Be Sure Of Yourself
ONeil Mbakwe
Devin Miller
The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
6/16/2021
Be Sure Of Yourself
The Inventive Journey
Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.
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be sure of yourself and reframe your thinking to where it's not trial and error but it's trial and inevitable success once you have your focus on what you're doing in your goals and your goal for your business or your startup that conviction will allow you to see whatever error or mistake you make along the road as a lesson to be learned towards that inevitable success so i would just have when if i was speaking to someone i would just let them know that everything is trial and inevitable success there is no errors there is no mistakes only lessons to be learned so keep progressing and don't expect perfection [Music] everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown several startups into seven and eight figure businesses as well as a ceo and founder of miller ip law where we help startups and small businesses with their patents and train marks if you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com and grab some time with us to chat now today we have another great guest on the podcast o'neil mcbuckway if i can say this that's as close as i'm going to get to it but o'neil i grew up in dallas texas and went to baylor university and got a mechanical engineering and went into and also in the pre-med i think it was in the third year of school dropped out of pre-med because he found out he wasn't passionate about it i realized he liked the analytic analytics more than medicine so graduated in 2018 winton works for i think samsung for microprocessors uh was there for a couple years um or when he graduated he kind of knew that uh nine to five or serves a purpose or wasn't his long time our goal so with that began to do real estate investing also found some mentors including his aunt that helped to get into that started on the whole sites or wholesale side wasn't as passionate about the wholesale side but it gave him some good experience after doing wholesale for a couple site or a couple years shifted over to uh rentals and uh or to hold rentals make money off of those and also has gotten into a little bit into podcasting so with that much as an introduction welcome on the podcast thanks for having me devin thanks for having me so i gave this kind of the brief run through of a much longer journey and i condensed into 30 seconds so let's go back a little bit in time to growing up in dallas and going to baylor university and how your journey started there yeah so i was born in dallas texas specifically carpel i was raised with four of my siblings and growing up it was always i was always interested in how money works you know how people make money and how people accumulate and save and invest so from a young age i could just remember myself anytime i would make money i would literally save it or just take care of it like it was a child like literally i would be ironing it and just being so fascinated with how money works uh so that really was the starting phase of me being interested in entrepreneur entrepreneurship and just making something for myself now i had the opportunity to go to school in nigeria for about two and a half years from middle school to the beginning of high school and that gave me the opportunity first of all to get a different perspective on culture and how different societies work but it also gave me uh it made me grateful for what i was leaving when i arrived in nigeria when i came back from nigeria my mindset was like all right everything that is here can't be taken for granted so i'm just gonna do what i can to the best of my ability and proceed from there so moving with that mindset i was able to graduate from high school uh went to school uh university at baylor university and started off with mechanical engineering with a pre-med discipline and the reason i did that was just because growing up in my household it was either you're a doctor an engineer a lawyer or we'll have to talk about that later [Laughter] but i couldn't choose between premed and mechanical engineering so i chose to do both fast forward to my third year in baylor at baylor i decided to drop pre-med because as you said i had no passion for it and that in that stage it started making sense that all right i need to gather what my passions are and move forward because i was already a senior in college i was getting ready to graduate and move into the the real world um so i graduated in 2018 with a degree in mechanical engineering and i was able to get a job at samsung austin semiconductor so that's why i am currently right now working as a mechanical engineer where i do a bunch of data analysis troubleshoot equipment and just make sure the manufacturing process of semi prop semiconductor chips is completed uh successfully and efficiently um now before i started working now one question just out of or yeah i come back just a bit into your journey and we'll get into samsung but as you're going through you know you know it's going through school you know you get into pre-men you know and you kind of you know mentioned that you know and there's a lot of a lot of different families that hey you know a doctor a a lawyer an attorney a dentist you know some of those you know traditional professionals or what you know kind of having vision for their kids because it has the appearance of success and so that's oftentimes where it's pushed but now as you get in there how did you kind of when you just when you figured out hey pre-med is probably not for me it's not what excites me it's not what drives me or makes me you know excited to get up in the morning how did you to kind of decide where to go or kind of what to go into at that point yes so when i decided that i didn't wanted to continue with pre-med um i was already like pretty far ahead in my college career so i either could re re-direct what my whole degree was and stay a bit longer or just graduate with my degree in mechanical engineering but that was my decision in just letting go of pre-med and just finishing off with a mechanical engineering degree with not going forward with pre-med it was all of a matter of time i felt like a lot of time would be committed to something that i wasn't very passionate about and yeah i can make a lot of money or i can make a good income as a doctor and have a good reputation but i'm understanding that there's more ways than that you know there's more ways than just going to pre-med getting a high paying salary and then living a life like you can be fulfilled in what you're actually passionate about and have that pay you as well so why not take the time to do it while i'm at this age and by the time i would have graduated to be a doctor which was probably 32 now you know when i'm 32 in seven years who's to say i won't be doing what i want and making money off of it that's right no that definitely makes sense so now you graduated 2000 you know made that shift graduated 2018 and then as you mentioned you went into um sam you went to work for samsung did some microprocessors and you've been there for a couple years now you also mentioned in addition to that you're saying hey you know nine to five serves its purpose it's not necessarily long-term goals still want to do my own thing want to be able to continue to grow and expand and you know be able to have some control and be able to do that so how did that you know i get was that always a plan when you graduated hey i'm going to work the nine to five it serves its purpose but i also have long-term goals was that kind of something you knew coming out of school was it something you figured out as you're working or kind of how did how did that uh factor into your journey yeah yeah that's a great question so when i graduated and then knew that i was going to be working nine to five at first i wasn't in the mindset that it's serving its purpose i was in the mindset of i need to hurry up and get out of here like this sucks you know i hate having a boss i didn't i haven't even had a boss yet and i was like i hate having a boss just because you know it's what i heard around me but when i was able to sit in the position that i was in and see everything that's come of it it made me understand that it's serving its purpose and let me embrace it and continue to let it serve its purpose until i move to the next thing and with having a 95 it's also given me the opportunity to dive into other things especially real estate that's been something that has been embedded in my mind for a couple years now due to my aunt who's a real estate investor and real estate is a great way to build wealth right so what i started to do while i was off my 9 to 5 was wholesale and basically what wholesaling is what is you get a property under contract and you sell that contract to an end buyer or investor and you make a spread off of it so in my journey with wholesaling while working at nine to five i was able to one find mentors who helped me and uplift my real estate iq and two i was able to make additional income from my nine to five and three it allowed me to save enough money to put a payment on my first investment property and uh just going through different stages in my entrepreneurial journey i understand that everything is serving its purpose like having a job giving me income serving its purpose because it allows me to venture off into other things that i'm truly interested in so so now so now you have kind of that hey you know figure out certain or that serves a purpose you know that you know you can continue the nine to five chase your dreams kind of do one as you know it's always kind of you know people say it's a side hustle i always look at it it's really more of a second full-time job because it's as much work or more work to do the side hustle or the as it is to do the full-time job but you get into that and you started out i think you said and wholesaling of um of real estate and then transitioned over more into the rental business is that right yes yes yeah um so maybe what made you decide you know what made you decide again to get into wholesale and then what uh what what caused the transition over into the um the rental business yeah so what caused me to get into wholesaling was i felt like it was the easiest way for me to transition into the real estate industry and it allowed me to learn more about real estate and it forced me out of my comfort zone to where i was now making calls every day to both sellers and new investors and in doing that it allowed me to expand my network of real estate investors and some of those relationships are still being nurtured today and still being still being in effect today so with wholesaling it's allowed me to first learn a lot about real estate see different aspects of real estate like multi-family and rentals and industrial and three learn how to network and to maintain a network um so now so now you know and i think that definitely makes sense to kind of say one is i think it seems like it's there's kind of a common thread throughout a lot of your journey of hey i'm going to get the experience or you know experience in different areas whether it's a nine to five or gives me a bit of financial basis gives me some experience out in the working world as well as it allows me to you then pursue you know some of the other things and passions and dreams so then you do that for a period of time with also getting into real estate and say okay wholesale may not be where i want to be in the end but it gives me the opportunity to get some experience and again kind of build on top of that and then you get into the the into the rental side of the business so um and then i think he also mentioned kind of in addition to that you're starting to get into a bit of podcasting is that right yeah yeah i am so that started at the end of last year i'm always i'm always a fan of like using my voice for creativity for information and education and having a podcast allowed me to have a little outlet you know there's a podcast that i have called master of one and it basically talks about my journey about what i'm going through and how though i juggle and balance different things at the end of the day i'm the master of one which is myself so everything i'm doing is in my hands and everything is my choice um initially it was just for you know my legacy you know one day i'll pass and it'll be for my grandkids or whatever and then someone from brazil just hit me up and was just like thank you so much for what you're doing i've been listening to your podcast for some time from now and it let me know that it was more than just me that i'm not the only one who thinks this way so i need to continue working to expand and scale and reach the people who it needs to reach well cool awesome well now now that we've kind of caught up to where you're at and as far as today now looking kind of to the next six to twelve months where do you think that you're see things headed are you gonna continue to kind of do the side hustle with real estate or the second full-time job and work with samsung do you want to move into real estate full-time do you want to move into podcasting full-time or are you looking to get experience in these areas and go to different directions so kind of close into what's the next six to 12 months look like for you yeah so the next six to 12 months for me seemed to be more towards my podcast and my real estate um in terms of my podcast i would like to i'm intending to have more guests and actually being in a setting where the guest is in the room with me you know sort of like a ellen degeneres or uh oprah winfrey kind of scene um just to have things more intimate and connect with the user the the fan base and the audience uh better in terms of my real estate journey right now i'm actively just analyzing different multi-family properties in austin and san antonio and waco and just looking for my next position where i'd want to invest in so everything is a continuous process that i go through every day it's just being consistent and continuing to do it oh cool well that's certainly exciting and uh and sounds like a fun uh fun path ahead so now as we've kind of caught up to where you're at today a little bit looking into the future as a i always uh transition over and ask a couple questions at the end of these podcasts we'll kind of dive to those now so the first question i always ask is along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made and what did you learn from it uh yeah i already know which one that that stung a little bit uh the worst decision business decision i ever made was during the time i was wholesaling there was a house that i had under contract that was probably going to be one of my big my big biggest deals at the time and it required me to do a lot of research make a lot of calls a lot of digging to find out um more about the deed of the property what it was truly going through and i realized that it was um had had gone through like a lawsuit or something like that so i reached out to the lawyer who i won't mention his name um just to see if i can get some more information about the home because i was looking to sell it and what after i went to the lawyer he was basically like you know what i can do this myself um you can stay out of this and i was like but i've already done all this work and he was like all right it's whatever this is this is business so he ended up taking taking the home back and um just putting himself in position to sell the home himself and it just allowed me to realize that as much as you want to trust everyone that you have to be cautious and you have to move with caution in terms of how you do business and the decisions you make in your business now caution doesn't mean fear it doesn't mean um to be fearful of your decisions it just means to truly think about every angle and decision that you're making so that was the lesson i learned from um one of my worst decisions well i think that that's uh it's an interesting one because you know it's not one that you're saying oh i've done all this homework i've done all of this and it's you know if part of a bit of the the takeaways you know you have to as you get in the business world you always you know and i'm this absolutely the same way you know you have the hey everybody's trustworthy everybody will do a good job everybody will be you know you know treat me fairly and some and most people do and i'd say the vast majority do you always have to and that's kind of whenever somebody asked me hey you know should i get an nda should i go disclose this to individuals my always my first thing is well you need to gauge the whether or not you're able or you know your level of trust or your level of risk when you're talking with this individual if it's someone that you know that you can discuss things with and discuss them openly have a high level of uh trust with them that's one thing and if not then you want to make sure to adjust how you what conversation you have and what you discuss with them based on your level of trust with them so i think it was definitely a a mistake to learn from and then one that's definitely understandable so now as we dive into the second question which is if you're talking to somebody that's just getting into a startup or a small business what would be the one piece of advice you'd give them i would tell them to be sure of yourself and reframe your thinking to where it's not trial and error but it's trial and inevitable success once you have your focus on what you're doing in your goals and your goal for your business or your startup that conviction will allow you to see whatever error or mistake you make along the road as a lesson to be learned towards that inevitable success so i would just have when if i was speaking to someone i would just let them know that everything is trial and inevitable success there is no errors there is no mistakes only lessons to be learned so keep progressing and don't expect perfection no and i like that because i think the one of the differences between somebody that's successful as an entrepreneur as a startup or a small business versus those that don't make it you know there's certainly something that goes into do you have a good idea do you have you know good you know good business plan everything else but i think those that are willing to have the mind frame of inevita you know at some point i'm going to be successful i got to keep at it got to gain the experience kind of learn the things got to learn what to do what not to do and keep at it those are the ones that are eventually will find the success and those that hey i tried this for a week and it didn't work out and i didn't i you know i put up a website and i put some facebook ads and i'm not a millionaire yet kind of a thing is not though there are the individuals that are never going to find that success because they're not the ones that are going to say hey when i hit that first road bomb i'm going to i'm not go i'm going to say well looks like i failed and then go back to it so i think that that's a great takeaway from everybody yeah 100 well if people want to reach out to you they want to be a client or customer and you're in a rental space they want to be on your podcast they want to be an investor in any of your businesses they want to um you know be your next best friend any or all of the above what's the best way to reach you up contact you or find out more uh the best way to reach out to me is through linkedin uh just o'neil bockway o n e i l m is mary b as in boy a k w e and there should only be one of me so it should be too hard to find all right well i i certainly can't say that with my name so that's a great one one of or the only one with the name so that's awesome well awesome well i appreciate you coming on o'neil it's been fun it's been a pleasure to have you on now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on a podcast feel free to apply to be on the show just go to inventiveguest.com and and apply two more things as a listener one make sure to click subscribe in your podcast players so you know when all of our awesome episodes come out and two leave us a review so new people can find out about all of our awesome episodes last but not least if you ever need help with patents trademarks or anything else just uh go to strategymeeting.com grab some time with us to chat we're always here to help well thanks again o'neal and uh wish the next leg of your journey even better than the last thank you so much devon take care you
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