From Profit to Purpose

In today’s episode, I sit down with Shawn Jennings, CEO of Real House Inc., to talk about the journey from chasing financial success to building a life centered on faith, family, and purpose. Shawn shares how helping a childhood friend struggling with addiction ultimately inspired a recovery organization that has served people for more than 20 years. We discuss the uncertainty that comes with entrepreneurship, the failures and challenges that shaped his perspective, and the importance of daily non-negotiables. Shawn also reflects on navigating one of the most difficult periods of his career and how aligning his decisions with goodness changed his definition of success. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to Two Minute Drill. I'm David Meltzer. We're live here at the Sirius XM Studios in Las Vegas at The Wind. And it's time for the entrepreneur showcase. Have I got a treat for you. This guy is an incredible entrepreneur. From rags to riches and now can help teach us what that journey looks like mindset, heart set and hand set wise. Shawn Jennings, founder, CEO, President of Real House Inc. Welcome to Two Minute Drill.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  Hey, David. Good to be here. You know, I'm a big fan of yours and I've been following you for the last three years and listening to all your podcasts and just happy to be here and share my experience.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  And that's why I wanted you to come and you're a normal entrepreneur, a normal CEO. So this is definitely outside of your comfort zone.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  But I know as you are a former athlete and also a father of many great athletes, that you know that getting outside our comfort zone is really important. Being someone who does follow me and has consumed the content and unfortunately you even enforce your children to sometimes listen to my content, which isn't good, good for me. But what are some of the things that really resonate with you from the content that I provide? That really had an impact that has, you know, led to you trusting me and being here on our show?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I want to start with your non-negotiables. I mean, I, I get up every morning, I meditate first thing. I'm grateful for everything that God has given me. I work on my health.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  I look at my finances and like you, I don't always speak to my children every day, but I do pray for them every day. So by getting that, my day started that way, the uncertainty in the day is, is a lot easier to work with.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  And as an entrepreneur, I know there's a ton of uncertainty. It's amplified compared to everyone else's life. I joke around, but I'm serious when I said the life of an entrepreneur is waking up and realizing there is no evidence or the evidence is contrary that I'm ever going to get to where I want to be. And facing that every day not only takes a man who seeks wisdom from others and from research and faith, but more importantly is faith. And for you, when you wake up every day and you see the same evidence I do, that I may not get there, this doesn't seem like it's going to work out.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  What for you keeps faith that you just don't understand the evidence is not that the evidence is contrary to where you want to be?

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So faith is everything to me.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  That's why I love you.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  You know, I, I believe in a higher power. I don't know what you call it, God or the universe, but that is what keeps me going. And you don't know the outcomes. When I started Real House over 20 years ago.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  Which is a recovery facility for people that have addiction.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Yes. So yes, Real House is a recovery center for men and women with addiction, addiction's illnesses and mental health. We've been operating shelters, halfway houses, residential treatment centers, sober livings and outpatient centers and mental health facilities for the, for the last 20 years.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  For me, it was actually a real estate play because when I was working on Wall Street, I started to buy real estate. And I was helping a childhood friend who really changed the direction of my life because he called me at three in the morning and he says, Shawn, you know, and I knew he was struck out, but he says, Shawn, can you help me? I actually went to pick him up in Newark in a crack house. And my wife was pregnant with my son Max at the time. She said, don't do it. But Real House wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for him because I went and picked him up. He stayed at one of our, one of, one of my three family houses. And later in his time staying there, he said, Shawn, you know, you're helping me and you're helping other people.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  He said, you, you can help a lot of people because I've been through shelters. I've been through halfway houses and people get paid for that. So, you know, I was running real estate and, and you know, when you're dealing with real estate, there's plumbing issues. I would go on vacation and, and the electrical would go out. But the thing about this is that I've, my purpose has always been, you know, starting out my family.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  And my, you know, building a family, but my family is my why. My purpose now is helping people better their lives, get jobs, get housing and really stay clean. So

• 5:10Speaker 01

  you don't always know the outcome. It hasn't been easy being an entrepreneur in this business, especially with the, how highly regulated New Jersey is, but it's been worth it.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  And that fulfillment, that passion, that purpose, that why also leads to, as we talked about profitability. And as we stay consistent and persistent in the pursuit of that fulfillment, passion, purpose and profitability, we sometimes economically, and this happened at a young age for me and I didn't deal with it very well. We lose perspective because of our success. We, we all of a sudden get more confused about how much is enough? I'm family and faith oriented. I'm health oriented. Where do I draw my line? What's next for me?

• 6:05Speaker 00

  And it causes sometimes for me, when I'm advising people, more confusion than you would realize. And for you, you're having great success. And have you contemplated when is enough? When do I change my direction and maybe put in a sign time more on my health, more on my family, more on my faith? And let somebody else deal with the finance?

• 6:36Speaker 01

  That's a great question.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  The younger Shawn, because you know,

• 6:43Speaker 00

  You look young, but you mean the actual younger.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Well, 58.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  You know, yeah, I'm 58 too. Look at your screen right now. Which one does not belong with the other? All right, go ahead.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  But the, the younger Shawn was, I, you know, I've always had great faith because my mother brought me up in, in the church, in the Baptist church and

• 7:07Speaker 01

  but the younger Shawn was, was more driven and because my, my mother cleaned houses for a living. And, and that, that, that actually drove me because.

• 7:18Speaker 00

  Watching our moms, not listening, because I bet you didn't listen to your mom all the time. But watching your mom do stuff like that, like I watched mine.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  There's no greater motivator.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  No greater motivator. And I actually live on the street now where she was cleaning the houses for the rich people up on the hill. So, so that was an amazing.

• 7:40Speaker 00

  Forest gum, right? Like Bubba's mom.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  That's right. I, I literally bought like three houses in Montclair until I got up to the street she used to work on and clean houses.

• 7:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:53Speaker 02

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• 8:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the younger Shawn was, was, was definitely more interested, just really money focused and, and and I've been able to do well for myself. I, I had a restaurant. I, which failed by the way.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  Like most.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  And I, I didn't lose as much as you did, but I lost 300,000, which was a lot, was, was a lot of money for me. I had started, after nine 11, I started a, a, a day trading business, Montclair Asset Management. I had a big trade, like I was doing well and, and that failed because Kmart and Sears, I think merged and and I thought I was buying a stock at 58 and somebody arbitrage and, well, I thought I was buying at 50 and I actually bought it at 58.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  And, and, oh, and then I was doing some developing. I was doing some development. I was building condominiums. And then in 2006 through 2008, you know what happened? So.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  I was there.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  And I was also doing Real House at the time. So I'm doing all of these things while I'm trying to balance my family. But my focus at this time is money, money, money. And I think probably in 2020, when, when COVID started, I got a subpoena from the AG office. And that had to be the worst feeling of my life. And

• 9:52Speaker 01

  I started getting subpoenaed. I didn't tell my wife for like a year and a half. I mean, that's how bad you feel when something like that happens to you and your business. So everything I had worked for from 2004, you know, you know, I'm spending, I spent over a million dollars in lawyer fees and I was afraid that I was going to lose it all. And at, at the same time, I'm getting private equity firms, I'm getting other agencies offering me and brokers saying, oh, Real House is worth, you know, 50, 70, 80, 100 million dollars, you know, but, and I'm like, I may lose it all.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  And thank God, my whole name was cleared. It was, you know, my, I don't want to name any names, but there was some money moving between the nonprofit and the for-profit that caused that. But I want to thank you because at this time, this is when I was listening to you. And you were a businessman who was trying to make money, but you, you, you've had your faith, you know, for the good of everyone. And I started, I read it connected to goodness. And that book just, was just so amazing to my life at the time. And it helped me get through because it was so hard.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  So at that point, I really started to align myself over COVID and to goodness, like just everything to goodness from my family, my business, everything to goodness. And, and at that point, I, I feel like now I'm at a point where.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  If I want to scale or if I want to uh exit that I'm in a good place either way.

• 11:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think that's the real achievement.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  Opportunities, options and touches of favor. As you've had children applying to college and going into the workforce. I keep my perspective with them of I just want you to do your best, learn lessons and have fun. And if you do that, you'll just have a ton of opportunity. You have a ton of options. You won't feel stuck or relegated into one thing. You have all these different choices. And when I see your career, not only do I see the mathematical equation of luck, which is a man who has paid attention to his divine direction, but also given it his devotion in that discipline of divine direction of doing, saying, thinking, feeling and believing

• 12:23Speaker 00

  all of them in this aligned divine direction of his greater self, his higher self, his best purpose. And it's so interesting when I reach people. I get to see clues and patterns of who I'm impacting or who it resonates with. And it's really not the 19 year old life coach. When you come to one of my charitable dinners or meetup, you'll see there's a certain frequency that is there of everyone. They're from all walks of life, but it's a frequency thing. And sometimes as I finish up, the universe or God makes it really clear. And the way that we met, because I did not know who Sean, Sean had been invited, I think

• 13:08Speaker 00

  this is my newsletter, but I don't know who this guy is. And I'm at a staycation at our favorite resort. You're staying in LA for a wedding, 60 miles could be three hours away depending on traffic. And but for my wife telling me when we were on our morning walk with my daughter who was home from college at the time, saying, I need to go to the restroom. And the only restroom I knew was at the golf course because I play golf there. And you literally spotted me after listening to me in the car drive home to the course

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  with your family and immediately we hit it off. And if that to me is not a testimonial to doing the right thing and surrounding yourself with the right people and energy and there's no coincidence. What you pay attention to and what you give intention to equals the coinciding of the universe. And I just want to say that I'm so blessed that my life has coincided with yours and that you are now co-inciding with all the things that we're doing, especially to honor you as an entrepreneur showcase at two minute drill. The incredible entrepreneur, CEO, president of Real House Inc. What an honor it's been to interview Sean Jennings. Thanks for joining me.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's been an honor, David. I appreciate it.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  You're amazing. I made it from deep in my soul. I am blessed. My name is David Meltzer and this is the entrepreneur showcase of two minute drill.