You're Doing Too Much: Build Wealth the Smarter Way

There’s a better way than fixing toilets. Derrick Christy proves it.

He started small—mowing Mrs. Pearson’s lawn in high school just to help out.
But by graduation, Derrick was running a commercial cleaning company with employees, contracts, and real cash flow.

Fast forward to today: he’s built Approved Mortgage with over $6.5B funded, and he’s acquired more than $150M in real estate investments—primarily through syndications.

He’s not managing duplexes or unclogging toilets.
He’s scaling with structure, teams, and passive investors.

On The Roots Podcast, he laid out exactly how he did it.

Three Lessons I Took From Derrick’s Story:

1. Your first hustle matters.
   That early business taught Derrick how to lead, solve problems, and manage real operations—skills that compound over a lifetime.
   

2. Speed wins.
   His mortgage company was built on urgency. He always followed up fast, answered calls, and made decisions quickly. Most people never do that consistently.
   

3. Leverage is power—and syndications are the model.
   In every deal, someone has to find the opportunity, underwrite it, structure the financing, and manage the process. That work matters.
   Syndications allow the person doing that heavy lifting (the GP) to earn equity—while limited partners (LPs) contribute capital and share in the returns.
   It’s a win-win—and a great example of how you scale without doing it all yourself.

Two Quotes I Loved:

“The best denial is a quick denial. If we can’t help someone now, that just means not yet.”

“I’ve never seen anyone get rich fixing their own toilet.”

One Takeaway for Me:
You don’t need to own 100% of everything—you need to own a piece of something that’s structured to grow.

One Question to Ponder:
Are you building a business… or just giving yourself another job?

Watch the full episode here →