Standing on New Shoulders:The Polite’s Path to Financial Freedom

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Speaker 1 From flipping houses to flipping the script on generational wealth, this dynamic duo turned a first-date credit check into a multi-million dollar real estate empire.

Speaker 1 Stars of A ⁇ E's 50-50 flip and founders of Be Polite Property. They blend faith, family, and financial freedom into a blueprint of success.

Speaker 1 Please join me in welcoming the visionary, the resilient, the trail-blazing Crystal and Dedrick Polite.

Speaker 1 How you both doing today?

Speaker 1 Mick, we are doing awesome, man. Appreciate you having us.
I am the honored one. You know, we were talking offline about all the cool things that we have in common.

Speaker 1 But what I wanted to tell you both, and I wanted to look you both in the eye and tell you this, is that I'm just so freaking proud of both of you and

Speaker 1 not just the work that you do, and we'll get into that, but more importantly, the human beings that you are. You know,

Speaker 1 I'm a man of faith and I believe that

Speaker 1 good is rewarded in good. And I just wanted you both to know just how freaking proud I am of the human beings that you are.

Speaker 3 Oh, thank you so much. We really appreciate that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I definitely appreciate that, man. I know that's from the heart.
So we appreciate that. Absolutely.
It's the Carolina way, right?

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 I usually start the episode by asking my guests, like, what's your because?

Speaker 1 That thing that's deeper than your why. You know, Simon Sinek wrote a book called Start with Why.

Speaker 1 And while I believe that's really important, I also believe we have a deeper mission, and I call it your because,

Speaker 1 right? Like, if I were to say, you know, Crystal Dedrick, what's your why? You're probably going to tell me your kids, your family, your community.

Speaker 1 But when I say, why

Speaker 1 are they your why? That response is what I call your because. So, if I were to ask both of you individually, like, what's your because today? What's that deeper purpose and mission that you have?

Speaker 3 Wow, that's a great question, and the first time we've ever been asked that.

Speaker 3 So, because

Speaker 3 my because.

Speaker 3 And it's, it's easy, but now I'm trying to figure out how to frame it around

Speaker 3 my

Speaker 3 why. How do they correlate with each other? So,

Speaker 3 I would say my because is

Speaker 3 because

Speaker 3 I came from generational poverty, because we both came from generational poverty, we understand

Speaker 3 what it was like.

Speaker 3 So we do what we do now

Speaker 3 to help someone else try to change the trajectory of their family tree, even if it's giving them a nice place to stay, even if it's a rental,

Speaker 3 even if it's providing affordable housing to a single mother or a single father. Everything we do.

Speaker 3 is really centered around because it's something that we experience directly in our lifetime that we're trying to literally make it a little better for that next generation.

Speaker 3 And my mother always told me every generation should go one step further at least than the previous.

Speaker 3 So for her, it was like, if my kids can just go one step further than I did, she would have done her job. So for us, that's what I always keep in mind.

Speaker 3 If I can go one step further and lead my children to do the same. So I think that would be my because.

Speaker 1 I think you've gone a few more than one step further than your mom. But, you know, we stand on the shoulders of giants, you know, like the previous generation.

Speaker 1 Mick, what I would say is my because is similar to Crystal,

Speaker 1 it's because we've been the underdogs, right? Because we came from living on Section 8 housing, right?

Speaker 1 Because I used to have food stamps as a kid and go to the grocery store, because we've been evicted.

Speaker 1 So we've been on the bottom and people see us now like, oh, you guys must have always had it going on. No, we started from the bottom.

Speaker 1 And because we started from the bottom, we want to serve as as an example to others who are starting from zero or less than zero of what's possible. I love that.
I love that.

Speaker 1 And I want to hit on something that you said talking about standing on the shoulders of giants. And this is a part of what I feel like I need to tell you both too.

Speaker 1 You now are those shoulders that people are standing on. Right.
And I want you to always know that and remember that.

Speaker 1 And again, it's part of the reason I'm proud of you because I have family members that look up to both of you. I have friends that are die-hard followers of all the things that you do.

Speaker 1 And you now are those shoulders. So again, kudos to you both for all the things that you do.
And I love

Speaker 1 your because.

Speaker 1 Thank you. I appreciate that.
And sometimes I'm just amazed, like you're standing on the shoulders of giants, just living in North Carolina, living in South Carolina.

Speaker 1 Look how far we've come in 50 years, 100 years, where our parents and our grandparents weren't allowed to even buy properties in certain neighborhoods back in the 1950s, 1960s, and

Speaker 1 before now we're buying properties on TV, right? So it's just amazing. Again, I appreciate the sacrifices of the previous generations to allow us to do what we're doing and be an example.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Absolutely.
All right. So we're going to go to where this started with you both.
We're going to talk about that first date,

Speaker 1 but maybe we call it the first business meeting, right? So I'm going to let you tell the story, but I'm going to frame it up a little bit for the viewers and listeners.

Speaker 1 So first date, you know, everybody's going in casual. We're at a dinner, getting to know each other.
And Crystal's like, what's your credit score? What's your business plan?

Speaker 1 What you're trying to be when you grow up?

Speaker 1 I love you on the hot seat, man.

Speaker 1 It was true in the hot seat.

Speaker 1 But you got to flip it a little bit. So we're going to talk about that.
So I don't know who wants to start first. Probably Crystal.
Let's talk through what this first date was.

Speaker 1 Like, let's set that stage.

Speaker 3 Well, it definitely was intentional, right? And I always tell people: intentionality can take you a lot, a far ways, right? When knowing and going into it with a purpose, a reason.

Speaker 3 So, for me, at that point in time in my life, I wasn't dating just to date, right? And I've done that, been there. At this point, I was looking to build and I had already started in that trajectory.

Speaker 3 So, when I met Dedrick at a gas station in Boston, in Boston, and

Speaker 3 asked me out for lunch, I said, okay, not a problem. We exchanged business cards and we met at Joe's Grill.

Speaker 1 Joe's Grill and Dedham.

Speaker 3 And when we sat down, I know he thought, you know, oh, she cute. About to have a real look, you know.

Speaker 1 I thought it was just going to be a little bubblegum conversation, you know, first date. No, he thought he was going to get to slide in some lines and be real smooth with it

Speaker 3 and tell me about all on surface level and what he was doing but you know i went to a really nice university and i got a really nice job i got a nice i got the company car i knew he was gonna slide all that little stuff in there and i said we you ain't about to waste my time

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 3 as soon as we sat down and started talking it was just told me where he's from and stuff like that i said oh okay

Speaker 3 And then I said, oh, he asked me same little surface. Oh, where are you originally from? And I said, oh, North Carolina, stuff like that.
And I said, oh, okay. So what do you do for work?

Speaker 3 He said, you know, told me what he does for work. And I said, okay, do you plan on doing that forever?

Speaker 3 And he was like, no. I said, oh, well, I said, are you an entrepreneur? Have you done anything in the entrepreneurial realm? He was like, oh, absolutely.

Speaker 3 And then he started telling me about some of the stuff he did, which was a bunch of MLMs.

Speaker 3 And I said, oh, okay.

Speaker 3 And I said, okay, well, what's your credit score?

Speaker 1 And I said, well, damn,

Speaker 1 we get right to it, huh? Let's go. Let's go.

Speaker 3 And he told me his credit score is like an 810, 815.

Speaker 1 Hey, I had that Halley Berry credit, Mick.

Speaker 3 And I always like to tell people, I didn't ask him his credit score as a

Speaker 3 factor in determining whether or not I would give him a second date or I would continue to talk to him, or give him a shot. I asked him his credit score so I knew how much work we needed to do, right?

Speaker 1 Where are we going to start from? That's what you said today, Crystal.

Speaker 1 If this credit score was a 510 and not an 810, we don't even know if there would have been a second date.

Speaker 3 Listen, it would have been a second date. It just would have been, I'd have been like, okay.

Speaker 1 So we're going to do some credit repair. We both need credit repair.
Right.

Speaker 3 We both going to need some credit repair. You would just clean up.

Speaker 3 I had just cleaned up up mine so i was on the track i know the important and you know you do the first thing you do your parents tell you not to do when you get to college get these credit cards so of course i did exactly that so i literally just cleaned up my credit score my credit score was climbing back up and i was in the 600s Told Dedrake, he was like 810.

Speaker 3 I said, oh, okay, okay. So we ain't got to do no credit.

Speaker 1 We can't work with that.

Speaker 3 Boom, we ain't got to do no credit repair with him.

Speaker 3 But it's just been like, okay, so we're going to, while I'm already done do, done did mine, I know what I need to do for yours. So we're just going to pull that report and we're going to get to work.

Speaker 3 But he knew that. So I said, okay, I said, well, do you plan on living in Boston forever? And he said, well, I mean, I ain't got to.
I ain't got no kids. I ain't really got nothing tying me to Boston.

Speaker 3 I said, okay, so anyone who's planning to be with me must be willing to move within the next year to two because I won't be staying here forever.

Speaker 1 And that, again, most people might be taking it back like, damn, she interviewed you, she grilled you, but it was refreshing to me.

Speaker 1 It was exciting because it wasn't the norm when you're in your late 20s, early 30s dating, first date. So I was like, wow, this woman is ambitious.
She's driven. She knows what she wants.

Speaker 1 That was like, this is what I'm looking for in a wife. Now, I knew from the first time I saw her that I was going to marry her, right? She didn't know that yet.

Speaker 1 Like, and again, when we met, I wasn't ready for marriage at that time, but that just further cemented like, man, she is a dynamic woman.

Speaker 1 This is the type of person that I would want to be with because we're equally yoked.

Speaker 1 So, I'm going to summarize this first date, though. So, first date,

Speaker 1 you already know you're going in business together. You know, you're moving, you know, you're getting married.
All in the first 30 minutes of the show. Start how you want to finish.

Speaker 1 That's one of our models: start how you want to finish. And that's exactly what we did on that first date.
Yep. We knew

Speaker 3 everything. New if you wanted kids.
We knew I asked about pre-existing conditions in the family. Like, all of that came out at Joe's.

Speaker 1 There it is. There it is.
So Dedrick,

Speaker 1 you were doing several MLMs, as Crystal was saying, right? When did you know that real estate was going to be a jam

Speaker 1 for you?

Speaker 1 And then more importantly,

Speaker 1 what made that that move happen, that switch happen for you?

Speaker 1 Yeah, so I went to college, graduated from Ivy Lee School, Amherst College, college you know got good grades got a corporate job doing sales pharmaceutical sales big pharma had the company car had the company amex all that good stuff wore a suit and title work but i knew that wasn't for me as a career corporate guy i just knew i i didn't want that right but really i got the bug for real estate when i read rich dad poor dad in 2001 matter of fact it happened earlier than 2001 i got two vhs tapes right here in the 90s my mom had these vhs no money down right then late night infomercials And it was these guys who get on there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you can make millions of real estate and you can drive a Rolls-Royce. You can have mansions, but none of them look like me.
But I was like, man, one day I want to do what they're doing.

Speaker 1 I want to own properties. I want to drive a Rolls-Royce, all that stuff.
And

Speaker 1 25 years later, I'm doing exactly that, right? That's the power of,

Speaker 1 you know, intuition and planting a seed in someone. So I always knew I wanted to get into real estate.
I just didn't know how.

Speaker 1 When Crystal and I met, she's the one who saw the entrepreneurial dreams and visions in me, right? But at that time, I was more of a wantrepreneur because I had a safe corporate job. I grew up broke.

Speaker 1 I didn't want to go back to that. So I was afraid of jumping out and taking a risk.

Speaker 1 So I would dibble and dabble in little network marketing here and there, make a few dollars, but I didn't make enough money allowing me to leave my job until I met her.

Speaker 1 I love that. I love that.
So, so, Crystal, you both start business together.

Speaker 1 Talk through

Speaker 1 and Detrick, I love that you brought up the wantrepreneur because a lot of people don't understand the challenges and the adversity that we face as entrepreneurs and growing a business.

Speaker 1 So I'd love for you to go. So talk to us about some of those initial challenges that you had to break through to get to where you are today.

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Speaker 3 Some challenges. What wasn't a challenge?

Speaker 1 How many businesses have we started and failed?

Speaker 1 And that's what people don't understand, right? Like, they see the end result. they see the visibility,

Speaker 1 but they don't see the grind. And they don't see, I think, to what you're saying now is it's a continual,

Speaker 1 maybe not a struggle, but it's continual challenges. And sometimes the more successful you get, the challenges become bigger.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 3 More money, more problems, right? Like they say, the challenges do get bigger. And for us, it was a struggle figuring it out, right?

Speaker 3 And especially when we got together early 2000s, mid-2000s, it was really, you didn't have a lot of coaches and mentors out there.

Speaker 3 So for us, it was trying to figure it out, figure out what we want to do. No mentors, no guides, figure out where we want to go, starting and failing.
The difference was I was never afraid to fail.

Speaker 3 ever. Dedrick, not so much.
Dedrick was not trying to go back broke.

Speaker 3 My mentality was: I'll lose it and I'll get it back again.

Speaker 1 But you were still living at home, right? So you had a little more of a safety now. I had a house, I had a mortgage, I had a new car, I had a car note, so I had some bills.

Speaker 3 Yes, and I'll tell you, one of the best things, and I always try to tell this to young college students, high school students, especially parents.

Speaker 3 One of the best things my mother ever said to me was: once you got out of college, come back home, live with me. Don't rush to jump out there on your own.
Come back home.

Speaker 3 figure out what you want to do

Speaker 3 while your headaches are my headaches, your worries are my worries. Don't rush to get out there and put the weight of the world on your shoulders before it's time.

Speaker 3 So, out of her four kids, I was the one that listened. I came back home.

Speaker 1 You had a safety net.

Speaker 3 I had that safety net. I was able to start a non-profit.
I was able to start my own business. I was able to fail at everything.

Speaker 3 And my mother was right there. Keep going.
Keep going. Okay.
I'm here to support you. And it allowed me to spread my wings.

Speaker 3 It allowed me to get out there and do things that got made me truly uncomfortable with it.

Speaker 3 So when I met, by the time I met Dedrick, and Dedrick was very risk averse, it was just like, her mindset was totally the opposite.

Speaker 1 She's like,

Speaker 1 we don't need a business plan. Let's just do it.
Let's figure it out. We'll jump

Speaker 1 grow wings on the way down is what I tell him.

Speaker 1 Dedric is like, we need the structured plan. We need the details.
We need step one and step two. And we can't go to step three.

Speaker 1 We need a smart analysis. We need a business plan for the business plan.
Because that's how I was trained in going to college, right? In school. Yep.

Speaker 1 I love that. And, you know, Crystal, you brought up not having mentors, not having coaches.

Speaker 1 And I would say for me, one of the things that later in my business career, because early on, I was just like you, like I didn't necessarily have a blueprint or a person or people I could really talk to.

Speaker 1 But then as I got older in business, I was able to be mentored by a Damon John, a Robert Irvine, a Les Brown.

Speaker 1 And I know that you're so passionate, both of you, about mentorship and being those resources and allies for others that you turn it into a coaching program.

Speaker 1 So talk a little bit about what you do in your coaching program and

Speaker 1 who a good mentee might look like for you as well too.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, we figured out, we solved real estate investing right we became very successful from real estate investing then we got our own tv show right and then so many people would reach out to us like hey how can we do what you guys are doing we're inspired by watching you how can we duplicate it that's what made us start the coaching program and the reason is is because we didn't have that rich uncle we didn't have that rich dad we can call when we were coming up to be like all right what do i do how do i do it right it wasn't until we were in our 30s that we met our rich dad, which is one of our mentors who lives right in Winston-Salem, who had already achieved what we wanted to achieve.

Speaker 1 And we were able to pay him for his time and expertise. And he gave us the blueprint, he gave us the roadmap.

Speaker 1 So we were like, hey, when we become successful, we want to turn around and do the same thing. We felt an obligation to turn around and do the same thing for others.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And you hit on something I want to double down on. I want to unplug, no pun intended, this

Speaker 1 because I did the same thing. You paid for coaching.
You invested in yourself.

Speaker 1 I'm going to hurt some feelings today, and I don't want this to come across from Crystal and Dedrick. This is purely the commentary of Mick and Mick only.

Speaker 1 People need to invest in themselves. And here's why I say that.
And I want you to talk a little bit more about your coaching program too.

Speaker 1 When I first started coaching and helping people, I was willing, and sometimes today I still do it for free.

Speaker 1 But the people that invested were more accountable to the success, to the results, and do the actual work. And so, this is my message.
This isn't coming from Crystal and Dedrick. So, don't at them.

Speaker 1 Don't yell at them. Yell at me.
I take it.

Speaker 1 If you're not willing to invest in yourself,

Speaker 1 don't always ask for free advice. Don't always ask for free mentorship because it's draining.
I'm not going to lie.

Speaker 1 The people that want it for free over and over and over again are the ones who aren't going to be willing to commit to do the actual work required to get where they're trying to go.

Speaker 1 They're always going to think there's an easy button that you can press and there's no such thing as an easy button.

Speaker 1 And then I'm also going to say this. They want people to invest in their dreams, but they don't want to put that same investment into their own dreams.
So

Speaker 1 I said that so you didn't have to say it, Deadrin.

Speaker 1 Listen,

Speaker 1 we keep it real. We're going to agree with you a thousand times and 10% because we have been there.
We've been on both sides. We've been the mentee and we've been the mentor.

Speaker 3 We're there now.

Speaker 1 Let me tell you.

Speaker 3 We are there now, like today. And we tell people we still have mentors, literally that

Speaker 3 because we're not done, right? We are still building. We're still climbing, but we do believe in lifting as we rise.

Speaker 3 But it goes back to that saying, people who pay pay attention. And we've learned just giving information to individuals.
It drained us. It was a waste of our time.

Speaker 3 No one ever acted on that information. And then you don't hear from them.
They come back around in six months. Hey, I got a question real quick.
Like, we ain't got time for all that.

Speaker 3 And then the people who pay,

Speaker 3 they pay attention. They're at every coaching session.
They are emailing. They are actively taking action.

Speaker 3 And those are the ones who are constantly hitting us and DMing us like, hey, I just got my first deal locked up.

Speaker 3 I just bought my first rental property that I'll be passing on to my kids within two months' time.

Speaker 3 And it's just as simple listening, sitting down, listening, following instruction, and getting out of your own way. And I tell Dedric, one of the best things about that TV show

Speaker 3 was,

Speaker 3 for me, is the exposure to people who said they'd never seen one a show like ours where it was attainable as well as inspirational?

Speaker 3 So it was at a price point where people who worked at grocery stores, who were secretaries, were reaching out. I was like, I can't.

Speaker 1 People are in prison. Prison.
Wow. A lot of brothers in prison have reached out to us saying.

Speaker 3 So many letters

Speaker 3 from prison. One guy, the most humbling letter I've ever read was from a guy in prison.
who wrote and specifically spoke about Dedric. And he said,

Speaker 3 for the first time watching your show,

Speaker 3 I've held myself accountable for my actions that got me here. He said, because looking at you, we're the same age, we look the same, we come from the same neighborhood.

Speaker 3 And to see where you have gotten my brother, has for the first time

Speaker 3 shown a light on myself and said, why could I have not done what you've done? And we came from the same place.

Speaker 3 We came from the same background. We're the same age.

Speaker 3 you look like me he says so he really just wrote the letter thanking us and thanking the the network for actually showing someone that he could relate to he said so for him it was a mind shift where he's now like he want he can accept responsibility that he and he alone got him to where he's at and now he's prepared to do better

Speaker 3 even while there to get out to one day be able to do what we're doing for the family that he still has out there. That's what I tell people the TV show did that was, that was powerful to me.

Speaker 3 It's just the fact that people can see themselves flipping a property or buying real estate and aren't millionaires.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And again, I go back to what I said earlier when I wanted to give you both praise.
You are now those shoulders.

Speaker 1 Right. And that's why I'm proud of you.
You are those shoulders that people are standing on and looking to. So that's awesome.
So

Speaker 1 let's talk about the show 50 50 flip on a e first off a e is a big network right like it's it's a real legit network so so talk about

Speaker 1 hulu and and hulu right who bought the rights and even bigger even more distribution right more more views

Speaker 1 let's go back to the beginning of the show

Speaker 1 How did you get the call? What was it like when it was like a yes, we're going to do it? Like, I'd love personally, I just want to hear this story. Well, yeah, let's go all the way back, Mick.

Speaker 1 It actually started because we invested in ourselves.

Speaker 1 What do I mean? We joined a mastermind. We had not closed the deal.
We were trying to figure out how to wholesale, make money wholesaling. We joined a mastermind.

Speaker 1 We spent $16,000 joining a group of high-level real estate investors.

Speaker 1 And the leader of that mastermind said, hey, we were like, hey, we're having trouble raising money to buy our first rental property. What do we do? He was like, document your process.

Speaker 1 What do you mean? Go on social media, show people what you're doing. Every time you do a walkthrough, every time you meet with a contractor, document what you're doing.

Speaker 1 So we started doing that right 2017, 2018. So we built a following.
And as a result of that following, we started a YouTube channel. And that's where the producers from AE found us.

Speaker 1 They were looking for a couple in North Carolina.

Speaker 3 Well, they were just looking for people, period. They were green lighting, they were getting back into the home space,

Speaker 3 which they were originally before everyone knew about HGTV, it was AE with Than Merrill. Than Merrill flipping it out.

Speaker 1 2008.

Speaker 3 The first one. So they were looking to now get back into the home space and they were looking for three shows.
They were green lighting three shows.

Speaker 3 So they were looking and searching all over and they were looking at hundreds of people. They had ended up DMing us.
I don't, I, at a certain point, I just stopped going into the DMs.

Speaker 3 So I wasn't really looking at them.

Speaker 3 So one of the executives, the casting company, contacted, called our 800 number, got our secretary, made our secretary promise to give me the message and to promise to get me to call her back.

Speaker 3 So, they had been DMing us for a year,

Speaker 3 which we hadn't known. And I had seen it in there, but I, one time, but I think it's spammed.
So, you know, I roll about it.

Speaker 3 And so, as soon as I walked in, our secretary, Sam was like, Hey, a lady named, I think it's Allie from Annie, she said, if you could please give her a call back. She really wants to speak to you.

Speaker 3 And I said, oh, okay. And I kept going on, kept walking to go into the office.
And she came and she was like, no.

Speaker 3 She made me promise to have you please give her a call back. And I looked at her, I said, and you promised?

Speaker 3 And she was like, yeah.

Speaker 3 And I said, well, don't promise nobody else unless you call it back. And she was like, please, I don't want, I don't want to be made out a liar.
Could you please call her back?

Speaker 3 So I was like, all right, fine. I called her back and she was like, first off, I want to say I am not a casting company.
She was like, I work exclusively for A ⁇ E.

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Speaker 3 And I had no idea what that meant. So it didn't impress me.
I was just like, oh, okay.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 3 So, what can I do for you? And she was like, and we've been following you guys. I've been trying to get a hold of you for a year, past year.
Now, this is during COVID.

Speaker 1 Right after COVID.

Speaker 3 No, we started right after COVID. They had started hitting us about a year during COVID and stuff.
Then I was like, oh, okay. She was like, we love your YouTube.
We love your Instagram.

Speaker 3 We're looking for a couple to do a show. We're interviewing hundreds of people.

Speaker 3 So we was like, at that point, I told Dedrick, I was like, okay, well, we ain't gonna really do it.

Speaker 3 Let's just see how far we can get.

Speaker 1 We didn't think they was gonna pick us.

Speaker 3 And I'm super private.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 3 extremely, if they had a TV show on extreme people who were private, I would definitely.

Speaker 1 FBI meets CIA.

Speaker 1 That's Crystal. I'm right there with you, Crystal.

Speaker 3 I really am.

Speaker 3 So it wasn't even a thought in my mind to do something like this so i me and dude was like yeah we're just gonna get see how far we can go so then we can tell people like you know we won the finalists it'll be a cool story at the dinner party yeah

Speaker 3 all of a sudden maybe six seven months later at zoom after zoom after zoom they call us and it was just like hey can we get on another zoom send us an email we'd like to hop on another zoom with you guys We was like, yeah, sure.

Speaker 3 And we got on the Zoom and it was even more people on this one. And it was like, hey, we wanted to offer you guys a slot for this upcoming season for one of the TV shows.

Speaker 3 And me and Dedric looked at each other. It was just like,

Speaker 1 oh,

Speaker 3 like literally a fake smile and everything, like, oh,

Speaker 3 like,

Speaker 3 we were literally like stone-faced, like, oh.

Speaker 3 And then we got off, and Dedric was like,

Speaker 1 we're not.

Speaker 3 really doing a TV show, are we?

Speaker 1 I was like,

Speaker 3 kind of have to now. He was like, why?

Speaker 3 I was like, because like they've already chosen us. He was like, so.

Speaker 1 So now I'm having second thoughts. I'm like, we really want to do this.

Speaker 3 I was like, we can't go back on our word. Like, we done got this far.
They done eliminated all these other people. Like, we, we got to do what we say we were going to do.

Speaker 3 He was like, babe, I never said.

Speaker 3 So we were just here to see how far we were going to get. I said, I know.

Speaker 3 We're going to have to just do it. We're going to have to do it.
I know. I know we don't.

Speaker 1 And it was really us like, we didn't think you know, you dream about being on TV one day, but you don't think it's gonna actually happen, so we were shocked.

Speaker 1 I mean, we were just like, Man, God, God works in mysterious ways.

Speaker 3 And after like months of contract negotiations, because we had to, you know, you got to remind a TV show a network that you ain't a starving artist when you ain't starving.

Speaker 1 We're already successful, we have a successful real estate company, we own a bunch of rentals. So,

Speaker 1 you go, they sent over the starving artists contract, so yeah, negotiations took a while.

Speaker 1 But what we did was we went straight to, we call it straight to series, where most people would get a TV show, they'll do like a sizzle reel, which is

Speaker 3 a 10-minute episode, pilot.

Speaker 1 But we went straight to series, which means they,

Speaker 3 as soon as that contract was signed, they had boots on the ground within two weeks and started filming, which never happens in the industry.

Speaker 3 Literally, and we, there was like, oh, it'd be like two or three days a week. It went to from two or three days a week to five days a week

Speaker 3 filming 10 hours a day straight for like seven months seven eight months wow

Speaker 3 and the first season you don't know what you don't know so first season broke us

Speaker 3 i want to tell you it broke us it broke us after that last day we rapped we sat in that bed and looked at each other and said we will never come back for a season two

Speaker 1 but look at you now

Speaker 1 What are some of those things really quick that you learned after or during the first season that you now know what to do differently, better, ask for, say no to?

Speaker 1 What are some of those things that you learned? Well, the first thing we learned is that we have to do 10 houses.

Speaker 1 We ended up doing six because our team just wasn't big enough at the time to handle 10 houses. But

Speaker 1 I didn't want to do it because we would have to raise about two or three million dollars in investment capital in order to pull it off.

Speaker 1 And I didn't think we could do that because I'd never raised that much money before. But when you stretch yourself and you challenge yourself, it's amazing what you can accomplish.

Speaker 1 And we ended up getting it done. So that was a big thing for me is like doing something I was afraid of doing.
I was terrified, but we got it done and I grew in immense ways. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And understanding that we definitely learned from season one, it was literally three of us doing the work of 10 people. So we understood that we couldn't do everything.

Speaker 3 We learned that we couldn't do everything ourselves. Like we, I think I lost 15 pounds that season.

Speaker 1 We both lost a lot of weight.

Speaker 3 Um, I went from like two gray hairs to like 10. It was crazy.
Um, and we learned that we had to find a team and delegate some of these responsibilities and tasks.

Speaker 3 And I remember we had talked to a couple people who had already had TV shows in flipping, and they had said, Oh, yeah, the TV show is going to be your new business.

Speaker 3 So, if all that other stuff is going to fall by the wayside, this is going to become your everyday and we was like yeah all right they don't know we we can handle this they don't know what but i tell you baby we were up there like what i told you remember what they said because we was we were suffocating because we still had wholesale and flipping company we still have a rental company we have an airbnb division we had all these divisions of real estate going plus you add a tv show which is another 50 60 hours a week So it was intense.

Speaker 1 So season two, the only condition we came back on is that we had a team. We had project managers.
We had designers. We had 10 people doing the work of 10 people versus three who were overstretched.

Speaker 1 There you go. That's what's up.
That's what's up. So that's awesome to hear.
And that's great insight.

Speaker 1 I think that also correlates into the business world, too, that I think a lot of leaders, we tend to put everything on our shoulders. Yep.
Right.

Speaker 1 I would say for me, the hardest lesson I had to learn was delegation because I wanted to foot all, but I can't scale if it's just me. I can't scale if all the major responsibilities.

Speaker 1 And I'll be honest too, the major headaches can't just be mine.

Speaker 1 Like I need other people to deal with those too.

Speaker 1 You have to have a team.

Speaker 1 You got to have a team. That's one of the big things we've learned is that, again, as an entrepreneur, self-employed, you feel like, hey, if it has to be done, if it is to be, it's up to me.

Speaker 3 And you can't work on the business if you're working in it.

Speaker 1 All right. Amen to that.
Amen to that. One of my mentors said, you can't read the ingredients when you're inside the box.

Speaker 3 There you go.

Speaker 1 That's a good one.

Speaker 3 I love that.

Speaker 1 One thing I had to learn. All right.
So you both are very busy. You've been gracious with your time.

Speaker 1 I'm going to get you out of here with my quick five rapid fire so you can determine who wants to answer the question.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 1 So after the credit score reveal from Crystal,

Speaker 1 I guess the first one we're going to be for Patrick.

Speaker 1 Were you nervous at all? Did you get nervous when yours was an 810 and hers was a six something

Speaker 1 no I wasn't nervous at all and I had the 810

Speaker 1 that's it all right you've had a long day of filming a long day in the office what's your favorite comfort meal

Speaker 3 favorite comfort meal for me other than

Speaker 3 mine would be soul food

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 smothered pork chop, baked macaroni and cheese, yams is definitely sulfur. Making me hungry.

Speaker 1 Mine is whatever my wife cooks. She is an amazing cook.
Now, when we first started dating, my baby couldn't boil water when we first started.

Speaker 1 But her condition was, she said, until you put a ring on it, that's when we're going to start cooking. And that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 1 Once I put a ring on it, really, once we had our first child, her cooking is amazing. So that's my favorite comfort meal.
Okay. All right.
So then let me parlay that into question number three.

Speaker 1 For you, Crystal, what's your favorite dish that you make?

Speaker 3 um well my kids would definitely say

Speaker 3 baked macaroni and cheese it's like every week thing every sunday we gotta have it i would say same way i'm a mac and cheese snob oh yeah like and it has to be baked like four cheeses no

Speaker 1 ain't no out the box like it has to be baked macaroni and cheese yep okay i love it What's one word that you would use to describe your partnership? Hmm. That's the first.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 My word would just be powerful.

Speaker 1 I like that. I like that.
One word.

Speaker 3 Mine would be intentional. I think everything we do with each other from the day we met has been very intentional.

Speaker 3 You know, dating him from the beginning, I made it so that he understood he never had to lie to me. We can work through whatever we got to work through.
Be intentional, be respectful of my time.

Speaker 3 I'm going to be respectful of your time.

Speaker 3 Don't be late. Like,

Speaker 3 we've been very intentional with each other along our entire journey.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 intentional and powerful sounds like a great book title for you two. I'm just going to.

Speaker 1 All right, last one.

Speaker 1 When the story is written for the polites,

Speaker 1 what do you want that legacy to be described as?

Speaker 1 I mean, I would say people look at us and think, you know, we've accomplished everything. I would say we're in like our second inning out of nine innings.
We're just getting started.

Speaker 1 With us, it's about impact. It's not about how many doors we own.
Crystal always likes to say it's about how many doors can we open for others to walk through, right? How big of an impact can we have?

Speaker 1 So that's really our goal is to marshal enough resources so that we can give massive amounts of resources away.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I definitely would say a saying that I learned 10th grade, I read it somewhere on something.

Speaker 3 And it has literally been the whole basis of my existence from 10th grade in high school all the way through. I've had it written on everything, all books.

Speaker 3 You name it, is you make a living by what you get, you make a life by what you give.

Speaker 3 And I've lived my life that way my entire life. And my mother tells people from four years old, it's been, what can I do for others? So I think for us, that's what we try to embody.

Speaker 3 How can we be of service? How can we open a door for some other family, some other individual to be able to walk through to change the trajectory of their family tree?

Speaker 3 Because like I tell people, our children are going to be okay because we're going to teach them not only how to live in today's society, but get it out of the mud if they got to all over again, right?

Speaker 3 We're not raising those privileged children.

Speaker 3 They're going to learn how to get it out the mud just the same way we did, as well as responsibility for what they have now, but also and more so to be a blessing is what we're teaching them. To

Speaker 3 be a blessing means to be blessed, and you are blessed. So it's more important for us to teach them how now to be a blessing to others.

Speaker 1 Wow. I love that.
I love that. You two are so awesome.
Thank you. Thank you, Mick.

Speaker 1 You are the epitome of good. You're the epitome of like who we all should strive to be.
So just again, thank you for being who you are. Means the world to me to have you on the show.

Speaker 1 Where can people find and follow you?

Speaker 1 Where do you want to?

Speaker 1 Be polite. So be polite properties on Instagram, on YouTube, also our website with Dedricridge.

Speaker 3 DedricandCrystal.com.

Speaker 1 Dedric and crystal.com.

Speaker 1 As well. It has all our information.
Anyone who has questions about real estate, how to get into real estate, how to build wealth, feel free to reach out to us and our team, and we'll be glad to help.

Speaker 1 And we appreciate you. Thank you for having us on, Mick.
And we've got to do this again.

Speaker 3 Make sure you guys go and watch the TV show. See the one, two, before we hit you with a third one.

Speaker 1 There it is. We will make sure we have links to all that in the show notes.
I'm going to make sure weekly I'm promoting the show.

Speaker 1 And when it comes on, I'm going to also promote the coaching program that you all have because I think that's amazing. And it's honorable that you are mentors to so many.

Speaker 1 So, again, thank you from the bottom of my soul for all that you do.

Speaker 3 Thank you for having us, Mick. We appreciate you.

Speaker 1 You got it. For all the viewers and listeners, remember, you're because

Speaker 1 is your superpower. Go unleash it.

Speaker 1 You've been plugged into Mick Unplugged. Don't just listen, take action.
Rate and subscribe. Follow me on social and get the full experience at mickuntofficial.com.

Speaker 1 Keep building, keep leading, and most importantly, keep dominating.