David Sidoni Goes Against the Grain to Authentically Build a Million-Dollar Real Estate Platform

In this episode, host Rob Pene sits down with David Sidoni, creator of HowToBuyAHome.com and veteran real estate expert.

David shares his fascinating journey from acting alongside Christian Bale and hosting kids' game shows to discovering his true passion: helping first-time home buyers.

Learn how David built a nationwide network of carefully vetted real estate agents while staying true to his values, refusing to follow the typical "pay-to-play" model common in the industry.

David discusses his counterintuitive approach to scaling his business, the challenges of growing a podcast and YouTube channel, and why he chose education over selling courses.

From his early days as a soccer player to working with stage managers and directors, David reveals how diverse experiences shaped his unique approach to business and client service.

This conversation offers valuable insights for entrepreneurs about staying authentic while building a successful business that truly serves its customers.

Make sure to visit David's IG:
https://www.instagram.com/howtobuyahomepodcast

Transcript

Rob Pene (00:01.078)
Okay, okay, okay. Welcome everyone. It's nice to meet you. This is the behind the scenes stories of busy professionals. I am your host. Okay, let me see if I can get it this time. I didn't get it. I didn't get it. I didn't get it. But you can call me Rob. You can call me Rob.

I am from an island in Samoa and I'm grateful to be here in the United States because of baseball. Baseball is my ticket off the island. And from there, I learned how to do all this online stuff and emails because collect call to Samoa is very expensive. So I had to get very creative and I've been wanting to do a podcast for a while. Limiting beliefs stopped me, but 2025 is the year. Yeah, it's game time. No excuses. So I'm grateful to be here. Yes. This episode is actually brought to you by Get.

It's a LinkedIn ghost writing service. I know that there's a lot of people on other platforms, but they've decided to neglect LinkedIn maybe because it's not too sexy. The reality is there's a lot of business on LinkedIn. And if you need help managing it, GetGhosted is the service for you. So if you're interested, hit me up. We got you there. Today, I'm excited to have David Sidoni, like baloney, real easy to pronounce.

I'm excited because he's done so many things in business and the home buying process is a huge endeavor. And he's got the howtobuyahome.com, which is perfect, right? But also the insights that he has just in business in general. This guy, he's been there, done it. And we're going to try to pick his brain, man, to see what we can avoid in terms of mistakes and what we can use to accentuate and accelerate based on his...

Lessons learned. I appreciate you, man. Thanks for joining us.

David Sidoni (01:55.06)
Absolutely. I'm just David James Sedoni. You know, it's it's Italian and Midwestern. Not quite as cool. God, I love the Samoan names. That's awesome.

Rob Pene (02:05.47)
Yeah, I mix it up. It's like, man, okay, because it's just part of the village and the different heritage and all, but yeah, it's pretty fun. So to kickstart the conversation, I had this one question that a friend of mine was like, maybe ask this, it could be interesting. The question is, in the last 12 months, if you took that and turned it into a Netflix special, what would that movie be about and what would be the title?

David Sidoni (02:13.986)
That's awesome.

David Sidoni (02:35.384)
For myself?

Rob Pene (02:36.372)
Yeah, for you, in the last 12 months.

David Sidoni (02:39.438)
Okay, the last 12 months would have my Netflix movie would be

Building on the plateau. It would be about the career. I jumped five years ago. It would have been called jumping off a cliff. You know, to the last two to five years, it would have been climbing the ladder, but it would have been a little Cirque du Soleil. It would have been climbing the ladder while you're balancing the ladder. The ladder would have been business, but I would have had my family and all these exciting events.

Rob Pene (02:55.796)
Yeah.

David Sidoni (03:23.338)
as the balance. So I would have been like a circus freak. But the last year, it's been arriving in a plateau and kind of looking around. And each episode would be, you know, which horizon do I go towards? What do I do to build next? And then I'd probably throw a murder mystery in there just to keep everybody entertained.

Rob Pene (03:45.334)
I love it. love it. That's really interesting. I wanted to jump into the origin story, but I think what's intriguing to me is you're at the plateau and now you've got all these opportunities, which doors to open. What would be those doors? And then what's your thought process now going through and how you're analyzing those opportunities?

David Sidoni (04:10.062)
I think everyone hits an opportunity. There's the understanding of of where the opportunity lands in your own personal timeline. My personal timeline right now is, you know, what you would call a third act. This is where I have enough skill and experience in what I'm doing on the business side of things to I made the conscious choice to scale, but to scale into something that

Rob Pene (04:19.669)
Hmm.

David Sidoni (04:40.312)
brings me a lot more passion. You know, when you're younger, you got to work, you got to build things up. And then, you know, someday I'm going to do it this way. Well, guess what? 54 years old. This is my someday. So the where I'm at right now and and the steps that I'm trying to make, it's finding those scalable pieces that will, you know, like all businesses do bring more customers in.

but have that be something that I can sleep well with and ultimately thrive and get a lot of fulfillment out of it.

Rob Pene (05:20.852)
And is that how to buy a home? Is that one of those pieces?

David Sidoni (05:24.17)
It is the piece. Yeah.

Rob Pene (05:25.558)
okay, okay. Now, did that start during the jumping off the cliff era or did that start? yeah, let's, okay, okay. Yeah, let's go deeper into that then. That's really interesting.

David Sidoni (05:34.498)
That was the cliff, baby.

So the super thumbnail version of my professional life is in my twenties, I followed my passion, which will be the motif throughout. got into show business. I had an opportunity like baseball brought you here. I had the opportunity to play soccer, Division One. And then oops, my senior year, an arts high school came to my school and I got told my dad, felt like I really

Rob Pene (05:53.91)
I'm sorry.

Mm-hmm.

David Sidoni (06:10.574)
I had a lot more drive to sing and dance. So that was an interesting conversation. And so I followed that through my senior year, didn't go to college to play sports. I made a deal with my parents that I could go to junior college and carry a full load and follow my dreams. And then in my 20s, I got super lucky. Got in a movie with Christian Bale and Robert Duvall and

And then I was on a bunch of different television shows. And then I did that for about eight years. Had a career that was dance with Michael Jackson, you know, work with Gene Kelly. I was the kids version of of Pat Sajak or Ryan Seacrest. I was like I was the Wheel of Fortune host for the kids version of that show. And I was about 28 years old and I was hosted a kids game show and I just went I saw the landscape.

Rob Pene (06:54.955)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (06:59.57)
No way!

David Sidoni (07:07.2)
I had enough experience and realized that within that business, you had to be the top 1 % to have people send you projects or you had to hustle your whole life. And I think that's where my entrepreneurial spirit came in. People think that actors are entrepreneurs. You're not. You are job interviewing 24 seven. so the idea of being able to control my own destiny was something that was really important for me because family was very important to me and that was something I wanted to do.

that's when I got into real estate. I did some real estate investing. Then I met my wife, and we started to pursue things together and that created a 12 year journey where I moved from investing in real estate into residential real estate. And after 12 or 13 years, not only did I learn the industry, I also saw something in the industry that was, I absolutely wanted to change. And it was, and so I.

Rob Pene (08:03.156)
Mmm.

David Sidoni (08:05.646)
It was my wife who looked at me one day and said, you're only happy when you work with these first time home buyers. And so then I took a year to try to figure out, can I scale that? Because it'll bring me happiness. And then 2019, How to Buy a Home was born.

Rob Pene (08:12.534)
Hmm?

Rob Pene (08:24.406)
Wow. When you were working with residential, did you know that you had a particular joy when you worked with first time home buyers or did it take your wife kind of nudging you and kind of showing you the mirror? Yeah, how did that idea come about?

David Sidoni (08:43.906)
Within residents of real estate, everyone knows that's the joy, but it's the lowest return on your investment. And so within the industry, they tell you there's a better use of your time, your energy, and your resources. You know, it's kind of like a personal trainer when you're a realtor. There's only so many hours in a day, you know, and there's only so many first time homebuyers you can work with. And there are a lot more hours and time than when you take a listing and you sell a home.

So the industry pretends like logically, this is why you cut your teeth with first time home buyers. And then you move up and you were in the position where I was, where you have a team, you have other agents working for you. You know, you're leveraging out and scaling so that you can still put in the eight hours a day, but you're going to make more volume. The difference is though, they say that that's why they're doing it, but it's truly because they have a business model built in with the brokers.

where the first time home buyers get the worst service and everybody knows it, but they pretend they don't.

Rob Pene (09:50.772)
And that's what you set out to solve.

David Sidoni (09:50.957)
Yeah.

David Sidoni (09:55.222)
Yes, yes, I saw I got in the real estate game in 2006 on the residential side and the market crashed during that crash time. I'm in Southern California. I'm by Disneyland. So I worked with a ton of people who worked at Disneyland. And because the prices were going down, I helped a lot of these first time home buyers keep their dream job working at Disneyland, which has a cap. You know, you know, it's.

Rob Pene (10:17.024)
Mm-hmm. Mm!

David Sidoni (10:23.244)
Most of the people who run the parks, not a lot of them are thinking about, you know, the management and everything. It will have a cap. A lot of them just do the daily jobs. So helping them figure out a way to make a rent replacement strategy and turn their rent that they're already paying, which ain't cheap here in Southern California, into a wealth, you know, a safe appreciating asset that will develop wealth for all of them.

Rob Pene (10:32.501)
Yeah.

David Sidoni (10:53.73)
all my friends around here. It's like all our parents, like half their retirement plan was what am I going to do with my Orange County, California house? Because you know, if they bought it in the 70s, like my parents did, at some point, there's 500 to $1 million worth of equity that you have to do what you want with. creating that strategy system for people was

super important getting them out of renting so they're not spending 25, $35,000 a year on rent. But the industry throws them to untrained people. And those licensed agents are basically getting on the job training with the first time home buyers. So that fulfilled my passion. But I could only do it for so many people here in Southern California. And it was more time, money and energy. So I had to figure out something new.

Rob Pene (11:39.53)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (11:48.626)
Yeah, so what was the new thing? How did you turn it? Yeah.

David Sidoni (11:52.258)
We're on it, dude. I thought it was going to be YouTube. I swore when my wife said only makes you happy. Well, former television host rad. I'll start a YouTube channel. Right. But then thankfully, because of the people that I had around me, I realized that you always want to be learning. So I was constantly listening to entrepreneurial podcasts. I was listening to and a lot of marketing because

Rob Pene (12:01.463)
huh.

Rob Pene (12:16.918)
Mm-hmm.

David Sidoni (12:20.792)
You have to do that a different level. And some of those podcasts said, hey, dummy, you're listening to a podcast. This is a great way to get to people. So I was doing everything I was doing. LinkedIn, Facebook back then, Instagram. And I was doing YouTube thinking that was going to be how I would grow my business here. And then I went, well, I'll throw a podcast together, too. That's a good idea. Little did I know that podcasts are.

the number one way that people research something as important as buying a home because they could do it when they're washing the dishes, walking the dogs, and commuting to work or working out.

Rob Pene (13:00.436)
Yeah. Yeah. Now, are you able to scale the local business like the, or did this open up to the entire nation where you could do that too?

David Sidoni (13:14.754)
Great question. The original intent was to scale the local business. Excuse me. And then I was going to hire some some people and train them correctly, unlike the rest of the industry does, and have a team of little mini-me's. And, you know, that way I would sell everybody who works at Disneyland. And it was really built on the concept of I was driving to the Starbucks next to Disneyland so often that

Rob Pene (13:18.986)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (13:25.706)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Pene (13:33.46)
Yeah. Yeah.

David Sidoni (13:42.912)
I mean, they didn't have to write my name on my cup and ask me my name. They knew my name. They're like, it's David, the real estate guy. So I thought, well, if I do a podcast, they can listen to this stuff. It's like taking your first buyer consultation meeting with somebody and having them do it on their own. And then when you get to the next one, you can go to a higher level because you're both already a certain level of understanding. Oops, podcasts go everywhere. So a few months in, people are calling me going, I'm in Denver.

Rob Pene (13:48.5)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (14:06.507)
Yeah.

David Sidoni (14:11.416)
who's like you in my area? Then that was the cliff. That's when I went, what do I do? So now I took a couple different business models that are out there to nationally help people in the real estate industry. I took everything I liked about them, which wasn't much. And then I took everything I didn't like about them and went away from that. Mostly the fact that all of them are pay for play. You know?

Rob Pene (14:13.343)
Yeah

Rob Pene (14:19.861)
Hmm.

Rob Pene (14:29.919)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Pene (14:37.46)
Yeah. Yeah.

David Sidoni (14:38.71)
Like you go on Zillow and there's an agent next to a house you like and you click on that. It's not because that agent is really good at their job. It's because they paid Zillow the most money. And, you know, Dave Ramsey and all these other people, they have these people they like to call their vetted unique people. They pay a monthly subscription, not to mention an upfront fee. So I had to create a business model different than anyone else's where

Rob Pene (14:55.222)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (14:58.656)
Yeah.

David Sidoni (15:05.582)
Instead of having 20,000 agents all over the country that I go, I know somebody in Denver. say, I've been doing this now. I'm almost 20 years in business now. And I know thousands of agents. only have 225 that I think are good for first time home buyers and that I have vetted. So that's when it became national. And that's when I got serious about having to build a backend, creating scale.

Rob Pene (15:31.956)
Mm-hmm

David Sidoni (15:34.146)
being able to service everyone with a personal touch and building a nationwide direct to consumer business that fulfilled everything for everybody.

Rob Pene (15:45.91)
How did you get buy-in on those guys, the different people that you connected with, the other agents?

David Sidoni (15:51.852)
Within the real estate industry, you know, fortunately, I was in a coaching program. I signed up for coaching before I got my license. And it was it was just happenstance that I was at my training and one of the coaching companies was going to the Anaheim Convention Center, which is across the street from Disneyland. And the whole coaching process was building a business by referral. And I'm like, well, I know everybody across the street. So I beg my wife for.

whatever it was, the 450 bucks to go to this two day thing. And then between day one and day two, I begged her for $4,500 to sign up for a year's worth of coaching. She's like, you don't have your license yet. I was like, it's gonna work. And by part of that is the relationships with other people. You quite often as a real estate agent will have somebody that is gets a job transfer from Orange County, California to Dallas. So

Rob Pene (16:32.202)
Yeah, yeah.

David Sidoni (16:48.802)
three to four times a year, I would go to different conferences all over the country and meet people. So I had built up a group and then I went through and vetted all those people. I threw my wacky idea out to all of them. Some of them went for it, some of them didn't. And for the first two years, building that group so I could put my name to everybody was probably half my day. I was on the phone.

Rob Pene (16:54.486)
Mmm.

David Sidoni (17:18.678)
And I sounded crazy to a lot of these people. And now we're with our numbers, you know, almost 1.8 million downloads on the podcasts. And we're doing over 100 million dollars worth of real estate every year sending people out. Now suddenly people are starting to call me, which is kind of

Rob Pene (17:40.436)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So those first two years, you're making putting all that time in with very little return.

David Sidoni (17:47.352)
Correct. Correct. was the story I tell people is you ever hear the stories about the entrepreneurs that sleep in their cars because they believe in what they're doing? You know, there are people that will will cash out and take 50 grand or 75 grand and put it into an idea and bootstrap. And there are other people that will talk to VCs, you know, and get or get angel investors. I had the fortunate ability to just work my face off.

Rob Pene (17:56.917)
No.

David Sidoni (18:16.664)
for two years. So eight hours a day I was building this. The other eight hours a day, because yeah, I worked them was when I continued to sell real estate in my area.

Rob Pene (18:27.828)
Yeah. Okay. Wow. And it paid off. How did... Well, let me back up. Did you see an increase in the local business faster than the national?

David Sidoni (18:43.434)
I saw, yes, I did.

Rob Pene (18:46.718)
Wow, just from the podcast.

David Sidoni (18:48.512)
Absolutely. In, you know, your normal realtor, like when I have a team, you know, we were closing 5565 in Southern California because the average price point and blah, blah, blah. It's different everywhere. But, you know, six figures is about 10 deals here in Southern California. So you're doing all right. You know, on my good years, I'm doing 25 or 35 deals, handling a couple transactions a month.

Rob Pene (19:07.381)
Hmm.

Rob Pene (19:14.762)
Wow.

David Sidoni (19:18.99)
In 2022, because of the podcast, I had 14 people that reached out to me because of the podcast in Southern California.

Rob Pene (19:30.398)
Wow.

David Sidoni (19:32.387)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (19:33.59)
How did they find the podcast?

David Sidoni (19:35.47)
It's such a great question. I have a, you know, a company that helps me with some of the analytics. Um, I don't know how I found it, but a lot of people listen to my podcast on the Apple watches. So I think it's a workout thing. Like 80 % of the people listen on the Apple watch, um, or another watch, cause it's could be both Spotify as well. My Spotify numbers are, I think we've got 8,000 people to follow us on Spotify. Um, but the

Rob Pene (19:47.565)
Really?

David Sidoni (20:05.262)
The error in the trial of error of entrepreneurship was me trying to get people to find us. I spent so much time and money. I hired and fired seven different social media marketing people. know, people are managing my social media account and you have to stay on top of it. Every trend that happened, I tried and you know, and I found a trend on TikTok and I went from 7,000 to 150,000 followers, you know.

Rob Pene (20:07.766)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (20:17.981)
Yeah!

David Sidoni (20:34.582)
Instagram is constantly changing. And then one of the things I found was when you have a podcast that is education based, advertising on other podcasts creates that niche listener, someone who's listening to a podcast. If you say something that they want to learn about, they're probably going to listen. It's super expensive. And after 18 months, my, my listenership increased.

Rob Pene (20:57.631)
Yeah.

David Sidoni (21:02.882)
But the return on investment was break even and I didn't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep doing it. So I've been bootstrapping it as we continue.

Rob Pene (21:08.384)
Right.

Rob Pene (21:12.372)
That's really interesting because the common suggestion would be, yeah, market, know, get on every platform, yeah, run with agency. So you're saying one thing.

David Sidoni (21:25.026)
There was, there is something to be said and, but it's the timing. Even five years ago, if you posted, have a podcast, listen to this. There would be more interest than there would today. If you post something on Instagram that says, I talk about this on my pocket, they don't care. They just want to see a video that tells them everything they want to know in 30 seconds. And then you have to keep producing those. And then eventually they're going to go.

Rob Pene (21:30.71)
Okay.

Rob Pene (21:37.877)
Right, right.

David Sidoni (21:54.924)
Hey, that guy, maybe maybe he goes deeper into this and I can listen to this while I'm on the train or driving to work and give him give him something else. But, you know, like like anything, you know, you could spend all the money on a Super Bowl commercial and get lots of eyeballs. And that's doing putting my commercial as a podcast on other commercials or, yeah, a commercial on other podcasts. It grew my audience.

Rob Pene (22:02.528)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (22:11.23)
Right. Right.

David Sidoni (22:23.714)
but it was very expensive. And so now we're working all kinds of other things and we're developing the YouTube channel as well, which is gonna be a whole different audience.

Rob Pene (22:34.25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you'd think you two would have worked in the past, you know.

David Sidoni (22:38.22)
That's another one. I say we're developing and we're about to relaunch. Talk about an animal. I've spent a year including multiple workshops, thousands of dollars. It's an animal and you need to treat it right, you know, and it's kind of like it's very much like podcasting. You have to, you know, I don't I forget the stats, but they're ridiculous. Like, you know, two and a half million podcasts and like

Rob Pene (22:55.349)
Wow.

Rob Pene (22:58.944)
Yeah.

David Sidoni (23:06.946)
the hundreds under 100,000 or whatever are more than six months. And with YouTube, the discoverability of who you are and what you are can be from a marketing standpoint, far more important than your content. And so, you know, the years worth of studying I did, we've had to become thumbnail and title experts. And my personal knowledge of what I say on the video, it's almost, you know, fifth on the list.

Rob Pene (23:15.659)
Is it?

Rob Pene (23:36.264)
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So are you operating other, like, do you have other passion projects or you're taking this brand and then you're, kind of building different channels within it, like maybe a coaching program or yeah. What's your profile like?

David Sidoni (23:54.142)
I I I'm nodding because I understand the answer is no. What everybody under the sun has come to me and said you could be making a ton of money with all these different streams. That's what everyone else does in real estate. In order for me to be authentic and real to the savvy consumer.

Rob Pene (23:59.464)
Mmmmm.

Rob Pene (24:11.283)
Mm-hmm.

David Sidoni (24:22.816)
I have no sponsors on my podcast. I only have 225 people. don't get everybody to come in. I don't refer people to people I don't know are going to do the right job for these people. and I don't charge the individuals or the realtors to come and take a website, a webinar or a workshop. Because when I started this, I saw the numbers, the numbers are, you know, last year it was.

like only about a million first time home buyers out of the four million homes that closed. But every year it's usually between, you know, about one and a half million first time home buyers. I'm not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but my goal is the people who want the help that's real and showing them the insider secrets. If we get tens of thousands of those, which is a small market share every single year.

we're still a company that's making enough money so that everybody's happy and we're not fleecing the consumer. So I'm sticking to that much to the chagrin of my wife for the last year while I've been on this plateau.

Rob Pene (25:26.388)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rob Pene (25:38.238)
Yeah. So you're just doing the real estate, but not like what other people would capitalize on, which is the real estate course, the mentoring, the coaching.

David Sidoni (25:52.374)
It's out there and everyone does it. And, when you get into that mindset, what you're, what you're trying to scale is scale the amount of people to come in and purchase a product and you pray they move on.

Rob Pene (26:07.574)
Mmmmm.

David Sidoni (26:09.294)
The only thing I'm selling here is education. I have tens of thousands of people that have gone through the program and have bought their own home. I've also had 10,000 people that listen to my podcast for free, and I ain't never heard from. I get pictures all the time, just randomly, to my website. David, thank you so much. We listened to everything. We went out and we found our own team using all the advice you gave us. This is us in front of our new house.

Rob Pene (26:11.486)
Mm-hmm

Rob Pene (26:37.951)
Wow.

David Sidoni (26:39.5)
With 1.5 million potential customers on a turnover year after year, I'm fine if not everybody uses me because the people who find me realize I'm not in it to sell them a workshop. I'm in it to educate them. And then some of them will go, all right, if this guy's that straight up, maybe I'll ask him and I'll interview one of his people, you know, in our quest to buy a home.

Rob Pene (27:07.946)
Yeah, you know, that's almost countercultural in the entrepreneurial online marketing and business space. So it definitely is refreshing. I could sense that you had this deeper, keen sense of understanding of yourself and then, you know, your surroundings early on, it sounded like when you knew, you know what, maybe soccer is not the thing. That's a really bold move to make that early.

Yeah, so it it makes sense for you doing what you're doing now. Again, that's a bold move because it's not what a lot of people are teaching, are promoting. Yeah, but I think that's where you're blessed, man, because you're doing the one thing and you're concerned about the consumer so they don't fall under the trap of the, that early, you know, new person just trying to sell them something.

is very refreshing. Now, last question. Did you learn that from someone? Was there a mentor or is that just from self-reflection? Where did you get that vibe, that DNA from?

David Sidoni (28:23.06)
You know, a lot of people said to me when I first got into real estate, they said, you're going to be great in real estate because you're a performer. You're an actor. Most people think that people who do well in sales are people who have that in them. I quickly learned that actually it was me working with the people who were on stage running the stage.

Rob Pene (28:32.629)
Hmm.

David Sidoni (28:50.592)
you know, the stage managers, the assistant directors, the people who put out fires all day long, that's the people you emulate to have a successful career as an individual real estate agent, not the actor. It's not the shiny fluff. It's the problem solver. And then as an entrepreneur building a business, not just building a business, building a business against the grain counterculture, same thing. So

Rob Pene (29:02.197)
Wow.

David Sidoni (29:20.416)
I think that came originally from sports and understanding that, you know, God, when I was a kid, it was Dan Marino doing isotoner glove commercials where he was giving his offensive lineman gloves for Christmas. And I remember talking to my dad about that and my dad equated it to my soccer team. I was the guy who scored all the goals, but don't think I wasn't excited to

give the credit to the midfielders and the defenders and my goalkeeper and the team lifting everybody up through your own personal achievements, no matter how individual they might feel. I think that was the thing that propelled me to the place that I thought if I help, mean, it's the old zig, zig, thing, right? How do get what you want? Help people get what they want. And so it was a lot of coaches.

Rob Pene (30:12.895)
Hmm

David Sidoni (30:17.701)
actual soccer coaches. then for me, it was really the great directors, that I worked with. And then when I started to research on my own, listening to other people's entrepreneurial podcasts, straight up those dudes with taking pictures of themselves in fancy suits in front of the planes, your 24 year old life coach.

Rob Pene (30:46.57)
Yeah.

David Sidoni (30:47.136)
Yeah, no thanks, bro. You how long have you been living? It was the other people, the down to earth entrepreneur people who who came from a place and you have to be careful because you can get a lot of fluff and a lot of motivation. And, you know, when I started in real estate, the secret was really big, which was, you know, vision it. And man, I'm like, my butt was working. I was the kid who stayed after practice and went over drills. That's why I was good.

Rob Pene (31:00.916)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

David Sidoni (31:16.928)
Not because I was visioning something. But then understanding the, the, you know, neuro linguistic programming of, of positive affirmations and hearing people talk to me about that. It's where I learned the balance. So originally I took things from like my Mr. Miyagi was a, was a kind of, you know, an algorithm of like 10 coaches and directors all shoved into one.

And then it became constantly listening to other people who were doing it well. Thank God we live in a great time like this. Look at you and your podcast. It's like, you know, I get to wake up today and have a conversation, you know, and this will propel me to the next level. And continuing to do that and find a little piece from everybody is important. And like I said, I had a coach since day one.

Rob Pene (32:12.133)
Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's good. So I have four kids, three of them played soccer. One didn't. 14, 13, 12, and 12. The 12 year old that didn't play soccer, I can tell the difference in her temperament because she hasn't gone through like the teamwork or being coached and stuff. Very different. So I think, yeah, any kind of coach is helpful.

David Sidoni (32:36.044)
Yeah, and it's amazing how much, you my real estate mentor brought Lou Holtz to the mastermind that we had one year, you know? And then there's an Air Force, you know, a Blue Angel pilot, and then there's someone who climbed Mount Everest. And you're thinking, I'm going to listen to the guy talk about Mount Everest. You know, the Blue Angel teamwork, of course.

Rob Pene (32:46.026)
Wow, look at that dude.

David Sidoni (33:02.986)
If you're not teamwork there, you move a little bit, you're hitting a plane, you know, but the Mount Everest people that was incredible to listen to them talk about the Sherpas, the conversations and talking to the people who have done this before you. And then, you know, with each team and with each coach and with each new challenge that you're taking in life, you're always going to find something that can become a piece of the next thing that you want to do.

Rob Pene (33:06.409)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rob Pene (33:11.19)
Yes.

David Sidoni (33:31.074)
And that's why I woke up that day. And when my wife said that to me, I was like, Hey, maybe I know enough that I can actually do what I want to do instead of spending the rest of my days just making money so that I can retire.

Rob Pene (33:38.965)
Hmm.

Rob Pene (33:43.412)
Mm-hmm. Right. man. I appreciate you for being our coach today on being okay with yourself and going against the grain and knowing that it's possible to be wealthy while doing the right thing. Yeah, that's super, super huge. So as we conclude, listeners go to howtobuyahome.com, Howtobuyahome.com, first time home buyers. That's the educational...

platform that you need to learn everything that you would like. And if you're in another state other than California, there's people there that can help you from listening to the how you how to buy a home.com. And if you're listening as a professional, you need LinkedIn management, go get ghosted.com. We'll take care of all that stuff for you. So with that, is there anywhere else that they can find you? Instagram handle? YouTube?

David Sidoni (34:40.046)
YouTube is how to buy a home. Instagram is how to buy a home podcast because some fool took how to buy a home in 2018 and posted six times and won't let it go. But it's how to buy a home or how to buy a home podcast you can find me everywhere.

Rob Pene (34:41.94)
Okay, yeah.

Rob Pene (34:55.35)
Nice, nice, nice. Well, I appreciate you, man. Thanks for joining. And this has been eye-opening. Yeah, and refreshing. Appreciate your weather. Cool.

David Sidoni (35:02.552)
Thanks, Penny.