Exiting a Business Tax-Deferred Using a Deferred Sales Trust with Shea Pope

Shea Pope is from the great state of Alabama. He is a multifamily developer, a business owner, and an entrepreneur. He is a hard-working, driven, and focused strategic leader with over 20 years in executive management across multiple businesses. His daily passion is business development and through this desire, he helps organizations reach their goals. During his career to date, he has assisted in helping three organizations reach over 10x revenue growth. He’s actually a Deferred Sales Trust client.

He Founded Driven Security which focuses on securing businesses with a purpose. He is also the Founding Partner of The Graceway Group which focuses on multi-family construction projects. They build and manage deals from the ground up. Everything they do as a company is focused on one goal – “Partnering for the Future”.

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Exiting a Business Tax-Deferred Using a Deferred Sales Trust with Shea Pope

Brett:

I’m excited about our next guest. He’s out of the great state of Alabama. He’s actually a Deferred Sales Trust client. He is a multifamily developer. He’s a business owner, an entrepreneur and so many other things. I just had the good fortune of being able to have Mr. Shea Pope as a client last about a year and a half. Now we’re going to dive into what it was like for him to exit a business tax-deferred using a Deferred Sales Trust, as well as dive into his story of building a business, exiting a business, and starting a new one with building multifamily properties. Please welcome to show with me Shea Pope. How are you doing?

Shea:

Brett, thanks for having me. Happy to be here. It has been a long time coming. I look forward to our conversation.

Brett:

Absolutely. For our listeners who want to get to know you for the first time, would you give a little bit more about your story and your current focus?

Shea:

Yes, the story is becoming a serial entrepreneur without knowing that I was an entrepreneur, got hired out of college with about a year and a half, left in school, dropped out, and went in full time into a business called Logo Brands. Logo brands were out of Memphis originally and were in is today, the largest tailgating companies in the United States. They take licenses is from sports leagues around the world. They put that on tailgating goods and then distribute those into retail chains and bookstores across the country. So leaving school, with about a year and a half left. Going into that business, I learned a lot about entrepreneurship. Had two good friends in the business eventually became an owner in that business in 2006. We have just a crazy trajectory from a business that started out of a garage in Memphis back in the early 2000s, to becoming a leading leader in the space, so I was the CMO there for 15 years. Wholesale distribution was over manufacturing in China and left that business to pursue other ventures. In 2018 and 2019, I started two businesses, I saw the space of commercial security becoming a bigger deal. It was some of the unrest that we’ve seen, especially the last couple of years. So felt like getting into the security space was a neat business to start. Then also had always wanted to go into ground-up construction in real estate. Just a huge passion. In 2020 exited out of Logo Brands, formally as an owner, and there was another real estate company that was associated with that as well. Where one of the main assets was, and so today my role is I’ve got two businesses. One, I’m 100% owner of Driven Security out of Alabama. But then I’m in ownership with a general partner out of Nashville, Adam Birdwell, who is our GC and we’re building multifamily together and doing deals. Absolutely amazing.

Brett:

I love it so much. I love the entrepreneurial spirit. I love business success. I love chasing after your next thing which is multifamily real estate as well as securities business. Very cool. Before we dive into the topic, which is exiting a business tax-deferred using a Deferred Sales Trust, and everything that the greater group is doing with multifamily investments. I do want to take one other step back and help our listeners get to know you a little bit better. I want you to go back perhaps to your high school days or early college days. I believe we’ve all been given certain gifts in this life Shea and these gifts have been given to us to be a blessing and help to others. Some people call them strengths, some people call them superpowers. I’m curious, what are those one or two gifts that you believe you were given? How does that help how you help and bless people today?

Shea:

I’m a man of faith. I got saved by God’s grace in 2003. I think I’ve been given primarily the gift of persistence. I will fight when I just don’t have any energy left to fight in through the good times and bad times, especially when we’re talking about putting real estate deals together. Or we’re starting businesses, or we’re growing up and getting through college and getting into life. In marriage and kids, I’m married, got four kids been married for 15 years. For me, the one thing I think about with my life is just persistence that it might not always go the way that I want it to go. But as long as I’m persistent, and I never quit, and I’ve given it everything that I can usually the results, and I know, it’s cliche, but usually, things are going to work out the way that they’re supposed to, and you can at least live with the results. So it served me well in my life and trying to pass it along to my kids. That’s a big thing for me.

Brett:

That’s awesome. Persistency is fantastic. I can attest to that. You were persistent with the due diligence process, Learning about the Deferred Sales Trust, let’s pivot to that a little bit here. And maybe tell a little bit about wanting to exit your Logo Brands business, but having some capital gains tax. How do I take what I would have paid a tax? How do I help to create this next business venture? So what was maybe the biggest thing that you had to overcome? When it came to the sale, multi-million dollar sale a part of your interest in the business, deferring a big part of tax and was a big thing overcome for the Deferred Sales Trust?

Shea:

I think the biggest thing to overcome with the trust was just to understand it. Truthfully, before I learned about it, there were two entities that we were selling, out of one had a real estate component, one didn’t. So when you’re thinking about the future, and you’ve been in this business a long time, you want to get it right. I remember I was standing in Mobile, Alabama, and I was driving down the road on a sales trip. I was listening to the Best Real Estate Podcast, and you are a guest on Joe Fairless Show. You are great on the podcasts and very likable, trustworthy. I’m like, hey, this guy sounds legit. I like this, there were specifically resonated with the IRS piece as far as it had been defended 14-15 times the structure of the DST. So I have a dear friend that in Tennessee, that I trust, and he was selling out of some businesses to, and I told him about this as like, Hey, listen to this podcast, he called me and he’s like, man, let me dig into this. I was like, you were just the guy. Because I mean, when it comes to digging into things he is so much. He’s just gifted in that way. So he did his research for a couple of months, then I did my research, we circled back up. He’s like, I’m all in on this. So I mean, for me, with my wife, Danielle, it really became obvious, we wanted to do a lot of reference checks with people that kind of lived and breathed that. But just, for me, it was really simple. I got hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of dollars of taxes here. I’ve got to pay him at some point. But why not defer them. Then that gives us the freedom and the time because honestly, I had not done a ton of 1031s at this point to the kind of go back a couple of years. But as I’m learning in evaluating the DST, just initially, in doing my research, I’m like, this 1031 stuff sounds very straightforward. But I’m an entrepreneur that doesn’t like to be boxed in. I imagine there’s a lot of people like me that want the freedom to not have to say, I’ve got to do this with my money right now. so that was kind of the biggest thing of the DST, that resonated with me, it’s like, I can take the time that I need to do, strategically with a Trustee, once I signed up and understood how that worked, as well, I can make recommendations and have a lot more freedom that way, for my family.

Brett:

I appreciate you sharing that. It’s nice to have that third-party validation for people like and trust, they can look at it from a separate set of eyes, because I always say, for folks that are approaching us for the first time, like it’s a big deal, to entrust something that perhaps you’ve never heard about before. Or just learning about from a podcast, and perhaps the biggest exit you’ve had, it’s your financial legacy and emotionally, when when we’re exiting highly appreciated assets, whether it be cryptocurrency, businesses, real estate, all the things that are associated with that, and they’re dealing with tax, it can be it’s almost like it’s wise not to represent yourself if you’re buying a house because the emotional aspect of it can fog the logical part. So I think that’s wise that you saw that outside aspect of somebody whose skin wasn’t in the game for your business. So just talk about that. That emotional part of exiting a big business 15 years that you’ve been in this and all of a sudden, this man’s telling you on a podcast, Joe Fairless. He was interviewing me that you could do this thing like what was going through your mind? How did that feel? What helped you to overcome that hesitancy?

Shea:

I think the older I get, the more I realized that I can’t do everything. I think one is a little bit younger, and I can even default to this still. I need to do everything. When it came to getting out of these businesses, these are men that I consider friends. A lot of family relationships over the 15 years I was there. Then in that dynamic, there’s a motion on my side, all around right at times, and especially when you’re trying to figure out what do you want to get for these assets? What’s the market value, etc. So making sure that the stewardship side of it for my wife and I, that we weren’t making a mistake, and in agreeing to value with my partners, and then taking that money into a vehicle that wasn’t vetted out? I guess the simplest way for me is, I’d be lying to you, If I said I had like a concrete plan other than how can I protect the taxes of this to pay them at a later date? I will tell you now is I evaluate businesses to buy and sell. It’s amazing. The freedom that I have with the DST and I’m very strategic with my planning of recommending to you hey, let’s look at this, that, etc. But truthfully, at the time, it was simple as just kind of like, I need this guy, dear friend of mine, Ike Wingate at Arkansas now he’s moved on to let’s fit this DST. Then once you and I talked for the first time, I think one of the things that are easily I’m a Southerner at heart lifelong Southerners. So for me, I got to talk to folks, I got to kind of go straight to the horse’s mouth. So you opened up your Rolodex of clients, and for me and my wife to be able to call 20-30 people, even after talking to Ike and him doing the same realize, like, not everybody that’s done, this had a perfect plan that was executed. They all were just trying to do what they felt like they were being led to do in their family, what’s best for the future, but give them some freedom to kind of make decisions a little while longer. So we talked to these families and, and former business owners and people that had done it, and we’re like, this is what we need to do. We had a lot of peace. I think it was nice that the way that we structured those two buyouts, Brett. I think you and your team, US assigning those interests in the way that the DST works, it was nice because it gave us a lot of freedom to not have another layer of involvement removed. I wish it was more complex than that, but I look back and really worked out exactly the way that it was supposed to, and very thankful.

Brett:

Excellent. So, you talked about what you know went right, and what’s going well, what’s been maybe the thing that perhaps you wish would be a little bit different, or something that surprised you, or anything that you’d say. I wish that would have been better. This would be good feedback for me, but also just transparency, anything that you’re like, I wish I would have known that, or I wish I would have had more time to digest what was being said because sometimes these deals are happening very quickly.

Shea:

I think time is probably the biggest thing, Brett. I think the more you get to know me, I mean, that deal came together quickly. And, again, I appreciate it. Because one of my biggest weaknesses, my wife would tell you is patience and I think we came to a number maybe at the end of March, and we were closed May 8. So I mean, that’s kudos to my former business partners, who handled that great. Kudos to you. Kudos to everybody involved. I think the thing that probably could have gone better is I could have asked better questions. There are some things with specifically Brett around what we’ve learned coming into all these deals with the DST into some of the Graceway Investments Peachers Place, and soon to be some other things. It’s like you said at the very beginning before we assign everything from those two entities that Logo and Macaulay it’s going to be like riding the bike understanding how the DST works, how the ownership works, how you can defer the taxes, and assign interest and those are things that until you just go through a couple of deals, you just don’t know. So I felt like I asked all the questions, but the light bulb went off, just like it does for me and everything else. I’m a visual guy, like, I got to go through it. So I don’t know if it’s necessarily anything maybe something a little bit on some of the buy-up stuff protecting the upside on some of these investments using the DST. But it’s been great. I mean, what we’ve done with Graceway Group and the freedom that I have, and even doing these last couple things with you and Jake, just been fantastic.

Brett:

Fantastic. Let’s dive right into that because one of the best things, the reason I started the company was because, in 2008, the market fell apart. We literally saw people who had overpaid for 1031 Exchange properties were in deals they didn’t want to be in because they were trying to defer the tax and we saw friends, family, clients lose half some lost everything in Sacramento, California because the main thing we could find was 1031 was the culprit here. So the ability to have that flexibility with the timing of the dollars, diversification to flexibility, liquidity, and to go back into real estate deals, all tax-deferred and your scenario literally ground-up development. As a reminder for listeners like he was selling a business, it’s not even 1031 eligible. So it’s only eligible for maybe a charitable remainder trust. Just talk about the aspect of what you wanted to do and what you’re doing now. We’re going to highlight that by the way, go to thegracewaygroup.com. On the 72 units, you’re building in Clarksville, Tennessee ground-up development, and how the Deferred Sales Trust has been able to fund a part of that project.

Shea:

Yes, fantastic. What we’ve been able to do with that, and I guess it’ll be not so secret anymore after this. But that’s a good thing because I think there’s a lot of people like me, whether they’re doing ground-up development, whether they’re passively investing, whether they’re looking to do a blend of both, is it’s pretty unique. So we deferred the taxes from selling these two assets. We had already started kind of a holding company in Brentwood, Tennessee, and started a subsidiary in Clarksville, and the developments called Peters Play 72, townhomes and so many, many millions of ground-up construction. We did that in a couple of phases, just to be conservative with material prices, etc. But I was able to bring the trust that I’m in that Brett oversees into that development. It’s a minority position holder. Then one of the things that were near and dear to me that I think gets lost when I hear real estate podcasts out there from not people that are using DST structures, but just, in general, is like, I’m a practical guy making sure that the trust is not a guarantor and making sure that there was flexibility from an equity position to allow the trust or the trust to have the equity that it needs to be commercially reasonable, but also not put the trust at risk. Because The Graceway Group, me and my partner, we’re going to be 80% owner still and then the trust, but that makes it to where the DST you know Brett could loan money to the development, along with us personally bring capital if we desired. Then that business pays back a return that was agreed upon contractually. So I mean, the nice thing for me is Brett’s been just such a gift as far as like, very flexible of like, here are some stock market opportunities. Here are some passive opportunities with a lot of different people across the country that are in Brett’s network. But look, I mean, I believe in my business partner, Adam. Obviously, I believe in myself. So if Brett believes in me to invest in a development that we’re doing in Clarksville and then he can get a return, but then I have direct control over that on the ground from a construction and financial management standpoint with my partner. Like that’s a win-win. So it’s an active investment that you’re directly involved with. So when we did that we’ve we have sold out of the first phase, we’re almost sold out of the second phase, and then there’ll be a third phase that’s going to come online this summer. It’s just been fantastic. As we have assigned the value of all that through all three phases into the DST that I have. What’s beautiful about that is the 40% of my ownership in that LLC that was outside of the trust, I deferred and assign that to the trust. The 20%, that the trust captured, I was able to buy an option on that. The great thing about the option is there’s a commercial transaction of which I paid to be able to capture the upside. But that allows the trust to still make a percentage on the end. I mean, for me to get a large piece of that transaction overall, with somebody put in from the trust, but earn a prep return the entire time, defer the taxes, and then the next two developments, do the same thing. That’s a win. and I mean I think from a business standpoint, Brett, what I would say is, I have not seen it much because, at least Adam and I’s strategy is to use that is his equity for our business, to grow it competitively. It’s a way to build a war chest, but you’ve also got passive income. So now what he and I are doing is, we’ve got these deals, where our percentages of ownership, we’re going to pass up money at the end of this coming back to Graceway, that will be distributed out monthly, but all that equity from the sale is in two separate trusts. It’s powerful, because you’ve got a note of that money that’s due to you, but you’re putting it to work elsewhere. So if we want to do other deals, etc, we can. Obviously, again, I didn’t know all this, when I started I had a decent idea. But I mean under the hood, on we’re doing a lot of stuff and excited about it.

Brett:

Fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing that. For those who want to learn more, go to capitalgainstaxsolutions.com. I appreciate you sharing those details because it does help those who are learning about this for the first time to get as comfortable as they can. There’s this thing about the Deferred Sales Trust part of why I love it because it’s such a dynamic challenge, like building a high level of trust, and typically, sometimes a short period of time with a very high stakes deal. Then trying to develop these client relationships. You’re in Tennessee and Alabama, and I’m in California, thinking about moving by the way to Florida and or towards Tennessee. I know you’re twisting my arm on that one a little bit. But, it’s really an honor for me to be able to serve, be a part of your exits, and then strategize and help you buy and find more deals or negotiate deals. For somebody who’s watching this, why Capital Gains Tax Solutions? Why would they want to work with me? Anything about that could help them get encouraged. Why not just do a 1031 exchange? In other words, of all the alternatives that he looked at, what is it about the Deferred Sales Trust that would help somebody to say, Yes, I want to take make this decision. Yes, it is like riding a bike. Because we literally could try to take the 10,000 hours that I’ve been studying and doing deals with since 2009. The tax attorney to Shea, and this 30 to 60 minutes call maybe 90 days that you have as much as possible, but at the end of the day, it’s an act of trust and faith, it’s legal, and the people are legit, and they’re credible and will protect everything. So walk us through in helping a person who’s on the sidelines or unsure what their CPA is saying, unsure of doing it, and seems like more people would be doing it and help us do that.

Shea:

I think I resonate with a couple of different things that were important to me that I’m sure a lot of your listeners would be valuable. I think the first thing I would say, and I left this out at the beginning, but it’s important. I had an attorney, and I had my CPA, going back almost 20 years. Look at this, and I will be honest with you I got a mixed bag on the first conversations about it. But after they had their consultation with the DSTS attorney and tax professionals, everybody was on the same page. Those are that CPA group at Nashville’s one of the biggest in the Southeast, phenomenal people. I’ll tell you, I don’t want to speak for them. But they’ve been very encouraged. Even a year or two later in the way, the installment sale stuff has been reported. Everything’s checked the box on their side. So I think what’s important for listeners to hear is like, bring your people if you’re talking to Brett, and you’re thinking about this versus a 1031, get your people in a room or on the phone. Brett’s gonna give you the freedom to vet it out the best you want. I think that’s all you can ask for. I think another thing that I would bring up that was important for me, it’s a principle that I don’t always do 100% on a fellow, but as the do unto others as you would want to be done to you, Adam, Matthew, and, and my big thing with reference calls was when it’s Brett let you down. But when Brett said he was going to do it. The examples, we’re just like, we can trust this guy character. Then just meeting you, but seeing your wife and kids, just getting to know your story, your background a lot more, I think the bottom line for most people, if they’re like me, is kind of the biggest thing, when you think about trust is like, you’ve got to assign that to somebody else, you have to give up control. I kind of go back to what I said at the beginning, I can’t control everything. So if I want to maximize my return on investment, for the next 20 years of my life, in really trying to build businesses to be successful. I gotta have the time to do that, I got to have the flexibility, I got to have the freedom. I don’t have to do everything. So you would think, I’ve sold these two businesses, you’re just gonna give away full flexibility of controlling that day-to-day looks like, I will. Because I think the DST and kind of what you specifically have brought to it allow me to still have contracts in place, there’s still a lot of recourse involved to make sure that things don’t go sell. But you do have to trust people in life. I hear these horror stories, especially lately, I mean wherever people think the market is right, if we’re midway through top-bottom, Tennessee, and Alabama, real estates on fire, and what I hear a lot from 1031 purchasers, who have sold assets, especially from out of state coming into Tennessee, and Alabama, it’s like, man, I’ve got all this money, but I cannot believe what things cost here. So doing a DST gives you time, where you don’t feel the pressure of I’ve got to find something in 45 days, and then close in six months. Those are the two or three things brought, I would say, they were important to me, it’s like flexibility. Then just kind of a personal character assessment

Brett:

That’s great, Shea. I also want to also remind everybody that he’s talking about the structure in the day-to-day. It’d be good for everyone to hear like, do the funds ever move without your approval or investments ever made without your approval? What’s the answer to that?

Shea:

The answer is no. Kind of back practically. I mean, that was something I was concerned about. Because we’ve all had those things in businesses where it’s like, I’ve signed this, but does it work that way? So that was one of the early things is, am I gonna have visibility to all these investments, which to me, that’s one of the best things like the way that you report the data to me the way I can see all the documents in one file. Phenomenal. The other thing was important what you just said if the money’s moving, what’s happening there. So I mean, for me to be able to put Danielle on this right. Both of us, as a married couple, like have a say. So as far as Final Authorization. It’s great. And, and you do put it where you want it to be, but we have to see it and bless it.

Brett:

Fantastic. Thanks for sharing that testimonial and know the feedback that means the world to us, and hopefully, listeners are getting some more confidence and they go to capitalgainstaxsolutions.com If you want to schedule a one-on-one time with me to assess if it could be a good fit for you. You can also join our Mastermind happens every Friday, by going to capitalgainstaxsolutions.com you can join us. We have clients on there. In fact, Shea, I’m gonna encourage you to join this next Mastermind to also share and by the way, Shea and I are going to be doing a breakout session at the Best Ever Conference that’s coming up here in Colorado. It’s Joe Fairless and his team, I have the honor of speaking on stage which I’ll be giving a shout-out for Shea as for The Graceway Group as well. Then next day on Friday, the 25th, we’re gonna do a breakout session where I’m going to be on a panel with Shea and a couple of others going through in I call it Geeking out on Tax Deferral on the Deferred Sales Trust and basically an open forum anyone’s invited they can see us live and in person and so if you want to learn more about that you go to capitalgainstaxsolutions.com where we have a discount code of 15% off of that ticket. But that being said, I want to switch over to The Graceway Group and what you’re doing over there. The vision for that. The potential opportunity for those who are interested is that you are an Alabama, Tennessee, Neo native expert in areas and building and development. I’m excited to bring you up folks that are open to that because let’s face it, California and these other states, it’s hard to make sense of any deals, but the fact that you are building in new construction and selling for great prices, let’s walk through a little bit about Graceway’s vision and the opportunity for people who might be interested.

Shea:

Yeah, I mean, the vision of Graceway is exciting. From the beginning, we started that place in a Cracker Barrel in Tennessee, Brett, over some good old eggs and bacon and all that stuff. Adam is a God that I’ve known for many years. He was transitioning away from a construction company. The timing was perfect for us to kind of jump in both feet. So The Graceway Group is that our tagline and mission statement is Partnering for the future. What does that mean? we, we each have four kids, he’s got four boys, I’ve got a girl and three boys. So what are we leaving on? What’s our legacy to them? Are we just out syndicating deals, building deals, selling deals, leasing deals, are we thinking about our kids and leaving them something that they can take over someday, and we just aligned from a vision standpoint of we both love real estate and construction. But Partnering for the future means a lot for our families. But then also, if people are ever coming to us with their money I go back to what I said from Matthew about doing others you want to be done under you if you’re partnering for the future, and you’ve got an 18 to 24-month window, to execute on something, and to sell it or lease it up. But to do it, you want people to trust you, and you want to bring them in as a partner. So I mean, we talked about those two threads with family and syndicating money someday, and we’re just like that is what kind of represents it Partnering for the future. So from there, we really took our time. Because even though he’s got a construction background, even though I’ve got a business background, and three or four different businesses, real estate construction, together, ground-up development we wanted to make sure when we jumped into this thing that we really had our ducks in a row and triple check the cost triple check the market. So we looked at a lot of markets, I mean, Tennessee, no income tax. We started this business two months before COVID hit the US in February 2020. So here we are thinking we’re gonna knock this out of the park and then COVID hits but the blessing of COVID is there’s a fine line and everything. I mean, it gave us additional months to like, drive these communities with not a lot of people out and about. We looked at markets all around Nashville, we love Tennessee, where we’re looking at some other markets outside of Tennessee, we’ve not yet done anything in Huntsville. Although Huntsville is the number one emerging market in the country in my book. A lot of the people I follow are investing here. We are a licensed GC in Alabama. So if there are opportunities that people know of or landowners investors want to contact us, very open to that. But yeah, Tennessee, we’ve got one deal underway. We are selling 72 townhomes. We’ve got about 32 of those sold, and then the other 40 are going to be coming online soon. Those are 2-4-5 a door 1400 square feet. Three bedroom three bath are in the mix there. So yeah, Adams is on the ground up there in Clarksville. We’re building these for sale. I think to kind of give you some context on that. Brett, it’s important at the onset of this first deal, We wanted to kind of stabilize the company. Make sure beyond the DST that I’ve got personally that the company is flush with cash and ready to go into other deals. So some of the other deals that we’re looking at are in and around Nashville. We have I think a really good deal for us right now as we’ve got multiple landowners that are coming to us under 100 acres that are wanting us to do single family for rent. Some are wanting to do townhomes townhome high-end residential mix with like one-acre lots about 4000 square feet. But we’re open to the deals that make sense. we’re not out chasing a bunch of deals. We think that especially going to this show this month. There are some things that we want to learn on the syndication front we want to button up, I think what makes us unique to kind of round out my thoughts is that we’re ground up. We’re in the hottest market in the country. I mean, I lived in Nashville for 12 years, Tennessee for 27 in Memphis, and it just could not be a better market with the amount of companies and businesses that are moving in there. So it’s an exciting time, and we hope to get you in Tennessee, by the way.

Brett:

Yeah, me too. That’d be so amazing. We can make that happen. So thank you so much for sharing that. But we can learn more about that by going to thegracewaygroup.com. That being said, we’re out of time Shea. Are you ready for a lightning round?

Shea:

I’m ready.

Brett:

If you go back to your 25-year-old self, what’s the one golden nugget make sure to tell yourself to do?

Shea:

Be patient.

Brett:

Great. Number two, what’s the number one book you’ve recommended or gifted the most in the past year?

Shea:

Think and Grow Rich.

Brett:

Number three, what’s the number one leadership quote or theme that you strive to live by?

Shea:

Do unto others as you want to be done unto you?

Brett:

The next one would be, what are you most curious about right now?

Shea:

I am the most curious about sponsorship in deals, how that looks, what that represents in different asset classes. How to balance equity positions to the developer and show Grace there but be fierce when it counts to kind of make sure that your company is protected. That’s a big thing I’m researching right now.

Brett:

Fantastic. The last thing is this, after all of your success in Logo Brands, Driven Security business, and The Graceway Group with a Deferred Sales Trust or family, with everything. How do you stay centered in your values? What kind of habits are you practicing? How do you stay encouraged to charge forward and reach for even higher heights?

Shea:

Yeah, I think two things. I mean, I think for me, from a faith standpoint, that’s important to me prayer. Out of prayer I’ve got it, I’ve got a good circle of people around me that I’m really transparent with, I’m in a CEO group in Huntsville, through an organization called C-12. It’s a group of CEOs that have a Christian faith background that can speak into my life. My wife, my best friend I tell her, all the good, bad, the ugly, and she shoots me straight. We’ve got a good church. Then just a couple dear friends, I mean Brett, your God that I consider to be a friend on, and I think, while we don’t go into too deep personal stuff like, from a business standpoint you shouldn’t be straight. I’ve got a couple of friends on all fronts to do that with me. I think you got to have some type of way to privately speak your issues because we all have issues. So for me, prayer is number one, but then having a close group of people that you’re like, Hey, am I running after all this stuff for the wrong reason? Is it about me? Is it about something else? Or if you’re struggling, there’s going to be people that listen to this that are like, this DSTs stuff sounds too good to be true. There, we all have a tendency to overthink it. Like for me, it’s like what is your personal group of people that you can trust that it’s more than one person, there’s a plurality of people that can shoot you straight.

Brett:

Thank you for being on the show. Being a friend now. Being a client. Give me the privilege and honor to be able to serve you and your family. I want to encourage you to keep using the gifts of persistence to help those around you and your family and your business, and your partnerships and everything with The Graceway Group to make a difference in this world and be a blessing to others. So thank you so much for being on the show.