new, like it doesn't stop. It doesn't stop. But that's the journey of becoming that person that you've always wanted to be.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I love that. I really do. But I'm gonna ask you can you describe to me a rejection that you had that stuck out to you? You don't have to give names, but I'd love to know.

SPEAKER_00

There was someone that I was working with closely that had been a mentor, and I was getting ready to launch my community. And this is, I would say, over a year ago. And that person, I believe, felt threatened because it was a similar business and essentially started not threatening me, but making it difficult for me and trying to persuade me from not doing it.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

In in ways that were fear-based, in my opinion, looking back now. And it worked, and I felt a certain way about it, and it put me like in my feelings and questioning things for a long time. And so that was, let's say that was in April of last year. I didn't launch my community until September of that year.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's a big loss.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, but everything's rigged in my favor, right? And that that's how I go about life, is I know that it's just not the right time yet, and then I get to like gamify it. And my choices about how I respond to situations are mine and mine alone. How other people choose to treat me or respond to me or say things to me, that is their choice. And I have the ability to just move through the noise, and that's entrepreneurship again, is yeah, it can't feel like rejection. You're allowed to feel it, but you can't let it take over. And as you, as you get higher and higher up the ranks, which I'm, you know, I'm still a very small fish, right? But the circles are smaller, and so your reputation precedes you. How you handle situations, how you move forward, how you treat people really, really, really matters.

SPEAKER_01

It really does. And that kind of leads me to the next thing, which is something that I think a lot of people saw. You talked about, you started, and you really did turn pro, that idea of becoming a professional in this. I want to know, can you tell me what turning pro really means to you?

SPEAKER_00

Turning pro is the act of doing everything that you're meant to do, no matter how afraid you are, no matter what resistance you feel. Looking at the pros, the professionals, the top of the top, and saying, what are they doing? And how can I start doing that myself? And so for me, there's a book by Stephen Pressfield called Turning Pro. And there's a there's a chapter in his other book, The Art of War, called Turning Pro. And essentially, professionals do whatever it takes every single day, no matter how they're feeling, no matter the resistance, no matter the rejection, they invest the money before the return, right? That's a big one. Turning pro is saying, I'm going to spend money before I have almost any idea of where it's gonna come back or how it's gonna come back to me. So many people want, well, if I put $100,000 in, I want this much money over a certain period of time. That's not that's not how it works in real business ownership. Your level of return is based on the amount you're willing to risk. If you want a million bucks, you gotta risk a hundred thousand, right? And so if you look at what I did, I looked at all the top podcasts, I looked at all the top self-help books, all the stuff that I learned from Dan Martell, my other mentors, all of the books and the advice of everything that were like, it's not about the money, it's about the value that you add into the world, and it's about not stopping and it's about the consistency. And I took that to heart. And every single day I made progress and I stepped forward and I asked guests that were bigger than I thought I could have gotten, and I got them. I flew out to meet people. If I want big guests on my podcasts, I can't just expect them to show up wherever I am. I gotta go to them. I spent the money on studios, I spent the money on flights, I had sleepless nights, I sacrificed, I wasn't home a lot. And that's the first year, right? Am I gonna do that for five years? Probably not. But when you start to take yourself seriously, the universe and everyone around you starts to take you seriously. Other examples. If I see the pros with content directors and YouTube teams and editors, and okay, how can I do that too? How can I turn pro? Maybe I can't afford to hire a full content director like Dan and Sam, but can I get an advisor that they work with? Yeah. I will pay a quarterly rate to get advised and consulted. Can I get an editor that does what I want? Yep. Do I have all this money coming in yet? No. Do I believe that I'm going to be able to get this return at some point? Am I trying to help people? So amateurs wait for permission. Pros never ask for permission. They just go for it. Amateurs don't practice. Pros practice every single day. Amateurs don't ask for feedback. Pros get feedback, right? Like just look at sports players, the top of the top, what they do compared to what amateurs do, and just do all of those things.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I want to go back a little bit, actually, then to your wife, because you mentioned that you were away, and obviously she's been a big part of the conversation we had early on. When did you talk to her about this shift? And how did you negotiate that as a partnership? Because that is such an important part of entrepreneurship and that personal development is the person who comes along.

SPEAKER_00

I'm I'm gonna selfishly say I spent a lot of time adding value into a lot of other people's lives. I gave and gave and gave for a long time. I gave my time, my energy, my knowledge. I talked to people on the phone, I showed up in group chats, uh, masterminds, podcasts, like I gave and I gave and I gave. And same thing with my wife. Like, not just people outside of our marriage, but like with my wife. I gave to my clients that I had originally. I gave to my job, I gave to my work. I was giving, giving, giving, giving. And this is a takeaway for people. If you want something, you do have to add value into the world. So I was doing that, but for a long time at the expense of my own health and happiness and fulfillment. And so there came a moment where I was getting frustrated with the work I was still doing, but I was surrounded by the Dan Martells, the Rich Summers. I was in rooms with the best of the best, but here I am still playing small. It took my wife actually, probably believing in me more than I did at the time, to have the confidence to quit and say, I'm gonna go all in on the podcast. But I was still working in some consulting. I was in sort of this like toxic consulting environment. And this is why I'm so passionate about getting people outside of their corporate environment, because once you're outside of it, you gain so much clarity in what you actually want to do. You're able to breathe, you're able to see. So my wife could see something I didn't. And then once the idea hit my brain that I was gonna regret my life if I didn't try this, like literally, I fast forwarded to my deathbed. And this was the thing that kept popping up. It was like, Cassidy, if you don't go try to be like a YouTuber, content creator, podcaster, and like help people and share what you know, like you are going to, it's gonna be your biggest regret. It's going to be your biggest regret. So she saw that. And it was like, it was like it wasn't even a conversation. And she trusts me so implicitly and she believes in me so much. And that belief and support was like so necessary for me to keep going. It took proof too. It took people showing up. It took some cheerleaders, right? Like there's all these stories of entrepreneurs that are like, oh yeah, everyone hated me. They said it was too risky. I didn't really have that. I had a lot of people that were like, yeah, Cassie, keep going. Like, you're doing it. Finally. Yes, exactly. Yeah, finally. So I had to, I had to really embody that of like, oh, maybe they see something that I don't, and continually stepping into that. And really, I had a theme for last year was reach and reputation. And I also have my word of the year for last year, which is destined. And I use those two mantras pretty frequently to keep going. So reach and reputation. Every decision that I was making, am I expanding my reach or am I expanding my reputation? Or both. So it wasn't about the money. It wasn't about anything other than get myself out there and go do something I've never done before and go meet people I've never met and expand my network like crazy, just for fun. Really. And then destined. Am I acting as if I'm destined to do this? And so when I talk about turning pro, pros act as if it's inevitable that they're going to achieve what they want to achieve. So same thing. In those moments where I didn't want to text Dan or text Thatch or all these guests that I've had on or spend the money, I would ask myself, am I acting as if I'm destined to achieve this? And that really, it was almost immediate. I would send the text, I would make the call, I would spend the money. And that's what kept me going was the belief that at some point it's inevitable that I'm going to get everything that I want.

SPEAKER_01

Well, that kind of brings me to the conversation about having Dan on. And for those of you who don't who don't know, he's a very successful business owner. His YouTube has over 2 million subscribers. When you had him on, like it had a huge impact on your reach. Imagine it probably had something on your reputation. I want to know from you though, mechanically, and you kind of touched on it here. Mechanically, how did you get to a place where you were sitting down to talk to Dan?

SPEAKER_00

It's timing, it's not making the ask too soon, it's trusting the universe. It's, and I'll, and I'll get to the actual mechanical, but there's something, you know, that rejection piece or that you have to be willing to wait a little bit. You can't rush things all the time. And you have to be making deposits. I forget who said it, but there's people that say, like, you need to make five deposits before you ask for one withdrawal. Right. And so with Dan, Dan changed my life. The reason I'm saying all this stuff and I'm here and I started the pod all this, it's because of Dan. And so I did things along the way with Dan and his content director, Sam. And you can take this and apply it to any person or group or organization. Whatever you're doing out there, go add value, not just to the leader. So not just to Dan. Don't suck up to Dan and don't just try to get around him or whatever. Like, go add value to his team, go support his team. And so I spent a lot of time connecting people to Dan and his team, adding value, supporting them. I merged worlds, like I became a connector for a long time. I also supported his community because I did everything that Dan told me to do. So I was an example of if you do what Dan says, you can achieve some level of success, right? And so then there was a moment I interviewed Sam, his content director, for a live audience podcast. It was a lot of fun. Sam had never really done a podcast before, but he got to share everything. And Dan saw that as like me supporting his team. So that was like a deposit in the value bank. And then we came up with this idea to maybe do that again with Dan. But then they were like, no, no, we're not gonna do it. Never mind. And then out of the blue, months later, Sam texts me and is like, hey, do you know any podcasters in New York? Dan's doing a little tour over there. Well, that's what I said. Yeah, I'm in Seattle. I'm not in New York. But here's the thing about sequencing and timing. A month before Sam texted me, I was in New York and I did two live audience podcasts. They were incredible. They were fun. We probably only had like 20 people in the audience, but they were so much fun, intimate. And so I had gotten to know a bunch of people in New York and I had gotten to lay of the land. And so Sam's like, Can you get at least 100 people in attendance? Yeah, of course I can. You have to say yes at the opportunity, even if you don't know the solution or the answers yet. You can't hesitate. So I said yes. I ended up spending about $10,000 in total on the whole event, getting the venue, like the rentals, the audio equipment, all that. But it came out of continuing to add value into people's lives over and over and over, and being grateful for doing it and having joy out of making the connections that I have made. And then just credit to Sam and Dan and his team for being giving. And the cool thing about that podcast, and I can talk about what happened after, but Dan was in town to go see Gary V the next day he flew to go see Patrick Bett David down in Florida. So on Dan's stories, and a bunch of people messaged me this, he's got a picture with Gary Vee, and then he's got a picture with me doing the podcast, live audience, and then he's got a picture with Patrick Bett David. So there I am, sandwiching between these two people, and it's cool. It's fun. Like it's fun, and that's part of the reason that I do it.

SPEAKER_01

So I want to know before we go into what happened afterwards. I want to know you've done all this work, you've been waiting. Timing is right, you've paid, you've made it happen, you're sitting down, and it's just those few moments before you're gonna have a conversation that you've spent a lot of time building up to. Describe how you felt.

SPEAKER_00

I felt so calm and ready. I was thinking about everything that Dan had taught me and instilled in me and the 200 people that were in that audience. It was my turn to get out of Dan what I knew had helped me so that they could all hear it in that room. That's how I felt. I felt like it was my chance to give back to the people in that room and everybody that was gonna be hearing the podcast. And so seeing Dan across from me, of course it was an accomplishment. Also, in my mind, it was inevitable that this was gonna happen because of everything that I had been doing up to that point. So I really wasn't nervous. I felt that no matter what was gonna happen, even if I messed up or screwed up or whatever, it was all meant to be. But my main goal and my main focus was to give Dan the platform to help the people in the room and on the other side of the speakers.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. That's great. And so post that conversation, obviously, you know, the clouds didn't part, you weren't sent off to you know, like it was just yet another day. But I imagine I want to know what shifted for you, both obviously in your business, but also internally having done that and having people message you and sort of getting that break.

SPEAKER_00

A lot happened. It was really a moment of like it cemented the fact that I could do this and that I was like actually a podcaster. On the back end, what happened? Our average downloads went from like 100 to 150 an episode, which is not a lot, to over 5,000 an episode. So Dan's episode and then a lot of the ones following brought in a lot more listeners, a lot more followers on Spotify and on YouTube. We did over 350,000 views on that episode on YouTube, and it gave me credibility. So I've been able to leverage that podcast, that one episode, to go get more guests. I've had people on like Eric Hinman, who's a hybrid athlete down in Austin, Texas, Omar Alcatori, who's an incredible YouTuber, that was an amazing episode. There's been so many people that have said yes after the Dan episode because of the Dan episode. And because I turn pro. If you watch what I do, the trailers, the edits, the clip, like everything, I treat it like I'm already a big podcaster. And then I also focus on the audience. But that specific episode, you can watch, you can look at the graph. Very clearly, Dan's episode changed everything in terms of how many people listen.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. Well, just want to ask you one final question, which is if you had a motto for your life, what would it be to sort of sum up what we've talked about here?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I keep a list of mantras. The one that always comes up, I'll I'll give you two. I'll give you two because there is two. The one that always comes up is what are you pretending not to know? This is the question that you get to ask yourself every single day, multiple times a day, when you find yourself not acting. Because if you haven't gotten the sense yet, I'm actually a big procrastinator.

SPEAKER_01

That's my We might have to have you on for part two, procrastination.

SPEAKER_00

I can't believe how much I procrastinate because I go into like performance mode, and then when I'm not high energy, you know, under pressure, it's like, oh, well, I got time, I got, you know, but that's not how you create success. It's by not stopping. And so the question of what are you pretending not to know is what you get to ask yourself. And it is a direct question to your gut, to your heart, to your soul that you should immediately know the answer of what are you not doing? Who are you not talking to? What is the answer that you know is the thing? Because it's probably the thing you fear the most, but you're avoiding it. So what are you pretending not to know? And that will guide you in your decision making throughout the day. The other one is nobody has to change for you to win. For a long time, I looked to other people to do things for me or help me or give me a leg up or whatever it was. Or like even in my relationship with my wife. Why are you not doing all the things that I'm doing? Right. That was an old story that I had. And I think that's common in relationships is you look to the other person to do what you're doing. You set your standard, and so you expect them to live up to your standard. That's not how it works. Each individual person, you listening out there, you are a leader. You are the person, you are the source. Nobody else has to change for you to win. You get to release your expectations of everyone else in this world and only focus on your actions, your things, what you're doing, how you feel, and take that and keep going. Nobody has to change for you to win. And what are you pretending not to know?

SPEAKER_01

Well, Cassidy, it's been wonderful to have you on. Tell everybody where they can find you and obviously your amazing podcast.

SPEAKER_00

Yep, I'm on Instagram at Cassidy.warren. That's Cassidy with a K. I answer all my DMs. The podcast is called For Your Own Good. Spotify is the best place. And then on YouTube is just my name, Cassidy Warren. But weekly episodes, I do a lot of solo stuff. So if you liked what I was saying today, I do a lot of this just on my own. And then it's not just real estate, it's a it's a lot of mindset, business, entrepreneurship, health. And I would love it, love it if you could follow, leave a five star review, share with your friends and family. But again, it's called For Your Own Good.

SPEAKER_01

Amazing. Amazing. Thanks so much, Cassidy.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Scott, for having me.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you liked it, leave us a five star review. It helps other people learn more about us. And thank you so much to our wonderful team for making it sound good, look good. We couldn't do it without you.