The $5M Secret to Flipping 'Junk' Land | Shawn Kaplan DSH #953

Summary

Digital Social Hour Podcast Summary
Episode: The $5M Secret to Flipping 'Junk' Land | Shawn Kaplan DSH #953
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Sean Kaplan
Release Date: December 5, 2024

---

Introduction to the Episode

In this compelling episode of the Digital Social Hour, host Sean Kelly engages in a profound conversation with real estate expert Sean Kaplan. The discussion navigates through Kaplan's unique strategies in flipping "junk" land, his personal journey overcoming significant life challenges, and the profound impact of mentorship and personal development on his success.

---

Flipping "Junk" Land: Strategies and Stories

Sean Kaplan opens the dialogue by delving into his distinctive approach to real estate—purchasing land that others deem undesirable due to existing issues. Kaplan emphasizes the potential profitability in resolving these problems, a strategy he learned from his mentor two decades ago.

Sean Kaplan [02:45]: "I like to buy junk land. I like to buy land that somebody else won't buy because there's an issue. Every problem is solvable. That's where you'll make your money."

Kaplan recounts a pivotal moment when he acquired an unbuildable lot at an auction for $430,037. Faced with an initial setback—restrictive easement laws in Williamson County—Kaplan leveraged his knowledge and connections to navigate regulatory challenges. This perseverance transformed the land's value from an impediment to a potential $5 million asset.

Sean Kaplan [03:14]: "That's where you'll make your money."

---

Overcoming Challenges in Real Estate

The conversation highlights the inherent risks in Kaplan's strategy, such as heavy carrying costs and prolonged approval processes. Kaplan shares his resilience in enduring a five-year journey to secure city council approval for his first problematic land purchase.

Sean Kelly [03:25]: "Five years, though. You gotta have some balls to be able to withstand that."

---

Personal Growth and Mental Health Journey

Transitioning from real estate, Kaplan opens up about his personal struggles with mental health, including agoraphobia, substance use, and the profound impact of his father's suicide. He discusses how these experiences shaped his drive for success and his eventual path to healing through therapy and mentorship.

Sean Kaplan [08:50]: "I've tried therapy in the past and it helped me go through some tough times."

Kaplan introduces the concept of MDMR (perhaps a therapeutic modality), detailing how it enabled him to rewire his trauma and shift from a victim mentality to one of empowerment.

Sean Kaplan [35:51]: "And I went from victim to being a victor."

---

The Impact of Mentorship and Community

A recurring theme in Kaplan's narrative is the significance of mentorship. He credits mentors like Stephen and Cody Sperber for guiding him through both his professional and personal challenges. Kaplan underscores the value of having a supportive community and setting healthy boundaries to foster personal growth.

Sean Kaplan [13:01]: "I think it was the greatest opportunity that we have in front of us right now, and it's sad that people don't take advantage of it."

---

Reflections on Generational Trauma

Kaplan delves deep into the concept of generational trauma, sharing poignant stories about his family's struggles, including his father's traumatic experiences in World War II and subsequent mental health issues. He discusses breaking these cycles through self-awareness and proactive personal development.

Sean Kaplan [37:43]: "I don't like to drink anymore. I just don't do it."

---

Insights on Social Media and Modern Business

The episode also touches on the transformative role of social media in business. Kaplan highlights how platforms like Instagram have revolutionized connectivity and opportunities for entrepreneurs, drawing inspiration from thought leaders like Gary Vee. Additionally, both hosts discuss leveraging tools like ChatGPT to enhance productivity and streamline communication.

Sean Kaplan [12:19]: "Gary Vee is actually someone I learned from."

---

Closing Thoughts and Takeaways

As the conversation wraps up, Kaplan imparts invaluable advice to the younger audience. He emphasizes the importance of self-love, embracing one's unique purpose, and maintaining authentic relationships. Kaplan encourages listeners to view life's challenges as lessons and to cultivate a supportive community to navigate personal and professional growth effectively.

Sean Kaplan [51:35]: "Life is happening for me, not to me. So when bad happens or bad people come along, just ask yourself, what is the lesson that I'm learning?"

---

Notable Quotes

• Sean Kaplan [02:45]: "I like to buy junk land. I like to buy land that somebody else won't buy because there's an issue. Every problem is solvable. That's where you'll make your money."

• Sean Kaplan [03:14]: "That's where you'll make your money."

• Sean Kaplan [35:51]: "And I went from victim to being a victor."

• Sean Kaplan [51:35]: "Life is happening for me, not to me. So when bad happens or bad people come along, just ask yourself, what is the lesson that I'm learning?"

---

Key Takeaways

1. Innovative Real Estate Strategies: Buying and flipping "junk" land by addressing and solving existing issues can yield substantial profits.
2. Resilience and Persistence: Overcoming regulatory and financial challenges is crucial for success in real estate.
3. Importance of Mental Health: Addressing personal traumas and seeking therapy are vital for personal growth and professional success.
4. Role of Mentorship: Having mentors provides guidance, support, and invaluable insights that propel individuals forward.
5. Breaking Generational Cycles: Self-awareness and proactive measures can help break negative generational patterns.
6. Leveraging Technology and Social Media: Utilizing modern tools and platforms enhances business opportunities and connectivity.
7. Authentic Relationships and Self-Love: Building genuine connections and embracing one's unique purpose fosters a fulfilling life journey.

---

For aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals, Sean Kaplan's journey underscores the power of turning obstacles into opportunities, the necessity of addressing personal well-being, and the transformative impact of mentorship and community support. This episode offers a rich blend of practical real estate strategies and profound personal insights, making it a valuable resource for those looking to thrive in today's dynamic digital and business landscape.

Transcript

[Indeed]

We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search Match with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed Data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster, leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day. Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed, the better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com bluewire just go to indeed.com bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com bluewire terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you need Indeed.

[Sean Kaplan]

When your gut feels off, your whole day can feel off. Activia probiotic yogurts and dailies are a quick, easy and tasty way to up your gut. Health game every day. They're deliciously smooth and creamy and packed with billions of live and active probiotics. Your gut is where it all begins. So start with Activia. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle can help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort. I like to buy junk land. I like to buy land that somebody else won't buy because there's an issue. Because I had a mentor 20 years ago. Make your money on the dirt. If you can find a piece of land that's got an issue, every problem is solvable. That's where you'll make your money.

[Sean]

All right, guys, here with Sean Kaplan in Nashville, Tennessee. Your hometown, right?

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, hometown, baby.

[Sean]

Never been to la. We were talking just now. That's pretty crazy.

[Sean Kaplan]

Never been to la. Gotta go check it out, I guess. You know, I don't know. After hearing some of the stories, you.

[Sean]

Must really like it here if you're not leaving often.

[Sean Kaplan]

I love Nashville, you know, I was originally from New England, lived in New York and Vermont, but Nashville's super cool. Great people, tons of charisma and character here. I really love the fact that people just are not pretentious. Yeah, it's a great town and there's a lot of opportunity.

[Sean]

Absolutely. What opportunities have you been pursuing lately?

[Sean Kaplan]

You know? Well, I'VE gotten into real estate, land development. I'm on my second piece of property. I found that's pretty lucrative, especially with the rural nature of Tennessee. It's not as lucrative as it was 10 years ago when I started, but there's still opportunity.

[Sean]

Yeah. So you're buying land?

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean]

I get Facebook ads for that all the time. Land flipping. Yeah, I'm sure you get those too.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, yeah. Or they're selling the lots at the lake that nobody wants, you know, for $14. But I like to buy junk land. I like to buy land that somebody else won't buy because there's an issue. Because I had a mentor 20 years ago, and he's like, you make your money on the dirt. He's like, if you can find a piece of land that's got an issue, every problem is solvable. He goes, that's where you'll make your money.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

And you can make millions of dollars just by doing that.

[Sean]

That's interesting, because some people would see that as more risk.

[Sean Kaplan]

It is risky, and there's heavy carrying costs because as you're. If you finance it, for example, you're making that payment, and it can be like, one piece of land I have is five years. It's been five years to take to get through city council and get fixed. And actually, the final meeting is tonight on.

[Sean]

Wow. Congrats, man. Five years, though. You gotta. You gotta have some balls to be able to withstand that.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. We went to an auction at a lunch break, and with my buddy, who's my partner on it, and he's like, you want to go to this land auction? I was like, sure, whatever. And so we go. And there wasn't a lot of people there. Nobody started bidding. So they brought the bid price down. And being a competitive guy, I was like, all right. So next thing, I raised my hand, and I realized we're in it. And we bought this piece of land for 430,037 acres right near downtown. And we ended up finding out that it was unbuildable lot. Fifteen minutes after, we. We. We won the auction.

[Sean]

So you couldn't build on it at all.

[Sean Kaplan]

I freaked out. And then I was like. I just remember hearing Stephen tell me, my mentor, like, hey, everything's fixable. And we went through the steps. We'll go there tonight. We'll get it approved. We'll be able to build on it. And that 37 acres will probably market it for 4 to 5 million.

[Sean]

Holy crap. So 10x.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. Well, that's insane.

[Sean]

So why was it not buildable at the time.

[Sean Kaplan]

It was a. It was a stupid easement where I own the access road. We bought the land and the access road, but they had given easement to two other properties on either side of it. And there's a weird rule where, like, if you put more than three units or three properties on this piece of land in this county, Williamson county, that the road to it has to be 52ft, and we're only 32ft.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

So we found out that, like, four or five feet of the front of the property near the road touches the city limits. So we said, well, we'll just call the city and see if they'll annex it into the city. And that was our loophole, and we got it figured out.

[Sean]

That's cool. So why did you lean more towards land than actual houses?

[Sean Kaplan]

I've done houses, too, but I started with my first house, zero down. My mentor said, live in it for two years, because after two years, you don't have to pay any taxes up to 250,000 on a gain on real estate. And he said, then you turn it into a rental if you want. So I buy a house, low down payment, turn it into a rental, Buy a house, low down payment, turned into a rental. And I did that about 10 times over the last 20 years.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

I made a lot of money doing that. But it gets to the point, like, we don't want to move out of our house.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

You know, so get comfortable. Yeah. I mean, the last house probably, like, similar to Vegas, we doubled. We bought for 750, sold it for 1.5 million.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

Three years. And then I put that 1.5 million into a house set on 20 acres, and now that's worth about almost 5 million.

[Sean]

Damn. You could get 20 acres out here for 1 5.

[Sean Kaplan]

Well, that was a couple. About eight years ago, I bought that.

[Sean]

Oh, God.

[Sean Kaplan]

Wow. No, but that land, eight years ago, 20 acres. I bought that for 340,000.

[Sean]

Holy crap.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sean]

So I wonder if you just held the whole time if you would have.

[Sean Kaplan]

Made more, probably, but by putting a house on it. And I also built the house during the supply chain crisis. So while I was building this house, the values were going up like crazy. Everyone was biting their faces off on real estate, so it was just pushing my value up. So I got 2 million bucks between the land and the house, and it's worth 5 million now.

[Sean]

Nice.

[Sean Kaplan]

And so that's really where you can capitalize and make your money. Like, right now is the time to buy a house. Because if these rates go down, everybody else is going to be bidding and it's going to drive your price on your asset that you already own way, way, way, way up.

[Sean]

Right.

[Sean Kaplan]

But everybody waits for everybody else to do something. You got to do it when everybody else is not doing it.

[Sean]

That's true. Yeah. So for people watching this, they need maybe an upcoming city like Nashville to do this.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. Or just get out. Like I'm out in Nolensville. It's a Williamson county address.

[Sean]

This episode is brought to you by.

[Indeed]

We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search Match with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed Data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster, leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day. Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed, the better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more [e-mail] bluewire just go to indeed.com bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com blue wire terms and conditions apply. Need to h you need Indeed.

[Sean Kaplan]

Subtle results still you, but with fewer lines Botox Cosmetic Adabotulinum Toxin A is a prescription medicine used to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow's feet and forehead lines look better in adults. Effects of Botox Cosmetic may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Don't receive Botox Cosmetic if you have a skin infection. Side effects may include allergic reactions, injection site pain, headache, eyebrow and eyelid drooping and eyelid swelling. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Tell your doctor about medical history, muscle or nerve conditions including ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eden syndrome, and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. For full safety information, visit botoxcosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300 see for yourself at botoxcosmetic.com@betterhelp.

[Sean]

Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com dsh and get on your way, becoming your best self. My fiance Arielle plays a big role in my mental health, helping me realize my true potential. Everyone's trying their best around you, so take time to appreciate someone close to you. I've tried therapy in the past and it helped me go through some tough times. When I was in college dealing with mental health, I was on prescription medication. I actually had agoraphobia when I was in college and therapy helped me figure out some answers to how to fix that problem. For two months I couldn't even leave my house or I would have a full on panic attack. So I love companies like BetterHelp that can get therapy in front of the masses. But therapy definitely helped me get better. And I definitely appreciate companies like BetterHelp because it's completely online and it's conveniently suited to fit your schedule and accommodate life surprises. Fill out a brief questionnaire to match with a licensed therapist today with the freedom to switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Visit betterhelp.comDSH to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp H L P.comDSH check them out now.

[Sean Kaplan]

There's you got Davidson, Williamson, Rutherford, Maury County, Wilson County. All those counties, they're touching Nashville, they're exploding. So if you can get your hands on something at a reasonable price. But what most people do, especially a lot of people coming from out west, they see Williamson county, which is highly attractive. That's where a lot of the country music, medical industry moves and that's where they want to go. Well, you're, you're a minimum a million bucks to get anything in county.

[Sean]

Yes. People are getting priced out.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, you gotta go to one of the other areas.

[Sean]

Why do you think Nashville is exploding right now?

[Sean Kaplan]

Great question. I would say it was affordability. It's starting to get out of reach. Taxes are super low. We have no state sales tax. School systems are good. It's relatively safe. You know, so people from California are coming out here and they're automatically putting 11, 12% back in their pocket right from the beginning.

[Sean]

Right.

[Sean Kaplan]

And then on top of all the other stuff. So I think it has a lot to do with taxes and affordability.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

It's also a cool city.

[Sean]

It's fun, man. Yeah, it's my first time here, but I'm already going to lock in Some future trips.

[Sean Kaplan]

Nice. Well, we hope you come back more. Yeah, yeah.

[Sean]

Everyone here has been super nice, man, to be honest.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, they're down to earth, you know, like, you met Adley and some of the other folks yesterday, and it's just like, we just like to help people. It's like there's no hidden agendas or anything. And that's kind of how Nashville rolls. We actually had, several years ago, TMZ came out here and we ran them out of town. They literally ran them out of town because, like, you don't go to Starbucks and see Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman and harass them. Dude, they're sitting there having coffee. Leave them alone. Whole Foods. I see Carrie Underwood. It's like nobody's hassling these people. That's part of the draw on why people move here tonight.

[Sean]

That's awesome, man. Yeah, yeah. Because the LA culture, like, you get TMZ following you or paparazzi or whatever, you can't live a regular life, you.

[Sean Kaplan]

Know, they just want to be left alone like everybody else, you know, it's kind of like you. You probably go places and meet people and you're kind of like, man, I just kind of want to do my thing right now.

[Sean]

More and more now. Yeah. As a podcast host, it's. It's a little better than like a celebrity, I'd say, because you don't get like fanboys. It's more like high level conversations or like people that you help. So it's. It's cool.

[Sean Kaplan]

The power of social media and the opportunity. You know, Gary Vee said this a couple of weeks ago at this mastermind I was at, and he said, we're in the greatest opportunity in small business. We're actually in the third quarter of it. And he's like, I'm really passionate about this and I'm going to start really drilling people because if you're not using this opportunity, of these seven platforms right now, and I would have never met you if it wasn't for that platform.

[Sean]

Instagram, right?

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, yeah. You know, and growing up as a poor kid with like, nothing, I've always looked for the hack. I always look for the way that I didn't have to pay for something, but I could learn or grow. And when social media came on the scene, I remember I was out of college, but everyone was like, that was a time when you had to be in college to get a Facebook account.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

So I, like, lied and somehow got in there and I was like, I can see all these people and connect with all these people without having to drive around town and call. And I just kept doubling down on it. Unfortunately, I did it really bad, bad social media for like, 10, 12 years until I met Neil and some of the other people. And I've just really been trying to become a student of all of it. But I think it's the greatest opportunity that we have in front of us right now, and it's sad that people don't take advantage of it.

[Sean]

Yeah, no, it's cool to see you. And, you know, the guys older than me like utilizing it now. Gary Vee is actually someone I learned from.

[Sean Kaplan]

Did you really?

[Sean]

Yeah. When I was first starting out in entrepreneurship, I watched him daily.

[Sean Kaplan]

Wow.

[Sean]

Probably a year or two straight.

[Sean Kaplan]

He's so. I mean, just. The guy's a, he's, he's a legend in our industry. He's responsible for so many people activating that opportunity that they normally were being held back. And he's an innovator.

[Sean]

Yep.

[Sean Kaplan]

He asked at the Mastermind. He's like, how many people stand up if you use ChatGPT as your primary search bar right now? Well, there's only 12 people, and I was one of them. And he's like, you are way ahead of it. Like, I'm like, who thinks about that? He's so ahead of it. And he's current and relevant and modern, but he's, you know, older in generation.

[Sean]

Absolutely. It's cool. So you use ChatGPT more than Google?

[Sean Kaplan]

I do. Wow. I'd use it as a search bar.

[Sean]

I might have to start doing that.

[Sean Kaplan]

I, I kind of question myself on everything I do. Like, can I use Chat GPT for this? Like, I, I yesterday, you could take a picture of something. It'll tell you what the macros are in it.

[Sean]

What?

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

That's crazy.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. I was like, whoa, that's crazy.

[Sean]

What other prompts do you use it for?

[Sean Kaplan]

I use it. I just use it this morning for an email to a client because I'm terrible at grammar and punctuation. So I was like, hey, reword this and rewrite this. Correct the grammar. I, I use it all the time. My text messages. I've got an app on there that will update it. I write my weekly newsletter. It goes out to maybe just about six or seven thousand people. But I, I use it to write that. Clean it up.

[Sean]

That's impressive. I just used it for a demand letter generation.

[Sean Kaplan]

Really?

[Sean]

Yesterday? Yeah. My moving company stole some. We got them on video. Stealing from me.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

And, yeah, demand letter. My lawyer looked it over, but still, it generated most of it.

[Sean Kaplan]

That's pretty smart. You can. So you can go ahead and literally, like, use it to save you some money and having to call your lawyer all the time.

[Sean]

I've used it for NDAs because why would you pay a lawyer a thousand for an NDA when you could just draft it on chat gbt, you know what I mean?

[Sean Kaplan]

I couldn't imagine when I was like coming up in high school and college if that was a resource that was available to me. I told my daughter, she's 14, just turned 15, and I said, if I would have had some of these resources growing up, I don't know where I would be, like, how much further ahead? So I said, she always wants allowance and money. She's money motivated. She's got a little calendly. She has people come to our house on Tuesday, Thursdays and she does their nails and she's a little entrepreneur. But I said, I'm not just going to give you money, like, but I'm not going to make you work around the farm. I said, here's what I'll do. If you listen to these Ted 10 Ed Mylett YouTube videos and you give me a half a page, I was like, I'll pay you 50 bucks for each one. If you read these 10 books, I'll give you $50 for each book. Right. And she's really honest. I don't have to question her. Like, at first I was like, whatever. She goes on chat GPT. Right. But she went through and read all. Watched all 10 of those and read all 10 books. And like, some of the things I've even seen her say and do now, like with a friend. A friend really did her wrong. And a couple of months later, I said, well, what are you doing tonight? She's like, well, I'm going to get coffee with Alexis. And I said, well, what for? And she goes, I just figured I would be the bigger person, you know, because what I'm keeping inside is doing more damage to me than it is to her. And I want to just smooth it over.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

And I think it came from watching some of those resources. Absolutely right.

[Sean]

I love that PBD does that too, with his kids.

[Sean Kaplan]

Do they?

[Sean]

Yeah, he makes them read books.

[Sean Kaplan]

I think that's where I got it from, from Patrick David.

[Sean]

So he makes him read a book to access the iPad for an hour. I believe.

[Sean Kaplan]

That's awesome.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

They should come out with an app for that.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

Or it's like, do this and do this and then you get access.

[Sean]

Yeah. That's so smart though, because I hated reading as a kid with the books they signed in school. But if you were to, you know, pick some interesting topics, I probably would have read as a kid.

[Sean Kaplan]

Have you seen where Dr. Jordan Peterson starting his own university?

[Sean]

I heard about it. Yeah. How's it doing?

[Sean Kaplan]

I don't know how it's doing yet or anything, but I'm just thinking, I'm like, I bet you all of his curriculum is going to be like, stuff that we should have been reading.

[Sean]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

You know, and there's a few guys.

[Sean]

In our space starting schools now. Really exciting for, for someone like me that's gonna have kids in a few years that there's an alternative to public school now.

[Sean Kaplan]

It needs a reinvention. I mean, we have, we have pretty good schools here, but you still have the classic bullying and the criteria and, you know, the curriculum. Yeah, but man, we need like a modern shake up new approach to, like how kids can get their education.

[Sean]

Yeah. And speaking of bullying, you and I both got bullied. I'd love to hear about why you got bullied and what you took away from that.

[Sean Kaplan]

You know, mine was a, it was a progression. I didn't really know it was bullying until it got so bad. But I was six years old when we got a phone call from my father. He was at a pay phone in New York City and he was, he called my mom. I still remember I was sitting on the floor on a console watching. Out of a console television, watching tv. And I remember my mom, like she was crying and stuff and I didn't know what, what had happened. But that was him at the pay phone about 10 minutes before he drove to the Verrazano Bridge and he jumped off the Verrazano Bridge.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

So I grew up without a dad. My sister was only six months old. We were living in Vermont. They were, they were apart. He had, he had a lot of PTSD. He was 30 years older than my mom. He served in the Marine air wing in World War II.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

He was a Jewish immigrant in 1926. And then he joined the U.S. air Wing and he really suffered from that. And he tried to get help over the years. And they met my mom in the 70s and he was 30 years older than hers. He was 47 and she was 17.

[Sean]

Holy crap.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. And they, she got pregnant with me. They were on and off. They. He didn't want to get married again. He had been married before, but she moved to New York City with him and then they ended up splitting up when they split up, and she went back to Vermont. That's when he went back into depression. And it was interesting because when they met, his business was he had a tape and record salvage. So they were taking eight track tapes, and they were apparently fixing them and reselling them. Well, later in life, my mom told me he was counterfeiting them.

[Sean]

Oh, wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

He had a full warehouse. And part of his problems were for 10 years, they didn't pay taxes, and the IRS got a hold.

[Sean]

Oh, damn.

[Sean Kaplan]

So at 6 years old, you know when you don't have a father and you're like, well, I want to play little League. I want to learn how to make a pinewood derby car. And you don't have a man there. Like, you go, and you find other men that will help you. Right? And so I think that's where mentorship started, Sean. Where I was like, I can learn from other people. It was automatically put in my DNA. And I had eight uncles and aunts. My mom came from a big family, very tumultuous family. Drugs, rape, incest, just really bad in Upper Vermont. And so she's had a really, really rough past. And. But she raised me. She was the father and the mother, and kids would get a hold of that. And, like, I didn't really know. We were poor. We were on government assistance. You know, we got food stamps, all of that sort of stuff.

[Sean]

Oh, your mom hid that from you?

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. I didn't really know. Like, I just. We always had food. We always had. But the first time I ever knew was when I had. I wanted a Huffy BMX bike. That was the gold black one that came out with the gold bars and everything in the 80s.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

And we can afford that. You know, everything always was like, we can't afford that. You know, I want tricks, you know, or Fruit Loops. Nope, we got to take the Corn Flakes. Right? And so I remember having a bike, and she had painted it. Like, she taped it all off, painted it. She's very crafty. My mom's really, really, you know, can fix anything, and gave it to me for Christmas. And so I was on that bike. And I remember being around, like, six or seven other kids, and then they all started making fun of me. They're like, look at his bike. Like, it's been spray paint. It's not even the real thing. And I think that was the first time that I felt like, oh, wow, all these people are ganging up on me.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

And then there was, you know, there was some, you know, situations where, you know, there Was sexual. Like, you know, things that happened in my life that shouldn't have happened with other kids beating me up. But they. Like. I remember one time when the Reebok pumps came out.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

And we're sitting.

[Sean]

I don't even know what that is.

[Sean Kaplan]

So they were like, where you pumped up the shoes. The Reebok pumps and Cavuto had some on yesterday. But I remember a kid came into class. I couldn't afford him, but I remember saying, hey, can I pump your shoes? And he's like, no, you can't pump my shoes, Sean. And then they ended up telling all the other kids, and I got bullied over. You know, Kaplan can't even, you know, have afford his own shoes, all that. But so then it got. When I moved from Vermont, my mom remarried, and we got planted into Clarksville, Tennessee. That's how I got to Tennessee. The man she had married had family down here. And when I got put in high school from northern Vermont with a butt chin, and I was 5 foot tall, 115 pounds, it was game on. On the bullying. And first day, Sean, in class, in. In the. In the. In. In this new school, there was a. There was a black girl, and she said something to me, and I probably had some smart remark, trying to defend myself or whatever, not really knowing.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

Well, she went off on me. She started chasing me around the school. Of course, all the kids are laughing.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

And she landed on me in the English pod, and she was on my back and just hitting me.

[Sean]

Holy crap.

[Sean Kaplan]

On the first girls were bullying you? Yeah, dude. And that was, like. It was horrific.

[Sean]

Geez.

[Sean Kaplan]

And that was from the point that the guys started bullying me. I remember one time, they were like, you want to go mudding? So in Tennessee, we go mudding in pickup trucks and stuff.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

Well, one day they were like, you want to go mudding? And I'm thinking, well, why do they want to hang out with me? Yeah, I want to go with all the popular dudes. I have the big, big trucks, and I had a little truck that I had saved up, and they all ran through the mud pit, and then I ran through, and I got stuck, and they knew I would get stuck, and then they all left and abandoned me, and I was stuck way out in the woods.

[Sean]

Your car got stuck?

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, my truck got stuck. I was way out in the middle of the woods, like, holy crap.

[Sean]

And you didn't have a cell phone at the time, right?

[Sean Kaplan]

No. Back then, no, I didn't have cell phone at that time. And I had to Hike back. And that was pretty bad.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

And so that's where I said, you know, I started getting that chip on my shoulder where that chip started to grow. And I was like, I'm going to prove to everybody. Like, I'm going to. I'm going to show them that I can, you know, do something with my life, and they're going to regret it. And that's really motivated me a lot. But it motivated me for a long time in an unhealthy way. And that's another whole story that, you know, things I fell into and how I had to really, really go through a lot of personal development and change and force change, you know, a couple of years ago.

[Sean]

Wow, that's intense, man. Yeah, I got bullied, but nothing like that. I think it was a new era where, like, you couldn't physically, like, touch kids in school and stuff.

[Sean Kaplan]

But some of the things they say.

[Sean]

Man, yeah, the verbal stuff is almost as bad sometimes.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. And it'll you up, like 10 times worse. So I remember a kid told me, he goes, hey, they found out my dad killed himself.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

So my mom didn't tell me my dad died until I was 12. She told me originally it was a heart attack.

[Sean]

So you didn't know for six years.

[Sean Kaplan]

Six years. And so when I was 12 years old, we were in the kitchen, we were arguing, and I said, well, you're the one who said you didn't plan me. And she didn't say anything. She walked in the bedroom, came out with a metal filing cabinet, and she opened it up and pulled out this pink piece of paper and slammed it on the counter. And she goes, no, your father's the one who didn't want you. And there was the death certificate. And I had to read how they found him in the river and he fell 300ft and what it did to him. And that was very, very traumatic.

[Sean]

I bet.

[Sean Kaplan]

And so I carried that while on top of it. Like, kids at school found out. And I remember this one time a kid said, he's like, well, if you would have killed yourself, your dad would have never killed himself.

[Sean]

Holy crap.

[Sean Kaplan]

And, like, I think words are, I would rather get beat up.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

Like the. I was telling my daughter, she's like, you know, bullying. I was like, come on. Like, you don't know what bullying is. She goes, dad, some of the things people say. And then I started growing my social media and seeing what some of the people say. I'm like, I'd rather just probably fight you.

[Sean]

Yeah. Because those words can penetrate you spiritually, they can. They can affect you.

[Sean Kaplan]

How did they affect you?

[Sean]

Nothing physical, but they would just make fun of me. So I'm half Asian, and I wouldn't get the best grades in schools, so the Asian kids didn't really like me. And then I'm half Irish, and the white kids didn't really want to hang out with Asians. So I had a lot of identity issues growing up. Like, I couldn't find a solid friend group.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

And I found myself pretending to be someone I was not to fit in with the cool kids.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

So similar to you. After I graduated, since I got bullied so much, I wanted to prove everyone wrong. And that's why I pursued entrepreneurship and making money.

[Sean Kaplan]

That identity thing is, like, really, really tough. My dad was Jewish. My mom was Roman Catholic. Well, the Roman Catholics didn't want to hang out with me because they were like, oh, he's Jewish. The Jewish people didn't want to hang out with me because they're like, he's not a real Jew. Right. And so. Yeah. And I would hide being Jewish. It was almost like being black in New England. Like, you just didn't tell people because fear of getting bullied and made fun of. And that's another thing later in life that I've learned, like, how important it is and the honor and legacy of my family. Like, I'm proud to carry it on.

[Sean]

Yeah. Looking back at it. Yeah. Now with my kids, they're going to be four different races, but I want them to embrace that, you know, it should be a good thing.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

You shouldn't be shameful over your background.

[Sean Kaplan]

Absolutely. Absolutely. But, you know, that I'm interested to know more about, like, how did. How did the. Like, later in life, where did that bring you? In bad places before you got to the good places.

[Sean]

Yeah. I mean, I went through a party phase in college, drinking, like, five days a week, no chasers. So I did some liver damage. I still get blood tests every year, and my liver still is damaged from that. I was on Accutane because I cared a lot about my appearance. That messed me up. I was smoking weed a lot.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

So, yeah, I pursued that stuff and was super lonely. Honestly, in college, I didn't have, like, friends or anything.

[Sean Kaplan]

I had. I had bad examples that I fed off and, like, it drove me towards doing a lot of that stuff, thinking like, oh, that's what I need to do. And it was same thing. Like, I tried to work my way to people loving me. I tried to, you know, drink my way to People wanting to hang out with me.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

I hadn't done anything until I actually moved to Nashville area. I went off to college. I was a good kid and everything. But when I moved to the Nashville area, I realized, oh, everybody wants to hang out with the guy that has weed. Right, Right, Everybody. Everyone likes you a lot more when you're, you know, drunk. And I just doubled down on that. And that was my life for so long. And I started realizing the dark, dark places it was taking me. But most of all, what you just said was, I looked up one day and I was like, who the hell are you? I don't even know who I am because I'm trying to be this person here, this person there, this person there.

[Sean]

Right.

[Sean Kaplan]

And in mortgage and real estate industry specifically, that's what I've done for 24 years now is, you know, you're constantly trying to please people in my industry. You're. You're told, I choose you or don't choose you multiple times a day. I choose you for the loan. I don't choose you for the loan. And with people with trauma and issues, like, I didn't realize how bad that could get. And it just built up to the point that I was smoking weed all day. When vape came out, it made it even easier.

[Sean]

Yeah, those vape pens.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. So I'm vaping all day, every day for eight years just to numb the pain and not disappoint people and rejection. And about two and a half years ago, it came to a screeching halt. And I was like, this is not going to end well. I wasn't drinking. I tried pretty much any drug or whatever through high school and college or after college. But for me, it was the fact that I just didn't want to be numbed out every single day. And it's not legal in Tennessee, so I was also having to deal with the guilt of, I'm a dad. I'm a businessman. And so about two, two and a half years ago, Cody Sperber, like, I don't know if you know Cody. I do really good, dude. And he's like, hey, I went to this place. It was the most up year of my life. I lost my marriage, I lost my mom. And he's like, I went to this place called PCs Services in Arizona. And I was like, I want to know more about that. So I went to the website, did some research, signed up for an intro, you know, talk. And I had this conversation with a guy, and he's like, yeah, this is where Mike Tyson came, and I saw the change in Cody.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

And I knew Cody's past story, and I said, well, what would this look like for me to go? And he's like, well, next thing is you do $5,000 deposit, and then we'll take you through some tests and phone calls. And it was a lot. It was like 10 different tests, hours and hours, Blood work, past records. And I checked myself involuntarily, and I went out there for seven days to Arizona. I got an Airbnb, went to the class every day from 7:30am till 8 at night.

[Sean]

Geez.

[Sean Kaplan]

You have about 10, 12 doctors, people around you. And I. You start with discovering where's your trauma. And I had went there with, oh, my dad died. And I walked out of there with 26 more cases I had never even thought about.

[Sean]

Whoa.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. I mean, massive different trauma that just. I disappeared and stuffed. So I was 13 years old. I always have gravitated towards animals and pets, I think, because, like, animals provide a lot unconditional love, that. And so I had a beagle, and the beagle got cancer and in Vermont, you know. And growing up the way we grew up, my mother was like, you need to take him up in the woods. And so I went up there and I put my dog down. Well, in PCs services, they were like, could you ever imagine telling your daughter, 13 years old to go up to the woods and put a bullet in her dog's head? I was like, no. And so that was another case of trauma that I was just like, I didn't even realize was there.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

You know, and it can be little T and Big T, but it really fucks you up. And it. It impacts every single decision that you make in your life. Whether it's Big T or little T, we all have it, and that's how we're formulating our decisions every day.

[Sean]

Right.

[Sean Kaplan]

And I wanted freedom from that.

[Sean]

That's important because we all have our belief systems that some of us don't even know we have. Right, right. Just feel a certain way when a certain topic is presented.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

You see it with politics, people just have this inherent hatred towards whatever candidate. Right.

[Sean Kaplan]

They do.

[Sean]

And that's from their belief systems.

[Sean Kaplan]

Exactly. And that belief system doesn't notify you or give you warning, and sometimes you don't even have any correlation to it. And I think that was the biggest thing I took away from being out there, was I remember telling my wife, I said, I just want to understand why I make the decisions the way I make them. And they Said they had a red light, green light, yellow light system where, like, you can recognize things. I'm like, okay, whatever. So I go out there and I come back and I'm realizing, holy crap, I understand what it is now. So good example. I would get road rage. Why do I get road rage? Well, the person's not respecting me by not putting a blinker on. Right. Well, out there, they equip you. Okay, red light. Hold on. You're feeling your anxiety, your heart rate go up. You recognize the characteristics. What's going on? Well, that person doesn't even know who I am. Matter of fact, that person might have just came from the doctor finding out they got terminally ill cancer. Right. Red light, yellow light, green light. And there's also activities that are red light, yellow light, and green light. Like for red light, I had to make a list. I can't be around people that smoke weed all the time. I have to be careful in the casinos.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

Like, I got to be careful having. Then there's yellow light activities and then there's green light, like working out, meditation, ice bathroom things that I need to have fixtures that help me with all that.

[Sean]

That makes sense.

[Sean Kaplan]

Man, it changed my whole life.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

I mean, literally, I have people, my wife, my friends, people at work, my employees, and they're like, you are a different person.

[Sean]

That's incredible.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

All from a seven day retreat.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. I recommend it to anybody that's just like, I can't get over this. I can't fix this. Whether it's sexual drug addiction or there's just people that were just had anger issues that were there, that didn't really have a really bad childhood. It can help anybody.

[Sean]

I mean, look at Tyson. He seems like a changed man, right?

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and he could be further along, but I'll tell you, Mike Tyson wouldn't be where he's at if he didn't go under the tutelage of Dr. Marilyn Murray, who's the lady who. Who runs it.

[Sean]

I wonder what age he went there. He seems very mellowed out right now.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, I think he got out of prison at 36. Was it 36 or 37? And now he's like 50. But except for the incident on the airplane, but that guy was harassing.

[Sean]

That guy was. Yeah. Being a dick and filming him, like annoying him. Right?

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. But it also allows you to see it in other people. So, like, I can now have friends or people I meet and, like, I can immediately see, like, hey, they're not a bad person here's. What they have going on. So I won't name any names, but there's a guy I love to follow on the Internet. He served in prison. And he's like. Like, I just watch him. He's always angry and screaming and yelling and. But he's just a badass. Right. And I'm attracted to that. Like, I. Like, that's how I grew up. Was like, just. My mom would tell me once, second time you get a slap upside your head. Right. No empathy whatsoever. My dad died. She's like, hey, buddy, your dad died. You know, and so I follow those types of people because that's how I was raised. But now I can look and I can be like, man, there's just some issues there. Just like, we all had that. There's looking for some sort of validation and acceptance and want to make something of themselves.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

And it allows me to have deeper connections with people, too. You know? Like, I already feel like I have a better connection with you because I understand what you went through in your life.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

You know, and you could do something tomorrow that would piss me off, but I'd be like, oh, it's not him. He's making a decision out of fear. Right.

[Sean]

Yeah. It's important to get the stuff off your chest. I think, as men.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

A lot of guys bottle it in.

[Sean Kaplan]

Anger is a secondary emotion. I never knew that before going to Arizona. Anger is not a primary emotion. Anger comes from fear, loneliness. It's a. It. It's a reaction. Wow. And I just always thought, like, I'm just going to be an angry Jewish man for the rest of my life. No, that's not in my DNA. That can be changed. So if people have anger issues, for example, I think that gives you a lot of reprieve, that, hey, you're not. You don't have to be like this forever.

[Sean]

Right.

[Sean Kaplan]

It's a secondary emotion if we can deal with the first emotion. And I was operating out of fear. Everything was, I hope they don't leave me. I hope you like me so you don't leave me.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

You know, because, you know, my dad wouldn't have killed himself if he liked me. Right. Or loved me more. Well, that wasn't. That's not the story. Right. And I had to go through that experience in Arizona. MDMR was the thing that changed it.

[Sean]

Mdmr?

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. So MDMR is where you're able to rewire those patterns in your brain. So my story was, if you don't do enough, if. If you don't if, if they don't find enough value in it, they're going to leave you, right? And one of the stories was, hey, if my dad loved me more, he wouldn't have done what he did because kids had told me that, right? And so mdmr, when I was out there, what you do is you lay down or you can sit in a meditating position. You'll close your eyes and they put little paddles in your hand, little electrodes, they don't shock you, they vibrate. And what happens is they'll go left, right, left, right, left, right. And it starts stimulating your left and right part of your brain. And as you're going through that, they'll take you through a guided meditation of things that you want to reprogram. So one of mine was, that was really hard. When I found out my dad died. I had been lied to for six years and I didn't really get the consolation that I needed, empathy I needed. They were like, you want to go back to that moment? I said, yeah. So we went back to that moment. I wear Yankees hat a lot, but I, I went back to that moment where that little six year old boy was sitting on that couch with his Yankees hat on. And 45 year old, 44 year old Sean went over and sat down and gave him what I needed. So they'll say, where are you at? And I'm like, I'm just sat down on the couch next to him. What would you like to do? I'd like to put my arm around him. They're like, go ahead and do that. And the thing's vibrating.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

And then they're like, what would you like to tell them? And you tell him everything that you needed to hear, which is, I'm very sorry, I love you, your dad loved you. It's going to be okay. You're valuable. You know, God created you in his image, like all those sorts of things. And then, well, what would you like to do now? I said, I'd like to talk to my mom. And I went to talk to my mom and I said that was completely inappropriate. Like no human being should ever talk to their son that way. So.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

And then I took him to my farm, current day. He was riding in the seat with me. And this whole thing, time, they're guiding you through with questions and it's vibrating. And I brought them to the farm. Sean pulled up to my farmhouse. I just want my dad to be proud of, right? Walked him up to the front door. My girls opened up the front door, they came out and hugged him. I took him for a ride on the four wheeler through the farm. I sat in the deer stand with him and that mdmr. Now my brain is reprogrammed in a way that it comes from a healthy place of what happened in my life. So I went from victim to being a victor, you know?

[Sean]

Wow, that's beautiful, man. Yeah. Because a lot of people have victim mentality.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

How's your relationship with your mom these days? Did it get repaired?

[Sean Kaplan]

It's better. It's better. I've also come to the conclusion that it's not my job to change people, you know, So I. One thing I learned out there was boundaries.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

And I've learned what my boundaries are with my mom. Like, I can. I can hang out with for about 48 hours. She lives in Clarksville. I moved her down here. We got her a house years ago. And so I just know boundaries. But, you know, there's a certain age that. And let a certain point where unless somebody's saying, I'm willing to, like, really push myself into that, you're not going to see the change. But, you know, she's 60 years old and she's just not going to change in her ways. So.

[Sean]

Yeah. A lot of people try so hard to change their friends, their siblings, their parents, and it's like they spend years trying to change them. When you can redirect that energy, it'll.

[Sean Kaplan]

Drive you into the ground.

[Sean]

Yeah. It's almost impossible. Right. They have to change.

[Sean Kaplan]

I. You do this thing out there that's either like circles, like a bullseye. And one thing I had heard Dr. Maryland say in the opening day, she goes, you cannot give away something that you do not own. And she was talking about self love, self respect, you know, looking at yourself in a high regard, being proud of yourself. Well, in these circles, what happens is you start labeling who you put where before she tells you where you're going. Well, everybody else in my life was in circle one and I was way out here, you know, like, that's what you do. Like, as a Christian, it's like you serve people. You give, you give, you pour. You know, okay, part of that is true. But you don't give to the point that you're so empty that you can't give to other people. And what I realized was I have to be in circle number one. I gotta feel good about myself. I gotta physically be. I gotta be happy with my physical nature. I gotta be happy with my progress and my. Where I'm growing and my imperfections and once I can brace that, then I can give it to circle two, which should be my family, my very close family. Circle three should be my close, intimate friends. Some of my, maybe my employees. Circle four and circle five are business acquaintances. And what I was doing, Sean, was I was putting everybody in circle one and I'd look up and there's always going to be somebody disappointed.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

It was just a constant cycle. And that's why I was just, you know, smoking weed or vaping weed every single day to just not disappoint people.

[Sean]

I love that system, man, because I'm very similar where I'll try to please all sorts of people when there should be a priority list.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, right, Absolutely.

[Sean]

Yeah. My girl and I used to fight about that because I would please all my friends and put her kind of to the side. Not on purpose.

[Sean Kaplan]

Right.

[Sean]

But I was just so giving because.

[Sean Kaplan]

Of your given nature.

[Sean]

And it would drain me.

[Sean Kaplan]

And you know what? The one thing I found out is a lot of those people, they will receive. I mean, we're giving people like, they will receive, but if it's not in their nature, they don't reciprocate. And that's where you get resentment and anger from. That's for me, like, you're not finding value in me. I feel like I'm being used. You're not reciprocating in this friendship, you know, Like, I would get so pissed off when a friend wouldn't text me back and be like, if you're supposed to be my friend, how can you just ignore my text? Right? Right now I just say, I'm like, look, maybe something happened. I hope they're okay. Text them back, hey, man, everything okay? Yeah, you know, and it's just that giving thing can really drive you into the ground. And I think the Christian faith, you know, I've talked to my pastor and my wife and people about this. I think the Christian faith really drives that home in people. I mean, my poor father in law, he'll give you the last dollar out of his pocket and then he's broke and having financial hardships. It's like, that's not. That's not what God, in my opinion, calls us to be. Yeah, God calls us to live really, really super big. So we can give, you know, I'd love to live off 10% of what I make and give away 90% one day, you know, so we just gotta be careful with that giving thing.

[Sean]

Yeah, some people are a little too extreme, right?

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Yeah. The tithing doesn't work. For everyone.

[Sean Kaplan]

No. And where you tithe? You know, like, I give to my church, but I believe giving is giving. Right. And I'm just not into religion. I'm. I'm into having my relationship with God. I'm Jewish, but I'm. I'm Christian. And, you know, it's my own personal relationship. And I understand that the church is not perfect. And so I'm able to go in there and be like, well, I agree with that. Or I don't agree with that.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

And I think that's something that people need to really, really learn in today's age. You know, the legality part of it is not fun for people.

[Sean]

No.

[Sean Kaplan]

You know, and it really messes up a lot of things, and it causes people to go away from their faith.

[Sean]

Yep. You know, did you struggle with jealousy and comparing yourself to other people?

[Sean Kaplan]

I did. I did. You know, funny story. I've always been a car guy. When I was like 8, 7 or 8 old, my mom used to clean big, fancy mansions. She always worked three jobs, but one of them was cleaning people's houses. And she'd have to take me with her sometime. And I remember going to this one house, and this guy had a red Porsche in the garage. And the first time, second time, I knew it was there. The third time, I was like, you know what? I'm going to go out and I'm just going to look at it. So I went out and I looked at this Porsche. It was bright red, tan leather, calf skin. And I'm like, looking around. Well, I decided would open up the door, and I was just going to sit in it just for a minute. And I got in that car, sat there, door was kind of open. And all of a sudden I heard a garage door open. And I'm thinking, oh, my mom. Nope, it wasn't her. The garage. She wasn't opening up the garage door. I look in the rear view mirror, and it's him getting out of his car. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. And I just froze.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

And he walked up, Sean, and he. I remember it was just like this big, giant shadow, you know, at that time, because I was only 7 or 8 years old. And he pointed at me, he goes, get the hell out of my car. He goes, if you ever touch something of mine ever again, I promise it'll be the last time you do it. Get out of my car.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

And I sat there, and that was another chip. Right. I was like, I'm gonna get me a car one day. Right. And so I. I always had Matchbox cars, models. I would polish them and paint them and all this different stuff. Well, I got my first car when I was like, you know, 15 years old. Worked hard for it, worked my way up the ladder. Kind of like real estate. Yeah. And the story is a couple of. About four or five years ago, I bought my dream car. I wanted a shark grade Audi R8 V10, so I went and I bought it. At that time, I'm vaping every single day. And my thing would be, you know, get up on the weekend, like on a Sunday, and go for a drive. Country roads. That's my favorite thing to do. Turn the music down, Blair. Turn the windows down, blare up the music. And I'm sitting there, Sean, and I'm driving this country back road, beautiful day, got this car. Things are going great for me in my life. And I said, you're fucking miserable. And it just hit me and I was like, why? Why? And I'd heard all the things like, as you get more successful, I was more miserable than ever and all of that. And I decided I was going to sell that car.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

And I sold the damn car. Regretted it for a couple of years, went through my therapy. But I was doing it because I wanted to be like other people. I wanted to show them. Look what I did. And I realized that was the wrong place. So about. I've gotten healthy. I'm operating from a good place now. And about a month ago, I went and I bought the same exact car out of Washington. And I love it, shipped it here and it's different now, riding in it.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

Comes from a different place.

[Sean]

Yeah. Did you ever talk to that guy again? The one that confronted you at 8 years old?

[Sean Kaplan]

I didn't. He actually. He's family of a big giant cereal conglomerate that we all know. I wish I could look him up one day and let him know about the impact, see where he's at. Yeah, right. But, you know, that's. That's another thing is like, it also allows me to understand the power of my words and other people's lives.

[Sean]

Right.

[Sean Kaplan]

You can speak life into people or you're going to take life from them. And I. I'm really just trying to speak life into other people. That's why I just try to be open and honest about my issues because I know somebody else is out there. Like, man. Like Cody did with me.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

When I. When I talked to Cody about that, it was a game changer. I was like, here's this person who's willing to throw it all on the line and tell me all his, that he's been through.

[Sean]

Right.

[Sean Kaplan]

Instead of telling me how much money he has, how many properties he has and all that. And it really made an impact and it's motivated me, I've told him this, it's motivated me to share with other people that it can change. Yeah, it's not going to be easy. It was the most pain, the hardest thing I probably ever had to go through in my life.

[Sean]

And that's where the most growth, most growth comes from.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

All the successful people I have on the show, they have some massive trauma, man. There's got to be some correlation there.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, it really, really is. I think you, I mean, you can really be successful off trauma. Like you can be really successful off that chip on your shoulder. But again, I truly believe that it'll eventually crash and burn. And I see, I see people at the height of their careers right now that have drove them to that. But I also, I have enough knowledge to say, that's gonna crash and burn.

[Sean]

Right.

[Sean Kaplan]

I mean, have you ever seen somebody super successful and you're like, wow, like Britney Spears, like, that's going to be great. But then you also say, hey, that thing's headed in a really bad direction.

[Sean]

100, right? Yeah, it can easily do that. I wonder what the, what the middle ground is to, to coast.

[Sean Kaplan]

I think that you just have to have an experience that takes you back. I think you have to have an additional experience that says, holy, I want something different. I truly believe people only change until they're forced to do so or they got so sick and tired of their current circumstances that they're willing to do so.

[Sean]

Right. And that's a shame because it takes people a near death experience to see that. Right. When you could kind of work on it proactively.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. And I pray to God that, you know, we're going to get to like, I got to the point that it happens before, you know, like, I actually have to like, you know, be forced into somebody dying close to me, you know, or crashing and burning in some area, you know, and I wanted that before that, you know, like my father, like, he was very successful. He made millions, lost millions. And he was a hero. He's American war hero. He had everything, I mean, and he crashed and burned because it didn't come from a healthy place. He wanted to be loved by his dad.

[Sean]

Right.

[Sean Kaplan]

I have a picture that I share with people often, but it's him in 1926 with his four brothers and sisters. And they're all tailored out. Because my grandpa Isadore was a tailor from Belarus. Mints. Russia before the Holocaust. They were coming over here. Well, he was a tailor. Within hours of being in. In Brooklyn, he found a businessman. He said, I'll tailor you a suit. But in this picture, they're all tailored out and they had no money.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

But I always tell people, I'm like, look at my dad. Look really close. And if you look in that picture, he's got a bloody nose. It's because my grandpa slapped the out of him right before the picture.

[Sean]

Damn.

[Sean Kaplan]

And like, that's all my dad ever wanted, was to be loved, be accepted.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

And when he disappointed people, look what it drove him to. And I told myself, I said, I'm never going to do that. I had a guy about 10, maybe seven, eight years ago that. He's a very direct guy. And he was. He had permission to speak into my life. But he told me one day, he goes, I see the path that you're on. He goes, you're doing great. He goes, but I'll tell you, if something doesn't change, you're going to end up like your father.

[Sean]

Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

And at first I was like, who are you? Right. But then I was like, there's truth to this.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

And I don't want to end up like my father. You know, he is my hero. But I also use that story to tell other people that we should learn from our generational situations. You know, I saw the gentleman that you had on one time, one of your episodes where he was talking about how it can be passed on from your parents.

[Sean]

Generational trauma.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah. Like, it's in your. It can be in your DNA. RNA. Right.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

And I do believe that.

[Sean]

100. I think we're here to kind of learn from our parents and break that curse, you know, or else it's gonna. It's not going to just stop with you.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Because your kids witness it. So it's going to keep going until someone breaks it.

[Sean Kaplan]

Right. If we looked at that the same way as generational wealth, like, I'm a first generational wealth builder. I don't. You may be too. Right.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

And it's like I'm changing the course of my family's history. Right.

[Sean]

100.

[Sean Kaplan]

Well, we have to think about that also as, like, our childhood trauma. You know, the things that our parents dealt with. We got to be aware of that because we got to shift that course, too.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

Like, my mom's brothers and sisters were all alcoholics.

[Sean]

Same.

[Sean Kaplan]

They've all lost their teeth, everything. I'm very aware that I don't want, like, I don't like to drink anymore. I just don't do it. I've done it. So your family too badly.

[Sean]

The Irish in me. Yeah. So my dad's side. His dad. His dad. So my grandfather beat the. Out of him every day.

[Sean Kaplan]

Wow.

[Sean]

My dad never laid a hand on me.

[Sean Kaplan]

Really? Yeah.

[Sean]

So I just love that, you know, that he broke that cycle because I'm assuming my grandfather's dad did that to him. That's why he was doing it.

[Sean Kaplan]

So are your parents still alive?

[Sean]

My dad passed away. Did a couple years ago. Suicide. Wow.

[Sean Kaplan]

You? Same thing.

[Sean]

And then same with my grandfather. He committed suicide. So I'm gonna break that curse too. But problem with being they both had genius IQs. You get so lonely and in your.

[Sean Kaplan]

Own head, man, because you feel like people don't relate to you.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

Have you battled suicide?

[Sean]

I haven't, but my dad had a couple other kids they have in medical school. But no, I never have. But I've definitely had, like, depression, anxiety.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, for sure. Me too. But I've never liked bad enough where, like, I wanted it to end.

[Sean]

Yeah.

[Sean Kaplan]

You know, I think it's because we see the impact that it has on people.

[Sean]

A lot of people would be affected a lot.

[Sean Kaplan]

You know, I would never want my kids to have to go through, like, what I went through with my father.

[Sean]

Yeah. Never.

[Sean Kaplan]

How did it affect you later in life and not being young? Like when I was six.

[Sean]

Yeah. It was two years ago. I really. I felt like, at first, guilt, like I should have been there more for him.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Because I feel like if I was in his life more, maybe he wouldn't have done it. But you never really know that sort of thing.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Sean]

Maybe it just happened for a reason.

[Sean Kaplan]

I had to go through forgiveness with myself. I had to. And I had a lot of resentment towards my mom. Like, oh, he did this because. And what I realized is it has nothing to do with us. It really doesn't. Yeah. We could have maybe changed the circumstance a little bit, but we wouldn't have changed the outcome.

[Sean]

Really? You believe that?

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, I truly believe that. I think. Because what they're dealing with is it's the same things that sometimes we find our disappointment regret, you know, not. Not forgiving themselves or loving themselves. And we know we can't change that for somebody else. And so, like my dad, it wasn't that he didn't love me. You know, he jumped off a bridge because of the fact that he was so sad of the lives that he took in the war that he didn't want to live with that pain and that regret, you know, and that disappointment in his life any. Anymore, you know. Also in the 50s, he was one of the first people that they did shock therapy on. So that screwed him up.

[Sean]

Shock therapy? What's up?

[Sean Kaplan]

Like frontal lobotomy. They, you know, they hook up electrodes and they thought that would fix it. It will shock it out of you. Yeah, it's called lobotomy. Frontal lobotomy. But it was shock therapy. And then he was one of the first people that got on lithium in the 60s and 70s. They put him on lithium.

[Sean]

Geez.

[Sean Kaplan]

And he was good when he was on lithium. I mean, probably anybody would be good on lithium. But when he got off, it is when he'd go into depression withdrawal.

[Sean]

Right.

[Sean Kaplan]

The third time he. Yeah, he acted like he was okay and got a weekend pass, and that's when he called my mom. So.

[Sean]

Yeah, man. Well, we're here to share their stories and their insights, you know.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Sean]

It's been really insightful, man. Anything you want to close off with here? We got a pretty young audience.

[Sean Kaplan]

You know, I think that the. The. The audience that I. If I could speak to myself years ago, I. I really, truly mean it, that we are all created individually, uniquely, for a purpose and for a reason. And I wish I could have found a way to embrace that, share that, love that, and be me the way that I do now sooner in my life, because it would have served me to a greater purpose. And so I just want to say, like, one of the things that I always carry with me is that life is happening for me, not to me. So when bad happens or bad people come along, just ask yourself, what is the lesson that I'm learning? This is only temporary, and how can I use it to craft my story in the future? Instead, you don't go down that road of, why is this happening to me? I'm a victim. Because that will not serve you at all. But, you know, it's tough growing up in today's generation. Make sure that you keep community around you and be open and honest with people. I hid for so many years, like, things that were going on with me, and I wish I would have just told my friend, man, I'm. I'm having a really tough time right now, and all you need is a. The other thing. And I'll. I'll shut up. But it's two or three, four really good friends. I've told my daughter this. You don't need to be friends with 30 people in school. You need two or three good friends. And by the way, you probably won't be friends with them later in life. You'll probably have a new group of friends.

[Sean]

Good chat. So. I love it, man. Thanks so much for coming on.

[Sean Kaplan]

Yeah, Shauna, thanks for having me up.

[Sean]

Thanks for watching God, as always. See you next time.