Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Uplift: He educates us on the realities behind the TV show Hoarders and the mission of his company Lifecycle Transitions.

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Uplift: He educates us on the realities behind the TV show Hoarders and the mission of his company Lifecycle Transitions. · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Rashan McDonald host this weekly Money Making Conversation
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Speaker 1: Masterclass show. The interviews and information that this show provides
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Speaker 1: off for everyone that includes you. It's time to stop
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Speaker 1: are a small business owner, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, inflorencer or nonprofit,
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Speaker 1: I want you on my show. Now, let's get started.
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Speaker 1: My guest is America's life transition Expert, one of the
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Speaker 1: faces of A and East hit TV show Hoarders. That's right, Hoarders.
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Speaker 1: He's the founder of life Cycle Transitions, the first company
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Speaker 1: of its kind to blend emotional, logistical, and real estate
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Speaker 1: support for families facing crisis level home situations from hoarding
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Speaker 1: and inherited homes to addiction, mental health, and eldercare. He
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Speaker 1: has helped thousands of people reclaim their lives and dignity
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Speaker 1: to compassionate action. Please welcome to the Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
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Speaker 1: Brandon Bronette, Ah Brandon I'm good.
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Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
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Speaker 1: Well, thank you, sir. You know, let's get started with this.
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Speaker 1: It show hoarders, because I've called my wife a hoarder,
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Speaker 1: and the show last night said, don't you ever call
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Speaker 1: me a hoarder again. I am not that. So my
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Speaker 1: question to you, Brandon is when people use the word
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Speaker 1: horder in general, like I've through it my wife, what
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Speaker 1: exactly is a horder?
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Speaker 2: Well, that's an interesting question.
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Speaker 3: What the word hoarding has done is it's given a
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Speaker 3: face to a much deeper mental health issue, in fact,
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Speaker 3: a much deeper mental health crisis.
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Speaker 2: Uh.
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Speaker 3: And a lot of that is what manifests itself in
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Speaker 3: a physical form. That what people are dealing with, going
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Speaker 3: through and experiencing the most importantly, what they're suffering from,
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Speaker 3: shows itself in the physical and a lot of that
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Speaker 3: is and the accumulation of the inability to let go
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Speaker 3: of the past traumas or experiences.
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Speaker 1: Now, how do you get there though? You know, let
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Speaker 1: me back up a little bit. Okay, how do you,
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Speaker 1: as an expert see the problem before they acknowledge the problem?
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Speaker 2: Well, that's that's good. I mean that's a twofold question.
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Speaker 3: One I get calls all the time when clients want
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Speaker 3: us to come in and do an evaluation assessment, and
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Speaker 3: most often the night before we arrive at the home
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Speaker 3: is the most challenging, most difficult, most embarrassing, most shameful
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Speaker 3: moment of their life because they're.
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Speaker 2: Now allowing themselves to be vulnerable.
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Speaker 3: So the first thing they try to do is tidy
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Speaker 3: up and clean up because like, you know, like think
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Speaker 3: about it, when you got people coming over your house,
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Speaker 3: how many of us have thrown a bunch of things
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Speaker 3: in the closet.
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Speaker 2: You open the closet, things just sort of fall on
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Speaker 2: top of you.
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Speaker 3: Well, when my clients, what I try to explain to
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Speaker 3: them is that without being morbid, because this may sound
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Speaker 3: little bit more of that, if I were a crime
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Speaker 3: scene investigator, if I was a homicide investigator, would you
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Speaker 3: want to move the body around before I get there?
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Speaker 2: So for me, I learned you learn.
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Speaker 3: More about a person from their home than any other
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Speaker 3: facet of their life.
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Speaker 1: Okay, I want to work, which is good information to
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Speaker 1: know because of the fact that I will tell you
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Speaker 1: I am a neat freak. You know, one of the guys,
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Speaker 1: would you, you know, maybe just I move a glass
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Speaker 1: if it's not Okay, that glass needs to be right there.
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Speaker 1: And so that's another smeter issue, right.
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Speaker 2: That's the opposite end of the spectrum.
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Speaker 1: Right right, right, So that's me, that's what you're talking with,
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Speaker 1: Rushan McDonald. So my wife has to deal with that.
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Speaker 1: But when I hear the word life transition expert, it
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Speaker 1: almost seems like you know, morbid. But explain me when
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Speaker 1: you used in the word life transition, what does that
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Speaker 1: mean in your terms?
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Speaker 3: Well, it's all cool, it's all in, all encompassing, it's holistic,
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Speaker 3: it's everything they're dealing with mentally, physically, emotionally and financially.
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Speaker 3: And most of the cases, you know, their home is
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Speaker 3: their biggest asset.
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Speaker 2: So you can't when.
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Speaker 3: You're dealing with that home and you're trying to decide
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Speaker 3: to sell a home, fix a home, or move from
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Speaker 3: a home. There's a lot that goes into that decision
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Speaker 3: making process that meets the eye.
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Speaker 1: And when you say that, because because I want to
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Speaker 1: pull a little bit deeper into your Brandon, because this
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Speaker 1: is what you do, shayd Holders. So you kind of
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Speaker 1: cut off a little bit because you think I got it. Okay,
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Speaker 1: I don't have it because I watch television and television
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Speaker 1: is edited, and so like you said, a day before
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Speaker 1: people know you're coming, they try to clean up. You
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Speaker 1: walk in there still a disaster. Okay, And you said
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Speaker 1: rishon to hey, if it's a crime saying you don't
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Speaker 1: move the body, they have to come in and investigate. Now,
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Speaker 1: people who call on you to come to these places,
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Speaker 1: what is that converse, like Brandon?
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Speaker 3: Okay, Well, let me tie into that crime scene question
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Speaker 3: because I was going somewhere with that. The reason I
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Speaker 3: don't want them to get rid of their things and
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Speaker 3: to move their things because you learn so much from
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Speaker 3: what they're doing. You know why they're doing what they're doing,
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Speaker 3: and how they're functioning in their home. Gives me the
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Speaker 3: ability to take from it, which is the mental health
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Speaker 3: and the and the illness, and to learn from it
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Speaker 3: so that we can grow from it and move past
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Speaker 3: and heal from it. Because when people go through that trauma,
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Speaker 3: they're doing things unbeknownst to them in their in their
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Speaker 3: in their personal space that they aren't aware of.
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Speaker 2: And like the real world, you go to.
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Speaker 3: Work and your function and you're high functioning and you're professional,
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Speaker 3: you're productive, but when you go home, that's when that
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Speaker 3: mask is taken off. That's when you can sort of
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Speaker 3: be your most authentic self. And that's why you know,
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Speaker 3: violating people's home is so is so detrimental because it's
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Speaker 3: the only place in the world where.
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Speaker 2: People can feel safe.
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Speaker 3: So when when I tie back into what you're saying,
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Speaker 3: going into these environments and trying to figure out why
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Speaker 3: they do what they do and how they do what
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Speaker 3: they do and why they're nervous, is because they.
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Speaker 2: Don't know who's coming in that door.
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Speaker 3: They don't know what questions I'm going to ask, and
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Speaker 3: they're not really at that point sure how much they
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Speaker 3: want to reveal.
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Speaker 1: Right, So it's a cat and mouse can right in
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Speaker 1: a game that we have to get to the bottom
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Speaker 1: line because they do have a problem that they may
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Speaker 1: not be acknowledging. I'm talking to Brandon Brunei. He's the
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Speaker 1: America's Life Transition Expert, one of the faces of A
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Speaker 1: and E s hit TV show Hoarders. I guess I
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Speaker 1: got to start right there a TV show. How did
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Speaker 1: you get involved, Brandon?
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Speaker 3: Well, I started when we first started, We're a property
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Speaker 3: preservation company, and we were working with dilapidated distress properties
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Speaker 3: and getting them.
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Speaker 2: On the market.
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Speaker 3: As we were going in and out of these houses
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Speaker 3: doing the country's most vulnerable time during the housing crisis,
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Speaker 3: we begin to see idio secrecies or patterns, And I said,
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Speaker 3: what if there was a company that can sort of
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Speaker 3: help people mentally, physically and emotionally through all these different
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Speaker 3: situations that I was experiencing. So we started to see
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Speaker 3: more often people with an accumulation of life in their home,
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Speaker 3: like a bunch of things, knick knacks, and you know.
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Speaker 1: What, accumulations see you so nice? Okay, I don't see life,
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Speaker 1: but I want to. I want to, Jock, I see trash,
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Speaker 1: I see unlivable conditions. But you say accumulation of life.
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Speaker 1: But that's a very professional term for what you see.
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Speaker 3: Well, the reason I say that, though, m M mister McDonald,
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Speaker 3: is because if you've heard the terminology are well lived
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Speaker 3: in home, right, this is a home that's probably generationally
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Speaker 3: passed through Grandma's, grandma grandma home and inhering it from
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Speaker 3: that point on.
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Speaker 2: So there's there's a life. There's a lot of life
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Speaker 2: in there.
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Speaker 3: And also when you get over the age of sixty, unfortunately,
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Speaker 3: there's a lot that goes on in a person's life
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Speaker 3: there's family members that pass on, there's parents that pass on.
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Speaker 3: And what's the first thing people do when that happens.
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Speaker 3: They go over to the home and they start taking things.
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Speaker 3: And guess what, that's where the hoarding begins. Is when
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Speaker 3: you go into your loved one's home and you don't
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Speaker 3: see junk, You don't see this. You see the memories,
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Speaker 3: you see past experiences. You see when they bought that
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Speaker 3: bike and you told them they paid too much money
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Speaker 3: for the Honda. You see all of those things and
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Speaker 3: you're not and nobody else understands it in your mind
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Speaker 3: quite like you do. Well, that's what happens in a
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Speaker 3: lot of cases with people that are going through these
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Speaker 3: various situations alife.
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Speaker 1: Brandon is, so, what's the number one mistake that people make?
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Speaker 1: Are mistakes? I want to just put it on mistake
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Speaker 1: Like you've kind of mentioned it. People don't see what
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Speaker 1: they're doing and not acknowledge it. Is it. Let me
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Speaker 1: just let me back up a little bit. My number
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Speaker 1: one thought is it has to be some form of
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Speaker 1: isolation with these people because people don't visit them and
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Speaker 1: they don't make note of it. And you know, because
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Speaker 1: if I'm visiting somebody house and I see something, quite frankly,
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Speaker 1: will comment, go, what's going on on here? What is
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Speaker 1: the I guess them of these of the typical hoarder lifestyle, I.
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Speaker 3: Would say that most of them are high functioning. That's
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Speaker 3: that's that's the common denominator. And and it's funny because
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Speaker 3: we originated in Massachusetts. So if you can imagine, my
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Speaker 3: pool of clients are some of the most gifted, most intelligent,
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Speaker 3: most educated people.
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Speaker 2: In the world. And you know, and I had to
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Speaker 2: go into their environment.
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Speaker 3: And a lot of them were more educated, probably more
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Speaker 3: abreastive things in a specific segment than I was. And
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Speaker 3: I had to dummy down a lot of those conversations
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Speaker 3: because it didn't negate the fact that you got a
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Speaker 3: bunch of junk or trash or whatever in your home.
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Speaker 3: So you can be a rocket scientist, you can be
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Speaker 3: an m I. You can be an m I T
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Speaker 3: professor or Harvard graduate, but right now none of that's
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Speaker 3: serving in fact, is serving against you. So a lot
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Speaker 3: of them are highly intelligent people. Some of them are
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Speaker 3: on the spectrum, you know, and we're starting to realize
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Speaker 3: that there are quite a few people that are highly
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Speaker 3: intelligent and mental health sort of paralleling or going in
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Speaker 3: between those two spectrums.
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Speaker 2: Some of them have not been married before, some of
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Speaker 2: them have.
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Speaker 3: But one thing I do know is that when they
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Speaker 3: are married, that this creates a huge wedge in their
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Speaker 3: marriage and a lot of them do end up, unfortunately
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Speaker 3: dealing with marital status issues and diorse as a result
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Speaker 3: of this.
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Speaker 1: Now you said it's what I was going through your
10:29
Speaker 1: questions for the show. I ran across, of course, and said,
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Speaker 1: t TEA, explain to my audience why you feel that's
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Speaker 1: a good place to start. Well.
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Speaker 3: I started the THA program, which is Transition Evaluation Assessment,
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Speaker 3: about seventeen years ago because I needed a guiding tool
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Speaker 3: in order to really break down a lot of what's
10:48
Speaker 3: going on in people's lives financially, mentally, emotionally, physically and
10:52
Speaker 3: come up with a blueprint because let's face it, you
10:54
Speaker 3: don't know what you don't know until you know. And
10:57
Speaker 3: a lot of times when I prevace the idea when
11:00
Speaker 3: I talk to people, do you want to stand this
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Speaker 3: home or are you looking to downside or relocate?
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Speaker 2: I'll give you three options.
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Speaker 3: You want to stay and let's make it so that
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Speaker 3: it's livable if you want to put it on the market.
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Speaker 3: Let's make it so that it's you can sell it
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Speaker 3: for the highest retail value. Then option three if you
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Speaker 3: don't have the time, money, energy, and resource, we have
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Speaker 3: a home rescue program where we can get you out
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Speaker 3: from under this and find you a home anywhere in
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Speaker 3: the country in thirty sixty and ninety days, full spectrum,
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Speaker 3: and we'll front load all the money and everything that's required.
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Speaker 3: We'll bet on our ability to make your situation work
11:31
Speaker 3: for you and immediately reflax.
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Speaker 2: Clients say no, I'm not selling my home. I'm not
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Speaker 2: doing this. But guess what.
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Speaker 3: As we did the evaluation assessment and they started to
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Speaker 3: see things that they didn't see, some clients would see
11:44
Speaker 3: that they couldn't afford to live anywhere else because the
11:46
Speaker 3: cost of rent and expenses was just too high. So
11:50
Speaker 3: they were going to have to live with some of
11:52
Speaker 3: those things that maybe were challenging before and just peer
11:56
Speaker 3: them down over at a period of time, and we
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Speaker 3: would help them do it, even through our monthly help
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Speaker 3: plan or either through dealing with one thing at a
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Speaker 3: time or dealing with the hoarding over a longer period
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Speaker 3: of time.
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Speaker 2: But we would say the best plan for you is
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Speaker 2: to stay here.
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Speaker 3: Some clients that we immediately ran the reason the handsay,
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Speaker 3: I'm out of here. I don't want to sell, I
12:13
Speaker 3: don't want to leave. I don't want to sell my house.
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Speaker 3: I'm staying here. But after we looked at the plumbing,
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Speaker 3: the electrical, the molde the hoarding, clean up, the roof
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Speaker 3: falling apart, and we broke down comparable analysis as to
12:25
Speaker 3: what the home is worth in its current condition and
12:26
Speaker 3: what it's going to take in order for it to
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Speaker 3: sell and get past an FHA Fanny Man inspection that
12:33
Speaker 3: a thirty year mortgage can be granted to the buyer.
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Speaker 3: They didn't want to spend the sixty eighty or fifty
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Speaker 3: or twenty or whatever.
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Speaker 2: Thousands of dollars and they were like, look, I want
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Speaker 2: to get out of here.
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Speaker 1: I'm done.
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Speaker 3: So the evaluation assessment, the transition evaluation assessment, is a
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Speaker 3: tool to really get down to the nuts and boats
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Speaker 3: of what's really happening and what they really need to do.
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Speaker 3: And nobody in the market has done it, and it's
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Speaker 3: been sequential in me being able to transition over seven
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Speaker 3: thousand people in the past seventeen years.
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Speaker 1: Now, that's the large number so now that allows me
13:03
Speaker 1: to ask this question from a racial standpoint, just gotta
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Speaker 1: know because you a black man, and I don't that
13:10
Speaker 1: already kind of like a black man doing this, I
13:13
Speaker 1: would call me stereotypical because I would think that's I'll
13:17
Speaker 1: be interviewing a white person doing this, because it feels
13:20
Speaker 1: like this is a a area that will be dominated
13:24
Speaker 1: by whites. What off the seven thousand from a racial
13:28
Speaker 1: component and from an age component. We talked about the
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Speaker 1: intellect earlier because you said you started in Massachusetts, but
13:35
Speaker 1: from a racial component and an age component, what is
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Speaker 1: the typical order?
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Speaker 2: Me?
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Speaker 3: And studies are still gathering. We're still gathering studies. One things,
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Speaker 3: hording has a high recent division recentivisim rave about sixty
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Speaker 3: five to seventy percent that we know. In terms of
13:53
Speaker 3: my clients in life cycle, I would say about eighty
13:56
Speaker 3: percent of my clients might be Caucasian. And then there's
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Speaker 3: the other percentage that sort of goes between different races
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Speaker 3: and so forth. Socio Economically, I don't think money has
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Speaker 3: a variance. There is one common denominator that we cannot
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Speaker 3: deny and we can't lie. Is that in order for
14:14
Speaker 3: me to help a lot of these clients, they have
14:17
Speaker 3: to have a home. So when you look at that
14:19
Speaker 3: definition of that number, I think it's kind of a
14:21
Speaker 3: little jaded when you may have to look at another
14:24
Speaker 3: number and say, well, how many Americans are homeowners in
14:27
Speaker 3: this country, because that would have to play a role
14:30
Speaker 3: in being able to look at those numbers unbiasedly. But unfortunately,
14:35
Speaker 3: the number one common denominator is that there is a home,
14:37
Speaker 3: and that home, unfortunately is either been neglected or hoarded,
14:41
Speaker 3: or there's some trauma or some issues going on within
14:43
Speaker 3: those four walls.
14:44
Speaker 1: And the age range would be what.
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Speaker 3: I'm actually getting calls from clients that are suffering from
14:51
Speaker 3: hoarding at seventeen.
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Speaker 2: Eighteen.
14:54
Speaker 3: Wow, you know, we're getting a lot of calls from
14:57
Speaker 3: parents and actual appearance about their daughter and their son's room.
15:03
Speaker 2: It's a lot more common than I think most people do.
15:05
Speaker 3: And when I tell people that you put a name
15:07
Speaker 3: on a face on on this disease, it's a lot
15:12
Speaker 3: more intricate than that I used to think. Like when
15:14
Speaker 3: you say the word, it's like saying crazy and just crazy.
15:17
Speaker 3: There's different variations of crazy, and people are crazy for
15:20
Speaker 3: different reasons.
15:21
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's because you're making them crazy jokingly.
15:24
Speaker 1: Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
15:26
Speaker 1: money Making Conversations master Class. Welcome back to Money Making
15:34
Speaker 1: Conversation master Class with me Rashaun McDonald. Absolutely, and I
15:38
Speaker 1: know they were crazy. You know, we could laugh at
15:40
Speaker 1: it and it's been but it's a word I grew
15:43
Speaker 1: up saying crazy to do. You're grazy to do. And
15:46
Speaker 1: we have to take a step back and realize that
15:48
Speaker 1: it's a lot deeper with the mental situation and people
15:51
Speaker 1: coming forth with their acknowledging their mental situation. But I'm
15:55
Speaker 1: talking to Brandon bron I if you watch the show
15:59
Speaker 1: holders talking to him my man, one of the key
16:02
Speaker 1: experts in this hit TV show. But he's the founder
16:05
Speaker 1: of life Cycle Transitions, the first company is kind to
16:08
Speaker 1: blame emotional, logistical, and real estate support for families facing
16:12
Speaker 1: crisis level home situations. Like you just mentioned, teenagers are
16:17
Speaker 1: now dealing with holders and pammeras are now acknowledging that.
16:22
Speaker 1: And when you get to that point, what don't we
16:24
Speaker 1: see on TV that is shown on TV? I guess
16:28
Speaker 1: I have to ask because TV is a production. But
16:32
Speaker 1: you call in there's an end game because you're not
16:35
Speaker 1: there to just do a production. You're also there to
16:37
Speaker 1: rescue people. Yeah, yeah, sorry, just talk to us.
16:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean well the first thing too.
16:45
Speaker 3: Just to sort of piggyback on our previous conversation, what
16:48
Speaker 3: percentage do you think of the clients that we receive
16:51
Speaker 3: phone calls actually refer to themselves as actual orders?
16:55
Speaker 2: Would you guess I.
16:56
Speaker 1: Was at zero? I would think nobody would acknowledge they
16:59
Speaker 1: have a problem. Alcoholic wouldn't manage they add an addiction,
17:02
Speaker 1: No addiction person, crackhead wouldn't say they got a problem.
17:05
Speaker 1: So nobody who has a problem would acknowledge that.
17:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's and that's that's the biggest challenge right
17:11
Speaker 3: there is the fact that very few people have ever
17:15
Speaker 3: called in. I mean we do, and let me tell
17:17
Speaker 3: you when that happens. Why that happens. Well, I do
17:20
Speaker 3: get calls from people saying, Hi, I'm I'm Rashan, and
17:23
Speaker 3: I'm a hoarder and I need assistance with my home.
17:27
Speaker 2: Enough is enough and I'm ready for a change.
17:30
Speaker 1: Wow.
17:30
Speaker 2: But what I didn't know is what it took for
17:32
Speaker 2: them to get to that point.
17:34
Speaker 3: And I would literally go into people's homes and they
17:36
Speaker 3: would have one at least three or four times, I
17:39
Speaker 3: would going to their home and I would sitting in
17:41
Speaker 3: the living room and I would see a brochure of
17:43
Speaker 3: ours from ten years ago on their refrigerator. In one
17:46
Speaker 3: particular instance, a couple said, older couple said, Brandy, you
17:49
Speaker 3: know what, every morning, me and my husband we make
17:51
Speaker 3: a cup of coffee and make some tea, and we
17:54
Speaker 3: sit down and we point at your brochure and we say,
17:56
Speaker 3: today is going to be the day that we call you.
17:59
Speaker 3: That's a reality of sorts. People do that they you know,
18:03
Speaker 3: they're to acknowledge themselves as being a hoarder is not
18:08
Speaker 3: like being you know, schizophrenic or bipolar. Being mentally ill
18:14
Speaker 3: is so hard. So when you're trying to combat it
18:17
Speaker 3: with trying to come up with intentional measures so that
18:20
Speaker 3: people cannot buy things, don't collect things, get rid of things,
18:23
Speaker 3: you're fighting from multiple different spectrums, and most importantly, you're
18:27
Speaker 3: fighting them.
18:28
Speaker 2: You're fighting against themselves.
18:29
Speaker 3: You're fighting them in that process, and they're wanting to
18:32
Speaker 3: fight you back.
18:34
Speaker 1: Well, you know, some Brandon, you're more than a TV show.
18:38
Speaker 1: I think that's why it's important that I'm interviewing you
18:42
Speaker 1: because of the fact that when you pull back the
18:44
Speaker 1: lens and that's what You're there to save lives. You're
18:48
Speaker 1: there to create, like you said, life transitions. But television
18:53
Speaker 1: doesn't really tell their story because they're just doing a
18:54
Speaker 1: television show. They're there to uh uh sensationalize a situation,
18:59
Speaker 1: give viewers, fix the situation on to the next episode. Right,
19:04
Speaker 1: And I'm never So how does one get in touch
19:07
Speaker 1: with you? Because, like I said, this is what you
19:09
Speaker 1: do for a living. Yeah, sovera is just an extension. Yeah, correct,
19:16
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely.
19:17
Speaker 3: They can get a hold of us at life cycle
19:19
Speaker 3: Transitions dot com. You can send us an email with
19:23
Speaker 3: any inquiries at info at life Cycle Transitions dot com.
19:28
Speaker 1: Now they send an email to you. Let's go through
19:30
Speaker 1: the steps. Let's go through the steps. They send an
19:33
Speaker 1: email over to us. We get the information, we evaluate
19:37
Speaker 1: the questions. We'll get on the phone call to a
19:39
Speaker 1: zoom call if we can. In some cases, a lot
19:43
Speaker 1: of these clients, like I told you before, they don't there.
19:47
Speaker 1: Some clients talk us for years, so they'll send it,
19:50
Speaker 1: they'll fill a form out and then we'll have to
19:51
Speaker 1: chase them for an enormous amount of time until finally
19:55
Speaker 1: they pick up the phone.
19:56
Speaker 3: So they pick up a phone. In a perfect situation,
19:58
Speaker 3: we'll talk to them on the phone. We'll schedule an
20:00
Speaker 3: in home evaluation assessment to go out and meet with them.
20:03
Speaker 3: If they're not comfortable letting us in the home because
20:06
Speaker 3: they're still not quite sure Rashan that there are one
20:08
Speaker 3: hundred percent comfortable, then we would recommend and suggest do
20:12
Speaker 3: a video, take some pictures, tour the home if they're
20:15
Speaker 3: not comfortable with that. I created the very first of
20:18
Speaker 3: its own content, which is our easy Exit zero Contact.
20:23
Speaker 3: That's it, Easy Exit zero Contact. That means we go
20:27
Speaker 3: into actual hoarding situations with clients that are too ashamed
20:31
Speaker 3: to embarrass to deal with being present while these hoarding
20:34
Speaker 3: projects are done, where we'll actually do the entire project
20:39
Speaker 3: without them physically being there under certain conditions. Those conditions
20:44
Speaker 3: are even though the embarrassment of standing over a lot
20:47
Speaker 3: of these things is too painful, that we want you
20:49
Speaker 3: to go into some of our therapy programs so you
20:51
Speaker 3: can speak with a counselor and agree to do our
20:54
Speaker 3: transition care plan where after we do the cleanup, we
20:57
Speaker 3: come in every week or every two weeks. That's the embarrassment,
21:01
Speaker 3: the shame and all those things out of the equation.
21:03
Speaker 2: Now it's time to get right into the healing.
21:05
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about that then. Because you're using word
21:08
Speaker 1: embarrassment and shame and they are hoarder, when does the
21:14
Speaker 1: word embarrassment or the feeling of shame come into play
21:18
Speaker 1: Brandon in this conversation? Because they are living this lifestyle,
21:22
Speaker 1: like I said, pretty much, they'll probably by themselves or
21:25
Speaker 1: they don't have many visitors just come by to make
21:28
Speaker 1: comments about it. When does the embarrassment and shame come
21:31
Speaker 1: into play? When is acknowledged that they need to get
21:34
Speaker 1: it done and you're sitting there revealing to them the problem.
21:39
Speaker 1: When does it happen?
21:40
Speaker 3: I would say ten to fifteen years ago? On average.
21:42
Speaker 3: A lot of our transition projects are five ten years
21:46
Speaker 3: in the making. So for every one year that a
21:49
Speaker 3: client goes without addressing the hoarding conditions in their home,
21:53
Speaker 3: it's equivalent to about one day of actual cleanup between
21:57
Speaker 3: two to three technicians doing decluttering, separating, sorting, organizing, halloway
22:02
Speaker 3: and cleaning. So if you let two years go by,
22:05
Speaker 3: just think two days, and if you're thinking fifteen ten years,
22:09
Speaker 3: then you can just add that into the equation.
22:11
Speaker 1: Also, wow again, Education for me and also for my
22:16
Speaker 1: audience because you are a small business owner, you're an entrepreneur.
22:20
Speaker 1: You've developed this business and did this business? Was this
22:24
Speaker 1: what you was? This the end game? I'm not talking
22:26
Speaker 1: about the TV show, the end game of how did
22:31
Speaker 1: we get here? Because of the fact that I'm my
22:33
Speaker 1: degree is in mathematics. Then I became a stand up comedian.
22:36
Speaker 1: Then I became an abroducer, so my game kept changing. How
22:40
Speaker 1: what did you start to get here?
22:43
Speaker 3: Well, well, I'm a very spiritual person and I'm gonna
22:47
Speaker 3: be honest. When we first started this business, we started
22:49
Speaker 3: it as sort of like a one stop shop.
22:52
Speaker 2: You know.
22:52
Speaker 3: We had these these contracts from the largest housing entities
22:56
Speaker 3: in the country. Fanny made Freddie Mac and we were
23:00
Speaker 3: we were contracted to do decluttering, separating, renovating, all this
23:05
Speaker 3: miscellaneous things. So I wanted a one stop shop to
23:09
Speaker 3: offer those services. And then I said, what if we
23:11
Speaker 3: can take that to people dealing with things mentally, meant physically,
23:13
Speaker 3: mentally and emotionally. But then that plan, as I said,
23:18
Speaker 3: spiritually changed because I had a plan of being a
23:21
Speaker 3: company that's offered great service to great people. But God
23:24
Speaker 3: had a plan and he said no, you're going to
23:26
Speaker 3: save lives and change it.
23:27
Speaker 1: Wow.
23:27
Speaker 3: And that was when the turning point realized that I
23:30
Speaker 3: couldn't that you touch everything Rashan that touches you. When
23:34
Speaker 3: you go into people's lives, you are responsible to making
23:38
Speaker 3: sure that they're okay, and that means that you have
23:40
Speaker 3: to bite off a lot more.
23:42
Speaker 1: Now let me ask this question, how exactly do you
23:44
Speaker 1: work alongside realtors when a home has to be restored.
23:49
Speaker 3: Well, we have a whole host of partners and realtors
23:54
Speaker 3: specifically are our anchors, you know, and we vet them,
23:58
Speaker 3: you know, rigorously check their background. We know exactly who
24:01
Speaker 3: they are, what kind of work they've done, We look
24:03
Speaker 3: at their reviews, and once we vet them and we
24:06
Speaker 3: go through this process, we we certify them as life
24:09
Speaker 3: cycle uh reallyers. Particularly when we're doing our transition evaluation assessment.
24:14
Speaker 3: We need facts in that town, on that block that
24:17
Speaker 3: can support you know, missus Smith or mister Brown deciding
24:21
Speaker 3: to do whether to fix their home up and renovate
24:24
Speaker 3: it or to exit it because it's just not enough
24:26
Speaker 3: meat on that bone.
24:27
Speaker 2: From from an equity.
24:28
Speaker 3: Standpoint, we want to know all of these things make
24:31
Speaker 3: sense and to the bottom line.
24:33
Speaker 1: Now here's interesting this day. I'm gonna be honest with you,
24:35
Speaker 1: Brandon uh I saw holders. That's why I brought you
24:39
Speaker 1: on my show, Orders, Orders, Orders, What I am now
24:44
Speaker 1: on the transition of I said I didn't respect this interview.
24:48
Speaker 1: But when I peel back, man you doing you are special.
24:52
Speaker 1: You're doing some unique work from a mental standpoint. You're
24:56
Speaker 1: not only this when there's no other words. When they
24:59
Speaker 1: when they when they light goes off or they say cut,
25:02
Speaker 1: you still out there hustling. You still out there doing
25:05
Speaker 1: like you say, Guard's work saved lives. That has to
25:08
Speaker 1: make you feel good at night.
25:11
Speaker 2: It does.
25:11
Speaker 3: You know it does. And you know I'm obviously maybe
25:13
Speaker 3: one hundred percent honest and has this. It's ups and
25:16
Speaker 3: downs because sometimes you do give you feel the fatigue,
25:19
Speaker 3: you know, mental health caretaker, burnout. All of these things
25:23
Speaker 3: were things that we came across when we were experiencing.
25:26
Speaker 3: And when I tell you I've transitioned over seven thousand people,
25:29
Speaker 3: what I didn't tell you is that I've been in
25:31
Speaker 3: the homes of even more thousands of people. And I
25:33
Speaker 3: remember in my heart the ones that I couldn't save,
25:36
Speaker 3: the ones that were too stubborn or just not ready,
25:39
Speaker 3: or they died or passed away, or the evaluations that
25:42
Speaker 3: I've done with clients with their entire family in a
25:45
Speaker 3: living room and having these conversations and then at the
25:48
Speaker 3: end of that conversation they're not ready to do it.
25:51
Speaker 3: And then I can tell you hundreds, late hundreds of
25:54
Speaker 3: those cases where they call me later when that person
25:56
Speaker 3: passes on and say, my mom passed away. Brandon, can
25:59
Speaker 3: you now come out and can we now deal with
26:01
Speaker 3: this issue? Because what the hoarding doesn't understand doesn't tell
26:07
Speaker 3: on the TV, like you mentioned earlier, is that people
26:10
Speaker 3: are dying in these environments. They're dying from respiratory pulmonary
26:15
Speaker 3: pulmonary complications, trip hazards, and fire hazards. When I got
26:20
Speaker 3: our first contract, it was from the largest health care
26:22
Speaker 3: provider in the Northeast.
26:23
Speaker 2: It was Toughs in Harvard Pilgrim.
26:25
Speaker 3: They gave me that contract because they knew something that
26:29
Speaker 3: we didn't know ten years, twenty years prior, and that
26:31
Speaker 3: it was in indoor environmental conditions were compromising individuals help
26:38
Speaker 3: from a respiratory standpoint. Chronically, these are people who think
26:42
Speaker 3: they have allergies, think they got asthma. Think they have
26:44
Speaker 3: all these things, but in reality, the home is killing them.
26:47
Speaker 3: And what we realize is that what I did when
26:51
Speaker 3: I did the mental health and I can go into that,
26:53
Speaker 3: but when I created our whole remediation division, it was
26:56
Speaker 3: because when there's smoke, there's fire, and when there's hoarding,
27:00
Speaker 3: there's often mold. And the reason that is is because
27:02
Speaker 3: when there's an accumulation of anything, you don't know what's
27:06
Speaker 3: behind those walls, brewing, when the pipe is, when the
27:08
Speaker 3: pipes are broken, when the roof is falling apart. These clients,
27:13
Speaker 3: these clients were sean when they have HVAC issues, when
27:18
Speaker 3: they're having complications with their roof, because of the embarrassment
27:21
Speaker 3: and the shame, they go without heat, they go without
27:24
Speaker 3: running water. So when those things accumulate to the tune
27:27
Speaker 3: that they are, they reach a point in no return,
27:29
Speaker 3: with the distance of continuing to normalcy and reality, it's
27:33
Speaker 3: just too far removed for them that they suffer and
27:36
Speaker 3: they unfortunately die in these environments. So for me, this
27:40
Speaker 3: was an humanitarian objective and a goal of minds to
27:43
Speaker 3: save lives and change them, because if I didn't do it,
27:46
Speaker 3: nobody else was. When I went to the realtors and
27:48
Speaker 3: I said work with me. They wanted to do their
27:50
Speaker 3: own thing. When I went to contractors and trade me
27:52
Speaker 3: and said going to contract with me. When I went
27:54
Speaker 3: into the moldor mediation business and said we need to
27:57
Speaker 3: do this. So I went to the mental health therapist
27:59
Speaker 3: for five the seven years, pounding down their doors saying
28:02
Speaker 3: we're cleaning these houses out, but that's not enough.
28:05
Speaker 2: This client here needs more help. Can you help me?
28:07
Speaker 3: And they shut their doors on me because they wanted
28:10
Speaker 3: to know how they were gonna get paid. They wanted
28:12
Speaker 3: to know how this was gonna happen. They wanted to
28:14
Speaker 3: know if my clients had a college degree. And I said,
28:16
Speaker 3: you know, enough is enough. We're gonna start our own
28:18
Speaker 3: mental health division. We're gonna start our own mold remediation.
28:21
Speaker 3: We're gonna get realtors that are gonna abide by our
28:24
Speaker 3: rules of ethics, and we're gonna build this ecosystem that
28:28
Speaker 3: we can do with most companies, well most clients would
28:31
Speaker 3: take nine or ten or nine months to do in
28:33
Speaker 3: thirty days.
28:34
Speaker 2: That was a goal of minds.
28:36
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell this brother. As we get deeper into
28:38
Speaker 1: this interview, Brandon I'm more impressed by you because you
28:43
Speaker 1: know what you don't know. You don't know I can assume,
28:48
Speaker 1: but you are true fire hazards, health issues. And some
28:54
Speaker 1: people might say Gene Hackman was a hoarder. When they
28:57
Speaker 1: went through his house after he had passed away, looking
29:01
Speaker 1: at some of the film footage that was out there,
29:03
Speaker 1: they eventually led to rat infestation, which has definitely led
29:08
Speaker 1: to people them being poisoned, his wife being poisoned. Because,
29:12
Speaker 1: like you said, it becomes a health issue, it becomes
29:15
Speaker 1: a lifestyle issue, becomes a fire hazard, and all these
29:19
Speaker 1: things come into play. And it's not about money. And
29:22
Speaker 1: you're bigger than the TV show. The TV show is
29:24
Speaker 1: just a great part of your branding. But life cycle
29:27
Speaker 1: transition is you. It has grown from you to more
29:30
Speaker 1: than two hundred experts. How did that happen?
29:34
Speaker 2: It happened one day at a time. I mean one
29:37
Speaker 2: day at a time.
29:38
Speaker 3: Listen at the first eight years I was in business,
29:40
Speaker 3: I didn't make a penny, and you know, and my
29:44
Speaker 3: wife was telling me we should shut the doors. You know,
29:46
Speaker 3: I didn't make a penny because I didn't figure out
29:49
Speaker 3: how to learn what I didn't know.
29:52
Speaker 2: So we went through trial and error.
29:53
Speaker 3: I created a concept of a transition company that had
29:57
Speaker 3: no advertisement, vertical or category. To fit, I had to
30:00
Speaker 3: go on yellow Book, yellow pages and all these categories
30:03
Speaker 3: and advertiseing the landscaping, carpentry, cleaning. And then I had
30:07
Speaker 3: to go through the page taking process for Sean and
30:10
Speaker 3: asking them these questions, why are you doing this? So
30:12
Speaker 3: I went the long way and you know, you know,
30:14
Speaker 3: seventeen years later, now we're the number two hoarding company
30:19
Speaker 3: in the country, and we're the most visible company out
30:23
Speaker 3: We're more visible than Yelp and a number of other
30:26
Speaker 3: big companies that have that are venture capital funded, that
30:30
Speaker 3: got Silicon Valley money. They are franchised, and this is
30:33
Speaker 3: privately owned based on my sacrifice and my family sacrifice
30:37
Speaker 3: to keep pushing a brother.
30:39
Speaker 1: Thank you man, Thank you for guiding me through this interview.
30:42
Speaker 1: Thank you for allowing me to have an honest conversation
30:45
Speaker 1: about my ignorance and again my education through your eyes
30:50
Speaker 1: and through your career. But I always knew it was
30:54
Speaker 1: a problem, but I didn't know the man behind fixing
30:57
Speaker 1: a lot of these problems, and that's you, than bron
31:00
Speaker 1: I thank you for coming on money making Conversation Masterclass.
31:03
Speaker 1: My friend, it's been a blessing and an audience having
31:07
Speaker 1: an interview. And I say that very seriously because I
31:10
Speaker 1: heard and I see the passion in you and it
31:14
Speaker 1: is God to work.
31:16
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, Thank you so much.
31:18
Speaker 3: It means a lot to be here and your work
31:20
Speaker 3: is amazing as well, and I'd love to be back
31:22
Speaker 3: here anytime in the future.
31:23
Speaker 2: Keep doing what you're doing. Thank you, Thank you.
31:25
Speaker 1: This has been another edition of Money Making Conversations Masterclass
31:29
Speaker 1: hosted by me Rashaan McDonald. Thank you to our guests
31:33
Speaker 1: on the show today and thank you our listening audience.
31:37
Speaker 1: Now if you want to listen to any episode I
31:39
Speaker 1: want to register to be a guest on my show,
31:42
Speaker 1: Visit Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media handle is money
31:47
Speaker 1: Making Conversations. Join us next week and remember to always
31:51
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