Transformative Life Lessons: Firefighter’s Journey to Realty TV Success

Brett McCollum (00:00.98)
All right, guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Brett McCollum, and I’m here today with Dave Seymour. And today we’re going to be talking about going from a firefighter to reality television and to ultimately to private equity and kind of how that all fits together. But before we do, guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers and real estate entrepreneurs to 5X their businesses, allow them to build the business that they’ve always wanted and also allow them to build the lives they’ve always dreamed of. Without further ado, Dave, how are you, man?

Dave Seymour (00:29.474)
I’m good brother, how are you Brit?

Brett McCollum (00:31.51)
Man, doing good, doing good. Great catching up with you pre-show. We’re gonna have a good, good, good show for you guys today. Dave’s got a ton of value that we’re, I know we were talking pre-show, like we’re ready to deliver at a high level and nobody better in the business than Dave Seymour. So man, Dave, catch us up to speed, man. Like if people lived under a rock and they don’t know who you are, like give us some, give us a little history, give us a little background. Who’s Dave Seymour?

Dave Seymour (00:34.993)
Yeah.

Dave Seymour (01:00.282)
Yeah, good start. First of all, know, people live, no pressure. I can handle, you can handle the truth. You know, it’s always interesting. I get invited to do podcasts and, you know, keynote speaks and all of that stuff. And it really boils back down to my days on the reality TV show, Flipping Boston, aired on A &E.

Brett McCollum (01:03.566)
No pressure.

Dave Seymour (01:25.66)
You your eye for the light is, you know, for people who have been living under a rock, well, there’s a lot of people on the rocks. They ain’t that cool. I’m not the cool kid on the block anymore. you know, it’s been an interesting journey to say the very least. You know, just like you put in the little mini intro there from firefighter to reality TV to private equity. You know, it’s very hard to find.

some lineage in there that makes any kind of sense. So what that tells you is, life is pretty cool. It’s pretty crazy. I’ll give you the canned version. Although my accent sounds Bostonian, I’m actually a Londoner. I’m from England. I emigrated to the States in 86 and came from a very blue collar background. My mom was a secretary in a bank. My old man was a heating and air conditioning guy.

Brett McCollum (01:56.041)
huh.

Dave Seymour (02:19.799)
And it’s important to put this context in there because it really is instrumental in my real estate journey is the programming I received as a young man, right? And the information I received from my father was, you know, work hard son, don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal, do the right thing, keep your nose clean, keep your head down, you know, be a man among men. Just don’t ever rise up out of the muck that everybody else is in because this is where we belong, right? That’s the subliminal message that’s in there.

I guess that didn’t really jive too well for me. I ended up coming to the States, followed my first wife over who was an American citizen. And for the first three years I was in the States, I was trying to figure it out. And I was only 23, right? So from 23 to 26, I don’t care who you are, there ain’t a shit ton of maturity going on right there. And I’m just throwing crap against the wall trying to figure out what would stick. Set of circumstances that…

has me up in New England. I went from West Virginia to New England and up here, culturally I fit a little better. They moved faster, they talked a little faster. There was an edge to the Boston culture. I was 27, 27 when I came up here. 50, what am I, 58? I’ll be 58 in October I think. So 27.

Brett McCollum (03:33.08)
How old were you, give or take around that?

Brett McCollum (03:43.672)
Yeah.

Dave Seymour (03:47.814)
when I came up to New England. And I liked it because there was an edge, right? It was competitive. know, just community was competitive. I liked that about it. And guy says to me, you know, Dave, why don’t you get one of those good government jobs? I’m like, I’m in like Flynn. Let’s go, baby, go. What am I going to do? Right? He goes, well, there’s cop, there’s firefighter, post office worker.

You know, you got all of those jobs up there, Dave. What do you want to do? I’m like, I don’t care. And I’m like, why do I want a job like that? Well, you get a pension, you know, you’re working for the city. It’s going to be great. You can live the American dream. I’m like, all right. So anyway, I land a job as a firefighter. And what was crucial to me being on this podcast with you today, Brett, was the fact that I bought with me financial illiteracy that I got from my father, right?

So now I got a job and it’s a good job. You know, you could screw it up, but it’s a pretty good job. But I also have MasterCard and Visa who were my roommates. you know, my wife liked to go out with my roommates and I liked to go out with my roommates and we’d all go out together. And you know, I’m keeping up with the Joneses. And after a few years, I find myself 75,000 in unsecured credit card debt. I’ve refinanced my house going into the crash three times.

I’m now over leveraged by about 40 % of its true market value. I’m losing my home and I’m working three full-time jobs trying to make ends meet. Firefighter, construction worker and work in retail security nights and weekends. And it was a dark time. It was a very dark season. Yeah, it was dark. And I had kids, Yeah, yeah, kids as well. Yeah, right. And I remember I was

Brett McCollum (05:27.852)
Any kids at that time?

Yeah, add that on top, right? Yeah.

Dave Seymour (05:39.954)
down the beach, down Lynn Beach where I worked as a firefighter in Lynn Mass. I’m down the beach sitting in my F-250 pickup truck, ignition’s off and I figure I’m gonna go toe to toe with God. I’m gonna have a chat with the big guy. I’m have a little rumble, right? I’m gonna have a little rumble with the big guys. Because I followed my dad’s plan, lie, cheat, steal, didn’t do any of those things. You I wasn’t an adulterous husband. I followed the plan and it wasn’t working. And I remember screaming and shouting at him and…

Brett McCollum (05:56.558)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (06:05.997)
Right.

Dave Seymour (06:10.691)
It really was, have you forgotten me? It was almost a biblical moment for me in the sense of the impact that this moment had. was like, you know, have you forgotten me? Hey, remember me? I’m the guy that does paramedicine. I’m the guy that, you know, fights fires. I’m a good dude. What the f… You know, it chokes me up thinking about it. And I’m waiting for an answer, right? Asking you shall receive. Seeking you shall find.

Brett McCollum (06:28.632)
Yeah, right.

Dave Seymour (06:37.647)
knock and the door will be open. That’s what scripture told me and I’m knocking, I’m seeking, I’m screaming, I’m shouting and I’m not feeling it. And I figured that that was it. I had to go home and tell the wife that we had to go and the kids had to go and it is what it was and we’ll see what was next. I turned the ignition in the truck and I listened to BZ radio which is local news radio and at the moment of turning it on commercial comes on the radio. Teach me foreclosure.

a free one and a half hour seminar coming on neck of the woods, learning how to do real estate with no money down. And I’m like, okay, okay, baby. Thank you, God, I got the plan. Because yeah, because I was in construction. I’d seen these investor guys and girls, I’m digging ditches and they’re not.

Brett McCollum (07:13.976)
No money, Dad.

Brett McCollum (07:21.26)
Time me up.

Dave Seymour (07:30.354)
And that’s where it started. The real estate journey started there and I went to a, it was Whitney back in the day. Russ Whitney was the organization that I signed up for. And on that third day, because they upsell the shit out of you, on the third day, it’s $27,000 for five classes. This was before the market had truly crashed, like it was on its way. 2008, nine, somewhere around there.

Brett McCollum (07:36.334)
That’s right, yeah.

Brett McCollum (07:50.712)
This is wet white year.

Brett McCollum (07:56.482)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (07:58.118)
You know, it hadn’t quite hit the fan yet and there was still a lot of falsehoods in the marketplace, shall we say, with regard to economy and valuations. So I looked at Mary Beth, my wife, and I’m like, you know, what do you think? And she threw it right back at me like a good salesperson. She said, what do you think? I just said, look, Mary Beth, can’t keep doing what I’ve been doing. You know, it cost me a prior marriage. It’s going to cost this marriage.

Brett McCollum (08:06.584)
Sure. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (08:26.705)
You know, I can’t work 127 hours a week and be your husband, to be a father to the kids. I can’t do it. And she said, okay, she said, it’s actually engraved on it like a wedding ring on a plaque somewhere. She said to me, go get him, killer. She said, I’m proud of you and I love you. She said, I’ll support you in anything you want to do.

Brett McCollum (08:45.634)
Hmm.

That was all, as a man, that’s all we need sometimes. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (08:50.735)
That was it. That’s it, dude. That was it. She gave me permission to be wealthy. I’m like, what the fri- Go! Yeah, dude. It was everything. It was everything to me. And,

Brett McCollum (08:56.65)
I’m like over here tearing up with you on that one, man, because that’s, yeah. Keep going. Yeah.

It’s not the real estate. wasn’t the construction. It’s not the firefight. It’s not the 127 hours a week. It’s none of the it for me. Like, cause what you’re saying rings home and I’m probably sure people listening to this to need to hear this. That support that my wife is here for me. I can do this. Yeah. That’s huge, man. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (09:07.023)
Nah.

Dave Seymour (09:12.889)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (09:23.195)
Yeah, yeah, now I’m bulletproof. The saying was daddy’s gonna go kill the bacon, right? I’m gonna go kill some dinosaurs today. And I’m gonna keep my little boys safe. I’m gonna take great care of my wife, because she took great care of me. You know, I used to say that she’s the rock that I get to stand on so I could look cool. But at the end of the day, you know, she’s right by my side. That’s how I get to look cool. You know what I mean? There’s no hierarchy there. I mean, she has the…

Brett McCollum (09:30.35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (09:46.602)
Absolutely.

Dave Seymour (09:51.216)
She has the toughest job in the world, which is raising small boys to be good men. You know, that’s a hard job. That’s a hard job. But that’s where it started, brother. We went down the seminar circle and I’ve got these classes and I’m doing it like a firefighter. No holes barred, all in. If we’re going, we’re freaking going. There’s no second guessing it. There’s no, you know, there’s no, let’s analyze this for a little while longer, shall we?

Brett McCollum (09:57.281)
It is.

Dave Seymour (10:17.997)
If you’re analyzing a fire, the fire is already out of control, you’re done, you got to know how to operate fast. And that’s how I did my real estate in the early days. And I get a wholesale deal done. And it was with a bank owned property, REO, during the crash when they said you couldn’t do it, right? And I made a check for five grand. And I stood on the sidewalk outside an attorney’s office with this check in my hand for $5,000. And two emotions were going through me, one,

was, where’s the cops? This has to be illegal. That was the first one. And then I started weeping, bro. I started weeping like a baby because I started thinking about how many hours of my life I’d had to trade for somebody else’s money to make five grand. I used to pray that I could get a… Yeah, I used to pray for the phone to ring for an overtime so I could take home an extra 200 bucks a week.

Brett McCollum (11:06.502)
That check may as well have been a million dollars, right? Yeah.

Dave Seymour (11:15.771)
and I got five grand in my hand. And that was it. Because here’s the magic. Once you do it, nobody can tell you you can’t do it.

Brett McCollum (11:26.03)
doesn’t even matter the dollar amount on there. Like it’s, it’s the proof. I have a very, my start was very similar to that. Yeah. It was the, and it was funny enough, it was a joint venture deal. It was a wholesale, but my side of it was five grand. And I was like looking at it, the same thing. I’m like, my thoughts were, we were so dire at that time for us that it was this five grand is going to be able to supplement the job that I had to be able to, I don’t have to, I can breathe for another two or three months. And we had, we had a three month old baby at the time.

Dave Seymour (11:28.133)
No, doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter it’s three grand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (11:36.869)
Mine was. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (11:55.602)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brett McCollum (11:55.886)
And I’m like, my God, I can feed my family. Like that’s what that was. And then it was like, proof of concept, man. Yeah. So you’re doing all right. you seminar out, you get, you know, back into it, you’re doing it. And then you start, you know, that’s the most, by the way, if anybody’s listening, that’s the most important lesson is you just start. Yeah. But keep going though. Continue on.

Dave Seymour (12:03.313)
for sure.

Dave Seymour (12:08.283)
Yeah.

Dave Seymour (12:15.377)
Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, look, there’s a lot of learners out there. There’s not a lot of implementers. Let’s say that again. Yeah, yeah.

Brett McCollum (12:23.586)
I think a lot of people think they want to implement and that’s why they go through the course route, they do all the things because there’s a difference in motivation and application. Motivation, it’s fleeting. I might have it today and not tomorrow. It’s discipline, right? I mean, a lot of entrepreneurs, by the way, you’re not…

Dave Seymour (12:30.097)
Yeah, yeah.

Dave Seymour (12:37.369)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the things I’m not good at. Yeah, yeah.

Brett McCollum (12:50.082)
But like that’s the difference. Like we get motivated, we get hyped up at these seminars and then I’m gonna conquer the world and then what happens tomorrow when you wake up and like I don’t really feel it anymore.

Dave Seymour (12:53.467)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that’s what happened to me. I looked around me and there was nobody, none of my classmates were around me. They all faded away. And it’s like, where did you guys go? Like we were all running out of this seminar together, man. We were gonna go conquer the world. I kept going.

I kept going. I made a ton of mistakes. Even with education, I made mistakes because the education wasn’t that strong. But what it did was, was that day that she invested $27,000 on her credit cards for my education, which was our education, we bought $27,000 worth of accountability. Because, because now it’s like, I can’t talk about it anymore. I got to start doing it. And it’s the doing that works. that, look,

We went through that period of time. if you think about, mean, Florida was brutalized, Vegas was brutalized, Cali was brutalized. You know, we took a pretty strong beating up here in Massachusetts, subprime, everything’s going belly up. I mean, it was wild, wild west. Nobody knew what a short sale was. Nobody knew what a loan mod was. Nobody knew. They didn’t know anything. So I’m doing bank cleanouts and at the same time I’m cleaning them out, I’m buying them.

put them under contract. And I learned how to put investor capital on them cash. We learned how to do lease options, we learned how to primarily loan modificate so that the person could stay in the home if possible. We learned how to do lease options and swap people in the same street so that they didn’t have to move. Right? We did we did some good work. And that got recognized and noticed. And by this time, go ahead.

Brett McCollum (14:33.72)
Right?

Brett McCollum (14:38.594)
Man. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (14:44.814)
What year is this at this point?

Dave Seymour (14:51.281)
mid nine into 10 maybe around that period of time. Yeah, around that time. And during that period of time, I’m now influenced by a totally different group of people. It’s not my brothers in the firehouse anymore. It’s internet marketers, it’s educators, because the guys who taught me saw that I was doing what I was being taught, saw that I was getting results. And then said, well, why don’t you teach? Are you out of your trees? I’ve never stood in front of a room and taught anything.

Brett McCollum (14:53.614)
Okay, so I’m still around that point, okay.

Brett McCollum (15:18.444)
Yeah.

Dave Seymour (15:21.217)
All right, you’re not, no, they said, Dave, just tell the truth, man. Report the other’s success, report the educator’s success. I hate the word guru, but, you know, report the other guy’s success. He said, do you believe that what they’ve done is true and works? They go, yeah, I’ve seen it. He said, then report it. So next thing you know, I’m in mastermind groups. you know, I’m getting the influence of like,

Brett McCollum (15:27.0)
That’s it.

Dave Seymour (15:49.926)
Gary Vannachuk was kind of on a periphery somewhere. Russell Brunson was over there in that group. Our friend Matt Andrews was out there. There was some pretty powerful people that through osmosis and connection I was connected to. And it was Russell Brunson, as we know, ClickFunnels was his business. And he built a massive following, a great business from that. And he sent out an email to a group of maybe five or 10 people.

I’m gonna say 2010, 11. And the email was, hey Dave, you you’re a funny bastard. You should apply for this reality TV show. You know, this company in New York’s looking to do a flip show. He said, you know, give it a go, see what happens. So you gotta remember, this is a period of time where if you told somebody you were a real estate investor, they immediately would say, I’m sorry, right? And walk away from you like you had some terminal illness, right? They give you one of those.

Brett McCollum (16:46.124)
That’s all I

Dave Seymour (16:49.371)
But anyway, I download a very vanilla application, I’ve got nothing to lose. And I remember sitting there looking at it going, how on earth am I going to differentiate myself from everybody else? Now, there wasn’t a ton of house flipping shows back then. It was just we were like the first one or two that came back out. So I’m like, how do I differentiate myself from the rest of the pack? And I started thinking about these marketers and real estate influencers that I’ve been around. And I remember

I think it was Tony Robbins said, human beings for massive change need what’s called a conscious interruption. You got to wake up the consciousness. How do you get past all of the, you know, the barriers to the, to the, you know, the little, what is it, Magna Carta, not Magna Carta, the little brain at the back of your head there, they call it the dinosaur brain, the lizard brain. How do you get back there to have an impact? So I just had this

Brett McCollum (17:25.72)
Mmm.

Brett McCollum (17:43.682)
Mm-hmm.

Dave Seymour (17:47.8)
Feeling that I’ve loaded up this application with profanity. I think I would get a result So that’s what I did, you know first line on the application was name of the company and I wrote You know go F yourself LLC and I just kept going from there. I just How Boston, you know me and I think that’s what they liked because I because at the bottom it said Here’s my phone number. Don’t call it. You know, you but hold don’t call me

Brett McCollum (18:04.651)
How Bostonian of you though.

Dave Seymour (18:17.329)
just get on a plane, train or automobile, stop wasting my effing time. You know, I do real estate the same way we do firefighting when everybody else goes running out, we go running in. And I said right on the thing, because the real estate market is in the crapper and I know how to fix it. Don’t call me though. And there was a 212 area code like 15 minutes after I hit send on the application. And it was, I knew it was New York because it was 212. I go.

I thought I told you not to call me, click, and I hung up the phone. I did. And I’m like, please call back. And the kid called back. Yeah, kid called back. He’s laughing his balls off and he’s like, you’re a funny bastard. He says, I’m not sure if you’re a lunatic or a genius. I said, what’s the difference? Come on, let’s go, bro. I said, let’s go, let’s shoot some shit. I know what to do. Let’s do this thing. I got characters up the yin yang. And that’s how it started. Next thing you know, we’re doing Flippin’ Boston and the rest is history.

Brett McCollum (18:49.388)
No you did not.

Yeah, right. Don’t call my bluff. Don’t call my bluff.

Brett McCollum (19:15.726)
That’s incredible. That was, yeah, I mean, back at that point, like the market’s still down largely across the country and in a lot of places. I mean, I wasn’t in the, I was not in the business at that point. I know a lot of peer of our mutual friends and peers that were in talking through to them through like what was going on back then. do, and you had to be like, not you, like in general, you had to be a little crazy to be doing what you were doing, right? Like,

Dave Seymour (19:22.202)
yeah. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (19:32.113)
Yeah, yeah.

Dave Seymour (19:44.251)
For sure, yeah.

Brett McCollum (19:45.398)
Yeah, and I think that’s the mark of entrepreneurship. I think we’re all a little crazy because nobody would sign up for what we go through, right? If they knew.

Dave Seymour (19:53.202)
I always love that saying that they come up with and they’d say, you know, I quit my 60 hour work job to be an entrepreneur so I could work 120 hours, right? But at least I’m now, I own my success. I own my failure. I determine my value in the marketplace. Now think about all the years, man, we’d sit there waiting for a pay raise, you know, and an annual review and quarterly reviews of some person sitting on the other side of the table.

Brett McCollum (20:22.03)
Somebody else tells you what you’re worth.

Dave Seymour (20:23.481)
Yeah, like who are you to tell me? Yeah. Guy said to me one time, if you don’t pay attention to your money, David said, I promise you somebody else will. And I’m like, that’s, that’s been a mantra for many years, right? Yeah, look, if you don’t pay attention to your money, I promise you somebody else will. Think about that for a second, right? What does that mean? That means do you have

Brett McCollum (20:39.054)
Say that one more time, that’s really good.

Dave Seymour (20:53.229)
enough courage, consequently, confidence through education, to then have the implementation to be the person who focuses on your financial future, not allowing somebody else to determine what direction you go in. What would it be like if you didn’t have to request a vacation? What would it be like if you didn’t have to call in sick somewhere? What would it be like if you could just pack up the family and go for a month and your business still ran without you?

what would your life be like? And when I was asked those questions, I could picture and imagine what it would be like. And I’ve been very blessed to live, you know, aspects of that over the past 15, 16, 17 years.

Brett McCollum (21:30.286)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (21:36.056)
Yeah, but it’s always been perfectly easy though, Dave. And you’ve never had any struggles since then. And the life of the entrepreneur is rainbows and butterflies and you’re just sitting on an island drinking Mai Tais all day.

Dave Seymour (21:39.665)
Yeah, yeah, okay.

Yeah, I’ve got a private jet, I’ve got a Rolls Royce, and I throw $100 bills into the air every day until I get sued by the SEC and then I go into a heat and air conditioning business instead. Look man, there’s stuff out there. There’s a lot of mistakes that happen in this business. It’s rocky, it’s not getting knocked down, it’s what you do when you’re…

Brett McCollum (21:50.402)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (21:54.744)
See, I knew it. I knew it.

Brett McCollum (22:08.558)
That’s right.

Dave Seymour (22:13.403)
When you’re down, what do you do? Do you get back up? Right? So getting back up is the hard part. But those are great scars, man. Those are great scars to have. And look at those scars with pride. Of course.

Brett McCollum (22:18.766)
It is.

Brett McCollum (22:22.478)
They’re always found in hindsight though, right? When you look back on it and you’re like, man, because in the moment, and we were talking, Dave, we were talking pre-show and some of this a little bit. And, and then the moment while you’re going through stuff, the prayers we pray that are so like, I mean, maybe give a clip of that because I mean, it’s really good. What you told me, was like, and I, guys, I even told it’s a Dave, please send this to me. Cause I need this. Cause here’s the thing. Like when you’re going through it,

Dave Seymour (22:28.731)
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Seymour (22:37.137)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (22:48.493)
Yeah, no, look, man, I like this.

Brett McCollum (22:52.45)
Yeah, when you’re going through it, it’s the… You don’t have the beauty of reflection when you’re in the middle of it. You know?

Dave Seymour (22:59.951)
So I think human nature, right, it’s that pain and pleasure component. What’s more powerful moving towards pleasure or moving away from pain? And I think business and entrepreneurship is set up with the promise of pleasure. Okay. When you earn this and do this, this will happen. It’s a pleasurable experience that we can, we can feed into. But what they don’t talk about are the pain components. You know, when a bank calls a loan.

Brett McCollum (23:17.742)
Yeah.

Dave Seymour (23:29.999)
when an investor says they’re going to wire money and they don’t show up at the closing table and you’re left holding the bag, when a contractor decides that his moral standards are not the same as yours and he’s okay absconding with $856,000 worth of bank money that was supposed to have been fed through to the subs that were underneath this guy’s control. How do you deal with those things, right? What do you have control over? What do you don’t? You know, my caveman says I’m going to wait in the bushes outside your house.

and we’ll take care of business old school, right? That’s how I immediately go, but I can’t do that. So one of the things that have been super helpful for me, you know, the past three, four years, last year was brutal for so many of us. It really was. If you survive to 25, you’re a miracle, right? So for me, I try and replace my fear with faith every single day, because I don’t care who you are. I’m scared, dude.

Brett McCollum (24:14.594)
Yeah, yeah, tough year.

Brett McCollum (24:25.134)
Mm-hmm.

Dave Seymour (24:28.229)
I’m scared, I’m scared of failure, I’m scared of things outside of my control. But fear is a thief. Fear is the devil in the corner whispering in your ear, right? The devil whispered in my ear, you can’t handle the storm. I whisper back in the devil’s ear. This is what gets me going. I whisper back in the devil’s ear, I am the storm. I’m a man of Christ, I’m a human being, I’m a good guy. Get out of my way, I’m higher power.

Brett McCollum (24:49.762)
Matt.

Dave Seymour (24:58.117)
So when I can bring that in, I tend to be more present and more powerful in the tougher situations, you know?

Brett McCollum (24:58.304)
I had a

Brett McCollum (25:06.254)
I had a mutual friend of ours, talking to me recently, talking about some stuff we’re working through and getting through and stuff. And he said to me this, said, it’s 2025, you know, this day 2025. How many things have you not gotten through before? How many things has God not brought you through in the past? You’re here, right? So you’ve gotten through it. And that fear, that’s just, you went back, it’s almost, and I’m excited for you to read that in a second here, but it’s,

Dave Seymour (25:25.329)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yes.

Brett McCollum (25:35.278)
You remember that moment, like you said it earlier, like during the show earlier, when you were talking, like you had that time with, Lynn at the beach there, and you had that come to Jesus meeting with, know, like, we’re going to talk about this, you know, and then here you are, fast forward, you know, it’s 2025 now. And it’s, it’s like, it’s this mindset, this thought that we, I’ve been doing this long enough now, I shouldn’t have to struggle.

Dave Seymour (25:38.609)
Mm-hmm.

Dave Seymour (25:43.557)
Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Seymour (26:02.929)
Mmm. Mmm. He didn’t promise us that.

Brett McCollum (26:05.07)
And I think that now, and that is a hard, hard truth that I have to face. And that’s why I’m really like, read this for it, like this, because when you shared that with me, Dave, it was powerful, man.

Dave Seymour (26:10.011)
Yeah, yeah.

Dave Seymour (26:16.081)
Yeah. So look, I don’t know about anybody else. Right? I don’t wear… I don’t hide my faith. You know, I shared with you prior to the show, starting at 23 years old, I was gripped in addiction, man. I bought financial illiteracy and alcoholism with me to the United States as a young guy. And, you know, being gripped in the…

Brett McCollum (26:26.286)
Mm-hmm.

Dave Seymour (26:45.657)
in the, just in the claws of that addiction was tough. And I think for me that was the day that I turned it over and I learned a valuable lesson and that was to let go and let God. And being a part of a community that was sober for up to 35 years in January of this year, I just picked up 35 years of sobriety. And it was like my whole journey has been, the undercurrent has always been faith, however you determine faith for you.

You know, for me it’s Jesus Christ and Christianity. For you it might be the, you know, the springtime and the flowers coming up. Guy said to me, Dave, you don’t have to believe in God, but it’s a really good idea that you don’t believe you are God. He said, because when we tend to drive the bus, you know, we don’t necessarily follow the chosen path. So most days, either in the morning or at night, I try and add this prayer to my day and I’ll…

I’ll just share it with you. God, direct my thinking today so that it may be empty of self-pity, dishonesty, self-will, self-seeking and fear. God, inspire my thinking, decisions and intuitions. Help me to relax and to take it easy. Free me from doubt and indecision. Guide me through this day and show me my next step. God, show me what I need to do to take care of any problem.

I ask all of these things that I may be of maximum service to you and my fellow man. And in the spirit of Jesus Christ, these are the things that I pray, amen. What that does for me every day is it gives me a grounding, dude. If I run my life based on ego and self-will and that perpetual, you know, that drive.

I can use that drive to help you. If I can come on

Brett McCollum (28:45.582)
Well, we tend to create these problems, right? These things that we all face are all very real problems, but we tend to think that they’re, like God, I’m me, me, me, it’s my problem, me, me, me, me, but what I’d heard and we talked is on the back end of that was for you and for my fellow man. That’s a shift in our problems to think about like getting through this not for me, but for, and.

Dave Seymour (28:49.745)
Yeah, yeah.

Dave Seymour (28:56.571)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Seymour (29:04.943)
Yes. Yes.

Dave Seymour (29:13.561)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (29:15.4)
You could add into it too for my wife, for my children, for my… You could add into that too, you know. Man, that’s… Yeah.

Dave Seymour (29:18.405)
Yeah, yeah.

Dave Seymour (29:22.543)
Something that’s helped me and I got it from a mentor one time was when I’m in the troubled space, right, when I’m in a darker season and everything feels negative or a challenge, he said, you can rephrase contextually anything that you face in life, anything. He said, instead of I have to, fill in the blank, he said, try this, I get to.

Brett McCollum (29:51.406)
I get to.

Dave Seymour (29:51.908)
Fill in the blank. Think about that for a second. I get to go to war for my investors to save their principle and grow their capital. I get to be on this cool conversation with you, right? I get to share our experience. I get to know you better.

Brett McCollum (29:59.16)
Yes.

Brett McCollum (30:11.534)
It shifts you into gratefulness, doesn’t it?

Dave Seymour (30:13.521)
attitude of gratitude, my brother. Attitude of gratitude.

Brett McCollum (30:16.566)
Yeah, I was, I was listening to another podcast and they were talking about, you know, the only way through some of these dark things is gratitude. Because the dark thing, they’re real, like, you know, maybe we project what we think is going to happen in the future that we just have no idea, which is what leads to the anxiety and all this stuff. But the reason we’re thinking about is for problems that exist that are absolutely real things. And the only way to, I’m, I mean, I’m, I’m a work in progress, right? But it’s,

Dave Seymour (30:25.445)
Yeah, yeah.

Dave Seymour (30:32.931)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (30:39.181)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (30:46.454)
It’s gratitude, daily gratitude.

Dave Seymour (30:47.727)
I’m a sinner, I’m a sinner, the flesh is strong. You know I mean? I’m like, just take this. I’m not big enough to carry it. And here’s the other thing too. I think there are…

Brett McCollum (30:50.766)
You know.

Dave Seymour (31:02.765)
like the life experiences. I think, you know, from making the first fire and breaking the first rock and carving it into a wheel and, you know, the progression of man, that’s been a push by man. And I think about that today and I say, what if, what if I didn’t face the day like I was pushing a donkey up a hill? What if I just let the donkey roll down the hill? Let it go.

Brett McCollum (31:06.125)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (31:28.056)
Mmm.

Dave Seymour (31:32.334)
Let the donkey roll down the hill. Then look up the hill to see what’s next. Because if I’m pushing that donkey up the hill, that’s God’s save. What are you doing, dude? Stop pushing the donkey. Stop it. But the amount of effort that goes into pushing that donkey, I think there’s a lot more effort in my younger years than there are now in my later years. Like I can recognize it quicker. I think that’s the power of

Brett McCollum (31:32.45)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (31:41.934)
What are you doing? Yeah.

Brett McCollum (31:58.19)
Yeah. That’s wisdom, by the way.

Dave Seymour (32:01.329)
wisdom, mentorship, experience, failures, more power in a failure than there is in success, more knowledge and wealth and positivity coming out of a failure than there is in a success. So, being able to prioritize the people around me and those that depend upon me over me brings me peace. If I can exalt him,

and devalue me, my life seems to go better. It seems better. It just is.

Brett McCollum (32:37.656)
Yeah, that’s incredible. want one like a little short scripture and then we’ll do a transition here, but I would be remiss if I didn’t at least. There’s a scripture in the Bible that says, you know, do not be anxious about anything and instead in prayer with what? Thanksgiving. That’s the gratitude part. Make your request known for the Lord and then what? The peace of God will

will come, right? And I think that’s what we all go, when we’re struggling, what we go through is in search of that peace. Because that’s why, that’s what we’re struggling. It’s like, don’t have peace right now. And we’re like, my God, we’re searching. You know, so like that’s the prescription is pray about everything with Thanksgiving. Like that’s, I’m good at, here’s my thing is I’m really good at praying about the problem. I’m not really good about having Thanksgiving.

Dave Seymour (33:23.429)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dave Seymour (33:32.635)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (33:33.41)
And that’s that I mean, but it’s a it’s a combination. You can’t do one without the other. But if you do that, then peace, you know, and so that’s, that’s a, yeah. And it’s like, man, I how, how dumb am I sometimes? Right? Like, like, I have the answer. And I don’t do it. You know, so we could keep doing it. It’s and that’s really

Dave Seymour (33:36.689)
Sure. Sure.

It’s a formula. It’s a formula.

Dave Seymour (33:51.96)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Thy will be done, not mine. Remove the bondage itself. It’s so simple in the saying. It’s so hard in the doing. Yeah, yeah.

Brett McCollum (34:05.038)
It’s hard to walk it out. Yeah. Let’s let’s move transition a little bit here. Today it’s 2025. What are you guys working on now? Because you did you know if you did flipping boss and I think we talked is like four years. How many episodes of the 20? 29 incredible I mean that was and that’s what you know puts Dave on the map. You know that’s what gets you you know what and that was incredible like what today though you know what are you doing now was it was?

Dave Seymour (34:18.417)
Yeah, 20, 29 episodes, yeah.

Dave Seymour (34:27.171)
Yeah, yeah.

Dave Seymour (34:33.755)
Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting. know, the show ended, there’s that period of like, okay, what’s next? And the show only ended because of some legal challenges with the IP of flipping houses. Had nothing to do with us. it just all changed. But anyway, you know…

Brett McCollum (34:34.424)
you know, does business look like?

Brett McCollum (34:41.006)
Mm-hmm.

Dave Seymour (34:53.157)
I’ve always stayed in real estate, went back to flipping houses, did some beautiful deals, actually flipped a house across the cul-de-sac from where I live, stayed in the game, stayed in the people, stayed in the contractors, had a nice hard money lending business, 16 million in the pipe. That business went belly up in 48 hours during COVID, because I was working off of a line of credit from a company on Wall Street, and we were just ripping notes, like we generate the loans.

Brett McCollum (35:12.302)
Wow.

Dave Seymour (35:21.743)
we make money on the spread and then they sell the notes back to the secondary markets. And then when COVID hit, no QM lending, no occupied lending, we’re out and then I’m done. So, because of my years traveling in education, like you and I are talking now because of the common people we know in the education spaces, right? Business owners who like to educate as well.

Brett McCollum (35:45.464)
Right. Right.

Dave Seymour (35:49.388)
And I went to a partner of mine, Walton O’Vickie’s out of Fort Myers, and he’d been doing syndicated assets, commercial, multi-family, either ground-up construction or repositioning. He’d raised money, 506C Reg D, SEC compliant, blah, blah. And he and I got together and he’s like, you know, I’ve been doing onesies, twosies my whole career. What if we use that guy from the TV show? You know, that flipping Boston guy over there.

Maybe we can use that as a marketing funnel and raise capital and that’s where we’re at today. So, you know, we have a $26 million multifamily asset that’s just coming to completion now in Cape Coral. It’s five buildings, 106 units. We build for what we call the Miss Middle. So you know this, you’re a Floridian. Most of the market is so spread, right? You’ve got $3,500 up in rent for the fancy condo on the golf course.

Brett McCollum (36:20.194)
Very cool.

Brett McCollum (36:28.152)
Wow, beautiful.

Dave Seymour (36:43.441)
And then you’ve got 1500 and down, which is an asset that probably not many people, yeah, one mile away that you don’t want to live in. So what we looked at was what’s the need in the market for the the Miss Middle, so the workforce housing. So we build two bed, two bath, about a thousand square foot units. They rent for about 1750 to 1900. Yeah, yeah.

Brett McCollum (36:49.632)
one mile away, right? Yeah.

Brett McCollum (37:08.334)
Beautiful. Yeah, love that.

Dave Seymour (37:09.009)
because they’re A class assets, but they’re B tenants, right? They’re not people who are paying that 3,500. You know, the investors are coming in expecting anywhere from a two, five, two or three equity multiple on their capital, which is a nice investment for them. So we’ve got that going on. We’re about to build a pickleball facility on McGregor Boulevard. We’re just going into contract on another 110.

Brett McCollum (37:29.731)
Nice.

Dave Seymour (37:34.402)
units, higher end units on a piece of land. We’re doing a JV with a builder and the land owner. That’ll be a really, really nice project. I got 13 units in West Palm Beach. I’ve got other stuff under agreement. You know, it’s a busy time. It’s a busy time, but it’s challenging. It really is. It’s tough keeping.

Brett McCollum (37:45.55)
That’s really cool.

Dave Seymour (38:00.124)
keeping everything abreast right staying on top of the on top of the the demons that can come knocking at the door you know

Brett McCollum (38:05.944)
Well, yeah, so.

Brett McCollum (38:10.702)
I so at my archer’s will like our pastor says from pulpit all the time, you know, until you’re going through, don’t like tend to think about these things as you’re either in it’s seasonality, right? You either coming out of the valley, you go, you’re in the valley or you’re, you’re going through it. Like you go in, out of three, right? Um, and if there’s always a, it’s always that, you know, and then, and I hate, I don’t hate it all. I I’m proud of it to bring one more passage into it that

Dave Seymour (38:23.205)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (38:29.583)
Yeah, yeah.

Dave Seymour (38:33.862)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (38:39.726)
sticks to that for us is it’s the it’s classically you know you’ve heard it a million times even if you’re not like a Christian you’ve heard this one, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil but what that says is it doesn’t say that though I have to go around the valley

Dave Seymour (38:48.987)
Yeah, walk through the valley. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (39:00.101)
Yeah, you turn. Through it. Yeah, yeah. It’s always through.

Brett McCollum (39:00.942)
Though I go, you got to go through it, right? So the way out is never around. It’s through it. So, uh, and then it says, I won’t, I don’t have to fear cause he’s with me. And that’s again, these are good things to speak out of our mouth to, to like get through it, but it doesn’t make it easy as we’re going through it. Right. But what you’re doing with what you’re doing though, Dave, 160 units here, you’re doing this. Like you aren’t letting that fear allow you to quit.

Dave Seymour (39:10.833)
Yeah.

Dave Seymour (39:14.851)
Yes. Yeah. No, no, it doesn’t.

Dave Seymour (39:30.949)
Not an option.

Brett McCollum (39:31.99)
It’s that’s the mindset though. It’s not an option. and that, that to me is like the most beautiful thing I can, I can see is just like, my gosh, man, like it’s an inspiration to those of us that are, you know, I’m looking at you as a, man, this is somebody to look up to. You’re somebody worth following. You’re somebody that’s a leader in our space, but good leadership doesn’t say, I don’t have problems like you. says I’m having problems just like you.

Dave Seymour (39:36.987)
Not an option.

Dave Seymour (40:00.399)
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Brett McCollum (40:00.694)
and I’m going through it and quitting isn’t there. Like it’s, that’s good leadership and you’re exemplifying that practically even as we’re talking.

Dave Seymour (40:09.105)
Tell me how you feel about this, ready? So I’m in group last night. The house that I flipped on the other side of my cul-de-sac, by the way, five years after I flipped it, ended up getting purchased by our local pastor at our church, which is in a mall, right? Up here. So we’re in group Thursday night, know, small community group from our church. And Travis, our pastor, he’s a hot ticket, he’s a Floridian.

he passed out these cards. They had used it at a church in a staff setting. And basically the card is some scripture and then a question that relates to you about this scripture. I’ll paraphrase the scripture. was Mark 5, 16, I think. Basically, know, shine your light upon the world, spread this message so that people can receive it, right, and live in the goodness. And then the question was,

was if your life was a Bible, would your Bible have many followers?

Right, right, right. So it did the same thing to me. I’m bawling in group last night. And here’s to your point, right, through the valley. If you read my Bible, Dave Seymour’s Bible, I think there will be followers. You just said it. I look up to you to follow you here, you know, good guy, good business, good education. You know, in my sobriety journey I’ve helped.

Brett McCollum (41:20.718)
Yeah, that’s a challenge.

Dave Seymour (41:48.38)
probably hundreds of men stay sober, regain their lives, just following what I learned from guys who have been sober 45, 50 years ahead of me. But, but, the but is this, my internal Bible doesn’t match my external Bible, right? How I feel, right? Like I don’t feel worthy.

Right, it’s such a paradox man, it’s it’s so twisted around. Like somebody can come up to me after five years, hey Dave, I heard you speak here five years ago, you changed my life, look what I’ve done since then. And you go, wow, that’s awesome, like if the dopamine hit, the good feeling’s out of it. And yeah, inside me there’s a little voice that goes, you’re full of crap Dave. You know, it’s just,

is, but when I’m in it and going through it, to your description, when I’m going through, I need, I need him. I need him when I’m not going through it, but it’s like, you know, my yoke is, you know, my yoke is light, let me carry the burden. It’s like, sometimes you’re just forced into giving that up, forced into giving that up. So I try very hard to have gratitude for myself.

Brett McCollum (42:53.464)
Thank

Dave Seymour (43:13.091)
as much as I do for other people. I’m grateful for this conversation. It’s going to set me up for the day, right? You know what saying? But can I be grateful? Can I joy and goodness in myself? Because I’m the other half of the conversation that I’m enjoying. Am I making sense or am I off my rocker? You get it, right?

Brett McCollum (43:16.322)
That’s super powerful too though. Yeah. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (43:28.493)
Yeah.

A hundred billion percent. Yeah. I mean, and Dave, I, this is the worst thing to do is we have to kind of transition on towards a close up of the show because we could keep doing this forever. I know that. but guys, I want you to go back and listen to.

Dave Seymour (43:39.567)
Yeah, it’s all good. It’s all good. Yeah, we could. It’s all good.

Brett McCollum (43:48.014)
There’s wisdom like that’s coming out right now, not just thought progressions and things that we’re just talking about. It’s there’s wisdom here. Yeah. So please go. I mean, like really go back and re-listen to some of these things because Dave, you’re not just talking between to me right now. Like you’re speaking to hundreds of people that are listening that are like, me too. You know, and, there’s, there’s some

Dave Seymour (43:55.311)
Yeah, it’s not Foo Foo. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Seymour (44:10.085)
Yeah, yeah.

Brett McCollum (44:12.878)
There’s some peace in knowing that like I’m not alone on this battle and this journey and these things like that, right? There really is. I’m not the worst flipper on the planet. I’m not the, you know, the big bad guy that people are, you know, like it’s, it’s tough and that’s okay. But guess what you said? And I’ll kind of wrap it with this is I get to do it.

Dave Seymour (44:16.091)
There it is. There it is. Yes.

Dave Seymour (44:22.299)
Yeah.

Dave Seymour (44:31.141)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I get to.

Brett McCollum (44:34.284)
And that is the shift. get, God’s entrusted me with the ability to tackle this and I get to do this. Because when we come out of it and we will, there will be the only way we could have gotten through that. And I think sometimes we go through this thing is because the only way to get through that is sometimes from my faith perspective is I couldn’t have done it without God. And sometimes I think he just wants us to know like, you can’t do this without me. I tried it.

Dave Seymour (44:40.793)
Yes. Yes.

Dave Seymour (44:48.613)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Hmm. No.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and send them. I’ve tried it too. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (45:02.254)
And we talk free show about that. We talk free show. was like, I just put my head down and worked on it. You have to ask anyway. But Dave, if people do want to reach out to you, follow you in some way, what’s the best way for that to happen?

Dave Seymour (45:12.913)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, look, you can grab me on LinkedIn. Dave Seymour, just Google my name on LinkedIn. That’s always a great platform to chat. Freedomventure.com is our website, freedomventure.com. You can call the phone number, 781-922-4418. Just let them know that you heard us having a chat.

on this podcast and I’m happy to help. mean, when I sit with just myself for a sponsor, I’m sitting with a fool for a sponsor. I need you. know, I need other people. I need to be challenged. I need to challenge others and we can only do that through good communication with each other and put each other first. Put each other first, man. It works.

Brett McCollum (45:50.766)
Mm-hmm.

Brett McCollum (46:02.798)
Yeah, and guys I said it a little bit ago and I’ll say it again Reach out like find him linkedin find the plot. He’s a leader worth following And you know, I know you won’t be disappointed to do so so But yeah, Dave man a pleasure talking with you. I wish we again wish we could just keep this going. This has been great Guys rewind it back. Listen to this 10,000 times over get this in your inside of you

Dave Seymour (46:25.969)
Appreciate you brother, much love.

Hahaha

Brett McCollum (46:31.79)
because the lessons that are being taught here are gonna help you walk through the difficult things ahead. So Dave, again, man, pleasure having you guys. Be sure to check us out on the next episode and we’ll talk to you soon. Take care everybody.