Brett Snodgrass and Michael Stansbury bid farewell to The Brett Snodgrass Podcast and introduce their brand-new show, The Iron Deep Podcast.
Michael Stansbury has been in the real estate industry for over 20 years in the Memphis area. Michael is the CEO and Owner of MemFixerUpper since it's conception in 2015. Michael started his real estate investment company from the ground up and has found immense success. On this episode of the podcast though, we transition into a new chapter!
This will be the last episode of the Brett Snodgrass Podcast which will turn into The Iron Deep Podcast. Michael will be one of the hosts of this new podcast; including myself. We will cover more topics regarding business owners, entrepreneurs, and men who want to make more of their life than just a fancy car or house.
We will remain on the same upload schedule, every Monday at 7:30 am. We will hopefully be bringing in more and more hosts as the show goes on to give you a variety of opinions, topics, and people to connect with. We hope that the Iron Deep Podcast will show you the truly important things in life; faith, family, and friends. We believe that iron sharpens iron and we are only as good as the people we surround ourselves with which is why we are wanting to include more hosts. We hope you enjoy this new chapter of the podcast!
MICHAEL'S SOCIALS
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/michael.stansbury
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-stansbury-59514510/
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Jb6x2J4cnmWZiARCxO8Bg
MICHAEL'S BUSINESS
https://www.memfixerupper.com/
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Join us for an exciting transition as we celebrate Michael Stansbury's 20-year real estate journey in the Memphis area and his successful venture, MemFixerUpper, established in 2015. Michael, the CEO and owner, has built his real estate investment company from the ground up and achieved immense success. In this special episode, we embark on a new chapter together!
We bid farewell to The Brett Snodgrass Podcast and introduce our brand-new show, The Iron Deep Podcast, co-hosted by Michael and me. Our focus will expand to cover a range of topics, including entrepreneurship, business ownership, and purpose-driven living for men who aspire for more than just material possessions.
The Iron Deep Podcast will maintain the same upload schedule, every Monday at 7:30 am. As we progress, we plan to bring in additional hosts to offer diverse perspectives, subjects, and connections. Our goal is to emphasize the truly important aspects of life—faith, family, and finances—and showcase how iron sharpens iron. We firmly believe in the power of surrounding ourselves with inspiring individuals, which is why we aim to involve more hosts.
Join us on this thrilling new chapter and discover the enriching conversations awaiting you in The Iron Deep Podcast!
I am super excited about this particular episode. You guys are not going to want to miss this particular episode because I'm getting interviewed by my good friend, Michael Stansbury. If you haven't heard of Michael Stansbury, go to episode 79, and tune in to the episode that I interviewed with Michael Stansbury. Michael is coming on this particular episode, and you're going to see more of Michael and his face and hear his voice a lot. Michael is joining the show sometimes as a co-host, but most of the time, he's going to be doing some interviews on his own with some other guests.
Now, that puts me to the next thing. This is the final episode of the Brett Snodgrass show. We’re transitioning out of the Brett Snodgrass Show into another show. Why are we doing that? I'm trying to fade in the background and take my name out of it, to be honest with you. Iron Deep is where we're going, and that's going to be a platform of shows.
We're still going to be doing shows with entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs with a purpose, and paving the way for faith and for leading their families and their organizations. We're not going to be calling it the Brett Snodgrass Show anymore. I'm still going to be on there doing interviews, but Michael Stansbury is going to come on. He's also going to do some interviews. The thing that God has told me more is more voices, more faces, so we're expanding the show. We’re going to be using a different name and we're going to talk about that more as well.
With that being said, I'm sorry this is the final episode of the Brett Snodgrass Show. We're transitioning as something greater and better during this season. Make sure you guys go over and check it out. Again, Iron Deep is what we're going after, building a community of men that are business owners, entrepreneurs, and business leaders that are going after living out their true identity, purpose, and legacy through Jesus Christ.
That's who we're going after. That's the community that we're building. That’s what this show is going to be about. We're going to be interviewing people that hit that profile and can help you guys out. That's about it. I want to introduce you guys to Michael Stansbury and myself as I do this interview about the final episode of Brett Snodgrass Show. Thanks. I'm with my good friend, Michael Stansbury.
I'm excited to be here, Mr. Snodgrass.
You’ve got the sports announcer voice. You used to be a sportscaster. That's what you wanted to be growing up.
We grew up in the ‘80s, and you listen to the radio and sometimes TV, but the radio was more. We listened to a lot of sports on the radio and then sports on TV. What made those sports great was not only sports, but the broadcasters made them great. I wanted to be at the ballgame broadcasting, doing play-by-play. That was a dream. Did it for a little while, then realized it wasn't what I wanted. In life, you have the right to change your mind but still enjoy sports.
Who is your favorite sports broadcaster?
The best sports broadcaster to ever grace a microphone in my mind was Jack Buck of the St. Louis Cardinals. Now, that's a homer answer because I'm a big Cardinal fan. I loved the way that, if there was a rain delay, he could keep you entertained. They wouldn't go to like, “We're at a rain delay. We're going to share this old broadcast from 1985,” or whatever. He would tell stories, and you'd be enthralled. He was good. Vin Scully of the Dodgers is second. There are a lot. There’s a top ten. Did Vin Scully pass? I don't know if Vin Scully is still with us or not, but no one alive is in the top ten.
That’s so awesome. That’s crazy. I love to hear your story behind that. This is a different type of episode guys. Number one, interviewing Michael Stansbury. He’s on the show with me. He was on episode 79. We got to hear from Michael Stansbury about his family, four kids, husband to Deidra, a man of God, owns a real estate business in Memphis, Tennessee, an awesome guy. He went to the very first Men's Awakening through Iron Deep. Got to help, and you spoke there. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for being a part of Iron Deep. Thank you for being who you are. You're awesome.
I try.
This is a little bit of a different type of show. Out of a lot of praying and a lot of reflection, we're making a shift right now. As you guys have known, I've talked about Iron Deep a lot, and my passion for that, my passion to pour into men and entrepreneurial men and what that's going to look like, and what God has been doing through Iron Deep and that ministry. I've been talking a lot about that.
I've had the Brett Snodgrass Show now for 100-plus episodes. In general, I started in 2017. We’re going on six years here this 2023. It’s been awesome. We've done some real estate shows, wholesaling shows, and that's been great. We transitioned to the Brett Snodgrass Show, which, again, was that filler of didn't know what to call it, so you call it your name. That was great but what the Lord has been doing was show me with the vision of Iron Deep, which we're going to talk about.
I brought Michael Stansbury on this particular show because I've asked who would love to be a part of this community, this organization, and Michael's raised his hand. He said, “I would like to be a part of this.” You're awesome and you want to do the show, so here we are. Michael is coming on. You’re going to learn about him more. Thanks, Michael, for doing that. Any feedback?
I'm excited. Here’s the feedback. Feedback is I get to hijack the Brett Snodgrass Show. We get to talk about what we're doing and the transition and find out, “Where are we going?” What's cool is your audience has been with you for a while, and we all change. That’s good. Growth is good. We’re going to go into the why and where we're headed. I'm excited to hijack your show and interview Brett Snodgrass and draw you out. I'm excited. This is something that, again, this scratches that itch you talked about earlier about, “You’ve got that broadcast voice.” I did do some television and sports broadcasting. It never leaves you because you want to find the right reason to do it.
One of the things that I can notice about where you went from doing the show about wholesaling, about real estate, and then you transitioned to Brett Snodgrass Show where you get into the deeper meanings of, “Why do we do what we do in the first place? How do we do it? How do we reflect who our true identity is?” That's a part of it.
That's why I'm excited about it because that's where I am as well. I've got this business that I do, but how do I want to affect other men? How do I want to see those guys, the people or audience, and the people that are associated with Iron Deep, grow in their relationship with God? What does that look like? How can we help be a conduit for that? With that being said, Brett, what are the changes that have happened in your life last few months? Give us an update there.
Thanks, Michael. There’s been a lot going on. As you guys have known, I was able to step out of the real estate business a few years ago. Brian Snider took over as CEO of our real estate business. I still owned it. If you think of sports, I got to sit in the owner's box. That’s been awesome. I'm not the coach and coaching the team and the players on the field or coaching my real estate team, I got to sit in the owner's box and root them on and say, “Great job, guys.” I got to celebrate them. That’s been great for the last few years. It’s gotten me a lot of time to heal, honestly.
Michael, I've been doing real estate and business for many years now, which is crazy to say. It can play a toll. You put your heart, your sweat, and your tears into it, sleepless nights, and you're trying to run this team and do deals. After many years, I was able to step out of the owner's box and root them on. That’s been awesome.
There has been a transition that has taken place. One change is that Brian Snider had accepted a full-time position, which is amazing. I super celebrate him. With the real estate market where it's at, I felt like it was time for me to step back a little bit more into real estate and take the reins on that again. that's been in the last few weeks. I've stepped back in as CEO of the Simple Wholesaling team. It’s been good. It's been interesting. Getting back in that and what is that going to look like? The Lord knows. That’s been one change that's happened in my life.
With Iron Deep, again, sitting in the owner's box got to help me dream again. As a 40-year-old man, somewhere along our entrepreneurial journey, we stopped dreaming. Maybe you can relate to that. I started to dream about, “What is the meaning behind me and my life? What is God calling me to? What is my identity? How can I live out my purpose and leave my lasting legacy?” That’s what I've been thinking about and focused on. That's when Iron Deep was born.
I've always wanted to impact men's lives. I've always been around entrepreneurs and business owners. I said, “Let's niche that down. I want to impact men's lives that are business owners. I want to affect the Kingdom What’s a better way than impact men's lives that are business owners and very influential? I can impact their hearts and they can go out and do some amazing things for the Kingdom, their organizations, or their families.”
That's what Iron Deep is about. I've been dreaming about it. We hosted our very first event in September 2022 in the Rocky Mountains. You were there. The response went well. It was staggering where I thought, “I needed this. I knew that I needed something like this.” I realized that other men need this as well. That’s some of the things that's been going on behind Brett Snodgrass’s life.
I remember when we first talked about The Iron Deep. I met you at a CG event maybe in Florida. We had talked via email, and you had mentioned this. I said, “We had ruminated over this.” We'd both been there and both been affected by different organizations. We'd go down there, but we'd seen the same things and it had the same effect on us. We had that in common. We have real estate in common. The coolest thing that we had in common was the fact that we both gravitated toward our relationship with Christ, and we talked about that.
When you were setting the foundation for what you wanted in Iron Deep, and then the first event that happened in Utah, what was it like when you got home, those 72 hours? I know what it was like for me. Not only it was pulled off, it was amazing, but what were those 72 hours? What was downloaded on your spirit? How did you see it going from there? What was that like? What was the big takeaway?
I've never done anything like this. A lot of times, we get into our comfort zone. I remember when I started the real estate business, never flipped a house before, never bought and sold a house. That first deal was like, “I can't believe we're doing this. This is crazy. I'm going to flip this and make some money.” That's crazy stuff. After 3,000 of them, you're like, “Whatever. We've done that before.” This was the same thing.
It was so much deeper and more meaningful because it had the Kingdom purpose behind it. A lot of men’s lives are involved and you think of this thing in your head and you've been praying through this and you put a lot of energy into it and a lot of prayer and hope into it, thinking, “I don't know how we're going to do this. God, you give me the strength to pull this off. How am I going to lead 26 or 27 guys through this program that is different?” It's unique.
We did it. God showed up and He's good. We realized He shows up and He meets people where they're at. He loves them. He is running after us all and He's pursuing us. All we got to do is say yes and to come home. That’s the part of Iron Deep. Are we going to choose to come home? that's where it landed.
When I got home from that event, I was like, “Wow.” I had some exhaustion because we put a lot of energy into that. We're like, “We did it. I think God was glorified through it,” and it was more of, “What do we do next? Where do we go from here?” We put a lot of energy in this one event and we've seen events and people go to retreats and they go to camps or whatever it is and they have that mountaintop event and they get a lot of great stuff out of it. They go home, and a week later, they get back into their own lives and that's it.
The first thing that came to my mind was, “I don't want to do that. I don't want this to be a one event and come home and that's our life. We had this great experience, and let's remember that. I didn't want Iron Deep to be that. The whole point is, how do we bring a community of men together? How do we continuously walk with them, sharpen them, go deeper with them, and have them stop and reflect on what's important, purpose, identity, and legacy? How do we do that?”
That was my first thought. I don't have all the answers to that, but my first thinking is, “How do we build a community of that, and not have those one mountaintop experiences?” Post the retreat and the Men's Awakening was great, but after that is more important. That’s what I thought. When they go home to their lives, they have their work, they have the enemy attacking them, and all that, how are we going to sharpen and walk with them through that? That’s my first thought.
My next thought was, “I need this and other people need this. This is something that they're looking for.” We've been part of other groups, mastermind groups, real estate groups, and networking groups. You've led BNI groups and business groups. Those are great and it's awesome. We get a lot of great resources and business, but I wanted to do something that was a little bit different that maybe was more unique and harder to find.
Maybe it was taking some of the stuff from the business groups, mastermind groups, networking groups, church, and some groups. Let's try to put all that together and then add more things, undistracted environments surrounded by God's glory. All men of the same driven mindset. All of that put together is some things I'm thinking about this community. Those are some of my initial thoughts after coming home.
One of the things I can attest to is the curve that you have in relationships with other men that are business owners locally. You mentioned BNI. I've been with a BNI group for years, but the level of intimacy, there are a couple of guys that I've gotten to know pretty well, but they've never been as vulnerable as you are when there are no distractions, and when you take a lot of the walls down and you get in a place where, “There's this gentleman over here. He's got a business in Indiana. He's struggling with the same things I am. This is a place where we can talk about this.”
The interesting thing about The Iron Deep is that the whole experience was awesome. You can ask anybody that was there. If you know somebody that was there, ask them about it. Afterward, we've got groups that meet once a month. We've got a Slack channel. We've got email groups and text threads from friends that I met there. That’s one of the things that the foundation is being laid for that afterward of these relationships continuing on so that their relationship with God can grow deeper.
I've been part of church events, high school retreats, and things like that where that does happen where a kid has an absolute change. Afterward, that kid's going to go to college or that kid's going to go off and do this and they don't have the connective tissue that is those relationships that they formed over those 3 or 4 days.
That happened to me when I was in high school. I met Jesus for the first time on a weekend retreat, but I went to college and didn't get connected with a like-minded church. What happens when you don't get connected to your community of believers? You can only imagine. That’s one of the best parts of it. It was great, but the best part is we're continuing on with these relationships with these guys. Whenever I heard this word about intimacy, even intimacy with the Father, intimacy with other men, it's like, “What is that? Is that weird?” It’s weird if you make it weird. If you're vulnerable in this sense where you know other men are struggling with the same things that you are and you can be real there.
Scripture tells us that Jesus struggled with every temptation that we struggle with. That's why it makes Him going on the cross that much more meaningful. There's nothing that he didn't see, feel, or was tempted by that we’re not tempted by. That’s the same for all men, all married men, entrepreneurs, that common thread that was part of The Iron Deep community. The intimacy word was something that tripped over me. That was a Mike problem, not the word intimacy problem. I had to dig in there.
That's good. That word does trip up people. You think about intimacy, you think about maybe your intimate relationship with your spouse. When you talk about the BNI group and the thing about some of these other groups that I've been a part of, is people don't know me. They know what I've told them. They know about my business a little bit, but they don't know the real me. They don't know everything about me. I haven't taken the masks off.
Iron Deep was designed to be known and to know. Intimacy, for me, is, “Do I really know Michael Stansbury? Does he really know me? Does he care about me? If my wife is sick and I call up Michael Stansbury and he says, ‘I'm going to pray for Brett and his wife,’ is he going to do that? Does he really care?” That's what intimacy is. Do they want you to succeed? Do they care about you not only if you're struggling with something? Are they there for you? They want to be there for you. When you're succeeding, are they celebrating with you? Are they super happy for you?
A lot of times, we don't have that. Either way, people are struggling. People are like, “I'm going to pray for you,” but, “I really don't care. Let’s be radically honest. I don't care because it's not affecting my life.” If you're succeeding, you're killing it at business, you're awesome, and you're telling me about it, most people, “That's great. It makes me feel bad because I'm not there, and I want to be there. I want you to be worse. I want you to fail a little bit more, Michael.”
I've been both of those people. “Why is he killing it and I'm not?”
Intimacy is both of those scenarios, and you are there for them. If they're struggling, you want to be there for them, pray for them, and be a good brother. You want to celebrate with them. That's intimacy. Intimacy with the Father is the same thing. Do you know Him? He knows you but do you know that He really knows you? What is He saying about you? That’s that relationship component. It’s that deeper component.
That’s where Iron Deep is. It’s like iron sharpening iron. We're there for each other. We're sharpening each other, but we're also going deep. This isn't a friend group. We do have a lot of fun, we kick it up, and we're playing games, foosball, and all that stuff. We have a lot of fun, but we are going deeper too. I want this to be that deeper brotherhood that we are there for each other.
I'm tired of living life with shallowness. I don't know about you. I feel like we are so shallow right now. If you think about it, our culture is designed for shallowness. We have shallow relationships. We have shallow thoughts. We don't think deeply anymore. We don't dig deep into the Bible. We're going from this to that. We're shifting from social media to whatever else is going on. We never pause. We’re never undistracted. We never do anything like that. We're completely shallow creatures with shallow relationships. We're sick of it. I don’t know about you.
The Iron Deep team sent that book over Christmas. I was reading through it, and I was reading about this gentleman that does manuscripts and he writes with a pen. What was interesting is about how much time he takes to write. Now, my handwriting looks like I wrote it like a doctor like you're getting a prescription from me. I have that type of signature. As a real estate guy, you go to the closing table. You don't even look at the documents. You're signing away. This guy takes more time to go from here to here. You can see this. That's how, sometimes, even as you were talking about relationships, more people are shallow and transactional and very short-term thinking.
Sometimes, and I'm so guilty of this. “Let's check the box. Let's get into Scripture. I've got to read this,” and I'll read it. I'll write something down, and then I'm worried about, “I got these tasks I got to take care of,” instead of sitting in it. One thing that Iron Deep did well is with everybody, you got to sit in there and hear people and their stories. When we were there for a while with my little small group, four hours went by. It seemed like it went by in 10 to 15 minutes.
When we were designing it, we had a couple of hours for that and I'm like, “That's a long time.” That's awesome that you guys flew by. We never sit and we're always on to the next thing. With these events and stuff, it takes time to unwind and unravel. Sometimes, it can be uncomfortable, but it takes time to build that depth of the relationship with God and each other. That’s cool.
We talked a little bit about what Iron Deep did. Where is Iron Deep going?
Michael Stansbury is coming on. He's going to be doing some interviews with me. I'm going to be doing a lot of the interviews as I've always done. Michael Stansbury is going to do a couple of interviews with some guests. He’s jumping on board. One of the things that I want, with all that being said, is I feel like God's been leaning on me. He's saying, “There needs to be more faces and more voices. It can't just be My voice.” More faces, more voices speaking with a singular purpose, that's His purpose. That’s one thing.
You're going to be seeing some more faces and some more voices, not Brett Snodgrass, whether it's videos or shows. It’s going to have a very similar tone because it's going to be with the Iron Deep DNA, the Iron Deep way. That’s one thing that we're going to be doing. If you go to IronDeep.com, we are doing some more events. We're going to be doing these retreats, and that's typically their onboarding process. I feel like if you want to get to know who Iron Deep is, if you want to get to know the DNA, you need to come to a retreat. I can talk to you for 30 minutes over the phone, but you're not going to understand it unless you come to one of these Awakening Retreats.
The first step always is to come to an Awakening Retreat. Where we're going is this in-depth community of guys. We’re forming this community. We have twenty-some guys that have come, but here's the invitation. I'll wrap it up with this. The invitation to be in Iron Deep, and if you want to be a part of Iron Deep, is to raise your hand and the invite is, “Do you want everything that you are, your identity, your purpose, and your legacy, everything that you're doing, in your business, your families, to be all about for Christ, all about the Kingdom?”
It's not, “We have some business guys, and they also go to church sometimes. We have some business guys, but they say they're Christians and that's what it is.” It's not that. The invitation in Iron Deep is if you're raising your hand, you come to this awakening event, and you want to be part of this community, are you willing to surrender your life, your business, your family, and you want to be around some other guys that have that same heart posture? That's what Iron Deep is going to be. That’s the invitation. If you're interested in that, go check out Iron Deep. I'd love to see you at our Men's Awakening Retreat. We’re still forming some of the details with all that right now, but that's where we're going to be.
I have a saying that I heard a couple of years ago, “All of Christ for all of life.” It's one of those things you think deeply about because sometimes, guys compartmentalize. They say, “On Sunday, you've got me, Lord. On Saturday, you may have me for a little bit. Monday through Friday, it's all business. I'm going to go and try and do this.” Go ahead.
I want to put another detail in there too because I don't want people to think that we're perfect. We're not doing anything wrong. We’re still broken. We're still trainwrecks most of the time. We’re still trying to figure this out, trying to walk the narrow path. I'm making mistakes and errors every single day, but the heart posture behind it is, “I'm going to slip up. I'm human. I'm going to make mistakes and I'm going to fall off the path sometimes.”
The difference is that's where Iron Deep comes in. That's where these other guys say, “Brett, I've been seeing this.” My desire though is to live that out. I'm not teeter-tottering. I'm not saying, “I want Christian a little bit. I want Jesus a little bit. I like this other stuff too.” I'm all in. I'm going to make mistakes. I'm going to mess up. I want to be all in. I'm desiring to be all in. I want to put that out there.
We did 35 minutes there about where the Brett Snodgrass Show is going. To wrap up, we've got a new show label. This is where we're going. We got a new YouTube channel. Again, if you're interested, we'd love to see you at the retreats. That's the first step. Reach out to us. If you have any questions about what it is and where the next one is, we'll go from there.
Thanks, everyone, for being on the show. This is the final episode of the Brett Snodgrass Show. We're transitioning into The Entrepreneur's Journey. We're going to do another episode with Michael. I'm going to talk about him and ask him some questions. This is about his involvement with Iron Deep and this new show. We’ll also share a little bit about why don't we call it the Iron Deep Show, and then we'll be talking about some other things coming in the future as well. Check out the next episode of The Entrepreneur's Journey with Michael Stansbury. We'll see you.
Thank you so much for checking out the Iron Deep channel. If you liked this, slam on that like button. If you liked it, hit the subscribe button here. Remember to leave us a comment, and let's mingle in the comment section, you all. Here at Iron Deep, we strive to create content for middle-aged businessmen that involves identity, purpose, and legacy, all with a foundation that's rooted in Christ. Check out our website at IronDeep.com to apply to be a part of the Iron Deep Brotherhood Community. Thank you so much. I'll see you next time.
