Your Brand, Your Backyard
Your Brand, Your backyard Podcast was created to help local business owners grow their business locally by identify their ideal clients, connecting with the community and building a long-term sustainably brand. Your small business isn't just a storefront-it's a part of your community. Join hosts Jeremy Roentz and Nick Metheny as they share expert branding tips, real-life success stories and actionable strategies to help you stand out, attract new customers and become a local favorite. Whether you're refining your logo, improving presence or learning how to market to your neighbors, this podcast is your roadmap to local brand success. Because your brand thrives, so does your backyard. Subscribe now and start growing where you're planted!
Your Brand, Your Backyard
Resilience and Overcoming Adversity
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Life doesn’t always go as planned—but in the setbacks, the struggles, and the unexpected turns, resilience is built. Tune in as we share honest conversations with special guest MJ Carroll on how he persevered. This episode is about resilience, grit, and the courage to keep going when everything says quit. If you’ve ever faced adversity and fought your way forward, you’re in the right place. Setbacks happen. Strength is a choice. Life will test you—but it doesn’t get to define you.
Your Brand, Your Back Yard with Jeremy & Nick
Hello, listeners. Thank you for tuning in to Your Brand, Your Backyard Podcast. I'm Jeremy Rentz.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Nick Matheen.
SPEAKER_02This podcast is centered around being a business owner, removing chaos, and replacing it with strategy, vision, and clarity. How to build a business, but more importantly, how to build your brand in your backyard.
SPEAKER_00So if you're just starting a business, rebranding or expanding, or you're a marketing professional, or maybe even a business major, or all of the above, this podcast is created for you.
SPEAKER_01So let's dive in. All right. Welcome back, listeners.
SPEAKER_02We are excited to be here with another great episode and a very special guest. Before we dive in, Nick, I know you're down in Florida getting a little sun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I try to stay out of the sun. I'll go down once the sun kind of goes down, but the kids and my wife and cousins and brother and sister-in-law and everybody's coming in this week. So it'll be it'll be hectic down here. So I'll get a little work done and go spend a little time with them as well. You just need one of those umbrella hats. I was gonna say big hat. Yeah, I'd rather have the beer hat would be better, but sometimes I guess the umbrella hat might work.
SPEAKER_03I went even making the summit game on Saturday and just got cooked and thought, I'm just gonna buy a hat when I'm in there. They were out of hats. So I'm a little cooked.
SPEAKER_02A little lobster-ish. Worst case scenario, Nick, you can just uh take your wife's, you know, with those big she's probably got one of those big beach hats, right? Of course. Yeah, that'd be cute. I could rough that out. Without further ado, let's go ahead and dive in. I'm very excited about this episode. Our special guest, Mike Carroll, MJ. And before I formally introduce MJ here, I gotta know where'd the MJ come from? You you a Michael Jordan fan or or what?
SPEAKER_03So you you've seen my car. My license plate is not that MJ. When my kids were in high school, I was doing some voice acting and I was Mike Carroll. But Mike Carroll was also the voice of excuse me, was the voice of Acura, and I was doing some work with ATT. So my agent said, Yeah, you can't be Mike Carroll. My daughter's friends all called me MJ. I'm like, let's go with MJ. And my initials are, of course, MJ. It's done. Yeah, so here we are.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, I want to give uh our listeners a little bit of background. Uh, you've got quite the past, quite the journey, and and quite the story that that I'm excited to share and really dive deeper into. So MJ is an independent writer and a small business owner with nearly four decades of experience in a variety of roles. He began appraising residential real estate at the ripe age of 22, worked his way into management roles in the banking world, real estate appraisal department, of course, before venturing onto the big, bad world of small business ownership. Along the way, MJ ended up owning two independent appraisal companies in California and two more in Colorado. Given the nature of real estate and the lending industry, there were times where distractions came into play and detours were taken. These include the insurance market, health, life, supplemental, an acting career, commercial, and voiceover, as you just mentioned, and fitness. You've got certifications, MJ, in CrossFit, both level one and level two. I know you've got a background in playing some tennis, and uh, but you but your but your real love is volleyball. Although I know you said you don't don't really play that anymore.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm excited. What was that? There's no volleyball anymore now. It's strictly tennis.
SPEAKER_02Strictly tennis. That's that's the safer play, right? It is. So these days MJ stays busy writing. I'm excited for your book. You've got a coaching platform and you lead teams with various endeavors. And you were recently a part of the legislative advocacy for real estate appraisal industry. So I'm excited to hear a little bit more about that. Without further ado, let's dive into this, MJ. So, first of all, thank you for taking the time being with us today.
SPEAKER_03Well, thank thank you. It's really uh it's gonna be a lot of fun to be here today.
SPEAKER_02I want to start with going way, way back. And you'll understand where I'm going with this, but MJ, tell me a little bit about yourself growing up.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I was born a poor, no. Um, I grew up in the uh in the South Bay, Los Angeles, South Bay, went to private high school. I was in Boy Scouts, made Eagle Scouts. I was a lifeguard in LA County, went to Long Beach State for a few years until they finally asked me not to come back very politely. I was in a fraternity, and uh you can imagine how that may have taken over some of my life. Had a sister growing up, and I was adopted when I was uh a baby. I was I did not know I was adopted until I was 47 years old. So yeah, that's that's the uh the background in a in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_02So growing up, what did you want to do?
SPEAKER_03What did you want to be? You know, I I didn't know. At one point in college, my father was an Air Force bomber pilot, and so of course I wanted to follow in those footsteps. My eyes were starting to to deteriorate. So I was in ROTC at Long Beach State, and I was granted a navigator slot, and I wanted to be on the SR-71 Blackbird, which of course you have to be an astronaut to be on that. So any deterioration of eyes, that's not happening. So by the end of my sophomore year, I was already at like 2030, 2040, which was the maximum to be uh to be in the backseat of a fighter jet. And I thought it's just gonna get worse from here. So uh so I begged off of that and uh decided to uh just kind of pursue some things. I became a bank teller and uh you know I was in the process of applying for jobs as a loan a loan processor, and my branch manager, Pierre Gahler, rest his soul, he's just an amazing man, said, no, no, no, you're not gonna be a loan processor, you're gonna go be an appraiser. You've got the background, you you understand real estate. So I'm like, cool, talk to my dad. My dad was a real estate broker, and uh he he was all about it. And uh so I went into an intensive three-week training program with Home Savings of America, and they put me in an office where I stayed for about a year and then went over to Bank of America where I was mentored for a few more years, and that's how I kind of came up in the industry.
SPEAKER_00So, MJ, I'm guessing that being a bank teller wasn't high on the list of goals and aspirations. So, what was that just one of those things you're like, I just need a job and there's something open, or what what led to that?
SPEAKER_03You know, uh it was fun because uh with that branch of home savings, many of my friends worked there. And so we had a ball. We just it was it was at Leisure World in Seal Beach. So there may have been some teasing of uh some you know people that I would rather not tease these days because I'm getting to be one of them. Um so it was it was just fun. We had we had a lot of fun. It was a great crew, we had a great staff, the management was amazing, so it was a fun place to be. And and it it encouraged me to get into the financial services arena in the in the residential real estate industry or realm.
SPEAKER_02And we're gonna we're gonna take a deeper dive into this, but but w what I'm getting to is if you could put your finger on it, and life shapes us over time to who we are today. I know that to be true, but where I'm going is if you could put a your finger on your growing up, your experience, your your past, what of that shaped you back then into who you are? Because what I know of you is your positive mindset, your diligence, and your resilience. And we're gonna get more to that. But going back, what would you say to that?
SPEAKER_03Well, no, I think actually Boy Scouts helped a lot. My father was an Eagle Scout, actually received his Eagle badge from Lord Baden Powell, the founder of Scouting. So my dad was much older. He they adopted me when they were 45. So, you know, by the time I was there, he was now in his 60s. So, you know, he encouraged me a lot. I had a lot of friends in scouting, and becoming an Eagle Scout, it teaches you so much discipline, patience, just, you know, again, resilience. It really shapes that mindset. So I do have to point to scouting as a really foundational part of my upbringing and uh and my drive to push forward.
SPEAKER_00And we see that a lot. I think, you know, when you look at entrepreneurs and you see you look at business people, you know, there is some some way, whether it's sports, whether it's they said a Boy Scout type organization, whether it's community service, whether it was church they were involved in, that had a very structured program, you know, they were involved in a youth group or whatever it was, but it seems to be a very constant theme that there was something early on that kind of said, hey, I'm gonna have a little discipline here. I'm not just not gonna all be about me right now and instant gratification. Would you say that kind of played out in your life too? Did you see that consistent theme kind of playing out over and over?
SPEAKER_03You know, I wish I could say yes. You know, I I did have that through my teens, but as soon as I hit college, I had that freedom and, you know, alcohol and girls and the whole thing. And it just, I, I, I kind of fell apart at that point. Luckily, I put it back together very quickly in my early 20s. So I had that, you know, that that moment of irresponsibility that I think everybody goes through. You know, unfortunately, it resulted in me not getting a bachelor's degree, but um I did go back and get my associate's degree later on. And at some point, I may still go back and get a bachelor's. My dad got his bachelor's at 52 years old. So, you know, it's it's definitely not off the table.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, still on the table. So we left off at getting into the the appraisal, the real estate appraisal field. You mentioned ripe age of 22, barely, barely shaving, and now you you've got a career.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02So starting in that industry, what what stood out? So you've got the real estate knowledge that came from your dad, just kind of following him, listening and learning from him. Yes.
SPEAKER_03You know, he was a real estate broker pretty much my whole life. He also owned a travel agency before before he got into real estate. So I was just always exposed to it. I went, you know, I'd go to open houses with them. I I worked in their office for a small for a short period, just you know, cleaning things up and making sure files were organized and whatnot. So I always kind of had that foundation. So and I'm a puzzle guy. I love puzzles, and every single appraisal is a puzzle. So, you know, we're figuring out what's the adjustment, what's the value, where does this belong? So it's was fun to learn. And here I am now, 39 years later, it's been a good, it's been a good run. You know, we've gone through a lot of ups, a lot of a lot of downs, and we've persevered, survived it so far.
SPEAKER_02At what point did you know that you wanted to go off and um you know that entrepreneurial spirit kicked in? You wanted to do your own thing, you wanted to start your own business, your own appraisal company. You wanted to be the boss, you wanted to be in charge. When did when did that happen?
SPEAKER_03So I was promoted to senior appraiser, basically assistant office manager, assistant district manager, um, when I was 25, 24, 25, so very early, and I became a district manager when I was 26 years old. And I ran, you know, the I had the a Carlsbad office in in uh North San Diego County. And out of like 43 offices in the country, it ranked number 42. It was terrible. You know, it just it wasn't performing the way it should. And within three years, I guess two years, had to be two years, it was the number one office in the country. So they moved me to South Orange County, which was also an underperforming office district, and did the same thing. And it took one year to become the number one office there. So I attribute it to just instilling that mindset, that that success mindset in my staff and not taking no for an answer, not allowing them to do what they were doing before. And it it worked. You know, they bought in. I I got the buy-in and then uh and it it worked out very well for me. I was a bit of a maverick, I did not follow all the rules. When it came to like laying people off, I would write them letters of recommendation, and this very large bank did not like the fact that I was doing that. So, you know, we had some discussions and we had done a lot of layoffs, and in 1997, they came through and said, Hey, we've laid off everybody we can. If anybody else wants to be laid off because we still need to downsize our staff, we will pay you severance for a year rather than you know the typical three or four months. I'm like, ca can I take that? So I did. And they paid me for a year and it built my business and uh opened uh opened the Carroll Group, the uh the first appraisal company in uh Southern California. Or my my first appraisal company in Southern California. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So that was kind of that kind of financed or funded, right? Gave you kind of bridged that gap a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00And so isn't that one of the Sorry I have a question, MJ. So when you went in, you know, you took these underperforming areas. Yes. Was that I as I was just saying, right? If you can't change the people, you change the people. So was that okay, we're gonna get rid of people and get new people in there to do the work better, or are we gonna take the people we have now and change their mindset, their delivery, their approach, or was it a combination of the two?
SPEAKER_03It was definitely a combination of the two. We did bring in some new people in San Diego, didn't bring anybody new in Orange County. But you know, I what I found is I walked into my office the first day and there were just stacks of appraisals waiting to be assigned. And I said, Why are these all sitting here? And they said, Oh, we we just pick what we want to do and we just you know take one off the stack and we go. And I just said, that's not the way this is happening anymore. And so I just took an entire stack, walked over to somebody's desk, this is yours now, and walked over, took another stack, and put it on somebody else's desk, and this is all yours now. Get it, get it done. And we cleaned it up very, very quickly. I brought in independent appraisers uh to be to work with us on a contract basis, and we just got on top of everything and but we didn't take, we didn't accept mediocrity anymore. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02I want to pivot here and I want to I want to talk a little bit about again, going back to mindset, but where do you get your vision? How do you stay uh in tune, so to speak, when you step into a role like that at a young age? Where did that drive come from? Walk me through a little bit of that, like what you did back then, but also you know, what what you do now?
SPEAKER_03You know, I think I just had extremely good role models. You know, the one of my managers early on, uh gentleman named John Brennan, and he was 28, 27, 28 when he took over the office in in or in LA County. I was in the Gardena office, and um, he was just a super good dude. He he knew how to work with people, he knew how to talk to people. He kind of trained me in how to speak to each person differently. And I think that's a a big part of it. Just watching him becoming friends with him, kind of following in his footsteps, and becoming a very young district manager myself, it really provided that drive. You know, I just I I I've always wanted to be in charge. You know, I I just finished uh a two-year stint as the president of the Colorado Coalition of Appraisers. Um I sit on the board of directors of the Colorado Association of Real Estate Appraisers. I just always get involved in stuff. And I, you know, I think that dates back to to the beginning. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So you you started your first company in California. Now I didn't know you in California, uh, because you're now in Colorado. You've been in Colorado for for some time now. So bridge that gap, California to Colorado. What happened?
SPEAKER_03Well, you know, in in Southern California and Orange County, where we were, there were 900 certified residential appraisers and just not that much work. And so we started looking around, and uh, Debbie, my wife, got a an opportunity. She was with a large appraisal company, a large lending company, and uh she spoke with somebody else, and they said, Well, we have openings in Houston, Seattle, Portland, and Denver. So we jumped on a plane and we knew Portland. We knew Seattle wasn't going to solve the issues of um, you know, fee work and traffic and density and everything else, um, because you know, we were working in LA, Orange County, and Houston was not appealing to us, just we don't like humidity that much. So we came out, we looked at Denver, and uh and we made the moves. You know, I I I look back before we move, the last bid that I sent out, uh so when I say bid, when a when a high-end appraisal comes in, like you know, 10, 15 million, they will go to several appraisers and say, how much are you gonna charge us and how fast can you get it done? And I think I told them this was a 11, 15, so it was it was in the multi-millions, seven, eight figures, and I said six hundred dollars and three days, which you know, should have gotten it. I didn't get the file. Came after Colorado, one of my first deals was a tract house for$600, and it was like a$350,000 tract house. And I'm like, okay, I'm home. You know, this is where we're gonna be for the from now on. So it uh, you know, we tripled our income the minute we jumped on that plane.
SPEAKER_02Wow. So that was a good decision you're saying.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, I mean, considering 900 and 900 certified appraisers in Orange County versus I think there were 1,600 at the time in all of Colorado, it uh it made a lot of sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, isn't it funny? Sometimes you don't realize until you kind of get thrown one of these curveballs, the environment you're in, how bad it really is, right? I mean, you kind of knew, but you didn't know what else was out there because you'd never really worked in other markets. And then once you saw that, you're like, oh my gosh, this is this is gonna be even easier.
SPEAKER_03Yes. And you know, a lot of appraisers are afraid to do it because of the the almighty, you know, geographic competency. They you have to be competent, but you don't necessarily have to be competent when you go into an assignment, but you better be competent coming out of the assignment. So there are there are two professions that I know of where you do not have to have competence going in, but have to have competence coming out, and one is appraiser and the other is attorney. So uh that's the only place that I will ever say that I'm on the same page with an attorney.
SPEAKER_02Now, going back, uh, we talked about the Carroll group, that was the your first appraisal company. Walk us through the start uh and the end of that and transition and and tell us your side of the story uh of the 2008, 2009, you know, the the mortgage, the bank crash. That must not have been that fun.
SPEAKER_03That was definitely not fun. Going back to 97, I think I joined, I think I started my company in March-ish of 1997. And I think it was right around October. I I just wasn't getting a lot of work. I wasn't, it wasn't popping, it wasn't flowing. And I was meeting with every lender in town, you know, giving them packages of you know sample appraisals and what I could do for them. And it just wasn't wasn't clicking it. One of my buddies called and he goes, Hey, let's go to Mexico. Let's go down, go to Baja, let's go fishing. So we did, and while I was gone, I think I had 16 new appraisal requests come across the fax machine with the roll-up paper, the thermal paper. It was wonderful. Had just, you know, it was all over my floor in my office, and that kind of broke loose at that point. So, you know, that was kind of the heyday until that lasted pretty much till 90, I'm sorry, till 2000, 2007 into 2008, and that's when the market just fell apart. Um, and we lost everything. We went from making what we were making down to 10% of what we were making. It was a 90% pay cut, and it was overnight. You know, the market just stopped overnight. Everyone I knew who was in real estate, lending, sales, anything, everyone took that same haircut. So we, you know, we short-sold the house, we had the cars repossessed, we lost everything. We got lucky and found a really cool rental property down by the beach in San Clemente. And I talked to the uh to the landlord, and uh, we ended up, I don't know if we qualified for the house or if he just liked us, but he gave us a chance, and we were there for five years, and it was fantastic. It's one of our favorite houses we've ever been in. And uh it it allowed us to kind of you know start over and uh and get things working again.
SPEAKER_00So that uh question I have MJ is go through, and I and I I've been through some eras where things are going great and then they crash. And you know, Jeremy, I know you've had some things like that in life where it's like, hey, uh the big curveball. What in your brain at that point said, you know what, I still want to go back and do this again, versus I'm just gonna get a job somewhere and let somebody pay a salary and not worry about it. So there's something in your brain that had to go, I want to keep doing something on my own, even though I just went through this traumatic, awful experience. Talk us through that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, it's funny because we had a lot of connections, and so we called in every favor we could. We called everybody in the world to see who was hiring and who could just get us some business. Fortunately, Debbie, who is much nicer than me, she got a job in-house with a large lender, and that kept us afloat while I was trying to get things going. And that's when I got into voice acting, that's when I started selling insurance, that's when, you know, all this stuff was starting to just pile on. I think at one point I I had five different jobs trying to make a thousand bucks a month. You know, it was it was it was painful. And it was a couple of years. It was uh a couple of years of of serious pain. But you know, Debbie and I looked at each other and we had friends right and left whose marriages were dissolving because they were at each other's throats, and we just said, look, I don't care what happens, I will live in a shoebox with you. This is us, and we will survive this together. And we did, and it was uh best thing that ever, you know, one of the best things that ever happened to us. I think it it taught our kids a lot about uh resilience and about diversification. Um, you know, at that point we had two girls getting ready to go to college, and uh we just told them, Look, we can't afford college. So get good grades, work on your sports, and they both got scholarships, both of them academic and athletic. And uh one of them turned into a full ride at the University of Alabama, the other one was about an eighty percent ride at uh the University of Alabama. I'm getting some feedback.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so Talk about overcoming, like waking up and feeling like in that in that two-week, two-year window of time, right? Like groundhog's day. Like here we go again. I go to one job. I go to another job. I go to another job. And you're just grinding just to put a little bit of food on the table and to keep the lights on. And so talk about thick skinned and like you said, resilience, right? That's really what I wanted to pull out of this because man, I, you know, I've been through a lot. Nick's been through a lot. We've all been through a lot. And those times are really what transform us, right? To to challenge us to rise above, right?
SPEAKER_03To continue to pursue.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03And not allowing it to define us. You know, you can't you can't be defined by adversity.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That reminds me of a mentor that I had early in my career. He said, your results don't define who you are. Your paycheck does not define who you are as an individual, as a person, as an entrepreneur, as a human being, right? That's that is sick.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think one of the things that I've seen, and that I've seen not only in my personal role, but in you know, coaching other businesses and doing some executive coaching, different things, is that you know, that fear of the unknown gets a lot of people. They're like, but I don't know if I can do it. I don't know what's going to happen, or what if this and what is that? And I think that people that are entrepreneurs are more like, yeah, but what if this? And that that that volume just seems to be turned up louder than the what if the failure type statement is more, but what if I succeed? What if this happens? And would you say that was something that you you kind of played out in your head too?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. I mean, you know, manifestation, I think, is a very powerful tool. Being able to see past where you're at and know what's coming down the line in such clear with such clarity that you know it's coming. You know that that next step is right there and you're going to take it. It's always been one of one of my best friends is uh he's an insurance guy, and you know, he's one that I went to work with in insurance. And he always says, speak that into existence. He has an expletive that he throws in there. But yeah, yeah, speak it into existence. And and we do that. We do that every day. You know, we sit, Debbie and I get up at, you know, we're usually in the living room about six in the morning having coffee, and we just talk about where we're going, what's happening that day, you know, where the keys is, where everything is is moving, and uh, it's that manifestation every single day.
SPEAKER_02I think that's great. You know, this podcast, MJ, as you know, our listeners are business owners, entrepreneurs. Maybe somebody who's currently working for the man but doesn't want to do that anymore, and they're considering starting a business. Could be a marketing professional, you know, advertising agencies or marketing majors, right? Or all of the above. So when you were considering starting your own business, and you still to this day in Colorado, you've got your own business, like what what were some of the checklists or some of the things that you thought through that you had to uncover to make your dream a reality?
SPEAKER_03Gosh, that's a great question. Um, in some regards, going back to 97, it was just go. You know, there there wasn't much of a plan in place. I knew I I knew I was a good appraiser. I had connections in the business, I was gonna go leverage every one of those connections. You know, now starting the keys, which is you know, mindset coaching for small businesses, entrepreneurs, corporate leadership, it's a totally different approach. You know, it I I'm I'm leveraging my own history, my own experiences, and what I've seen in terms of success and failure and why leaders fail. And typically isn't because they're weak, it's typically because they don't manage their strength. So that became kind of the impetus uh behind opening the keys. You know, when we moved here in 2016, we were talking to people and and we couldn't get realtors to call us back, we couldn't get home remodelers to call us back. And I I looked at Debbie and I said, I'm gonna write a book. Chapter one, answer the dog on phone. Chapter two, return the dog on phone call. The end. Obviously, now we're a little beyond the chapters, you know, the two chapters, but uh you know, the the mindset that that that uh that drives stayed the same.
SPEAKER_02I love that. There's some great nuggets. Let's pivot a little bit. You've still got your your appraisal business. Your lovely wife, Debbie, is in uh real estate. She's also an appraiser. She's actually, fun fact, our personal realtor. And she's phenomenal. You guys are are such a great team, great friends. But uh where I'm going with this is now you've got the keys, which is your new coaching platform. Where did that come from? Give us a little background there, and uh what's your goal with that? And can our listeners find you, or you know, why don't you give yourself a little shameless plug on that?
SPEAKER_03Shameless plug. I'm on pretty much all the socials as the keyscc. My my website is www.thekeys.cc. So not.com. It is it's dot cc. And everything's there, you know, kind of my background and and where this started and why this started. We have a platform, which I call the re- the pace reset. So pace is I've identified four archetypes of leaders. So there's you know, proactive, there's analytical, there's collaborative, and there's executive. So, but in each of those archetypes, there's going to be points of pain where they don't feel like they're failing, but the numbers show that they're failing. And so, you know, like you know, a proactive leader would, you know, they they make they make very quick decisions. They're very driven, but when the pressure turns up, they start moving too fast for their team, and the team gets left behind, and then you know, the communication breaks down and blah, blah, blah, and it just it explodes. So it isn't because they're bad leaders, it's because they're not managing their greatness. So that's what we do at the keys. We manage greatness. And I think that just comes from my observation of 40 years of being in the corporate world, being in the self-employed world, helping many startups, um, and just you know, coaching people one-on-one. Now I'm taking it more to a group coaching environment. So we've got, you know, 18 months of modules built out. We've got the reset, which is a three-week program, just kind of kick start where they uh where they can kind of start changing that mindset a little bit and start really focusing on their leadership style. So that's where we uh that's where we started and that's where we're going. It's a lot of fun. Having a great talk with it.
SPEAKER_02That's really exciting. Love, love to watch all the things that you're doing. Touch a little bit on the um you were on the legislative, you were sharing that you know months ago. You were trying to get some some bill crossed. What what was that about?
SPEAKER_03So in Colorado, an appraiser up until last year could be sued at any point in time for any reason within two years of quote unquote discovery of a defect in the appraisal. Well, that discovery could be 15 years later. The problem with that that we saw is that we have a federal record keeping requirement of five years. So we went to some legislators and said, how about we just cut it off at five years and do a statute of repose versus a statute of limitations? So repose is just a higher level of limitation. So from the date the appraisal is delivered, you have five years to sue us. And uh and we made some exceptions for you know the original homeowner, the original lender, which we got some blowback on that, you know, on those two things. But at the end of the day, we were able to pass that legislation 99 to 1 in both houses, both chambers of of our state house in Denver. And uh it was very gratifying. It was a lot of fun to to be part of that process, to be the guy that was the impetus driving the the bus. I met with dozens of legislators, both in person, having coffee, having lunch, uh a lot of Zoom calls, a lot of you know, traveling down to the to the state house and and shaking hands. You know, we we we would say I was uh kissing hands and shaking babies. But uh we had some fun and I had a great team. I we had you know two lobbyists, we had many appraisers who were part of this, and it was uh it was fantastic. We we really had a lot of fun in the process. I mean, there were times when it wasn't fun, but uh but overall we we we were able to do something really positive and really strong for appraisers in the state of Colorado. And it has driven other states to to follow in the footsteps. Um I think we were the 17th or 18th state nationwide to get this done, and I believe now there's 23 or 24, so it's it's getting some traction and more and more states are are getting into gear.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, one of the things I just wanted to comment on there is, and I say this a lot, you know, when people run a business, it's nice to make money, right? It's nice to be successful and all that kind of stuff, and no, there's sustainability, but it's those extra things. It's like, hey, we we got a project that we got finished. You talk about how much fun you had along the way, or it's fun to see a client be successful, or fun to see in your own team people develop, or people you're coaching. And I think that's a really consistent theme that we see really all around the country is the people that are the best at running a business go beyond I just want to make a lot of money, into I want to help people. I want to help other people be more successful in whatever way or shape, form that looks at. And ultimately, what you did in that legal issue is you you made it better for a lot of people, not just for you. It didn't affect just you. And I think that's really cool. And I think that's the point I don't want our listeners to to miss out on that. That yes, there is a time and a place where you have to focus on yourself and making money, but it developed, it evolves into more than that over time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's uh that's that's a really great point, Nick. I think we uh lost him for a second, but one of the things that I want to talk a little bit about and and really shed a little bit more light on, and the reason that we we really wanted MJ on here is is just for the sheer story, nothing's ever easy, right? But but it's worth doing the the continuation, the the drive. And and where I want to circle back to, MJ, uh we lost you for a second. You know, fast forward to today, like you keep your mind sharp, you physically fit, right? Um what is the importance of that and what are you doing, both both mind and body, to stay top-notch?
SPEAKER_03Well, you know, you you only get so many heartbeats in your life. So it it pays to to make sure that you're doing the right thing for yourself, for your body, for your mind. You know, the the men in my family have not uh been long for this world. My uh my birth father passed away at 67, his dad at 38. Um, heart heart disease. So I know that I have that. Once I found out that I was adopted, I found out that I was adopted when I was 47 years old, and the family that I talked to at that point said, go get your heart checked, because the men in this family have bad hearts. So first stop was the cardiologist, and they put me on the treadmill, they did everything in the world, they uh did the ultra or the yeah, the ultrasound of the heart, and the guy looks at me and he goes, You have the heart of a 25-year-old. You're fine, everything is wonderful. I mean, they ran me up on the treadmill to like 222 over 190 in my blood pressure, and they're like, and you're not fainting. This is good. So, yeah, I mean, I you know, I know that with high cholesterol, I manage that through diet and exercise. I do some supplementation, but I'm not on any pharmaceuticals. At 61 years old, I feel amazing. So and I think that's largely due to just remaining active. You know, they say that that uh tennis will add years to your life, and I'm not sure who they are, but apparently they are very wise. Uh, you know, I play a lot of tennis, I lift weights, I row, you know, I I eat clean whole foods, just try to try to stay just try to stay on top of uh health and beauty. Luckily, I'm not on camera. I do have a I've got that face for radio.
SPEAKER_01And work-life balance.
SPEAKER_02As we wrap up here, one of the things that I know about you and Debbie are you enjoy business, you enjoy the success, right? The fruits of your labor. You enjoy each other, your kids. You're now grandkids and just living. Yeah. Love to travel. Where where are you guys going next?
SPEAKER_03Next up is Italy. We'll be in Italy for the first two weeks of uh of May. And I don't know when this podcast was coming out, so maybe I've already been there at this point, and it was wonderful. So we you know, we we do we've got grandkids in Spokane, Washington, so we head up there quite a bit. So family in California, so we go there quite a bit. That's that's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, I hope you have a great time in Italy or had a great time in Italy, depending on when we release this. I know Nick, you're in Florida right now. MJ, you're you're in Vail right now, so we're we're all over the place here. But this has been great. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you for sharing your story. Nick, you got any last-minute thoughts, comments?
SPEAKER_00No, I just I think it's great for people to see that success is never a straight line. It's full of lots of jagged, it's full of lots of redirects, it's full of some some things that go the way you want to and the things that don't. But ultimately, at the end of the day, you control what you can control. And that's your mindset, your attitude, your belief, your work ethic, and everything else will fall into place. And sometimes we don't see it, but we're like, oh man, that stinks, versus just kind of that mindset of like it's all going to work out. And I I love that mindset. Sounds like all three of us have the better haves that not only look better than us, but probably are smarter and take care of us and our lives better than we do. So I think we probably all three have that in common.
SPEAKER_03So thank you for your time, Dad. Appreciate it. It was great. Oh my gosh, thank thank you guys for having me on. This has been a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, you you enjoy your time in Vail, Nick. Enjoy your spring break in Florida. And for for our listeners, we are very excited to a little sneak peek into our next episode, which is a great dovetail off of everything that MJ talked about, went through in his past, but thriving regardless of outside environment. We're excited to come with uh with some great information and some great key points. So stay tuned for that next episode. MJ again, thank you so much for your time. Nick, as always, great to see you. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Thanks, guys. Thanks for listening to the Your Brand, Your Backyard Podcast. I'm Jeremy Rentz.
SPEAKER_00I'm Nick Matheny. Be sure to tune in to our next episode. Until next time, happy growing.