Some years scale you, some years humble you, and most years do both. In this special episode, Rain City Capital Founder Fred Rea talks through the swings of 2025 and what they taught him about running a company when the market, the team, and the world won’t sit still.

Fred talks goal setting, market predictions, Keanu Reeves, and why culture is still the thing he protects the hardest after all these years.

Key Nuggets:

00:53 - What it means to have a sh*t year

02:34 - On keeping the culture

03:42 - Market pain, DSCR losses, and a 2008 flashback

08:35 - Big rocks and the "one word" exercise to keep you grounded

13:04 - Focus in 2026

14:36 - "The whim of a madman!"

19:06 - Growing up and letting go

About Fred Rea

Founder of Rain City Capital and host of Good Nuggets. Fred brings unfiltered conversations to the mic, pulling lessons from the trenches of entrepreneurship, lending, and leadership.

From Good Nuggets: Happy Holidays

Thanks for tuning in this year. We’re grateful you’re here and grateful you care about real conversations with real people who are trying to build things that matter. Enjoy the downtime, hug the people you love, raise a glass, and we’ll see you in 2026 for more stories, more lessons, and more good nuggets.

Mentioned in this episode:

At 14:36, Fred talks about the 1994 classic 'Speed', starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock and says Dustin Hoffman plays the villain, but actually it's Dennis Hopper. His impression, however, is dead-on.

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True longevity in business comes from relationships that outlast the hard seasons.

In this episode of Good Nuggets, Fred Rea sits down with Buster Brown, Rain City’s former CFO and one of its first investors. Together, they trace the quiet, steady work that built Rain City from the early scrappy years into the company it is today. Not through hype or shortcuts, but through discipline, humility, and sticking around long enough to matter.

This conversation feels less like a highlight reel and more like two people looking back on a decade of decisions, trust, and growth...the kind of “work that lasts” because it’s been earned day after day.

🎧 Listen to more Good Nuggets for unfiltered conversations about the real side of entrepreneurship: the grind, the growth, and the people who keep showing up, year after year.

Guest: Buster Brown — Retired Rain City CFO. Pragmatic Thinker. Trusted compass and board member extraordinaire.

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Sometimes the biggest changes come from simply showing up. Fred Rea sits down with Dalton Elliott—architect of Rain City’s broker program—to talk about how presence, discipline, and trust reshaped his life and work. From a Muay Thai fight camp in Thailand to rebuilding culture and relationships back home, Dalton shares what happens when you stop chasing success and start showing up for it.

Dalton gets into the details on:

• Walking away from a “successful” career and rebuilding from scratch
• How a Muay Thai fight camp in Thailand changed the way he thinks about work and discipline
• The two principles that guide everything he does: be present and control what you can control
• Why trust—not deals—is the real currency in lending
• How to build a culture people actually choose to show up for

Guest: Dalton Elliott - Broker program boss. Discipline junkie. Knows the value of showing up (and getting punched in the face).

Host: Fred Rea - Founder of Rain City Capital and host of Good Nuggets. Fred brings unfiltered conversations to the mic, pulling lessons from the trenches of entrepreneurship, lending, and leadership.

Mentioned in this episode:

• At 05:49, the hoodies Fred mentions are Rain City’s annual employee gift. You can see this years' design on Instagram.
• At 36:27, Fred notes that the DSCR loan market has “doubled every year for the past three years.” Industry data shows strong growth, though not quite at that rate—most sources report 50–100% year-over-year increases depending on the segment and timeframe.

Watch full episodes on YouTube: youtube.com/@GoodNuggetsPodcast

Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/goodnuggets.podcast

Listen on all platforms: goodnuggets.buzzsprout.com