Ep. 62: Bonneau Ansley - My Comeback Story [Dyslexia to $440 Million]

In this episode of Interesting Humans, “Bonneau Ansley: My Comeback Story [Dyslexia to $440 Million],” real estate mogul Bonneau Ansley recounts his journey from struggling with dyslexia to building a $440 million business empire. He begins by describing the challenges he faced in school: being labeled “stupid,” failing classes, and internalizing negative expectations. Rather than letting that define him, Ansley used that adversity as motivation.

He emphasizes the importance of persistence and resilience. Rather than giving into defeat or pity, he chose to outwork others—putting in long hours, sacrificing comfort, and embracing the grind. He also credits mentors and role models who believed in him when nobody else did, giving him both encouragement and practical guidance.

Another key theme is self-belief. Ansley argues that success starts with a mindset—if you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will. He insists that “vision” and “belief” must precede results, and that failures are simply data points to learn from. He urges viewers to redefine failure, treating it as feedback, not an endpoint.

Finally, he underlines the value of giving back: as his wealth grew, so did his commitment to supporting others—particularly those with learning differences or disadvantaged backgrounds. His story is framed as a “comeback,” not just personally, but in showing how limitations can be transformed into fuel for breakthrough success.

🎙️Host : @jeffhopeck
🚀Guest : @bonneau_ansley

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey guys, I'm Jeff Hopeck. Welcome back to another episode here of Interesting Humans Podcast. And boy, do I have one for you here today. Benoit Ansley, he's truly an icon in the Atlanta real estate market. Started his company with just one real estate agent, uh sold it for a unbelievable number, 440 million, 500 real estate agents, but did some incredible stuff along the way. It all goes back to his humble roots. So he was born with dyslexia, ADHD, struggled in school, and in college, something happened, right? And he's gonna walk through that, but you're gonna hear his entire life story today. It's worth every single second you invest into this episode. He's not only an incredible entrepreneur, published author, but he's just an awesome, awesome human being. All right, Benoit, where did this all start for you?

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Well, I was born at Piedmont Hospital, right here in Atlanta, Georgia.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

True local. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

True local family's been in Atlanta uh many generations, and um we're still here in Atlanta, Georgia.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

And how many generations now is this for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Uh I think we're probably fifth or sixth generation Atlanta.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Jeez, unbelievable. All right, so let's let's talk about grade school. What did that look like? Where was it? What did it feel like?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Grade school was at the Westminster School, which I was one of the few kids that could ride their motorcycle to school, right? So uh from my backyard, there was a trail that we cut that went right to the elementary school. And uh I could ride my my my motorcycle, my little 50cc motorcycle in elementary school. Oh um, and uh it kind of brings me back to what was that movie, the the bad news bears and that that dude that that drove the motorcycle that was the picture. So I was kind of that kid. I'd I'd ride into the school. You know, then back then we didn't wear helmets or anything. No. And I'd stroll into school and uh and that's where the that's where the party and that's where the fun started. This was this was an elementary school. I wasn't uh I wasn't mature enough to dive into the classes, so I was just there to have a good time.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

To have a good time.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

To have a good time. So that lasted um till fifth grade.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Till fifth grade.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

And they said, hey, uh this guy might need to go somewhere else. So uh so I then went to another school in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_04 2:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Tried that on for size, uh, sixth and seventh grade.

SPEAKER_04 2:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Uh that really didn't take. Uh I couldn't ride my motorcycle to school, but I was still uh the class clown. And um, and then there there really at that point wasn't many other options for me in Atlanta. So I uh went to school. I think my dad and some of his buddies made a group discount deal, and they sent about four or five kids uh from Atlanta to this school in Connecticut. So we all went up there in eighth grade, and uh there's like four or five of us. Yeah, it was a boarding school. Yeah, it was a boarding school in Connecticut, a junior boarding school. So we cut our teeth there. Um and it was young to be in boarding school at that time. I mean, I I I won a wrestling tournament. So the only reason why I know this is because I've got the little brackets and I won the 75-pound wrestling tournament.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

So when I look at that, I'm like, what? Did my parents really, when I was 75 pounds, send me all the way to Connecticut? And that's the truth.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

That's small.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

I was a little dude.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

But I gotta tell you, I mean, when when you have the experiences and you're off and you're in seventh grade and you're 13 years old or whatever age I was, you you're learning through a pack of other kids.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

And uh you really gotta learn how to fight for yourself, defend yourself, eat, you know, figure out um, you know, how to manage your time. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Life skills. Oh my god, but imagine, but you don't have, you know, what do they call it?

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Parachuting parents, what's the term? Yeah, you know, helicopter. You don't have helicopter parents, you don't have all that in in in burp boarding school when you're in seventh and eighth grade.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Yeah, 900 miles from hour.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

So you really gotta figure out stuff on your own. And wasn't fun, wasn't easy, but it sure did teach me a lot.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Yeah, how bad.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

So when I got to a beautiful school, Woodbury Forest, it was like on 2,000 acres. It was like a country club. I thought I died and went to heaven. I was like, well, are you kidding me? No parents around I can fish in the morning. I got you know phenomenal teachers that want to be there. Yeah, um, I loved my experience uh 9th through 12th at Woodbury Forest. And my uh relationships, um, my friends, I had deep relationships because you're you know on this campus and you don't leave much. Yeah, and you have to make your own fun and everything else. And um that's where I really grew up and uh and and really uh loved uh just being around other people and playing sports. I loved sports. I was a wrestler, I was a football player until everybody else got a lot bigger than me, um, and baseball.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Uh and and and I learned how to fish, fly fish in the river there, and just uh I loved I loved my ninth through twelfth experience. It was an all-boys school. That was awesome. It was an all-boys school, so uh you know they would bust the girls in on the weekends for dances and things, and um, you know, me and my roommate uh Sanders, we had some uh we had uh girlfriends in the neighboring little village of uh Orange, Virginia. Um so we had it, we had a great time. That's a great time.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Let's come back a couple years. Tell me what it was like like growing up. How many siblings? Where were you in the birth order? What it was all about.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yeah, I was the youngest kid. Uh my sister, uh Fane uh was uh very gifted academically. Um I think she scored a perfect score on her SAT. Uh she ended up going to Harvard and um you know as has uh uh just you know, she's a an artist and uh and a writer. She's a a wonderful lady. Um and uh but she had the the IQ of the family. And uh in in this world we lived in, um, she fit in the school box about as good as anybody could fit in the school box. So from a success standpoint and being successful early on, she was the golden, she was the golden one. Yeah, older sister, two years older, yeah, yeah, coming up and being uh Fayne's little brother that I guess I didn't have the IQ. Um I had EQ, which I learned later. Oh, that's awesome. Uh, emotional intelligence made me feel better about myself. Like, oh, there's this thing called EQ, and but oh, you've got a lot of that. Okay, cool, that's good. Right. Um, but I didn't fit in that box of success early on. Makes sense, right? Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

So she she goes to school, she has it sounds like almost no hiccup. She just goes through the system, comes out, is successful, and continues on that path. And what does that what did that feel like back in that time? What did that feel like for you watching that, knowing that you're going a different way?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Well, I was um I had a lot of friends, and I I was just in it for the social, in it for the laughs. Uh the party planner. Yeah, I mean, the teacher would turn around and write on the chalkboard. I was on my my my seats, you know, air surfing, I mean, you know, and throwing things to my buddies and everything else. I mean, I I was uh I had I had a lot of fun. I was looking for a lot of laughs. Yeah, yeah. But not focused on anything because I didn't uh I wasn't interested in in much except for history a little bit, you know, starting out. Um, but uh they they they started a class for me and my really good friends, uh Sanders included, but we couldn't we couldn't do regular chemistry and we had to get through uh that credit, so they uh figured out a class um that they could start called Chemistry in the Community. Whoa. And there was uh me and uh uh four or five of my buddies in there, and we they developed this class for us, and we we all got through chemistry.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Wow, what was that what was it all about?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Well, I don't even know. Chemistry in the community, like uh, you know, what's what's in a what's in a pool? What's in a, you know, I mean, what's up?

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Actually, really cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Yeah, it was great. I mean, it was we had a fun teacher, and it was all we could handle at the time.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Yeah, yeah. Okay, back home then. So you're in Connecticut, mom and dad are back home. Yeah. What was what were things like with mom and dad? Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

They they've been married for over 50 years, they're both 83 years old right now, loving parents. Um my dad was a very successful businessman, uh, home builder. Right. Um, he sold his uh company when he was probably 52 years old. Okay. Um and then did did did investments, you know, from then on out.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Um and and that company, I mean, ever I don't think there's anybody in Atlanta that doesn't know the name. Tell tell us a little bit about it. How did it start? What was it? It was golf courses, it was a bunch of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Well, he um, you know, our our our our our family early on, starting in like 1904, you know, was was you know, Ansley Park in Atlanta uh developed that Ansley uh country club, you know, and uh and all kinds of different things. That wasn't my dad, that was just part of the family, and then dad came around and started Colony Homes with um his friend Tom Bradbury in 1975, the year I was born, and they built a great company um up and um and ended up selling it right when I was finishing up University of Georgia. Yeah. So the nice thing for me is I always thought I was gonna go work with my dad, yeah, and uh he ended up selling the company probably my senior year of college. So I never got to really do that, except we've been able to work over the last 30 years with different deals we've done together and stuff like that. So we've had a great time, um special, special time doing different deals together. Um, but the nice thing about that is is I never had to um work in a big company as the the founder's son. So I I I got to go out early and try to create my own path, sure. Um, which looking back was probably a really good thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

A really good thing. Let's focus on that that little time timeline between high school and college. Where did you go to college? What was your deciding factor of choosing that school and what that's that whole process? What did it look like?

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Well, I didn't have a lot of options uh in University of Georgia. Uh thank gosh that six generations ahead of me went there. Um so I got into University of Georgia. It was a lot easier to get in in 1995. It's brutal now. Um so I got into University of Georgia. I um I pledged a fraternity which I absolutely loved. Uh I ended up being president of that fraternity SAE, my senior year. Yeah. I was Russ Chairman my sophomore year, so I got to really develop great relationships with the younger guys from all these different little towns in Georgia coming in. And if you're gonna work in Georgia, which I have, knowing all these great kids and and and now friends from every little area of Georgia has been really awesome.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

I'll bet.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

And uh and being Rush Chairman and really starting to to to to to meet all the younger guys coming up and then running the fraternity as a senior. I mean, I was really into it. I knew everybody, and I still keep up. I am very good at keeping up with my friends.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

You are?

SPEAKER_01 12:44

I'm really I I I I I love my friends, and um I've got just I think I've got the best friends in the world.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

I mean, so you're a connector.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

I just we we we we do fishing trips and golf trips and uh we we text you know 50, 60, 80 texts a day with friends and group text, and um, and they're all from high school or college or new friends that I'm meeting when I sell them a house. I also develop great relationships. That's why I love my life. Yeah, because I'm around people and I get to meet very interesting people and it fuels me. Yeah, you know, and if there's if there's somebody that I'm with that um, you know, takes energy away. I don't spend any time with them because I love people that help me gain energy, and um I've got a lot of folks that do that.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Yeah, that's awesome. We we're working now with the kids. I love this term they brought it home from school. It's are you a bucket filler? So we're teaching them to be bucket fillers, filling up the buckets really smart instead of pulling out of the bucket, it's just a cool little term, but I love it. I'm curious, I have a feeling there was a business or something you were doing in college. You're the president of a fraternity. Uh I don't know how much studying you were doing, but I want to hear from you on that. Was there a business?

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Well, that's really I I was learning outside the box, right? So so this started in high school. Uh high school, probably starting my sophomore year, I started making t-shirts. And we would sell them to the this was 1992. Okay. 1993.

SPEAKER_04 14:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Um, and I had an immediate group. So when the freshman came in as a sophomore junior, I'd come in with a bag of t-shirts and tell them they had to buy a t-shirt for 15, 20 bucks.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

How's that for sale?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Well, the catch buyer. Well, yeah, here's your shirt, dude. Cash only. Uh cash only. And um, I sold a ton of t-shirts uh in high school, and then I started selling hats. And then I started cross-selling to other schools when we play football games against them. Our main rivalry was Episcopal High School, and I had this hat called The Game, and uh, you know, hundredth game, and these kind of, you know, and I sell them to the other other schools and um create t-shirts that both could wear and hats that both could wear, and I learned cross-selling and I learned how to have a partner on the other side uh at the other school, and um, it was awesome, man. I I made a ton of money, cash money. That's so cool. And that's what kind of fueled me. I mean, I wasn't having success like everybody else, you know, making straight A's, but I was making cash money.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Making t-shirts, and that kind of went into college, my freshman year of college, started a legitimate company where we bought silk screen printers. We had interns that worked at the University of Georgia to help design graphically and um the slogans and the and and the shirts we were doing. We'd sell them to every fraternity and sorority at Georgia for every party that they would do. Then we'd start making mugs and all kinds of stuff. It was so cool. Um that's awesome. And I I I I you know I had cash money as a as a as a college guy, and I'd buy a four-wheeler or put on bigger tires on my car, and then I bought a ski boat which helped with the the the ladies and taking the ladies in a cooler beard. We go, you know, skiing on the lake, and uh we had a great time. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

So there's not I love that how you said it. There's learning like what's going on out in the war, like books, and but you're learning the world. Whether you knew it or not.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

I was studying people. Yeah I was studying people when I was figuring out what made people go and what made them tick, and what questions could I ask? Could you be a good listener, you know? Um, could you be a good friend? You know, I learned all those things and I became really um really good at that kind of stuff, yeah. Um, which you know made me a good salesperson, a natural salesperson, where I didn't have to try uh to be outgoing and to get people's phone numbers and to ask for them, ask for a sale. I didn't have to try for that stuff. It came so naturally for me. Um, and I think that really goes back from my boarding school days, right? Um and uh uh but but but but those little businesses in high school and college really framed me to do what I've done over the last 30 years. I'm 50 years old now, right? Um and uh I'm a salesman, I'm a connector, and that's that's all I am. I'm I'm I knew that I wasn't gonna be a lawyer or nuclear scientist or or um a doctor. I mean, I I just knew that wasn't in the cards, right? For me. And never tried to pursue things that I knew I wasn't gonna be really, really good at or natural at. Yeah. Um, and lucky for me, I learned that at an early age, right? Some people try all these different things and they become 40 years old, and they really haven't found what they love to do yet, what their passions are, right? But make sure that their skill set, what they're good at, morphs into what what their passion is. So they've got a natural way to spend their days and have fun that works for their body and their mind, right? And luckily I was able to find that early on. And it goes back to my boarding school days.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Yeah. And something you correct me if I'm wrong, but you had support from home doing all this. It wasn't like, but no, stop doing this. You can't own a business, you're too young.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Because that's common talk.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Well, let's let's talk about that for a minute.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

What was it like?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Well, in that time period, they were just discovering why some kids act the way they do, why some kids think the way they do. And they'd say, Oh, this kid's got a learning disability. He needs to be in the small room next door.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

And you did have.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

With the three other kids.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

What did you have?

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Well, I had everything. Look, you can find something wrong, especially these days, where now everybody's looking for something.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Well, everybody's. Look hard enough and you'll find it.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Everybody's got something. And maybe my, what do they call it? This lobe with a frontal lobe. Maybe my frontal lobe didn't develop, you know, as fast as it, whatever the thing is. I was immature, I was having fun. But I was also um not interested in things that I wasn't interested in, and I couldn't be interested. So they call that ADD. Yeah. All right, big deal, right? But the things that I'm interested in, man, I'm gonna hyper focus, I'm gonna lock in. Look out. I'm gonna lock in on those things. So they now phrase that, you know, um hyperfocusing. Right. Okay, that's cool, whatever. It's a strength. So it's a strength. It's a strength today. But when you're in the little small little room with the other ADHD kids, like, okay, whatever. I'm also dyslexic. Okay, oh no, what's gonna happen there? All right, well, that just means I learn differently. It means I'm not gonna score well on text. It means that, you know, my like, unlike my sister, you know, the wires in my brain aren't all connected the right, when I say the right way, the way that most kids' lines are connected in their brain.

SPEAKER_03 20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

So being dyslexic, my lines are all messed, not messed up, but just curving and doing different things.

SPEAKER_03 20:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

So I learn differently. I see things differently, I read differently. Yeah. Takes me a longer time to read, but maybe I like now to listen to books, listen to podcasts, get the same information. Um, I can I can remember things maybe better than other people. Sometimes I got a photographic memory, which has been helpful. Yeah, that's awesome. But because these lines aren't like everybody else's, I see things, I do things differently. Okay, that's not a big deal, but it is early on. So the school I went to in Connecticut, seventh and eighth grade, specialized in kids like me. So they taught me, I had the parents that were able to send me to a school to help me learn the way my brain is orchestrated. Phenomenal. Wow. Not every kid gets that, right? And it breaks my heart. So my passion is I um Try to support other schools. There's a school that my buddy's doing called Thrive in Atlanta, which helps kids that might not have the resources to help learning if you're dyslexic in this and that, maybe come from a broken home and don't have the resources to kind of get this guy's doing amazing things. Like schools in Atlanta, like the speech school or skank, helps kids, you know, that learn differently. Not they don't learn badly, they just learn differently. And early on, because when I was coming up, they didn't have all those types of schools. I had this one in Connecticut that I went to, but that helped me understand, hey man, I'm not a weirdo. I'm gonna be okay. And my parents were fully supportive in that. And uh that was huge. It's huge.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

So give me give me an example, like when you say you couldn't you didn't read, or you read differently, like what would you see or the number of the letters are all they're backwards?

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Backwards, and you know, but but but then you take a step back and you figure out the ways to to read differently and stuff like that. And I do all that. Um, it's no big deal. Sure. Um I love to read, it just takes me a longer time to read a book than you, probably, right? And other folks, but I still retain the information and everything else. Um but it also enhances your communication skills, right? So you learn how to uh coexist without some of the easier things that other kids might have, but you're able to communicate and persuade people and be able to talk and communicate to your teachers in a way that they want to help you get the grade and get through. Yeah, yeah. You just you learn a lot of other skills with this deficiency that you supposedly have. Yeah. And you know, my goal is to how do you take your perceived liabilities in life and flip them and turn them into your greatest assets, right?

SPEAKER_04 24:14

Superpowers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

As you know, I wrote a book about that that I'm sure we'll talk about later. Yeah. But you know, when I get a call from parents that know my story and they say, Oh, little Johnny just got diagnosed with dyslexia, we're sick about it. We don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_04 24:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

They say, Oh, that's the greatest thing that you've ever gotten. Rejoice. This kid's gonna be great. You just gotta put him in a place to succeed in school so he can keep his confidence. If a kid loses his confidence, you got a problem.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

And I was never, I never got to a point where I lost my confidence. I always had way too much confidence, frankly. Uh, which is a good thing. But but but that's because my parents were so supporting and loving with me going through all this. Special.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

That's incredible. Well, when was the first time you can remember having like a mentor in life? Not oh not your parents, uh, uh, an actual mentor.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

I would say my wrestling coach, um Mr. Glover. Um high school. High school, yeah. So this guy I think he was a Vietnam veteran. He's been coaching wrestling forever, never had kids of his own. He passed away uh this year. That guy's changed a lot of lives. Uh, you know, our wrestling team won the state and was nationally ranked every year that he was coach, and he was coached decades and decades at Woodbury. And um he was a great mentor, and he knew I was a little wild and uh uh you know needed those extra uh you know bars around me and things like that. But um he knew how to um you know push my levers to get the most out of me in sports and uh and and and and and how to stay on track with school and working out and eating right as a wrestler, you gotta maintain a weight and things like that. All great life still. So that was probably my outside of my parents, that was probably my first really great mentor.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yeah, so he latched onto you and I'll be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Yeah, I saw some potential in.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Saw some potential. What's something like how did he have your life set up? Give me an example. Your wrestling.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Well, he probably just um had me uh my day was pretty filled, so I wouldn't get in trouble, frankly. I mean, you know, in your morning, you're gonna do this, you gotta eat this way, you're lifting weights, you're you know, working out till seven, you know, wrestling, and then you're doing schoolwork.

SPEAKER_03 26:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Uh at Woodbury, we had school on Saturdays, so we had six days of school. So it was hard to get in trouble because you were overly booked with stuff. And for a kid like me, that was pretty good. Now we had a half day of school on Tuesday, a half day of school on Saturday, so we could play sports more Tuesdays and Saturdays. Um, then you had Sunday where I went and learned how to you know fish and have a good time. We had a we had a river uh, you know, at the base of our school at Woodbury where we would all go hang on Sundays and have a great time.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Yeah. So they're they're teaching habits using the model of show me exactly what to do instead of the other one, the other approach, which is here's all the things to not do. Yeah. Right? They're filling your schedule up. You're filling your schedule up, right? Yeah. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So you said and you said he just passed away. Did you have a relationship with him?

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Oh, yeah, all the way through.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Outside, past high school, though.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Sure, absolutely. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Special.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

And he had relationships like that with probably most of the wrestlers that went through.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

All right, let's move up to college now, sir. You're you're your UGA, you're crushing it in business.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

I mean, crushing's an understatement, but I was making cash, I was having fun for that time for a 20-year-old, 18-year-old dude. Yeah, I was I was doing it.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Living living life. Yeah. Give me give me an example in college.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

And crushing it in college is having the big subwoofers in your car, having a having a you know, a winch on the front of your car, and you know, uh maybe a sunroof and a boat. Like, yeah, I was crushing it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Crushing it. W when is it time that it sucked? Give me anything you can remember in college that sucked, whether it was you couldn't get past a class. Uh well struggle.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Yeah. Shh. Class sucked, right? Um, but I ended up, you know, hiring a note taker.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Come on.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Yeah. It was like it was an exchange student. Uh and uh I hired him to come to class with me and take notes.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Uh unfortunately he couldn't.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

This is awesome. Unfortunately, he couldn't take my test for me. But he would take notes in class with me.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Like he was allowed to come and take the case.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

I don't know if he was or not, but he came to class with me and he took notes. You're an innovator. And and um and then he'd he'd help me get ready for the test. Yeah. Um I can't even think of his name, but um, he was definitely um a house from another country. I need to find that dude. I wish I'd kept up with him. 20 years ago. Yeah, I mean, he'd probably be my CFO or something, but he was he was great. Wow. Um and uh yeah, he came to class with me, and you know, um, I was introduced to him as my note-taker, and like, you know, he was kind of my boy. Sometimes he'd ride on my motorcycle to class with me.

SPEAKER_03 29:50

So cool.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

It was amazing. Yeah, and and also having a motorcycle in college was great because parking was really hard, and um I would just pull right up, walk into class with my helmet on. Sometimes I'd keep my helmet on during class, and my note-taker would just rock and roll. But I had a great time, and but that that was until I figured out how to do that, yeah. Um, that was kind of part of my program to get through. But I will tell you this. When I got through the core classes, freshman sophomore year, uh, I got into the Terry Biz Terry College of Business, and I had to pick a major. So I picked real estate because my dad was in it.

SPEAKER_04 30:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

And I went into the first real estate class. I'll never forget, I even know the guy's name. His name was Dr. Downs. That was the professor's name.

SPEAKER_04 30:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

And we had, and he was talking about, hey guys, we need to do a case study on um this developer who's looking at this piece of property and gave all the criteria of the property, the zoning, what he has to pay for the property, what the highest and best use could be. Sure. How do you get that finance? How do you build it? How do you do the cost? Then how do you get revenue from the I was like, man, this is this is cool. Like, so many different facets that I actually understand how all these things piece together. I was sold, man. I was like, I want to learn as much about real estate. This teacher's cool. Yeah, he's speaking to me the right way. I can understand him the way that he teaches. And I took every real estate class I could, and I did, I got A's on all of them.

unknown 31:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Because I loved it. You loved it. I got rid of the note taker for those things. Yeah, I didn't bring them in. I was taking my own notes, figuring the stuff out, dialed it, taking extra credit, learning different stuff, talking to my dad about it. Which was really cool. Hey dad, this is what I learned. That was super cool, man. And and um and then from there, I graduated with really good grades from the Terry College of Business. Like all like legit grades, like my stuff.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Your stuff. Yeah, no note taking. He's gone. He's gone.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Um but it kind of shows you, man, like when you find something that you like, you can roll, you can roll with it and you can learn. And I kept learning, I keep learning today. I mean, I'm doing some new stuff today, learning about different ways that that people make money in real estate separate from the way that I've done it. I mean, I've been a commercial broker, I've been a residential broker, I've done a series of developments throughout my 30-year career. And uh there's a lot of ways to do it. I'm I'm I'm learning every day, but I just I I do love every facet of real estate.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

It sounds like it started there for you. The real was right there. Yeah. Do you think it was more the instructor, more the content, a mix of the two? Mix of the two. Okay, mix of the two.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Mix the two. Get to my senior year, I buy a hundred thousand dollar lot in Atlanta while I'm living in Athens, design a house myself, hire a builder, build it. I'm in at$305,000, graduate college, get four roommates, one guy couldn't pay, so we made him cut the grass and clean the house. That's awesome. Whatever. Yeah, they're all costs. And um lived in that house for a year, had the roommates paying the mortgage, got a mortgage, learned all that stuff my senior year, got the house built, sold it after a year, made a hundred thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Pure profit.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

Pure profit.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

Because you were you probably weren't paying any of the mortgage. No. You had them covered. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

And then um then moved to Savannah, Georgia and started my real estate career.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

So now you're off to Savannah. What what brought you there in the first place? Was it a job?

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Well, no, I I wanted to get out of Atlanta. Okay. Right? Um I everywhere that I went and talked to, it was kind of like, oh, you're you know, Benoit's son. Yeah, you know, uh I I just kind of wanted a clear, clean path. So I I drove to Savannah, um, and there was a new development going on called the Ford Plantation. And I called Peter Pollack, who turned out to be a sales mentor for me, and I'll I'll let's pin that for a minute. But I you gotta understand, I I look like I was probably 16, 17 years old when I finished college. Sure. And I said, Man, I want to sell for you. Well, you you know, you have no experience. These are expensive lots, you know, these are this, these are that. I said, I'll work for free. Can you just give me a list of people that's on the prospect list that you're having trouble reaching? And I will try to get them to the property, then you can sell them. No risk. Huh. Bird dog. And he said, sure, no, no skin off my back. So I started calling, wow, developed skills on the phone to connect, to get trust, and then threw the offer out. Why don't you come down for a discovery weekend and look at the property? Does next weekend or three weekends away work for you? Yeah. Started booking people, and then there was one um client that was coming in and Peter couldn't meet him. And all the other sales guys were booked. So he's like, but no, it's showtime. I'm like, oh my gosh, let's go. Cleaned my car. They came in, immediately connected, immediately did my thing, got him in the car, sold them a$500,000 lot, come back in, write it up, they leave. Guy comes in and goes, How is the showing? I go, got a contract. What? Sold a contract. So then that put me in the game. That was about four months in.

unknown 36:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

And then it was on. I just started calling, booking. And I the first year in the business, I was selling more than anybody. And I um had a blast. I was like, this is my calling. Right. I was selling the dream because I was just selling lots. So I'd be like, you can build this, you can do this, you can learn how to fly fish, you can learn how to, you know, shoot sporting clays, your golf game's gonna be. I was like really good at it. Um, but I had to overcome looking young, and yeah, because these guys were older and they were coming in, like, hey, is your dad gonna show us? Is you know, I'm like, I got you, you know, and and and developing that trust immediately, like, so they didn't think they were passed on to the young guy, yeah. But figured out my my spiel and what I was talking and my pitch and my follow-up and how I was gonna make deals, and asked for the deal. And Peter Pollett taught me, you know, what a special situation was. How do you leverage urgency? How do you um have a fear of loss when you leave that this deal that I just gave might not be here when you come back? All these different techniques I really mastered because I had a a lot of people to work them on as they were coming in. This was like 1999 and year 2000. And then I started to sell the lot, and they said, Well, I need to be set up with an architect and a builder. So I developed these other relationships which helped me later in my career, where I'd say, Okay, Jeff, you just bought a lot. Here's the builder. And the builder takes over and he builds a house. I'm like, ah, well, that builder just made a bunch of money. Architect made a bunch of money. I sold the lot, right? Right. So, fast forward about two or three years of me being at Ford Plantation, there was a new development coming up called Palmetto Bluff. Oh, I know it. Where my best friend from Atlanta came down with me to Savannah when we decided to leave Atlanta. He was one of the roommates. He was the one cutting the grass. No way. So, so Keen uh was down in Savannah with me, and he started working at Palmetto Bluff on the development side. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Was the golf course there? No, nothing was there.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

It was 20,000 acres. And there was just a design and a plan. And I ended up partnering with the builder from Ford Plantation and uh borrowed some money from Sun Trust Bank and my father and worked a deal out with the guys, the developers from Paleta Bluff, where we were gonna take down half of the core village.

unknown 39:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

So nothing was built yet, but they needed a heartbeat and they needed product to come up with the hotel and the chapel and the post office and all these other stuff they were building. So we paid them half the money for the lot, and we were gonna pay them the other half once we sold the house. So the the cost to get into business was fairly achievable. Sure. And we started, we built six houses to start. Nothing sold. And but right at the time that they finished, one weekend, we got the first one sold, and the second, then the third, then we started to build six more, and then six more. We built over a hundred houses there, all speculative. This was 2002, all the way up to 2007. We'll get to what 2007, 2008 did. But we did very, very well, and I learned a lot on the construction side then in my career. And also during that time, I was also brokering commercial real estate in Savannah. And I structured some big deals down there, learned the commercial business and how that worked. Uh, as we were building houses at Palmetto Bluff, um, I got married in 2001 to my college sweetheart, Jen McDonald. Um, and what a that's the best deal I've ever made in my life. And it's the most important is finding a partner that believes in you and um also lets you do what you want to do in this life. We met when we were 18 years old. I'll never forget we were at a pledge keg where a fraternity and sorority kind of get together, and I saw her. Um she was the only girl uh from Kappa, Kappa Kappa Gamma was what she was, that went to public school and from Atlanta, and and and she got into school, and um I just said this girl is amazing. And we started dating pretty much the moment we saw each other. We were 18, 19 years old, and we've been together ever since.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Till today.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

And I will say that is the most important thing is finding a partner for life that believes in you, appreciates how hard you work, appreciates the things that come from hard work and don't doesn't take anything for granted. I couldn't do anything without her. We've been married almost 25 years. Um so back to that. So we we she we got married in 2001, right? Was I was starting all this stuff in Savannah. Yeah, had some success selling houses. Oh, yeah. She got pregnant with Blakely, our first. We built our dream house uh on the Savannah River.

unknown 42:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

No, on the Wilmington River.

SPEAKER_04 42:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Um we had a little dock and a little boat. We built this beautiful house. We were there for one year. Jen was nine months pregnant. Guess what? Everything changed. Nine months pregnant, we were three weeks away from having the baby. Lightning hits our house, it burns all the way to the ground. We lost everything that we owned. All of our wedding pictures, our college pictures, our high school, um, you know, books, um, all the stuff my parents gave me to furnish the house. We had a nursery built ready to go for Blakely. Literally, we lost everything we owned. And then I learned about transitional intelligence. What's that? Well, that's when shit hits the fan, and how you deal with a transition, a major transition. Okay, we have nothing that we own except what was in our cars that day. Um, we're about to have a baby in three weeks. How do we do life together? How do we go from living in a beautiful house and having great business and having a great, you know, first couple years of marriage to losing everything? And, you know, after a night of crying and figuring it out and everything else. We stood up and started life again. And we moved to Atlanta.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Just like that.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Yep. So that was we got married in 2001. This was 2004.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

Four. Okay. Four.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

And fire happened a week or two later. We moved to Atlanta. We run a house. We have Blakely, who's been such a joy. She's 20 years old right now. She's at TCU. She's been working with me during the summers. She's gonna be the best real estate agent ever. Great personality. Um amazing. So we had Blakely, and um we transitioned to a life in Atlanta. Yeah we kept things going at Palmetto Block. We'd go down there, you know, a couple times a month, and we started to um build uh 23 townhomes on Peachtree Road and build this great development with Carter, which was which still is one of the top firms in Atlanta. And I learned so much from a commercial development. We were building with stick frame with wood at Palmetto Bluff. When we started building these townhomes, it was all concrete commercial construction, you know, big uh uh parking deck, concrete parking deck below, built on top.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Um and I learned so much. Uh and I was kind of helping um develop them and also sell them. Everything was going really, really great uh until 2008, where we probably had most of these things, these townhomes that we were building under contract, and then Lehman Brothers crashed, stock market crashed, the mortgage industry collapsed, yeah, and nobody came to closing.

SPEAKER_04 45:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

So we had another spot where transitional intelligence took over, and um I went from being a developer of sorts, Palmetto Bluff also kind of went down in 2008. All of our lots that we were holding in inventory, that thing, the music stopped there, the music stopped at the townhome development, and I transitioned in 2009 to be a single real estate agent, like 26,000 other real estate agents in Atlanta at the time. Wow. But I knew if I was gonna be a real estate agent, that I wanted to do things differently than everybody else.

SPEAKER_04 46:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

So I became obsessed with the business. I became obsessed with being the number one real estate agent in Atlanta. I became obsessed with marketing my houses, better, bigger, more bold. Yeah. I came obsessed with everybody that I came in contact with, that I made sure that they knew that I sold real estate. I was obnoxious. I just made sure that everybody I came in contact with, even if it was the valet person at the restaurant, I would give them$100 and a stack of brochures to say, hey, every portion Mercedes that you're parking tonight, make sure that you put my brochure in their passenger seat. Wow. You know, the guy that cuts my hair, Tommy, he's been cutting my hair for decades, and my dad's hair. Anytime he's cutting somebody's hair and they're talking about selling their house, make sure they give them my brochure. Not my business card, my brochure with more information.

SPEAKER_04 47:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

With houses that I've got. I became the number one real estate agent in Atlanta, my first year in the business. That's incredible. And from then, I was able to double my business every year up until 2015. Seven years in a row. So, how do you do that? It's a mindset. It's like when Kirby, the coach for University of Georgia, wins a national championship. How is he gonna repeat that next year? Half of his players go to the NFL.

SPEAKER_04 48:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

A lot of his coaches get picked off to go coach somewhere else because he's had tremendous success. How's he gonna do it again? Well, if it ain't broke, break it.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

Break it, right? Break it.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

So so so so change everything to start the season. Know the goal at the end is to win a national championship, or for me, to double my business. Double my business, okay. So January 1, every single real estate agent starts with zero, zero volume after having a great year, their best year. How do you do that again and double it? So if I did 50 million and next year I was gonna do a hundred million, January 1 I'm thinking like a hundred million dollar agent. What does that mean? Well, that probably means hiring for the extra business, hiring an assistant, another assistant, doubling down twice as much on marketing, on phone calls, on going out at night to meet twice as many people, right? So I consistently did that. And I made sure that my habits were on par with my goals for tomorrow. So if my goals were for tomorrow to double every year, I'd have to change my habits to make sure that they were on par with what I needed to do by the end of the year.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

So there's a lot of different habits changing. If I did the same thing that I did the year before, what would happen?

SPEAKER_02 49:55

You get the same thing or less.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

You get the same results.

SPEAKER_02 49:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

So I became obsessed with that concept and that mindset to do that. Fast forward to 2015. I've been doubling my business, doubling my business, doubling my business. I did the same in 2015, which was a lot. And I kind of hit a ceiling in Atlanta. So at that point, I shifted and I said, Well, how am I gonna continue to grow? And at that moment, I started Anneslie Atlanta Real Estate. So I started using the same mindset that I had with growing my business with Ansley Atlanta Real Estate, which we started in 2015 with just me. Then I brought over my team, and then I brought over some other agents, and I started growing that and doubling that every year, tripling that every year with the same concept, or are your habits on par with your dreams for tomorrow as a company? And we grew, grew, grew. And in the meantime, by doing that, I was still selling real estate. And somehow, when I started the business, my production started to grow.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

Your individual production?

SPEAKER_01 51:19

My individual production. So I was growing my individual production where I was selling 300 to 460 million, 460 million of volume was my best year ever. 2021. That was a great time to sell real estate.

SPEAKER_02 51:36

I like how you say 460 million. You say it the way I say$28. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

It was an amazing year. I mean, incredible. But by doing that, also the the company. Now we have over 500, 550 real estate agents in Georgia. We had to change the name from Ansley Atlanta to Ansley Real Estate. And then in 2021, I bought with partners in private equity Christie's International Real Estate, which is a global firm. They had Christie's Auction and Christie's Real Estate. We bought the real estate side. So we ended up putting, changing the name again from Ansley Real Estate to now Ansley Real Estate, Christie's International, which helped us grow even more and more and have an international flair with also being hyper local.

unknown 52:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 52:38

Grew that, grew that, grew that, and it came to this year, 2025, where we packaged Anzi Real Estate and Christie's, and we sold those with my partner's company in Chicago at Properties.

SPEAKER_04 52:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

And we sold that for a great number to Compass Real Estate. And now we're, you know, part of the largest uh real estate company in the country. Um and they've got super brands. We kept our brands individual. Um so we're keeping Ansley or keeping Christie's and the names and the way that we operate them, and nothing's changed, so we just have a different owner of the brands. Um man, I've learned so much on on how you know business works and you grow it, and you you you you you gain EBITDA and then you sell for multiples, and and then you you you gain stock, and now I have all this stock and compass, and I'm watching the stock ticker, and it's just been so fun. Just a guy, I'm just a I'm just a real estate agent, and now got all these cool things that I'm watching and learning, and um it's been a it's been a phenomenal ride. And I pinch myself, Jeff, I pinch myself every day, like how how did the class clown you know, uh uh uh be able to be in the right situations to be able to now have this great company, which is and and I love all of our agents, and we we we we we love watching them succeed, and that's how we get fuel. And the agents that come to us all do better, and they have better tools and better technology, and um we have a whole system that a support system that helps them and we just do things differently. That's one reason why we've been able to grow so much. I was so naive in 2015 when I said I'm gonna start a company, yeah, I'm gonna start a real estate company in Atlanta, Georgia. And looking at the landscape, there's like all these other huge companies, giants, you know, that have been in business for a hundred years. I'm just gonna start a company, no problem. But I was so naive just to say, I'm gonna jump in with the big guys, and now we're one of the biggest, one of the most successful in Georgia, because of my naivety to say, I'm betting on myself. Yeah. Uh I don't know what I don't know. Right. And I'm just gonna go. And people are everything. How you hire people and the people that are on your team, on the executive team, I don't the way that I lead, I don't lead with task, I lead with responsibility. Um let's take Julie Harris, for example. She's been she was with another brokerage for 20 years. She was a marketing assistant in the Buckhead office. She didn't know what her true potential was. And I did. And I said, Julie, I know you've been with this company for 20 years. Will you trust me to come over with me? I know we're a startup. She was my first hire. And she came over, and what she has done, because the potential that she had, she is unbelievable. And she's living to her most potential that she has. And she can do more. She can do even more. She can even do more than what she's doing now. Wow. And the marketing and the branding and everything that she's done has really taken our company to the moon. And then our CEO, I was CEO, and then I said, I I I there's a better way to do this. Yeah. So I hired Lane McCormack, who was a broker, and now she's our CEO over 500 and however many agents we have. And the way that she leads by example, and the way that she does the operations of the company, and you know, I'm all over the place, so I've got to have these incredible people to run everything. And then I've got, and she's been phenomenal, and and and and and she's living up to the potential that I saw in her.

SPEAKER_03 57:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

And um and then there's countless other agents that were just maybe it's a single mom that needed to pay for private school and wasn't making enough money to do that. And we gave her the tools to do the things that she wants to do in her life, and it's just so rewarding. Wow. The business that I'm in just fits me to a T. And I'm lucky that I was able to do that. And we tell all of our agents, um, you know, how you do anything is how you do everything, right? How you market how you are a father or um uh a wife, how you are a parent, how you hear a voice message.

SPEAKER_02 57:53

Yeah, I remember you saying that.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

All these things. But it all translates in how you do your business the right way. Play the long game, not the short game for commission today. Yeah, play the long game for years out.

SPEAKER_02 58:07

Um so cool.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

And that's the way we've done our business, and that's the way our agents do our business, and um, and our executive team, we're a family. We talk all, we talk like everybody. We talk, you know, several times a day to um all the executive guys. We were all in the same team, and we don't do drama, we just do hard work, um, and we and and everybody's got their responsibilities, and they're not micromanaged. And the people that we've hired, I mean I hired a guy named Hill Harper to be my assistant 15 years ago. And I was paying him maybe$30,000. He makes well over a million dollars a year now, and he's living to his way over potential, and he's still got so much more potential to go. He can do anything, and he and and he does, and and and and everybody's so loyal because we're such a good team, and everybody fits in their lane. I only do about 20% of the business, Ansley Real Estate, because that's the 20% that I'm really, really good at. I'm smart enough to know how dumb I am. What I mean by that is I backfill all the things that I'm not super good at with people that are super good in that field. Me and Hill, who we just focus on our team that sells real estate, that does the production, the three, four hundred million a year, he does things so much better than me and most of the stuff. And I just am really good at a couple things. And we have a really good framework over 15 years that he knows what I do really good, and he knows what he does really good. And then we've got Leslie and Emily and Tucker also on the team. They've all been on the team over 10 years each. They're not going anywhere because they know exactly what they do, and they do it better than Hill and I could.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

And they all fit in their lane, so we have this super team that's able to sell that much real estate because everybody stays in their lane and focuses on what they're exceptional at.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:22

And um, that's been a really great way for me to do as much stuff as I'm doing, have as much production as I am, grow the business as I am, do my private investments, my philanthropy, and also try to be a great husband to Jen and father to my two kids.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

Um my other kid, uh, we've talked about Blakely through the Fire.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:47

Um, Bo Ansley, Benoit Ansley IV, we call him Bo.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

Uh is also an exceptional kid. He's in 10th grade at Macaulay, and he's um exceptional tennis player. Um really, and he's also a phenomenal student. Oh. He gets that from mama. He gets that from mama. Um, but he um is is is is really focused on what he wants to do. Yeah. Um is that tennis? It's tennis, it's school, tennis. You know, he's on student council, he's doing a lot of cool stuff, he's really going for it in life. Um super proud of everything that he's doing. Um and uh yeah, Jeff, I mean, this this talking this through with you really makes me feel really grateful to where I am today at 50 years old, right? I I don't have many regrets on um on pushing business the way that I've pushed it. I don't have any regrets on on anything, and uh I just feel that uh God's given um gifts and opportunities have come along, and it's it's it's it's what you make of those opportunities. Some opportunities just slip by people, others you can grasp on, and I think that when opportunities come, you're able to grasp on them, and and I've been able to grasp on different opportunities.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:13

Yeah, there's so many incredible life lessons here. I mean, you got in the game at an early age, you you didn't sit on the sidelines, you got in the game, so you started to learn how life works, and then somewhere you became very curious. Or competitive, uh or both, and then it's like man, once you latch onto something, I I could feel it. I mean, I see it in your expressions when you when you start talking about something that's right in your lane, it's like look out. But if it's not in my lane, I am right just like the core classes, the core classes in college, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

Right on, right on.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:52

Note taker. Yeah, where's my note taker? All right, so there's so there's so much here. Let's go, let's go all the way back now. You get back to Atlanta, you just filled up, I mean, the next couple years, incredible how the business started, how it grew, all that. Let's talk about Benoit. So that that's the company. Company had a great run and still having a great run. And it's an awesome story. What were you doing at the time? What was life like? What were you reading? Were you exercising? What was your routine? Who who who were you? And who are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:26

I was obsessed, and I will tell folks that want to success is defined a lot of different ways. Some define it by money, I don't. Um, some define it by having a wonderful family that's united and great and connected. I do. Some define it as changing people that work with you's lives for the positive. I do. So having a work-life balance is tough. And the kids getting out of school say, I want a work-life balance. I wouldn't say that I had a perfect work-life balance when I was starting a business. Um I my wife had to make sacrifices, my kids had to make. I remember coaching my son's little league team, the first couple years of starting Ansley Atlanta real estate, and I was in the outfield on the phone. That sucked. Um, you know, when we go out to dinner, we always sat at the bar so I could meet people on the right and left. That's probably not awesome for Jen. Why not have a table a table for two by the window where it's just her and I to connect? We did and still do have one night every week that we dedicated for just her and I. Um and I would tell the young folks that are just starting out with marriage to dedicate one night, Monday night, Wednesday night, whatever it is, where you have a set babysitter and you're going out no matter what. But you you really gotta pour your life into your business for a little while to get it to a point and then release control to people that you trust and not micromanage them. To be able to have balance with family. If you can get wrapped up into business, and I could work 24 hours a day if I wanted to, but I'm able to hire really, really good people and let them run with it and not get in their way. And I've been able to do that, which has helped me. With balance with family. And now that the company's sold and I only work with clients that I want to work with now, my time is free to not miss a tennis match that Bo's doing, not miss a horse show that Blakely's riding, not miss a night with Jen for dinner. And that's awesome. But it took a lot to get to that point. Now that I'm 50, you know, we've got the time and the flexibility to do stuff that really works for us at this stage. But you got to get after it when you're starting a business. For sure. And that's why having a spouse that understands that is so important. And that's cheering for you and is a fan for you and part of the business. Yeah. And I got, I I got, I got, I got one that I hit the lottery.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:52

The wife lottery. Oh. Yeah. High school sweetheart story. College sweethearts. College college, yeah. Did you uh did you do MBA?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:01

No. My MBA was done starting these businesses in college. I was ready to get after it. Way more than an MBA. I was ready to get after it right after college.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:12

Yeah. Building that house. Yeah. The first house as a senior in college. All right, Benoit, six generations. You're the third Benoit. You there's a lot here, right? Legacy-wise. What does this look like going from three to four?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

Well, uh Benoit IV, Bo is in boarding school, which was his idea, but I loved it, but I loved it. I couldn't push him that way. You know, when you go, I got pushed that way because I didn't have any choices. Yeah, you but um Bo's there, and I I I really love that he's there because he's in a place where he's creating his own path.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

And um they've got one of the top tennis teams in the country. So his coaches, you know, are like my mentor, Mr. Glover. He's got three or four of those at Macaulay that are phenomenal men that are giving him life lessons. He takes uh lessons a couple times a week from Coach Mack. I don't know how old Coach Mack is. And if you're listening to this, Coach, I don't know how old you are, but he's an older guy. Yeah. And um he he gives Bo some phenomenal life lessons. And Coach Vojis and Coach Clark do the same. Um, but he's he's out there without helicoptering parents. Yeah, and we go to his matches, we talk to him all the time, but he's out there doing his own thing. Um he's gonna be the fourth Beno. And uh, you know, I um he's got it, man. He's got it. Um, and uh he's gonna do something awesome. Yeah uh I don't know if he's gonna be a businessman or if he's gonna be a coach or a teacher or what his path is gonna be. I just want him to live his life to his full potential with whatever his passion is, and that might not be in the business world. I don't know, might be. Yeah, but he could be a great mentor or coach too. I don't know what he's gonna be. Yeah, but um I want him to work hard every day and not take anything for granted, and um and he'll do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:39

Yeah, wow. What what was the feeling the day that he brought to you boarding school?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:45

I was psyched. You were psyched, totally psyched.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:49

You were like, oh, this is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:52

When it's selfish if my wife and I kept him at home for us. We would love for Bo to be home. Yeah. But we know with him going away, the different experiences and lessons and everything that he's gonna learn up there is is more.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

Um, and it's a gift that we're able to, you know, be able to get him to go to a place like that. And uh I'm I'm excited for him.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:27

That's so awesome. All right, let's close on let's close on two big topics that we didn't get into. One is the book, so let's talk a little bit about the book because that's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:37

Especially because I can barely read. I know, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:41

And then I I want to know what it's like. I don't know if it was a digital signing or if it was a closing you went to, but what is it like the morning when you're going to hand over your business in a great way, in a positive way? Sell your business, but you didn't sell it for t-shirt business money. I mean, it's a ridiculous number. So tell me those two things, the book. Yeah, so the book.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:07

So I was at Bones, which is a great steakhouse uh in Atlanta, and I was having a great dinner with my family, and I choked on a piece of meat. And they started to do the Heimlich maneuver on me, and it didn't work. And as I was getting the Heimlich, I was looking at my family with nothing to say. And they were looking at me, and it was like slow motion. Um I couldn't breathe, I couldn't swallow. It was the weirdest feeling, and it felt like an eternity. But the steak was just lodged in my throat, and uh I went down and uh there was a nurse there, and they came out. I don't remember any of this, but they got me back upright and um dislodged the the piece of meat, and to do that they broke uh several ribs on the side of my uh my ribcage. And I kind of came out of that and woke up the next day and was like, wow, I was having a great meal, and all of a sudden, and people pass away from choking all the time. Um they run to the bathroom because they might be embarrassed, and there's nobody to fix it. Sure. And they die in the bathroom. And as I have choked, uh I've heard a lot of stories about other people that have choked and passed away. And so look, this this was uh this was close, man. Yeah, um, and uh over the next couple days, I kind of said, look, I I'm gonna write a book. And um I just started writing uh and dictating uh and writing more, and I'd send them to my sister who went to Harvard, who's a writer.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:30

I like this tie-in.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:32

Oh wow. So we became very close uh throughout, well, we were always close, but just communicating a lot, and she'd kind of take my scratch and turn it into uh good writing, yeah, and um wrote this book and um sent it to uh publisher, and they said this is amazing. And next thing you know, surprisingly, we're a Wall Street Journal best-selling book. You know, there's a 1.4 million real estate agents um in America, and this book is all about struggles and how to use your God-given abilities and how to sell, and my story, just being a dumbass, you know, that kind of wound up selling a lot of real estate and building a business. And um, I'm very vulnerable in the book, as I am with everybody. That's awesome. I mean, um, and people liked it, people started to read it, and it's it's been a lot of fun. It's called Brokering Billions. It's cool. That's so cool. And it and it people in other industries love to read it too, because not just real estate, it's a lot of different lessons on how to get after it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:49

Yeah, I love it. All right, great. Let's end with the sale, the day, the what did it feel like?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:58

You know, um it it it it really didn't feel any different to me. I mean, I I I um I've never been motivated by the money, I'm just motivated by the by the um process. Um and it hadn't slowed me down any. Um I'm a little less stressed out, but uh, you know, but but but it was it was a it was a nice kind of um acknowledgement for hard work and um you know Jen was proud of me, and that's all that really matters. Oh, that's so sweet. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:41

It's a lot, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:43

This has been awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:44

This has been incredible. This is your life story, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:46

Well, thank you so much. I loved it.