Living With Trust, Faith & Confidence: Conversations With Sarah Sullivan
Sometimes our life journey just needs a little bit more trust, faith and confidence. Sometimes, you need to take that proverbial leap, like today’s guest did. The founder of Sugo Capital, Sarah Sullivan joins Chad Burmeister in a lively conversation that walks us through her story, from her dreams of being in the circus, discarding her dreams to chase financial success, to her entry into real estate. Sarah speaks about finally living her dream by opening a circus school and gives advice on how to succeed professionally. This is a must-listen if you’re at the crossroads of a decision.
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Living With Trust, Faith & Confidence: Conversations With Sarah Sullivan
I've got a cool person with me. Sarah Sullivan is from the Bay Area in San Francisco. She is the Founder of SuGo Capital. She's been in the space for years and decided that, "I can help other people make money on investing in real estate too and share some of the lessons that I've learned over the years." SuGo has been around for a few years. There’s about 8 to 10 years of background building that company. Welcome to the show.
Thank you, Chad. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. What a great introduction. I appreciate that.
In real estate with these Bitcoin fluctuations going on, it's important to invest in something that you know has physical value behind it. There's something to what you're doing as a business.
We were talking about how it fluctuates. I'm a tortoise investor. We'll get there. It inches its way up. It's steady. We know what's going on.
There are some pops, but the drops are much smaller over time and you get there. I like to connect you to our audience to start out with by asking what was exciting to you when you were a kid. You're 5, 6, 7, your first memories that you may have. What got you up in the morning where you were like, "I need to go and do blank." What was that?
I loved gymnastics and the circus.
Were you in a circus or would you like to go to the circus?
I dreamed of being in the circus but I was not in the circus as a kid. I did gymnastics as an adult. I did carry out that dream but not as a kid. Something I love doing as a kid, which is bizarre and the opposite of the circus, is I loved playing secretary.
You've got me on the circus because I think about Cirque du Soleil and some of those cool things they do. What was the movie about the circus? The song was This Is Me.
The Greatest Showman.
Did you watch that movie?
Yes. I went to a circus school for aerial arts and partner acrobatics. This is on my 30th birthday. I lived out that dream. I went three months full-time to circus school. I learned all that aerial stuff. I ended up opening a circus school here in the Bay Area when I came back from that. I did the training in Europe. I came back and opened a circus school for children in the Peninsula in Silicon Valley. I taught trapeze, the aerial rope, which was in that movie, and partner acrobatics.
I don’t think I’ve met anybody who’s gone that far. I remember, as a kid, I did one of those islands where they happen to have circus nets where you could do the trapeze and all that. That was fun. They tried to get me to wear the tights and I was like, "I'm a teenage boy. I'm not doing that." What a fun experience. Trust and everything that's involved in that, physical and mental. There's so much to it.
It's amazing the community that is built around it. You trust the people who put up the equipment, who are catching you, holding you, and spotting you. It is your life in their hands. It builds a super tight community.
What do you think tied the line between when you're a kid to you becoming 30, going to Europe to learn how to do this, bringing it to the Bay Area, and opening it? Where did that come from? Why was that a vehicle for you?
Physically, that was a natural talent of mine growing up. However, in my head, you don't make money in a circus, so I never pursued it. I went to school. I got A's. I went to college. I got a degree and an MBA. I followed that path of making money. It was discarded as this is not a path to take because it doesn't make money even though it made me so happy. I graduated from my MBA program in 2009 when everything was crashing. Only 30% of people got jobs who are graduating with graduate Degrees. I took a job I didn't like just to have a job. I was like, "This is lame. This is not what I expected for me at 30." Luckily, I have an extremely supportive husband. When I said I want to move to Bristol, England, do this three-month full-time program, live apart, and train all day every day, he's like, "Go for it. That sounds fun."
My wife, when I was in Arizona and we were moving to San Francisco, we did the same thing where it was, "This job opportunity is amazing. I'm going to go get this apartment for three months and then we'll buy a house and move." I didn't know we had that similar connection. Most people don't split apart for three months at a time in their marriage. It was an eye-opening experience.
Trust, Faith & Confidence: If you're not able to learn enough to cross into a vision in your personal life, then think about your why and think about how important it is.
That’s the good point, most people don't split apart for three months of their marriage. It's not like, "I'm going to go do something random." If it's to achieve a vision or something that's a goal in your life and it will get you both closer to one of your vision then what's three months in a span of, we live a long time.
Everybody in their life has ups and downs on the rollercoaster called life. Are there times where you felt like, "This is terrible. Why do I have to go through this?" You get out on the other side, you look back and you say, "That was a real gift" Is there any of those experiences that you've had?
Yes.
Think about the people who are reading. Every day, you run into some new buzz saw. There are certain things in life they're like, "That's a mountain that I have to go around or under."
I didn't have anything that was one of those big, it happened to me, kind of things. Growing up, when I was in middle school and high school, we lived next to a church. We were very modest in our living. People would bring to the church clothes for homeless people in the donations. I used to work in the nursery. I had a key. I would go in. I would take clothes to wear because I needed clothes to wear. Part of my middle school and high school experience was wearing clothes that were meant to be donated to homeless people. I embodied at the time that I want to be grungy, but inside I was like, "I want to be rich when I'm older." That gave me a lot of drive for later. There are pros and cons to that. You don't want to be driven by money. It gave me the drive to excel and exceed. At that time, I thought the best way to do that is to do great in school. I did all the AP stuff, the great grades, great college, and graduate school. It did give me a drive to pay attention, to educating myself, investing in my brain, investing in myself because I wanted a different reality for myself financially and for my family.
I think of stories of people who came from Europe, Asia, and other places. They came to our country. In the stories, when it's one step removed. Yours is actual living that. For you, it's like you've seen and lived it. I think of my dad, who grew up in Wisconsin. They didn't have a lot of money when he was a kid. I'm one step removed. I've heard the stories of that. Being able to live through that has to have a positive impact on you long-term, or it can.
For any entrepreneurs reading, I was investing in real estate while I was working in tech companies in Silicon Valley in leadership positions, I had a lot on my plate at once. I had my two young kids. I was teaching circus in the evenings. There was one night where it hit me like, "This is way too much." I was not a person I was proud of. I was the person with the permanent frown line, stress marks, and everything. I took stuff off my plate. What I kept was my own business. I grew it. It's so fulfilling. It wasn't like a mountain to get around or an adversary situation but it was a lot of work to get it going.
I kept it so strong, my vision. With my husband, I kept saying, "This is my vision. This is going to be our reality. Once my business reaches this revenue, then we can leave these things behind. Our lifestyle is going to be flexible. We can live where we want. We can do what we want." A lot of times, people focus on the short-term pleasure and they don't reach their vision because they're in the moment. If you have a good idea, something you're passionate about, you can hunker down, get through the first year of getting it going, and commit to that vision, once you get there, it's like, "Wasn't that worth it?"
I remember my wife's pastor. We did premarital counseling several years ago. He said, "You can do anything for any amount of time as long as you know why." That always stuck with me. As Gerhard from Selling Power always says, "The bigger the why, the bigger the try." Figuring out what your why is, writing it down, and knowing what it gets you through whatever problems or challenges you face.
That why needs to be outside of money and you, even if it can be outside of your family. My why to get everything going in my business was I wanted more time with my girls and our family to have freedom. We got to a certain level. I was like, "Reach the goal. I can relax." On my 40th birthday, I sent an email out to all of my investors. Forty is a big year to reflect. I said, “What I'm most proud of is creating this company, SuGo Capital. Thank you for growing with me." I got so much love back from everyone about how I changed their life with my investments. I said, “My why is different. I'm serving people. They are so thankful.” My why is people who need me to help them invest. It's a whole new why and level of thinking. Instead of my goal being replaced income, now my goal is how I get it huge and help a huge number of people.
I did a meeting like this with my business coach several years ago. He kept asking the same question like, "Chad, let's say you sell your company. What are you going to do?" I'm like, "I want to go on a cruise ship with my wife for a year." "After that." I'm like, "What do you mean? That's it. That's going to be awesome." He was like, "That's still about you. What else?" I was like, "Wait a second." I had the shirt on from Elevation Church under my other shirt. I'm like, "I haven't worn this in two years." When I moved from Charlotte, North Carolina, I've wanted to open a church. I'm not a pastor. I'm not ultra over religious guy. I said, "I feel like that's the next big thing." My grandfather instilled in my mother and then in us, belief. Once I connected to that, I said, "There's a way bigger why for me." All of the other hard stuff of doing the business becomes super easy. I naturally need to do that. It becomes frictionless and stuff you have to do to get to the bigger thing. Have you found that a little bit as well?
Yes. I always ask my investors that as well if they're not able to cross the line. It's the same in business, money, and for everyone. If you're not able to learn enough to cross into a vision in your personal life, then think about your why and how important is that. Isn't it worth the short-term pain? If the pain is learning something, that's not that painful. Come on.
This one's the hardest question that most people have. What would you like to accomplish in life that would change everything for you?
There are a lot of women who are not thinking about money. They're thinking about maybe, "What is my paycheck?" They're not thinking about what to do after that. I have tried and had it be part of my mission that I have not accomplished at all of trying to create a shift in the excitement in females around my age around how their money can work for them. It seems to be not something that a lot of women are interested in. Talking to men, they're like, "It's exciting. My money can grow. Let's jump into it." That's been a mission that I have not been able to accomplish. I will be over the moon if that's something that I ended up being able to create a movement or a shift to make investing a fun thing for women that they get excited about, sit around, and talk about while they're shopping or something.
The vision that came to my mind when you said that it is a money tree, a visual of money can grow on trees. It's funny, son and daughter, I have a daughter too. My son is like, "Dad, let me do this." He made $4,000 or $5,000, maybe for his summer job. He put $3,000 into one silver 100-ounce bar. He put $1,000 into ViewStub, which came out of the conversation with the Board of Advisors. I put in ten and he put in 1 of the 10. He's got one risky investment. He's got $3,000 that's very safe. With all the inflation going on, it could double. He's got $6,000 in other stocks and investments. It's up to $10,000 or $12,000 from $4,000. He can pull out. We pay him an allowance at college and things of $500 a month. He's sitting on real cash that will go from $12,000, $20,000, $50,000 to whatever he wants it to grow to.
To get there and do that, he had to learn some things, but he didn't have to trade hours for those dollars.
Think three years we're sitting at the Board of Advisor meeting in Sarasota, Florida. We're at lunch. You look back and you go, "You won't believe this, Chad. This happened." What is this?
Trust, Faith & Confidence: You can have a crappy situation with your property and amazing people and you can still make a successful situation around it.
About all the apartments in this certain city and investors made billions of dollars.
It's a unique time in the history of the world. Real estate has always been a unique time. It's good partnering with someone who knows what they're doing. Helping a lot of people make a lot of money would be a fulfilling thing.
That's super fun. When my partners and I get on the phone and we hear a selling price of a property we're selling and we calculate investors are going to make X amount of returns on this sale, we're celebrating. We're excited. How much money investors make is so exciting.
What about in your business? There are always things that we face that are like, "I wish I could change that." without exposing personnel troubles or anything like that. Is there something that you're tolerating where you're like, "I probably need to snip that or figure out what to do in that area?"
I did have a bunch of investors who wanted something that I didn't have. I'm creating it for them. It wasn't a big issue. It was more like my inability to serve a certain segment of my clients in a very effective way. I had to learn a whole bunch of new things and create something new for them, a new investment vehicle. That's what they wanted, so I'm creating it.
There's got to be a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs who are reading. I remember the first 2 years of our 3.5-year run, people could say, "You guys are like $8,000 to $10,000 a month. We can't do that. If you had a $500 or even a $3,000 a month product, we'd be open to talk." You'd hear that time and time again. They have a need. It's my role to figure out what that need is and then solve it. What do you find works well in this market? You've been in real estate for years. You've been running SuGo Capital. What are some of the tricks of the trade that you've figured out?
The biggest thing is the people you're going to work with. You can have the most amazing property and the worst people. Everything goes down the tube. You can have a crappy situation with your property and amazing people. You figure it out and you can still make a successful situation around it. I underestimated the importance of people in the beginning, like who you partner with. Anyone out there in real estate and in business, who you partner with is super important. In real estate, your property management company is insanely important. The culture that they have internally, that's going to be portrayed externally and become the culture of your property. It's very important that whatever their culture is, you realize that's going to be the culture of your property. Make sure it matches your values and how you want things run. Be okay saying no when it's not the right person to work with.
FedEx, I worked for right out of college. Fred Smith talked to our class. He's the guy where the business almost went under one time. The story has it that he went to Vegas and gambled then made the money to pay payroll. That has been demystified over the years. It's something close to that. I remember meeting one of the people who have uncashed check. When I worked there, she was one of the operations managers. She's framed it and was like, "I never took that money because I believed in the vision of the company." The methodology in the book he wrote, I believe, was called People-Service-Profit. It was like people first, service second, profit third. A lot of people put the other P first, which is Profit. That's not the right P at the beginning of that line. You've been to the circus. You opened the circus. You've been all over the world. You've had success. You're focused on helping other people have success. What role does belief have in your life and your ability to execute?
It's a very important role as I try new things and have new ventures, having faith in my intelligence, my commitment to myself, and my investors. Not necessarily faith in a religious way but more faith in knowing what your intention is and where you put your energy, that is what will materialize for you. Knowing that whole-heartedly has brought me a lot of peace. Previously, being in anxiety around like, "I'm going to try this new thing. Is it going to work? Is it going to fail?" Anxious energy around it and knowing that if you commit to it and you have the right intention, things will happen the way they're supposed to happen. Creating that calm, intentional energy around it is extremely powerful.
That's the show's concept. We all tell ourselves stories when we're a kid. We go through life and we do certain things. We realize that we have a unique fingerprint. There's only one fingerprint of Sarah Sullivan in the world. There's only one Chad Burmeister in the world. Once you can come to grips, you have that superpower. Getting in that lane, pointing it down the freeway, and clicking on the gas, it's going to work. You just have to have faith, trust, and confidence in that. That's the message. Even creating a business. When you made that leap of faith, I'm sure there were a few times you were wondering, "Is this going to work? Can I put the lights on for my own company?"
We put a lot of money into it to get it started. Faith as well. My husband having faith in me and me wondering, "Are you saying this is okay because you're trying to be a supportive husband? Do you think this is going to work out?" He had faith and it did all work out.
This has been a fun conversation. I need to go to a circus again. O was my favorite show in Vegas. They're probably reopening again soon. I've probably seen it twelve times. I love it. Have you seen O in Vegas?
Yes.
You know how he goes through life and meets people of all different shapes and sizes, I'm like, "That's how life should be. You travel. You meet people who have all different perspectives.” That's what I love about this show because I get to talk to people every day from my home office and have these kinds of conversations. Thanks for sharing your story so much, Sarah. I appreciate it.
Thanks for giving me a platform to share my story. It was fun. I even pulled up some things I hadn't thought about in a while.
I had a friend come in. He lives in Kan City now. He introduced me to my wife in Southern California. I hadn't seen him for years. My wife hadn't seen him for many years. To see him again and go back to that initial meeting, you realize how lucky I am to have met her. When life happens, you have an argument from time to time and you're like, "It's like a B-plus." "No. It's an A-plus. Stop." Outstanding having a great conversation with you, Sarah. Thanks for joining the show. We'll catch you on the next one.
Thank you, Chad. Thank you everyone for reading.
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About Sarah Sullivan
Sarah Sullivan is the founder of SuGo Capital, an investment firm connecting you to strong passive income. Her mission is to teach folks how to invest in predictable assets in order to live more luxuriously today and reach financial freedom sooner!
