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In this episode, we had the pleasure of hosting Daniel Brown, the visionary CEO of Brownstone in Austin. Daniel, originally from the UK, shared his incredible journey of becoming an American entrepreneur, family man, and a leader in the real estate industry.
Daniel’s background as the former CEO of a $150 million UK jewelry chain brings a unique perspective to his current role. Since relocating to the US in 2015, he has immersed himself in various aspects of the real estate market, dealing in 9 states and working on rentals, fix-and-flips, and new construction projects.
Daniel shared his belief in personal growth and holistic health. He emphasized the importance of mindset and effort in achieving success and happiness. Daniel dreams of a future where everyone moves closer to their ultimate potential, and his long-term thinking and action-oriented nature have been instrumental in Brownstone’s success over the last 5 years.
As the head of Brownstone, Daniel also discussed the company’s mission to create stunning spec homes that prioritize design, quality, and health. If you’re interested in the intersection of real estate, personal growth, and holistic health, you won’t want to miss this insightful conversation!
In This Episode
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The importance of mindset and vision in your overall wealth strategy
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His personal advice and insights about the hierarchy of needs
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The business model of Brownstone and his experience as an entrepreneur
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The importance of knowledge, taking action and practical tips to maximize your true potential
Welcome to another episode on Wealth Strategy Secrets. Today, we are joined by Daniel Brown. Daniel is originally from Britain and is now a proud American. You’ll certainly see that in his accent. He is also a devoted family man with a wife, five children, and two grandchildren. Daniel leads Brownstone’s team in creating Spec Homes focusing on design, quality, and health.
He is deeply committed to personal growth, and holistic health, and believes strongly in the transformative power of mindset and effort. Daniel envisions a future where individuals can reach their ultimate potential. I love that, Daniel. Individuals can reach their ultimate potential, because isn’t that what it’s all about?
I was having a conversation with somebody this morning, “How do I guide my kids on what should they do about what they expect from them?” It can get complicated. I’ve brought it down to two or three key things. I say to my kids, “As long as you are healthy, nothing else seems to matter; if you don’t have that. I’ve been there at certain points and you would give everything else to be healthy. As long as you’re being kind, nice, and going. It’s that simple – give good out to the world.”
We have this responsibility to give our all to try and get the most out of ourselves – whatever that looks like. We’ve all got our different gifts and different passions. I want to say to my kids, “You’ve got potential.” I argue that there isn’t a limit to that. It’s not about hitting the top of the mountain, but it’s going further up this limitless mountain. Do that. You’ve got health, you’ve been nice to other people, and you’re helping yourself grow.
Odds are, you’re happy and that’s it. What else is there? You’re happy and you’re going to leave things in a better state than you found them. So, that’s what I’m drawn to. You’ve helped me there almost succinctly to put my whole focus on life down to a minute or two, so thank you.
Beautiful. I can appreciate that. It resonates. We talk about that a lot in this community around achieving holistic wealth, because at the end of the day – it is not about how many zeros are in your portfolio, it’s those key things that you’ve talked about. It’s interesting because we live in such a world, where we’re constantly bombarded with all of these other things.
It’s not about reaching the top of the mountain, but about continuously climbing further up this limitless peak.
Living up to the ideal about, other people – going, we’re bombarded with conventional thinking from Wall Street, from Corporate America, from government – that we should all be a certain way. But you succinctly described ‘going’. At the end of the day, this is what it’s all about.
What you got me thinking about the first thing you said in terms of the expectations of other people, is a powerful question to ask oneself – what would you do if nobody else knew, if there were no other opinions? There’s no other judgment. It was you going not quite a desert island; because you sit there and there’s an island, not doing much trying to survive. But if you could be in this world and somehow, anything you did or didn’t do that nobody else knew about, what would you still choose to do? Maybe you start to get a bit clearer than what matters to you.
It’s not there for what my depression my dad put on me when I was five, or the expectation of my partner – all of the things that are other people’s positions, and you’ve turned into your self-expectations. What do you want to expect of yourself? What will you do if nobody else is watching?
I’ve got a funny one around this. I’m changing the toilet roll and making sure I put it on the right way around. Anyone who is listening disagrees with this, “You’re a crazy person, it has to be rolling from the top, never down from the back.” It’s important. It matters to know and put it in the right way. Why? Because it’s easy for the next person along. Does anybody know I did that? No.
In the most minuscule mind, I’m putting something better into the world because of it. Yes, I should do it anyway. I like the judgment of myself. I’ll judge myself and I’ll decide, “I’m happy with Daniel as a human.” If we could all live our lives a hundred percent on that basis, you’d find there would be even more happiness in the world.
You’re spot on with that. It is all of these things that we do and it is about living an intentional life – about what is important and taking those opportunities to pay it forward where you can, because it’s a mindset, you can change your subconscious to be thinking about that.
Whether it is the toilet paper, holding the door open for someone at the grocery store, or any kind of example of helping, it is going to be who you are and exemplify your values. Then you can start creating a bigger contribution, a greater impact to those around you.
Interestingly enough, that creates a magnetic personality and aura that you can create, and that attracts other people who are willing to pay it forward and have that type of impact. We can take this entire thing full circle around personal growth, building wealth, and holistic things; but it all starts with that. It seems simple to your point. It is a small example, but it does come full circle.
When I think about some people who are drawn to science and logic; some people may focus more on spirituality, some others focus on the specificity of religion. It doesn’t matter which of those camps you’re more in, whether it’s a blend of them. But there’s a curious tendency that the more you look for something, the more often you seem to find it. I seem to have even more.
I always do the air quotes of coincidences in my life. Because the more I go down a certain path, the more coincidentally I keep finding more of those things or those people. And you will get what you are looking for. The science bit; maybe it’s partly the Reticular Activating System, the bit that says, “There are millions of pieces of information coming at me every second and I can’t focus on all of them. My brain is going to have to pick out the big ones.”
I’ve decided I’m thinking about buying a red Tesla. All of a sudden, I see red Teslas everywhere; there are no more red Teslas today than they were yesterday, but I see them everywhere because that has become important to me. If I go looking for problems in the world, or if I go looking for, “He cut me off and everyone is always further ahead of me,” or “People have bad actions,” I’m going to keep finding that and then I’m unconsciously going to act in a way that makes those things more likely to come true.
Because my brain is going to say, “If this is what you believe and it doesn’t happen, that’s going to be confusing, you can’t cope with that.” So let’s make sure the things you believe do happen. You stay in that place and you’ll be right. Life is now disappointing and a problem is stressful. If I assume the best with people, if I think, “That guy cut me off,” there’s a part of me that wants to say, “Whatever,” and hit the horn, but there’s no point. I don’t know him.
What does Don Wood say about his atmospheric conditions? I’m assuming something tough is going on with him this morning. Maybe I should think, “Poor guy. Whatever’s going on there, if he needs to drive in that way, there’s something that’s going on for him.” If I can feel the same way, and I’m offering sympathy, empathy, and care, he doesn’t know it, but I do. Then what happens later in that day – maybe programs that way, I’ll find somebody that needs some support, care, or love and that is what I’ll be able to give them.
That will come to me more often and it is partly that the science of what gets us thinking that way and gets us looking for what we want to find, and we’ll be right. So I’d rather be right about something that makes me happy which is good stuff. Happy people are nice things in the world because that’s my choice. But then there’s the likes of the secret that put this over has done this – a disservice. But the idea of manifesting something has been quite confusing. I’ll sit here and I want this wonderful thing to happen to me, it will come to me.
A great friend of mine, from a much more religious point of view says, “The Bible doesn’t say you pray, and it happens.” I’m not religious, but I love this concept. It says to pray and do the thing to increase the chance your prayer will happen. It doesn’t just happen. You have to get off your ass and go make stuff happen. Manifesting is more about wanting a clear focus on what I want to see in the world, and finding in the world the goodness, the good people, and I’ll do something about it.
Manifesting is about having a clear focus on what I want to see in the world, finding the goodness and good people, and taking action to make it happen.
If I sit back expecting everyone to be lovely, kind, happy, money to come at me, and joy to come at me – that’s not right. That’s on me, everything’s on me. How about I make sure it happens? Another coincidence that keeps happening more and more. I went off a tangent there, but I feel passionately.
Dan Sullivan has a great quote which is, “The eyes always see, and the ears always hear what the mind is looking for.” You’re spot on with that sentiment. Then back to our earlier point, it’s all about retraining the neuroplasticity of your mind to start thinking in that way and changing your mindset. When you get cut off on the road, it’s about choosing empathy for the person instead of reacting with anger. It’s interesting because this show is all about wealth strategy and increasing our wealth.
You might think, “What does this have to do with that?” But in actuality, it has everything to do with becoming a better investor, becoming a better person, becoming more fulfilled in your life, and starting to look for those moments of positivity in your life – those things that can change.
Intentionally, you live a day fulfilled with your mission, your purpose, and what you’re here to do. It’s amazing. We’ve been talking about health, which reduces your stress as well in life, and those is scientific data about people who live much longer and healthier, who don’t have the typical stressors going on in their lives.
When you can change your mindset into moving away from a scarcity mindset and sensing the danger that we were put on this earth – to sense danger, when you can reprogram your brain, it’s amazing that the possibilities can happen. From an investing standpoint, you’re going to make decisions differently. Because you are the chess master, and you are making big chess moves on your chessboard. What are those going to look like when you have a positive mindset versus if you’re always playing defense?
With what we said earlier about only focusing on how you see things, what you said is your chessboard – it is interesting. There are eight billion of us, there should be a billion different chessboards because I shouldn’t invest or think about money or wealth the way anybody else does. I should think about it in context to what matters to me.
You got me thinking about a couple of different points. I was thinking about not having the stresses that the lack of money or the lack of wealth can cause. There’s a key factor. If we start at the basic level, we’re talking about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which we all learned at school at some point.
If I don’t have the money, the roof over my head doesn’t need explaining. That is not great. Anyone who says, “Money can’t buy you happiness or solve problems,” I don’t believe that is true at all because, if I don’t have any and I have some, that’s an incredible thing. The challenge that goes wrong for a lot of people is those higher levels of a hierarchy of needs – fulfillment, vision, and purpose, don’t come from having more money.
You can end up making more money because of those things. If you follow them in the right way, it’s up to you how you use that money. There are always the stories of the highly affluent person; I’m not going to use the word ‘successful’ because it depends on your measure of success. Let’s say, a financially successful person and how many of them aren’t happy – no amount of wealth or money has removed the stress because what is driving them? For that wealth, for that achievement, isn’t from a healthy place.
A million needs to be ten million. Then a million needs to be a billion. There is never a true joy and happiness. They can’t see that, and it’s easy on the outside looking at it. It doesn’t mean you can’t go for a million, ten million, a hundred million, or a billion, and be happy. There’s plenty of those stories as well. It is a thing of you can have both. Why do you want that?
I imagine listeners to this have probably disproportionately read Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. It is one of the books I put on my list. If it was up to me, all humans would be forced to read this book. What I love about that book is how it provides valuable information and insights into the quality of various investing opportunities.
But more importantly, I want you to think about why you even care in the first place. What does money mean to you? What will give you peace of mind? What will make you happy? Only you can find out your answer. If I’m Morgan Ells, I’m not going to tell you how to invest or not, or how to build wealth. What I’m going to do is try and guide you to think about what is it you want.
Then the right advisors can help you build a wealth strategy that you should be in charge of based on what you want. You’re going to have to know when to say no to them as often as you’re going to say yes because it has to fit into what you want in the world.
I believe that money used in the right way can add to happiness. Ask me right now, if you handed me X whatever big number X was, could I be even happier? Yes, because I’ve built myself a good place for that to come from because I’d have even more peace to sleep easy every night, and be flippant with vacations, and that would be fun.
Maybe flippant with steaks because I do love a good steak. The kids ask me, “What else would you do? Would you buy a Ferrari? Would you do this?” I would say, “No. This already matters to me, thanks.” Maybe I get to do more with my business and grow it faster. Maybe I can do more child’s work. I’ll use that money to have a good impact. I’ll be even happier. But going after the money in isolation is where I think it all goes wrong for people. This is one thing – wealth and health, it’s lucky that the two words happen to rhyme. It is one giant organic thing.
For sure. We talk about that a lot. I’m certain that a lot of our listeners out there, as fastidious as they are, always talk about creating a wealth vision for themselves. A lot of people still don’t have clarity on what their vision is. If you don’t have a target, you’re going to miss every time. Spending that time to create that vision of where you’re heading.
If you’re moving up Maslow’s hierarchy, what does self-actualization look like for you or the journey to it? Wealth is a component of it. Health is a massive component of it, from a holistic perspective. What is going to get you there? What are those different things? Because you can start living that today.
That is the thing, we all get stuck in this gap, where we think about, “If I only had 100 million,” or “If only I didn’t have this job.” – we get stuck in these things. But one great exercise is to document a hundred things that you would either Be, Do, or Have. It’s interesting because you start writing those down quickly. You get to ten, twenty, maybe thirty, and then it starts to get harder after thirty. But a lot of those things that you can be, for instance – for me, one of the things I want to do is I want to be a world-class father, a world-class brother, a spouse, a friend – all of those things.
When I think about that as my vision, what are those small steps that I can take today to do that? In two weeks, I’m going to go up and dedicate myself, I’m going to stop everything for work, I’m taking three days off, and I’m going to go visit my parents who are getting a lot older. Unplugging from everything and spending quality time, so that I can live up to what I wanted to do. However, I did not necessarily have clarity about the vision and where I was heading, I might not necessarily have made that decision.
I read Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new book (Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life), which impressed me. The three-part documentary on Netflix – Arnold is superb. Just the right age when I grew up with his movies. One bright guy. He has lived three lives over, maybe a fourth life now, but most people would never dream of having one of those. This book is powerful and succinct. It is an easy read.
One of the things he was talking about in terms of envisioning is a slight tweak to the terminology we use. Rather than I will become this kind of leader, I will become that kind of husband or father. He was saying, “I can see myself as – I can see it.” First of all, every time I can see myself, I’m going to create a picture in my head, If I pause and think about it, “Am I unconsciously going to believe that?” Because I can see myself as I created the picture – “Good,” says my unconscious. I know what that looks like then.
And immediately, you start to put yourself there, which means, it’s not. “I’ll become this in the future, I can be it now.” I’ve worded this differently. All the most important things don’t have an endpoint. They’re always a journey. I see myself as a great leader, then right now, I’ll be a great leader from not one already. What does that mean today? What would a great leader advise Daniel to do if he were starting this business? I should be doing more of this and less of it. I can immediately take a step forward and put myself in that place.
I’ve even got a reminder on my phone now. I have it blip up every single day, while I’m playing with this language of what I see myself, and I’ve got the rest of that sentence for what is important to me right now – the particular part of the journey that I’m on. I want that reminder to myself to pause and think about every single day. The pictures can be clear, and I’d swear, in three days of playing with them, I’ve taken some big jumps forward by envisioning in a useful way.
For all top athletes – visualization is key to their success. They’re only visualizing success, not failure. We have a lot to learn from that. One way that you can make that part of your practice is with self-affirmations.
It is part of a Miracle Morning. But having those self-affirmations – I know some people who are going to list on paper and tape it to the mirror in the morning while they’re shaving to remind themselves of those things – keep it every present. It is powerful how you can become what you’re thinking.
I want to share two things you’ve got me thinking about these, are all tips or hacks that I believe in. This version is clearer and more direct. One is where you place that paper or sticky note. Be careful that it doesn’t become a wallpaper. I love the sticker on the mirror, post it, and know the important thing for a short time. But after a while, you shouldn’t see it anymore.
Maybe unconsciously, you still do. There’s a drip feed. But once it’s that thing on the wall is in the same place all the time, maybe you won’t see it anymore. I like reminders. It’s one of the most underutilized personal development tools on the planet. I like reminders because they force themselves onto my phone when I want them and they don’t go away because I’ve set my notification to be like that until I choose to go in and move it to somewhere else.
I sometimes think this reminder isn’t for now, but I want this tonight; a good one before I go to bed, then I’ll move it to 9:30 tonight. It pops up at 9:30, perfect. I read that thing, it’s through and then I can move it again. I’m strategic with moving them around manually on purpose, it’s not, the same time every day because that will become a wallpaper.
I know it’s going to blip up and I’ll ignore it, or not register it in the same way. That is one tip I’ve got. The second one is, that whatever you write down, make sure you believe it. Many people crash and burn with this that they say, “I believe. I am.” Then they go on to say they don’t believe. Your unconscious won’t believe you, because you don’t believe it. You need to be strategic around the terminology in terms of what you believe to be true, and make sure that the messages you’re giving yourself can be taken on board.
I love it. This is a fantastic track we are going down, but I do want to give you listeners the opportunity to hear about your unique business model at Brownstone. Your mission is commendable, and it is a unique model as well. Why don’t you tell the audience about Brownstone and your model?
We build houses, and I enjoy this track so much. My simplistic place to start is – did you know that we have a massive shortfall of housing in this country? Different estimates seem to put it around six million homes and that shortfall is getting worse over time. Austin is one of the worst. Austin has been the fastest-growing metro in this country for the last 12 years. And some deep forecasts have it that way for at least the next five years. There are some of the silly ones that start talking decades out as well, but I don’t need to think that far ahead.
Whatever you write down, make sure you believe in it.
You’ve got a shortfall of housing; this city is one of the worst – it is the fastest-growing city and will continue to be. Then after that, the thing I keep discovering, I keep proving over and over is that new home permits in this city of Austin are at their lowest level since 2011. You think about, if the city has been the fastest growing in the country since that time, how far behind we are? We are further behind with this story. Huge growth. And it’s a real problem.
Of course, problem means opportunity. Maybe I get to tickle my boxes by going and solving a problem, making something better for other people, and having a financially successful business because of it. We build spec homes around Austin. I like spec homes because I don’t want to do custom.
I don’t want to deal with me, you, or anybody who individually has their personal preferences. I’d much rather say, “Here’s a nice lot. Here’s a great house we built. Do you want to buy this house or not? If you don’t, no problem. Somebody else will.” To me, it is an easy life. But our focus is around a wide term which is the mid-market.
Mid-market for us can be half a million dollars, it can be a few million, and everything in between. Our focus is on a better home. Better is, of course, hugely subjective. Within that, it’s about high design. We try and produce the nicest house on the market within its market. Every home is individually designed and every item is individually selected.
Although it is not custom, it is like we’re customizing it ourselves to the nitty-gritty detail. We’re constantly raising quality because it has got to be a house that doesn’t look good on the day you buy it, but you’re happy a few years later. You don’t get buyer’s remorse, and you can’t refund the house, but I don’t want you to feel that way. I want you to have a great experience for years to come.
My deepest passion is holistic health. So much of what we’ve talked about already in terms of the psychology, and emotional piece, but the physical piece as well. Our homes are not healthy. That is my opinion – as close to that as you can get. We spend 90% of our time indoors now, which isn’t great, full stop. Yet our homes are full of toxic materials and lack breathability.
Autoimmune conditions have gone up by some 150 to 200 percent in the last three to four decades. Around 50 percent of homes in this country have molds. You get a lot of mold inspectors and they wouldn’t find it, but when you dig deeper with the right asses there, all these problems are contributing to health epidemic problems in this country.
I want to create a healthier home. I want to be able to say, “You and your kids are going to live in a home where the air is clean and it flows well. There are not lots of toxic materials around you. Your house looks great, it is well made and it is good for you.” I want all of that – I’m greedy, I want the whole lot. Because people deserve a better house and back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. There’s a roof over my head, but do I like the roof over my head, is it good for me? And quite quickly, if that’s not the case, it is hard to work your way up that pyramid.
So that’s what we do. We speculatively find the right piece of land. Usually, there’s an old home on it that needs demoing – build a lot of the new homes. I know where we keep turning those – we’re building between planning and design on the market, and we have 15 homes on the go right now. Everything from 450k to 4.5 million. We’re working on a big growth at the moment. We’re doing a five or 60 fundraiser. We want to turn that 15 into 50+ and turn faster.
This industry has a correct bad reputation. Building is slow, over budget, disappointing, doesn’t treat people well, etcetera. We’re turning the opposite. How’s that? We’re nice to everybody. We treat people well. We’re building faster. We’re good at keeping to budget so we can create a profitable home and keep having an impact.
When I envision the future, I picture us as a force within Austin, Central Texas, while people say, “That’s what building a house can be like,” “That’s what they can look like,” “That’s what they can do for our health. And look how quickly they’re doing it, how are they doing that?” This will lead me to Brownstone 2.0 and 3.0, which are clear in my head, probably too early for that here, but I can see the next stage of the impact we can have.
What are the key components you work to optimize in terms of having a healthy house?
A few examples that we’re either currently using, trialing, or about to use are – healthy paints. Paint is filled with plastics that are toxic, and nasty for the painter. If you care about your subcontractor; that matters from day one. But those plastics get into the home and they create this perfect seal so nothing can pass through the paint.
The problem with that is when water gets into a home, which will happen at some point. It’s nearly unavoidable in some shape or form at some point in time. It then can’t escape because there’s no breathability. The houses we’ve created are similar to airtight boxes and that is not a good thing for us.
Therefore, the moisture stays in between the walls, then mold grows, and the knock-on health implications are huge. Breathable paint allows movement through that. In Austin, your HVAC, especially the cooling side of it is important with the heat here. The humidity can be a problem here. Humidity can lead to mold and other breathing health conditions. Let’s put a good quality dehumidifier in, that gets the humidity at the right level.
If you believe in your growth potential, then every book you read, every podcast you listen to, and every new experience will give you so much more, because you know there’s always something to learn.
You can do whole-house water filtration systems. Honestly, don’t get me started on how bad our water is these days. People know about that and are aware of it. But not using the fridge because your water is being used on your body; and a lot of the filter systems in fridges these days, are not great.
They don’t remove many of the most important toxins and metals. We put high-quality whole-home water filtration in better water. So we’re on a journey one day – I want to put a house out there where you will be healthier by living in this than almost. Why not? That is how good it is going to get. I don’t know how many years out that is, but one day, we will get there.
It’s an opportunity in the marketplace to do that. It is overlooked. What does your business model look like? From an investment perspective, are you having investors come in on a particular asset, or do you have a fund with multiple assets? What does that model look like?
The fund – what we wanted it to be, was a replication of the business. Here’s what we already do and do successfully. How do we create something that people can invest in with the same protection? How does that speak for me? One of the things I like about what we do is we diversify for ourselves. Even though you’d say, it’s all lost in.
I’m in a $450,000 house in Temple – an hour outside the city. I’m doing a four-and-a-half-million-dollar high-end home, minutes from downtown with everything in between. I’m diversified; and the whole shebang of different zip codes, different potential buyers, different kinds of climates because of all of it.
I like that it helps me sleep easily at night. One market isn’t as strong, but another market can pick it up and hedge in my bed. But also, if markets change and things shift, I like being in something like this that is relatively fast-moving. We can be in and out of a home in around a year.
The world moves quickly, but a year is not crazy quick. “The $2 million homes in that zip code are starting to not sell quite as well.” As we sell those and move somewhere else. This million-dollar zip code over here is from a camera strangle. We can pivot very agile. I’m nervous about multifamily and some of the big commercial stuff because you’re going to decide with all the money five years out of how the area is going to be.
And once you’re in and committed, it makes me uncomfortable in this fast-changing world. That’s the model. Therefore, the fund is a replication of that. Somebody invests and they’re in effect, invested over approximately three to four years in everything we do, within that fund for three to four years.
If we were fully funded tomorrow – let’s say, it was that easy – it all landed tomorrow morning. We garden by 30 to 40 individual lots in the cities, suburbs, and so on. On those 30 to 40 individual lots, we will build 50 to 60 homes; because often two homes, sometimes even three on one lot is common in Austin.
A year later, some will be 10 months, some will be 15 months, but simply a year later, those houses are sold. It’s a growth play, so we’re going to take all those proceeds and hopefully significant profits, and reinvest them. Maybe in year two, it will be 60 to 70 homes. Then maybe in year three, it will be 70 to 80.
The idea is, for three and a half or four years of being cautious, maybe we’ve built close to 200 homes. Each one has been a one-year thing. They are all over the place intentionally. Different markets and shifts are happening. We keep pivoting in that agile way, and then the payouts are right at the back end. As that final round of houses are all selling off, then they will be the usual stuff – a nice, healthy preferential return, and a big profit share – which I’ve been told is on the generous side. That’s good, I want it to be generous, we’ll do fine. I want people to benefit from this.
You can be successful if you put in the time, energy, effort, and focus.
An interesting model. Let’s go back to self-development for a moment. What would you say about self-development or professional development? What would be one of your top habits, hacks, goals, and things that you implement?
If you’re watching this, and if you can see this behind me – are some books. That is a real library with books on it. It is not a cool Zoom background. I believe that devouring new information and knowledge with intentionality is huge. I made the point – that people would say, knowledge is power.
My business partner and I often talk about how no applied knowledge is power; usefully applied, knowledge is power. I could read all day long and it’s words. You take the average good non-fiction book out there and you get decades of somebody else’s experience, and a view of something nicely placed into 250 pages for you. You need a few hours to pull all that into your experiences.
I guzzle books. I read 65 books last year, but intentionally – it’s with a highlighter; highlighting key passages, taking photos of them all at the end, and putting them in a folder on my phone so I can refer back to them – and rereading those. I’m always looking for action. I make sure that I can not say, “Wow. I’m inspired by this great book. Which is the next one? I’m inspired by this great book.” Instead, I say, “What am I going to do differently as a result?”
Something do I need to tell someone, something we need to put a different way of thinking in place – an action in place. That’s often for me the ultimate task. I didn’t feel inspired, but something changed or I changed something because of it. You can apply that further to audiobooks, podcasts, and interviews.
I often listen to great podcasts while walking. It is great – more ways of pulling in that knowledge. There are plenty of people who will listen to or read, and it’s just noise, but they think they’re checking the box of growth. There are a lot of people that are missing, maybe because they think they know well. I like to think that I don’t know much. I know I’ll have my talents, but one of my talents is believing that I’m capable of much more.
That helps me keep improving. Because there is not an endpoint, I’m cool with that. I like the idea of a constant journey. If that is, endpoint goals scare me, because I worry about what happens when you get there. You hear too many horror stories of, “Now what?” I’m not going to live my life that way.
If you think about how powerful a book is, it is someone who is going through an entire life’s lessons. You talked about Schwarzenegger’s book, or look at Elon Musk. The number of lessons that are all encapsulated, that you can buy for $25, and read or listen to it on audiobook. The wisdom that you can take away from that is completely exponential.
Can I answer a question that you didn’t ask me? That is a bit cheeky, but I’m going to pretend you did. If you ask me, let’s say, “What’s that one book?” I do have an answer to it. I don’t know why this came to me. But as I mentioned earlier, I’ve got a short list of books everyone should read. I’ve got one that I implore every single listener. If you have not read this book, read it again, read it.
If you’ve read it and it didn’t wow you, read it again, because there was something in my opinion. While this is pushy, the mindset wasn’t quite right. The book is Mindset by Carol Dweck. Because everything else for me comes from that. It is the basis. All it talks about is the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. It’s not either, but it’s a spectrum.
That someone with a fixed mindset tends to believe that we are what we are. Some people are intelligent. Some people aren’t. Some people have talents, others don’t. And if you’re on the growth side, while you can make yourself into anything; “I can be successful if I put the time, the energy, the effort, and the focus in.” It’s not an absolute, but we tend to be on a spectrum, and maybe even different parts of how we see the world are in different places. I’ve always been a fairly growth-minded person.
Reading this book and understanding the science is what I like about it. There are facts behind it to prove why she is right. It helped take me to another level. My belief now is extreme in about anyone can be incredible at anything. I believe it 100%. Her book helps me prove it. If you have that belief, then by default, every further book you read, every podcast you listen to, and every new thing you expose yourself to, are likely to get much more; because you believe in your growth potential, therefore, there is something to learn.
If you don’t have that starting point – it is always fighting against that barrier here, “I’m already intelligent,” “I’m one of the talented ones,” or “I’m not and don’t believe I can be either way. I’ve got no reason to learn because I don’t believe I should or could.” You may not bother listening or reading. That’s my huge recommendation. Everybody, read Mindset by Carol’s work and thank me later.
I appreciate that insight. I was about to ask you the next question, which would be – if you could give one piece of advice to listeners about how they could accelerate their wealth trajectories, what would it be? It might be that book, but I’ll give you another opportunity if there is anything else you want to add to that.
Based on your specialties in this podcast, it makes sense that you ask that question. It is partly the same answer in the sense that, if I believe I’m always capable of more in a healthy way – not in the beat yourself up for not being good enough way; “This is the look how far I’ve come. What’s next in a healthy way?” That is important – then I can always achieve more.
If I believe it, I’m more likely to see it reflected in how I operate my business, treat others, and grow personally. If I focus on improving any aspect of my life, including achieving greater financial success, it will come as a result of understanding what truly matters. I believe that is a starting point. I would not say that there is some oracle of wealth advice.
Many entrepreneurs will have those stories. If there’s been plenty of times, I’ve lost plenty on that thing. I’ve made it up somewhere else along the line and then eventually used it as a learning, then that is something better. But if you’re thinking about personal wealth and growth in that way, I guess it is a psychology of money stuff – the Morgan Halsall book. What matters to you? Because, how will you measure your financial success or your wealth success against your dreams and aspirations?
If you don’t know what matters to you, you’re never going to have the right answer. Once that is clear, you can work out how aggressive or how safe you want to play it, and how diversified you should be or shouldn’t be. And the one extra piece that said the word out loud, made me think of it, is saying diversification. I’d love to know your opinion, that the term diversification gets misused frequently.
If you don’t know what matters to you, you’ll never have the right answer. Once that’s clear, you can decide how aggressive or safe you want to play it, and how diversified you should be
People think diversification means being a little bit in everything. I don’t think it is supposed to. It is meant to be within the things you’re in and diversify within them. I’m heavily in Real estate, even in real estate in Central Texas, in Austin, I’m heavily diversified within it – which creates its protection. Believe me, the market shift and the $450,000 home are in no way correlated to the $4.5 million home in the middle of the city. That’s diversification.
I’m not saying to put everything in Real estate, but that is how real estate is taken care of for me. I don’t have to go after a million different asset classes. Some experts talk about this stuff – that’s not me, but a few non-correlated things that protect each other, that don’t influence one another, and that’s it. Keep it simple.
Diversification is often misunderstood. It comes from Wall Street where they’re saying to diversify across different stocks and bonds, and have this 60-40 split between equities. Then in equities, we’ve got your growth funds, and we’ve got international funds. We’ve got the Nasdaq-type tech stocks. They talk about diversification from that standpoint, which I agree is broad. It shows the weakness in what they’re doing because nobody can guess what the market is doing.
Let’s take this broad brush approach to it. But if you watch billionaires and centimillionaires play the game, what they have is focus. You create focus around the business that you’re in, where you have competitive differentiation, or in terms of your investing; let’s say, you’re investing in real estate. Real estate is one of your key focus areas, but inside of that, is where you can have diversification across different markets, different return profiles, and different asset types.
That’s why we have shaped our business. We only focus on Real estate, energy, and then private credit and private debt. Another big benefit to having this type of focus is that we have a reputation in those sectors. We’re seeing some of the best deals first. We have connections, we have relationships, and we have deeper insights. Our due diligence keeps getting better every day, knowing what to look for versus if we were investing in all kinds of different things.
Doing a few focus things and becoming an expert within those focus things is more successful than the blunderbuss, “I’m going to go after everything.” Then you won’t do anything very well.
Absolutely. It has been such a pleasure to spend some time with you today and share your valuable insights with the audience. I know everyone is going to enjoy this. Again, if you’re thinking out there about mindset and everything, this is how you want to set up your chessboard.
All the most important things don’t have an endpoint; they’re always a journey.
I want to listen to this again and try to see how I can implement some of the ideas that Daniel and I talked about today. If people would like to learn more about the fund that you’re creating, or connect and reach out to you, what is the best place they can reach out?
They can go to our website, but I prefer our Instagram. I can be transparent about the fact that when one is doing a fund on a website, there’s much you can’t say – it’s limited. If you go to Brownstone on Instagram, you get a sense of what is going on every day.
People can reach out through either the Contact form on the website or through Instagram, we’ll come back, and we can begin a conversation. If someone would say, “I want to know about the fund,” then we can get that conversation going. Whether it is about that or whether it is about mindset and personal growth, I love all this stuff.
Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate it. If you enjoyed today’s show, please do us a favor. Subscribe, give us a rating and review, so we can continue to get awesome guests on the show like Daniel to continue to provide value for us. That’s it. Until next week. Thanks.
Thank you very much.
Important Links
Connect with Daniel Brown
Connect with Pantheon Investments
Books Mentioned
People
Further Resources
Your 10-Step Actionable Checklist From This Episode
✅ Emphasize the importance of maintaining good health as a foundational element for a fulfilling life.
✅ Make a conscious effort to be kind and positive in your interactions. Simple acts of kindness contribute to your happiness and create a better world.
✅ Create a clear, personalized wealth vision that aligns with your values and long-term goals. This helps in making better financial decisions.
✅ Break down your long-term vision into actionable steps you can start today, such as dedicating quality time to family or personal development.
✅ Continuously reflect on your progress towards your goals, adjusting your actions as necessary to stay on course and maintain a balance between wealth, health, and happiness.
✅ Choose to build spec homes rather than custom homes to maintain control over design and reduce complications with individual preferences.
✅ Strive to create the best-designed homes within their market, paying close attention to detail and quality, ensuring long-term satisfaction for buyers.
✅ Use non-toxic materials, breathable paints, dehumidifiers, and whole-house water filtration systems to create healthier living environments.
✅ Create a fund that replicates the successful aspects of the business, allowing investors to benefit from diversified, fast-moving real estate projects.
✅ Regularly consume and apply knowledge from books, podcasts, and other resources to stay ahead in both personal growth and business strategy. Prioritize a growth mindset such as following Brownstone on Instagram to continually improve and innovate.
About Daniel Brown
Daniel Brown is the CEO of Brownstone in Austin, a Brit by birth and American by choice. He is a family man with a wonderful wife, five children, and two little grandkids. Brownstone is dedicated to creating beautiful spec homes that prioritize design, quality, and health. They aim to transform their current 15 homes into over 50 per year through a newly launched $20M investment fund, addressing Austin’s growing need for improved living spaces. Beyond bricks and mortar, Daniel is passionate about personal growth and holistic health, believing that with the right mindset and effort, nearly anyone can excel and achieve true happiness.