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| Immigrant Entrepreneur: | Sean Conlon |
| Company: | Sean Conlon and Co. |
| Place of Birth: | Ireland |
| Employees: | 10 |
| Age started business: | 24 |
Show notes
Sean is originally from a small town in Ireland and was one of 5 kids in his family. His dad always told him that you can be anything you want in America so he held onto that dream. After leaving Ireland and going to London he realized that the successful people that he read about in the library did not have ordinary jobs. So he quit and told everyone that he was going to America to become a millionaire.
He came to the States with $500 and a huge dream. He moved in with a far relative that thought he was a lunatic for following his dreams of becoming a millionaire. He did a lot of things out of the ordinary, but as humble as he is, considers himself a fairly normal person.
He’s also a TV star, hosting ,The Deed on CNBC. Sean is an incredible humble, and wise guy who believes that you can achieve any dream in America.
Sean’s quotes
Failures are not failures if you get back up.
My father always told me that you can be anything you want in America.
Things don’t represent who you are.
I’m not exceptional, but I did extraordinary things because I believed I could.
Do you know how lucky we are because we live in America?
I couldn’t go back home because I told everyone I’m going to America to become a millionaire.
I was either going to make it or die trying.
At 51, I’ve lived 10 lives that are less ordinary, because I believed I could.
I was always a day away from giving up, but I never gave up.
Get out there and meet as many people out there.
Read about stuff that fires your passion.
The ability to fail and dust yourself off and go again in this country is beyond comparable in the world.
I did extraordinary things, but I consider myself a fairly normal person.
I came here with nothing, but in a decade I became a multimillionaire.
Some of the richest people in the world are immigrants here who barely spoke English and speak with a broken English.
Mentioned in this episode
The Wright Brothers Book by David McCullough (Amazon affiliate)
[read more] Alina Warrick (0s):
Welcome to the Immigrant Entrepreneurs Podcast Episode 13. My name is Alina Warrick and today I have is such a great honor to chat with Sean Conlon. You guys, I have to say that this guy is so full of laughter and so full of life. You are going to absolutely love this episode. Sean went to college to study entrepreneurship back home in Ireland, but he had to quit to make ends meet to help his family. He got into real estate in his early 20s shortly after arriving to the States. And in 1997, got a $1 million signing bonus all because he was considered one of the best brokers.
Alina Warrick (51s):
He was generating anywhere from seven $100,000 to 1 million a month in commissions within three years of starting real estate. In this episode, he’ll explain the little tactics that he did that was out of the norm that made him insanely successful. Shawn is also a TV star. He hosted the show, The Deed, on CNBC. He definitely dropped some amazing and powerful advice in this episode to all the aspiring immigrant entrepreneurs.
Alina Warrick (1m 32s):
So turn up the volume, sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode. Let’s dive right in. Well, Sean, thank you so so much for coming on to this podcast. And I’m really excited and honored to have you on my show where I’m going to learn so much about your immigrant entrepreneur journey. So how are you doing today?
Sean Conlon (1m 54s):
I’m good, thank you. I’m in Palm Beach, Florida. So it’s a nice place to be.
Alina Warrick (1m 59s):
Awesome. Love it. Let’s talk about your immigrant journey. Tell us where you’re from? And when did you come to the States?
Sean Conlon (2m 7s):
Okay. So I’m — you’ll be able to tell by my accent. And after 30 years in America, I’m from Ireland. So I was born in Birmingham, England. My father was a bus driver there and my mother worked as a teacher. I grew up in a very small village in Ireland. And there were seven of us, two parents and five kids. And, basically, for all intents and purposes, we have two rooms, two bedroom sort of house. Very small little house, but everybody was born in Ireland. So you didn’t know you were poor till you left, right? But it was, you know, of course, everybody has different takes. And growing up, I think it was a wonderful place to grow up.
Sean Conlon (2m 47s):
And we’d some very tough times, which were the makings of who I am. I have pretty incredible parents. My father was a consummate dreamer, and a failed entrepreneur, countless times, but he had a wonderful tendency to go from failure to failure without a lack of enthusiasm as I believe somebody once said about entrepreneurialship. My mother was a tough woman who focused on our education, and she worked several jobs to keep the family together. But you know, she cried herself to sleep most nights because she was trying to figure out how she’d feed five little kids. So that’s been ingrained in me.
Sean Conlon (3m 27s):
And people who know me really, really well, which is not to many people, that’s burnt into myself, despite my incredibly positive drive, which I have and positive attitude that can’t help but have an impact on you. And that’s what has driven me to my success levels.
Alina Warrick (3m 44s):
So when I think of Ireland, I feel like there’s so many properties and lots of cattle and sheep, did you guys grew up on a farm by any chance?
Sean Conlon (3m 54s):
No, that would donate that we had some wealth. So no, we grew up in house adjacent in the farms. But that being said, the country has and had a wonderful focus on literature, and reading, and writing, and education. And I would say, having grown up in an age that we didn’t have social media or computers. And frankly, we didn’t get a home phone till I was maybe 14 or 15 years old. I was never, never went to a restaurant. But we had a library and I was obsessed with going to the library. And it was my escape and it allowed me to dream. And I thought myself falconry because I read about in the library.
Sean Conlon (4m 37s):
I thought myself fly fishing, which a passion so that I maintain for this day. And I read about every major entrepreneur in America. So I read about the Carnegie’s, and the Rockefeller’s, and Getty’s, and all these amazing families. I read about Churchill. I was quite interesting is in, my father is not alive today. I wished he lived long enough to see me achieve all of his dreams. He lives long enough to see me achieve a lot of them. I throw a Christmas party every year in Mayfair in London. And purely serendipitously, members of every single family I read about, in that little library when I was 12 years old, come to my Christmas party.
Sean Conlon (5m 17s):
So it’s quite a story at this stage.
Alina Warrick (5m 20s):
So amazing. So amazing. I love it. So when did you come to the States?
Sean Conlon (5m 26s):
So I got my place in college. I was top my class in high school. But I also worked very hard. So I wouldn’t say that things come naturally to me now. From the outside people think everything I do, I do very easily. I like to say I’m like a duck. I’m very calm on the surface and
Sean Conlon (6m 10s):
So it was incredibly better. I qualified to get in but couldn’t go. So I studied of all kings, you like this, entrepreneurialship at the College in Ireland. And I was there for a couple of years and things got very tough at home, and my father was kind of going broke again. And he got sick. He had a heart attack. And I thought, “You know what, I have to go and work.” So I went to London, which was a natural course for Irish people at the time went to London. In the 80s, we have the troubles as we call them, were the Irish and Northern Ireland, there was a lot of trouble. So they were bombing London at the time. So being Irish was a very bad thing to be.
Sean Conlon (6m 53s):
We were widely discriminated against but I also understood both sides. And I applied to 100 places. And I eventually got a job quite interestingly, with an American bank. And it was a very minor job but it was at a company called Lehman, which of course, everybody knows Lehman Brothers in America. They went broke in 2008. I just want to go on the record and say I was not responsible for that. I work —
Alina Warrick (7m 15s):
Did you take part of it?
Sean Conlon (7m 17s):
None, whatsoever. I worked there in 1988, 89 to 90. So I was very minor. So not my fault at all. And then I loaded male trains at night. So I would work in the day in the bank. And then I would take off my suit and put on a male, like sort of overalls, and load male frames. So I work two jobs and then I’ll get home at midnight. I’m standing on the train platform one, 1990, I’m standing on the train platform and I’d watch everybody come in and out every day and be average. And I thought, “God, all those people I read about in those books in the library, none of them were average. And none of them wrote about getting the little briefcase and riding the train every day to work.”
Sean Conlon (7m 60s):
So I basically got off the train one evening and never went back to work. I mean, I sent a note and said, “I’m not coming back.” And told my parents, I’m going to try and go to America and make it because my father always told me that you could be anything you wanted in America. And we grew up on that America that you really could make it in America. So I came to America in 1990.
Alina Warrick (8m 23s):
How old were you when you came?
Sean Conlon (8m 24s):
I was turning 21.
Alina Warrick (8m 26s):
Twenty-one.
Sean Conlon (8m 26s):
I had come as a student one summer and had just been fascinated. And we had like fifth cousins. So they used to visit us from time to time. And I was blown away by how they seem to have so much of everything compared to us. And ironically, their grandson ended up working at my merchant bank some years ago.
Alina Warrick (8m 47s):
So you left the Lehman Bank in London.
Sean Conlon (8m 51s):
Yes.
Alina Warrick (8m 52s):
And you never returned. So now you’re at a place where you don’t have a job. And the very first thing that comes to your mind is to fly to America.
Sean Conlon (9m 2s):
That’s correct. And it have course had been in my wishlist dream bucket list. You know, I thought that I could make it in America. So I decided I would go. And I knew one person which was a distant cousin. And I knew nothing else really about the country other than what I’d read and seen once and I took a shot. And you know, I took a massive step back because I went from having a very average job in an investment bank to where I was technically an illegal immigrant and painting apartments, and shoveling snow, doing incredibly menial labor.
Alina Warrick (9m 38s):
And did you land in Chicago?
Sean Conlon (9m 40s):
I did land in Chicago, and my distant cousin got me a job at a building working as an assistant to a janitor. And that poor janitor was a saint because I was the most useless individual ever around the
Alina Warrick (10m 3s):
Wow, wow, amazing. So tell me a little bit about the struggles that you had to go through when you first immigrated to the States and I’m sure the cold was probably one of them.
Sean Conlon (10m 12s):
I mean the cold is definitely one. But, you know, it’s interesting, so much time has gone and I’m 51 now, and it seems like yesterday I arrived. I’m actually here 30 years this month. I was scared. I was obviously lonely and I was homesick. And, of course, I knew I couldn’t go back because I didn’t have my paperwork. And I also knew it couldn’t go back because I told everybody I was going to America to be a millionaire. So there’s a great analogy. I spoke some years ago at Wharton and Cornell and I painted this picture. Back in the eight, ninth century, the Vikings were a group of marauding individuals who like to bang around Europe.
Sean Conlon (10m 54s):
They burnt down villages and did all the usual diabolical stuff. But one day, they showed up and they burnt their boat. And what did that mean? That meant that they had come to stay. And that is the analogy I get for America. When I arrived here, I had no retreat strategy. There was no way out. I was either going to make it or die trying. And that’s the beginning of my story in America.
Alina Warrick (11m 20s):
What did you bring to the States with you?
Sean Conlon (11m 23s):
A dream, and one bag and really bad clothes and nothing else. I found black and white television in the alley. I couldn’t believe that people threw things out. I was shocked by how much stuff people had when I got here. I’m still shocked.
Alina Warrick (11m 38s):
Right, right. Any savings? No savings?
Sean Conlon (11m 41s):
I have $500, which was my savings. I supported my parents. And you can see sometimes on Instagram, I post little letters that my father had saved. And when he died, my mother found them. And they’re all, the little letters I wrote every week to my parents sending them money and stuff. So I have no real money. Yeah, I was scared to death.
Alina Warrick (12m 1s):
Okay, so let’s follow that path. You were assistant to the janitor. How long were you doing that job and then you moved on to the next thing?
Sean Conlon (12m 11s):
I did that for about three years.
Alina Warrick (12m 13s):
Okay.
Sean Conlon (12m 14s):
Well, you know, and I would paint houses sometimes at night. And sometimes people wouldn’t pay me in the end, because they realize I didn’t have the paperwork. So we figured out they could take advantage of me. So I got hardened very quickly. I mean, I showed up in America, bright eyed and bushy-tailed. And just, you know, people have a tendency from Ireland to be generally very sweet people. But I got schooled and seasoned very quickly.
Alina Warrick (12m 40s):
And then what did you decide you’re not going to be doing that. You’re going to go to the next thing?
Sean Conlon (12m 45s):
Well, I thought it could be something. And you know, again, I figured my paperwork out eventually. And I thought, “You know what, I’m going to get my real estate license.” And so everybody said, “Well, why would you get your real estate license?” “I’m coming from Ireland, you just touch that.” We have a passion for property in real estate. And I’ll tell you why that is. Up until the turn of the century, Irish people were not allowed generally on property because of English rule. So we were obsessed with owning property. And I’ll have that same gene in me. And I thought, “I can do this. I can sell real estate.” I felt that I had a decent handle on people.
Sean Conlon (13m 26s):
And today 51 of you asked me, what my gift is? And I’ve lots of things I’m not good at. But people say I’m great at real estate. Well, no, I’m great with people. I can connect the dots and you can drop me into room and I can read people. That’s what I do. So I thought, you know, I wasn’t able to vocalize what I thought I was good at back, but that was it. So I got my real estate license. And I would work my day job as an assistant janitor, and then go every night and cold call.
Alina Warrick (13m 52s):
Did you know anyone in real estate? How did you come up with that idea?
Sean Conlon (13m 57s):
No one. No one. I knew nobody in real estate. I walked into an office like a little scrubby office. And I asked them if they would hire me. And they say, very funny. I’m still know them to this day. I mean they were shocked. And obviously, I wasn’t good but I would cold call every night. Night, no success for six months, but I would come in every night and keep trying. You know, and I kind of think that having subsequently had thousands of brokers who have worked for me, I kind of, I can recognize that skill set. I mean, you can’t give up. You know, it was always a day away from nearly giving up but I never really give up.
Sean Conlon (14m 37s):
And there’s a wonderful quote you guys check it out. There’s a kind of little prose called Don’t Quit. And it’s really wonderful. And it explains about not giving up. And I did that. I kept going and kept going. And honestly a smarter person wouldn’t have given up. There’s no question.
Alina Warrick (14m 56s):
How long did you cold call in so you got your breakthrough?
Sean Conlon (14m 59s):
So I cold call for six months, and I said every open house that the people of the company wanted me to do and all those things. And then just one day, I got a little call back and I sold a $24,000 condo about $300. And I’m like, “This is it. I can do this.” So that like ’93. ’97, just to give you a little perspective. So that was ’93. ’97, I got a million dollar signing bonus, because I was technically considered one of the best brokers in North America at that stage, that quickly.
Sean Conlon (15m 41s):
I was generating about $700,000 to a million dollars a month in commissions. Three years later.
Alina Warrick (15m 48s):
And so all in doing what? How did you — did you keep on cold calling? Or how did you pursue those?
Sean Conlon (15m 54s):
Cold calling is how I started. But then I started, of course started driving around the neighborhoods. And I saw these guys building one or two rental buildings. And I went to them and I said, “Look, what if I could sell these condos?” And they’re like, “Well, nobody buys condos in this neighborhood.” I’m like, “Give me a listing for 30 days.” And I sold the first building from the plans in about a week. And I’m like, “This is the future.” So I went up and down every street within this area and selected near Wrigley Field and put contracts under every door of a house that appeared like you could tear it down. And I kind of focused in on something amazing.
Sean Conlon (16m 36s):
Everybody’s looking for some brilliant silver bullet and sometimes it’s right in front of you. Well, Wrigley Field was a wonderful neighborhood but there’s lots of little scruffy single houses. And I had had so much time in the office for the six months not selling that I kind of taught myself the zoning book. And I like to give this example to people. It was like I taught myself juggling. It was a useless talent, till the circus came to town. right? So the point in the story is, I learned to how to zoning. And then I suddenly realized that you could tear down all these little single houses and build three or four units on them. And I had such an encyclopedic knowledge, you could give me an address on the street and I would have been able to tell you that that lot actually was three to four feet deeper than every other lot on the street.
Sean Conlon (17m 25s):
So that’s kind of, you know, I did the homework. I had the preparation done. When my opportunity can, I was ready. And you know, your eureka moment, you don’t recognize it at the time. I don’t know, I know my life will has. You recognize it in hindsight. Does that make sense?
Alina Warrick (17m 42s):
Yeah, yeah. And I feel like you did something that no one has done, right? You went to that builder? And you said, “Hey, let me put a contract on there.” And they said, “No. No one has ever sold a condo here. And no one’s gonna buy a condo, right?”
Sean Conlon (17m 58s):
Yes. I asked, I asked. I did the basic thing I asked. I tried. And maybe the world knows scenes a little with social media, people are more willing to maybe be balls and take chances. It was still old school. And when I was getting above my paygrade but I asked and it worked. And so I became a one stop shop. What was kind of remarkable was that I wasn’t just a broker. So let’s say you were talking to your husband one evening, you’re like, “Hey, I’d like to be a property developer.” And Bill’s like, “Go see Sean Conlon.” So you’d come in, I’d sit you down, I’d talk with you. I’d learn a little bit about you. Then I would take out a blueprint and say, “Do you like this building?” And you’re like, “Yes.” And then I take out the neighborhood map and say, “You like this neighborhood?”
Sean Conlon (18m 41s):
And you’d be like, “Yes.” I’d be like, “Okay, well, I have a lot here. This is the building in Bill. They’ve got a general contractor for you. The architects lined up, obviously, with the plan here. I have the bank that will finance it.” And you would leave my office at night as a one-stop shop developer. I would seat the nuts for you. And I did that for hundreds and hundreds of people in Chicago who became developers. Some very successful, some not. But that’s what I did. I was a one stop shop for people who wanted to become developers.
Alina Warrick (19m 14s):
How did you morph into that? How did you become, yeah?
Sean Conlon (19m 19s):
I mean, I’d love to have a real answer for that. I mean, seriously, it was just organic. And I guess I work — I mean, I’ll tell you this. This is a well known fact in Chicago, I outwork everybody. So I did so much extra work. I was able to do the preparation put it together. And I got that I got so competitive, later in my career in the ’90s when I would go to the Mediterranean for two weeks because I love to travel. I would leave my car out front of my office and my light on so that my competitors were still stressed because when I was in town I was in the office so 1 AM and 2 AM every night anyway. So I had my lights on still at night. I had my team put them on and leave my car out front so that my competitors are stressed.
Sean Conlon (20m 4s):
Meanwhile, I’m on a yacht in the Med.
Alina Warrick (20m 5s):
I love it. I love it. Now, for sure, you have plenty of more stories like that.
Sean Conlon (20m 9s):
Sure, I do.
Alina Warrick (20m 12s):
Alright. How old were you when you started real estate or when you started your brokerage company?
Sean Conlon (20m 20s):
So I started selling real estate when I was 23. So I was 29-30. And so my last year selling real estate, there’s always figures bandied about, but I had a small team of salespeople. My last year, I probably did close to $250 million on the $350,000 average price point.
Alina Warrick (20m 41s):
Wow.
Sean Conlon (20m 42s):
I was massively, prolific real estate. But again, back then we didn’t track it the way you do now. And obviously million dollar listing and people promote themselves and I was just busy doing my job. So I started to realize that I had lots of little systems that I was putting within my company that I thought would be good. And I thought I was somewhat definitely contrarian. You know, today you call what I was doing a disrupter, right?
Alina Warrick (21m 8s):
Right, right.
Sean Conlon (21m 9s):
We didn’t have that what back then. And I also, candidly, was getting burnt out as a broker. I sold 890 something properties in my last year. And I have two pagers and three phones, and I would be beeping in my head all night. And I genuinely reached a burnout point and I thought I want to go to the next level. So I developed this little system, and I was in negotiations with a pretty serious media company that pulled out at the 11th hour because you’re going to love this, they figured that they would lose too many advertisers, real estate advertisers, if they ever like tried to go online. So this was 1999-2000.
Sean Conlon (21m 50s):
So I was like, “Okay.” So what I did was every week, I took out a full page ad in the paper. And in the dark green color, what a funny quote “Coming soon.” Or, We’re about to clean up the real estate industry.” And then I would put in parentheses (I just need to find the guys that handle that whole Exxon Valdez thing.) Right? So which was a big oil spill back in the time. Or “Announcing a bold new vision for real estate.” And then to put in parentheses. (I know that sounds like a code of ethics to use car sales.) So when all these really controversial ads with an address and a phone number with no other details. So I got a huge amount of bugs.
Sean Conlon (22m 31s):
And then I opened, I think January 6, 2000, and everybody knew as openings all over the papers and a huge amount of media. We even had a real estate brokers complained to the real estate board, that I was insulting the industry, which is quite funny.
Alina Warrick (22m 48s):
You’re disrupting the real estate industry.
Sean Conlon (22m 51s):
Yeah. So what did I do that was different? Well, you’re too young to recall these, but I was the one that considered one of the largest users of BlackBerry’s in North America in the early 2000s. So I give every single one of my agents a handheld device. And now that of course, wait, well, big deal. Nobody did that. So I have the centralized scheduling system, and it was people could prove the time that our showings, we’re probably showing four to five times more properties than the competitors. Because we’ve streamlined the process. We’ve communicated with a centralized scheduling number, but everybody in my company was connected by their BlackBerry’s their handheld, which of course is natural today, but no one did that.
Sean Conlon (23m 38s):
And every buyer for the first year of our company, we give them a laptop when they purchase a property from us. And you know, probably within 14 months, we’ve sold over a billion dollars real estate.
Alina Warrick (23m 51s):
Wow.
Sean Conlon (23m 52s):
Wildly successful.
Alina Warrick (23m 54s):
That’s amazing from BlackBerry’s and laptops.
Sean Conlon (23m 57s):
Yes. And 100 Hour Workweek.
Alina Warrick (23m 59s):
Wow, amazing. Did you have to raise any capital to start your business?
Sean Conlon (24m 4s):
No, no, I dont. I mean, I had the good fortune, of course. So that stage could be one of the top brokers in North America. So I was making a decent amount of money. So I use my own capital. So that was a fortunate thing because I know how hard that is. And I’ve been opened down. And listen, I’ve been knocked down since. It hasn’t been a straight line up, you know.
Alina Warrick (24m 23s):
Um-hmm.
Sean Conlon (24m 24s):
I’ve had the same route where I’ve had wins and losses and stuff like that. But that was a pretty golden time. And I’m pretty proud of what I did. Made a lot of people copied what I did, which is of course a compliment. And subsequently, I sold a company two years later, to a group that was backed by Cendant Realogy. And I bought it back maybe four years again after that and fixed it up and sold it again. So it kind of a gift, give me a couple times.
Alina Warrick (24m 53s):
Awesome, awesome. And how did you deal with the 2008 housing market crash?
Sean Conlon (24m 59s):
Well, I would say the 2008 marketing crash really made me who I am today. I had had amazing success from like 1994 till 2007. And I like to joke. I mean, I had some curveballs, but not really, I like to joke that had I fallen out of like the Empire State Building, there would have been a mattress convention underneath it. I could just do, I could do no wrong. I mean, I walked on water, it seemed. And I had stopped paying attention to everything. And I had six houses and lots of things like that. I was not managing my own money. And I had a mezzanine fund, and with over $100 million on the street.
Sean Conlon (25m 43s):
And I personally to my sort of merchant bank/fund, funded $1.2 billion of new construction across North America, but I was paying no attention. And I had,”Hired guys from Harvard, Yale, and Wharton”, who I figured that much smarter than me. But you know, nobody cares about your own money. And when the world blew up, you know, initially I was out of touch. And then I realized, “Oh, my God, we’re really in trouble here.” And everybody who could leave was going to get a better job. So I took my company back over and I knuckle down. And it was scary.
Sean Conlon (26m 24s):
I flew all over the country to save assets. And I got so bad that in 2010, I sold my car for $31,000 in the payroll.
Alina Warrick (26m 35s):
Wow.
Sean Conlon (26m 35s):
But I never stopped believing in myself. I never dumped in my asset. I kept every asset I owned. And I doubled down with the remaining capital, I had to buy out senior positions on mez deals, and I came back. But it was five years of hell, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. But you know what it taught me for a period of time in my head, I thought maybe I got lucky the first time. But that taught me that I wasn’t lucky. I was actually good and tenacious and it humbled me massively. I’ve always been a little cocky, but I never obnoxious but it humbled me. It showed me that “Nil admirari”
Sean Conlon (27m 17s):
is a Latin expression, “Be surprised by nothing.” It just showed me that you can’t be surprised by anything. And so the pandemic has been a crazy time but I was prepared. I had money set aside. I wasn’t levered. So I’ve come into properly prepared. But it was the makings and it changed me of who I am, it made me better. It made me a better businessman. It also made me realize that all these things I had, that I taught represented, who I was, it didn’t. Things don’t represent who you are. I realized it didn’t need any of them. So now I can afford all those things.
Sean Conlon (27m 58s):
And I don’t have any of them. I don’t want them. I mean, I have a wonderful art collection and a nice home in London, and a place in Palm Beach, but I don’t have lots of things anymore. And that all came from 2008.
Alina Warrick (28m 11s):
So it took you five years after the market crash in 2008 to redevelop and get back on your feet?
Sean Conlon (28m 18s):
Yeah, five years to really get my feet back underneath me and it was never fully right till several years ago. But I’m stronger and they think I’m smart, I’m better, and I’m more streamlined now. So my lesson was learned. Now, that didn’t stop me starting a new brokerage in 2009. So
Alina Warrick (28m 45s):
So how many companies do you have now?
Sean Conlon (28m 47s):
I just have Conlon & Co, the merchant bank. But what we do is fascinating. It’s a boutique merchant bank. We probably have all told 10 people. What I do now is I firstly have a network, that’s probably a trillion dollars of network of people I know, right? Meaning I can pick the phone up. I don’t tell you I know someone unless I know them. You know, I have a lot of people who, on the movie business and billionaires and they invest alongside me. But I also invest my own money in the deal. So I don’t broker anymore. I don’t do anything like that. I buy pieces of companies or pieces of deals and bring capital in alongside me.
Sean Conlon (29m 32s):
So I connect super high net worth people to really good deals. And I would say 70% of its real estate, and 30% of it is investment. So for example, a really cool deal
Sean Conlon (30m 14s):
And I was super flattered. We knew each other very well, socially. We would have dinner in the Greek Islands. And he read an article about me the Financial Times and called me up and said, “I’d love to sit with you.” So I ended up buying a strategic interest in his hedge fund. It’s like about $2 billion hedge fund. And I have introduced them to numerous, basically, some of the richest families on the planet. We just got off a call today with a family that’s probably worth $100 billion. And the people I know. So I know all these people and I connect them. I have built their trust up. I’m not hustling. I’m not looking for anything. I’m just making the connection and it goes from there.
Alina Warrick (30m 51s):
What do you think was your secret sauce to building that network?
Sean Conlon (30m 57s):
So I inherited something from my father, which is my father had an incredible love of life. He never met it, but he had a magic about him. And everybody says that about, you know, they’re obsessed with him. But my father died, we had a village of maybe 900 people. And 1000 people came to father’s funeral, and just a comment and he just had a magic about them. So I’m not claiming I have that. But people never forget me when they meet me and I make an impression. People like to be around me, it seems. And I love life, so that when I say people love to be around me, I don’t mean I can see them.
Sean Conlon (31m 38s):
I mean, I have such a passion for living and life. And whatever I do, I think that’s something people are attracted to. And I believe I’m incredibly authentic. You know, authenticity is much underrated these days in the world where you can make up your personality on Instagram, or Facebook, or whatever. So I think that was a big key to my success. And I truly was the living proof that I did extra ordinary things but I consider myself fairly normal person. And I think people are massively attracted to the fact that, “Wow, here’s a guy who really didn’t have, any edge, or any angle, or anything that set them apart.
Sean Conlon (32m 20s):
But his sheer desire and work ethic met him dude.” And you know what I could to. Allowing very rich people like their kids to come and work for me or intern with me, because I think they believe I am still a value in them, that it’s hard to give to your kids if they inherit their money.
Alina Warrick (32m 37s):
Amazing. Amazing. That’s so powerful. Thank you so much for saying that. I want to touch base on what you said earlier, which is those letters that you sent to your parents.
Sean Conlon (32m 47s):
Yes.
Alina Warrick (32m 48s):
And I’m looking at one that you posted on your Instagram page. And I think that one is 1989.
Sean Conlon (32m 55s):
Yes.
Alina Warrick (32m 56s):
And you said something about, “I’m saving a heart for my building, so you too, can retire.” And this is in your early stages, right?
Sean Conlon (33m 6s):
Yes.
Alina Warrick (33m 6s):
This is probably when you were not filthy rich, right?
Sean Conlon (33m 10s):
No, no. Delusional might be the appropriate make in that letter at this stage.
Alina Warrick (33m 17s):
But I want to focus in on this because they think it’s so powerful to write things down to dream big and then to see it come into fruition. So what were your thoughts when you were writing these letters and saying, “You are going to retire and I’m saving hard for my building for you too can retire”? Can you touch a little bit on that?
Sean Conlon (33m 41s):
Yeah. I mean, I can. And again at the time, you can. At the time incredibly sad place because my parents were amazing. And my father had obviously struggled so much, and I couldn’t believe how unfair life was. So I was driven massively to do something for my father. And at the time, I was disappointing myself, and I felt maybe down because I was in London, I was loading male friends at night. My father loves us all equally. He met us all and feel like we’re the most special kids in the world. But he had an extra interest.
Sean Conlon (34m 22s):
And he believed that I really was going to do something because I was just such a curious kid. And I was always bringing them little ideas and little businesses. I was working on and I always have little businesses. So I was just trying to tell them that I really was going to make it and I wanted to keep them going to like could because things were very bad for us back then. And you know, the bank was coming to take the house. But I’m just going to jump back to explain this bit of that story. When I was eight, I was run over by a drunk driver.
Alina Warrick (34m 54s):
Oh.
Sean Conlon (34m 55s):
As only you can and are coming home from school at three in the day. So there’s your stereotype. I got run over by a drunk driver. And I could tell my mother was mad. But I mean, I was underneath the car covered on blood.
Alina Warrick (35m 9s):
Oh my goodness.
Sean Conlon (35m 10s):
And I went off to the hospital. I was in the hospital for weeks and weeks. And you know, my parents really couldn’t come to see me because it loads of other kids and jobs and trying to survive. And so then I thought I’d done something wrong. So then I thought I was you know, I suppose it was in America being therapy or for that. I thought I’d done something wrong. And I thought, “God, if I ever see them again, I’ll be really good.” So only when my dad borrowed a Mercedes car. And he came and got me. And for the rest of my life, a Mercedes, and my father, and he Johnny Cash and the HVAC player.
Sean Conlon (35m 50s):
This is the vision and I said, “When I make it, I’m going to buy my father that car.” And we used to look in the window, the car dealership in our little village every Christmas. My father, say, “Oh, that’s a very rich person. Love that car. They’re getting it for Christmas.” And seems so foreign to me. So I left home I guess in ’88. And kinda then didn’t see my parents in 1990 till 1995, which is incredibly tough and lonely. But I’d saved up my money. And I bought my father a Mercedes for Christmas. It was the coolest thing I’ve ever done. I mean, I’ve subsequently met kings, and princes, and movie stars, and spent time at the White House and met all the Presidents, with that still the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life, was buy my father that car in ’95.
Sean Conlon (36m 41s):
And he died in 2000. But I retired him for like the last three years sort of his life. And I bought the house back. And my father lived long enough to see me have 300 employees. And I had Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton ride to him.
Alina Warrick (36m 58s):
Wow.
Sean Conlon (36m 59s):
He got to come to visit me at my 8,000 square foot mansion in Chicago. So it was cool. It was a very cool.
Alina Warrick (37m 9s):
Awesome, awesome. I love that. I love that. And I love the fact that you were at that point of just, “I’m gonna make it happen no matter what.” And then you wrote it down and sent it to your parents and advantages argument to fruition, of course, with a lot of hard work. But I think that is where it initially starts. If you write it down, you set your goal straight, and then you just push it through, which is amazing.
Sean Conlon (37m 34s):
You’re absolutely right. And sometimes people make bombastic statements, but actually, I understand why. I sometimes say things like, “You know, Conlon & Co is going to be a billion dollar merchant bank in the next three years.” Now, while that may not seem feasible, if I say it, I got to do it.
Alina Warrick (37m 51s):
Amen.
Sean Conlon (37m 52s):
And now like
Alina Warrick (38m 8s):
I’m getting goosebumps over here.
Sean Conlon (38m 12s):
Thank you.
Alina Warrick (38m 12s):
Thank you so much for sharing that.
Sean Conlon (38m 14s):
No problem.
Alina Warrick (38m 15s):
Sean, what do you think most prepared you to launch your business and to continue the growth of your business? Now, I know you said that you’ve read a lot of those books in the library.
Sean Conlon (38m 26s):
Yes.
Alina Warrick (38m 26s):
At a very young age. Do you think that is what kind of started that preparation? Or was there anything else?
Sean Conlon (38m 34s):
No. Well, yes and no. But so toxic question is they absolutely in an age where we have a zero attention span. People should not forget the magic of reading and dreaming. That’s what prepared me. I read voraciously and I dream. I’m not saying read about real estate. Read about people who achieved amazing things. Right? You know, read about people who were explorers. Read about people who achieve the impossible because they believed they could. So that’s what prepared me to make it, my reading and my dreaming. I mean, it was that basic. I’d love to say there are some other incredible silver bullet other than the fact, I did work 100 hours a week when I was starting the company, but I read so much and I dreamed.
Sean Conlon (39m 22s):
And when I would get beat up, I would read something that would inspire me and I would go again. So yeah, don’t ever discount the value of reading or listening to podcasts like this because this is a modern version of like reading a book, right?
Alina Warrick (39m 38s):
Right, right.
Sean Conlon (39m 38s):
I listen to somebody on your podcast, I would be like, “Yes, I can do that.” And that is kind of the purpose of what you do, right?
Alina Warrick (39m 46s):
Right, right. Learning from others that have already gone through that journey.
Sean Conlon (39m 50s):
Yeah, so you’re bringing the message to your listeners and say, “You guys can do this. Listen to this guy. He’s not exceptional, but he did extraordinary things because he believed he could.”
Alina Warrick (40m 2s):
Awesome. Awesome. I love it. Did you have any mentors that helped you out in the beginning stages?
Sean Conlon (40m 9s):
Not really. So I had my distant cousin who I worked for the janitorial business. And he was nice to me and cool when I was lonely and sad. He was supportive, but he found my dreams, just ludicrous and delusional, and rediculous. We’re still very close. He’s very proud of me. But I mean, he thought I was insane. Yeah, because he grew up in America in a nice normal suburbs. And well to do inherited some buildings. And he’s like, “Are you insane?” And “Yes, I was insane. And I was crazy enough to believe I could.”
Alina Warrick (40m 44s):
I love it. I love it. So let’s talk a little bit about The Deed. How did you go about hosting the reality TV series, The Deed, on the CNBC?
Sean Conlon (40m 54s):
Yes.
Alina Warrick (40m 54s):
Did CNBC find you or was it the other way around?
Sean Conlon (40m 58s):
Yeah. This is going to shock you. You will obviously see I’ve had a huge amount of media in my life until I got the TV show. I never had a PR person in my life or a publicist. And I only got a publicist when I got the TV show, because CNBC said, “You need one because God knows what you’re going to say on an interview, because you seemed to say exactly what you think.” So they’re horrified every time I go to a radio station or a TV station, because I’m like, “I’m just going to say what I’m thinking.”
Alina Warrick (41m 32s):
And what’s wrong with that?
Sean Conlon (41m 33s):
Oh, of course, of course. No, it’s nothing like controversial. I’m wonderfully liberal and laissez-faire. I’m living that live and all of the above thing. I had — this is a wonderful story. So, when I was the assistant janitor in a building, you kind of got a bounty to turn somebody in who wasn’t on the list. And we had a very funny fellow in the building called Bob Teitel. And Bobs nickname for me was subtitles, because he said I barely spoke English. So I’ll get to the punch line and say, Bob has an incredibly talented and incredibly successful person now. But in ’94, he’s walking up the street and he told the story.
Sean Conlon (42m 14s):
He spoke at Columbia, I believe in New York. And he given up raising his money for his first movie. And he sees a Range Rover and the 94. And he’s like, “You know, nobody had a Range Rover.” He said, “I’ve seen a picture of one once with the queen and some African dictator.” He said, “Who he gets out of the Range Rover? Subtitles.”, which is me. “Oh, hey, you guy, what’s up?” He’s like, he said, “Did you steal this?” And I, “No, man. I’m in real estate.” And I like, “What are you doing?” He said, “Well, it’s kind of like a movie but, yeah, I’ve come up short.” I said, “How short?” He is like, “10 grand.” I’m like, “Oh.” So I wrote him a check for seven grand. I’m sure I didn’t have in the bank account. But I signed the check with a big flourish.
Sean Conlon (42m 54s):
And that’s when you have checked. I have a check in my bag.” So I gave him money. And he went off and he made, Men of Honor, The Barbershop, Biggie Tupac, The Hate U Give credibly prolific their moviemaker, and married the first native born Prime Minister Bermudian daughter. I mean, totally married up in madness. So in 2008, he is working with CNBC on a kind of real estate show, and he asked me if I would come along as his advisor to give him gravitas in the industry, and he brought me along. And void or nine CNBC said at the meeting, like, “Okay, Bob, we love you but his guy Conlon, we want to do a show with him.”
Sean Conlon (43m 38s):
And I declined, because they wanted me to play a real estate mogul on television. But I’m like Donald Trump, who’s very good at playing a mogul in television, whether he had money or not. I was afraid I was going broke in the next year. And I couldn’t authentically be on television telling people how to do the real estate if I wasn’t sure I knew how to. So I declined. And I kept declining. And every year I kept declining, and they kept coming back to me. And after four years, I was back, you know, five years, and I was back, and I had my feet out. I mean, they come back. They said, “We’ve loved we’ve designed this show for you. And we think you’re perfect for part of it.”
Sean Conlon (44m 18s):
So I did it. And it was incredibly interesting and stimulating. I’ve done two seasons, and they have — we had talk for the third season but I will say it here. First time I haven’t said it, but it took 100 days to film. And while it’s been an incredible bucket list item, unless you want to be famous, which I don’t or well known. You know, it’s quite a twin age sword. You rarely get really good things come from being on television. You get a lot of unwanted attention, and people calling you about stuff. And I’ve achieved enough at this stage to not need the television things. So, I’m probably going to pass on the season three.
Sean Conlon (45m 1s):
Now, that being said, I’ve been offered an incredibly cool travel, really important TV station here and that’s tweaked my interest, our real estate travel show. I mean, come on.
Alina Warrick (45m 21s):
Hey, if you need me somewhere in the background, I’ll be able to volunteer.
Sean Conlon (45m 26s):
Good. Well, I’ll be giving you a call because I will visit all sorts of incredible real estate around the world is the proposed idea. Sounds like a dream gig, doesn’t it? This travel shows with one of the most major networks in the world and it would be actually the most important time slot. And I got that because the guy who runs programming for them. Twenty years ago, he made my business cards. Helped me make my business cards. And I didn’t know this, but he reminded me this after he called me up and he said, “Hey, would you be interested in doing a show for this television station?” I was like, “Wow, what are you doing over there?” He’s like, “I run program.” I’m like, “What!?” So it turns out, he left Chicago and went to work way overseas in Asia.
Sean Conlon (46m 7s):
And his mother had died at the time he worked for me. And I’d gone to the funeral, but I didn’t know them. But I remembered a year later, two days before the Cubs opening game, that his father used to go every year for 30 or 40 years with his mother. And I thought, “Well, that poor man must be really lonely.” So I owned a box at the time at Wrigley Field. And I don’t understand days while I knew nothing about the game, and I never went to the box. So I sent the car and got him and his family, and had them all driven to Wrigley Field on his mother’s 50th anniversary. And I forgot I’d done that. And they go from the TV station told me that last month that I did that 20 years ago. And I’d forgotten I’d done it. So that goes back to the last point.
Sean Conlon (46m 48s):
And then when I did stay in touch by email all the time, just I didn’t know what he was doing anymore. I won’t do a season three of The Deed. I’ve done it. It’s wonderful. It was incredibly, and it was all real. I did use all my own money. And everybody saw that show. Here’s the really short selling bit and you asked me in some of my questions, how I give back? Well, you know, when that show ended, it wouldn’t be very easy to move on. But I stayed made sure that everybody I’d started with, I helped finish up on my dime. So we went back on some of those deals. And I use my own money to finish it, just because I wanted to help the people. And I’m going to say, what was inspiring was 90% of the people on the show, which is really good people who work take advantage of, and you know, if you saw some of the shows it was the one episode particularly.
Sean Conlon (47m 38s):
Leticia was a wonderful young African American girl where the guy took advantage of her, jack the basement up and the house is falling down. And she’s spending every penny and she was living with her grandmother. Well, I gave her a loan after the show. And do you know, that we had no agreement on that. And she came to my office every month with a little check to pay me back and fall, which is really fulfilling. And we got her out. We got all our money back. And it was fantastic. And that made me feel really good.
Alina Warrick (48m 9s):
Oh, amazing. And I love how you started this story about the CNBC with the story of a when you gave the $7,000 check.
Sean Conlon (48m 20s):
Yes, yes.
Alina Warrick (48m 21s):
Like how the world the works is so amazing. When you do a good deed, it turns out to be tenfold in return.
Sean Conlon (48m 30s):
So it does. So let me just touch on that briefly here.
Alina Warrick (48m 33s):
Yeah.
Sean Conlon (48m 34s):
So for a period of time after 2008, I was resentful and a little bit bitter because my default position is to be nice and kind and help people but you know, I have a reputation for being tough. Once you cross a certain point, there’s a great expression every once in a while you have to shoot a hostage so people know you will. Its just good business. You know, I’m a wicked edge if I have to but it’s my least favorite approach to business. But I’ve done so much for so many people and none of it seemed to come back. And when I was on my own in 2009, and 10, and 11, and 12 trying to survive I never asked anybody to help me nobody really offered.
Sean Conlon (49m 16s):
And I was a bit bitter about it. But in the last three years, I’ve seen more karma come from stuff I’ve done over the last 30 years. So yes, it does. Listen, it’s not hard to be nice and you don’t need to be keeping a check register, but do things for people, generally speaking. But then there’s a point in your career, here’s my tough advice, where you have to flip and stop giving and start to call in some of your chips because it’s not maybe that the people who are you the chips will, you know, they forget, or they retire, or they’ve made so much money they don’t care. So there’s a time where you strike that point where you need to start to call back, give him some of your favors, in addition to hoping from karma.
Alina Warrick (50m 4s):
Love it, love it. So Sean, I’m really interested to know how do you look at failures? And how do you overcome them?
Sean Conlon (50m 12s):
So failures are obviously not failures, if you get backup, right? There’s so many cliches, you know.
Alina Warrick (50m 19s):
Yes.
Sean Conlon (50m 19s):
But like champion by how he behaves when he is winning, you can tell a champion by how he behaves when he gets knocked down. I’m the consummate example of that. I get knocked down so much. But I get back up. I mean, Michael Jordan, of course, he’s a God. But you know how many shots he takes to be that God, he misses a lot of shots that and he felt that himself, you know. He takes the crunch shot, and he misses some. Well, failure is what makes you. It’s easy to be great when you’re winning. But the true measure of a man or woman is when they get knocked down if they get back up. And that is, people will tell you that about me, I never give up but I’m better for having been knocked down.
Sean Conlon (51m 5s):
Failure should be a teaching moment. It’s not failure, if you don’t give up. And remember, most people give up. By statistic, they say, 97% of the people work 2% to 3% of the people who didn’t give up. And that’s it. So, failure is not failure if you get back up. It’s a teaching moment, you’ve learned something. I like to say there’s very little to be learned from the second cake from the mural. So I’m so experienced, because I’ve made so many mistakes. But you will find I’ve only met them once. Except my fiance might disagree with this, which makes me continue to do the same stupid things all the time but that’s another conversation.
Alina Warrick (51m 49s):
Yeah. No, those are personal characteristics.
Sean Conlon (51m 55s):
I’m a navy when it comes to that stuff.
Alina Warrick (51m 57s):
Yeah. Aren’t we all, Sean? Aren’t we all? So Shawn, let’s chat a little bit about successes. And I know you’ve dropped in a little bit here and there. But are there any that you would like to outline today?
Sean Conlon (52m 10s):
Yes. I mean, okay, so a couple of things. Like, when I started real estate, all the odds are stacked against me. I had a funny accent. I knew nobody in the country. And I got on the phone every night. And I got a huge amount of rejection. But I kept going, right, I was incredibly driven. And, you know, three years later, as a top broker in North America, okay. I went from making $14,000 a year to millions and millions a year. Okay, I did that. I definitely had the deck fully stacked against me but I did it. And I wrote down my little wish list and put it on my refrigerator. Secondly, something else that I think goes a long way towards your success. I just finished today writing five handwritten notes to people.
Sean Conlon (52m 53s):
So you know, something that —
Alina Warrick (52m 55s):
Did you say 500?
Sean Conlon (52m 55s):
No, five handwritten notes.
Alina Warrick (52m 56s):
Oh, five.
Sean Conlon (52m 58s):
Yeah. But I used to write handwritten notes to everybody. It’s so powerful. It’s still so powerful. And I would say, talking about successes, I’ve had more success combined from people saying, “God, that guy wrote me a handwritten note, I remember him.” So what was my successes, I started one of the fastest growing high tech real estate companies in the country, right? I was a top broker in North America probably. I have a TV show. I’ve done everything I’ve set out to do but it was not a straight line. I got knocked down. I got knocked back. I mean, I had everything go wrong. But you know what’s amazing, I’m a huge reader of history, and I’m particularly fascinated by like the First World War and stuff like that.
Sean Conlon (53m 39s):
I visited the site a couple years ago, myself. And I couldn’t help but think those men would go to bed at night. And if they survived the day, and went to bed that night, or slept on the mat. When they got in the morning, the world could have changed, the war could be over. So the point I’m making is, no matter how bad it gets, sometimes just go home to bed, or go for a run, or listen to little music. Because when you get up in the morning, the sun rises again, and you’ve got a brand new fresh start to go again. So that to me is success. The fact you live to fight another day. Sometimes you don’t want to die on that hill top. So my successes are very well documented.
Sean Conlon (54m 20s):
So I guess I don’t like talking about them so much just because they’re so documented. But if you think about it, I rocked up here with nothing. I didn’t have a green card. I knew nobody. And then in a decade, I was a multimillionaire and I traveled the world, and they, you know, Tiger Safaris in India, New Year’s Eve at the Maharaja of Jaipur palace. I mean, my life at 51, I’ve lived 10 lives that are less ordinary, because I believed I could. Again, I said at the start, I’m a fairly ordinary person in some ways, who did extraordinary things because I believed I could. And life is so short. And it’s so magic to live with.
Sean Conlon (55m 1s):
And don’t get me wrong, I have some really bad days like people. But net net, do you know how lucky we are to be in America? Even when all the craziness that goes on? You know, I think there’s 2 billion people in the world who live on $2 a day, you know.
Alina Warrick (55m 17s):
Thats so powerful.
Sean Conlon (55m 18s):
Yeah, we’re so incredibly lucky. You can do anything in America. I mean, that’s the last thing. My success is small compared to some of these people financially. But as success stories go, it is inspiring because people look at me and look, nobody looks at Silverberg and says, I couldn’t be Mark Zuckerberg, why? You have a better chance. And I’ve said this 100 times, statistically, you have a better chance. And you and I being hit by the same meteorite as we speak. That would be Mark Zuckerberg, it’s something very very bad. But for people listening to your podcast for them to be Sean Conlon not that far fetched at all, and that makes it so much more interesting, because what I did is really attainable for most people, if they get stuck in and put the work in.
Alina Warrick (56m 6s):
Is giving back either volunteering time or giving back to the community something part of your business values?
Sean Conlon (56m 13s):
Yes, it’s part of my values but so here’s my quirk, I love animals and wildlife more than people. So forgive me, people who are listening to this podcast. And all you animals who are live, listening, they’re all good. I’m obsessed with wildlife conservation. And I have a little Foundation, which is a memory of my father, the Conlon Wildlife Foundation. My sister helped run it and she’s a wildlife officer in Ireland now. But here’s the sort of cool stuff she did. I paid for it but she got through the cool stuff. She went and worked in India, and we’d like rescued 100 dogs in Kerala.
Sean Conlon (56m 54s):
We help buy back elephants of Namibia that we’re going to be sold to be haunted. She goes there. And for the period of time, she works there. So we found the center. We funded a Circus Animal Rescue Center in Ecuador. We do really cool stuff.
Alina Warrick (57m 8s):
Wow.
Sean Conlon (57m 8s):
And you can see the impact. You know, I said on the Lincoln Park Zoo board, which is a huge deal and very nice and fancy, but it’s so big and so much money, you can’t feel your impact. These are things I can see what I do. And it’s not about me, it’s about the impact. It can have a self fulfilling, I mean, look, I help lots of people, of course, too. I’m not a big public charity person. I’m not the guy who buys the table and bids on the big prize of tuxedo never been my thing. I help tons of people personally in my own private space and back home in Ireland, and I do it privately, and it’s much more fulfilling.
Alina Warrick (57m 44s):
I love it. I love it. That’s so amazing. Okay, Sean, what are some things that you would advise the next aspiring immigrant that wants to start their own business listening to you right now?
Sean Conlon (57m 56s):
Okay, well, the first thing is without being pushy, you have to get out meet as many people as you can, and you can have nice casual conversations. Your next meeting could be the meeting. You never know who you’re meeting. So you treat everybody incredibly well. Be curious. Don’t be afraid to take on that next job. You know, take on average jobs. Don’t be afraid to other people who I fired who I hire for high positions, they’re like, “Well, I’m not going to carry up the water. I’m not going to bring down the garbage and stuff like that.” Do everything. Do not be afraid to do any sort of work, right? But see, everybody in me there’s a potential opportunity.
Sean Conlon (58m 39s):
Doesn’t mean you don’t treat them incredibly well and you can learn so much in meeting people. But get out there and meet as many people as you can, without making it obvious that you’re a speed data. Pick a field you’re interested in, and learn about it. Read, read, read. Read as much as you can. It doesn’t need to be deep technical stuff. Read about stuff that fires your passion, because if you get fired up leading up making it. And if you say you’re in the solar business, read about some of the giants of solar business, and then get out and meet people in the business. Don’t be afraid to offer to intern for free for a little while. I’ve hired more people come on board as interns who said, “You know, I’d love to being paid but I know you can’t pay me right now.”
Sean Conlon (59m 23s):
A great way to get in the door. I’ll tell you a book I read that inspired me beyond belief. It was about the right — that was about McCulloch, very famous writer here. He writes about president. He wrote about the Wright brothers. Think about this. These guys have a bicycle shop in Toledo, Ohio. They’re fixing wheels on flat tires. And they’re thinking, “You know what, we’re gonna go out in the evening and learn to fly.” Now, if you want inspiration, think about that. They go out to the field every night. And I’m sure the neighbors are like, Oh, they would go those left and right for us as out of the field to fly fly again. What lunatic? And they flew.”
Sean Conlon (1h 0m 3s):
Do you need anything else? They don’t think about that. And those things still happen in America, the scale of business, the volume of business, the ability to fail, and dust yourself off and go again to this country is beyond compare within the world. You know, in England and Ireland, if you fail, you’re tarred and feathered forever. Not here. Dust yourself off, off you go again.
Alina Warrick (1h 0m 27s):
And forget about that broken English accent. Right?
Sean Conlon (1h 0m 31s):
Absolutely. Let me tell you something. Some of the richest people in the world are immigrants here who barely spoke English and speak English with a broken accent. I joke about my accent and you know, interestingly, it was a bit of a little debilitating despite of charm at the start, because we were like, “Well, what would he know about Chicago real estate?” But it made me work harder and know even more about it, right? So you can have a broken accent, speak broken English. But if you know more about that subject than any of your competitors, that will shine true. So put the work in.
Alina Warrick (1h 1m 4s):
Amazing. I love it. I love it. So Sean, to wrap it up, I have super, super fast questions for you. So what time do you normally start your day?
Sean Conlon (1h 1m 13s):
So I generally get up around, it varies but when I’m really in deal mode, I get up at like 5:30 AM – 6 AM. Now, I tried to, you know, the world’s gotten a little stranger, but I always tried to run or do yoga in the morning. And if I don’t get it in the morning, I religiously cut out an hour somewhere in the day to work out because it’s so important. That’s the other thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten old. I’ve gotten really healthy. And I find I operate so much better being healthy now. I have a real slaw. I do still tend to not go to bed till maybe 2 AM. It’s an old habit 3 AM.
Alina Warrick (1h 1m 50s):
That’s bad.
Sean Conlon (1h 1m 51s):
I know every night so I need very little sleep. I sleep for 15 minutes during the day, sitting in my office with my eyes closed, I can really do that. That’s an incredible thing to be able to do.
Alina Warrick (1h 2m 4s):
So you’re you’re a super human because if you’re only sleeping a few hours a night, you’re extremely productive.
Sean Conlon (1h 2m 11s):
Yeah, no, I mean listen, and I’m sure somebody could fix me and I could probably be more productive if somebody taught me how to sleep and do all those things. So like, that’s a bit of a flaw. I mean, it really is a bit of a flaw. And I run on adrenaline, but I don’t sleep much. You know, when I’m very, very disciplined. I mean, I’m very disciplined with my world. But yeah, I don’t sleep enough, but I do get up early, but I go to bed very late. I really sleep today. So if I go to bed at 2 AM, I get up at like, 6 AM.
Alina Warrick (1h 2m 41s):
That’s crazy. I wish I can do that.
Sean Conlon (1h 2m 43s):
No, I wouldn’t advise it because I’m sure it’d be better if I slept more.
Alina Warrick (1h 2m 48s):
Okay, so how many employees do you have?
Sean Conlon (1h 2m 51s):
I would say we only have 10 now. I’ve had over the years 1000s. And it’s wonderful because we’re set up in an investment banking structure. So there’s really maybe five partners and five employees. And I’m the majority partner and some, but I’ve incredible partners. And I’ve had the good fortune to a be partnered up with a fantastic guy was a wickedly smart Wall Street guy for like 30 years. And then my other partners are the Mayor Daley and the son Patrick, who if you read your history, the Daley’s went to Chicago for 54 years and have the most incredible network. They got John F. Kennedy elected.
Sean Conlon (1h 3m 31s):
That’s one of their obviously things are very famous for look them up. The Daley family, they’re amazing, Amazing American iconic family consider one of the most powerful American families in the last 100 years. And I was very honored when Mayor Daley retired after 23 years of running Chicago when he ultimately decided he wanted to go into business. He told his son that he just loved the way I did business and my energy and wanted to be part of it. So that’s incredible. Yeah.
Alina Warrick (1h 3m 59s):
So did you sell the brokerage company? Or did you kind of just slow down on that?
Sean Conlon (1h 4m 4s):
No, I sold it. My one residential brokerage twice and I sold my last one, the Compass, which was kind of fortunate, you know. They’re super high tech, huge company and they wanted to build market share. And a real compliment they were having trouble poaching, and I don’t mean that negatively because I really liked the company Composite Integrate but they couldn’t understand why the word unable to poach any of my agents. And while I wasn’t as big as some of the real estate companies in Chicago, my third brokerage, we had super high-end brokers. And we such a strong market share. So they couldn’t poach them. They couldn’t understand why and then they met me. And I remember the story.
Sean Conlon (1h 4m 45s):
The girl doing a call back to headquarters. She’s like, “I met Sean Conlon, and I get it.” There’s no way we’re gonna be able to get his agents we need to buy them. So they bought me
Alina Warrick (1h 5m 16s):
Awesome. How often do you watch TV in a week?
Sean Conlon (1h 5m 20s):
I’m guilty of watching bad television. I’m watching something now called Alone. And it’s fascinating because again, it’s another — Alone. They dropped 10 people out into the Arctic with 10 items. And they have to survive out there as long as they can. And you’ll want the winner gets a million dollars, but he ends up or her, ends up being there nearly 100 days if the builder are hot and hunt animals. It’s a perfect parable in life. It’s not the strongest guy who wins. It’s the most tenacious and the most innovative. And interesting last season, there was one mountain man who won.
Sean Conlon (1h 5m 60s):
But my God, he nearly got beaten by a two separate women. And it’s all down to the power of the mind. So that’s the sort of television I love. And I’m quite caught up on the politics of the times.
Alina Warrick (1h 6m 13s):
Awesome. Awesome. How many hours of work do you normally put in?
Sean Conlon (1h 6m 17s):
You know, I’d say I’m still an 80 hour.
Alina Warrick (1h 6m 20s):
Yeah.
Sean Conlon (1h 6m 21s):
But I’ve huge balance like that being said, You know, I fly fish across the globe. You know, I’m going to Egypt for New Year’s Eve. Last year, before I did the Tiger Safari in India. I spent time in Florence and Rome this year and Iceland. You know, so I travel crazy, but I’m accessible anyway. I can run my business on the go at this stage. Its just a dream.
Alina Warrick (1h 6m 50s):
Oh yes, it is. I love it. I love it. Well, Sean, I have to say that you truly inspire many immigrants out there with your story. You’ve come from the very bottom and built an empire. I’m sending you warm wishes and the best and successes your way. You’re a huge risk taker and I love the energy you put out.
Sean Conlon (1h 7m 14s):
Well, thank you.
Alina Warrick (1h 7m 16s):
Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on my segment.
Sean Conlon (1h 7m 18s):
You’ve really done wonderful, wonderful interview. You’ve been wonderful. You also have a wonderful style and energy to you. You make a great interviewer. You made me so comfortable. I discussed way more stuff than I intended to.
Alina Warrick (1h 7m 31s):
Good. Good.
Sean Conlon (1h 7m 31s):
You really
Alina Warrick (1h 7m 37s):
Amazing. Amazing, yeah. I have to stay in touch with you. And thank you so much, Sean again for taking time out of your busy busy life.
Sean Conlon (1h 7m 44s):
No problem. No problem. Listen, take care. I’m looking forward to hearing you.
Alina Warrick (1h 7m 47s):
Alrighty guys, thank you so much for tuning in. And hey, guys, I just wanted to ask if you can give me a quick shout out wherever you’re listening to this podcast at whatever platform. I’d love to give you a shout out as well on a future episode. I’ll see you guys all next time for another exciting and impactful episode. Take care. [/read]
